Advances in Management of Energy Sector Enterprises: Directions, Challenges, Opportunities, Threats and Pitfalls

Dear Colleagues,

Economies, enterprises, societies, and individuals operate in the conditions defined by the knowledge–network–cooperation triad. The end of the 20th century brought about significant transformations in many areas, and these changes have resulted in the emergence of the green economy as a consequence of the depletion of natural resources and the need to rationalize their management. The smart economy has also emerged, which includes taking actions stimulating innovation and creativity aimed at natural environment protection expressed in the concept of sustainable development. Subsequently, the growing role of artificial intelligence, learning machines and cryptocurrencies transforms the classic concepts of exchange. Therefore, it is predicted that the economy will be programmable in such a way to benefit a maximum number of people, in the minimum amount of time, at optimal costs, in a sustainable manner. Undoubtedly, the energy sector is one of the most important entities and factors involved in this transition.

The development has also brought about fundamental civilizational transformations, reflected both in lifestyle and in mentality. The newly constituent Society 5.0 is particularly geared towards liberation from resource and environmental constraints and the energy sector defines and sets the pace for this evolution. Hence, it has already started to follow the idea of sharing, embedded in cooperation, interdependence and shared responsibility.

The energy sector, due to its specificity, is at the epicenter of all indicated transformations. As a sector of strategic importance for each country and society in general, it is subject to constant changes, both of a technological, regulatory and social nature. Its functioning should be described by the attributes of safety, responsibility, sustainability, stability and community. Investments in new technologies and searching for new solutions, using the benefits of smart and programmable economies, including the advantages of ICT technologies necessitate dynamic and appropriate management activities. However, electrical energy systems require embedded systems, Internet of Things, computation clusters, or data analytics; however, crucially, one of the neuralgic guarantors of energy security are IT solutions. These, in turn, are related to the need to implement new business models, modern management methods, innovative communication solutions or to adopt a network development perspective resulting in the intensive cooperation between energy market stakeholders. Hence, the energy sector today should be analyzed not only from the financial and technological perspective but especially through the lens of social and environmental goals.

Therefore, this Special Issue invites high-quality conceptual and research papers covering a wide range of topics related to conditions for the sustainable development of the energy sector and the realities of managing energy companies. Topics of interest for publication include but are not limited to:

Dr. Anna Pietruszka-Ortyl
Dr. Małgorzata Ćwiek
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• energy infrastructure
• green economy
• CSR in energy sector
• energy safety and security
• resilient energy companies
• quality management problems from the perspective of the energy sector
• specificity of cooperation in energy sector
• energy communities
• nuances of knowledge management in energy sector
• business ecosystems of energy companies
• challenges of human resource management in the energy sector
• changes in the energy sector and the development of society 5.0
• industry 4.0 in the perspective of energy sector
• IT for energy sector
• cybersecurity in energy enterprises