Reports Disruptive Technologies in Commodity Trading | Page 17

Disruptive Technologies in Commodity Trading Markets A ComTechAdvisory Report tual Power Plant (VPP). The VPP includes biogas and combined heat and power (CHP) plants owned by local farmers on the production side, and flexible pumps, ventilators and compressors on the consump- tion side and the whole VPP is monitored in real-time and automatically controlled by algorithms. There are other examples of German companies following the same path. and AI startups soared in average value from around $500 million in the first quarter of 2017 to $3.5 bil- lion in the second quarter. In that report, BDO state that “AI will allow a transition to an energy portfolio with increased renewable resource production and minimal disruptions from the natural intermittency that comes with these sources due to variable sun- light and wind intensity.” One issue with AI is that it is computationally inten- sive. However, cloud computing is facilitating the de- ployment of AI by offering some of the computational flexibility that is needed. In the future, quantum com- puting may aid deployment and allow increasingly so- phistica ted models. The results of our survey and research do suggest that AI and ML, when combined with big data and to some extent, the cloud, is set to have a dramatic im- pact on commodity technology in the near-term. eZ-nergy Exploiting the IOT is another area of interest for many firms in the industry. Deploying smart devices in in- dustrial facilities such as power plants, enables the collection and analyzing of constant streams of highly granular data to ensure increased reliability and opti- mized operation. Software and 24/7 services Coupled with AI, these types of facilitate may be able to move to more event-driven operations, allowing re- al-time adjustments to more effectively and efficiently operate in rapidly a changing environment. eZ-Operations European Power and gas operations & logistics web application The growing interest in AI and big data in the ener- gy industry has catalyzed a number of mergers and acquisitions in which energy and commodity compa- nies have invested in or acquired specialist AI firms. According to a report from accounting firm, BDO 9 , mergers and acquisitions involving energy companies Nominations 9 Balancing Strong interoperability IT innovation & 24/7 excellence Assets scheduling Time series based High availability [email protected] - www.ez-nergy.com https://www.bdo.co.za/getmedia/9b39ded6-e999-434d-af9a-5e073db1285c/BDO-Renewables-and-artificial-intelligence.pdf.aspx © Commodity Technology Advisory LLC, 2018, All Rights Reserved. Automated trading 17