Carbon emission accounting and reporting will become a more dominant pressure for all industries.

What will 2022 bring for the energy sector? Here are our three big predictions for this year and beyond.

Volatility and opportunity

Faced with the triple challenge of price swings, unpredictable renewables generation, and fluctuating demand, energy firms might expect a bumpy ride in 2022. The question is, how are companies preparing themselves for the road ahead? 

The last two years have demonstrated all too vividly how fast markets can shift, and players across the energy sector, from policymakers to small businesses, have often struggled to keep up. We can hope 2022 won’t be quite as volatile as the recent past, but the best learning we have right now might be to expect the unexpected. 

Even the best-resourced organisations can’t afford to hedge their bets and eat their losses, which means energy firms need to put in motion the infrastructure and solutions needed to run a more efficient and effective operation. Not only that, energy companies need to look at how their business data is being tracked, analysed, and reported so that they are ready to make the right decisions quickly based on accurate and up to date information. Accessing and assessing historical and current information fast is where the wins will be had.

Accessing and assessing historical and current information fast is where the wins will be had.

Resilience

Severe weather, global pandemics, cyber-attacks, and logistics crises have been the headlines of the last few years – and we can expect more of the same in the future. While financial resilience is somewhat at the mercy of a volatile market, logistical, physical, and technological resilience is just as important – and evermore within the control of decision-makers. 

Canny players across all sectors are increasingly looking for highly resilient and technologically efficient partners, especially when it comes to energy organisations. In a low-margin high-pressure economy, they want to build a relationship with companies they can depend on, especially when the going gets tough. Expect questions about supply chains, technologies and processes, system redundancy, and IT security.

Many energy companies are taking time in early 2022 to review their existing systems and processes to see how they measure up against industry standards, as well as their competition. It’s often tempting, especially for long-standing energy firms who have weathered previous storms, to be over-confident and assume the existing operations are ready for anything. But company leaders should be working hard now to ensure they have the foundations in place to overcome the unexpected and remain competitive in the long term.

Transition

Following COP26 and the US’s realignment with the Paris Accords, international industry is under increasing pressure to address their carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the global energy sector is under continued pressure to transition away from carbon-based fuels and towards renewables. The long-term ramifications of this are clear – but the short-term implications are more complex.

One key issue is the unpredictable nature of renewable generation, particularly wind and solar. Periods of low wind in Europe in recent years have seen demand for coal or gas generation spike, and until reliable grid storage becomes a reality, this pattern is likely to continue, meaning coal, oil, and gas will continue to have a crucial role in energy markets for years to come, with carbon emission accounting and reporting will become a more dominant pressure for all industries.

About us

Xergy Group’s Proteus work management solution is designed to work with your existing systems, and to scale and evolve as your business evolves. It was created by energy sector professionals, for the diversified energy sector, and delivers an end-to-end project management software platform compliant with ISO audit requirements and common project management frameworks.

How to get Proteus

Proteus’ work management software is a cloud-based system designed for businesses of all sizes to handle projects of unlimited complexity. Each Proteus feature is aimed at making bottom line improvements by improving utilisation, streamlining workflows, providing quick and efficient access to resources and reducing overheads. One of the unique advantages of Proteus is that we offer a free onboarding consultation service to ensure your company account is set up according to your company’s needs.

We recommend getting setup on a free trial. Proteus operates under a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. We offer Enterprise packages and flexible pricing solutions: contact our team to learn more.

We designed Proteus to be simple, and that means you can get up and running on Proteus without an IT team or support from a programmer. You will want to spend a bit of time configuring the admin console so that you have everything set up to suit your company structure, but it’s very intuitive and you don’t need a PhD in IT. However, we want you to get the best out of what is a brilliantly powerful tool, so don’t hesitate to ask for our support. We have a team of product experts who are ready to help you with the configuration process, so get in touch today.