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Tom Raftery and I've known me for over 13 years. I first met him during the Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 era of the mid-2000s at a time when he was developing a zero-emission data center in Ireland, in Cork. We both went ahead and today Raftery is a global VP at SAP, covering topics like IoT and blockchain. But his lasting passion was renewable energy and it was in that context rather than in his position as an evangelist for SAP that we met the other day for a 40-minute conversation.
I learned a lot. If you have time and interest, the recorded conversation is as follows:
For those who prefer the TL; DR, here are the first-line facts that Raftery discussed:
- 98 gigawatts of solar deployed in 2017, the last year for which there are data. This is the outgoing equivalent of 98 nuclear power plants. Of that number, over 50 gigawatts were produced in China.
- In 1977, the cost of one kilowatt hour of solar photovoltaic cells was $ 76. It has now dropped to two cents per kilowatt hour and continues to decline. This is the result of Swanson's law that:
- … is the observation that the price of photovoltaic modules tends to fall by 20% for each doubling of the cumulative shipping volume.
- Significant improvements have been made in all areas of renewable technology innovation in recent years, but at the moment it is the warehouse where the next big gains are coming. Example: 100 megawatts plant by Elon Musk in southern Australia which, in its first year of operation, has saved 40 million dollars.
- More recently, PG & E has announced the construction of two plants in California with 720 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts of storage.
- The cost of batteries is also a crater. What was $ 1,000 a few years ago is now at $ 150.
- Subsidies for coal-fired power plants in Spain are eliminated and by 2050 the whole country is expected to circulate on renewable electricity.
- In Europe, it is now cheaper to build solar and wind farms than to use coal plants.
The combination of regulation and renewable energy economics is promoting innovation across the board with the promise of abundant energy at affordable prices. This will have a significant impact on both industries and in the consumer space. The most striking impact comes in the cost of managing data centers in technology. We are already seeing the impact on the automotive sector, even if it is important to understand that while electric cars steal stocks, they represent only 2-3% of new sales. Elsewhere, local authorities require that public transport is based on renewable energy vehicles. There, the demand represents 19% of new sales.
There is still a lot to be done, especially from the consumer's point of view, where the degree of automation and simplicity of understanding the use of energy has not yet reached critical mass. In a recent edition of Exponential View, Azeem Azhar said that in his quest to become carbon-neutral:
I found the process of discovery a bit cumbersome. There seems to be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to bring some design and thought about the product in this arena.
On the IoT front, Raftery referred to a recent customer visit in which the energy management provider talked about the development of smart meters that allow customers to choose the type of power they want to consume and then use their smartphone. The next step will be for those same meters to switch from one supplier to another depending on the preferences chosen by the customer. In a future state, it could be every few seconds.
On the blockchain front, Raftery admitted that up to now, most of the action is limited to PoC – as we reported earlier. However, he saw a promising job that should be made public this week by OckamIO. Colleague Jon Reed has a planned story that includes references to the platform without the confidence of Ockam. Later, I have a scheduled conversation with Ockam's CTO.
More stories related to changes in the energy market
EDF Energia: value belongs to the customer and this means change of culture
Sustainability as the engine of the new economic era driven by technology
Image Credit – Photo by Antonio Garcia on Unsplash
Disclosure – SAP is a premier partner at the time of writing
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