Digitalization and energy consumption
The rationale behind this study is premised on the importance of long-term projections of the demand for energy commodities as applied to the national and regional energy and economic security and policy-making that aims at improving the quality of life of the population. There is a wide range of tools and models available to facilitate the studies and projections of the fuel and energy demand. That said, ongoing changes in inner workings and development externalities of the economy and the society in general call for bringing them up to date. Today, we are witnessing dramatic developments and the ever increasing adoption of information and communication technologies that will ultimately pervade all facets of human life. Digital technologies enjoy widespread application in the final energy consumption sectors: they are employed to control industrial processes, improve work performance and safety, and identify the directions to be pursued to enhance energy saving. As of now, we still lack a clear understanding of the impact digitalization will have on the structure of the demand for energy commodities. On the one hand, intelligent control fosters energy saving, on the other hand, digital technologies themselves, as they require the processing of a great bulk of data, consume energy as well. The development of the methods that serve as a backbone of long-term projections of the demand for energy commodities has to properly account for the dynamics of the adoption of digital technologies across all economic sectors on a par with the effect they have on the structure of the demand for energy commodities. We propose one of the many possible approaches to estimate the effect of digitalization on electricity consumption in the tertiary sector. The approach is based on studying the interactions between the growth of electricity consumption and the growth of the number of connected devices. Furthermore, we present our tentative estimates of the additional growth of the demand for electricity in Russia for 2030 - 2035, caused by the accelerated development of the electric car market.
Библиографическая ссылка
Galperova E.V., Mazurova O.V. Digitalization and energy consumption // Proc. of the VIth Int. Workshop 'Critical Infrastructures: Contingency Management, Intelligent, Agent-Based, Cloud Computing and Cyber Security' (IWCI 2019). 2019. P.55-61. DOI: 10.2991/iwci-19.2019.10
