In May 2024, Lisbon welcomed the Energy Summit & Exhibition, bringing more than 2000 attendees together to discuss and provide insights on how to drive affordable and just energy transition through ambitious targets, competitive support measures and multifaceted energy solutions.
EXIGENCE was present at the event, participating in a booth hosted by F6S. The event included three conferences: strategic, climatech and hydrogen & decarbonisation, were we had the opportunity to participate in several sessions and interact with attendees, raising awareness about energy measurements and sustainable ICT.
Although the event discussed several topics relevant to the energy transition, such as renewables, hydrogen, storage, policy, and funding, sustainable ICT was notably absent. This topic is at the core of EXIGENCE, working to integrate measurement, optimisation and incentivisation to reduce overall energy consumption and CO2e of ICT services.
Despite this, the event provided a great opportunity to engage stakeholders from different domains and public and private sectors. Here are some of our main takeaways:
- The Portuguese Minister of Environment and Energy stated, “either the energy transition works for everyone, or it works for no one.” Words such as collaboration, cooperation, interaction, involvement and engagement were mentioned by almost all speakers. It is clear that energy transition requires the involvement of everyone. We need collaboration between academia, innovators, industry, investors, and consumers. We need to involve and put the citizens at the centre of the discussion, raising public awareness and considering their opinions.
- The European Union has a strong vision to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent in the world. This commitment to the European Green Deal is bound by the EU Climate Law and the “Fit for 55” legislation, among others. Turning this vision into reality requires translating the EU regulations into national, regional and local legislation in the 27 member states. We cannot underestimate the size of this challenge.
- The technological advances of the last twenty years have been immense. Several speakers highlighted the need to be open-minded and flexible and work on integrating and combining solutions and technologies, striving for progress and not perfection. Although innovation has been fast and many technologies are in different maturity levels, existing innovation will only take us halfway to the climate goals. So, we need to keep pushing boundaries.
- The European Commission estimates that delivering the European Green Deal objectives requires annual investments to increase by around EUR 520 billion between 2021 and 2030 (1). So, funding schemes are vital to implement the energy transition and also require creative solutions. Speakers discussed funding schemes, blended finance options and incentives.
We had the opportunity of exchanging a few words with Pedro Martins Barata, the Environmental Defense Fund’s assistant vice president for carbon markets and private sector decarbonisation after his participation in a session discussing the role of technology innovation and policy in advancing heavy industrial decarbonisation.
We had a fruitful discussion surrounding the decarbonisation goals for Europe and whether they are feasible or not, and elaborated on the challenges and unknowns associated with removal certificates.
Pedro pointed out that
“It’s more than feasible. It’s the law. This is the regulation right now. So the EU European Union has as its goal, political goals, to reach net zero by 2045.”
The industry is being pushed to comply with regulation and Pedro believes there is a real risk of companies being out of business if they don’t address decarbonisation seriously and fast. And although the session focused on sectors considered hard to abate, Pedro believes that these sectors are just “harder” to abate. There are surely challenging sectors, but there’s also a lot of innovation motivated by these needs.
To conclude, we asked Pedro if there is a difference in how large companies and SMEs face the energy transition and its challenges. Pedro thinks it really depends on the sector. Large companies have the potential to leverage big differentiation, and SMEs make the most of modular technologies allowing them to scale up and down.
The Lisbon Energy Summit was definitely a very interesting event fostering relevant discussions and typing to connect the dots on the energy transition. However, we missed the topic of sustainable ICT, where EXIGENCE is aiming to make a difference. We keep using ICT to support and increase sustainability without really addressing if the ICT itself is sustainable.
EXIGENCE is committed to bringing this topic into the centre stage of next year’s Lisbon Energy Summit!
