Succeeding in an exponential age

How will the exponential progression change the energy industry????

Parallel acceleration of a few technologies has led to exponential progress, but also significant gaps in our knowledge and demand for technology services. This exponential gap has brought businesses huge opportunities and opened a door for pivotal changes in how we approach problems. An empowering example is the energy industry, where AI enables people and providers to better manage energy.?

Computing appears everywhere and anywhere: from smartphones in your pocket through smart thermometers to pacemakers that help control the heartbeats of 3 million+ people. Over the last couple of years computers have become ubiquitous – holding a vital place in modern society and playing a pivotal role in humanity’s development. ?

?Today we are living in an exponential age. The often-cited Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip double about every two years. This prediction was created in 1975 based on historical data, and proven correct for the past five decades. This means that the growth of microprocessors has been enormous, which resulted in exponential growth in processor speed, storage capacity and network speed. Just think about the networking capabilities of the first mobile phones in comparison with 5G – boggles the mind, doesn’t it??

This increase rate of growth in terms of both speed and capacity, has provided the opportunity to create, access and leverage A LOT OF data, and opened a door for technologies like AI and machine learning to gain traction. Consequently, new technologies are being invented and scaled at an ever-faster pace, all while decreasing rapidly in price.??

In the meantime, as technology accelerates, the human mind struggles to keep up – a gap between what technology is able to do and how quickly society could understand and adopt it has appeared, and since that has been significantly increasing. Humans are not used to exponential knowledge absorption; our development and methods are still linear. The result is what we call as the ‘exponential gap’. The chasm between new forms of technology and the way we think and approach problems. (This theory is beautifully introduced by Azeem Azhar in his book, Exponential.)

[If we were to plot the rise of technologies on a graph, they would follow a curved, exponential line, while the adaptation of our institutions would follow a straight, incremental line.] [Source: Exponential by Azeem Azhar]?

Over the human history we always had our limits, and we were always pushing our limits. From time to time, when a new technology emerged, we faced knowledge gaps, but now it’s exponential – and that’s the key. The gap is getting bigger and bigger – and this brings a huge opportunity for all of us, for businesses. Traditional science needs a clear correlation between cause and effect, that can be explained. Conversely, thanks to the exponential progress, with leveraging AI and machine learning, now we only need to see the clear correlation to take actions – we might not understand all the details, but we can trust the insights.???

These days many industries are starting to harvest this exponential progression. An outstanding example is the energy industry, where AI enables people and providers to better manage energy.??

?Very briefly, the problem with energy is that it must be spent when it’s created, while based on supply and demand in some US markets there is 10X difference between the price of providing electricity during the day. Energy storages and smart meters with sophisticated AI solutions today can provide a solution. Let me walk you through two examples from our clients.?

?One of our clients is a global leader in AI-driven energy storage, who uses an algorithm to predict peak electricity demands and enable pairing energy storage with AI to lower costs for building operators and energy managers. The process involves storing electricity in batteries when it is more inexpensive and then using that same electricity for power during peak times – this way delivering major savings for its clients, while also resulting in better energy management and more effective use of electricity.??

?Another exciting example is the emergence of smart meters. These days energy industries have been introducing automation into meter data collection and high-performance data management systems to handle the large amounts of data generated. Having real-time data on energy spending provides opportunity to analyse spending patterns and open a door for such exciting opportunities as implementing dynamic pricing. Just imagine that you see that electricity prices go up on a particular day, so you can incentivise your customers to use less energy by offering a special discount for those who use less electricity in that specific timeframe – this way you save energy and money, while helping your customers save money at the same time.?

Personally, I feel amazed and inspired by the possibilities brought to us by the exponential progress, and I’d like to encourage each and every business out there to delve deeper into this theme and embrace the opportunities.???