Carbon neutrality and the 4th Industrial Revolution will be achieved simultaneously through decarbonization on the power generation side and the advancement of electrification and AI/ML automation on the demand side.
Current energy management is shown in the figure on the left. The balance between supply and demand is maintained by adjusting thermal and pumped storage generation to meet fluctuating demand.
However, as power sources are decarbonized, in addition to nuclear, hydro, geothermal, and tidal power, which operate as baseload power sources, solar and wind power, whose output fluctuates, will become supply power. Therefore, in future energy management, as shown in the figure on the right, the demand side will be adjusted according to the fluctuation of power sources, and the subject to be adjusted will be reversed from the current situation.
In the future, however, demand-side heat pumps and stationary batteries can be used as a source of flexibility. Attention should also be paid to flexible consumption, such as AI and blockchain mining, which are suitable for workload shifting in cloud computing. Furthermore, batteries and computers built into automated electric vehicles, drones, robots, and other mobility devices can be used in society as a source of flexibility and distributed computing when they are not moving.
In conclusion, digital technology can help maintain the balance between supply and demand by harnessing these abundant sources of flexibility.
