Unleashing the Potential of Industrial Clusters 2025

Policy barriers include imbalances in supply and demand measures, slow translation of clean energy national strategies into legislation, challenges around the transposition of policy across countries and varying criteria for clean fuels between jurisdictions.36 Clean energy technology adoption requires a step change To meet the growing global demand for clean fuels, significant advancements in production, storage, transport, and distribution technologies are required. Examples include the improvement of electrolyser efficiency, the deployment of circular economy technologies, and the integration of electron and molecule-based systems. The momentum of scaling clean fuels will ultimately rely on shifting their innovation curves with new disruptive technologies across various dimensions, including materials, manufacturing techniques and general-purpose technologies (i.e. technologies that can affect an entire economy nationally or globally, such as the internet or the steam engine) – a challenge that is unprecedented in scale and pace. Digital technology must be rapidly deployed to accelerate the pace and efficiency of clean energy infrastructure scale-up and operation Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) possess the transformative capacity to significantly enhance speed, productivity and efficiency within infrastructure development, operations and supply chains. However, adoption is lagging, particularly in industrial clusters. Key challenges include unclear articulation of the value case, data-sharing barriers and difficulties in crafting cluster-level digital roadmaps. Consequently, digital initiatives within clusters remain isolated, missing the benefits from broader coordination in the planning, deployment and operation of shared infrastructure. Challenges in governance and data sharing hinder collaboration within and beyond clusters Gaps in governance, data protocols and controls to ensure confidentiality, and the appropriate application of data are persisting. Without data- driven insights, players within and beyond clusters cannot drive commercial and wider system-value benefits for all players. A more collaborative way forward is needed to overcome clean energy infrastructure challenges To reach global climate goals and advance the energy transition in the transport, logistics and heavy industries, the expansion of clean energy infrastructure must occur at an unprecedented rate. However, this expansion faces many challenges, fragmenting the landscape and slowing efforts among stakeholders in the clean energy value chain. Overcoming existing challenges is not straightforward; it requires a multistakeholder approach that individual companies cannot achieve on their own. Therefore, collaboration within and beyond clusters is essential. This is evident in the transport and logistics industry, particularly maritime, which operates across industrial clusters in different geographies, introducing additional complexity to interoperability. One of the challenges is that the maritime industry is largely a regional industry supported by hundreds or thousands of companies of relatively small- and medium-sized operators around the world, most of whom do not have the financial strength to make large upfront investments. It is vital that the maritime industry aligns and collaborates with larger-scale industries such as steel and power generation to work out such challenges. Takeshi Hashimoto, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Container ship wake Image credit: Mitsui O.S.K. Lines 9 Unleashing the Full Potential of Industrial Clusters: Infrastructure Solutions for Clean Energies