“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
When President Kennedy set this national goal and asked Congress to fund it, he didn’t give much detail about how this should be achieved. That task was left to the scientists, engineers and brave astronauts of NASA.
Kennedy’s challenge has a lot in common with today’s even bigger challenge: tackling the climate crisis. We know that we need to take action and we know that we have only limited time to do so, but we don’t necessarily know all the steps that will get us there. It is a daunting task, not just because of the scale of the challenge but also because of the unknowable elements. If your organisation has set itself a net zero target without being clear how to get there, you’re definitely not alone.
24/7 clean energy: a critical element
Part of the ENTRNCE vision for net zero is a world with 24/7 clean energy – a critical element in the fight against climate change. It may seem like an unrealistic goal, and it’s not possible yet, but we have announced our commitment to work towards this outcome using the most advanced technology available to us.
We do, however, already know that information is key to achieving this. You can’t work towards a 24/7 renewable energy supply without the tools for measuring the amount of green energy in the mix at any given time. That is why the ENTRNCE Matcher platform is focused on providing granular data.
Instead of vague promises that a supply is “green”, consumers get half-hourly snapshots of the energy mix supplying them. We can’t control the grid and the proportion of renewables in it, but we can empower businesses to align their usage with renewable output to maximise uptake of renewables. The granularity of the data allows businesses to make hour-by-hour decisions on when to operate energy-intensive equipment, when to charge up the fleet of electric cars and so on. If the user has on-site generation in place, this information also allows them to maximise use of self-generated power and cut costs by getting as little as possible from the grid.
The answers to 24/7 clean energy
You might wonder how we can possibly set the ambitious goal of 24/7 clean energy when we have no control over energy policy or national renewables capacity. We have two answers to that:
- Information is empowering
Energy users who have granular data on the energy they consume are empowered to make the greenest possible decisions. And their choices send market signals that there is powerful demand for more renewables in the mix. - It’s how we begin the journey
Nobody has all the answers about how we achieve 24/7 renewable energy, or how we solve the overall problem of climate change. It’s very rare for an organisation to have a complete picture of how they will achieve their net zero goals. The good news is that you don’t have to know every step in advance.
In the eight years after Kennedy’s speech to Congress, an estimated 400,000 people worked on making the moon landings happen. Data was one key to their success, as a team of “human computers” led by mathematician Katherine Johnson calculated space flight trajectories by hand. But perhaps even more important was NASA’s willingness to get started without having all the answers, developing new fuels and engine models as they went along.
As a business, you don’t have to have all the answers before embarking on your net zero strategy. You just have to know how to start and be willing to take the first steps. ENTRNCE can be at your side at this early stage, providing the map you need to make real progress on your journey.
If you want to learn more about how data can help you achieve genuine transparency over your energy supply, read this whitepaper about avoiding the greenwash.
