Decarbonising Energy & Utilities
The role Energy & Utilities will play on our road to Net Zero is undeniable, energy usage accounts for nearly 75% of global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions.
In the following blog we explore the relationship between the two, and how utilising Salesforce can provide the digital technology platform to deliver real change.
How do energy & utilities contribute to global emissions?
In simple terms, energy contributes to global warming as electricity and heat generated by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, or gas) causes the production of greenhouse-gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, that cover the earth – trapping the sun’s heat.
The presence of energy in our day-to-day lives is unavoidable, from turning on the lights, to running our computers, from powering all modes of transportation to heating and cooling our buildings – almost every aspect of modern life is reliant on energy in some form or another.
Growing global population, urbanisation and more highly developed economies have all contributed to significant increase in overall energy demand. Even since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992, overall CO2 emissions have increased by 60%.
What can be done to transition to net zero?
To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, emissions need to be reduced by nearly half by 2023, and reach net-zero by 2050.
The role for the energy & utilities is to help the world transition towards alternative source of energy – those which are clean, accessible, affordable, sustainable, and reliable. While fossil fuels still account for 80% of global energy production, there are already positive changes being made, for example 29% of electricity now comes from renewable sources.
The scale of the task is evident when considering that the amount of solar power required by 2030 is equivalent to installing the world’s current largest solar park roughly every day.
There is a significant level of infrastructure change required to support the move to cleaner energy. Investment will need to triple to around $4 trillion per year by 2030, providing economic growth, new jobs, and the projects required to deliver the clean-energy transition.
Examples of the type of change required include:
Renewable Energy Generation
The full program management and funding required to install renewable energy generating sites, whether that be for wind power, solar power or even tidal generation.
Electric Vehicles
The rollout of Electric Vehicles is well underway, but is dependent on successful initiatives for everything from manufacturing of the electric vehicles; sustainable production of efficient batteries; and the rollout of widescale charging infrastructure, easily accessible for EV drivers.
Energy Efficiency
One of the biggest impacts on energy emissions can come from the reduction of demand. Energy efficiency is key for this, and can come from the installation of insulation within buildings, as well as providing end-users with the digital technology and energy monitoring software required to understand the details of their usage. Effective insulation programs rely on widespread training of installers, as well as the ability to efficiently dispatch teams on a large scale to carry out efficiency changes to buildings.
Energy Flexibility
The ability to move energy demand to less intensive times, or times when renewable energy generation is making up larger percentages of the local grid-mix can ensure cleaner consumption of energy. To allow for this installation of energy storage, whether it be for residential or industrial users is key, as is the development of smart apps and solutions to help users easily adjust their usage habits.
This barely scratches the surface of new innovations, business models and infrastructure change that will be required within the Energy & Utility sectors in order to reach Net Zero.
But the good news is change is already afoot and large organisations are making the push to transition towards a world in which renewable energy becomes the standard.
How can Salesforce support E&U companies in the transition to Net Zero?
We’ve explored the scale of the challenge and the extent of the different types of change required to reach Net Zero. But what can Salesforce do to help E&U organisations manage their efforts to bring about the move to renewable energy?
Energy & Utilities Cloud
First is the Salesforce product designed entirely with E&U companies in mind - be they energy retailers, distribution companies, or modern energy services companies.
The platform offers an E&U specific data-model to support the management of omnichannel residential and commercial contact centres, Digital Service and advanced sales capability. This is in addition to functionality relating to industry specific Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) and Order Management; full integration capacity; Digital Commerce; and Field Service capability for E&U.
Taken on their own these features provide a best-in-class platform for managing E&U processes, data and delivering a great customer experience. But how does this relate to the Net Zero Transition?
Let’s explore some of those features in a bit more detail and understand the impact they can have for a utility company looking to move their customer base towards clean-energy.
First off, powerful CPQ and product management. The ability for organisations to easily create, price and launch new, innovative, clean energy products and put them in front of potential customers cannot be under-estimated.
A quick go-to-market strategy and capability can be the difference between new propositions becoming fully fledge commercial offerings. E&U Cloud offers a robust system to manage a wide range of offerings, whether they be Renewable Energy tariffs or additional clean-energy related products such as electric vehicle offerings, battery storage options, home energy monitoring, solar panels, or energy efficiency advice.
What’s more the omnichannel functionality of E&U Cloud provides the means to put these propositions in front of customers proactively, and in a manner which modern customers have come to expect. Digital Experiences have come to define customer expectations, and E&U Cloud offers the basis upon which a fantastic customer experience can be provided digitally, combining this with the offer of a wide array of clean energy products.
And how about that E&U specific data model? Combine that with the power of Data Cloud and you have the means to manage energy data in a truly innovative fashion. Give real-time information about energy usage to your customers, provide flexible tariffs based on when customers use their energy, provide commercial customers with AI driven insights on which sites use more energy than expected. With best practice data management a more granular understanding of energy usage can be used to drive down unnecessary demand.
We’ve focused on how E&U Cloud can engage with customers to help drive a move towards renewable energy, but what about an E&U businesses own operations?
Take Field Service as just one example. Smart dispatch rules for your field-service operations can ensure vehicles are covering the most efficient routes available to them, using less energy in their day-to-day activities. Or the quickest response times could be offered to customers on green offerings, encouraging the take-up of renewable offers.
The power to make these decisions is there, and Salesforce acts as the digital tool which can allow E&U organisations to take business decisions with the Net Zero transition in mind, with confidence.
Net Zero Cloud
We’ve discussed numerous times the power of Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, so we’ll keep this a little short. But suffice to say Net Zero Cloud for E&U provides the means to manage and understand the carbon impact of E&U companies operations.
Providing accurate, reliable carbon accounting means E&U companies have a full understanding of their carbon footprints across Scope 1, 2, and 3. It provides the means to take meaningful action by identifying assets least efficiently using energy, and by highlighting those buildings which are not using renewable energy.
What’s more efficient regulatory report creation ensures Sustainability Teams are freed up to create impactful carbon strategies for the future, rather than spend months’ of each year chasing for data and formatting complex reports.
And Net Zero Cloud doesn’t exist in isolation. The ability to accurately calculate carbon footprints at a granular level can utilised by E&U companies to feed back information to their own customers. Giving large commercial customers accurate and insightful information on the emissions of their various assets provides a commercial opportunity to E&U businesses, and also helps engage their entire customer base in the Net Zero transition.
What’s more, as some of the largest businesses operating in their various territories, E&U businesses have a large degree of influence on their entire supply chain.
Taking advantage of the Scope 3 Hub in Net Zero Cloud and utilising Supplier Scorecards gives E&U businesses the power to demand more sustainable activities of their major suppliers, fostering a sense of urgency for the need to transition to Net Zero.
