“Akselos – leader in physics-based Digital Twins – today announces a $16.5 million funding round, with participation from AT Capital Group, Future Energy Ventures, Japan Energy Fund and Shell Ventures.
With the latest investment round, Akselos will acquire an investor base to support the company’s ongoing global growth, enabling it to scale both its team and solutions to optimise the energy industry’s existing infrastructure and accelerate large scale deployment of renewable energy. This is a crucial step toward the company’s aim of providing technology to enable the energy transition in line with Akselos’ commitment to the IEA Net Zero 2050 roadmap.
Image Credit of Digital Twin Modelling from Akselos
Akselos’ solution – which is 1,000x faster and 10x more accurate than the industry standard when modelling large scale assets – simulates exact virtual replicas, or predictive and accurate Digital Twins, of energy assets such as offshore wind turbine and their foundations.”
Learn more by reading the full Akselos press release HERE.
This new series of posts by Klaus Brettschneider and Richard McFall, contributing members of the PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA), will explore how Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) can be used to slow climate change by reducing human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide and methane are the two most damaging GHG which are commonly reported on as CO2 equivalents, or CO2e, and are measured in billions of tons or gigatons. Carbon continues to build in the atmosphere due to human activities on the ground where it has now surpassed 410 ppm, nearly double that prior to the start of the industrial age. Since CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, a consensus is urgently building among climate scientists, elected officials, and NGOs like the International Energy Agency that the global economy must attain net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. This starts with a very challenging reduction of 50% by 2030, less than ten years away.
We begin our series by outlining the different roles and use cases that PLM can have in minimizing the carbon footprint – or “decarbonizing” – products, businesses, industries, and even entire economies. But first a brief level set on what PLM is and is not.
That author Bill Gates, who admits upfront in the book that he is an imperfect messenger, wrote what many of us often think about the climate crisis:
“It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of a problem as big as climate change. But you’re not powerless. And you don’t have to be a politician or a philanthropist to make a difference. You have influence as a citizen, a consumer, and an employee or employer.”
“Propelling their mission towards delivering airlines zero-carbon, hydrogen-fueled flight, ZeroAvia is launching the development program for a 2MW hydrogen-electric powertrain for full-size regional aircraft. The program kick-off is supported by a new raise of $24.3 million, led by Horizons Ventures, joined by a new investor British Airways. Existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, Shell Ventures, and SYSTEMIQ also participated in the financing.”
“This new round accelerates the larger hydrogen-electric engine development for the 50+ seat aircraft and supports additional commercial airlines initiatives to adopt hydrogen in aviation. Today’s announcement brings the company’s total private investment to over $53 million and the total funding raised since inception to nearly $74 million.”
This green energy example from the PLM solution provider TECHNIA illustrates the application of PLM technologies, like those available from their partner Dassault Systemes, to develop renewable energy from ocean and tidal currents. Read more HERE.
The goal of the PLM and Green Energy working group, led by Bjorn Fidjeland, within the PLM Green Global Alliance is to promote discussion and awareness of how Plant and Product Lifecycle Management strategies and enabling technologies can support the transition to green renewable energy sources.
It is our firm belief that Plant & Product Lifecycle Management philosophies, strategies, systems, and software can play an important role to safely and more cost effectively:
design, build, operate, maintain and decommission green energy production plants
operate and maintain future energy storage units and distribution grids
design, build, operate and maintain production facilities for products needed in the transition to green and renewable energy
design, build, service and operate products needed to achieve a net zero emission society
Our objective is to share experiences, examples, and best practices in a collaborative mode to promote discussion, learning, and understanding with respect to the mentioned focus areas. We also plan to publish our own “industry heads up” news, articles and case studies illustrating all that is happening in the global race towards “going green” and a low-carbon economy.
Agenda & Activities
We will be pursuing our objectives by an agenda selected from a number of elements including: focus discussion groups, published articles and blog posts, recorded interviews, industry surveys, conference presentations, and cooperative events and alliances with other organizations. These objectives will be developed and prioritized in collaboration with our international members. Follow our progress or better yet join us with an email to info@plmgreenalliance.com.
Announcements & Updates
Check back soon as we finalize and announce our activities for 2021, or register HERE to receive our news updates.
Invitation to Participate & Collaborate
To participate in our PLM and Green Energy group, we invite you to first join the PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn Group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12304531/then contact our moderator Bjorn Fidjeland HERE.
References & Resources
Here we have started creating a curated list of featured case studies, white papers, blog posts, presentations, webinars, and interviews on the role of PLM-enabling technologies in creating, storing, and distributing green energy. We invite you to send us resources and examples you have come across in your own work, company, industry, or country to info@plmgreenalliance.com.
Discussing PLM and Sustainability with CIMdata-Last year the PLM Green Global Alliance was excited to speak with PLM solution providers SAP, Autodesk, Dassault Systems, Sustaira, Aras, and PTC to learn about them and their customers' contributions to sustainability. This year we were equally enthused to meet with CIMdata’s Mark Reisig in a wide-ranging conversation about… Continue Reading
Hydrogen Electric Powered Regional Jets-This green aviation example from Aviation Week describes how "proponents of hydrogen-electric propulsion are pushing deeper into short-haul air transportation with deals that could see the conversion of large turboprops and regional jets and the first zero-emissions commercial passenger flights with smaller aircraft as soon as 2024." The article goes… Continue Reading
Battery Modeling from COMSOL-As more products, industries and economies become electrified to meet greenhouse gas emission goals, the performance of batteries and sustainability of their production is becoming increasing important. Engineering.com has published a new white paper on battery modeling using multiphysics simulation software from CAE solution provider COMSOL. The authors write that… Continue Reading
Net Zero by 2050 from IEA-The International Energy Agency has published a new report "Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector." The authors write in their introduction that "The number of countries announcing pledges to achieve net-zero emissions over the coming decades continues to grow. But the pledges by governments to… Continue Reading
Hydrogen Powered Regional Aircraft from ZeroAvia-"Propelling their mission towards delivering airlines zero-carbon, hydrogen-fueled flight, ZeroAvia is launching the development program for a 2MW hydrogen-electric powertrain for full-size regional aircraft. The program kick-off is supported by a new raise of $24.3 million, led by Horizons Ventures, joined by a new investor British Airways. Existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecosystem Integrity… Continue Reading
European Green Hydrogen Infrastructure-PLM Green Moderator Bjorn Fidjeland shares good news about a consortium to develop a green energy hydrogen infrastructure in this European news release about: "The seven companies in the GET H2 initiative are working to facilitate green hydrogen in refineries, steel production and other industrial uses, which could reduce 16m… Continue Reading
European Green Digital Coalition Launched-Members of the new European Green Digital Coalition (EGDC) are committing to establish science-based targets for reducing GHG by 2030 and to become climate neutral or net-zero no later than 2040. Announced by the European Commission: "The CEOs of 26 European companies have signed a Declaration to support the Green… Continue Reading
Resourcing the Energy Transition-PLM Green Alliance moderator Bjorn Fidjeland recommends reading the KPMG report on "Resourcing the energy transition: making the world go round" which explores the transition to renewable energy, a growing dependence on natural resources other than oil, and the crucial link to the circular economy. From the KPMG website "A… Continue Reading
Digital Twins for Hydroelectric Power from Akselos-This green energy case study from Akselos profiles the use of Digital Twin modeling and CAE simulation in hydroelectric power generation that uses pumped storage where a reservoir is filled with water at times of excess power availability. Read more details HERE. Continue Reading
Minesto and TECHNIA Collaborate to Develop Renewable Energy-This green energy example from the PLM solution provider TECHNIA illustrates the application of PLM technologies, like those available from their partner Dassault Systemes, to develop renewable energy from ocean and tidal currents. Read more HERE. Continue Reading
Greenhous Gas Emissions by Sector-The data from Our World in Data is a useful resource about the source of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions by sector of the economy, and thus where PLM technologies may have the most value. Continue Reading
The data from Our World in Data is a useful resource about the source of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions by sector of the economy, and thus where PLM technologies may have the most value.
Members of our new PLM Green Alliance group have begun collaborating to identify and select overarching PLM Green themes and sub-topics which we plan to research, share, discuss, and advocate. So far the following five themes have been recommended.
The role, contribution, and value of PLM-enabling technologies (e.g. PLM, PDM, CAE, CM, 3DP, CAD, DT, HPC, MBSE, AR/VR, PPM, MDO, MPS, etc.) in addressing:
Help us to identify additional themes and select subtopics within each theme by leaving a comment below, sending a note to info@plmgreenalliance.com or joining our LinkedIn Group.
We seek volunteers to help contribute to and curate the collection of resources, and moderate discussions in each of these themes and their subtopics.
Join us to make a difference on what may very well be the most important and valuable contributions of our profession in a lifetime!
June 2020 (United States, Netherlands, Norway) – The launch of and participation in a new international collaboration, the PLM Green Global Alliance (“PGGA”), has been announced by Richard McFall from PLM Alliances, Jos Voskuil from TacIT, Oleg Shilovitsky from Beyond PLM, and Bjorn Fidjeland from plmPartner.
The coalition was founded with the mission to create a global connection and community between professionals who use, develop, market, or support Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) enabling technologies and software solutions that have value in addressing the causes and consequences of climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions such that we create a more sustainable circular economy.
