How to survive a war when you are a Utility in Ukraine? Thanks to Eurelectric which organised the introduction, we have the honour of welcoming a hero of the Energy world: Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, one of the top integrated Utility in Ukraine. During an intense conversation we talk about war, destruction, and sufferings, but also about resistance and resilience. Maxim praises its workforce as it tries to reestablish power and heat in liberated towns. Beyond the horror and the drama, there is...
Apr 15, 2022•19 min
Decarbonising Heat is a significant challenge on the road to Net-Zero, Climate Resilience and Energy Security. It is also a very complex problem as there are several categories of heat that require different technical solutions. While Heat Pumps can (and will) provide low grade heat, the options for high grade heat are evading electrification and will continue to rely on burning molecules. Several start-ups on the US West Coast are tackling the challenge, with the support of powerful Venture Cap...
Apr 01, 2022•25 min
The deployment of Li-Ion batteries has exploded in recent years and is expected to enjoy a 30% annual growth until 2030. But those very critical pieces of hardware need a brain to fully function, and that is where software kicks in. In fact, they are two layers of software: the operating system, monitoring the functioning of the battery and the cloud system that interacts with the global electricity system and the power markets. Managing batteries revenues widely differs from geography to geogra...
Mar 16, 2022•28 min
The war in Ukraine is a total gamechanger. Beyond the personal drama and misery inflicted on millions of human beings, it triggers a tremor in the world of Energy of a magnitude not seen since the Oil shocks of the 70’s. As Energy Security becomes front and center, Gerard and Laurent try to understand the short-term implications on the Energy landscape. Are we moving away from the energy transition or are we going to align energy security with the energy transition? Politicians have a chance to ...
Mar 01, 2022•23 min
As we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the seminal book by Jeremy Rifkin “The Hydrogen Economy” and the astronomical amount of non-sense it contained, we wanted to have a real look at the prospect of Green Hydrogen. Beyond bombastic claims such as “History will look back at 2022 as the year that hydrogen started to reshape the world”, we have decided to dig deep into the technology and prospect of Electrolysers. And there is no better guest to talk about electrolysers than Graham Cooley, ...
Feb 15, 2022•29 min
Gigafactory: a term first coined by Elon Musk in 2013 when announcing the Tesla+Panasonic giant battery plant in Nevada. There are currently more than 260 Gigafactories planned around the world, but lots of them remain “PowerPoint factories”. So, how do you go from PowerPoint to Gigafactory? The answer might be in Norway, so let’s go to Norway. We are very happy to be joined by Tom Jensen. Tom is CEO of FREYR battery, a Norwegian Gigafactory start-up. In 2021, FREYR raised 600mUSD on the NYSE to...
Feb 01, 2022•30 min
Delivering 24/7 carbon free power is the holy grail for infrastructure funds. Such progress requires a new approach to investing. New technologies need to be harnessed: Hybridization, storage, and data science. The ESG component is also getting additional scrutiny from investors. So, how will the state-of-the-art infrastructure fund of the 2020’s look like. We have the privilege of welcoming David Scaysbrook, co-founder and managing partner of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners. We discuss his vi...
Jan 16, 2022•27 min
Happy new year 2022 to all our listeners. In this Episode, its Nostradamus vs. Cassandra all over again: Laurent and Gerard review their 2021 predictions (Episode 42) and look forward to the future. How accurate were our two co-hosts’ predictions for 2021? 1) “The Empire strikes back”, legacy players in the Energy and Automotive sectors will bounce back 2) The unstoppable development of renewables 3) The SPACs* valuation hang-over, most of them imploding after reaching unjustifiable valuations 4...
Jan 02, 2022•30 min
2021 looked like an “annus horribilis” for the solar industry. Price increases, supply chain problems, threat of taxes on importations. Is the solar industry at the end of 2021 just doom and gloom? Absolutely not. The solar industry has grown an amazing 27% this year, and the trend will continue in 2022. We bring the best analyst of the industry, Jenny Chase, Head of Solar at Bloomberg NEF to go through the trends, in volume, prices, technologies, supply and demand. We discuss why solar resists ...
Dec 15, 2021•24 min
EV charging is developing exponentially. It is now a 30bnUSD market per year, growing at a astonishing pace of 20%. More than 1.5m EV charging stations are now operational in the world, 50% in China, 30% in Europe. The US will catch up soon thank to the Biden Infrastructure plan that commits 7.5bnUSD to EV charging. But ultra-fast charging comes with technical challenges as the impact on the local electricity networks are tremendous. On the one hand, large EV charging networks are being deployed...
Dec 01, 2021•28 min
As COP26 comes to a close, there has been a flurry of commitments to invest trillions of dollars in green technologies and carbon neutral projects. That is the core of ESG investing (or is it?). ESG investing has grown exponentially since the famous 2015 Marc Carney’s speech "Breaking the Tragedy of the Horizon" and the 2020 Blackrock letter “Because capital markets pull future risk forward, we will see changes in capital allocation more quickly than we see changes to the climate itself”. Number...
Nov 15, 2021•32 min
Renewables are developing very fast, but without a proper distribution system, the energy transition will soon stall. So, what does tomorrow’s green grid looks like? It seems like a dull subject, but the grid modernisation is the necessary condition of a successful roll out of wind, solar and EV Charging. What needs to change, what type of investment are necessary, not just from a deployment perspective but also in terms of efficiency, costs, and regulation. We have the privilege of inviting Ant...
Nov 01, 2021•24 min
For the past decade, Natural Gas has been promoted as the “Clean, Reliable and Cheap” fuel to assist the Energy Transition. Well that cosy theory, heavily promoted by the fossil fuel companies, is collapsing in front of our eyes with the Gas crunch affecting Europe, Asia and Latin America. As of 6 October 2021, TTF (the Dutch gas hub) front month prices briefly touched 160EUR/MWh, 8 times higher than where they were at beginning of the year, and equivalent to a staggering 56USD/mmbtu or 350USD/b...
Oct 15, 2021•23 min
What are the technological options to compensate for – as the German say - the “Dunkelflaute” (dark doldrums), those winter weeks of low winds and low solar? That’s the code that will have to be cracked by Long Duration Energy Storage (above 8 hours and up to several days). Because, if no realistic solution is implemented in the coming years, we will still have gas peakers in the XXIIth century. Gerard and Laurent have invited Michael Barnard, an internationally recognised technology cleantech c...
Oct 01, 2021•33 min
Steel and cement with their 2,000 mills and 3,000 kilns, together currently emit 15% of the world’s CO2. So far, they’ve been exempted from carbon trading or carbon pricing, which means no significant reductions have been implemented. But in a 1.5degree and Net Zero scenarios, they start to feel the pressure. We brought Dolf Gielen, Director Innovation and Technology at IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency) into the conversation to try to understand why those industries are so hard to de...
Sep 15, 2021•28 min
Methane is the largest source of greenhouse gas after CO2. The latest IPCC report has flagged the issue as “Code Red”. Until recently, Methane Emissions had not been universally monitored nor managed. Hence, how can Natural Gas legitimately claim that is it is a “bridge fuel” in the fight against Climate Change? Thankfully, the landscape is starting to evolve; and it’s about time, as methane emissions represent 8x those of the much-publicised aviation sector. Behind this major improvement is the...
Sep 01, 2021•34 min
The future of Sustainable Aviation is a very hot topic, but there are currently more questions than answers: How much of the aviation can be electrified? Will innovation come from start-ups teaming up with VCs or large OEMs? What new systems will have to be designed and certified? Is Hydrogen a solution or a fantasy? What role will biofuels and e-fuels play? To enrich the debate, Gerard and Laurent have invited Toby McCann to assess the various routes. Toby McCann is an Aviator and an Aircraft E...
Aug 15, 2021•30 min
2020 has proven a turning point in the EV market, and the trend is accelerating in 2021: more models, stronger public policies, mass roll-out of charging infrastructure, and a 300bnUSD race to catch up on Tesla. What’s the current state of play in the EV market? Among the OEMs, which are the Tesla challengers, and which are the laggards? Do the SPACs have any future? What are the Chinese up to? What to think about innovative outsiders such as Rivian and Rimac? What about vertical integration, so...
Aug 01, 2021•34 min
The development of renewables has made power markets much more volatile, hence “volatility is the new gold”. Harnessing that volatility requires skills much beyond the traditional Energy Trader’s capabilities: welcome to the new digital energy trading system. To discuss those changes, we are invited Peter Bance, CEO of Origami. Origami’s patented technology enables energy companies to seamlessly bring together real-time data from physical assets, financial markets, and existing customer systems ...
Jul 15, 2021•28 min
Navigating the Energy Transition for an Oil Major is not that simple. Decades-old simple centralised molecules energy systems are making way to decentralised electrons models. Some Oil Majors have simply decided to ignore the Energy transition, others - like Shell - are trying to adapt their business to it. A trading company by DNA, Shell has decided to mostly focus its strengths on the mid-stream and downstream segments. New businesses are being launched or acquired, centred around digital, tra...
Jul 01, 2021•35 min
Germany is rightly portrayed as a pioneer in the development of wind and solar. For the past two decades, the German government has granted a) a very stable framework b) very generous terms to renewables. And the “Energiewende” (the Energy Transition) as this policy is named, has delivered exceptional results, as the share of renewables has jumped from 6% to 50% of the electricity mix. But the cost to consumers has been significant. German Energy policy is very political and there is a lot of mo...
Jun 15, 2021•31 min
While coal is being phased out in Europe and America, it is still the dominant source of energy in Asia. Why is that? And how will the situation evolve? Is there any teeth behind the net zero pledges for the second part of the century? In other words, is coal here to stay in Asia or has the tide started to turn? There is no better expert on the subject that Tim Buckley, Director of Energy Finance Studies at IEEFA (The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis), a thinktank examining ...
Jun 01, 2021•31 min
“Sorry, I’m getting emotional when it comes to smart meters”. Part of Eurelectric’ s Power Summit 2021, we have had a great conversation with Dr Leonhard Birnbaum, the new CEO of E.ON. E.ON is a massive German Utility that has spent the last decade (aka “the lost decade”) selling its coal plants, exiting from nuclear and swapping assets with ex rival RWE. After this reinvention, E.ON can now face the 2020’s with a strong balance sheet and a clear strategy. How to make the most of its two main bu...
May 15, 2021•29 min
The energy retail sector is also experiencing its version of the energy transition, where incumbents with legacy systems are challenged by new entrants rolling out ground-breaking digital platforms. Beyond the digital supremacy, disruptors bring a new approach to consumers' needs, much closer to Amazon than a Utility. We have invited one of the leading new entrants, Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, to discuss innovations, new pricings systems, and its tech, called “Kraken”. Greg explains how...
May 01, 2021•31 min
China manufactures 2/3 of the world’s solar panels and 2/3 of the world’s batteries. How does it look on the ground? What technological advances do Chinese companies have and what does it means for the future? There is no better source of knowledge on the subject of Solar and Batteries that someone based in China and whose teams are inspecting hundreds of factories. This is for real; and, as usual in China, dynamics are complex… but the results are staggering. Andy Klump, CEO of CEA (Clean Energ...
Apr 15, 2021•27 min
In Episode 47, we dive into the exponential development of batteries into the Grid: the Energy Storage industry is doubling size every year. One of the key market is the UK, where the market is expected to x10 this decade because of the rise of renewables, the electrification of transport and heating, and the need for an ever-greater resiliency. We wanted to discuss the various aspects of investing in Batteries with Ben Guest, Managing Director at Gresham House, a very talented and innovative In...
Apr 01, 2021•28 min
After several black outs in the past months, the irresistible growing trend towards electrification and the relentless rise of renewables, the grid has become the indispensable nervous system of the energy transition. How can the grid manage more intermittent and decentralized sources while ensuring more resiliency in dire and more recurrent weather extremes. Gerhard Salge, CTO Hitachi ABB Power Grids provides solutions for a modernised XXIst Century super-grid. The super-grid will be strengthen...
Mar 15, 2021•27 min
The UK Green Industrial Revolution was introduced by Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, in 2020. It is a holistic approach to decarbonisation, but we wanted to focus on one of its key aspects: the development of the largest offshore wind farms in the world. Beyond climate change, it is about innovation, new opportunities and massive jobs creation. We have invited two young engineers working on those gigantic projects Ajai Ahluwalia of Equinor and Virginia Ruiz of ScottishPower-Iberdrola. On the t...
Mar 01, 2021•26 min
Why are engineers, politicians and financiers talking about Hydrogen all the time? And why are they throwing billions of subsidies or investment in companies in that sector? Is Hydrogen a problem, with its hundreds of millions tonnes of CO2 emissions per year or a “Swiss Army Knife” solution that will help decarbonise Mobility, Heating and God knows what? Should decarbonising the current Hydrogen production be the initial goal? Carbon Capture, Electrolysers: do those technologies make sense from...
Feb 15, 2021•37 min
