THE ENERGY INTERVIEW
The answer, Mateusz argues, is modernisation and retrofitting. Take a typical ABB ZS1 switchgear unit for instance. This is a piece of electrical equipment that controls, protects, and distributes power and weighs 1,000kg. Of that total, around 800kg consists of structural components like copper bus bars and steel frames – passive parts that simply do not wear out.
The remaining 150kg are the active components – this is the protection, control and power equipment that does the real work.
“ By retrofitting just those 150kg we keep all the rest intact,” Mateusz says.“ You save the embedded carbon in those 650kg of steel and copper, you avoid the civil works and recabling, and you extend the life of the asset by up to 30 years.
“ It takes hours rather than weeks, costs roughly 80 % less than a full replacement, and saves around 80 % of the associated carbon emissions.”
The scale of that installed base lends those numbers real weight. Mateusz says that within ELSE’ s 18 million installations, there is as much copper as the annual output of two copper mines.“ You cannot simply replace all of that,” he explains.“ Nor would you want to.”
Energy freedom Retrofitting and waste reduction form an important part of what Mateusz calls“ energy freedom”.
Energy freedom, as Mateusz sees it, sits at the heart of ABB Navigate, a new business line the company has created to help its customers chart their own course to net zero.
“ We’ re no longer asking customers to spend money to be sustainable. We’ re showing them how sustainability pays”
Mateusz Zając, Sustainability Leader, ABB Electrification Service
Its first product is Battery Energy Storage as a Service and it addresses what, to Mateusz, are the three pillars of the energy challenge – power, price and planet – insofar as batteries can markedly reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Lately, Europe’ s dependence on imported fossil fuels has made price volatility and energy security a frontpage issue.“ How do we give Europe freedom from that volatility?” he asks.“ Electricity is three to four times more energy-efficient than fossil fuels for converting energy into useful work. And with the right storage and smart pricing, it can be dramatically cheaper and cleaner,” he adds.
With each passing day, battery storage becomes a more central part of the fabric of modern life. In one recent case in England, one of ABB’ s customers that was looking to install a large number of EV chargers faced an extensive wait for a sufficiently large grid connection.
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