Meeting energy demands with innovations throughout the value chain

What are the upcoming areas of disruption that can transform the way we produce, use, and consume energy? Panellists discuss how innovation in technologies, policies, and business models can impact the future energy landscape. By Ryan Yap

The second session of the Singapore Energy Summit opened with a keynote address by Mr. Yuji Kakimi, President of JERA. Mr Kakimi presented several innovations in the LNG sector, such as the Floating Storage and Regasification Unit, use of information technology, and artificial intelligence, which have resulted in the increased utilisation of energy and improved energy efficiency.

He said JERA, one of the world’s largest buyers of LNG, is looking to help Asian countries meet increasing energy demands by providing innovative gas-to-power solutions and lowering entry barriers throughout the value chain, such as the implementation of an LNG trading platform.

Mr Ashish Sethia, Head of Research – Asia Pacific of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, then moderated a robust discussion on the need for innovations in technology, as well as financial and governmental policy.

Mr Frank Fannon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Energy Resources, US Department of State, cited the “Shale Revolution” as a major technological innovation that has allowed the US to realise its resource abundance and impact the global market by becoming the world’s largest natural gas and shale producer. He said that the US is committed to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific through Asia EDGE (Enhancing Development and Growth through Energy). The initiative aims to help Indo-Pacific partner countries import, produce and deploy energy resources.

Renewable electricity generated from on-shore wind and solar has gained a credible pace towards low prices through technological innovations, said Mr Didier Holleaux, Executive Vice President of ENGIE. Off-shore wind and renewable gas (biogas) technologies have also made considerable progress in becoming economical. Mr Holleaux said that the world will need to find innovative approaches to increase energy efficiency, such as district cooling and reusing waste heat from data centres. He also opined that hydrogen will become a necessity for large-scale, long-term energy storage, and would present a good solution for transportation. 

Mr Tim Holt, CEO - Power Generation Services of Siemens, said that digitalisation has penetrated the energy generation value chain. He shared the example where the use of innovative technologies such as additive manufacturing has cut down the development time of gas turbine technologies by 50 percent. The use of data analytics in operations has also improved efficiency and reliability.

To encourage innovation, government policy support in a number of countries have created a favourable investment climate for some renewable energy technologies, said Mr Rajeev Kannan, Head of Investment Banking Department – Asia of SMBC and Mr Pang Yee Ean, Director General - Investment Operations of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.