Corporate energy R&D is strong in the renewable energy sectors. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

A new report from the IEA highlights the pivotal role of innovation in advancing national energy and economic goals, with the range of new energy technologies offering potential for progress in energy security, affordability and sustainability

 The report – The State of Energy Innovation – provides a global review of energy technology innovation trends, covering more than 150 innovation highlights and surveying nearly 300 practitioners from 34 countries. It says that progress on innovation is more important than ever, as it will play a decisive role in determining countries’ long-term economic resilience and ability to meet energy and climate goals.

Recent years have seen a steady increase in innovation activity, the report points out. Public and corporate energy R&D spending has grown at an average annual rate of 6%, although growth may be slowing in some advanced economies. Corporate energy R&D has outpaced economic growth, particularly in the automotive and renewable energy sectors. However, R&D spending as a share of revenues in the cement and steel sectors remains 20% to 70% below that of the automotive and renewables sectors, respectively, while the aviation and shipping sectors have reduced the share of their revenue spent on R&D over the past decade.

R&D advances

In 2024, significant energy R&D advances covered solid-state that could avoid environmentally harmful refrigerants; high-confinement plasma for nuclear fusion; a prototype solid-state EV battery that could allow cars to be charged in nine minutes; and higher-speed geothermal drilling through hard rock. Among larger-scale projects, first-of-a-kind progress was reported for perovskite PV manufacturing, ammonia use as a marine fuel, underground thermal and compressed CO₂ long-duration energy storage, lithium recovery from geothermal brine, cellulosic bioethanol facilities and CCUS for cement production, among others. These projects are supported by countries including Australia, Brazil, China, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Some technology areas – including battery technologies, CCUS, critical mineral sourcing, geothermal and solar PV – made significant recent advances across all main innovation phases.

“Innovation is the lifeblood of the energy sector, particularly in today’s fast-moving times with the global energy mix shifting and major trends such as electrification having far-reaching effects,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol. “A wide range of technologies now appears to be coming close to market, offering hope for improvements in energy security, affordability and sustainability over the long term. But we require investment, both public and private, to scale up innovative solutions. The payback may not always be quick, but it will be lasting.”

VC funding

Venture capital (VC) funding for energy technologies rose more than sixfold from 2015 to 2022, supporting around 1,800 energy start-ups. However, it declined by more than 20% in 2023 and 2024 amid tighter financial conditions, with AI being the only sector to see growth in VC funding.

Innovation efforts have also become increasingly global. China overtook Japan and the United States in 2021 as the leading country for energy patenting, with over 95% of its patents focused on low-emissions technologies. Since 2000, patenting globally for low-emissions technologies has grown 4.5 times as fast as it has for fossil fuels,.

Public and private financing earmarked for large-scale energy technology demonstration projects this decade has reached around US$60bn. These projects are critical for commercialising emerging technologies but face delays due to inflation and policy uncertainty. Most projects have still not reached final investment decision, and 95% of demonstration funding is concentrated in North America, Europe and China. Sectors with urgent innovation needs to validate low-emissions options – such as heavy industry and long-distance transport – account for just 17% of the total.

The report stresses the importance of maintaining momentum and addressing structural gaps in the global innovation system. It recommends targeted policies to increase public energy R&D spending, support technology developers through economic cycles and strengthen international cooperation to bring clean energy demonstration projects to market.

Scaling and democratising the adoption of AI is the next step. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

In Part 2 of a two-part interview with Oil Review Middle East, Dany Rahal, SLB's head of digital for MENA, shares his insights on the transformative impact of AI and digital technologies in the oil and gas sector, AI adoption in the Middle East and the next evolution of AI

Having first worked in the Middle East in 2014, SLB’s Dany Rahal was pleasantly surprised at the progress the region has made in digital and AI adoption on his return to the region in 2022 as SLB’s head of digital for MENA. 

“Back in 2014, talking about cloud to national oil companies in the Middle East was not something that could be easily discussed,” he recalls. “Today, all the global hyperscalers are in the region – Microsoft, Google, AWS. The pace of investment from corporates and governments into digital and AI specifically, is increasing. Tech companies are coming into this space in the Middle East very, very fast. Now we can compare the region, in terms of adoption, to the US and China."

Nowhere is the opportunity greater than in the oil and gas sector, where AI and machine learning are transforming operations and helping operators to address their industry challenges.

“Our customers today want to reduce cycle times, reduce risks, increase returns and improve productivity. They want to reduce and optimise costs, and reduce emissions,” Rahal says. “These are the challenges. AI and ML today are revitalising industries worldwide, not just the energy sector, and we have a great opportunity in the energy and oil and gas sector to apply these technologies to bring value. For example, in terms of accelerating field development, planning, reducing operational risks around drilling, automating mundane, repetitive tasks and enabling production uptime.”

Key role of data

Rahal notes here the key role of data as the foundation for AI and Gen AI. “You cannot have a successful AI or GenAI implementation unless you have a clean data foundation that is ready to be consumed by AI or GenAI. It’s all about the data—both current and future—which has enormous potential to generate value for the industry, if it’s managed well.

“Oil, gas and energy operators generate terabytes of data, be it large size seismic data, be it production time series data or high frequency data. And in the Middle East, we have a lot of historical data, because it is home to a lot of ageing reservoirs. And client data can be scattered, in different databases in different formats.

So it is important that this data is cleaned and is available to be consumed by AI and domain workflows. This is a big focus for us at SLB.”

Scaling AI adoption

Scaling and democratising the adoption of AI is the next step, Rahal says. “Even though everyone is talking about AI, it is still really at the proof of value stage. Today, AI is mainly a tool in the hands of experts that is creating individual pockets of value. We haven’t really scaled AI adoption and deployment to enterprise level or across all the assets in the organisation. So the next evolution is, how do you democratise access to AI? How will you reimagine work so that these tools are available to everyone in the organisation, not only to the data scientists and the experts?”

Rahal refers to his earlier comments on SLB’s focus on talent upskilling, adding that the company is facilitating adoption by embedding AI in its software. SLB’s global footprint and its partnerships with technology providers are also helping in this regard.

“From a technology perspective, having large language models (LLM’s) that are energy-specific and trained in the language of energy is critical, so that they can deliver trusted energy-specific and robust answers. This is the big challenge today. In SLB we talk about engineered AI, where we marry the AI with domain knowledge and expertise to answer questions at the level of quality our customers have come to expect from SLB. We are working today on multiple topics around specific engineered AI. For example, we have a seismic foundation model trained on seismic data, which helps geophysicists in fault identification which leads to higher quality and a lot faster turnaround. So having AI engineered specifically for the domain is key to ensure that the next evolution of AI speaks the language of energy.”

Technology innovations

Turning to SLB’s technology innovations in the AI space, and how they are helping operators in the region, he highlights the Lumi™ data and AI platform which integrates advanced AI capabilities—including generative AI—with workflows across the energy value chain, unlocking access to high-quality data across subsurface, surface, planning and operations, increasing cross-domain collaboration and providing insights to improve the quality and speed of decision making at enterprise-level.

“We are seeing a lot of success in the region in terms of customer interest and adoption, it really addresses what customers see as a foundational enabler for business transformation” he says.

SLB is at the same time augmenting their software by embedding and augmenting them with AI . For example, its Petrel™ subsurface software, which provides a full spectrum of geological workflows to solve the most complex geological and modelling challenges, has AI embedded to accelerate the work and improve the productivity of geoscientists, and there are at least 150 such examples across the organization.

“We’ve also embedded AI in our edge solutions,” Rahal notes. “So for example, in the case of chemical injection to address flow assurance issues and improve recovery, we can completely automate the chemical injection by controlling the timing and dosage. This can save on costs as well as the environmental impact.”

Rahal also highlights SLB’s Innovation Factori™ AI collaboration workspace, which aims to accelerate digital and AI adoption by bringing together SLB’s domain, data and AI experts together with customers to collaborate on developing tailored solutions addressing specific customer challenges, which can then be commercialised.

“It’s a great concept.”

He adds that the Innovation Factori™ centre in Abu Dhabi, which opened in December 2022, has had great success with customers in the UAE and throughout MENA.

Rahal concludes that he is very optimistic about the future of digital adoption within the MENA region.

“As I mentioned, most of the production is coming from ageing reservoirs. Many of the customer wells and fields are not instrumented today. Data is still sitting in silos. So the opportunity is huge in terms of the value that we can bring, going forward. I see potential for growth across all domains.”

Now the question is, how do you bring all this AI expertise and technology into the operations space?

One area which he does specifically highlight is autonomous operations whether in the drilling or production domains. “We have had great success with one of the operators in the Middle East around autonomous drilling.

“We’re also working with a major operator in the region to deploy a smart production solution that leverages AI on the edge to optimise the customer’s operations without any human intervention.

“So there are a lot of great things happening in the Middle East. I’m very excited about this, and the growth prospects are amazing.”

See Dany's views on the essential ingredients for successful digital transformation here

The filtration system provides 98% solids removal efficiency. (Image source: Veolia Water Technologies)

Veolia Water Technologies, a global leader in produced water treatment, has launched ToroJet, a nutshell filtration system treating produced water in the oil and gas industry for reinjection, reuse or discharge

The filtration system provides 98% solids removal efficiency and reduces hydrocarbon concentrations to less than 2 milligrams per litre. ToroJet introduces a media cleaning system at grade level, eliminating the need for top-mounted backwash equipment at each filter. This significantly reduces capital expenses and maximises asset utilisation, allowing plant operators to clean nutshell media with lower operational costs and minimal media losses. The system's design enhances safety by providing easy access for maintenance.

The ToroJet system offers modular components that facilitate staged project expansions, ensuring operators can adapt to future needs without significant disruptions. The shared cleaning skid enables efficient media cleaning across multiple vessels, minimising downtime and maximising productivity. A fluidisation pump complying with API or ASME-ANSI standards provides consistent media cleaning every cycle.

ToroJet eliminates bulky platforms and ladders, allowing for a lower profile design that reduces building size and costs while improving safety and ergonomics for operators and technicians.

“ToroJet is the result of our extensive research and development program aimed at optimising nutshell media filtration to meet the evolving demands of our clients,” said Oscar Velastegui, Veolia Water Technologies North America vice president in charge of Filtration Technology. “We are proud to offer a solution that improves the current technology and sets a new standard for produced water polishing. ToroJet revolutionises traditional nutshell filtration by offering a simpler, safer, and more cost-effective solution."

The service will address the growing demand for industrial energy efficiency. (Image source: Sulzer)

Sulzer has launched an energy efficiency and carbon reduction service called Sulzer Energy Optimisation Service to upgrade the standards of centrifugal pumps across their lifecycle for energy intensive industries such as power generation, oil and gas, chemicals and water desalination 

This service will address the growing demand for industrial energy efficiency with access to digital analysis, machine learning and ongoing monitoring to reduce carbon emissions, enhance reliability, and reduce energy costs. A 1% increase in global pump efficiency would save around 59TWh of electricity – equivalent to New Zealand’s annual power needs; some pumps’ efficiency could be increased by as much as 20-30%.

Ravin Pillay-Ramsamy, services division president at Sulzer said, “Inefficient and unreliable pumps cost operators in the industrial sectors millions of dollars in unnecessary downtime, energy costs and carbon emissions every year. Sulzer Energy Optimisation Service offers a comprehensive solution that tackles this inefficiency – from identification through to improvement and monitoring.

“A pilot customer in Spain will now save €1 million in energy costs and over 2,300 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year as a result of energy optimisation improvements identified by the Service. By rerating five pumps, energy efficiency increased from 72% to 83% saving the operator 5,000MWh in electricity every year.”

Consisting of four steps, an initial pump energy audit identifies areas of inefficiency with Sulzer’s proprietary calculator – PumpWise – outlining the potential energy, carbon and monetary savings.

A tailored proposal is generated by Sulzer’s expert team presenting a range of options to return the pump to run at its best efficiency point through an engineered retrofit, with varying techniques such as hydraulic re-rates, specialised coatings, wear clearances and more. Each option weighs operational costs, investment, downtime, payback and efficiency guarantees. The upgrades are then implemented with support from Sulzer’s established retrofit team which has delivered more than 4,000 retrofit projects globally since its setup in 2010. The team is supported by a network of more than 120 service locations globally.

Following retrofit, Sulzer offers a performance agreement to maintain optimised reliability and efficiency. This includes access to Blue Box, Sulzer’s proprietary machine learning technology which turns pump performance data into actionable insights.

Pillay-Ramsamy said, “For operators who are constantly challenged to do more with less, making energy efficiency improvements is a win-win. With pumps accounting for 20% of the world’s electricity demand, we want to offer a streamlined, futureproofed way for customers to improve their energy efficiency regardless of their pump OEM.

“To do so, we’ve combined the competence of our people and longstanding engineering expertise with our proprietary innovations and wrapped them in a collaborative and customer-centric approach. Altogether we believe this solution creates a new best practice standard for pump operation that goes above and beyond in supporting operators to remain future-ready.”