Reweave the World―Energy Systems Convergence leads to global resilience and sustainability in energy, food, and water

Reweave the World

Energy Systems Convergence leads to global resilience and sustainability in energy, food, and water.

In the last decade, the world has come together in recognizing one of the greatest challenges of our times – climate change. While local and international communities have already taken massive efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, carbon emissions still continue to grow, and related issues of food and water scarcity remain unresolved because of competing resources. In order to have a fighting chance for our future generations, we are called to act on a global restructuring of the energy system, which includes technology innovation, energy transition and human behavior innovation.

Today, people, businesses, countries, and information all over the world interact more than ever before. Coordination and cooperation between supply chains that have been built and operated individually for each company and industry are weak, and prices fluctuate for unexpected reasons. Therefore, the ideal energy system that will be needed in the future must be composed of a balance between various demand network structures, circularization, and supply diversification. Local companies could connect, share, and integrate their supply chains at every point beyond traditional industrial barriers, and communities between regions and countries could build symbiotic relationships to reduce global energy consumption. and significantly reduce CO2 emissions.

Yokogawa calls this new energy system "Energy Systems Convergence" and provides frameworks and inter-industry orchestration services along with best practices. It is an ecosystem where multiple companies, industries and societies exchange energy (electricity, steam, hot water, etc.), materials (CO2, hydrogen, methane, etc.) and information (plant operation data, weather forecast, supply and demand forecast, etc.) to overcome challenges in resource availability and industrial optimization in a sustainable way. With symbiotic relationships based on a shared commitment, we can find ways to be more inclusive and greener. In reweaving the world, we can together develop a roadmap to address the challenges and opportunities of climate change and energy security, as well as food and water security.

The Energy Systems Convergence 2030 chart visualizes potential connections and opportunities across industries from a bird’s eye view.  Colored sections represent industries, icons represent technologies, materials or energies, and colored lines represent interconnections.

To get started, find which industry you belong to. From there, you can look around neighboring industries to see new interactions and opportunities that may now be available because of the convergence. Through this chart, find your real neighbors who are sitting next to your physical location in the industrial park and imagine the different possibilities that may arise by sharing, exchanging, and co-optimizing mutual operations. In parallel, you can continue looking within your own facilities to identify processes and relationships that can be further optimized and expanded.

Click here to see the chart with its usage guide and abbreviations.
Its color universal design (CUD) version is also available here.

 

For more information, click the button at the top of the page to read the white paper.