 Please to welcome Ajay Verma, CEO and Director of Capgemini Global Energy and Utilities Practice. Ajay has over 12 years of experience in IT management of smart energy and digital utilities programs, including strategy, architecture and integration. He leads Capgemini's utilities delivery portfolio and energy solutions for North America. Previously, he led the digital utilities practice within the Capgemini Global Center of Excellence. And today Ajay is going to look at how blockchain powers energy transformation. So we hear a lot about blockchain. It's more than just a buzzword. What's it doing in the energy industry? Ajay, over to you. Thank you so much. So let me get started, right? Ajay, do you want to run your poll first? It's working, Steve. Yes, absolutely. You're able to advance it. I think the question from Simon was if you had a poll that you wanted to run. Yeah, if you can run that, I think that'll be great. Yeah, just to get the view from the audience where we are. It's running now. Go ahead. So, you know, the poll is just to get a view of where is your organization currently doing when it comes to the blockchain technology, right? So you have, I mean, to provide your choice. And the kind of options we are looking at is some of the responses mainly around, we are still experimenting with the blockchain. We are developing the prototype applications and some of these may be blockchain application in productions, or we expect the blockchain applications in production within 12 to 24 months. And the last but not least, you know, we don't know where we are. So let's see what the response is. It's done, right? Steve, can we see the response or we can see it later on? Time remaining is just about to finish, I think. Okay. I think we can see the response a little later on unless we can, unless it's available in real time. All right, no problem. I think we can get started, right? So I think in terms of the sequence, I think it makes sense. Alex talked about some of these heavy stuff, right? So I'll try to make it simple for the further day when we talk about the energy and how blockchain can help with the overall transformations, right? So, you know, so good morning and good evening to all, right? So what I'll do in terms of the high level agenda is first thing I'll talk about where we see the whole energy industry is currently, what kind of changes we are looking at and what kind of disruptions happening in the overall energy industry. The second part is more in terms of what kind of transformation we are looking at more to meet the future energy demand. And then third is the more important in the core is how blockchain can help with overall energy transformations and the benefits. And last but not least is we will look into some of the blockchain activities and we'll deep dive one of the use case. So with that, let me get started, right? So, you know, just to make sure that everybody's on the same page, let's look into some of the key facts in terms of what's happening across the globe. So the number one population, so, you know, if you look at what UN says is the world population is expected to increase by 2 billion to 9.7 billion by 2050. And what does it really mean is going to increase the energy demand by a quarter. And you can imagine that meeting this kind of demand with our traditional resources like coal, gas and oil will create an adverse impact on the environment. So we need to be very careful. The second was, you know, as we talk about the energy demand, so a lot of investments is happening in that area. But still, you know, if you look at, we don't see any major energy related technical breakthroughs which we can expect by 2050. And so what does it really mean is yes, the nuclear fusion has potential, no doubt in that. But I, you know, personally and, you know, as per the data too, it's unlikely to be usable in the last-scale implementation to meet this kind of demand. Now, what does it mean, right? So we need to, so basically what we are saying is we need to change the energy demand. And what kind of change we are looking at, we are really looking at is to prepare this kind of demand. Our existing energy systems need to accommodate the integration of the renewable sources. And when we talk about the integration of renewable sources, we are talking about wind, solar, energy, PV, electric batteries and many cases electric vehicles too. And I'll go into the more details. So the point I want to highlight is, you know, the energy industry needs a paradigm shift. And specifically from where we are and we really need to go to meet the kind of energy demands we are looking at by 2050. So moving to the next slide. So, you know, let's look into some of these before we deep dive. What I thought is let's look into some of the key drivers specifically around what kind of changes we are having. It's happening in the energy industry perspective and what are the deep technology and what kind of customers changes and behaviors we are looking at and also in terms of the digital technology. So if you look at the energy industry as overall, and I'll try to keep at the high level, right? So if you look at the overall energy industry, we are looking at energy demand. We are looking at climate change is another which is driving the overall energy industry. We're also looking into the data from the regulation and deregulation, the privacy and confidentiality and many more. We're also looking into bringing the high and low technology to bring in the efficiency piece, touching the efficiency piece. We're also looking into the fossil fuels versus renewable mix, right? So these are the kind of, you know, the drivers which is driving the overall energy industry as overall. Now, if you look at the other side of the, you know, the fence is the deep technology. So when I talk about deep technology is really mean is the smart grid technology or the utilities core technology. And what are those smart grid? So you'll see the grid is kind of, you know, being digitalized and a lot of sensors are being put up on the grid. So to start sending the data using the technology and start being more proactive than the reactive. We are looking into the nuclear as one of the options. We are also looking into the super connectivity, the mobility, the hydrogen fuels. These are the kind of the deep technology at one side customer, right? So we are actually living in the customer, the consumers driven walls and one size fits all does not work in the consumers driven wall. The consumers patterns are changing, right? So, you know, if you look at the, you know, they are trying to become more, you know, energy sensitive. They want to reuse in the right way. So the users pattern is changing. And the last but not least, you know, if you look at the digital technology, specifically around the blockchain and IoT, the cloud, the SaaS, the software as a service, the mobility and AI, which is also kind of driving the whole industry, bringing all the best practices, what we are seeing in the other industry and trying to drive the overall energy industry. So, you know, the key takeaway, which I really want to highlight is there are drivers which are kind of driving the overall energy industry. And then there is a deep technology driver and the customer drivers, which is driving the way the customers look at the energy industry. And the last but not least that digital technology as overall, what, you know, what kind of drivers we are looking at. So moving to the next slide. So, you know, so, so we talked about, we looked into what kind of you, you know, what kind of energy demand you're looking at. We also looked into what the drivers, which is going to drive the overall energy industry. So this slide or this, you know, I really wanted to focus more on what is the future of energy and how is the evolution going to be, right? So if you look at the future of energy, so there are, you know, the future of energy revolves around providing the, or building the right capabilities to provide the services to support electric vehicles. The distributed generations, right? So you can have a solar panel at your home. So, you know, it's not centralized. It's more kind of decentralized. We are talking about a high end battery, which can actually use as a great storage. We are also looking into the demand side management, which is more around when to use the energy, when the energy will be cheaper. So more in terms of the energy cut element. And then also, you know, the whole AMI, which is more kind of smart metering, right? So you're moving from the mechanical meter to the electronic meter to the smart meter, which is more intelligent. We're also looking into, you know, the making the whole transmission and distribution more intelligent, putting the more sensors. So what is it, you know, if you look at the bigger picture is one side, one aspect is the grid needs to become more intelligent. And when I say the grid needs to become more intelligent is the customers who I, you know, like you consume electricity. Now, consumers need to be the prosumers too. So I need to produce the electricity. I want to sell it back to the grid or I want to sell it back to my neighbor. And I also want to store and sell electricity. So, you know, so one side is the grid. And then second side is if you look at the, you know, it's basically a consumer driven wall, right? So the whole automated technology and analytics will kind of drive the way the customer consumption and, you know, how the customer behavior will go into behave, right? So we are talking about the smart home, the smart building, the smart city. So all these kind of will come into a play in terms of how the customer will going to use this for their own benefits and also from the environment perspective and also from the climate perspective, right? So the environment and the climate also going to play a bigger role. So now just to get into some of the key facts, right? So if you look at what World Economic Forum is saying, they are actually saying that there is a 2.4 trillion of value from the transformation of electricity for the next 10 years. And this will not just bring in the cleaner generation mix, but also going to create the new jobs which is very, very important. And also giving a bigger choice for the consumers like us. The last but not least, you know, the whole grid, the way the grid is going to be designed and the way the architecture will move from the centralized to decentralized. It's going to give the right benefit and right kind of a privilege to the people coming from the low income segments of the populations, right? So the key takeaway, what I really wanted to highlight is that the whole future of energy is going to change. And, you know, it has to be driven from one side to how the grid is going to look like and how the consumers wants the electricity to be supplied. And how they want to really consume the electricity. So moving to the next slide. Now, you know, this is this is one of the important piece just to look at how the whole, you know, the whole smart energy infrastructure and how to create the right values from the smart energy infrastructure. So when I say the smart energy infrastructure, you know, the smart energy infrastructure is being laid out across the world. In terms of smart grid, smart meters. And the two drivers which is kind of pushing the to the whole smart energy infrastructure is one is the technology advancement and the consumer pool. So we are talking about the technology is changing the consumers world we are living in. The second one is, you know, if you look at utilities as overall, you know, it's kind of, you know, used to be a laidback industry, but now they're struggling because there is a non utilities players are coming into the market and the whole industry is being destroyed. So there is service improvement. There is a really focusing on how do we really improve the the OPEX piece. Now, so the whole energy industry as a overall when I talk about the smart energy is being transitioned from smart metering to smart grid to smart consumer to smarter renewals. And on the top of that, if you look at the overall framework, we have the deep technology, which is the utilities technology. You know, driving the value from the overall project and the smart metering, digital asset, the home energy management, the smart devices and PV and electric vehicles. And and also the digital technology, which is like IOT, the cloud, the mobility and in a blockchain and and and we look into the blockchain in more details. These are also trying to create more values from from these, you know, the overall smart energy infrastructure. So what I really wanted to highlight is the smart energy infrastructure is being laid out right now. And the industry as overall needs to leverage the deep technology and the digital technology to create the right set of values. I'll move to the next slide. So this is again, just to just to give you a very high level view of, you know, what are the kind of digital and deep technology we are looking at IOT, BPMS, blockchain mobility. Deep technology is the demand management and outage management and demand response management. And these are the use case, right, the peer to peer trading, the connected transformer, the virtualized transformer demand response and so on and so forth, right, the self filling. So the, you know, the self filling and the real time consumer information. So now if you look at the digital and the use case, what's happening is it's actually pushing the energy industry from the overall architecture perspective, from a centralized to a decentralized. So, you know, when I say decentralized is a customer can be a consumer and can also be a presumer so I can have a solar panel on my roof and I can start consuming it. And I can also start selling it back to the grid or back to my, my, my neighbor. So it's moving from a centralized to a decentralized the whole paradigm shift is happening in terms of the network architecture. We'll move to the next slide. So, you know, so when we talk about decentralization or we talk about electrifications or digitalization, right, so it also creates a lot of challenges. So the grid, the way it was set up, I, you know, it was not meant for the decentralized and decentralization or electrification or digitalization, right. So the grid was more in terms of one way flow. Now we are talking about. So there are a lot of challenges comes and, you know, play when we talk about decentralization and electrification and digitalization. And if you look at the high level key challenges, right, so one is distributed transaction transparency and security and scalability and the cost. And these are the key challenges when we talk about when we look at the overall the paradigm shift is happening to meet the future energy. We protect our climate and make sure that what consumers are really looking at we meet the consumers demand. We have to tackle all these challenges. And these are the kind of, you know, the key challenges which I really wanted to highlight in terms of easy to say decentralization and electrification and digitalization, but we have to make sure that we overcome these key challenges. So we'll move to the next slide. And again, this is the core as you can understand from the topic, you know, the blockchain, which is kind of helping the whole energy industry in the overall transformation journey. And again, I'll not try to go into the, you know, each the definition of the blockchain, but it's actually, you know, designed to facilitate the whole distributed transaction. So we talk about centralize to decentralize this whole. And where this blockchain can really help to, to, you know, facilitate this whole distributed transactions. And, and if you look at the main benefits, you know, and what we actually look into from the from the challenges perspective, you know, so blockchain can help to overcome these challenges in terms of the, the, the putting the benefits to the team. The next table is greater transparency, increase automation, reduce cost, enhance and the, and the ability, right. So these are the kind of, you know, if you look at the overall blockchain, this is where there is a need for blockchain to help the whole energy transformations. And I also wanted to highlight some of these key blockchain activities going across the world, right. So if you look at USA States, there is a P2P transactions in New York. So there is a, there is a community called Block Lane where the whole microgrid community is being set up where one customer is exchanging the data with the, with the, you know, exchanging the energy with the other customers. Europe, EV charging, South Africa, China and Japan and Australia and New Zealand. So again, I'm not going into the detail, but what I want to highlight is there is a P2P energy trading, which is kind of more common use case, which is happening or being implemented across the world. So just getting into the details, right. So if you look at the P2P, we are talking about the consumers. We are talking about, you know, the whole microgrid community, which is being set up to create or to avoid the dependencies on the utilities in less dependency on the utility grid. So a consumer or a presumer can actually have the solar panel or when, you know, when and create selectivity and consume back my neighbor or, you know, the consumers in living in the same community and then can exchange and this whole blockchain as, you know, as a technology can facilitate the whole transactions happening between the presumer and the consumer and also the whole smart contract, which is kind of, you know, making sure that there is a transparency. There is an accountability and, you know, the whole kind of validation in place. So what I really wanted to highlight is, you know, we are talking about the microgrid community, the presumer, the consumer and the blockchain, which is kind of facilitating the transactions happening between the presumer and the consumer. And also the utility is great, right? So if I have the surplus electricity, I can sell it back to the utilities and get the credit. Or if I have the, you know, if I need the electricity, I can go back to the utilities and, you know, take it from there. So, you know, so this is the kind of P2P network and you'll see a lot of use case or a lot of work happening across the globe. I think, you know, this is the one point I really wanted to highlight is, you know, if you look at the how the blockchain supports the corporate social responsibilities. And when we talk about the corporate social responsibilities, we are actually looking into the accountability and transparency, right? So if we really bring in the blockchain, it removes any difficulties in the world of supply chain. And I'm talking more from the renewable energy resources, right? So I can bring in my own renewable energy resources in terms of whether it's electric vehicles or storage or PV or solar energy. I can bring in the whole accountability and transparency. The second part is, you know, making sure that the regulatory and audit overheads and the compliance are in place. And making sure that the whole, all the near real-time transactions are, you know, to go. And there is a kind of audit and compliance in place, specifically around if I'm living in a microgrid community, I can sell back my electricity if I have the surplus to my neighbor. And this whole real-time transactions comes into the play. The third piece is, you know, the transparency digital settlement. So I can use the, whether it's a Bitcoin or whatever, I can use that to settle between the whole community in terms of the transparency. The last part is, you know, creating an opportunity to, you know, to earn the additional credit and six direct redemption with the stakeholders like government and utilities. So I can sell it back to the utilities and I can get the credit back. So the point I wanted to highlight is, you know, we looked into the blockchain, how the blockchain helps in the overall transformation. But the most important part is it also helps and supports the corporate social responsibilities, which is one of the important aspects of looking at the technology and how the whole industry is moving from where we are and where it needs to go. I think, you know, just to highlight where we are on the technology maturity. So it's still, you know, and this is the reason I tried to run this poll and I did not get the, you know, the right set of data. But if you look at where we are on the technology maturity, I think we still see that in 5 to 10 years. A lot of POCs are being implemented. A lot of experimentations are being done. But we see there is a huge potential when we talk about the blockchain and how blockchain can help the overall transformation journey of the energy. And there is a lot of work being done, you know, if you look at from the Shell and, you know, Sumitomo, they have announced a lot of investment in creating a type of energy platform with the blockchain. So these are just wanted to give you a high level view of, you know, what's happening in terms of the technology maturity. And we are not there yet, but I think, you know, the point here is there is a good potential, there is a good future, and the blockchain can really help. So the key takeaways, you know, so the number one, you know, the combination of digital revolution and technology evolution will drive the future of energy. So technology will be a driver, the digitalization and all those kind of, you know, drive the future of energy. The new generation of, you know, energy architecture, which will move from centralized to decentralized. And when we talk about, you know, distributed transactions and decentralization, the blockchain can help with the overall transformation in terms of the making sure that the right technology integration in place. And the whole, you know, the fourth one is more in terms of the corporate social responsibilities goals. We just look down in terms of making sure the transparency and audit and compliance are in place. And, you know, so as we see the blockchain adoption rises, you know, the potential for the transformative or disruptive impact within the energy industry is just the beginning right now. And this is going to go. We have to adopt, we have to move with the right, you know, make sure that meet the energy demands. Number one, make sure that the consumers demands are being met and also make sure that, you know, the climate and, you know, and then the government and, you know, all those policies are also being kind of, you know, compliant with all those policies which are being kind of roll out by the, with the government. So this is all about the key takeaways. What I, and this last slide is, you know, this is a recent published and I have given the link and, you know, you can download and you can read in more details in terms of getting into the more details in terms of, you know, the whole, you know, transformation piece. And also going into the details in terms of the whole peer-to-peer trading and also in terms of the technology maturity. So with that, I will end this. We did not get much from the, from the, from the poll perspective. So I'll skip that part, but I think, you know, this is I really wanted to cover from the overall my presentation perspective Steve. Thank you, AJ. And we appreciate that. Yeah, I think what I took from the poll was a lot of people don't know. Well, there was potentially another option on the poll, which is that we know, we actually know where we are and we're not doing anything. I can see that being, being the case as you say it's not mature and it's probably a few years out yet, but there's some exciting stuff happening. So a virtual, warm virtual round of applause for you for your presentation. We do have some questions, AJ. We do have a question. So to what extent will infrastructure components outside of the control of the energy industry affect the success of energy transformation? For, for example, in rural areas infrastructure doesn't always allow for smart meters. Yeah, and that's a very good question, Steve. So, you know, so the, the, the kind of what we are seeing is, you know, if you look at the, the ruler area as you, as you rightly pointed out. Still, I think it's a long way to go to be to be very honest. Yeah, you know, a lot of developments happening in the cities and urban, but in the ruler area is still, you'll see, we are still going with this whole, you know, mechanical meter or electronic meter or electric meter. But what's happening right now is there is a, there is a lot of investment happening in setting up this whole microgrid community. The community is becoming self-sustenable. So there is a lot of investment coming from the private, you know, not just from the, from the, from the utilities, but also the private players are coming and trying to build this whole, you know, the, the microgrid community. And then more in terms of software as a model, you know, software as a service. You know, if you look from the software perspective. So, so basically set this up and then start charging the customers on as, as a model. And, and, and second piece what we are looking at is utilities as overall industry industry is being disrupted. They don't want to invest a lot on their infrastructure. So they, they are interested more in setting up and, and, you know, doing a partnership with the private players and set up this whole microgrid community. So what I'm saying is, you know, a lot of developments happening in the cities and the urban areas, but less development happening in the, in the rural areas. So it's a long way to go. Right. Well, right, right to your, to your point there that you were making the next question is what has been your experience with local regulations around using consumer based electricity distribution, leveraging the community grid. The local energy giants are impeding the energy startups from offering these services to customers. So, so if you look at this, you know, the traditional utilities layer, right, they don't have an options to be, to be, to be very honest. Right. So they are there. So there is one model we are we are saying is the utilities trying to become the Uber of the world. So when I say Uber of the world is they are connected with the customer. They have the data of the customer and they are trying to become an Uber in terms of making sure that customers come to them and provide the right services. Whether it's a phone, whether it's an internet, whether it's a appliances upgrade, you know, putting the solar panel at the, you know, so utilities saying that if you go to let's say Walmart or, you know, Home Depot, I will give you a better price. I'll give you the wholesale price. So they're trying to become the whole Uber and trying to partner and go with the overall flow in this whole disruptive world. They can't stop, you know, if you look at Google coming, they can't really stop. So they really need to see how we can be, you know, survive in this whole ecosystem and still be relevant. And final question, AJ, can you expand a bit on how blockchain can expand the capabilities of business contracts within the energy industry? So, so it's very simple. So, you know, so the whole smart contracts, right? So, which is one of the important element of the whole blockchain technology, right? So, you know, the way the smart contract is being retained and ensuring that everything flows and in the right way, the, you know, whether it's a consumer's utilities or utilities to the commercial customers. So it's a kind of, you know, it's happening in a way that it facilitates the right set of transactions and, you know, and to avoid any discrepancies and making sure that, you know, everything is happening as it is. So, you know, so it helps, you know, so in summary, what I'm saying is it's very similar to what's happening in any other industry whether it's a health care or finance, it's not a big change. If it works right, it should increase the trust in the security in the contract chain, of course. Right, right. And another piece Steve, I wanted to highlight is, you know, if you look at blockchain, I know I just thought of, you know, if you look at blockchain is being highly leveraged in the finance industry at this point. And what I see personally, and even, you know, the data also shows that the second industry where blockchain is energy and utilities. And this is where it has to, because energy has to transform. Yeah. Yeah, and we're certainly seeing some interest in that area in the open group membership, so that's good to hear. So, AJ, thank you once again, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and and your insight into what's going on with the chain in the industry.