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Top Recent Energy Industry Stories: 12/12/2023

By Breaking Energy
  • The New York Times investigated the troubles faced by the offshore wind energy sector in recent years, finding that the rippling impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising interest rates have had a significant impact on the supply chains involved in the production, transportation, and installation of wind energy infrastructure. Despite these setbacks, states across the Northeast — with access to the turbine-friendly waters of the East Coast — are continuing to push for wind power.
  • Also from the New York Times comes an examination of the viability of carbon capture, an expensive technology intended to trap and bury carbon dioxide, preventing it from reaching the atmosphere. “Carbon capture and storage definitely could be a critical technology,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “But the history of carbon capture to date has largely been a disappointment.”
  • Trading houses that arose in the wake of reduced U.S. sanctions have begun to facilitate the sale of motor fuels and diluents necessary for oil production, Reuters reports. Venezuela itself, which has faced gasoline and diesel shortages in recent years, is prioritizing fuel imports in the run up to a presidential election in 2024. 
  • Several major companies that have made big pledges to work towards the reduction of greenhouse gasses, including insurance giant AIG, PepsiCo, and Amazon, are showing signs of wavering on those pledges, according to the Washington Post. “There is a massive credibility gap with these corporate targets,” said John Lang, project lead at Net Zero Tracker. “We need more regulation. Otherwise, the dial just will not turn.”
  • New buildings in the EU must have no emissions from fossil fuels by 2030 under a new set of rules agreed upon by members of the European Parliament, according to The Guardian. The new rules are also intended to end subsidies for oil and gas boilers by 2025. “Setting a date for ending fossil fuel heating in Europe’s buildings provides crucial clarity for consumers, and charts the path for the heating sector,” said Thomas Nowak, the head of the European Heat Pump Association.

How AI Can Be Used To Transform Energy Storage

By Breaking Energy

Like many other industries, the energy sector is currently grappling with the best ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operations and drive progress.

a solar panel at dusk

Photo by Biel Moro via Unsplash

One intriguing opportunity for bringing AI into the energy industry lies in finding solutions to challenges involved in energy storage. AI may offer numerous opportunities to optimize and enhance energy storage systems, making them more efficient, reliable, and economically viable. The opportunities made available by AI will also be essential in furthering the transition to renewable energy.

Using Patterns to Prepare for the Future

AI programs, if properly trained and implemented, can serve as excellent tools for recognizing patterns and pairing those patterns with automated responses. 

In the context of the energy industry, this skill can be brought into play for the benefit of, for example, a public utility looking to monitor changes in energy demand at different times of the day or year to get an accurate picture of when and how energy will be needed. This is especially essential for firms looking to utilize renewable energy resources, as technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines only produce energy under the right conditions. These firms will need to store energy when possible in order to meet the needs of high-demand periods, and AI can help make storage strategies more adaptive.

AI programs can also use their pattern-recognition capabilities to quickly identify and respond to faults or abnormalities in energy storage systems, including issues like damaged or dysfunctional infrastructure. This proactive approach helps prevent catastrophic failures and ensures the continued operation of storage systems by warning energy companies of potential issues before they become critical.

Battery management offers another opportunity to integrate AI into an energy firm’s operations, according to a recent analysis for Energy Storage News by Carlos Nieto, Global Product Line Manager at the energy technology company ABB.

“As many operatives will know, energy storage operations can be complex. They typically involve constant monitoring of everything, from the BESS [Battery Energy Storage System] status, solar and wind outputs through to weather conditions and seasonality. Add to that the need to make decisions about when to charge and discharge the BESS in real-time, and the result can be challenging for human operators,” Nieto wrote.

“By introducing state-of-the art AI, we can now achieve all of this in real-time, around-the-clock for a much more effective and efficient energy storage operation.”

Nieto argues for an approach to using AI that takes advantage of the tech’s ability to tirelessly generate and respond to data. He also suggests that using AI to run simulations of different storage-related scenarios can help ensure the plans firms have in place for handling adverse events will be likely to work when the real thing hits.

AI, Energy Storage, and Renewable Energy

The transition away from traditional energy sources to renewables is one of the biggest challenges the energy sector must face at this time. The success of this transition is crucial to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the worst effects of climate change. The transition is also a source of opportunity, presenting economies across the globe with new jobs and investment options while offering a chance at a healthier world, according to the United Nations.

One significant hurdle to implementing renewable energy sources is the unpredictability of those sources, according to Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of U.K.-based Octopus Energy.

“To create a clean-energy system in a way that is good for consumers and good for businesses, we need to build the technology that lets us capitalize on the times when the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, and you’ve got this endless, abundant, zero-marginal-cost energy,” he told consulting firm McKinsey in a recent report.

Jackson isn’t alone in recognizing this challenge and the role technology can play in overcoming it. A 2022 article published in the journal Energy and AI, for example, offered a more robust overview of the potential successes and shortcomings of using AI in the energy transition.

According to the article’s authors, “numerous studies have shown that the renewable energy generation will make the grid highly volatile due to the massive application of intermittent and fluctuated renewable energy (such as wind and solar energy). Therefore, reasonable operation methods of renewable energy generation equipment are required to achieve automated system control and improve the automation with grid intelligence.”

Future developments in AI technology for the energy industry will likely go in a similar direction, the authors conclude, stating that researchers will need to continue targeting other renewable energy-related weak points such as connectivity for electric vehicles and and the revitalization of energy communities.

 

Top Recent Energy Industry Stories: 8/15/2023

By Breaking Energy
  • The EPA’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicles by pushing for electric vehicles has met skepticism from both the auto industry, who say the agency’s ideal pace for increasing EV sales is unrealistic, and environmentalists, who say the agency’s plans don’t go far enough when people are facing surging temperatures and wildfires, the Associated Press reports.
  • Wind-powered renewable energy companies are facing difficulties, the Wall Street Journal reports, with “at least 10 offshore projects totaling around $33 billion in planned spending” facing delays or other issues across the U.S. and Europe. Anders Opedal, chief executive of the Norwegian energy company Equinor, calls this the “industry’s first crisis.”
  • Despite the trouble facing the wind industry, a new report from the American Clean Power Association found that the past year saw more capital investments in renewable energy projects than the last eight years combined, according to The Hill.
  • Oil prices stabilized late last week, Reuters reports, citing decreased concerns about additional interest rate hikes for the United States and confidence from OPEC. The international organization expects a healthy oil market for the remainder of the year.
  • For The National Law Review, partner Daniel Deeb and associate Alex Garel-Frantzen of law firm ArentFox Schiff break down how the implementation of AI technology has affected the energy industry. “While AI-powered tools are energy-intensive, they can help businesses improve their environmental compliance, optimize energy consumption, reduce waste, develop and implement sustainable practices, enhance the use of renewable energy, and modernize the electricity grid,” they write. “AI also can be used by litigants to identify potential greenwashing and other claims, transforming how we approach environmental litigation.”

Cybersecurity Challenges For The Energy Sector

By Breaking Energy

The energy sector faces formidable cybersecurity challenges as it grapples with the growing threat of external security breaches, the protection of consumer data, and the management of physical infrastructure.

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Photo by Dan Nelson via Unsplash

To mitigate these risks, organizations like the International Energy Association (IEA), an intergovernmental policy advising group, emphasize the importance of cyber resiliency, including continuous monitoring, evaluation, and risk management strategies tailored to evolving threats.

The protection of consumer data should also be a top priority, requiring proactive measures based on those prescribed by data protection regulations. 

Additionally, the energy sector should explore how adaptive security approaches such as “defense-in-depth” and collaboration between cybersecurity experts and grid operators can help address the vulnerabilities inherent in physical infrastructure.

Defending Against External Security Breaches

Like any organization that manages a massive quantity of data, companies in the energy industry must deal with the threat of external cyberattacks, including ransomware, Advanced Persistent Threats (ATPs), and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

In fact, according to S&P Global, 2022 saw a sharp uptick in the number of cyber attacks on “energy and commodities infrastructure.” That trend doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon, according to Chole Pippin, an associate at Foley Hoag’s Boston office.

“The energy sector is particularly vulnerable due to these types of attacks due to the outdated and unsecured networks oftentimes used in the industry, as well as the increased use of distributed energy resources (‘DER’), which creates more openings to attack and requires more resources to monitor and manage,” Pippin writes.

There are a few steps that energy industry firms can take to better protect themselves, according to a report from the International Energy Association (IEA). 

The IEA emphasizes “cyber resiliency” in the face of inevitable cyberattacks. Building cyber resilience starts with education and the development of risk management strategies based on a thorough assessment of the greatest risks a firm currently faces.

Those risk management strategies should also be revisited frequently to keep up with the evolving nature of cybersecurity threats. 

“Because cyberthreats are constantly evolving, all organisations need to continuously monitor and evaluate their vulnerabilities and risk profiles and take appropriate action,” the IEA writes.

“For example, some organisations may need to exercise effective threat hunting and cyberthreat intelligence activities to prepare for high-end threats from highly capable and motivated attackers.”

Navigating Threats To Consumer Data

In addition to protecting firms’ own data, energy industry players such as public utilities are charged with protecting a significant amount of consumer data.

Like in-house data, consumer data security benefits from proactive cyber resilience as recommended by the IEA. 

Unlike in-house data, however, breaches that allow access to consumer data can come with an extra threat against the company’s reputation and can trigger financial and regulatory repercussions — even if the data breach doesn’t impact service.

In a 2021 article for Forbes, Liquid Avatar Technologies CEO David Lucatch points to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act as excellent models for how companies should protect consumer data. 

Lucatch also suggests that hiring a data protection officer (DIO), a specialized, high-level position focused on protecting company and consumer data through the practices outlined by the legislation above, may help give the company’s data protection needs the attention they deserve.

DIOs might “Look to develop stronger protocols and procedures that support new and better ways for customers to log in — biometrics, digital identity, verifiable credentials, etc.,” according to Lucatch. 

“As consumers take responsibility for their data and privacy, they are likely going to demand these new ways forward.”

Working With Physical Infrastructure

As physical energy sector infrastructure expands to accommodate consumer demand, so does the digital communication necessary to manage and maintain that infrastructure, according to a report published in the journal Sensors.

“The resulting increase in communication creates a larger attack surface for malicious actors. Indeed, cyber attacks on power grids have already succeeded in causing temporary, large-scale blackouts in the recent past,” the report’s authors write.

Taking a global view, the authors state that “Depending on the country and the specific grid operation company, current security measures range from non-existent to state-of-the-art,” but adding that “even if attackers are only able to control a small fraction of the power connected to the grid, they can still leverage mechanisms inherent to today’s large power grids to cause considerable damage.”

While there are certainly threats to, for example, power grids, that can only be addressed through physical deterrents, cybersecurity still has a role to play in protecting physical infrastructure.

The report’s authors argue for a security approach called “defense-in-depth,” which aims to provide multiple layers of security starting with a foundation of secure devices and applications before expanding to incorporate network and physical security supported by intra-firm education, policies, and procedures.

New technology also comes with its own security issues, the authors add. Exploring and understanding the benefits and drawbacks to using technology such as blockchain or distributed ledgers to address cyber and physical threats.

Finally, the authors call for “tight collaboration between cybersecurity experts and grid operators to develop and implement cybersecurity solutions that are tailored to the unique requirements of power grids.”

Jasper AI assisted a Breaking Energy writer in creating this article.

Top Recent Energy Industry Stories: 6/20/2023

By Breaking Energy
  • A coal-powered energy plant in Bangladesh has faced intermittent shutdowns since it began operating in December — a sign of the operational and economic challenges many new coal plants will face in the coming years, the New York Times reports.
  • According to a recent regulator report, the United States’ power grid may be susceptible to outages this summer as it faces the stressors of climate change events and attempts to transition to cleaner energy sources. “The system is close to its edge,” John Moura, director of reliability assessment and performance analysis at NERC, tells the Washington Post. “More needs to be done to bolster the system’s resilience.”
  • While much of the Eastern U.S. was engulfed in smoke from Canadian wildfires earlier this month, “a host of researchers” leveraged new carbon tracking technologies designed to determine how much carbon is in the atmosphere and where it came from, according to Forbes. The technology could impact how legislators think about carbon regulation and even help combat greenwashing.
  • Two legacy vehicle manufacturers, Ford and General Motors, have struck deals with Tesla to use the electric car giant’s charging technology. The catch? “Four months ago, the Biden administration endorsed a rival charging technology when setting the rules for companies seeking access to $7.5 billion in federal infrastructure funding,” Politico reports.
  • BP and Orsted have reached a resolution in the companies’ territorial dispute in the UK North Sea, signaling the revitalization of a carbon capture project led by BP and a wind farm by Orsted — over a decade after the British government approved both projects, according to Reuters.

What’s Next for American Offshore Wind Power?

By Breaking Energy

As the United States continues to search for ways to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil and gas for energy, wind power has a key role to play.

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Photo by Jesse De Meulenaere via Unsplash

Offshore wind farms, which place massive wind-powered turbines in coastal waters to generate energy from sea winds, are one of the primary avenues through which the U.S. is expanding its wind power capabilities. 

There are several major offshore wind projects currently in the works that promise essentially infinite energy without the production of greenhouse gasses, but legal hurdles and technical challenges abound. 

Current Major Offshore Wind Power Projects

According to a recent overview published by law firm Morgan Lewis, the U.S. has two major offshore wind projects competing to become the first to be fully operational for providing power to utility companies. 

The first is the Vineyard Wind project, located off of Nantucket in Massachusetts. 

Despite some permitting hiccups and a legal challenge from a group representing commercial fishermen, “there’s tangible progress being made on the state and country’s first commercial scale project,” Boston’s NPR affiliate, WBUR, reports.

According to the company behind the project, which is also named Vineyard Wind, the project is on track to begin producing energy by the end of 2023.

The second major project is New York State’s South Fork Wind project, which is being built in federal waters off the coast of Long Island. 

The project will power 70,000 homes on Long Island, according to a statement from the town of East Hampton. Like Vineyard Wind, the South Fork Wind project is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

Cost and Economic Impact of Developing Offshore Wind Power

Despite the potential environmental benefits that can come from utilizing offshore wind power, there are significant up-front investment costs that must be considered when advocating for these projects.

The primary components driving the high cost of investment in wind power include turbine procurement and installation, foundation construction, electrical infrastructure, substation establishment, and grid connection.

These expenses can vary significantly depending on the project’s scale, water depth, distance from shore, and regional factors. Generally, the initial capital outlay is higher for deeper waters and farther distances from the shore.

In addition to those up-front costs, investors interested in wind power must consider expenses related to maintaining offshore wind farms. 

These operational costs include routine inspections, maintenance activities, repair and replacement of components, vessel operation, and workforce salaries. 

While advancements in technology and improved operational practices have led to reduced operational costs, they still remain substantial — especially for projects in harsh marine environments.

Advances in Technology and the Future of Offshore Wind Farms

There are several major technological areas that call for continued development with an eye toward making offshore wind power cheaper, more efficient, and more powerful.

The first of these is the tech behind the turbines themselves. Advancements in turbine design such as increased rotor diameters and taller towers enable higher energy capture. 

The use of advanced materials and aerodynamic enhancements also enhances turbine performance, allowing for increased energy production in varying wind conditions. 

Floating turbine platforms are also gaining attention as they open up new possibilities for harnessing wind resources in deeper waters.

Another major area targeted by wind power researchers is power grid integration and transmission. For example, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems are gaining popularity for their ability to efficiently transport large amounts of power over long distances, reducing transmission losses. 

Advanced power electronics and grid management systems are also being developed and implemented to enhance the stability and reliability of offshore wind farms, and energy storage technologies, such as battery systems, are also evolving to provide grid stability and balance supply-demand fluctuations.

Lastly, new technology is being developed to better understand and address concerns regarding the impact of offshore wind farms on marine life. 

Environmental monitoring tools, such as underwater acoustics and aerial surveys, are designed to aid in assessing and mitigating the effects of offshore wind farms on marine life. Collision detection systems and adaptive turbine designs are intended to help reduce the risk of bird and bat collisions. 

Machine learning algorithms and data analytics are also being employed to optimize project siting, potentially reducing potential conflicts with sensitive habitats and maximizing energy yield.

The Big Challenge: Reviving America’s Outdated Power Infrastructure

One of the biggest challenges for wind power companies is the United States’ outdated and crumbling power grid system. This is a challenge not only for wind power advocates but for the entire renewable energy industry.

“Competition from renewables is being strangled without adequate and necessary upgrades to the transmission network,” Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, which represents solar and wind companies, told Reuters last year.

A February 2023 report by the Department of Energy calls for “47,300 GW-mi of new transmission will be needed nationwide by 2035 to meet the scenario conditions of this group, a 57 percent growth in today’s transmission system,” adding that 

Currently, there isn’t a plan to ensure this necessary infrastructure gets built.

According to Reuters, the dispersal of the “responsibility for grid maintenance, upgrades and inter-regional connections… among state and local regulators, utility companies and the seven grid operators” has resulted in a lack of central authority over the massive changes needed to expand access to wind power and other renewable energy.

Potential solutions to the problem vary, with the New York Times editorial board publishing arguments for deregulation and the Audubon Society calling on individuals to support policies that favor renewable energy and a reduction in fossil fuel subsidies. 

5 Companies Harnessing AI To Boost Solar Power

By Breaking Media
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Image by the American Public Power Association via Unsplash

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are cutting edge technologies that have pushed the energy industry to seek new solutions to old challenges. 

Solar energy, sometimes seen as expensive or difficult to use, has gotten a boost from companies who have discovered how AI can make this green energy source a more powerful, cost-efficient option for reducing human reliance on fossil fuels. 

Read on to learn more about five companies that use AI-assisted technologies to improve the production and use of solar energy.

Sunpower

SunPower is a solar panel company that uses AI and high-resolution satellite imagery to help residential consumers design custom solar power systems for their homes.

“Homeowners typically spend a significant amount of time online researching solar panels and running calculations to understand their potential savings and  the number of panels they need for their home,” SunPower product manager Nour Daouk writes in a blog post for Google.

AI and machine learning play a key role in creating digitally generated solar power installation plans for each unique roof, the company says. 

“When a user enters an address, artificial intelligence recognizes the roof, obstructions, and trees. We then place panels according to local design rules,” Sunpower writes on its website.

Heliogen

Heliogen is a solar energy startup that uses an AI-powered program to concentrate sunlight and generate heat. 

By using AI to align a field of specialized mirrors to direct a lot of sunlight — and a lot of heat — at a central tower, Heliogen can produce enough energy to power industrial processes like making cement or glass.

Directing and monitoring solar panels isn’t the company’s only method of utilizing AI, however.

Heliogen’s Installation & Cleaning Autonomous Robot & Utility Solution (ICARUS), first demonstrated at the company’s Lancaster, California, facility in 2021, uses GPS, ultrasonic rangefinders and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensors to direct AI-assisted robots to install and maintain its systems.

By combining multiple AI-enhanced technologies, the company aims to “cost-effectively deliver near-24/7 carbon-free energy in the form of heat, power, or green hydrogen fuel at scale,” according to the Heliogen website.

Enfor

Danish energy industry software company Enfor utilizes AI in its SolarFor solar power forecasting solution.

“SolarFor is a self-learning and self-calibrating software system based on a combination of physical models and advanced machine learning,” the company states on its website.

“The self-learning and self-calibrating algorithms will continuously learn about the solar farm characteristics and will adapt to changing conditions, seasonal variations, and as the photovoltaic module ages, such that forecasts stay accurate over time without the need for manual configuration.” 

When installed, SolarFor is given historical weather and energy production data, the company says. The AI function then learns from that historical data and from real-time inputs to produce its forecasts.

By constantly monitoring and updating its forecasts, the software allows the companies that use SolarFor to adjust expectations for how much energy might be generated on a given day.

Green Power Monitor

“GreenPowerMonitor makes use of [Machine Learning] to extract information from the myriad of data points residing in our databases to provide value to our customers,” the solar plant data collection and management software company states on its website.

“ML models allow for a statistical description of site components given certain conditions and as a result our solutions can predict the component’s behaviour in such conditions.”

GreenPowerMonitor utilizes AI in its GPM Plus and GPM Horizon asset management services. 

The company sees three main benefits to using AI in its products. First, it allows the software to create models for expected performance. Second, AI can help predict future performance. Lastly, AI can help trace issues to their root cause through analysis.

Glint Solar

Glint Solar was founded in 2020 in response to “an urgent need to speed up [solar power plant] site origination and ensuring better insight from a project’s inception.”

Where does AI come into play? Glint Solar combines satellite imagery, relevant datasets, and machine learning to help solar power generation companies quickly spot the best locations for generating solar power.

Glint Solar’s software “is able to analyze factors such as available solar radiation and proximity to key infrastructure, such as capacity in the grid for connecting to projects,” TechCrunch reports.

“It also considers social and environmental regulations, as well as looking at other physical factors — like shading on a site; extreme weather; or the elevation or slope of the land, among others — to feed its modeling.”

Jasper AI assisted a Breaking Energy writer in creating this article.

Top Recent Energy Industry Stories: 3/21/2023

By Breaking Energy
  • The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has hit some climate technology and “clean energy” startups hard, Politico reports.
  • The Biden administration has given the go-ahead for a massive oil drilling project in the Alaskan wilderness, “despite widespread opposition because of its likely environmental and climate impacts,” according to the New York Times.
  • Startups aren’t the only ones feeling the fallout from the SVB collapse and other troubling banking news from giants like Credit Suisse and First Republic Bank. According to Reuters, economic uncertainty is already impacting oil prices in the “biggest weekly decline in months.”
  • The New York Times takes a deep dive into the possibilities and limitations of clean hydrogen fuel production, traveling to the Australian Outback where a group of companies led by BP have set up an extensive renewable energy facility solely for powering the production of “green hydrogen.”
  • With the easing of China’s COVID-19 restrictions, the country’s oil refining industry has seen a spike in demand that has translated to jumps in shipping costs, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Top Recent Energy Industry Stories: 2/21/2023

By Breaking Energy
  • According to Yale Environment 360, Europe’s potential turn away from Russian oil towards North African solar power — spurred by the climate crisis and the ongoing war in Ukraine — could have a detrimental impact on desert ecosystems and livestock farming in the region.
  • The Biden administration has issued guidance on how states and nonprofit groups can apply for a portion of a $27 billion “green bank” intended to provide low-cost financing for “projects intended to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions,” the Associated Press reports.
  • Energy companies are increasingly looking to go public in the United States due to shifting trends in investor preferences, according to the Financial Times.
  • A shortage of skilled workers with experience in the solar power sector could prove to be one of the more difficult challenges for the EU to overcome in its push for more green energy sources, Reuters reports.
  • A recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit “paves the way” for the United States’ green energy transition by expanding the types of facilities protected under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, the Southern Environmental Law Center says.

How the Energy Sector Can Take Advantage of Automation

By Breaking Energy

Image by Israel Palacio via Unsplash

The energy industry is a rapidly evolving field, and firms must implement emerging technologies in order to remain competitive. Automation has become an increasingly important tool for energy professionals, enabling them to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and gain a better understanding of their operations.

In this post, we will explore the ways automation can be used within the energy industry to improve business outcomes. We will discuss how automation solutions can enhance safety protocols, streamline processes and analytics capabilities, as well as provide potential ways for organizations to reduce costs.

Enhance Safety Protocols

Automation can be used to enhance safety protocols in the energy industry by providing more accurate, faster responses to critical situations.

As automation is further implemented, it will help to reduce accidents and ensure that all safety rules are followed. Robots with sensors and automation systems can be used to monitor necessary equipment and inform personnel when an unauthorized entry or anomaly emerges. 

Additionally, automation technologies can be used for predictive analysis to identify potential risks before they occur — especially when supported by artificial intelligence. In this manner, automation can reduce incidents of equipment failure and compensate for risks associated with human-induced errors. 

While automation holds much promise for improving the safety of workers in the energy industry, it’s important to note that even the most advanced automated risk monitoring systems on the current market can’t completely eliminate the dangers associated with energy industry work. With this in mind, safety checks by humans should remain a first line of defense against potential risks.

Streamline Processes and Analytics Capabilities

Automation can significantly reduce manual efforts by streamlining routine tasks, such as collecting data, improving efficiency by boosting work product accuracy, and eliminating errors or inefficiencies. 

Automation also makes it easier to optimize production cycles and increases productivity by allowing energy teams to complete multiple tasks faster. This enables energy companies to make informed decisions based on real-time insights.

Automation also has the potential to drastically increase the efficiency of analytics capabilities within the energy industry. With automation, tasks such as data collection and processing that were once manual and time consuming can be done quickly and with minimal human intervention.

This allows for more time and resources to be allocated toward more advanced analytics, such as data mining, that can then be used to improve machine learning and programs assisted by artificial intelligence.

By using automated processes as a foundation for analysis and decision-making activities, businesses can leverage powerful insights from their data and develop strategies for improving production operations and customer engagement while staying ahead of supply-side issues, for example, before they materialize.

Reduce Costs

Through implementation of smart automation processes, energy firms can diminish expenses associated with manual labor while ensuring better accuracy in their operations.

Automating procedures like invoicing and data analytics can speed up overall workflow, giving the company access to quicker insights that may never have been revealed due to manual labor time constraints or simple human errors. 

Energy industry companies can also use automated processes to save time when maintaining and updating security systems or networking hardware and software, as well as when gathering feedback from customers or monitoring changes in energy consumption levels.

By investing in automated systems for tasks linked to keep up with market trends and increasing safety protocols such as remote sensing technologies, energy industry companies can benefit from savings in both time spent and resources allocated — all while creating a safer environment for employees and consumers.

Automation also decreases the cost per transaction and encourages faster completion of activities, thus enabling firms to meet market demands within shorter time horizons. Consequently, energy companies are able to cut their costs and maximize short-term savings without sacrificing long-term benefits. 

Moreover, automation also provides an opportunity for analysis of a company’s current performance so that it can pinpoint areas for improvement where necessary.

Jasper AI assisted a Breaking Energy writer in creating this article.

Top Recent Energy Industry Stories: 1/24/2023

By Breaking Energy
  • Ohio has legally redefined natural gas as a source of green energy thanks to the influence of “dark money” groups on state politicians, according to The Washington Post. 
  • Missed out on following the energy conversation at Davos this week? Leaders in solar, wind and hydro got cozy with their oil and gas counterparts, Reuters reports.
  • Despite a novel effort to leave the nation’s oil reserves in the ground to avoid damaging fragile rainforest ecosystems, Ecuador has increased drilling for its oil reserves in an effort to deal with the country’s debts, according to The New York Times. 
  • As Europe continues to adjust to high gas prices and new pushes to cut emissions, the continent’s energy industry is exploring the potential of high-temperature, high-efficiency heat pumps, according to Yale Environment 360.
  • Inside Climate News reports that renewables will produce more than a quarter of the energy generated by the United States in 2024.
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