2020 Energy Infrastructure Predictions — Blogs

With 2020 is in its ear­ly stages, now is an ide­al time to take a look at trends that like­ly shape this and have a pro­longed impact in the future. Here’s an exam­i­na­tion of ener­gy infra­struc­ture pre­dic­tions that could affect oth­er kinds of infra­struc­tures and influ­ence city plan­ning. 

1.  A Solar Energy Boom Will Begin

In 2019, the Solar Ener­gy Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (SEIA) called 2020–2030 the Solar+ Decade. It also laid out a plan for pro­duc­ing 20% of U.S. elec­tric­i­ty with solar pow­er, although it accounts for only 2.4% now. Solar will not see its poten­tial this year, but one of the ener­gy indus­try’s promi­nent changes for 2020 is expo­nen­tial growth in spe­cif­ic regions of the Unit­ed States. 

For exam­ple, Cal­i­for­nia man­dat­ed that almost all homes built from 2020 onward must get at least some of their pow­er from the sun. City plan­ners in the state must be aware of this new devel­op­ment, and pro­fes­sion­als work­ing else­where should keep an eye on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of state leg­is­la­tors else­where approv­ing sim­i­lar reg­u­la­tions. 

2. Utility Providers Will Assist With Creating Smarter, Cleaner Cities

Savvy devel­op­ers are aware of the prof­itable demand in the ener­gy indus­try to push bound­aries and cre­ate more inno­v­a­tive ener­gy . For exam­ple, many build­ings have built-in eco-friend­ly aspects so peo­ple won’t have to retro­fit them lat­er. Also, many garbage man­age­ment com­pa­nies put sen­sors on recep­ta­cles, enabling main­te­nance crews to get real-time alerts about when to emp­ty them. 

A selec­tion of 2020 pre­dic­tions from Deloitte men­tions that util­i­ty providers won’t want to get left behind as “smart city” inno­va­tions gain momen­tum. Many of them will active­ly search for and seize oppor­tu­ni­ties to work along­side munic­i­pal plan­ning teams to bring ideas to life. 

The Deloitte cov­er­age also dis­cuss­es how many util­i­ty providers have already aid­ed the instal­la­tion of smart grid infra­struc­tures and meters. How­ev­er, many util­i­ties will beyond these ini­tial steps and use their exper­tise to con­tribute to oth­er smart city , such as car charg­ing sta­tions and solar park­ing canopies. 

3. Oil and Gas Companies Will Continue Digital Transformations

The Unit­ed States is fore­cast to pro­vide 70% of the rise in glob­al oil pro­duc­tion and 75% of the increase in nat­ur­al gas by 2024. Keep­ing pace with this increased oil sup­ply requires mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant alter­ations, some of which are already under­way. One of the most sub­stan­tial changes in the ener­gy indus­try for 2020 relates to dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. 

The oil and gas indus­try has his­tor­i­cal­ly lagged regard­ing its will­ing­ness to embrace dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion options. How­ev­er, as evi­dence shows that dig­i­tiz­ing oper­a­tions can save mon­ey and avoid down­time, many enti­ties in the sec­tor real­ize there is no time to waste.

For exam­ple, fail­ing to use com­piled data for deci­sion-mak­ing could cut into rev­enues. Com­pa­nies rec­og­nize a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is prof­itable and rel­e­vant.

In smart cities, some dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives for the gas sec­tor have improved cus­tomer safe­ty and pro­vid­ed more vis­i­bil­i­ty into over­all usage. Mul­ti­ple options allow for real-time and cor­ro­sion mon­i­tor­ing. As the oil and gas field keeps mov­ing for­ward into the tech­no­log­i­cal era, city offi­cials will have more chances to col­lab­o­rate with busi­ness­es and eval­u­ate how -tech solu­tions can help all par­ties involved. 

4. Geopolitical Risks Could Create Supply Shortages

Ana­lysts believe there is a “prob­a­ble” threat of attacks against ener­gy infra­struc­ture due to esca­lat­ed ten­sion between the Unit­ed States and the Mid­dle East. They released this short­ly after U.S. forces killed Qasem Soleimani, a top Iran­ian gen­er­al, and Iran retal­i­at­ed by strik­ing a U.S. mil­i­tary base. Although the sit­u­a­tion is now sim­mer­ing, it’s still pos­si­ble that tem­pers could flare, and destruc­tive actions may occur.

If this hap­pens, oil prices will rise, and peo­ple might stop ignor­ing the esca­lat­ing ten­sions. Even before Soleimani’s death, the oil mar­kets per­sis­tent­ly ignored the ten­sions in the Mid­dle East and often wrote off inci­dents as iso­lat­ed hap­pen­ings. Reduc­ing U.S. depen­den­cy on for­eign oil dur­ing a poten­tial sup­ply short­age will not be a quick process, but it can and should be a mat­ter of impor­tance in 2020.

As a result, util­i­ty com­pa­nies bid­ding on and win­ning smart city con­tracts could become even more promi­nent. One of the top rea­sons why util­i­ty sup­pli­ers part­ner with smart city teams is to boost their rev­enue, but achiev­ing more elec­tric­i­ty inde­pen­dence can be anoth­er pos­i­tive out­come to antic­i­pate. 

5. Fossil Fuels Will Remain Dominant Even as Renewables Gain Momentum

2020 will like­ly be a year when renew­able ener­gy grab a larg­er share of the mar­ket, but not enough to upset fos­sil fuel dom­i­nance.

Although coal pro­duc­tion is down, oil and gas man­u­fac­tur­ing lev­els have gone up, accord­ing to the Pew Research Cen­ter. The orga­ni­za­tion also not­ed that although solar pow­er expe­ri­enced the most sub­stan­tial per­cent­age growth of all renew­ables, it still accounts for only a tiny por­tion of the mar­ket. 

Hydropow­er is the biggest renew­able pow­er source in the Unit­ed States, as the Pew Research Cen­ter data showed. How­ev­er, it still only com­pris­es 2.8% of the mar­ket, which is far less than any fos­sil fuel.

City plan­ners should keep this fact in mind as they launch new projects or work on exist­ing ones. There’s cer­tain­ly no harm in using renew­ables in munic­i­pal­i­ties, but peo­ple should not expect renew­ables to sur­pass fos­sil fuels any­time soon.

Energy Industry Predictions Worth Studying

Any changes in the ener­gy indus­try for 2020 could have a rip­ple effect on oth­er kinds of infra­struc­ture. City plan­ners, infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers and sim­i­lar pro­fes­sion­als should remain aware of what hap­pens in this sec­tor and pon­der what those devel­op­ments might mean for their work.

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