Orchestrating A World of Booming Renewables

In the first half of 2025, renewable electricity generation and investments surpassed all past records, marking a new stage in the energy transition.

During this period, renewables overtook coal as the world’s leading source of electricity in the world, driven by spectacular growth in solar power. Solar generation jumped by 31% in the first half of 2025, the fastest absolute growth on record, outpacing wind.^[1] Moreover, 90% of these new renewable projects generate electricity at a lower cost than the cheapest fossil-fuel alternative, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.^[2] 

Anticipating even more demand, global investment in renewable energy sources reached some $390 billion for the first six-months of 2025, making it the best on record.^[3] In 2024, investors poured more than double the value of investments in clean energy than into fossil fuels.

Behind this surge is an unprecedented growth of data centers which have emerged as one of the fastest growing sources of electricity demand today. Currently consuming some 3.5% of all electricity, data centers in the US are projected to rise to as much as 8.6% of this consumption by 2035. This represents a faster rise in electricity demand than any other sector, as AI training workloads require significant energy for computing.^[4] Data centers could consume as much energy as all of Japan in five years’ time, according to a UN report on the energy transition published this July.

Naturally, concerns about the sustainability of AI development are mounting. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that tech companies should commit to fully powering data centers with renewable energy by 2030. 

“AI can boost efficiency, innovation and resilience in energy systems, but it is also energy hungry,” Guterres said. “This is not sustainable — unless we make it so.”^[5]

Data center operators are actively decarbonizing their facilities, with many of the largest tech companies already having reached 100% clean power share and planning for even more capacity as energy demands rise.^[6]

According to BNEF, “a few companies may have ambitious plans for round-the-clock carbon free power or direct supply from large-scale renewable energy plants, but most are relying on traditional green power procurement to lower their carbon footprint.”^[7]

To meet growing demand, renewable energy operators are increasingly owning, operating, and managing multiple types of renewable-energy power generation facilities (such as solar, onshore/offshore wind, hydropower, geothermal, etc.).  Moreover, these facilities are geographically distributed and decentralized. 

Coordinating power generation of such distributed systems has multiple challenges.

“Renewable energy asset owners/operators are finding it increasingly difficult to operate current and growing fleets with existing legacy-siloed IT/OT processes and systems,” argues Gartner in a 2023 report on Renewable Energy Management solutions (REMS).^[8]

Besides this interoperability imperative, clearer legal frameworks that allow the independent operation of these distributed  networks are needed,  along with a more robust definition of the role of aggregators who coordinate distributed energy resources.

Although there is increasing interest among renewable energy asset operators to make their facilities “smarter,” current REMS “deployments are still fragmented.”^[9]

To rise to this challenge of coordinating renewable energy generation as efficiently as possible, Yokogawa Electric, the technology company, has recently been ramping up M&A activity with the aim to become a one-stop-solution provider for renewable energy asset operators. 

In 2024, Yokogawa acquired BaxEnergy, a leading provider of renewable energy management solutions, with a track record of providing services to major power companies throughout Europe. Its solutions integrate the management of a variety of renewable power facilities and can analyze data from turbines, inverters, and other types of power generation equipment from different manufactures to improve power generation efficiency. These solutions have demonstrated as much as 10% improvement for plant availability.^[10]

Last October, Yokogawa added to this line-up of “smart” solutions for renewables by acquiring two other companies: Intellisync, a provider of cybersecurity, and WiSNAM, a developer of advanced grid control and energy management solutions. Both these companies have been integrated into BaxEnergy, allowing Yokogawa to expand its cybersecurity capabilities and advanced grid control products and provide a “digital hub” for renewable operators.^[11]

“By combining Intellisync's 24/7 security operation and WiSNAM's grid compliant Power Plant Controller, Yokogawa can offer end to end solutions that bridge IT and OT,” explained Koji Nakaoka, Yokogawa Electric executive vice president, executive officer, and head of the company's Energy & Sustainability Business Headquarters.^[12]

In addition to optimizing the IT and OT operations of renewable energy assets, Yokogawa can also offer smart solutions for selling renewable electricity to the wholesale, ancillary, and capacity markets. Through a strategic partnership signed in 2024 with GridBeyond, an AI company specializing in electricity market forecasting and bidding, the two companies hope to help customers maximize profits from the trading of renewable energy generation.^[13]

“There have only been a limited number of vendors that can provide broad monitoring and management technologies for renewable energy,” explains Yokogawa. 

That has changed with Yokogawa’s ambitious push into the sector. 

With the acquisition and partnership of leading companies in renewable energy management, cybersecurity, and trading, Yokogawa is taking the lead in providing integrated, smart solutions for the ongoing energy transition.

“With its comprehensive and robust product portfolio, Yokogawa will contribute to power-system resilience for customers and society as a whole.”

As renewables boom across the planet, orchestrating the optimization of these energy assets will become vital for our sustainable future.

Sources

[1] Ember Energy [2] Bloomberg [3] Bloomberg [4] BloombergNEF [5] Bloomberg [6] BloombergNEF [7] BloombergNEF [8] Gartner [9] Gartner [10] Yokogawa [11] Yokogawa [12] Yokogawa [13] Yokogawa