No one said it would be easy, but energy suppliers must strive to remain competitive in a radically changing business landscape. In order to transform, businesses must embrace the opportunities presented to them by the Net Zero agenda.

With pressure from government regulators and, now, a more knowledgeable, engaged and environmentally-conscious consumer base, there is a need for “digital enlightenment.” Digital and data are central to understanding the consumer and monitoring the progress and performance of technologies such as smart meters, solar panels, EV charge points, heat pumps, etc. We helped one client with our “Peak Service solution” that leverages smart meter data to offer an easy way for their teams to engage customers in energy conservation while increasing retention.

Updating legacy systems, investing in technology and committing to a Net Zero future to connect and extract this data will require a significant investment.

Unsure where to start? Follow our “Next Stop: Net Zero” plan and six steps on becoming a digital native in the energy industry.

We’re trying to reduce carbon, but how about trying to capture it? Using the right tools will allow companies to accurately measure and manage their carbon emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions, to derive accurate numbers that dramatically differ from modeled calculations.

Capturing carbon data will help develop a strong carbon trading strategy for organizations looking to invest in the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) space. A customized carbon management tool enables forecasting the amount of CO2 emissions likely to be captured, and to calculate the amount of space required to store the carbon deep underground.

Research by our experts has found that US-based companies are currently more focused on CCUS capture than their European counterparts, meaning we could see this trend expand in Europe next year.

In 2023, the goal should be to experiment with new uses for the captured carbon, in addition to advancing and fine-tuning technology to speed up the process of carbon mineralization, where carbon naturally binds itself to minerals and permanently turns into stone.

The trick will be to scale up current technology and ensure that it doesn’t create more emissions than it draws down.  

The industry is rapidly evolving, with new trends continually emerging. To stay ahead of the game, energy companies will need to identify these trends early on, as they will require new innovation, flexible technology and extra funding.

Here are some trends we expect to see next year and beyond.

Methane

Currently, methane emissions account for 30% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. It is predicted that total worldwide methane emissions will increase by 13% by 2030 without the Global Methane Pledge.

Addressing methane emissions—which are 80 times more pollutant than CO2 emissions—will address 30% of the climate change issue. Those emissions mostly come from the agriculture industry, and one of the most efficient and almost zero-cost ways of reducing them is through landfill gas utilization, leveraging new technology, shifting towards plant-rich diets and embracing alternative sources of protein.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen may be our best bet as a key pillar in decarbonizing the global energy system.  Natural gas might be regarded as a fossil fuel, but converting it to hydrogen will remain an important trend next year and beyond.

While the cost of converting green energy into hydrogen may be quite high, emerging tools that can do the job have a very high efficiency rate. In the future, converting renewables into hydrogen for heating will become a necessity to tackle climate change.

Experts predict that the switch to hydrogen heating will start to happen in the next decade. However, to use hydrogen gas at home, electric appliances, such as boilers, must be hydrogen-ready. The technology to do that is ready, but it requires a widescale strategic switchover by central governments.

Cross-Industry Impact

Expect to see changes in the industrial sector, too. Take cement and steel manufacturers, for example. Steel production alone produces a significant 7% of the global CO2 count, while cement adds another 5-6% of that. Those industries will switch to hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Electric Vehicles (EV) will have a heavy footprint in the transportation industry, and solving the methane problem will impact the agricultural industry. Expect a future with a lot of cross-industry collaboration to make the biggest impact.