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Managing the Energy Transition with Operational Efficiency 

How to move forward as industries focus on reaching energy-related goals

Change is a constant in our world and in our lives. And although change is inevitable, it offers room for new opportunities and dynamic improvement. While this is certainly true for the Oil & Gas industry, change affects all industries – especially when it comes to energy management.

This is one of the reason’s we hosted the event “Self-Service Advanced Analytics for the Oil & Gas Industry: Accelerate Towards a Data-Driven Energy Future “ last month. Industry leaders from organizations like Cepsa, Chrysaor, and OSIsoft joined TrendMiner experts to discuss digitalization journeys, analytics maturity, and most urgently: energy transition.

(Check out links to some of the presentations on demand at the end of this article!)

While the event was aimed at the Oil & Gas industry, the topics and use cases presented definitely can be applied across all process industries. So in the weeks to come we’ll be bringing you blogs that take a deeper dive into the topics covered, starting with the event’s main focus.

Time is of the Essence

It’s definitely not necessary to stress the importance of energy transition, not just in the Oil & Gas industry but in all process industries. Environmental and social awareness for decarbonization has increased across the globe with the call for a substantial decrease in emissions.

At the top of government agendas is the establishment of more stringent regulations and taxation policies. The goal of course is to reel in emissions and ultimately work toward net zero. For example, the European Union has set its net zero target for 2050 and China for 2030. Citizens across the world are demanding that the industry meet these targets. As such, there will be increased competition between organizations to show they are working on decarbonization as societies and governments will hold them to the new higher standards.

So how do you kick off your energy management efforts?

Step 1: Increase Operational Efficiency

That’s it! You’re done!

Okay maybe not quite, but it’s an important and attainable first step toward reducing emissions and reaching those energy transition goals. That’s because by increasing operational energy efficiency, emissions can be decreased by approximately 20% (!).

It’s an easy, low-hanging fruit for all companies to go after without the need for substantial investments. 

So how can companies increase energy efficiency?  

By clearly visualizing certain missions and their associated costs, having the ability to flag emissions, find root causes, and monitor flaring energy consumption and the associated emissions.

Simply put, they need to identify how to achieve operational improvements – and then do it.

Companies who want to take it a step further can.  It requires more effort but has substantial rewards. They can increase diversification by, for example, retrofitting in terms of electrification, photovoltaics, carbon capture and storage, and by using cleaner energy sources.

During our event, Wouter Daniels and Luis Carretero discussed these topics and demonstrated how self-service analytics can be used to complete these energy transition steps with use cases:  one solving a recurring flaring event and another a post-implementation review of a retrofit towards renewables.

Check out Wouter & Luis’ presentation “Accelerating the Energy Transition with Self-service Analytics” for free today >

Don’t Get Left Behind

Energy transition is one of most pressing issues for the Oil & Gas industry. And although the industry is experiencing tremendous change, it can use this time as an opportunity for innovation and improvement.

Self-service analytics is key as it can help experts understand their processes much faster and on a deeper level by allowing process experts to answer these crucial questions:

  1. Has it happened before?
  2. What is the cause?
  3. How can we solve it?

Additionally, since self-service analytics works with time series data and contextual information such as quality data, maintenance information, shipped logbook entries, failure reports, and more, it provides process experts with a comprehensive view and understanding of the processes. Now, using self-service analytics, Oil & Gas companies and organizations in other process manufacturing fields can begin their energy transition by first improving operations to increase energy efficiency. It really is that simple.

Additional Resources