In 2022, the most talked-about topics are green hydrogen, energy storage and sustainable mobility. Undoubtedly, the energy sector is becoming one of the most influential and important sectors worldwide as it is the engine of industries and companies.
THE ENERGY SECTOR IN A PROFOUND EVOLUTION
The energy sector is undergoing a profound evolution thanks to the advance of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Blockchain and the Internet of Things. These are some of the energy trends that are shaping 2022:
The decarbonisation of industry: the European Union aims to be climate neutral by 2050. In other words, it has set itself the goal of having an economy with zero net greenhouse gas emissions. The path towards decarbonisation will therefore mark the steps of the business community this year. A large number of companies and industries have already taken steps towards this transition process.
Energy prices will continue unstoppable: although it is difficult to predict how energy prices will behave over the course of a whole year, given the way they are evolving, everything points to the fact that energy costs will continue without respite for companies and households. Faced with this situation, renewable energies such as photovoltaic and wind power are presented as an opportunity to reduce energy costs and integrate more environmentally friendly generation models. A greater penetration of clean energies and the evolution of storage technologies will be some of the keys to controlling energy prices.
Sustainable mobility: mobility is plugged into sustainability and everything surrounding the electric vehicle becomes a protagonist. This means that both the mechanisms to provide flexibility to the grid and the development of recharging centres will have a major impact this year.
User integration is another challenge coming this year, and two-way vehicle-to-grid technology, better known as V2G, will be another challenge to enable electric vehicles to feed the energy they store in their batteries back into the grid. Here, green hydrogen plays a key role in reducing the sector’s dependence on combustion engines.
Green hydrogen is gaining prominence: green hydrogen plays an important role in the decarbonisation of sectors that are difficult to electrify. Spain, thanks to its renewable potential, can position itself as a European leader in this transition, thus guaranteeing a basis for developing new generation and demand technologies.
Cybersecurity: for this, blockchain technology offers a qualitative leap forward. It will make the electricity grid more flexible, dynamic and connected. Its decentralised management mechanisms, secure and immutable recording of transactions and automation of operations can pave the way for managing the entire distributed and decentralised energy value chain in an optimal way.
Today, more than ever, we need breakthroughs in the energy sector that will enable us to meet the targets we have set ourselves and achieve the EU’s commitment to zero emissions by 2050.