The Blueprint for Decarbonizing Requires Unprecedented Collaboration

To accelerate the energy transition, the power industry needs to embrace it as a collective mission.?

For some, the energy transition is such a monumental concept that it feels abstract. Not for me. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not aware how transformative it will be – not just for our energy infrastructure, but also for the kinds of collective initiatives that will be necessary to achieve net zero.

I’m fortunate to participate in one such partnership: the Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Delta, Utah, which is a joint venture between Mitsubishi Power Americas and Magnum Development. Together, we’re going to create the world’s largest renewable energy storage facility. And, in keeping with a prominent theme at this year’s CERAWeek conference, the project will powerfully accelerate the pace of change.

The energy transition is very much underway. The question that keeps many of us up at night is this: How do we continually speed it along to reach net zero in time while maintaining reliable energy?

?The race to decarbonize

From last year’s historic COP26 Climate Summit to CERAWeek, governments and businesses around the globe are prioritizing decarbonization. To date, more than 110 countries and 200 of the world’s largest companies have pledged to achieve net zero by or before 2050, the goal in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Meeting that deadline will require us to embrace the collective mission of decarbonization. That means doing the practical daily work to advance this mission while adhering to individual plans appropriate for companies and regions, no matter where they are on the decarbonization spectrum. They need a blueprint for decarbonization.

At Mitsubishi Power Americas, we’ve come up with such a blueprint , and it’s grounded in our belief that the power industry holds the key to a greener, more sustainable future. We have the expertise, resources and reach to develop and implement low- and no-carbon solutions. We owe it to the world to lead the way by:

• Ensuring stable electricity throughout the energy transition, so decarbonizing the grid doesn’t mean compromising on resource adequacy.
• Incentivizing cleantech adoption by lowering costs, so that everyone can afford low-carbon energy and benefit from the prosperity that it can bring.
• Fostering unprecedented collaboration to achieve an outcome that’s bigger than any one company or country.

Decarbonization is a global mission, but it starts at the local level with evaluating the energy needs of each city and town. We must consider the existing power infrastructure and create a customized path to reliable and sustainable power generation and storage for every geography and situation.

That process introduces unique challenges. We don’t have a handbook for how to better generate and store energy—we’re writing it as we go. This effort will require contributions from a wide range of stakeholders.

From my time in this industry, I’ve come to believe that three insights will be critical to the effort needed to reach net zero

1. Net zero needs everyone.

I’ve worked with hydrogen technology for years, learning to harness it and store it to use as a cleaner power source and fuel. I have no doubt that clean hydrogen will be a crucial part of global decarbonization, in part because it opens up opportunities for industries to work with and learn from each other.

For the power industry, hydrogen can function both as a fuel for power production and as a way to store renewable energy over long periods of time. It will also play a role outside the industry, providing a way to move toward net zero for hard-to-abate sectors such as transportation, cement and steel manufacturing, and other industrial uses.

We have the humility to know we can’t create a hydrogen-powered future alone. We are working to inspire others to join us and innovate together toward solutions. Efforts that have never been undertaken before are especially difficult to undertake alone—and that’s why we’re joining forces with our partners to create hydrogen storage at scale with the Advanced Clean Energy Storage project.

?2. Simplifying unlocks partnership potential.

Decarbonization has many stakeholders: scientists, engineers, customers, partners, industry leaders and governments. The technology and systems design required to achieve ambitious goals are complicated and rapidly evolving. That combination can create complexity that challenges partnerships.

We can make working together as easy as possible by breaking down the problems we’re trying to solve into discrete parts. Simplifying the problem in this way can make it easier for each partner to focus on their contribution and value add. The better-defined the problem and the process, the easier it is to bring new stakeholders on board and build trust. And earning trust through collaboration enables projects to capitalize on the individual strengths of each stakeholder involved.

3. Teaming up brings scale.

Cost remains a challenge in the energy transition. Economies of scale are part of the solution, and achieving them often requires working across industries to scale faster and more efficiently. At Mitsubishi Power, we’re making alliances with like-minded companies that have the same humility and desire to work together toward common ends to achieve this decarbonization vision.

This willingness to seek out new kinds of partnerships is particularly important in fields such as clean hydrogen, where working together is essential to creating a market large enough for far-reaching social impact. By bringing industries together, we can achieve economies of scale and improve utilization of assets, enabling cost reductions that spur adoption of cleaner technologies.

We must remain open to new ideas, new partners

As I look around CERAWeek, I see many peers with extensive experience in their own fields. As we come together, it’s incumbent that we build on each other’s learnings and embrace the collective mission of decarbonization, even as we pursue different solutions.?

In that spirit, I invite you to share your lessons with me. What have you learned from unexpected collaborations you’ve undertaken in your career? How did that unlikely pairing advance your own mission as well as a broader mission?

Combining our lessons will not only deepen our collective knowledge, but also help accelerate the pace of change, empowering us to rise to the enormous challenge of net zero.