Integrating infrastructure with big data,
physical modelling and artificial intelligence
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Julia King DBE FREng FRS, Chair of the Climate Change Committee Adaptation Committee, Executive Director, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Chair of the Carbon Trust
WE are going to need to invest in new, low carbon infrastructure to achieve net zero, in particular in our energy systems. The Climate Change Committee’s core pathway for the Sixth Carbon Budget in 2035 and net zero in 2050 sees electricity demand more than double; other projections suggest we could increase demand to three times that of today.
The government has announced a target of 40GW of offshore wind by 2030, and this could rise to around 100GW by mid-century. Masked by this huge growth in electricity use we anticipate a dramatic improvement in our energy efficiency; total energy use across gas, oil and electricity is almost 2000TWh today, by 2050 this is predicted to fall to 1000TWh.
However, the contribution of electricity is expected to rise from approximately 15% today to 70% by 2050, with renewable generation increasing from 30% to around 80%.
Embedded in the net zero transition of just this one sector by 2050 are a number of challenges:
- How do we minimise the embedded carbon in the infrastructure we build?
- How do we ensure we build the minimum amount of new infrastructure to meet demand to minimise cost and environmental impact?
- How do we optimise operation and maintenance of that infrastructure to provide security of supply and low cost to consumers?
- How do we manage demand and supply in an increasingly complex energy system with local generation at people’s homes combined with a grid powered by variable renewables?
- When electricity is our dominant source of power for light, heat, communications, industry, water supply, and transport, how do we ensure the system is resilient to shocks, for example those that the changing climate will deliver?
Key to answering all of these will be how quickly and effectively we learn to integrate infrastructure with big data, physical modelling and artificial intelligence. We need to drive this change – and digital technology can help us achieve a significant proportion of the emissions reductions we need to make by 2030.1
The standardisation and digitisation of carbon footprinting linked to traceability of materials integrated into digital twins – virtual representations of physical assets – of our structures and equipment will enable minimisation of embedded carbon in design whilst maximising recycling and reuse. These digital twins will store condition and operational data from arrays of embedded sensors.
For example, in the case of wind turbines, that condition data will be combined with current weather information and predictions of future conditions to optimise operations, and repair and maintenance schedules for each individual turbine.
The decisions we take today about how we embrace and embed digital technology in our new infrastructure, especially as we ‘build back better’ from the COVID crisis, will determine the cost and the ease with which we can achieve net zero.The data from the grid about current and predicted energy demand (and of course electricity price) will enable the wind farm operator to decide whether to store electricity, produce hydrogen, sell electricity into the grid or carry out maintenance.
The grid operator will be using data and projections about weather, household generation and behaviour, industrial output, travel and transport, generation, storage and other assets to determine electricity prices and the services required to ensure a stable electricity supply.
Digital technology will underpin the net zero transition. Joining up the whole system through sensing, data collection, predictions from physical modelling and application of artificial intelligence to big data sets – for example linking climate and weather predictions, behaviour and decisions in individual households and businesses, and the condition of individual assets is what will enable us to deliver a cost effective, sustainable and resilient net zero transition in the energy system, and across every sector.
The decisions we take today about how we embrace and embed digital technology in our new infrastructure, especially as we ‘build back better’ from the COVID crisis, will determine the cost and the ease with which we can achieve net zero. The collaborative work of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) recognises this urgency – and the value of smart infrastructure solutions and data-driven insights to enable zero-carbon and zero-waste decision-making.
Government, industry and universities need to be working closely together to realise the potential of digital innovation, delivering education and training across society from infant schools to government officials, to pensioners and researchers, developing new business models, new data infrastructures, and trusted and trustworthy digital systems. A data-led net zero transition has a lot to offer – we have a lot to do to make it happen.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Julia King DBE FREng FRS, Chair of the Climate Change Committee Adaptation Committee, Executive Director, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Chair, Carbon Trust, writing for the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction www-smartinfrastructure.eng.cam.ac.uk
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1 Digital Technology and the Planet, The Royal Society, December 2020