'Electrify everything': Schneider Electric Innovation Summit

‘Electrify everything’ was one of the rallying cries at the annual Schneider Electric Innovation Summit, held on 14 March at Sydney’s ICC. Also highlighted was the importance of digitalisation and industry partnerships in the race to meet emissions reduction targets.

The Innovation Summit brought together industry leaders, inventors and technical experts to discuss how companies can accelerate digitalisation and electrification to innovate for sustainability and achieve net zero while boosting profitability.

In his welcoming address at the summit, Gareth O’Reilly, Pacific Zone President of Schneider Electric, applauded the federal government and businesses’ embracing of net zero goals, while stating that a fundamental rethink of industrial processes, construction, energy efficiency and energy generation would be required to achieve these goals.

Australian companies must accelerate their decarbonisation pace 10-fold to meet our targets for emission reductions, O’Reilly said.

Keynote speakers at the summit included Schneider Electric’s Executive Vice President International Operations, Manish Pant; Professor Veena Sahajwalla, the inventor transforming recycling science including through the invention of green steel; and scientist and innovator Saul Griffith, author of Rewiring Australia and a major advocate for ‘electrifying everything’.

Griffith stressed that overhauling “the infrastructure of daily life” — focusing on HVAC, vehicles and where electricity comes from — was crucial in getting communities to zero emissions by 2040. “42% of the emissions in our domestic economy come from the decisions you make around your kitchen table,” he said.

“Another 29% of emissions in Australia are from the small business/commercial sector, again from the same types of machines: HVAC, vehicles and where your electricity comes from,” he continued. Griffith said these decisions about simple infrastructure made up the largest piece of our climate policy domestically.

O’Reilly said Australia’s relatively poor performance in cutting emissions to date means there are significant opportunities for action now.

“Australian housing is the least efficient in the world of OECD countries and Australian industry, in terms of dollar of output per energy input, ranks among the lowest,” he said.

“By doing some simple things better around energy efficiency and the built environment we can reduce energy demand, by reducing usage, by 30 to 40%.”

Although attention is focused on replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sources, it is only half the solution, he said. “The other half comes from tackling the demand side, electrifying processes such as transport and heating, and also by reducing energy consumption — using digital technology to eliminate the vast amount of energy waste that exists today.

“Digital means efficiency. It allows us to make energy more visible, to understand and automate processes that deliver smarter, optimised consumption. And electric can make energy green — it is the most efficient energy and it’s the best vector for decarbonisation.

“Combining digitisation with electrification creates what we call Electricity 4.0, a new era of smart, green electric energy,” O’Reilly said.

Image caption: Saul Griffith speaking at the Innovation Summit. Image: Supplied.