Digitalisation and AI for Energy Efficiency and Net-zero Industry

Digitisation in the industry has attracted great interest in both industry and academic institutes in Sweden and internationally. Correspondingly, the International Energy Agency's IETS technology collaboration programme decided to start a larger international collaboration between leading organisations in the IETS countries. Therefore, the ExCo in IEA-IETS decided on the first task of the international work within digitisation in the industry, Task XVIII. 

This task aims to advance knowledge and development of digitalisation, artificial intelligence, and related technologies to improve energy-intensive industries' economic and environmental sustainability. It seeks to assemble a network of academic institutions, research labs, technology providers, and the process industry to cooperate for informed decision-making relevant to the targeted sectors. The aims are pursued through:

• Creating an international network and information infrastructure for stakeholders to exchange knowledge in the area of digitalisation technologies.
• Facilitating joint development of new knowledge and expertise in digitalisation
• Supporting the acceleration of the deployment of digitalisation practises in energy-intensive process industries.

For Swedish participation and contributions to the IETS, the Swedish Energy Agency has tasked the strategic innovation programme PiiA to form and coordinate a consortium with central Swedish organisations focusing on sustainable industry, dissemination of results, and internationalisation. Accordingly, the Sweden Industrial Digitalisation Consortium started its collaboration with international peers involved in the IETS Task XVIII and its respective subtasks on:

• Methods and Applications of Digital Twins
• Lessons Learned and Created Values by Digitalisation
• Digitalisation Implementation Roadmaps 
• AI Methods in Industrial Energy Systems (2025-2026)

Currently, the Swedish digitalisation consortium is continuing its activities and contributions via:

• Collaboration with the IETS working group on "Digitalisation for an Energy Efficient and Robust Industry" to identify needs and create strategic approaches for maximising the impact of digitalisation in discussion clubs with inputs from experts and industry.
• Collaboration with IETS-National Support Group and other NSG members to contribute to the development of new IETS tasks and common dissemination methods.
• Engaging national actors, SIPs, industrial clusters, and Swedish consortia in IETS, with an active interest in digitalisation, energy-saving, and CO2/GHG reduction, to facilitate dialogue on the expectation and impact of digitalisation and create mission-oriented digitalisation roadmap and guidelines.
• Co-leading the subtask IV in the international consortium

The activities and outcomes are communicated to the consortium and a wider audience via IETS- and PiiA-organised events and communication channels.