Across industries, a small number of organisations are beginning to feel the same quiet pressure.

Not the whole sector. Not the whole ecosystem. Just them.

They are trying to accelerate — to innovate faster, collaborate better, scale intelligence, and unlock opportunities that clearly exist. But every step forward meets a kind of resistance that doesn’t look like execution failure.

In energy and industrial companies, it shows up as partners who can’t align, digital layers that don’t scale across domains, and transition pathways that stall at the boundaries.

In healthcare, pharma, and medical networks, it appears as data that won’t flow, clinical and commercial incentives that diverge, and innovation that moves faster than the system can absorb.

In banking and finance, it emerges as cross‑actor processes that break, AI that works locally but not across the value chain, and compliance that grows heavier without reducing systemic risk.

Different industries. Different pressures. Different constraints.

But the same underlying reality:

These organisations are now operating inside ecosystems without an ecosystem architecture.

They have platforms, partners, and digital investments. They have strategy, capability, and ambition. They have intelligence — human and artificial — but trapped in silos.

What they don’t have is the structural architecture that explains:

• why collaboration feels harder than it should
• why intelligence doesn’t scale across boundaries
• why opportunities appear but don’t compound
• why partners align in principle but not in practice
• why the system behaves unpredictably even when everyone is “doing their part”

This is why the IIBE exists.

Not to redesign entire industries. Not to orchestrate whole ecosystems. Not to impose a new way of working on everyone.

The IIBE exists for the few organisations in each sector that are ready to move faster than the system they’re currently part of — without waiting for the whole system to change.

It gives them:

• a structural way to see the ecosystem they are actually operating in
• a way to act with clarity inside a system they do not control
• a way to collaborate without losing optionality
• a way to scale intelligence across boundaries
• a way to create coherence where the system is structurally misaligned

The IIBE doesn’t require universal alignment. It doesn’t depend on sector‑wide readiness. It doesn’t assume every actor will participate.

It starts with one organization wishing to connect differently in more of a mutual networked way — the one that feels the friction, sees the opportunity, and knows that its current tools have reached their limit.

Different sectors. Different stories. One structural truth:

Some organisations are ready to accelerate. Their ecosystems aren’t. The IIBE gives them the architecture to move anyway.

That is the IIBE

The post Why the IIBE Exists: Organisations Are You Ready to Move Faster Than Your Current Ecosystem first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

Why the IIBE Exists — For One Company Trying to Move Faster Than Its Ecosystem

Every industrial and energy company today is trying to accelerate — new business models, new digital layers, new partnerships, new transition pathways.

But acceleration keeps hitting invisible resistance:

• partners who don’t move at your speed
• customers whose ecosystems are more complex than your product logic
• digital platforms that don’t scale across domains
• regulatory shifts that destabilise plans
• cross‑actor dependencies you don’t own or control

This isn’t because your strategy is wrong. It’s because you’re operating inside an ecosystem — but without an ecosystem architecture.

The IIBE exists for organisations like yours that need to:

• align partners without owning them
• scale digital and AI across boundaries
• reduce friction in multi‑actor delivery
• accelerate transition pathways without waiting for the whole sector
• create coherence where the system is structurally misaligned

The IIBE doesn’t redesign the energy transition. It gives your organisation a structural way to move faster, align better, and collaborate more intelligently inside the transition you’re already part of.

Most organisations in industrial technology believe they already understand ecosystems.

They’ve built platforms. They’ve launched partner programmes. They’ve invested in digital layers, interoperability, and integration. They’ve created “ecosystem strategies” that look complete on paper.

But the reality is this:

Siemens’ ecosystem is not Schneider’s. Schneider’s is not ABB’s. ABB’s is not GE Vernova’s. Honeywell’s is not Rockwell’s. And none of them resemble Johnson Controls’.

Each of these companies sits inside a different structural configuration:

• different regulatory exposure
• different customer integration depth
• different platform histories
• different partner dependencies
• different intelligence flows
• different failure modes
• different architectural constraints
• different legacies and histories

Yet all of them are trying to solve ecosystem‑level problems with enterprise‑level tools.

This is why the IIBE exists.

It exists because ecosystems are not generic — they are structural, specific, and shaped by tensions that no platform or operating model can resolve.

It exists because each of these companies is experiencing a version of the same underlying problem:

They are operating inside an ecosystem without a fully formed ecosystem architecture.

Siemens struggles with the weight of its installed base and the complexity of cross‑domain orchestration. Schneider struggles with platform overhang and the limits of “open” ecosystems that lack structural coherence. ABB struggles with fragmentation across business units and partner networks that don’t align.

GE Vernova struggles with transition volatility and multi‑actor dependencies that shift faster than internal governance can respond. Honeywell struggles with intelligence trapped inside verticals that don’t translate across the system.

Rockwell struggles with customer ecosystems that are more complex than its product logic. Johnson Controls struggles with multi‑actor building ecosystems that lack shared intelligence flows.

These are not execution problems. They are architectural problems.

And they cannot be solved by:

• more platforms
• more APIs
• more governance
• more partnerships
• more digital transformation
• more ecosystem rhetoric

Because the issue is not the tools. It is the absence of a structural architecture that explains:

• where coherence is breaking down
• where intelligence is getting stuck
• where partners cannot align
• where option debt is accumulating
• where failure modes are forming
• where volatility will destabilise the system
• where the ecosystem is silently rejecting the design

This is the gap the IIBE fills.

The IIBE does not treat ecosystems as a category. It treats them as structural realities that differ by company, by context, and by the tensions they are holding. Each organization is hitting not just an invisible wall but a growth tension

It reveals the architecture each organisation is actually operating within — not the one they assume they have, or the one their platform strategy describes.

And once leaders see that architecture clearly, they finally understand why their ecosystem efforts stall, why their digital investments don’t compound, and why their partners behave the way they do.

The IIBE exists because Siemens is not Schneider. Schneider is not ABB. ABB is not GE Vernova.

And none of them can succeed with a generic ecosystem playbook.

They need an architecture built for the system they are actually in.

That is the IIBE.

The post Why the IIBE Exists — Targeted, Executive‑Ready, and Industrial and Energy Company‑Specific first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

Where GE Vernova Should Start: The Proving Grounds for Ecosystem Leadership”

In my previous analysis, I argued that GE Vernova’s next challenge isn’t technology — it’s architecture. The company has the assets to lead the energy transition, but not yet the structural operating logic to orchestrate the ecosystem it depends on.

This post builds on my first GE Vernova piece and deepens the architectural argument.
I’ve been analysing the structural shifts shaping industrial and energy ecosystems, and GE Vernova came into sharp focus as I compared the major players. It’s not a critique — it’s an architectural perspective on where GE Vernova could lead the energy transition if the right top‑layer ecosystem logic is put in place.

The natural question that follows is:
Where should GE Vernova start?

One of the most critical set of business issues to manage is around optionality, volatility and entrapment. GE Vernova is rebuilding. After paying the price of historic over-reach, it is actively paying down Option Debt and restoring freedom — with momentum that many peers lack. How does GE Vernova accelerate growth if it constrains options today?

When you look at GE Vernova through the IIBE lens — a structural architecture for diagnosing and designing ecosystems — a clear pattern emerges. Not all domains are equal. Some are mature but low‑complexity. Others are complex but early‑stage. And a few sit at the intersection of high complexity and high strategic leverage.

GE Vernova – IIBE has the Proving‑Ground Map

A structural view of where the IIBE lands first inside GE Vernova

The proving‑ground map identifies where GE Vernova’s domains sit across two axes:

• Maturity — how developed the domain is in terms of digital, operational, and organisational capability
• Complexity — how many actors, flows, governance tensions, and cross‑domain dependencies exist

These are the proving grounds where ecosystem architecture becomes visible.

1. Grid Solutions — the epicentre of ecosystem complexity

The grid is where GE Vernova’s structural challenges are most acute: multi‑actor coordination, DER integration, regulatory friction, fragmented data, and AI that cannot scale without governance. This is the strongest proving ground for ecosystem architecture.

2. Industrial Electrification — where domains collide

Industry, grid, digital, and sustainability converge here. The friction between actors is high, and the absence of a unifying architecture is slowing progress. This is where GE Vernova can create immediate coherence.

3. Hydrogen — a rare chance to shape an ecosystem early

Hydrogen is still architecturally undefined. No dominant orchestrator exists. GE Vernova can design roles, flows, and governance before the ecosystem calcifies.

4. Storage — the hinge between renewables and the grid

Storage is structurally pivotal but lacks ecosystem governance. It is a natural proving ground for ecosystem design.

5. Renewables — strong assets, weak cross‑domain coherence

Wind, solar, storage, and grid interconnection need a unifying intelligence layer. The IIBE provides it.

6. Digital — not a platform, but the intelligence fabric

Digital should not be rebuilt as a platform. It should be reframed as the intelligence layer that connects all domains.

Going further by taking this complexity and maturity approach it reveals where the IIBE can generate the fastest insight and the highest strategic leverage.

These are the proving grounds where ecosystem architecture becomes visible.

Quadrant 1 — High Complexity × Medium Maturity

→ PRIME IIBE ENTRY POINTS

These domains already feel the structural tension.
They are ecosystemic by nature and lack a unifying architecture.

1. Grid Solutions — the epicentre of ecosystem complexity

The grid is where GE Vernova’s structural challenges are most acute: multi‑actor coordination, DER integration, regulatory friction, fragmented data, and AI that cannot scale without governance. This is the strongest proving ground for ecosystem architecture.

Why it’s ideal to really provide the Ecosystem architecture
The grid is where GE Vernova’s ecosystem complexity is most visible — and where architectural clarity creates immediate value.

2. Industrial Electrification — where domains collide

Industry, grid, digital, and sustainability converge here. The friction between actors is high, and the absence of a unifying architecture is slowing progress. This is where GE Vernova can create immediate coherence.

Why it’s ideal for a robust ecosystem design
This domain exposes GE Vernova’s cross‑domain misalignment and partner incoherence.

Quadrant 2 — High Complexity × Low Maturity

→ STRATEGIC SHAPING OPPORTUNITIES

These domains are early‑stage but strategically decisive.
The IIBE allows GE Vernova to shape the ecosystem before others do.

3. Hydrogen — a rare chance to shape an ecosystem early

Hydrogen is still architecturally undefined. No dominant orchestrator exists. GE Vernova can design roles, flows, and governance before the ecosystem calcifies.

Why it’s ideal:
GE Vernova can define roles, flows, and governance before the ecosystem calcifies

4. Storage — the hinge between renewables and the grid

Storage is structurally pivotal but lacks ecosystem governance. It is a natural proving ground for ecosystem design.It requires multi‑actor coordination, No ecosystem governance exists

Why it’s ideal:
Storage is structurally pivotal but architecturally undefined.

Quadrant 3 — Medium Complexity × Medium Maturity

→ SECONDARY IIBE APPLICATIONS

These domains benefit from ecosystem architecture but are not the first entry point.

5. Renewables — strong assets, weak cross‑domain coherence

Wind, solar, storage, and grid interconnection need a unifying intelligence layer. The IIBE provides it.

Why it’s useful:
The IIBE can create coherence across assets and partners.

Quadrant 4 — Low Complexity × High Maturity

→ REFRAME, NOT REBUILD

These domains are mature but lack ecosystem logic.
They need reframing, not restructuring. They need building out different capabilities at the Ecosystem level to unify the architecture.

6. Digital — not a platform, but the intelligence fabric

Digital should not be rebuilt as a platform. It should be reframed as the intelligence layer that connects all domains. GE has very strong digital assets yet weak ecosystem coherence with Predix trauma still shapes the thinking.

This map gives a clean, structural way to work through GE Vernova to explore where the IIBE lands first — and why.

The point is simple:
GE Vernova doesn’t need another platform. It needs an ecosystem architecture.

And the proving grounds are already visible. The companies that recognise these proving grounds — and architect them — and GE Vernova is in a very good position to move quickly as they can lead the next decade of the energy transition. The ones that don’t will be orchestrated by others.

If it sparks any internal dialogue within GE, I’d be glad to expand on the architectural lens behind it.

The post GE Vernova: finding their Proving Grounds for Ecosystem Leadership first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

When Ecosystem Strength Quietly Becomes Strategic Constraint

In energy and industrial sectors, many of the most capable organisations are experiencing a paradox they rarely are able to name. There is a constant uncomfortable feeling of “we are not achieving the leverage and our role is becoming less clear and surely growth is not just investing more, have we more structural problems?”

The results seemingly point to they are performing well. They have strong installed bases and this keeps evolving.. The investments made, although intially heavily in digital, automation, partnerships, and platforms have enabled new offerings and solutions, yet this could be better.

And yet, behind closed doors, a different conversation is emerging:

“We feel slower to adapt than the market now requires — despite doing all the right things.”

This isn’t a technology issue or even a capability gap. It isn’t even a strategy problem in the traditional sense.. It is an ecosystem condition that needs a different way to look at the design and architecture of the Ecosystem offering itself.

Over time, success has led to:

• tightly integrated operating models
• long-cycle capital commitments
• deeply embedded partners
• governance structures optimised for reliability, not adaptability

Each decision made sense. Each reduced risk. Each delivered value. Yet that “take off” or real value realisation has not occured. Why?

Collectively, they have quietly consumed strategic freedom and not recognised the need to reflect and revamp the Ecosystem to changing circumstances and more mature curcumstances within the market.

What leaders are beginning to realise — often uncomfortably — is that ecosystems don’t just enable growth. They also accumulate constraint.

This shows up as:

• fewer viable strategic pivots
• higher cost of change
• political and operational friction when direction shifts
• difficulty exiting, reshaping, or re-orchestrating parts of the ecosystem

The critical moment comes when leaders begin to ask a different question:

“How much real choice do we still have — and what has it or will it cost us to preserve or lose it?”

That question isn’t about the future. It’s about recognising the present. Conditions are changing and rapidly, competitors are even more and catching up. Differences are being eroded.

In energy and industry, ecosystems were often built early, at scale, and under pressure. Many were born before the full implications of dependency, governance, and optionality were understood.

Recognising this isn’t failure. It’s that need of leadership asking the right questions- what are the recognition mechanisms there are alternative, smart and clear ways to recognise the specific ecosystem conditions “residing inside” having growing impact on their business performance.

There are deeper symptoms quietly limiting strategic choice and are “we” recognizing the right problems before committing more action?

Because until constraint is seen, it cannot be resolved — and action taken without recognition often deepens the entrapment. Sometimes the most important move isn’t accelerating forward — it’s understanding what is quietly holding you in place. A time for “Quiet Learning“

There is a structured diagnostic system, that is problem-led, not solution-led where it is designed to surface what leaders or those involved often miss. To have a way to surface and distingush symptoms and structural causes. It reveals consequences for the leadership team to self-determine and take action.

The approach to Ecosystem solutions

The post Are Industrial and Energy Titans at a Crossroads as Ecosystem Strength Becomes Strategic Constraint? first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

There Are Times When Engineering Excellence Becomes a Constraint and that is what Energy and Industrial Leaders Are Quietly Learning About Ecosystems. They are becoming more constrained by what they have or how they operate.

Across energy and industrial markets, a paradox is emerging.

The companies best equipped to lead the next phase of the energy transition and industrial transformation — Siemens AG, Siemens Energy, Schneider Electric, ABB, GE Vernova, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — are also the ones most constrained by their own success.

They are faced with difficult decisions to be made to move their Ecosystems forward. They are all facing different levels of entrapment and need to carefully figure what it is they need to do.

This is not a failure of imagination, technology, or ambition on their behalf, to the contrary. It is something more subtle, and more dangerous. It needs to recognize their accumulation of *Enterprise Option Debt among other inhibitors to future Ecosystem building.

The Hidden Cost of Success

Over decades, these organisations have built extraordinary capability:

• Deep engineering excellence
• Global installed bases
• Trusted customer relationships
• Capital-intensive infrastructure
• Long-cycle innovation pipelines

In stable environments, these are decisive advantages. In volatile, challenging and rapidly changing times, where ecosystem-driven environments are needed to be highly adaptive and agile, they quietly reduce freedom by not recognizing these build ups of Option Debt. This “debt” consumes future choice.

It is not realized ecosystems create option debt faster than individual firms because of multiple stakeholders makes choice collective and therefore harder to unwind.

Each irreversible investment, governance layer, integration choice, and operating assumption trades future adaptability for present efficiency. Over time, this trade becomes structural, it inhibits, your degree of freedom is shrinking..

The result is not weakness — it is constrained agility. It “boxes” choice

A Comparative Ecosystem Reality

When viewed through an ecosystem lens — not strategy or operating models — clear differences emerge. Yet to get to this right place to evaluate you need to learn more on the uncomfortable truths about your Ecosystems. Often who within the decision-making process is prepared to “put their hand up” and really challenge the existing?

Most engaged in managing in the present Ecosystem offering might be recognizing a slowing down, less uptake within their netwrk partners or a worrying sigh something is wrong without puttling their finger on it.

So often they revert to these growing concerns by responding by adding initiatives, reorganising responsibilities, or pursuing transformation programmes. While well-intentioned, these responses often increase complexity without addressing the underlying system behaviour that created the exposure in the first place.

There is a need for a real assessment. A radically different one

Taking a look at SIX of the biggest players in Energy or the Industrial sector

Schneider Electric stands out in Ecosystem leadership not because it is more advanced, as it is more focused.
Its tight domain definition around electrification, energy management, and digital control has allowed it to design optionality into its ecosystem architecture. Modular platforms, partner agency, and federated governance preserve adaptability. Option Debt exists, but it is managed deliberately. Schneider Electric by its market positioning has the leading Ecosystem approach yet it has constrains within this that need addressing to maintain its advantage and ecsystem value.

Siemens AG, by contrast, represents the challenge of scale.
World-class innovation exists across mobility, industry, digital, infrastructure, and energy — but enterprise-wide coherence increasingly slows ecosystem reconfiguration. The divisionalization and market approaches are different and need a different type of Governance and Orchestration. Indications are integration itself has become a source of friction as well as struggling with partner participation and identification. Optionality has not disappeared, it is been building up but it is now expensive to access or reduce down, without some very difficult Ecosystem design and architecture decisions to be made.

Siemens Energy reveals a different constraint.
Spun out, redefined, and now stabilising, it faces the combined pressure of legacy assets and transition volatility. Adaptive capacity is emerging — but governance, installed base commitments, and regulatory exposure slow decision-making precisely when pace matters most. The shift from internal coordination and margin improvement now needs to move to a different level of customer engagement within more open ecosystem collaborations.

ABB sits in the disciplined middle.
Strong portfolio governance, capital rigor, and selective ecosystem engagement protect margins and execution — but they also suppress experimentation. Optionality exists, but it must be justified in advance rather than discovered through controlled exploration. This really needs internal recognition. The constraints imposed internally are holding back the hidden vitality within ABB for more open Ecosystem designs.

GE Vernova illustrates something rarer: recovery.
Having paid a high price for historic entanglement and overreach, it is actively paying down Option Debt. Decentralisation, focus, and ecosystem reorientation are rebuilding freedom. The risk now is not direction, but sustaining momentum before new constraints accumulate. The need to go back and treat Ecosystem design with fresh thinking, partly learning from the past but partly seeing the new “released” freedom beckoning. Building a new collaborative position needs careful managing not to repeat past mistakes.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shows the cost of excellence without flow.
Engineering depth is unquestioned, but national mission, vertical silos, and segmented governance inhibit ecosystem learning and recombination. Optionality is present in theory, but difficult to mobilise and evolve in practice. MHI really needs to explore Ecosystems in design and applying a different engineering mindset to Ecosystems, so they might galvanize this and catch up with other stronger Ecosystem players.

The organization that learns to engineer flow will lead the next industrial energy era.

The Pattern Beneath the Differences

Across all of them, the same structural forces recur:

• Capital intensity slows reversibility
• Installed bases anchor decision-making
• Governance designed for reliability resists volatility
• Engineering cultures privilege proof over exploration

None of these are flaws.
They are the logical outcomes of success in earlier eras. Times change, markets afapt, regulation demands adaptability and greater agiity.

The problem is that ecosystems now move faster than these structures allow.

Why Ecosystem Thinking Is No Longer Optional

This is precisely where ecosystem thinking becomes essential — not as collaboration rhetoric, but as enterprise design discipline.

An ecosystem lens approach exposes what traditional strategy misses:

• Where integration is helping — and where it is constraining
• Where coherence is valuable — and where autonomy is essential
• Where optionality has been unintentionally consumed
• Where adaptation is theoretically possible but practically slow

In other words, it reveals how much freedom remains and many of the hidden costs needing to be removed..

The Leadership Question Has Changed

The central executive question is no longer: “Do we have the right strategy, technology, or assets?”

It is now:“How much room (and time) do we still have to change — and at what cost?”

Organisations that can answer that honestly will shape the next decade. Those that cannot will continue to optimise excellence while slowly losing relevance.

The Emerging Advantage

The companies most likely to lead are not those with the most assets, but those that:

• design modularity at the ecosystem level
• treat governance as adaptive infrastructure
• preserve optionality deliberately
• allow ecosystems to evolve at different speeds within the enterprise

This is not about abandoning engineering discipline. It is about matching it with ecosystem intelligence.

• The engineer of the future builds systems that learn.
• Adaptive governance replaces control with coherence.
• Ecosystem thinking becomes the discipline of continuous renewal.

A Final Thought

Enterprise Option Debt is not inevitable — but it is cumulative.

The leaders who recognise it early gain a quiet but decisive advantage: they regain the freedom to move while others are still debating why movement feels so hard.

That is the real ecosystem divide now forming — and it has little to do with ambition, and everything to do with designed adaptability.

Sometimes the most valuable move is not action, but clarity. Clarity becomes a strategic asset

We need to recognize many organisations today are surrounded by partners, platforms, alliances, and innovation initiatives — yet feel less strategically free than they did a few years ago. Read “The uncomfortable truth about your Ecosystem to realise you are not alone, far from it.

We don’t assess your ecosystem strategy — we diagnose your ecosystem’s health, freedom to adapt, and hidden constraints.

What we have built here to reveal those inhibitors with a Diagnostic and risk-sensing approach, designed to reveal why success stalls or fails, and explicitly surfaces fragility, option loss, and governance latency

The post Are Energy and Industrial Leaders Quietly Learning About Ecosystems? first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

There have been so many success stories, specifically in industry and the energy transition, that are so reliant on collaborations and co-creations, coming from essential ecosystem design and thinking. This is partly why I focus on the Energy Transition and Industrial Transformation for my innovation and ecosystem work.

Let us remind ourselves where those collaborations between different stakeholders deliver real change in radical, innovative solutions.

They will only build out further in 2024:

1. Renewable Energy Collaborations: In the energy sector, various collaborations between renewable energy companies, technology providers, and government bodies have led to developing innovative solutions. For instance, offshore wind energy projects often involve partnerships between energy companies, engineering firms, and local authorities to generate efficient and sustainable energy.
2. Smart Grid and Energy Management: Utility companies are partnering with technology firms to build smart grids and implement energy management solutions. These ecosystems enable better control and optimization of energy distribution, reducing energy wastage and increasing efficiency.
3. Electric Vehicle Ecosystems: The automotive industry is shifting toward electric vehicles (EVs). Ecosystems are forming around EV charging infrastructure, battery technology, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration. Companies like Tesla and EV charging networks are examples of players contributing to this transition.
4. Energy Storage Innovations: Ecosystems involving energy storage providers, renewable energy companies, and grid operators are driving advancements in battery technology and energy storage solutions. These innovations support the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources into the grid.
5. Industrial Energy Efficiency: Industries are collaborating with energy service providers to improve energy efficiency. These ecosystems lead to implementing technologies like energy monitoring systems, predictive maintenance, and process optimization, reducing energy consumption and costs that require broad collaborations to deliver final solutions.
6. Circular Economy Initiatives: The concept of a circular economy involves minimizing waste and maximizing resource efficiency. Ecosystems are forming around recycling, remanufacturing, and waste-to-energy solutions, contributing to sustainable practices within industries requiring collaborative approaches.
7. Hydrogen Ecosystems: The development of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier involves collaborations among energy companies, industrial manufacturers, and research institutions. These ecosystems focus on various sectors’ hydrogen production, storage, distribution, and utilization.
8. Building Energy Management: Ecosystems in the construction and real estate sectors are centred around intelligent building technologies. Integrating energy-efficient systems, IoT devices, and data analytics optimizes energy use and enhances occupant comfort.
9. Decentralized Energy Solutions: Microgrids and decentralized energy systems are emerging ecosystems that allow communities, campuses, and industries to generate, store, and manage their own energy. These solutions increase resilience and reduce dependency on centralized grids.
10. Collaborative Research and Innovation: Universities, research institutions, and industry partners are forming ecosystems to drive research and innovation in energy transition technologies. This collaboration accelerates the development and adoption of breakthrough solutions.

These success stories demonstrate how ecosystem thinking is pivotal in driving the energy transition and creating positive impacts across industries. Collaborations between stakeholders with diverse expertise are crucial for addressing complex energy challenges and achieving sustainable outcomes.

I do not doubt that ecosystem thinking and design will form an even more prominent part of the energy transition in 2024. Collaborations will be at the forefront of thinking to tackle complex challenges and provide solutions that can rapidly scale on platform solutions.

Welcome to 2024 for building even more energy and industrial transition momentum.

The post Seeking more Energy Transition Ecosystem Success Stories in 2024 first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

A range of success stories showcase the value of ecosystem thinking in different industries relating to the energy transition. These are important to emphasise as they recognize the importance of combining a mix of stakeholders, technologies and organizations in interconnected and interdependent ways.

Ask how we can leverage and use Ecosystem thinking and design to promote innovation within the Energy Transition, as it is a powerful approach to radical change. By fostering collaborations and synergies, you can accelerate the development and adoption of innovative solutions for the energy transition.

Before we look at examples of ecosystem thinking and designs applied, we should consider a step-by-step guide to use and apply ecosystem thinking and design applicable to the energy transition.

How to use ecosystem thinking and design for this purpose:

Gain an understanding of the Ecosystem: Begin by mapping out the energy transition ecosystem (subsystem). Identify key stakeholders, such as governments, research institutions, energy companies, technology startups, investors, regulatory bodies, and consumers. Understand their roles, motivations, challenges, and interests in the energy transition.

Start to sketch out and Identify the Innovation Opportunities: Look for gaps, challenges, and opportunities within the ecosystem. Consider areas where innovation is needed to overcome barriers to the energy transition, such as renewable energy integration, energy storage, grid modernization, electrification of transportation, and more.

Begin to figure out how to build Collaboration Networks: Facilitate collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Explore platforms, conferences, workshops, and forums where stakeholders can come together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and collaborate on innovative solutions. Discuss cross-sector partnerships and open innovation models to stimulate engagement and identification.

Look to the support of Startups and Entrepreneurs: Find avenues with a supportive environment for startups and entrepreneurs working on energy transition technologies. Always look at any access to funding, mentorship, and resources. Incubators, accelerators, and innovation hubs can be crucial in nurturing new ideas, but the ecosystem’s health is in the funding, involvement and support.

Draw up a kick-starter approach to gaining attention and having an Ecosystem thinking checklist.

Promote Information Sharing: Develop mechanisms for sharing information, research, and data to stimulate exchanging and thinking. Open data initiatives can help researchers, innovators, and policymakers access valuable information to drive innovation and achieve a quicker formation of an ecosystem network to work on an idea or concept.

Highlight potential Regulatory Challenges: Find independent bodies willing to invest time and expertise with regulatory bodies to set about and create a conducive environment for innovation. Seek out regulations that map out a pathway to accommodate new technologies and business models while ensuring safety, security, and sustainability while making any transition.

Seek out that ‘combination effect’ that encourages Technological Diversity: Embrace various technological solutions to explore and seek willing bodies or entities to test them. Energy transitions require a mix of renewable sources, energy storage systems, smart grids, and demand response mechanisms. Avoid overly focusing on a single technology and instead promote a diverse portfolio.

Innovation needs to focus on User-Centric Design consistently: Prioritize user needs and preferences when designing innovative solutions. Whether it’s consumers, businesses, or communities, understanding their requirements can lead to more effective and adopted technologies.

Work through a fast, hopefully agile approach to solution-finding

Experiment and Iterate: Embrace a culture of experimentation and iteration. Test new ideas in controlled environments, gather feedback, and refine solutions based on real-world experiences.

Measure and Evaluate: Establish metrics to measure the impact of innovation within the ecosystem. Monitor key performance indicators related to energy generation, emissions reduction, economic growth, job creation, and other relevant factors.

Use the outcomes to advocate early for Policy Changes: Collaborate with policymakers to advocate for policies that support innovation and the energy transition. Policy changes can incentivise investment, research, and development in clean energy technologies.

Bring others in to educate and raise awareness: Educate the public and stakeholders about the benefits and importance of the energy transition concept you can see has potential value. A well-informed society is more likely to support and demand innovative solutions. By applying ecosystem thinking and platform designs, you can offer a collaborative environment to accelerate ideas into concepts into commercial success.

Promoting innovation within the energy transition requires a long-term commitment and a holistic perspective. By fostering collaboration, embracing diversity, and focusing on user needs, you can create an ecosystem that accelerates the adoption of innovative technologies and paves the way for a sustainable energy future.

It is by working through this step-by-step thinking you see emerging possibilities.

Indeed, some success stories showcase the value of ecosystem thinking in various industries, particularly in the energy transition context.

There is the opportunity to accelerate these areas by applying ecosystem thinking and design and leverage new opportunities as the foundation pathways have been established to work through the steps outlined above fairly methodically quickly:

We have real examples of ecosystems across many of the parts of the Energy Transition

1. Renewable Energy Collaborations: In the energy sector, various collaborations between renewable energy companies, technology providers, and government bodies have led to the developing of innovative solutions. For instance, offshore wind energy projects often involve partnerships between energy companies, engineering firms, and local authorities to generate efficient and sustainable energy.
2. Smart Grid and Energy Management: Utility companies are partnering with technology firms to build smart grids and implement energy management solutions. These ecosystems enable better control and optimization of energy distribution, reducing energy wastage and increasing efficiency.
3. Electric Vehicle Ecosystems: The automotive industry is shifting toward electric vehicles (EVs). Ecosystems are forming around EV charging infrastructure, battery technology, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration. Companies like Tesla and EV charging networks are examples of players contributing to this transition.
4. Energy Storage Innovations: Ecosystems involving energy storage providers, renewable energy companies, and grid operators are driving advancements in battery technology and energy storage solutions. These innovations support the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources into the grid.
5. Industrial Energy Efficiency: Industries are collaborating with energy service providers to improve energy efficiency. These ecosystems lead to implementing technologies like energy monitoring systems, predictive maintenance, and process optimization, reducing energy consumption and costs.
6. Circular Economy Initiatives: A circular economy minimises waste and maximises resource efficiency. Ecosystems are forming around recycling, remanufacturing, and waste-to-energy solutions, contributing to sustainable practices within industries.
7. Hydrogen Ecosystems: The development of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier involves collaborations among energy companies, industrial manufacturers, and research institutions. These ecosystems focus on various sectors’ hydrogen production, storage, distribution, and utilization.
8. Building Energy Management: Ecosystems in the construction and real estate sectors are centred around smart, intelligent building technologies. Integrating energy-efficient systems, IoT devices, and data analytics optimizes energy use and enhances occupant comfort.
9. Decentralized Energy Solutions: Microgrids and decentralized energy systems are emerging ecosystems that allow communities, campuses, and industries to generate, store, and manage their own energy. These solutions increase resilience and reduce dependency on centralized grids.
10. Collaborative Research and Innovation: Universities, research institutions, and industry partners are forming ecosystems to drive research and innovation in energy transition technologies. This collaboration accelerates the development and adoption of breakthrough solutions.

These success stories demonstrate ecosystem thinking is pivotal in driving the energy transition and creating positive impacts across industries. Collaborations between stakeholders with diverse expertise are crucial for addressing complex energy challenges and achieving sustainable outcomes.

Our job is to leverage the concept of Ecosystem thinking and design to unleash its potential and accelerate innovative, sustainable and progressive solutions in changing our Energy approaches.

The post Where are the success stories of Ecosystem thinking in the Energy Transition? first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

Managing Governance within Ecosystem Designs

Governance needs to constantly “account” for change. Here is a handy reference or reflection of its capacity to deliver:

You need a living environment, one that evolves constantly

+ Here, you must establish a relational, institutional and coordination set of strategic and operational approaches. The “living” document needs to reflect on the constant reshaping of the ecosystem as it evolves and recognize that this is a constantly evolving design.

+ Governance needs to articulate the influencing and coordinating mechanisms, their different levels, and the protocols and procedures to resolve any disputes or pathway directions all would need to follow and adhere to.

+ It needs to determine the boundary conditions and if and when these change, which they are most likely to, there is a mechanism in place to recognize this and determine any new scope, direction or design to be accepted going forward.

+ A governance document must have built into it sufficient commonality and be transparent in its spirit of amiability to coordination and decision-making.

+ It needs to determine the critical driving forces but equally reflect on the different catalyzing forces in tensions and design that individual members will attempt to impose, so there needs a resolution method to be able to go back and refer to.

+ there is a constant need to adjust and adapt as more insight and design take shape and evolves.

+ Managing dynamic tensions carefully can result in significant thinking and design solutions breakthroughs.

+ There will be very different cognitive frames constantly occurring, as we all see something more unknown than known in our own ways of thinking and experiences. The Governance mechanism should attempt to reflect this variance but have the controls to recognize and draw those increasingly into one view, vision and mission.

+ What you start with inevitably does not stand the test of time, certainly when you are in a creative, innovative, pioneering environment. Checking constantly builds the changing view, allowing options to reflect this in parts of the vision and mission so all those involved have an understanding that this is a “living, breathing evolution.”

+ All ecosystems evolve or will eventually die. The ability to design in some constantly proactively shaping, steering, and leveraging mechanisms helps. How this is handled, communicated and discussed becomes a critical ‘living force’ to construct. Ideas form, mature and then need challenge as they go into decline.

+ The whole need to address inertia or free-riders does need carefully designed into the document. Those that cannot support creation have a lesser place in any ecosystem. They cannot or should not stop evolution. Those not contributing need to recognize the consequences of ecosystem thinking of natural selection; they need to have specific fitness, robustness, and resilience to be valued. Otherwise, what they offer has no future value, and they must leave for the health of all still willing to the evolving nature of Ecosystems.

Never rest on Governance being a static document or set of initial principles; it can be the very catalyst and promotor of a living, dynamic ecosystem as it “promotes and nurtures” change.

There is always a need for a strong orchestrator; here is my opening suggesting “Orchestrating the New Ecosystem Business Design” to kick start any thinking.

My other thoughts are to spend some time on the excellent series offering practical guidance on Ecosystems from BCG Henderson Institute and one specific article relating to Governance, “How do you manage a Business Ecosystem.” It recommends pursuing the orchestrator’s need to manage the governance of an ecosystem with three key primary objectives: 1. Support value creation of the ecosystem, 2. Manage risk in the ecosystem, and 3. Optimize value distribution amongst the ecosystem partners.

BCG also suggest, “Orchestrators must establish an effective governance model, which we (BCG) define as the set of (explicit or implicit) structures, rules and practices that frame and govern the behaviour and interplay of participants in a business ecosystem.”

Governance is always essential in any Ecosystem or Network of Collaborators. It should NEVER be deemed as static, written when the Ecosystem is formed and then just simply left in place. It must be central within conversations, challenged and updated by consensus and encouraged to be highly dynamic and constantly at the very core to keeping the Ecosystem healthy and thriving.

It requires the driving forces of value creation and the recognition that growth and sustainability are part of its foundation

It provides the rules, mechanisms and framing for all the partners to sign on to and use as (one of) the foundation documents, to refer to on a constant basis, as issues arise and need some level of resolution.

Governance of Ecosystems is vital, it needs that constant dynamic to bring any collaboration to life and provide an environment that thrives and improves on what is existing.

• Partly taken from a previous post, “The Constantly Living Dynamics of Ecosystem Governance always needed.”

The post Governance within Ecosystems first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

Today, 29th June 2022, Siemens launched Siemens Xcelerator across its entire portfolio to accelerate digital transformation and value creation for customers of all sizes in industry, buildings, grids and mobility. The business platform makes digital transformation easier, faster and scalable.

Xcelerator is an open digital business platform, that will enable hardware, software and digital services from across all of Siemen’s portfolios and also will bring in certified third parties, to provide a growing ecosystem of partners, provide an evolving marketplace to accelerate the digital transformation and provide interactions and transactions between customers, partners and developers. The really big story is the moving toward an Industrial Metaverse through the power of this Xcelerator platform and its future potential in a new exciting partnership with NVIDIA.

This is a step-by-step transformational journey

Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG remarked Xcelerator “is the logical next step in the implementation of our digitalization strategy to enable even faster innovation and value creation. Siemens Xcelerator brings the power of our focused technology company together with a thriving ecosystem of technology partners. We are joining together to simplify digital transformation so that customers of all sizes can benefit at speed and scale.”

He went on to state “Siemens Xcelerator will make it easier than ever before for companies to navigate digital transformation – faster and at scale. By combining the real and the digital worlds across operational and information technology, we empower customers and partners to boost productivity, competitiveness and scale up innovations.”

“Our leading portfolio is transformed towards more open applications, with more cloud-based and as-a-service solutions and IoT-enabled hardware that can be constantly upgraded. At the same time, the collaboration will reach a new level with a growing ecosystem of partners.”

Siemens generated Euro 62.3 billion in revenue in fiscal 2021, employing around 303,000 employees worldwide that provides solutions to more resource-efficient factories, resilient supply chains, and smarter buildings and grids, to cleaner and more comfortable transportation as well as advanced healthcare. Siemens states very clearly it creates technology with purpose, adding real value for customers.

What Siemens Xcelerator comprises and will move towards achieving

Xcelerator is a curated portfolio, a growing ecosystem and an evolving marketplace that will build out over the coming months and years. The complexity of this transformation is huge. and will be taken step by step.

It is a very big deal with the commitment of “Siemens will transform its entire portfolio of hardware and software to become modular, cloud-connected and built on standard application programming interfaces (APIs). The highest standards and value for all parties will be ensured by strong technical and commercial governance principles. Siemens and third-party offerings will adhere to the design principles of interoperability, flexibility, openness and as-a-service”

In my view, to take their “entire leading portfolio and transform it towards more open applications, with more cloud-based and as-a-service solutions and IoT-enabled hardware that can be constantly upgraded. At the same time, the collaboration will reach a new level with a growing ecosystem of partners.” is a massive undertaking when you adhere to these design principles of offering interoperability, flexibility, openness and as-a-service.

The launch event was chock full of examples, of industrial leaders from Science & Technology, Space Exploration, Transport, Vehicles, and Grid providers all giving their view of a future, a future of collaborations

Please visit the launch site here where it provides much of the different launch material from today’s event.

The need to replicate and learn

A real message was the ambition through Xcelerator is to replicate and learn, to gain from one set of experiences and challenges, in one industry, or a building or grid solution and scale that out, not so much a plug and play but a plug & run. The ability to optimise the end-to-end system value.

During the launch event, three parts of the transformation being undertaken were additionally announced.

• Launch of new Building X end-to-end smart building Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite
  • Planned acquisition of Brightly Software will accelerate growth in digital buildings complementing Siemens’ smart building portfolio
  • Partner ecosystem grows through industrial metaverse partnership with NVIDIA for physics-based, immersive digital twin development

New SaaS launch with Building X kicking this off

Siemens Smart Infrastructure has launched Building X, a new smart building suite that is open, interoperable and fully cloud-based. The suite is the first next-generation offering built on the design principles of Siemens Xcelerator, an open digital business platform launched today to accelerate digital transformation and value creation across industry, transportation, grids and buildings. The “X” stands for delivering these design principles of offering interoperability, flexibility, openness and as-a-service.

Explaining Building X

Building X addresses the challenges of various stakeholders, including building users, investors, real estate companies and facility managers. It acts as a single source of truth to eliminate complexity and supports net-zero targets. Stakeholders can now digitize and use their building data from various sources, disciplines and systems on one single platform, Building X.

This enables a seamless user experience and the integration of their existing software and ecosystem, including third-party applications, through vendor-agnostic connectivity and open application programming interfaces (APIs). The suite offers modular, AI-enabled applications, and built-in cyber security. It also facilitates co-creation with customers and partners to address their challenges faster, thanks to the openness and cloud technology, which means digital transformation can be achieved easier, faster and at scale.

* I will pick up on this in a separate post as it brings to life the modular, scalable, open building suite that is designed to seamlessly integrate building systems to eliminate current complexity and enables the combination of sustainability goals and accelerating solutions to reach net-zero buildings.

Secondly, to build out Building X on Monday, June 27, 2022, Siemens announced the agreement to purchase Brightly Software, a leading U.S.-based asset and maintenance management software company. The acquisition will add Brightly‘s well-established capabilities across key sectors to Siemens’ digital and software know-how in buildings. It will be an additional core element of the Siemens Xcelerator for Buildings portfolio.

Thirdly a partnership announcement that continues to build out the Ecosystem network of Siemens with the announcement that with NVIDIA the plan is for a new era of immersive digital twin technology

Siemens will be making a considerable expansion to its Ecosystem of partners. It is committing significantly to joining forces and growing a strong partner ecosystem, building on existing strategic partnerships including Accenture, Atos, AWS, Bentley, Microsoft and SAP. The intention is to expand the partner ecosystem with multiple small, medium and large companies to solve problems by finding the right partnership solutions.

NVIDIA is the first major partnership agreement under the Siemens Xcelerator umbrella. The two companies today announced an expansion of their partnership to enable the industrial metaverse and increase the use of AI-driven digital twin technology that will help bring industrial automation to a new level. As the first step in this collaboration, the companies plan to connect Siemens Xcelerator, the open digital business platform and NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for 3D design and collaboration. This will enable an industrial metaverse with physics-based digital models from Siemens and AI-enabled, physically accurate, real-time simulation from NVIDIA where companies make decisions faster and with increased confidence.

Here the ambition of building out the Industrial Metaverse begins to come to life. The power of having a digital twin to enable the real and virtual worlds to come together, to be simulated, to be tested, and designed before the actual real world. The exciting partnership offers a significant change to how the digital transformation will travel.

Picking up in the press release and within the event solutions for IIoT are building at a pace equally

A further part of the event mentions that Siemens also plans to integrate its industrial internet of things (IIoT) solutions for industry as Industrial Operations X, which brings together solutions and applications from the sensor to edge to cloud, IoT as-a-service and low code development capabilities, as well as a wide range of ready-to-use-apps. This will enable the fusion of data from the real world of automation with the digital world of information technology, enriched by Siemens’ comprehensive vertical IT/ OT integration knowledge and capabilities.

The key here, like all that Xcelerator is planning to do, finding solutions with partners that set about breaking down data silos and customer challenges to help companies to increase their performance, productivity, flexibility and sustainability. That alone is not a small deal it is the ability to enable faster innovation and value creation, to transform and why Xcelerator becomes the connector and power to enable the realization of Siemens being a focused technology company together in a thriving ecosystem of technology partners.

The beginning of a very different Siemens dawned today

The outcome for me is that today’s event begins the transformation of a very different business model for Siemens, one that moves from selling products to selling solutions and outcomes that the customer wants. If they want a box, product, or machine, then fine but if they want a complete solution then Siemens and its partners can find and offer the solution.

I want to absorb the multiple points of what was present here, it was arguable massive in ambition but so is the digital transition. Siemens has put a clear stake in the ground in transforming themselves and providing this Xcelerator platform that brings their portfolio (and others) around a growing Ecosystem and providing a growing marketplace of solutions, not products, to the challenges of making a step change within the industrial digital transformation

Please visit the Siemens site for all the different press releases relating to today’s event and this link to the specific launch page.

Disclaimer: This article is published in partnership with Siemens. Siemens is paying for my engagement, not for promotional purposes. Opinions are my own

The post Siemens launches Xcelerator for navigating the digital transformation first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

In twenty-odd minutes, Thomas Kiessling outlined to an audience of knowledgeable Energy experts his seven points to help prepare an energy company to make a transforming change.

By using specific examples of the needs in Electricity and the Grid Edge to underline the changes needed to be undertaken, he “fleshed out” these seven steps by recognizing all the seven do need to be embraced collectively.

Thomas Kiessling is the CTO of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, and within his keynote at the Enlit Europe event, held in Milan between 30th November to 2nd December 2021, provided seven needs for transitional change to prepare any energy company “As all of us will go through disruption and opportunity.”.

The primary point of his keynote I covered in a more extensive review here of “how to prepare as an Energy Company for significant disruption.”

Kiessling said the industry “has entered a much greater degree of uncertainty. And uncertainty needs entrepreneurs; it needs trial and error, and it needs system-scale innovation.”

Today as we transform our power generation into renewables, we face ageing powerlines, struggling to add capacity, a lack of (real-time) awareness, difficulties in controlling the voltage, especially at the grid edge. His examples were limited due to time but solely to illustrate the need for a more comprehensive evaluation of his seven needs.

Kiessling points out the challenges ahead where a seven-fold increase in renewables is projected with still the overriding number one objective of having the security of supply and resilience within the system being paramount.

The Seven Transition Needs to prepare as an Energy Company

Firstly today, the need is to apply cutting edge technology.

Transition need one: The security of supply, resilience, and automation

Using specific examples of where applying cutting edge technology will give this security of supply, resilience and automation.

Point One: Kiessling points out we will see less inertia and less short circuit power in the networks. There will need to be more sophisticated fault detection algorithms. Kiessling believes there is a need is to change the network protection architecture of the network itself. For example, the overcurrent and distance protection might need to be substituted by differential protections. AI technology will help to do this.

The good news here suggested by Thomas Kiessling is that AI and Analytics are well on their way to help in this transformation to control and operate the network in a “real-time” fashion. This shift in managing the system’s demands becomes a major transiting challenge.

Point two made here was shifting from static monitoring to a more dynamic setup. The present static load flow calculation to operate the network needs different thinking. As rotating masses are progressively removed, it will require different approaches with renewables towards a more dynamic data-driven environment.

Kiessling liked this, in an interesting comparison, to “resembling a patient-monitoring system during heart surgery” – one that was dynamic, self-healing and would evolve into a “system of systems”. This monitoring system needs to understand the system’s metrics in a real-time fashion to understand if dangerous situations are coming over the network to respond to these.

Point three– the need for self-healing networks. Closed-loop switching to help isolate and restore network segments in fast fashions and applies a different total fault metric to this.

The need comes to the point of a system of systems for semi-autonomous parts of the network, driven by renewables can then manage themselves and contribute to the overhaul resilience of the network, so it becomes a “resilient, decentralized and autonomous system”.

These transitions will need industry cooperation to mature these technologies and set all the energy systems up for the planned and expected growth.

As pointed out in the keynote- we all need to learn how to deal with data, and this is a cultural change where the need for data scientists, data lakes and IT/OT need to come together in new, radically different ways.

Transition need 2: Digitalization and Data

The challenge is validating and enriching the data to make it useable.

One example provided here is how Smart Meters are now going beyond just billing, but a deeper verification for providing data that increases the awareness of the network of power consumption, specifically on the grid edge. This shift enables improved metrics, planning and operational management for capacity planning, better aggregation insights, forecasting potential, ultimately improving the industry’s capital efficiencies and allowing the prosumer to participate.

Transition need 3: Innovation and proactivity

Kiessling’s example here was the use of power electronics; inverter-based resources will inform and stabilize the grid and protect the infrastructure.

The massive opportunities here are system-scale innovation and reinvention, yet there are three fundamental issues to tackle for shifting to inverters that need innovation and collaboration.

1. Inverters from different manufacturers require generic inverter models, enabling standardization to achieve a rotator-free network across the industry.
2. Challenge two: In more significant transmission scenarios, the inverters are located at a larger distance, increasing the risk of more weakly damped oscillations. Therefore, we need accurate simulation models and algorithms and present challenge
3. The issue of time-varying eigen modes is a challenge to be addressed. As the generation changes between conventional and inverter-based (or renewable) generation from hour to hour, the oscillatory behaviour of your power system will change, this requires an operator support system that continuously analyses the dynamics, and if needed, the power system needs to adjust on the fly to secure N-1 failure security.

One example offered within the keynote was operating, simulating and monitoring islands (actual physical islands) as rotation free, here Siemens has several larger-scale projects around the world.

In conclusion, to get to a rotation, free network in most countries calls for a system scale innovation for the energy community to work together to resolve and scale these specific challenges.

Transition need 4: Dealing with Cooperation at all levels

For example, TSOs and DSOs must cooperate more to cope with volatile inputs from renewables

Offered following the keynote to explain this cooperation point Kiessling gave a concrete example of how such cooperation can help speed progress to carbon-free networks:

With less and less TSO control of conventional power plants and rotating masses, the TSO’s mission to secure grid balance will be harder to achieve. The TSO has no direct control over RES at the distribution grid. That’s where DSO comes into play. The DSO can react to TSO control signals, effectively providing ancillary services by aggregating DER and DSR. This allows operators to reduce TSO side issues like redispatch, which has increased dramatically in some countries in recent years

In one of Siemens research projects cooperating with multiple TSOs / DSOs, this work has verified this works using actual network data of TSOs, and are now working on deploying this with several TSOs

Transition need 5: Standardization and scalability

The keynote comes back to evolving into this vision of a system of systems. The system will resemble more of a system of systems, where energy nodes will take autonomous decisions that contribute to overall grid stability, only possible with standardization among nano, Micro, distribution and transport grids.

Standardization matters because larger power systems will have many grid-forming inverters from different vendors. There is a need to harmonize cyber security standards to ensure a common level of cyber security for the entire interconnected energy system and cooperation between TSO and DSO for ancillary services and transport grid balance requires interconnection standards.

Transition need 6: Regulations for flexible investment plans

As pointed out by Thomas Kiessling we need a regulatory environment that builds digitalization into incentive frameworks. To build on this

We need to simplify data collection across the industry already at the point of asset registration and there need to be energy data best practices that are embraced by operators

To speed innovation, regulators should give grid infrastructure stakeholders (including equipment manufacturers) access to past operational data so they can model solutions. At present, the network operators often have a hard time getting innovation investments approved by regulators, even as research projects with part of the issues coming from digitalization investment, by nature, will lead to a certain amount of innovative trial and error, as is the case of every innovation.

Such an investment is in competition with simply adding hardware assets most of the time with a fixed rate of asset capital return. The regulator and the DSO understand this process much better. One way to evolve this logic is to start looking at business outcomes.

What is the asset base needed to deliver a given amount of energy? Capital efficiency incentives need to be introduced into the discussion. The flexibility to deploy Opex or Capex needs to be increased.

Here lies a cultural and transformational problem, as regulators have been “engrained” to approve and measure in a certain way, to apply known metrics or handed down-regulation requirements to safeguard energy.

You have to start with “what do we dare in the industry?”, “what do we focus upon?” and how can all involved in the energy transition collaborate, learn and work together.

Transition need 7: Consumer/prosumer focus

It is forecasted that Distributed Energy Resources will grow sevenfold by 2030. At a changing grid edge, data is (simply) not there, to prove that investment or change. How can this be changed? What help within the evolving grid edge can provide a change that allows for the transformation to take shape?

So, what if you could estimate the status of LV lines based on a combination of real-time data available typically at the substation level, plus meter data, even if you get that meter only once a day or periodically

Siemens is working with DSOs on pilots to use neural networks to estimate if and where voltage issues arise both on load and the DER supply side. These methods achieve better transparency, enabling the DSO to curtail less and authorize more new loads like EV chargers.

This information, combined with peak shaving, load shifting, storage systems to smooth out supply and demand, will go a long way to accommodate new loads and prosumer systems.

Thomas Kiessling’s suggestion is in the application of Neural Networks- “Achieving more informed decisions.”

The possible solution to make changes in the Grid Edge is to use substation data alongside offline smart meters. That data can be extrapolated to identify hotspots and load needs and becomes a Network Grid Edge.

This approach avoids having more sensors on every meter or connecting point to save time and expense. It can be pushed out over time and experience to connect into the final energy-consuming point.

This proposal made by Thomas Kiessling can provide a more apparent determination of the grid edge’s state and provide the state of the LV network for more informed decisions and (more targeted) capital investment.

So here, innovation and creative thinking are being applied to solve a current problem holding back the needed Grid Edge shift to the intelligent use of consumption and demand data. Insights gained will improve the knowledge on the network without deployment at scale of sensors to provide an assessment of data close to demand.

So, in the conclusion of Thomas Kiessling’s Keynote.

We are in a disruptive phase; Kiessling provided a transformation list of needs to follow in his keynote, specifically working through issues and challenges in the transmission, distribution, and Grid Edge networks. He gave many rich examples that are already shifting Energy and Grid Edge design. These offered radically different ways to manage the demand and supply, reflecting the changing nature of power generation, distribution and grid edge supply.

Thomas Kiessling’s final comment was the need to “wrap our minds around it” to undergo such a disruptive time of profound system change. It is how the energy community comes together and finds ways to imagine, collaborate to learn and share.

I found the suggestion of each Energy Company working through these seven transition needs (or evaluations) as a convenient starting point to bring the changes needed into a suggested “collective” whole to manage the energy transition in each company.

A more comprehensive review of the keynote is here.

The post Transformation Journey: Kiesslings Seven Point Plan to Prepare an Energy Company. first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.