Innovations and artificial intelligence along the energy industry value chain

The energy industry worldwide is facing one of the most profound changes in its history, which will be accompanied by breakthrough innovations and the exponentially evolving use of artificial intelligence in business processes. In addition to the use of artificial intelligence and AI-supported unmanned systems (on land, at sea and in the air), distributed-ledger-technologies, extended reality and 3D-print based on cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things, as well as process mining, robotic process automation, data science and cloud computing, for example, will not only decisively shape a sustainable energy supply system in the future, but also accelerate the transformation to energy industry 4.0. At the same time, the increasingly strong networking (smart grid, smart meter, smart home, smart city) of the energy industry and its environment is associated with a growing risk potential, which must be expanded in the future as part of a high-quality cyber resilience, in particular through the use of artificial intelligence. Without the development and use of innovations and artificial intelligence in the context of increasingly digitized business processes, there is a risk that neither the energy transition can be successfully implemented nor climate change combated. In addition to the fundamentals of the classic, primarily analog energy industry, the publication addresses the possible paradigm shift that will be characterized by innovations, disruptive technologies and digital business models in the energy industry.