Software: the glue that will hold cleantech together

The transition to a low carbon economy will lead to a more decentralised energy infrastructure whereby energy will be generated from far more locations – such as from domestic roof-top solar panels. This contrasts with the current infrastructure which entails electricity being generated and distributed from a few centralised power plants.

If you couple this with the fact that many of the main sources of renewable energy generation are intermittent, then one cannot escape the conclusion that the amount of energy-related information that the world will need to process is going to jump to unheard of levels.

Therefore integrating renewable forms of energy into our society at a significant level will require us to develop the capacity to manage energy-related information that we have never had to worry about before. How much renewable energy is being produced? Where it is being produced? Where is it being demanded? How much of it can and can’t be stored? How much is likely to be produced in the next few hours based on the weather? What’s more, as more energy intensive products start connecting to the grid—pure-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles come to mind—then this will only strain the infrastructure further.

This is where software can step in. Its main strength is its ability to collate and analyse vast amounts of data in an efficient and effective manner. Developing software to answer and respond to the above questions is going to be essential to the cleantech sector. In fact, we would say it will struggle without it.

Software is already making a big impact across the entire spectrum of the cleantech industry.

• Solar: Tigo Energy offers a technology and IT solution which can squeeze more power from current photovoltaic solar panels, and it also helps solar power plant owners to manage their assets more effectively, by providing them with real time information from the panels.
• Energy Efficiency: A Minneapolis-based software company called Verisae provides supermarket chains with Web-based software to track their energy usage.
• Transportation: Better Place is developing in-vehicle software called “AutOS” that is to deliver an energy plan for each driver and find the closest charging and battery swap station. The software is to always be on and thus enable the Better Place network to connect with the vehicle for update and billing purposes. Earlier in the year, Renault unveiled a new model, the Fluence, that is to be loaded with the system.
• Marine Energy: Seazone has developed a piece of software that predicts and relates all kinds of historic, present and future marine information. The software can display tidal heights and currents in real time and manipulate modeled water levels and flows.
• Design: Autodesk is now targeting its market leading design software for cleantech applications.
• Carbon: Companies like Carbonflow and Carbonetworks are building software to more effectively monetize carbon credits, while others like Planet Metrics and Hara are helping companies measure their carbon footprints.

These innovations are encouraging, and there are plenty more software developments that are proving their cost saving and efficiency credentials.