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Enablers

We can now examine the technology enablers of the evolving
4.0 paradigm in the power industry.
There are obvious axes of innovation: in sensors, com-
munications, intelligence, decision, actions. And there are dis-
tinctive axes in the energy sector: local generation, local sto-
rage, net-zero energy balance, minimal carbon emission.
The enabling technologies and processes are multiple:
1)In sensors, control, power electronics, communica-
tions, batteries, distributed computing, the offer is more and
more sophisticated;
2) Artificial Intelligence enhancing: generalized data ga-
thering, forecasting processes, distributed intelligent agents,
autonomous processes, adaptive and active agents (not only
reactive), knowledge extraction from data, intelligent systems
anticipating risk, fault-tolerant systems, decision systems in
closed loop (without human intervention), generalized cyber-
netic security, autonomous adaptive robotics;
3) Powerful simulation platforms: digital twins, interac-
tion between simulation and operations management, risk as-
sessment, interaction between energy management and ope-
rations management.
The important change to note is that, in the context of
the Industry 4.0 paradigm, energy is no longer an externality
but an integrating factor in the design of the industrial produc-
tive process.

Landscape evolution

The big energy revolution is in front of everybody’s eyes: the
energy matrix of the world and in most countries in changing.
Two direct factors stand behind this evolution, linked with the
global decarbonization effort:
a) the consistent decrease in the costs of renewable
generation, to a point that solar and wind power, presently, ge-

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