The YNOW2024 conference in Houston this week drew industry experts from around the world, including leaders from Yokogawa companies all the way from Tokyo. Among them was Koji Nakaoka, Executive Officer, Managing Executive Officer, and General Manager of Energy & Sustainability Business Division, Yokogawa Electric Corporation.
Control’s Keith Larson sat down with Nakaoka to discuss YOKOGAWA’s plans to help customers achieve their sustainability goals and how that pursuit fits into YOKOGAWA’s own plans to make a meaningful contribution to society. We had an opportunity to discuss what to do. If you want to know more about what was said, keep reading.
Q: Yokogawa Electric has long worked on automating and optimizing both energy production and the industries that are the largest consumers of that energy. First, from an energy production perspective, what do you think is Yokogawa’s biggest opportunity to support the development of carbon-neutral alternative energy sources?
A: When we imagine 2040, we need to prepare for two scenarios in energy production. How can we support existing energy production and contribute to the production of newly developed alternative energy?
In any case, we recognize that we are expected to contribute to safe and secure energy production. In recent years, we have been working to expand our business in the renewable energy field. We will continue to work on energy production that does not rely on fossil fuel-derived energy and steadily expand our portfolio. Key aspects include energy optimization and building systems that can accommodate power generation, power trading, and charging from the perspective of each stakeholder.
Q: When it comes to reducing overall energy consumption, what role will digital transformation and IA2IA initiatives play in helping industry organizations and society at large move towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions? mosquito?
A: The IA2IA journey and digital transformation are very important keywords in our latest medium-term business plan. To realize the journey from industrial automation to industrial autonomy, we consider six gradual development stages. These include semi-autonomous, autonomous, semi-autonomous, autonomous orchestration, autonomous operations, and symbiotic autonomy.
We believe a phased approach is necessary, depending on each customer’s operational maturity. At the same time, we will work to optimize production and then the entire company in order to achieve our goal of net zero emissions. To achieve this, it is necessary to make full use of digital technologies such as digital twins in production operations throughout the lifecycle.
We support the safe and optimal operation of the entire value chain, including energy and water production, supply, use, disposal, recycling, and maintenance, and contribute to the realization of a resilient and sustainable society.
Q: From a regulatory and compliance perspective, it seems only a matter of time before real-time monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions becomes an expectation from corporate shareholders, if not governments. What do you think about responsibility for emissions? And how can Yokogawa contribute to solving this problem?
A: Yokogawa believes that achieving our business goals will also lead to contributing to society and the environment. It is an important theme to support a stable supply of energy with low-carbon technology, expand services to realize a decarbonized society, and contribute to people’s enriched lives.
In this context, we believe that accountability for emissions is a minimum corporate responsibility. We have established life cycle evaluation standards for product manufacturing processes and evaluate ESG indicators such as energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. At our bases in Japan and Europe, we are already conducting research into cross-industry collaboration for the effective use of energy and resources. These include the Goi district of Ichihara City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, and the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Individual companies in the petrochemical industry generally have highly optimized their operations. However, concerns about the leakage of sensitive information often prevent them from looking “beyond the fence” to collaborate with other companies in the industrial cluster, despite the potential for further energy and resource savings. We believe that Yokogawa is in a position to play an active role in realizing cross-industry collaboration and optimizing industrial complexes while ensuring the confidentiality of information.
Q: Are there any particular industries or organizations that you think are leading the way on the energy transition front? And what role do you see Yokogawa technology playing in that transition, now and in the future? mosquito?
A: We are not yet aware of any established industry or organization that can independently manage the energy transition. I believe that leveraging national energy transition policies and leveraging regional industry collaboration will ensure the organization moves forward. In order to make this kind of collaboration effective, it is necessary to go beyond organizational research and move forward to demonstration experiments.
We believe that future business opportunities lie in how we can convert data obtained through measurement and control into value.
Q: Can you explain what Yokogawa Electric has done to date to advance its own sustainability and what the roadmap is for the coming months and years?
A: Yokogawa set sustainability goals in 2017 and six contribution areas in 2021 to incorporate ESG perspectives into our business. The six areas of contribution are achieving carbon neutrality, improving social and industrial efficiency, optimizing factory life cycles and protecting the environment, improving health and safety, building resource recycling ecosystems, and creating workplaces where people can realize their potential. field.
By achieving our business goals, we also achieve our social and environmental contribution goals. We have been promoting business throughout the LNG supply chain in LNG, which is a clean energy source. Additionally, we have been working to expand our solution portfolio, including numerous acquisitions, with the aim of expanding the renewable energy field.
Yokogawa’s strength is that it provides a comprehensive range of lifecycle services from consulting to simulation, system installation, and operation and maintenance, and is able to make effective proposals over the long term. Yokogawa will leverage the technology it has cultivated over the years to provide comprehensive carbon-neutral solutions, contributing to the realization of a sustainable society and strengthening the competitiveness of industrial complexes as a whole.
