How will it be, living and working in the future? This question has been broadly discussed in the global community in the context of the climate change debate. Creating more sustainable energy production, considering global environmental changes as well as energy efficiency, thinking about raising living standards — these are all major challenges for us as a society, and for the global energy industry in particular.
Let me share some interesting observations from our visit to the “Zentrum Zukunft” (“Future Center”), which is effectively a lab that showcases the latest innovations in how new technologies will affect our daily living at home in the future. We got a sneak peek there on how EWE AG, the owner of the ‘Future House’ and a regional energy company, envisions the future and how they plan to deal with the upcoming challenges in the energy space.
Their Future House knows who I am and what I like — it was an impressive experience. It all started with a security system that required an iris scan or fingerprint to enter the house. With my first step inside, the light was immediately tuned to my preferred tone as defined in my personal “welcome” scenario.
The mirror in the entrance hall was almost like my personal assistant. It gave me my first glance into all of my information needs and tasks: what has happened with my friends as well as everything that happened since I left, like emails, people that have reached out to me, To-dos, housework, grocery list, etc.
On a total of three floors we witnessed many additional innovations which are going to make our first encounters with technology, such as our first car, our first computer or our first iPod, look fairly boring. It will definitely change the way we do things. And most interesting for all the non-geeks: the usability will be so easy, you won’t even see the remote anymore.
From a sustainability perspective, EWE envisions energy production to be in close proximity to the end customer. In fact, they believe the customer will be both Consumer and Producer at the same time. They showcased different kinds of decentralized systems all driven by a smart building control system.
- Photovoltaic, solar panel
- Combined heat and power generation
- Fuel Cell
- Sterling engine
- Pallets
- Absorption cooling unit
It was amazing to see how much effort EWE has put into this vision of the future and how different markets, from energy and information technology to communication will be integrated to make infrastructure more intelligent. Following this vision, a reality will bring tremendous change to society and the energy industry in particular, adding a whole set of new competitors like Google, Microsoft and Deutsche Telekom AG.
We left inspired, and are even more convinced that there are great opportunities waiting for those innovators who are able to transfer their innovations into sustainable products. On the ride home we discussed how to build our own portable 50 megawatt power storage; well, at least we could agree that it should not exceed the size of the latest iPhone :-) … And if you’re working on that, let us know!
