New Technological Revolution and Energy Requirements

Abstract

T he new technological revolution is radically changing the shape and development conditions of the world energy industry. The increase in demand for energy, alongside with changes in its structure, require the development of breakthrough technologies and the supply of new energy resources, which is associated with significant costs. To optimize them, a timely anticipation of the expected socioeconomic changes and future energy requirements is needed. This paper analyzes the possible implications of the new technological revolution for the global and domestic energy industries. It evaluates current and prospective trends, such Кeywords: scientific & technological progress; new technological revolution; post-industrial economy; postindustrial society; energy; energy demand; requirements to energy; energy technology; distributed energy; mobile energy as changes in energy consumption due to growing demand from the service sector and households while reducing the needs of large-scale industry, digitalization, the formation of "mobile", "portable" energy, and so on. Russia will maintain demand for a centralized energy supply while increasing the demand for distributed generation and cogeneration with the involvement of renewable energy sources, smart grid technologies, and other solutions. The current structure of the national fuel and energy complex is vulnerable to the large-scale electrification of transport and decarbonization of world energy.

Analysis of the prospects of adopting the digital technology across sectors of the economy and its impact on the demand for energy carriers

“…The use of digital technologies blurs the line between traditional energy suppliers and consumers and creates opportunities for consumers from all sectors of demand to participate directly in the energy system, balancing supply and demand in real-time [3]. This is ensured by the following: (1) the emergence of the consumer's ability to change their energy consumption depending on the situation in the energy system (demand response), (2) an increase in the share of prosumers who have their own sources of energy production or storage and contribute to the development of distributed energy resources, (3) the introduction of "smart charging" of electric vehicles, which switches the demand in off-peak periods (saving investment in new electricity infrastructure), (4) the use of new tools such as blockchain to facilitate the operation of the local system of energy trading [4]. The application of digital technology in the electric power industry is changing the entire business model of the industry, so that the concept of the Internet of Energy (IoE) has already taken off.…”

“…Long-term projections of the demand for energy carriers is a multistage and multilevel process of studying the impact of factors and interrelationships under the changing conditions of energy and economic development on the volumes and structure of fuel and energy resources dynamics. One of the new factors of scientific and engineering progress that radically redefines the interrelation between energy consumers and energy producers is the introduction of the digital technology in the economy and energy industry [2][3][4]. At the SEI SB RAS, a methodological approach to long-term projections of demand for fuel and energy was developed [5] and is continuously updated [6,7].…”

Digitalization and Energy Consumption

“…According to the estimates published by the EvoSwith company, the year 2015 saw the electricity consumption by data centers reaching 416 TWh, which accounts for some 3% of the total global electricity consumption. The data transmission networks that serve as a backbone of the digital world consumed about 185 TWh in 2015, which amounts to 1% of the total demand [13].…”

The potential for reducing TPP water consumption through the use of heat pumps

“…The water strategy of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020 [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] means improving the rationality of the use of water resources. Main aim way to achieve this goal is to reduce water losses during transportation, to decrease specific water consumption in technological processes through the use of more efficient production technologies and to make consumption for household needs less [13][14][15][16][17][18].…”