Carbon Net Zero - Balancing the Need for Affordable Energy and Revenue Growth with Cleantech

The challenges and barriers to carbon net zero

Despite government incentives, many private businesses – including energy companies – aren’t making the progress required to achieve net zero by 2050.

Many traditional firms have doubled down on oil and gas. While it’s wise to adapt and evolve how you extract value from these resources, it must be done alongside an investment in renewable alternatives to stay socially and economically relevant. The renewable startups developing clean products and services over the past decade have made this clear, many of which have experienced rapid growth and significant financial success.

But shifting away from carbon-intensive energy production and consumption requires a fundamental reinvention of your existing business model – and for the government, it requires public infrastructure.

From biomass fuels to hydrogen and photovoltaic (PV) solar – the public is beginning to take matters into their own hands by investing in the necessary technology to produce their own renewable energy. And by working with them – and together in the private and public sectors – you can start making smart, incremental changes towards net zero.

It’s a complex undertaking requiring access to leading digital talent to build and manage a connected infrastructure. Especially if you are to match renewable energy production with demand and deliver the smart and data-driven energy services people want.

How to seize the carbon net zero opportunity

Investing in carbon net zero initiatives – and cleantech – is fast becoming a competitive necessity. And it’s a powerful opportunity to drive long-term growth, improve consumer engagement and living standards, and diversify your services and revenue.

By investing in connected, AI-assisted cloud infrastructure, you can more easily identify ways to automate processes, accurately predict outcomes and create and deploy new data-driven services that all contribute to net zero.

For example, local governments can work with the private energy sector to enhance public services through smart metering, connected heat pumps, electric vehicle (EV) charging points and hydrogen-powered public transport.

Behind the scenes, energy providers can use battery storage management software to accurately track and control the usage, storage and distribution of multiple power sources – including wind, sun and wave energy. However, you’ll also need to invest in your existing infrastructure to accommodate new and variable power sources.

More lucrative yet is the opportunity to support and develop connected energy services. This includes smart meters, battery control software, connected vehicles and smart production assets. With the right model, you can even monetise user and product data to help businesses and local governments optimise usage and public services based on demographic trends – such as where to invest in vehicle charging points.

Driving environmental resilience and improving quality of life

Automated robotics and AI-powered drones can also help inspect your physical assets remotely, perform predictive maintenance and improve the efficiency and safety of your renewable energy operations. This also helps protect your employees from dangerous environments while offering them the opportunity to develop their skills and contribute to more value-adding business areas.

For the government, cleantech initiatives can help improve economic stability by driving environmental resilience and mitigating the impacts of climate change. This also means an improved quality of life for citizens, thanks to safer and cleaner public resources and improved economic opportunities as businesses look to relocate to more predictable and sustainable areas.

To ensure your solutions deliver lasting socioeconomic benefits, it’s important that you develop the necessary tools and skills internally rather than licensing or buying existing IP and startups. This will also give you greater flexibility and control over how and when you innovate and seize emerging market opportunities.

However, shifting to electric energy sources is one of the biggest components of achieving net zero. It requires electrification – and scalable, centralised software to coordinate and connect new services, solutions and product lines.

This is an extract from Endava's e-book - Redefining Power and Policy, which identifies four major themes redefining energy and policy today, the challenges they present, and how to turn them into meaningful and profitable opportunities. Download the full e-book here. 

Endava will be speaking on the Citizen Experience theatre at DigiGov Expo in the session 'Providing Greater Services: How Can Organisations Transform Their Services to Empower Communities'. Find out more and secure your free public sector place here.