People walking along the High Line in New York City, New York, USA. (Photo by: Edwin Remsburg/VW ... [+]
In recent months, several major cities have taken steps to announce climate-friendly measures as part of their recovery from the Covid-19 economic downturn. The initiative led by the C40 Global Mayors Covid-19 Recovery Task Force aims to create a plan that allows for the implementation of a strong economic recovery based on the principles of a Global Green New Deal. As part of the plan, C40 members have reaffirmed their commitment to cutting emissions from the sectors most responsible for climate change and keeping temperatures below the 1.5°C goals of the Paris Agreement. But for cities to implement the aims of the Global Green New Deal, they would need to cut global emissions in half by 2030 and replace polluting fossil fuel in the power, transportation and building sectors with clean alternatives. To execute these goals, cities and relevant stakeholders, such as residents and their local utilities, businesses and corporations, all require greater visibility into energy data to understand the source of carbon emissions from the sectors operating in their communities. Only with this level of understanding and granularity can decision-makers develop feasible climate action plans that are in line with national and international standards.
In the energy sector, the accessibility of open energy models and data has often lagged behind other fields. Research led by the Climate Policy Group at ETH Zürich found that a significant share of energy data is owned by private entities where the need to protect intellectual property limits visibility for stakeholders. To move forward and accelerate climate action, the public and private sectors need to collaborate on essential emissions data to drive forward effective science-based policies and help investors make more informed decisions when assessing climate-related risks.
One company looking to solve the critical need to access energy data is Dynamhex. For the past two years, Dynamhex has been developing an integrated API platform, akin to Plaid meets Palantir, for energy that aims to develop a ready-to-go approach to building greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory data. By gathering large sets of GHG data and bringing multiple stakeholders together, Dynamhex seeks to create a cleantech marketplace that connects governments, residents and businesses with cleantech vendors through a common application to accelerate measurable action on climate change.
Using artificial intelligence and partnerships to accelerate energy data acquisition
Dynamhex is building a national GHG inventory through a two-step approach. Firstly, it is using econometric and geospatial datasets from multiple sources to run artificial intelligence models that develop a bottom-up GHG framework inventory without needing to ingest consumer-permissioned data points. Secondly, Dynamhex is increasing inventory accuracy by partnering with utilities and public/private entities. As part of the data-sharing agreement to use Dynamhex's platform, these partners provide their energy data via a secure and standard API, which allows decision-makers to collaborate around a set of standardised data points and develop long-term climate action plans. In a recent article, Open Data Charter and World Resources Institute jointly highlighted the importance of high-quality data for driving effective climate policies and the need for national stakeholders to access relevant and usable data sources for inclusive and transparent decisions. For these reasons, by creating this centralised emissions data platform, Dynamhex aims to support engagement among stakeholders, such as energy providers, consumers, regulators and funders, and build the public's trust and awareness around climate change.
For Dynamhex's CEO, Dr Sunny Sanwar, the potential to unlock and foster a greater level of transparency around energy data has been the driving motivation behind Dynamhex’s energy data API platform. Dr Sanwar stated in an interview that having "transparent energy data is critical to accelerating collaboration between the city and private/civic actors as a way to set and implement climate change targets". He added that by leveraging Dynamhex, "cities, utilities and private entities can understand each other's carbon footprint and collaborate through Dynamhex's climate-tech marketplace to develop, deploy and manage low-carbon projects in their community". In connecting every stakeholder involved, Dr Sanwar hopes to not only reduce the coordination costs of climate change mitigation but also, more importantly, to 'see' all the invisible carbon emissions in every community and neighbourhood in the U.S. and beyond. By enabling greater insights into carbon emissions, Dr Sanwar aims to create a growing database of clean energy companies in each locality that develops localised, cost-effective clean energy solutions to thwart the effects of climate change.
Improving programmes and enabling customers to develop insights from energy data
Dynamhex has formed partnerships with various municipal governments and large utilities to support regional planning, programme evaluations and climate change initiatives. In 2020, Prairie Village City, Kansas awarded Dynamhex a one-year, $12,000 contract to track and evaluate the city's greenhouse gas emissions and create an action plan for city officials and residents. Meanwhile, in Roeland Park, Kansas, the local mayor and city council adopted similar measures to use Dynamhex as the main insights platform to measure and track the city's greenhouse gas emissions year on year. According to Dr Sanwar, the city's leaders have been using Dynamhex to "examine which projects on city-owned facilities should be part of the near-term climate investments to meet 2025's emissions targets". He stated that "based on Dynamhex's assessment and recommendations, the power utilities have become involved and have used Dynamhex's platform to showcase the GHG impact of on-site and ground-mount solar PV projects to propose an install-own-operate energy project" (in the Kansas area).
Aside from Dynamhex's partnerships with municipal governments, Dr Sanwar's team has also been collaborating with large utilities in the United States. He pointed out that "Exelon
Building a cleantech marketplace to help deploy zero-emission products
Low carbon reduction planning through Dynamhex's platform
A significant value that Dynamhex offers is the ability to bring together every party involved in a low-carbon transaction and allow them to interact and exchange through a climate-tech marketplace in the form of buyers (enterprise, building owners, cities) and sellers (utilities, low-carbon service providers, investors). For example, through Dynamhex's marketplace, cities can follow up on their emissions targets by creating projects, such as reducing GHG emissions in buildings. Based on the city's energy data on Dynamhex's platform, utilities can develop programmes for building owners and, upon reviewing their energy profiles, recommend ways to electrify fuel usage or reduce power usage in line with the city's climate change target. Building owners can then adjust their power usage by adopting the utility's energy programmes, and they can purchase energy-efficient products, offered by low-carbon service providers on Dynamhex's marketplace, to reduce their energy consumption. As more building owners look to buy energy-efficient products through Dynamhex's marketplace, low-carbon service providers can acquire customers more efficiently and deploy products at scale. For the municipal government, Dynamhex's marketplace allows officials to access the impact of their climate and energy policies and manage emissions-reducing projects by seeing how well utilities, building owners and low-carbon service providers are interacting with each other. Based on interim results, the municipal government can easily reformulate its policy measures to address gaps and keep annual climate targets on track.
According to Dr Sanwar, Dynamhex's marketplace "not only allows buyers and sellers to interact but also enables them to understand the cost-savings from emissions reductions by leveraging the GHG inventory data on the platform". As corporations and governments look to set goals for 2030 and 2050, there will be a greater need to align on collective goals and improve market transparency, which will be critical in meeting GHG targets. For Dr Sanwar, Dynamhex's data layer and software platform reduces the coordination inefficiencies between stakeholders, allowing them to focus on implementing their climate goals through trackable energy projects. Finally, to facilitate broader decarbonisation efforts, climate-tech solution providers will need to be able to integrate and deploy their solutions within existing industries. Dr Sanwar highlighted that Dynamhex's energy data API and AI-enabled marketplace would allow these providers to access market insights, enabling them to build customised products for their customers and scale their business. As the need to address climate change becomes more urgent, Dynamhex's platform could go a long way in making necessary data available to effectively tackle climate action plans and subsequently meet climate goals.
