Starting from 0.1, be the "designer" of artificial intelligence service "double carbon" goal

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Zhang Yi, reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network

It has been three years since the mainland officially proposed the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and the development trajectory of a post-90s young person also resonates with the "dual carbon" strategy.

Zeng Youxuan works in the intelligent IoT department of Shanghai Nanyang Wanbang Software Technology Co., Ltd. Previously, he has been working on the integration of artificial intelligence and IoT business to help enterprises digital transformation and enhance the value of information systems. In 2020, Zeng Youxuan found that artificial intelligence also has great potential in the field of energy conservation and carbon reduction. He compares himself to a "designer", designing solutions for energy conservation and carbon reduction for enterprises.

The National Eco-environment Protection Conference held in July 2023 made it clear that the relationship between "dual carbon" commitments and independent actions should be properly handled. A growing consensus is that the mainland's commitment to the "dual carbon" goal is unwavering.

In recent years, Zeng Youxuan has visited dozens of factories and parks in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and found that the demand for energy conservation and carbon reduction is very urgent. Faced with the roadmap to achieve carbon peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, many enterprises are still confused, what should be done with "dual carbon"? Empowering "double carbon" with AI is the answer that Zeng Youxuan is trying to give.

Using AI to design "energy consumption ECG"

The energy revolution is accelerating. According to data from the Department of New and Renewable Energy of the National Energy Administration, in the first half of this year, the installed capacity of renewable energy in the mainland reached 1.322 billion kilowatts, an increase of 18.2% year-on-year, historically surpassing coal power, accounting for about 48.8% of the total installed capacity in the mainland.

Energy is also key to reducing carbon emissions for companies. In Zeng Youxuan's view, in order to achieve energy conservation and carbon reduction of enterprises, managers must clearly know in which scenarios and periods of energy consumption abnormal or peak energy consumption of enterprises, and accurately grasp the causes, and then design energy conservation and carbon reduction solutions.

The first is intelligent data collection. He introduced that through the Internet of Things to collect energy consumption information of industrial parks, some devices with data transmission interfaces can collect data through access gateways, while devices without interfaces such as traditional instrument electric disks can use cameras to take photos, and then use Baidu Flying Oar's text recognition development kit to quickly identify and convert the text in the photos into data for further analysis and processing.

"After the data collection is completed, it is very important for managers to see energy consumption anomalies and energy consumption trends, we use Baidu Flying Oar's time series modeling algorithm library to build an energy consumption anomaly detection and time series prediction model in industrial parks, and establish an intuitive 'energy consumption map' and 'energy consumption electrocardiogram', which not only allows managers to control energy consumption in real time, but also allows artificial intelligence to timely detect energy consumption anomalies and warn energy consumption peaks based on current data." Zeng Youxuan said.

For example, he said, in summer, the temperature of the factory rises with the outdoor temperature, and the air conditioner will automatically increase energy consumption to cool down, but it cannot guarantee energy-saving and economical operation. At this time, enterprise managers can adjust the optimal operation strategy of the air conditioning system in time through energy prediction and overall centralized control, so as to achieve the effect of energy conservation and carbon reduction, which is also conducive to reducing peak loads.

Over the years, Zeng Youxuan has accumulated a large number of solutions in the field of Internet of Things and industrial Internet. In his view, "dual carbon" and the industrial Internet have similar technical ideas. "In the past, the data of production lines and large machinery and equipment was collected, but now it has become the data of energy extraction; In the past, AI was used to predict equipment failures, but now AI is used to optimize energy conservation and carbon reduction. ”

Zeng Youxuan said that they are polishing their products and hope to reduce the cost of technology landing so that they can achieve large-scale replication and application.

Help the "dual carbon" data to play a game of chess across the country

Although artificial intelligence is still in the exploration and application stage of the entire energy-saving and carbon-reduction system, it is not difficult to help enterprises save energy by 10%.

Zeng Youxuan said, do not underestimate this 0.1, if you calculate the economic account of enterprises, some parks have tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan of investment in energy consumption costs every year, which is equivalent to saving millions of costs.

In the future, artificial intelligence will not only save energy and reduce consumption, but also help enterprises optimize their business.

He introduced that enterprises can directly prescribe the right medicine according to the "energy consumption electrocardiogram", and even independently undertake some positions that originally required people to patrol day and night. Through the intervention of artificial intelligence, the energy conservation and carbon reduction of enterprises can achieve comprehensive intelligence and automation from information overview, problem warning, solution suggestions to automatic implementation, and then achieve better results than manual management.

"In this system, my role is 'designer'." Zeng Youxuan said, "The small 0.1 is only the starting point of artificial intelligence, and it is definitely not our goal. ”

A set of intelligent systems is also part of the infrastructure for building "dual carbon" data. Many experts and scholars have called for the need to promote digital solutions in the field of "dual carbon", facilitate multi-party informed participation, carry out data-driven effective evaluation, and establish responsibility and incentive mechanisms.

Ma Jun, director of the Center for Public and Environmental Research, said, "Like large-scale monitoring and release of pollutant data such as PM2.5 and ozone, we also need to let the society recognize these 'dual carbon' data and put the 'dual carbon' index on the national chess game." ”

Data has become the core link supporting enterprises to lay out the "dual carbon" field. Now, the expansion of the national carbon market has accelerated, and CCER (National Certified Voluntary Emission Reduction) is expected to restart within this year. ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) has also become an important manifestation of corporate competitiveness, innovation and leadership. All this is inseparable from the data foundation.

Zeng Youxuan said that relying on the energy consumption data system, in the next step, enterprises can form carbon credits, build green factories, participate in green supply chains, form ESG action reports, etc., seize the opportunity of green development, and truly integrate into the overall situation of sustainable development.

Big models open a new era of artificial intelligence

Technology is still iterating and upgrading. "The emergence of large models has truly opened a new era of artificial intelligence." Zeng Youxuan said, "The big model allows artificial intelligence to begin to communicate with humans and collide with new works and knowledge, which is a revolutionary technological evolution. ”

At present, Zeng Youxuan and his colleagues have built a new enterprise knowledge base based on the Wenxin big model, and with the natural language understanding and language generation capabilities of the large language model, users can easily enjoy the dual carbon knowledge consultation and corporate policy Q&A services.

In the future, they will further let the big model play a role in the energy-saving and carbon-reduction system, creating an intelligent assistant that directly advises enterprise managers.

Zeng Youxuan's doctoral project is also related to energy optimization. He is increasingly concerned that many places are suffering from extreme weather in recent years, and that global high temperature records have been continuously updated this year. "Nature is already sending signals that we need to respond."

New technologies may provide solutions to combat climate change. Zeng Youxuan said that the dawn of the era of artificial intelligence is like the fire stolen by Prometheus, helping human civilization move to a higher level. "As a member of the forwarders who carry torches in my hand, I hope that the fire in my hand can illuminate the road in front of me a little, and usher in the new era of technology in the relay with those who come after."

Source: China Youth Daily client