Can industry decarbonise and stay productive at the same time?

At a recent press briefing at the First Friday Club, Chris Poynter, president of ABB Systems Division, tackled the subject of decarbonisation and the challenges that confront industry.

ABB is the market leader in high performance, high powered variable speed drives, serving a range of sectors, including water desalinisation plants, marine transportation, battery power and power conversion for wind turbines, as well as metal processing.

An estimated 29 percent of global greenhouse emissions come from the industrial sector, while 50-60 percent of energy is used to create heat, with 70-80 percent of this provided by fossil fuels. The goal is to covert as much as possible to electricity and this is where ABB speed drives come in.

Enabling decarbonisation requires strategy, support and solutions. Renewable energy and energy efficiency enables conversion to power.

One of the challenges is to convince companies to invest in electric power when it doesn’t necessarily lead to an increase in production. At the end of the day, the demand to go green comes at a cost. 

The targets for ABB are: enabling renewable power generation, e.g. battery storage; hydrogen fuel cells; improving grid stability; developing emerging application; decarbonising industrial process and transportation. Key challenges are optimising wind turbine performance, solar power and hydrogen fuel cells.

Green energy is predicted to grow to 600 m tonnes (mtHz eq) by 2050.

Ata Douzdouzani, head of sales for Systems Drives explained that by 2050 steel use is projected to rise 1.5 times higher than present levels. Heating process need to be electrified, smelting reduced and more use of green and blue hydrogen. Greenhouse emissions will triple by 2050.

In short, ABB Systems Drives is the perfect partner for your company to realise the potential of green energy and save the planet at the same time.

ABB Systems Drives  www.abb.com