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Introduction
What’s needed to speed up the energy transition? How can industries be both competitive and sustainable? These are questions we put to Morten Wierod, CEO of ABB, a global technology leader, specializing in electrification and automation, with operations in more than 100 countries.
Morten has worked for ABB for more than 27 years and run several of its businesses, including two business areas. At Climate Week NYC 2025, Morten will be speaking on The Hub Live panel: “Net zero by 2050 – are we placing the right bets now for a profitable and carbon-free future?” and taking part in the Atlantic Council Roundtable “AI and the energy equation,” among other events.
Morten, we see a lot of ABB presence at Climate Week NYC. What messages is ABB bringing to New York?
ABB is proud to support Climate Week NYC and share our role in accelerating the global energy transition and advancing climate action. Our main message is that the energy transition is good for the environment and good for business. All businesses benefit from reducing energy consumption and improving resource efficiency because these are some of the best ways to keep costs down and improve competitiveness. How we make, move and use energy is also an important driver of economic growth and resilience in both the short- and long-term – another reason to invest.
An important point is that most of the technologies to enable the energy transition already exist. The immediate priority should be to speed up their deployment. The environmental and business value is huge – we could triple renewables capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030.
What are the key technologies needed to drive the energy transition?
The critical technologies are those that enable electrification, which is key for the energy transition because it allows for the integration of renewable and fossil-free energy sources into energy systems, industries, transport and infrastructure. Electrification also promotes energy resilience by facilitating the use of local and renewable resources, and it fosters technological and economic development by creating new jobs and driving innovation.
Demand for electricity is growing nearly 10 times faster than total energy demand. We need to invest in technology and infrastructure to expand and modernize the grid to accommodate both this tremendous increase in load and the various energy sources supplying it.
We also need to invest in energy efficiency, which is the biggest short-term opportunity to bring down energy consumption. If we take the example of electric motors: they convert around 45 percent of the world’s electricity into motion for equipment from pumps and elevators to drivetrains for electrified transport, to fans and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. But less than a quarter of the world’s electric motors are equipped with drives that control their speed. Adding a drive to a motor can reduce its power consumption by up to 25 percent. By upgrading the world’s motors, we could cut global energy consumption by around 10 percent.
What’s needed to speed up the adoption of these technologies?
We need to show industries that investing in these technologies will help them become more competitive. Many of these technologies lower total cost of ownership by reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs, freeing up capital to invest in innovation or other areas. Policymakers can also unequivocally support the uptake of these technologies.
I want to stress the importance of innovation. Energy demand is skyrocketing, not least because of the huge power needs of AI, and the only way to meet this demand is with advanced technology. At ABB, we not only enable the electricity infrastructure for AI, we also use AI to improve energy efficiency, reduce equipment downtime and increase energy productivity in collaboration with partners. AI can enable truly smart grids by managing the flow of energy from distributed sources, such as renewables and energy storage, to ensure power is available when and where it is needed.
How is ABB walking the talk when it comes to the energy transition?
We have a comprehensive Sustainability Agenda with ambitious targets for our entire value chain, including reaching net-zero by 2050. We have reduced our own emissions (scope 1 and 2) by 78% since 2019, and our value-chain emissions (scope 3) by 8% since 2022.
By far the biggest contribution we make to the energy transition is in our customers’ operations with solutions that cut their energy use and reduce emissions, like the drives I mentioned which can reduce power consumption of motors by up to 25 percent. On the emissions reduction side, from 2022-2024, our sold products helped our customers avoid 204 megatons of emissions, based on the full life cycle of those products. By 2030, we aim to help customers avoid 600 megatons of GHG emissions, based on all the products we expect to sell over that period. By comparison, Canada's total GHG emissions in 2023 amounted to 694 megatons. This supports our mission to help industries outrun – leaner and cleaner.
We are also investing close to our customers to help them become more efficient, productive and sustainable. Just this week, we announced another $110 million of investments in manufacturing capacity in the United States. That comes on top of the $120 million we’ve already announced in the US this year.
What outcomes do you hope to see from this year’s Climate Week NYC?
We would like to see all the key players – industry, governments, and civil society – coming out with renewed determination to support the energy transition. An important way to do this is to deploy existing technologies that can help make the change as quickly as possible.
Increasingly, the market is driving the shift towards electrification, energy efficiency and low-carbon sources of energy, like renewables and nuclear. We can and will do more to speed up the process and in doing so drive economic growth and prosperity while preserving our planet for future generations.