Rasha Hasaneen on the role digital technology will play in shaping sustainable energy practices
Climate Action caught up with Rasha Hasaneen, Chief Products and Sustainability Officer at Aspen Tech, to discuss the role digital technology will play in shaping sustainable energy practices.
Climate Action caught up with Rasha Hasaneen, Chief Products and Sustainability Officer at Aspen Tech, to discuss the role digital technology will play in shaping sustainable energy practices.
Q: What is the role of digital technology in emissions management today?
A: Digital technology plays a major role in the energy transition as organizations strive to go beyond greenhouse gas emissions reporting and innovate for new solutions that steer them towards meeting, and even exceeding, their emissions targets.
Cutting-edge emissions management solutions enable asset-intensive organizations to pinpoint and then act in the key operational areas where they will have biggest impact on emissions reductions. Using these solutions organizations unite, correlate and analyze data from every relevant operation in their business, allowing real time intervention and confidence in decision making to make a significant difference.
In addition, digital grid solutions are required to ultimately decarbonize the grid, thereby managing and eventually eliminating grid emissions. Digital technologies enable power grids to adapt in real time to the intermittency of utility grade renewables, engage optimal energy storage while enabling the dynamic management of distributed energy sources. Grid response technologies enable demand – supply balancing and load management to ensure grid emissions are minimized.
Integration of digital grid technologies and operations technologies enables seamless integration across energy intensive industries and the grid to ensure total emissions are minimized across the value chain.
Today’s solutions visualize real-time data from operational technology applications in asset intensive businesses, or in some cases entire value chains, providing a graphic, dynamic visual interface that provides the “single pane of glass” that teams making decisions need to see for carbon emissions, margins and abatement. These are technologies that simplify and streamline huge masses of data.
Q: As the world faces the challenges of the energy transition, how do you envision the role of digital technology evolving in shaping sustainable energy practices?
A: It’s clear that challenges lie ahead. A growing population and high expectations for living standards, running in parallel with the immediate need to reduce emissions and increase sustainable energy use present a dual challenge. The UN estimates world population will grow by as many as two billion by 2050, with global demand for energy expected to rise by 50 percent in the same period.
Digital solutions are key to ensure operational excellence and sustainability work hand-in-hand. This runs from asset optimization to energy reduction, process safety and control.
Advanced digital technology enables companies to quickly evaluate the economic and environmental impact of different solutions and processes, while using the same insights to become more agile – capable of responding rapidly to create new business models. The range of use cases will be substantial, from hydrogen generation and use, to electrification, carbon capture and storage, and more. These approaches all deliver critical sustainability benefits with digital technology at the heart of enabling much faster introduction of these new energy technologies. It is this de-risking of new technologies and the subsequent optimization of operations that bridge the capex-opex divide and reduce the green premium for new sustainable energy practices.
In the oil and gas sector we will see digital solutions delivering comprehensive carbon capture, utilization, and storage systems (CCUS), operational optimization, and new a generation of precise emissions management tools. This all vastly enhances process and plant operation efficiency, significantly cutting energy use and emissions.
Q. Pioneering a new era often comes with challenges. What obstacles do organizations face when integrating innovative digital solutions?
A: Despite a global shift to clean energy, hydrocarbons will remain vital for decades because of the scale of global energy needs. Organizations need to draw on their expertise, infrastructure, and financial capabilities to address such challenges, but they cannot act alone. They will need help from digital innovators.
However, the journey to implement new technology can be challenging. Success requires a nuanced strategy focusing on energy efficiency and asset optimization, rather than merely chasing the latest trends. Digital transformation is a continuous process and not a destination. Significant shifts in technology always demand a strategic, multi-faceted approach that is fixated on the outcome required, but not at the expense of maintaining wider support from stakeholders and employees, because their support can be critical to swift delivery of results.
One of the biggest pitfalls to avoid in any major overhaul of technology is piecemeal introduction of new systems that turn out to be incompatible, repeating the mistakes of previous decades. Organizations may need to consider optimization of legacy technologies, preserving the best of what is already available and still has support from skilled technicians or engineers. The aim is to reduce disruption and avoid extensive education and retraining programs, where possible. Yet while everyone needs to have a sense of urgency and embrace change, they should also be aware that shortcuts and rushed migrations seldom work and only increase the risk of operational failure or security breaches.
Q: Why is effective innovation so crucial, and how is AspenTech driving this to lead the energy transition?
A: Digitally-led innovation is realistically the only way we can tackle the challenges we face globally around energy transition. AspenTech solutions are at the forefront of this global movement, playing a major role in the replacement of carbon-emitting fossil fuel energy with low or zero-carbon sourced electricity. We are helping to de-risk new technologies while reducing the “green premium” for new energy, which increases the appetite of the market to invest in the energy transition.
Success in digital transformation will only come from a holistic data management strategy so organizations have a single view of where they are from the masses of information from all their operations. Major global enterprises are still held back by heavily siloed data. By aggregating and contextualizing all this data AspenTech provides the critical insights senior leadership teams need when making what can be momentous decisions about energy efficiency strategies or emissions and waste reductions technologies.
Overall, the transition to clean energy is a major opportunity for companies even in the most complex environments. At AspenTech we have the deep domain expertise and data science capabilities that asset-intensive industries need. By investing in clean energy solutions, companies can position themselves for long-term growth and profitability.
