Electricity and Control April 2023

ENERGY MANAGEMENT + THE INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT

Accelerating the mission to net zero Graham Abrahams, Senior Vice President, Electrification Products Division, ABB South Africa Achieving net zero emissions by 2050 will require a complete transformation of the energy landscape. The world wants an energy revolution, a quick transition to a smarter, brighter, more sustainable future. At ABB we understand the urgency of this need, but we also know the transition cannot happen overnight.

R eal progress will take a balanced approach with a journey mindset: strategic investments scaled over time to reduce carbon emissions, energy waste and cost. In the transition, businesses and organisations need partners that enable the pathway with efficient ROI, today and in the future; partners that offer real solutions and are willing to invest in innovation for our low carbon future. ABB works as a partner with organisations, enabling safe, smart and sustainable investment to create a low car bon future. Combining the capabilities of its integrated au tomation, electrification and digitalisation solutions, it helps customers meet their commitments and maximise the value of their operational investments, and at the same time re duce carbon emissions, waste and costs through the ener gy transition journey. Like ABB, our customers want to contribute to a low carbon society. This requires a willingness to relinquish our collective dependency on the forms of energy that result in the slow poisoning of the planet. As we see it, there are five key steps to achieving carbon neutrality. - Firstly, to deploy digital solutions for smart green buildings and energy management, such as moni toring, control and optimisation, which is the core of ABB’s Mission to Zero offering - Next, to increase energy efficiency by using building management systems and, for example, installing new, highly efficient motors and drives - Maximising electrification is also important, using heat pumps and establishing a charging infrastruc ture for electric vehicles, for example - The installation of energy management solutions for photovoltaic technology and wind turbines, battery energy storage systems and thermal energy storage - And fifthly, procuring renewable energy from the grid and offsetting remaining emissions.

In summary, the ‘smartification, digitalisation and electri fication of everything’, coupled with energy efficiency and renewable electricity, is proving to be the solution to elimi nating most carbon emissions. Nonetheless, some hurdles still exist. With regard to technology, excessive consumption of electricity resulting from the use of inefficient equipment (for example, legacy HVAC systems, drives, pumps, or such like) or simply due to poor asset or occupancy manage ment, can cause significant energy wastage. This presents the potential for the use of smart building energy manage ment systems, coupled with more efficient variable speed drives, purpose built and configured for the application. Moreover, the electrification of heating in buildings with inadequate insulation can be inefficient. This creates a need for carbon-free high-temperature heating from bio-oil, biogas or hydrogen, for example. However, few building owners can afford deep energy efficiency retrofits – and this is creating a need for OPEX-based financing models like leasing or X-as-a-service. Building owners are looking for direct, integrated end-to-end solutions and this led ABB to develop its Mission to Zero offering. Products and solutions In terms of what we describe as our ‘Technology Blueprint’, a typical smart building – or industrial facility – will use in terconnected technologies to improve comfort and perfor mance across energy management, water use, air condi tioning, access, automation, lighting, remote monitoring, and communication networks. With the ABB Ability Building Ecosystem, building op erators and facility managers can have digital control of all these elements, to create smart buildings that are more environmentally friendly – contributing to reducing carbon emissions through efficiency gains in heating and cooling equipment, for example, and in the running of the building. ABB digital solutions enable constant surveillance and control of energy production, consumption and storage. Largely autonomous, this learning system calculates the optimum energy flow based on predictive data and com pensates for deviations in real time. In a Mission to Zero site, these technologies are combined for a holistic ap proach that can be scaled according to the requirements of the facility. The digitalisation of buildings and facilities through con nected technologies and building automation also has a key role to play in helping to manage grid resilience and

Industrial facilities are a key part of ABB’s ‘Mission to Zero’.

10 Electricity + Control APRIL 2023