Today’s challenge for me is not only to be building the innovation capacity but also to be establishing clear ways on how we should set about sustaining it. Increasingly, organizations must have the capability and capacity to sustain innovation to provide the stimulus for lasting growth and resolve the complex challenges we face today and in the future.

To get there, though, it does seem this must be through continued learning. Hence, your capabilities become stronger, evolving and more unique, thus making them more difficult for competitors to understand and imitate.

Let me outline an innovation framework that builds capability through a sustained approach.

When you set out to build capability to be sustaining, you need to consider there are two types of capabilities, distinctive, which are the characteristics of the organization which others cannot replicate and reproductive, which can be bought in by the competition but always need to need to be appropriate to any objectives you are trying to achieve.
Focusing on improving the capabilities of your people needs, in my opinion, five essential elements and applying these through consistent application and measurement and sustaining this within your activity leads to a greater potential to sustain innovation and lead to sustainable competitive advantage.

To achieve greater sustainability, I believe the five elements within this model can provide this path.

SCA = II + EE + MLC + OC + RNE

So what is within this framework?
Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) comes from the combining effects of the following:

• II Innovation Intensity– it’s the degree of adoption, uptake, the commitment to the investments made and explored, the how, what and where. How all the multiple levels of activities and the focus of the intensity given to building capabilities to innovate come together, wanting to innovate.
• EE Entrepreneurial Energies– this is more on how you set about, promote and generate the internal environment as entrepreneurial to enable innovation in all its different forms to take hold and be seen as a learning environment people want to get involved can readily identify with.
• MLC Market Learning Competence gives a clearer awareness of what and where to acquire from and then take the market lessons from. The key need is to orientate always towards, and generally get to the heart of, where innovation occurs in the marketplace and with your customers, knowing their real needs and figuring out their unmet ones also!
• OC Organizational Learning– knowing the differences in the different ways of learning by linking the different intellectual capitals and combining the complementary assets needed to make them more dynamic.
• RNE- Relationship & Networking Effects– the supporting and enhancing aspects of making greater connections, collaborations and exchanges to speed up the process of innovation, reduce or contain costs and enhance your understanding through these external relationships and getting closer to knowing where latent knowledge lies, to assist and share this internally for greater impact and result for all.

The make-up of each of these five elements has a significant set of activities to structure around but can deliver a clear set of benefits. These provide the necessary intensity of purpose.

What is the result of adopting the SCA framework?

ROII = Investment x Activity x Change (learning environment)/over Results Impact

It is applying this ROII that can measure this investment. The sustaining impact can be measured as continued investment across this framework pays off over time.

I would argue this organizing framework is a good starting point to build your Sustainable Competitive Advantage.

The post Sustainability is central to innovation’s future progress first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

We clearly need to find ways to navigate ourselves back into some (new) order, to stabilize the chaos we are in, or beginning to feel we are finally moving out of the crisis and chaos of the last 18 months..
What we first need to do is make sense of what is going on around us.
Then, we need to determine what actions to take and the level of action, resource and support each part needs.
For this we need help, we need collaborators wanting to not just navigate back but more to navigate forward.
We are in a period of (great) change. How are we thinking about adjusting, not just to the immediate challenges but the greater ones that are certainly heading our way?
Within business, the present crisis offers a chance to make significant changes to how we operate in the future. However, I am not sure many of you feel the same; it seems disruption is in everything we need to undertake in what is coming towards us in change.

We are going to be challenged more today and in the future than ever before. To deconstruct and then reconstruct the Energy System is a massive complexity challenge. To switch from fossil fuels to energy generated by “clean” renewables is a daunting task.
Energy needs to “perform” as we “transform” it. That balancing needs significant collaboration and cooperations. No one company or country can undertake a change of this magnitude without undertaking the work-to-be-done with partners. This is not a time to sit on the side; it is a time to work together.
There is so much in need of disruption; we must learn not to fear it but embrace it differently.
Disruption actually has a common purpose, often far less sinister than promoted or we suspect, it requires us to re-equip and open up, as we learn to deal in this changing world where connections can emerge from anywhere at any time, offering a new ‘line of sight’ onto an existing problem to begin to break down the barriers and find new fresh ways forward. It calls for greater innovation and ingenuity, as we replace what might still work but is not a solution that is “fit-for-purpose today or tomorrow.
We need to utilize technology, digitalization, AI and machine learning with all the great human ingenuity. The ingenuity of the people at the centre of the design enables this more intelligent, rapid and lasting innovation that derives from applying all these tools and techniques at our disposal.
These will be through different approaches to designing and extracting the potential value gained. These, in my opinion, will form around ecosystems and their management through technology solutions provided by platform providers.
We need to respond quickly and in very different, highly collaborative ways. Digital offers unique, new ways to address many of our challenges everywhere. So our need is to explore and exploit, and we have to harness ourselves, our organizations, through these new technologies and collaborative concepts, to take advantage and leverage all that is possible.
Partnerships abound, not just within a specific industry but in cross-industry collaborations. Ecosystems need to form to take advantage of many rapidly emerging market opportunities. It is not just “welcome to a world of ecosystems“; it is learning to change from being exclusive owners into open collaborators that build ‘greater value’ from the common need of working together. Many of these are increasingly cross-industry ecosystems.
The combination of extracting synergies, of combining expertise, of seeing and recognizing common goals opens up greater possibility. Combining ecosystem thinking and innovation offers a very different proposition if we want to embrace a different world that shifts us away from simple consumption to better utilization, greater recycling, and saving the precious resources that the planet offers. We need new imaginative thinking, which comes from listening, collaborating and learning more from each other.
Just recognize the changes we are undertaking in cross-industry collaborations are significant.
If we recognize what it takes to build new transportation business models, it needs an ecosystem of public authorities, automakers, component suppliers, software providers and infrastructure builders to come together to make this happen.
Many of the changes that will emerge in the next twelve to twenty-four months will become more cross-industry and service ecosystems. In addition, collaborations are set to accelerate as we need to tackle growing issues that are greater in complexity, such as global warming, deprivation and moving and adjusting through a different crisis confronting us in the coming decades.
The search is for synergies, for economies, for speeding up solutions and scaling them in a connected global world. It requires a host (platform provider), different apps, weblinks and consistent ways to integrate these so those using the airport or train station can navigate their way around their personal needs. It needs an ecosystem and platform management to bring this together.
We have new ecosystems that are building new value in offering mobile commerce, building digital into all that we undertake increasingly in retail, banking, and entertainment. We see new energy solutions emerge in Agriculture, Energy, Utilities, Healthcare etc. etc. We see a ‘connected difference’ emerge in the Automotive and transportation by land, sea and air.
Services are changing as we can make greater connections. For example, our postal services offer us electronic transfers, blockchain transactions, purchasing most of our goods online, both in person and in business. We are looking to exploring concepts in Health solutions, Living, Where and how we work that require increasing cross-industry collaborations.
The connections we form are beginning to be reshaped by everything through the data; communications, public services, responses to crisis and opportunity. We want to become far more aware and alert. The smarter use of what we use to find out from our digital world gets increasingly channelled, as this increasing flow of data needs to be better analyzed, filtered, targeted, and coordinated in our lives to function at different levels of response.
This is a very different potential in the new business models for all involved. The period ahead will be a huge “reset” within ourselves, within the way we organize work. A world built on increasing collaboration, cross-industry cooperations with technology, digitalization, human resolve and innovation at its core.
We all need to learn to collaborate and not confront the world we are heading towards.

The post Learning to collaborate in a rapidly changing world first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

• Overview
• Renewable power
• Solar PV
• Onshore wind
• Offshore wind
• Hydropower
• Bioenergy power generation
• Concentrating solar power (CSP)
• Geothermal
• Ocean power
• Nuclear power
• Natural gas-fired power
• Coal-fired power
• CCUS in power

Tracking Fuel supply- Equally not on track
Considerably enhanced policy ambitions and regulatory efforts, better measurement and reporting, strong industry efforts and investor-led support are needed to meet SDS targets for 2040
Tracking Industry- more efforts needed
Greater energy efficiency, the uptake of renewable fuels, and research and deployment of low-carbon process routes, including CCS, are critical. Governments can accelerate progress by providing innovation funding and adopting mandatory CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency policies.

• Overview
• Chemicals
• Iron and steel
• Cement
• Pulp and paper
• Aluminium
• CCUS in industry and transformation

Tracking Energy Integration
Greater energy efficiency, the uptake of renewable fuels, and research and deployment of low-carbon process routes, including CCS, are critical. Governments can accelerate progress by providing innovation funding and adopting mandatory CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency policies.

• Overview
• Energy storage
• Hydrogen
• Smart grids
• Demand response
• Direct air capture

Tracking Transport
Road vehicles – cars, trucks, buses and two- and three-wheelers – account for nearly three-quarters of transport CO2 emissions, and emissions from aviation and shipping continue to rise, highlighting the need for greater international policy focus on these hard-to-abate subsectors.

• Overview
• Electric vehicles
• Rail
• Fuel consumption of cars and vans
• Trucks and buses
• Transport biofuels
• Aviation
• International shipping

Tracking Buildings
Enormous emissions reduction potential remains untapped due to the continued use of fossil fuel-based assets, a lack of effective energy-efficiency policies and insufficient investment in sustainable buildings.

• Overview
• Building envelopes
• Heating
• Heat pumps
• Cooling
• Lighting
• Appliances and equipment
• Data centres and data transmission networks

Direct Air Capture & CCUS

Direct air capture is a technology to capture CO2 from the atmosphere. The CO2 can be permanently stored in deep geological formations or used in the production of fuels, chemicals, building materials and other products containing CO2
CCUS is one of few technology options available to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in many industries, its deployment is woefully below the SDS level. . Greater investment in CO2 transport and storage infrastructure will also be critical.
THE IEA suggest seven possible uses for energy innovation indicators to drive energy policy

Conclusion comes from the five insights for building technology innovation into policy and future work to track and keep the focus on the critically important Clean Energy Innovation we need to develop, scale and implement.

1. Innovation policy should be a core part of energy policy.
2. There is no single indicator for tracking clean energy innovation progress.
3. Strategies for tracking clean energy innovation are long-term commitments that evolve over time
4. Policy evaluation remains underdeveloped, but embedding indicators in policy design can start to address this weakness.
5. Innovation system mapping and best practice sharing are ways to get started quickly, especially for emerging economies.

Simply put, without a major acceleration in clean energy innovation, net-zero emissions targets will not be achievable. Our innovation processes need to be dramatically ramped up to enable a clean energy future within the timeframes we as a world have committed too and need.

The post Are we losing the Energy Transition Battle? Innovation to the rescue? first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

• Most of the global reductions in CO2 emissions between now and 2030 in the net-zero pathway come from technologies readily available today.
• But in 2050, almost half the reductions come from technologies currently only at the demonstration or prototype phase today.

This realization and reality demand that all global governments quickly increase and reprioritise their spending on research and development and demonstrate and deploy clean energy technologies – putting them at the core of energy and climate policy. Progress in advanced batteries, electrolysers for hydrogen, and direct air capture and storage can be particularly impactful.
The report emphasises that the energy transition required is of such scale and speed it cannot be achieved without sustained support and equally significant engagement and participation from citizens, whose lives will be affected in multiple ways.
The IEA also highlights the ratcheting up of global ambitions, both by leading governments, financial institutions and corporates.
To quantify the needs of this energy transition.
Total annual energy investment surges to USD 5 trillion by 2030 in the net-zero pathway, adding an extra 0.4 percentage points a year to global GDP growth, based on a joint analysis with the International Monetary Fund.
Within this decade, the needs of innovation have to focus on finding solutions that deliver energy efficiency, renewable energy, electrification of everything, electric vehicles (EVs) and reduced both carbon and methane emissions. Innovation has a critical role in delivering new solutions to drive this energy transition we are undergoing.
The IEA models that RD&D investment needs to treble to US$90bn annually vs current levels. For advanced batteries, this pathway to commercialisation is being funded by capital markets. For others like CCS and hydrogen, serious investment rather than talk is required.
Beyond 2030, the IEA notes that technology breakthroughs might allow advanced batteries, hydrogen (particularly via heavy industry demand precincts), bioenergy, CCS and/or direct air capture and storage to each play a role if research, development and deployment (RD&D) is invested in at scale.
The report also points outs from a known innovation perspective that the actions, investments and deployment required by 2030 will be predominantly driven by technologies known and in operation today, the IEA models that 55% of cumulative emissions reductions will come from initiatives linked to consumer choices, assisted by enabling policy frameworks, e.g. moving to EVs, retrofitting housing with energy efficiency technologies and installing heat-pumps to clean cooking.
What does this all mean for innovation?
In the IEA opinion, they believe and understand that technologies available on the market today provide nearly all the emission reductions required by 2030 in the Net-Zero plan to put the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050.
However, reaching net-zero emissions will require the widespread use after 2030 of technologies that are possibly unknown yet, or to be discovered, or are still under early development today. In 2050, almost 50% of CO2 emission reductions in the pathway to Net-Zero come from technologies currently only at the demonstration or prototype stage.

Now that is good news that we are moving the innovation needle, but it is the demonstration globally only point today in many possible solutions. We need a magnitude of multiple solution configurations and in a different application context in various regional and country contexts. Innovation needs to move out of the labs into commercial application pathways.
An acceleration of this magnitude in innovation discovery to commercial implementation is clearly ambitious.
A good point mentioned in this report was: The energy transition requires technologies that are not yet available on the market or are yet to be demonstrated at scale in multiple configurations and in various regional contexts, they are in prototype phases. In most cases, these demonstrations are run in parallel in the NZE. This is in stark contrast with the typical practice in technology development: learning is usually transferred across consecutive demonstration projects in different contexts to build confidence before widespread deployment commences.
In present-day reality, this doesn’t happen.
This parallel approach makes sense as long as global learning can be freely exchanged and built into final solutions to accelerate understanding and application. That is in direct conflict with present approaches of the commercial practice of IP and investment held by one party, not shared. We are facing this sharing dilemma in our present race to vaccinate the world.
The acceleration that is needed also requires a large increase in investment in demonstration projects. Most of these projects are concerned with the electrification of end‐uses, CCUS, hydrogen and sustainable bioenergy, mainly for long-distance transport and heavy industrial applications. Increased public funding helps to manage the risks of such first‐of‐a‐kind projects and to leverage private investment in research and development (R&D) in the NZE and needs greater collaboration with private investors to spread the risks.
The big innovation needs of the Energy Transition
In the NZE, electrification, CCUS, hydrogen and sustainable bioenergy account for nearly half of the cumulative emissions reductions to 2050. Just three technologies are critical in enabling around 15% of the cumulative emissions reductions in the NZE between 2030 and 2050: advanced high-energy-density batteries, hydrogen electrolysers and DAC.
Many of the biggest clean energy technology challenges could benefit from a more targeted
approach to speed up progress

Again, quoting the report: Bringing new energy technologies to market can often take several decades, but the imperative of reaching net‐zero emissions globally by 2050 means that progress has to be much faster. Experience has shown that the role of government is crucial in shortening the time needed to bring new technology to market and diffuse it widely (IEA, 2020i).
The government role includes educating people, funding R&D, providing networks for knowledge exchange, protecting intellectual property, using public procurement to boost deployment, helping companies innovate, investing in enabling infrastructure and setting regulatory frameworks for markets and finance.
Knowledge transfer from first‐mover countries can also help in the acceleration needed and is particularly important in the early phases of adoption when new technologies are typically not competitive with incumbent technologies.
The report uses examples of solar PV.  National laboratories played a key role in the early development phase in the United States, projects supported directly by the government in Japan created market niches for initial deployment and government procurement and incentive policies in Germany, Italy, Spain, United States, China, Australia, and India fostered a global market.
Also, another example in the past has been Lithium‐ion (Li‐ion) batteries. These were initially developed through public and private research, mostly in Japan. Their first energy‐related commercial operation was made possible in the United States, and mass manufacturing today is primarily in China.
The scope of innovation required. A three horizon timeline.

To quote the report, the top-line innovation clean energy technology challenges to be resolved and outlines the different focal points and timelines.

• To 2030, government action focuses on bringing new zero‐ or low‐emissions technologies to market. For example, in the NZE, steel starts to be produced using low emissions hydrogen at the scale of a conventional steel plant, large ships start to be fuelled by low‐emissions ammonia, and electric trucks begin operating on solid-state batteries. In parallel, there is rapid acceleration in the deployment of low‐emissions technologies that are already available on the market but have not yet reached mass-market scale, bringing down the costs of manufacturing, construction, and operating such technologies learning‐by‐doing and economies of scale.
• From 2030 to 2040, technology advances are consolidated to scale up nascent low emissions technologies and expand clean energy infrastructure. Clean energy technologies that are in the laboratory or at the small prototype stage today become commercial. For example, fuels are replaced by electricity in cement kilns and steam crackers for high-value chemicals production.
• From 2040 to 2050, technologies at a very early stage of development today are adopted in promising niche markets. By 2050, clean energy technologies at the demonstration or large prototype stage become mainstream for purchases and new installations, and they compete with present conventional technologies in all regions. For example, ultra high-energy-density batteries are used in aircraft for short flights.

We can’t delay or wait for unproven scalable technology. We need to drive down emissions all the time.
What we cannot do is “bank “on technologies that we don’t have yet or not at any commercial proven point. Governments can’t delay the actions they are required to do pending a possible technology breakthrough fix.
We must recognize that there is no scope for new fossil fuel developments for the world is to get on the right and only trajectory of achieving the net-zero goal by 2050. Just think, no scope and what that means in Asia, in China, India, Japan, Australia or in the USA, rich in coal, oil and gas.
Carbon accumulates in the atmosphere takes years to dissipate, and simply waiting makes cutting carbon emissions even harder to achieve later down the road. I presently cannot buy into BioEnergy and CCUS concepts; these do not seem commercially feasible or capable of taking theory into scalable solutions and able to have global adoption.
We need to both deploy when a solution is proved and innovate where it needs to be validated. The innovation mantra needs to be “invent, invest and implement” globally and with ever-increasing speed.
Please view this groundbreaking report, “Net-Zero by 2050: a roadmap for the global energy system“, by the Internation Energy Agency (IEA). All visuals are taken from this report shown here.

The post Accelerating Clean Energy Innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I have been consuming the latest flagship report, released today, 10th September 2020, by the IEA called “Energy Technology Perspectives 2020

The report’s comprehensive analysis maps out the technologies needed to tackle emissions in all parts of the energy sector, including areas where technological progress is still lacking such as long-distance transport and heavy industries.

It shows the amount of emissions reductions that are required from electrification, hydrogen, bioenergy and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. It also provides an assessment of emissions from existing infrastructure and what can be done to address them.

Within the work going into this report, the IEA has identified over 800 technology options that need to be further examined, explored, validated, and accelerated for the World to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. That is an awful lot of innovation to get us to a clean energy transition from where we are today.

The report is over 400 pages long and is framed as a guide book for all involved in the energy transition. The report not only shows the scale of the challenge but also offers vital guidance for overcoming so many of the issues and challenges identified today. As anyone knows the more you explore innovation and what it is trying to resolve, the more complex it becomes.

To cover the whole energy system what we have been identified today in technology options will multiply, adapt, change, and build out different solutions as we continue to learn and advance.

If nothing else do read the press release for this report HERE “ Reaching energy and climate goals demand a dramatic scaling up of clean energy technologies – starting now”

Accelerating Innovation through rapid innovation adoption cycles

There are so many aspects of innovation need within this report but one part I felt was worth highlighting as it suggests eight innovation approaches of rapid innovation cycles for the Energy transition. These are ways to look to accelerate a more rapid innovation cycle within the energy transition. I wanted to put these into a simple table as they make real sense of how we can tackle innovation within the drive towards a clean energy transformation

You can download this as a PDF Table of rapid innovation cycles for the Energy transition

Different approaches to more rapid innovation adoption cycles

This rapid innovation cycle approach is the work of IEA- all rights reserved.

The examples illustrated are ones chosen by IEA to help relate the attribute to the example of technology, innovation, or process change.

Within this extensive report on the innovation need to deploy clean energy technologies you get a deep dive through this Energy Technology Perspectives 2020. The report focuses on technology needs and opportunities for reaching international climate and sustainable energy goals. This flagship report offers vital analysis and advice on the clean energy technologies the world needs to meet net-zero emissions objectives.

Providing a comprehensive innovation understanding of the impact and relationship

It is a comprehensive report for anyone interested in how and why innovation is central to our lives as it has the major role to play in the energy transition we are all undertaking.

A journey to turn our energy into clean modern and more sustainable ways, as well as to move towards the eradication of harmful emissions caused by our industrial past we need this transition to hopefully give us a promising future of ensuring our (one) planet will be fit to habitat in decades to come.

In my view applying and harnessing all we know on innovation, research and development give us this (one) chance.

The post Energy technology needs more rapid innovation cycles first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

1. Firstly by exchanging fossil fuel hydrogen with renewable hydrogen for fertilizers and feedstocks
2. Secondly, exchanging coal and gas with renewable hydrogen for steel making and chemical production.
3. The Electrolysis method can bridge the gap between power and the industry sectors, increasing the value of electrons and provide the essential molecules.
4. The Electrolyzer can complement the intermittent renewable energy sources of wind and solar to form a complete energy source. Hydrogen can be stored, and the electrolyzer ramped up when you suffer variable weather conditions to offer continued energy, all based on renewable sources, solving the seasonal variations that wind and solar can have.

Hydrogen does the potential to tick all the boxes of the decarbonizing industry as well as be the alternative heat source fo building and through hydrogen fuel cells offer low-carbon mobility. Using renewable hydrogen can accelerate the shift to green energy and decarbonization as a replacement for fossil fuels. Finally, it has the potential to be substituted in many of the harder-to-abate industrial sectors reliant on hydrogen through steam methane reforming as well as compliment electricity and decarbonize the gas grids we presently rely upon.
Hydrogen is not an energy source but an energy carrier. It is versatile; it offers no greenhouse gases, particulates, Sulphur oxides, or ground-level ozone but does have a high Co2 intensity upstream if produced from fossil fuels such as coal, oil, or natural gas. To make it green hydrogen, it has to be green, and that requires production through water electrolysis.
So We Are At The Time for Ramping up the Electrolyzer
I want to return to the discussion that Armin Schnettler EVP of Siemens Energy had with Kevin O’Donovan here. He was asked, “what are the technical challenges with the (PEM) Electrolyzers?
The reply by Mr. Schnettler was mostly about working on the fundamental technologies of Electrolyzers as the critical needs to make Electrolyzers Industrial ready. He pointed out the PEM technology is presently not mature enough, and this needs more robust solutions.
 The list of issues to tackle was in Mr. Schnettler’s opinion:
1) Certainly, get the capital cost down of the Electrolyzer
2) Make the Electrolyzers more compact, in their size,
3) Make sure they have high levels of reliability to operate in industrial application environments for 10 to 20 years and
4) Scaling up the Electrolyzers from the existing 4 MW to the next “ten-factor step” that seems achievable every 4 to 5 years and deliver the 100 MW plant solution next.
5) Finally, to get to these 100 MW solutions as soon as possible and then to 1 GW.
It was here he put it: “it is moving from MW to GW as the challenge (and opportunity)”
Why is this scaling up so important?
Just imagine Siemens have only delivered their latest Gas Turbine, the Siemens 9000HL model recently in the UK to work in a combined-cycle plant. Weighing in at just under 1.1 million pounds (497,000 kilograms), it’ll rotate 3,000 times a minute and generate 593 megawatts of power at peak, likely for decades. That turbine could be argued is “the pinnacle of today’s combustion technologies.”( Bloomberg / Siemens).
All these power generation technologies are competing; all are focusing on not just efficiencies but finding fuel systems that support that technology solution. Electrolyzers need to get into the big league of energy generation, pure and simple, to compete effectively. The pricing of the finished product of Hydrogen has got to get far closer to what the fossil fuel alternatives can deliver today in efficiencies and effectiveness and are matured through well-established solutions and integrated designs.
The significant upcoming advantage for the Electrolyzer is the marginal unit of power generation is coming from a smaller and smaller source. In 2020, the median kilowatt-hour generated in the UK will come from a plant of 596 MW of capacity. In 2040, the median kilowatt-hour will come from a plant of only 40 MW of capacity. (Source: Bloomberg). The other is by using the Water Electrolyzer (PEM) it is better to combine with other variable renewable sources for a faster ramp-up and giving a totally carbon-free fuel or product solution that offers a clean, sustainable alternative.
The commercial competitiveness of the electrolyzer will depend on the ability to advance the underlying technologies. These I will be exploring in my next post.
The need is for technology improvements of higher efficiencies, less degradation, higher availability, larger cell sizes, higher operating pressures, less reduced critical materials together with this need for reduced material size (Armin’s compactness). 
 Getting to this, the plants will require a significant plant production capacity ramping up and becoming more automated. That plant ramping up will need more automation production of the Electrolyzer cell components, the cells, and stacks to build GW scale electrolyzer plants. Then you will have a set of different challenges at the installing site, where the cost of electricity becomes critical. Coupling low-cost renewable energy with Electrolyzers makes them viable.
So the push by Governments brings up closer to the tipping point of building a significant renewable Hydrogen business in the next decades. Already according to Wood MacKenzie, the green hydrogen pipeline more than doubled in five months from 3.2 GW to 8.2 GW of electrolyzer investments by 2030
The plan in Europe is to take the share of Hydrogen from less than 2% to 13-14% of the European energy Mix.
So as we all look to Electrolyzers as the solution towards offering a power source of Hydrogen it is 1) the technology developments needed to be well-mastered, 2) to build out capacity volumes to bring down unit prices, 3) we need to see GW scale to make them industrially attractive,4) renewable integrated electricity- hydrogen partnerships and 5) integrated project development, construction, and installation approaches, so these solutions can ensure electrolyzers competitive. And that is a long hard road to travel between now and 2030 to get the Electrolyzer the Real alternative to other power generation options.
Exploring this further
So we need to look a little more at the Electrolyzer and see if it is scalable in asset readiness, system design, and value chain developed to offer an Industrial shift to Hydrogen in these next 5 to 10 years.
To understand this readiness and the issues to be addressed, I decided to take a further, more in-depth dive into Electrolyzers. You will find my outcomes from my research and piecing different parts of the Electrolyzer puzzle together over on my dedicated energy transition posting site: https://innovating4energy.com.
I plan to explore and explain some of the significant obstacles to be overcome in ramping up today’s “pilot” electrolyzers into full-scale industrial-grade solutions. Electrolyzer solutions than can compete with other power generation technologies, ones that are very mature and will certainly not yield their established market space without a fight and some compelling arguments of the reasons to change.
A more in-depth review of Electrolyzers can be found on my dedicated posting site for all thongs of Energy Transition by clicking this link “Show me an Electrolyzer.“

The post From MW to GW’s of Renewable Hydrogen using Electrolyzers first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

At their own admission, it has been three years since they (IEA) released its last Energy Technology Perspective (ETP) report. Although they argue they have been reflecting on the critical technology challenges, it is way overdue.

In this new report, “Energy Technology perspective: Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation” released today, 2^nd July 2020, they have developed some improved modeling tools to bring a higher capacity to answer key technology questions in greater detail. This is good news.

IEA will further follow up later this year with a flagship ETP 2020 publication later in the year to keep a tighter and more consistent focus on the role and need of innovation to accelerate clean energy transitions.

They, the IEA are planning an IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit really soon to convene ministers and CEO’s to the aim of driving economic development by this more robust focus on clean, resilient, and inclusive energy systems.

The IEA is suggesting they are is in the midst of a modernization agenda to keep them at the forefront of sustainable and clean energy transitions globally. They need to become a more significant focal point for reliable and leading-edge advice.

They put it starkly, the realization is simply that the energy sector will only reach net-zero emissions if there is a significant and concerted global push to accelerate the need for the innovation part of the energy transition.

The IEA sees (a growing) disconnect between climate goals of Government and Companies that they have set for themselves and all the concerted efforts needed in the innovative efforts underway to develop better and cheaper technologies to realize their goals.

We have recently been hearing that we have “all the technologies now we need to get on with it.” This, in my view, is partly right, we know where to put the efforts, but the abrupt step change we need to scale, re-engineer and develop these technologies and the delivery mechanisms (infrastructure, policy changes) are massive. We are losing sight of this.

The “drag and resistance to change” is significant. This needs resolving quickly to deliver a decarbonized world.

If we take the example of Hydrogen. When solutions and policies that have recently been emerging around Hydrogen from a European perspective,e they have been proposing a clear focus on green hydrogen as the focal point.

Green hydrogen is based on renewables and the significant deployment and use of electrolysis that makes it the clean energy solution (vector) as the Government policy focal point, we then get significant vested parties pushing back hard.  There is the intense push back of the suppliers of blue solutions offering carbon capture and storage as equally necessary in any policy and funding from any change in EU and Germany energy policy decisions. The argument is we need bridging solutions to any transition. There is a lot of merit in this argument.

Then we get those industries established on grey hydrogen, which is a significant greenhouse emitter, pushing even further back, claiming the ability to switch hydrogen from fossil fuels to clean is many years away. We are entering the geopolitics of hydrogen, can we afford this?

The dizzy array of solutions on offer needs validating for the pathway to fast decarbonization.

What we do need is the fastest transition through all means possible the low carbon options, but the lock-in risks in investments and where we deflect our research and development take us further out into the future if we need to achieve these net-zero emissions.

The rapid evolution of the dizzy array of solutions is one that all economies, especially the emerging economies, have to be very aware of this “lock-in effect if they chose the wrong transformation pathway.

The technology mix to decarbonize each economy and industry reliant on secure and resilient energy sources is a tough one. It is organizations like the IEA that need to be turned too for the best advice, not specific solution providers pushing their solutions on a narrow pathway of their focus.

The IEA, by rethinking how they re-designate technology innovation, makes for a substantial shift.

The major shift outlined in this report, released on July 2^nd, 2020, regroups the policy measures by families of key technologies based on similar technology attributes.

To quote from the report: “Within each of these families, knowledge and application spillovers hold significant potential to accelerate innovation if linkages are exploited: against this background, the section provides some concrete suggestions for action for each family of technologies to help policymakers to integrate tailored approaches for priority technology areas into overall strategies.”

Technology families:

• Electrochemistry: modular cells for converting between electricity and chemicals.
• CO2 capture: processes to separate CO2 from industrial and power sector emissions or the air.
• Heating and cooling: efficient and flexible designs for electrification.
• Catalysis: more efficient industrial processes for converting biomass and CO2 to products.
• Lightweighting: lighter materials and their integration in wind energy and vehicles.
• Digital: integration of data and communication to make energy systems flexible and efficient.

 The list above is not intended to be exhaustive. Still, it covers the types of solutions that hold the most promise for advancing value chains involving electrification, hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels, CCUS, and bioenergy.”

To further quote from the report: “Among the other technologies that all have important roles to play in achieving net-zero emissions are large, scientifically complex technologies such as nuclear, including small modular nuclear reactors, and small-scale, consumer-led technologies such as flexible or buildings-integrated solar PV or high-efficiency motors.

In between these extremes lie geological technologies to enhance geothermal energy, hydrogen storage, or CO2 storage, as well as such high-potential areas as ocean energy, prefabricated net-zero energy building envelopes, and thermal and mechanical energy storage.”

This report is a timely update as our new technology innovation focal point.

Without a major acceleration in clean energy innovation, the net-zero ambitions on emissions will simply not be achieved.

The mix of many technology innovative solutions needs not just further discovery, it needs translating into scalable solutions. The “stark disconnect” of the “walk and the talk” around net-zero needs significant resolution. The IEA, through updating and giving innovation the central focal point for our need to deliver clean energy technologies.

Do please find time to work through the report.  It is critical to grasp the role of innovation within the energy transition. What is certain is we have been not giving this the appropriate attention it needs in resourcing, exploring, and maturing present as well as future solutions, we will clearly need to get us to a decarbonized world.

We need to accelerate transitions towards clean, resilient, and inclusive energy systems, and that comes from putting integrated clean energy innovation into the heart of energy policies and solution needs.

The post Sharply accelerating clean energy innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

The level of innovation intensity within the Energy Transition is a fascinating one and one I continually place more and more a focus upon.

One really critical source of reference for tracking clean energy progress comes from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The recent reporting back on the development of the energy transition we are undertaking seems depressing reading. We need to accelerate innovation and technology adoption.

We are so off track for much of the Energy Transition. if we are going to get anywhere near the Paris Agreement, and the below 2-degree climate goal set by 2050, we need to focus even more on transforming our energy systems globally.

The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS) offers a pathway for the global energy system to reach three strategic goals: the Paris Agreement’s well below 2°C climate goal, universal energy access, and substantially reducing air pollution. The IEA assesses the status of 46 critical energy technologies and sectors and offers some general advice on how to get “on track” with this SDS approach.

Presently there is a rising concern the Covid-19 has knocked us off a path.

In the short term, the dramatic economic downturn has given rise to seeing air pollution levels drop during the “lockdown” months, but as was seen after the 2008 /9 financial crisis when the economy came “roaring back,” so did the carbon emissions.

There is significant pressure on Governments as they attempt to stimulate their economies. The fiscal stimulus should be tied to a firm commitment to moving towards a greener economy. At the moment, those that rely on fossil fuels are getting significant support to sustain their current activities, and it seems they are not required to commit to changing their reliance on their fossil fuel dependence.

That lack of commitment to change to a clean energy pathway is, in my opinion, plainly wrong as we have a finite period between 2020 and 2030 to make the energy transition to renewables unstoppable.

The IEA Tracking Focus gives us a top picture of the challenges and complexity of the Energy transition.

I think it is worth referencing here the way the IEA breaks down to track clean energy progress, it is a pathway that needs innovation to be central.

The IEA track the following aspects of the energy system; power, fuel, industry, transport, buildings, and energy integration. Presently they are well behind the position needed to achieve this less than 2 degrees C climate goal.

Just reflect how difficult this energy transition actually is. Not only in a wholesale, radical change to our energy fuel, generation, transmission, utilization, and consumption but in the levels of existing investment that need changing, writing off as potentially stranded assets (coal generation), or being replaced by new technologies based on renewables.

Assets investments are made are upwards of thirty years or more, depending on upgrade, use, and environmental conditions. This can even be twice the period, so dealing in achieving the momentum by 2030 and getting to deliver clean energy targets by 2050 is a relatively tough one in such a short time of thirty years. We need to “push” for change now, certainly in the next five years.

No one is going to stop investment in proven, tested technology, processes. Nor will they argue against infrastructure and energy delivery systems that are reliable, safe, and provide us secure, consistent, and dependable energy, products we rely upon, and jobs dependant on delivering services and products that are demand dependant on the energy system. The need, though, is to shift these from fossil fuel to renewables for a better, sustainable, and healthy world to live in.

A conflicting world full of complexity and tough challenges

We are faced with so many conflicting forces, the lobbyists arguing for an extension to coal, oil, and gas in subsidies or protection for energy security reasons. All Governments have to make tough choices, political ones where one party has strong community support as it backs coal or oil to know new technologies and renewables are driving prices down below their present energy sources.

Each of our economies has become “highly” dependent on existing fuel sources, and the energy security issues are beginning to dominate discussions. There is intense Lobbying to keep investments and make them more efficient is on one side. Then, on the other hand, backed by Scientists, Environmental fractions, and a growing public feeling is that we are feeling the effects of global warming.

This planet-warming is becoming unacceptable, the vast majority is beginning to accept that feeling our planet is under growing “stress” from the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions is forcing real change to happen. We must move beyond lobbying and debates and undertake a world order based on renewables that are sustaining and carbon and polluting gas-free for a healthier world.

To move away from fossil fuels and all of its associated risks and sustained investment over the last century-plus is a difficult one. Yet by relacing energy sources that are dependeânt on natural resources of the sun, wind and water are making for a compelling investment case. Those that become “first movers” can gain significant competitive positions. Economies and their future “fortune” can be radically altered by merely “hanging on” too long and seeing private investment shift countries seeking that new combination of modern infrastructure, low energy prices, and healthier environments.

I want to put the conflicting forces into some form of context by breaking this down using the IEA method of trancking clean energies.

Tracking Power

• The IEA is tracking power across the global; in the activities, investments, and positions of Renewable power , Solar PV Onshore wind, Offshore wind Hydropower, Bioenergy power generation Concentrating solar power (CSP) Geothermal Ocean power Nuclear power Natural gas-fired power Coal-fired power and CCUS in power (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage)

The “sum” of where we are is today. Power sector emissions declined by 1.3% in 2019, while emissions intensity decreased by 2.5%. The IEA states, unfortunately, recent trends are not on track with the SDS, which requires that power sector emissions fall an average of 4% per year to 2030, and electricity emissions intensity drops 5.6% annually.

Tracking Fuel Supply

• Emissions from oil and gas extraction, processing, and transport rose marginally in 2018 to around 5.4 GtCO2-eq – approximately 15% of the global energy sector GHG emissions. Over half of these emissions (2.7 GtCO2-eq) came from flaring and methane released during oil and gas operations. The IEA tracks specifically Methane emissions from oil and gas and Flaring emissions

The available data suggests that there is a significant variation between the best and the worst-performing companies on these issues, so a vital task is to ensure that best practices and operational excellence on these emissions become standard across the industry as a whole. Considerably enhanced policy ambitions and regulatory efforts, better measurement and reporting, strong industry efforts, and investor-led support are needed to meet SDS targets for 2040, along with technological progress to improve the effectiveness of leak detection, measurement, and abatement.

Tracking Industry

• The principal industries, regarded as the “prime” polluters or emitters of high levels of Co2 and other greenhouse gases, are specifically monitored. These are Chemicals Iron and steel Cement Pulp and paper Aluminium and how CCUS in industry and transformation is performing.

Direct industrial CO2 emissions, including process emissions, declined 0.6% to 8.5 GtCO2 in 2018 (24% of global emissions), which is good news, but industry emissions must fall by 1.2% annually to 7.4 GtCO2 by 2030 – despite expected industrial production growth.

Greater energy efficiency, the uptake of renewable fuels, and research and deployment of low-carbon process routes, including CCS, are all critical. Governments can accelerate progress by providing innovation funding and adopting mandatory CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency policies.

Tracking Transport

• Transport covers all our sectors Electric vehicles Rail Fuel consumption of cars and vans Trucks and buses the sue of Transport biofuels to significantly switch fuels in the Aviation & International shipping sectors

Global transport emissions increased by less than 0.5% in 2019 (compared with 1.9% annually since 2000) owing to efficiency improvements, electrification, and greater use of biofuels. Nevertheless, transportation is still responsible for 24% of direct CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Road vehicles – cars, trucks, buses, and two- and three-wheelers – account for nearly three-quarters of transport CO2 emissions, and emissions from aviation and shipping continue to rise, highlighting the need for a greater international policy focus on these hard-to-abate subsectors.

Tracking Buildings

• It always staggers me how much off the Co2 comes from our buildings. The IEA monitor Building envelopes Heating Heat pumps Cooling Lighting Appliances and equipment and Data centers and data transmission networks

Energy-related CO2 emissions from buildings have risen in recent years after flattening between 2013 and 2016. Direct and indirect emissions from electricity and commercial heat used in buildings rose to 10 GtCO2 in 2019, the highest level ever recorded.

Several factors have contributed to this rise, including growing energy demand for heating and cooling with rising air-conditioner ownership and extreme weather events.

Enormous emissions reduction potential remains untapped due to the continued use of fossil fuel-based assets, a lack of effective energy-efficiency policies, and insufficient investment in sustainable buildings. This is the really vital one that is in ALL of our hands to expect and encourage change.

Tracking energy Integration

• The ability to integrate our energy systems to combine fossil fuel and renewables has to accelerate, the whole issue of sector coupling, storage, and transmission is locked into this energy transition debate. Innovative solutions need to enable this energy integration and then transition into just renewables over the next thirty years.
• This is a really fascinating area to watch of leveraging Energy storage Hydrogen Smart grids Demand response and Direct air capture. These areas are needing deeper innovation funding and co-ordinating from policy support to fund experimentation, piloting, and extensive scaling out, all on demanding time scales.

To align with the SDS, industry emissions must fall by 1.2% annually to 7.4 GtCO2 by 2030 – despite expected industrial production growth. Greater energy efficiency, the uptake of renewable fuels, and research and deployment of low-carbon process routes, including CCS, are all critical. Governments can accelerate progress by providing innovation funding and adopting mandatory CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency policies.

The consistent reposting by the IEA along the 46 critical energy technologies or sectors does give a good focal point to direct innovation. What we see today, we are not on track, we have been arguably blown off track by the pandemic and the required economic stimulus required to “kick start” our economies back into “normal” life.

We do expect a return to some form of (new) normal of expecting growth, wealth creation, and jobs. Yet what is ahead of us will have even a more significant impact unless we address it, global warming.

This needs us to transform the energy systems globally so we can have a chance still to stop this planet from warming even further and giving us improved health, economic and environmental possibilities. The effects of the present Covid-19 surely give us all a wake-up call. It is how global failure has an enormous impact, and the concern is here that we are moving from one crisis into a longer, more dangerous one.

Unless we change the course of where we seem to be heading in fueling our energy needs with harmful emissions, we face rapid global warming that will not protect us. We have no second planet, and it is not just developing a vaccine to make us all feel safe, this is threatening human life as we have known it, pandemics included.

** the majority of this post has been drawn from the Tracking clean energies IEA report, published in June 2020 and brought out my own views or thinking

The post The Innovation Intensity needed in the Energy Transition first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

It is not just replacing energy sources; it is all about solution renewal end-to-end and that needs innovation
Within the energy transition, we must not lose sight of the final consumer. The final consumer of energy is going to be the ultimate arbitrator.

The post Solutions for Energy do need to be end-to-end and highly innovative first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

Here in this post, I want to expand on my thinking around navigating a complex landscape that the Energy Transition demands.

I am looking at the Energy Transition from an evolving technology innovation perspective. In other words, what “forces” can be identified or promoted that can transform the existing energy system through the pursuit of the new invention, innovation, or technological advancement. Specifically, ones that will be needed over such an extended time and complexity of change that this Energy Transition will take, upwards of twenty to thirty years to give it an unstoppable momentum.

For this, we need to continually identify resources and capital by addressing the competencies, capabilities, and capacities to generate and accelerate change and consistently map these back to the realities of the landscape of change we are trying to traverse.

When you look through the lens of innovating at the Energy Transition, you are often questioning the fitness, or the reality to achieve something.

A risk of the energy transition is we give higher emphasis on the depth of knowledge in one area and fail to pull this together, to map it into the bigger picture of the practical, broader-based one. This “mapping back” gives our broader Society and non-expert groups needing to relate to the Energy transition gives them identification. It generates their need to change or support change and brings about more extensive (behavioral) change and awareness. Otherwise, they just accept the idea of advancement but equally block it if it does not fit their frame of thinking or how or why it is relevant to them.

We need to recognize that the energy world is “stacked” with Scientists, Engineers, and Researchers that have a real depth of expertise but so often can be lacking the required “T” shape skills that can actually be restrictive to making change.

These T-shaped skills that we need more of by having a combination of general skills and knowledge that support in-depth expertise in one area. They can bring broader validation and understanding of the relationships within any journey of change so often needs.  Often the scientist or researcher simply wants to hand over. There is a greater need for skills that can anchor a solution, advocate the reason for the change, and then provide the broader resolve and purpose to ensure delivery of the change.

There are plenty of (dense) reports projecting the Energy transition change and what is required, but they often fail to make the connections to the broader audience involved in this change. In my view, we need to explore and generate a better understanding of adaptive landscapes and provide a “sense of identity.”

The value of fitness landscapes as part of any Energy Transition awareness makes sense to bring identity and structure.

Let me explain this by keeping Hydrogen as the initial focus:

I have taken Hydrogen as my opening exploration to traverse this Energy landscape and have been providing the ongoing analysis over on my dedicated innovating4energy posting site by exploring different aspects of Hydrogen in a series of extended posts (one- believing in hydrogen, two- the gas too deliver, three- shades of and four- tensions and bottlenecks)

I need to begin to evaluate the value of knowing the real part of any hydrogen ‘fitness’ and what makes up its distinctive dynamic capabilities that moves it towards the solutions we need to have in place to contribute in significant ways to the energy transition that is underway. These solutions can be, but not limited to, Technology and Innovation, Scale and Adoption, Infrastructure and Market Conditions, Government Engagement and Involvement, Industry, and critically vital Public adoption.

Let me return to the earlier point on “T-shaped” people first.

This valuable post offers a useful descriptor on how different people have different skills and why the “T-shaped” combinations become so helpful. Managing such a change in Energy Systems requires multiplying skills.  The post ‘designates’ the differences and points out the need is to be continuously adaptive to varying demand.

In my view, knowing or anticipating that “varying demand” requires a building of the fitness in the capabilities, competences, and capabilities. This ability to enact change is my starting point for my thinking over the need to think about the Energy Transition Fitness Landscape.

We deploy expertise to overcome difficult challenges or have the space to innovate, and we need non-expert people to clear the pathway and provide the experts with the ‘right’ environment. Both approaches changing the existing, breaking down the ‘bottlenecks’ but in different ways.

The more you have the right environment to develop “T-shaped people, who go beyond one skill or expertise and engage in the joint identification, then the quicker you can accelerate change through collective understanding

We need to visualize and articulate change in connecting ways.I believe both the Three Horizon framework that I have deployed for years  (see this post for relating it to the energy transition) and the concept of knowing your fitness and the landscape have real value in the Energy Transition. Both allow for a greater collective identity and engagement of all the necessary expertise and generalists to come together. In a complex challenge like the Energy Transition, you need to create the identification and build the collaborative ecosystem to focus resources on the (shared) identified goals.

Taking Hydrogen as my point of reference, to understand the context, complexities, and creative tension.

By firstly, mapping out the hydrogen terrain to the task at hand enables us to understand and relate to what is needed – I call that the context for change. I have been investigating Hydrogen as a promising energy carrier to understand the barriers and obstacles to the energy transition we need to undertake. There are so many underlying “tensions” in this change from established fuels, infrastructure, and product delivery that Hydrogen needs to overcome.

Taking this fitness landscape thinking a little further here.

Any Energy Transition Fitness Landscapes identifies the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts- the appropriate resources to navigate the terrain. The higher the ‘fitness’ transforms your landscape potential into accelerating opportunities into final tangible outcomes.

Fitness Landscapes helps in this task by identifying the opportunity spaces on where you need to focus your efforts‐ and apply the appropriate resources to navigate the terrain. The greater understanding of the ‘fitness points needed’ can transform your hydrogen landscape potential, or in business parlance, achieve your goal.

Mapping out your capabilities, competencies, and capacities to the task at hand enables you to understand and relate to what is needed. You begin to get fit for the journey ahead.

I took what I call a “Fitness Landscape Result Expectancies” approach.

Fitness Landscape Result Expectancies

My approach here is a work-in-progress; it will evolve and adapt depending on interest and demand.

These are my “first pass” of the expected results or points of investigation sought, by identifying the critical aspects of capability identification for the Hydrogen (or any energy transformation journey), to make it a significant contributor to the Future Energy Mix.

• A greater understanding of the obstacles and barriers to Hydrogen, becoming a significant energy carrier in the future energy mix is critical to understand. It “conveys” the fitness landscape journey.
• The understanding of what needs to be changed moves Hydrogen towards an energy transition that is sustainable and evolutionary built on technology investigation, validation, and ability to scale. Solutions gain world-wide. Recognition and adoption as the resulting outcomes and processes from discovery to realization.
• The journey generates a learning process for the identification of real and ‘false’ dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities bring about change in the environment. As we frame, we can identify differences separating the more static ones that often just need reinforcement or retirement as not of lasting value.
• Pursuing limited or ‘selective’ development allows for restrictive exchanges within a network of specialization. These will not have the desired effect to accelerate solutions that can replace the existing ones unless the broader network effects are not accounted for.
• Any fitness landscape journey, where change is a significant level of requirement, requires a holistic view of the existing issues and the intent and goal of the journey by framing a clear strategic plan to mobilize the necessary forces.
• The solutions suggested will draw out internal discussions, growing recognition, and reality of the present and future needs in this area of resource allocation and capital allocation.
• Importance of linking capability across different activities or technology applications to become increasingly ‘dynamic’ for a more sustainable future.
• The ability to build out a clear capability portfolio knowing where resource needs to be applied and their likely timeframe from concept to fruition. These evaluations will also help identify synergies to bring new value and future impact options.
• We need to challenge long, well-established routines and processes to see how we can extend technology options. To discover and continue the existing can be valuable to place additional resources behind.
• Having clarity in the fitness landscape allows for regularly taking additional “adaptive walks” to learn and adjust current thinking and question alternatives more openly.
• Knowing your capabilities, competencies, and capabilities intensifies and solidifies the studies, investigation, and importance of innovation through greater engagement and a growing understanding. You have greater confidence in where to invest new capital and resources.
• Outcomes from these expected results raise dynamic capability and the importance of dynamism for more flexibility and fitness discovery. By identifying higher points of value, you accelerate the change process and plot different projects and their impact.

Looking for outcomes and outputs.

The reason I am building this into a workable model, is it firstly extends on my previous work in Innovation Fitness Landscapes. Within this adaptive approach to the Energy Transition, we can seek out and determine the Energy Fitness Landscape to then determine where the critical focal points are so the necessary resources, and capital can be applied.

I want to identify the necessary capacities, competencies, and capabilities to undergo this journey. Its ultimate aim is to identify outcomes that can become ones that give additional focus to knowing which are valuable. Also, which aspects need to extend the existing solutions and which have limited or no value and those resources and capital should be released to be redirected onto the ones that hold promise, impact, and value.

The energy complexities do need understanding, explaining, and mapping. The knowledge of how the traversing will be undertaken to get to the end goal of a clean energy system as soon as we can, needs often different articulation? Fitness landscapes help make the journey a lot easier to determine what is needed to undertake it.

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