“Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends”. Like John Wick, Laurent thinks he is back. So we have a very energetic Minutes to start September. With Gerard, the co-hosts focus on one of the key trends of 2024 which they call “Batteries, the Great Consolidation”. A lot of great experts are helping shape our view. To name a few Aaron Wade, Tom Tsogt, Cormac O’Laoire, Christopher Chico, Chris Berry, Benchmark Minerals Intelligence/Rho Motion (Iola...

How to decarbonise buildings? That’s an important topic because that sector accounts for 37% of all emissions, making it one of the three pillars of decarbonisation next to electricity generation and transportation. Progress has been mixed. If lighting is an incredible success, heating and cooling remain a complex proposition with certain countries adopting new technologies much faster than others. Energy efficiency is sometimes a hard sell, as pay back periods can be counted in decades....

A special interview with one of the great minds of the Energy Transition. Dr. Doug Arent is the Executive Director of Strategic Public– Private Partnerships at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, U.S and Distinguished Fellow, World Economic Forum.   He just published a book called “Our Renewable Energy Future: The Story of How Renewables will become the Basis for Our Lives.”   “Our Renewable Energy Future” focuses on clean energy technology evolution and where our...

During Summer season, we bring you back the best of our sister show, Redefining Energy TECH, where host Michael Barnard invites Paul Martin for a very long and geekie conversation about innovative solutions for industrial heat. Two titans of our industry. Paul Martin, a seasoned chemical engineer, share his profound insights on the electrification of industrial heat processes. Here’s a brief summary of the conversation: The discussion kicked off with a critical analysis of the inefficiencies...

In episode 143, Gerard, Laurent and Michael have discussed the philosophy of Bill Gates when it comes to the Energy Transition, and the root causes of his flawed thesis. Let see now if this transpires in his main investment vehicle, Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV). Michael Barnard is quite blunt: “To be clear, Gates is still highly resistant to the reality that we have almost all of the solutions we require, and that Breakthrough Energy Ventures is mostly invested in distractions.” As...

Bill Gates is sucking a lot of oxygen in the Energy Transition. Is he a force for good, or a nuisance? What is his thesis and where does it come from? And is the thesis still valid in 2024 or obsolete? In this episode, we will not analyse Breakthrough Energy Ventures, his VC fund celebrating its 10th anniversary. That will be the topic of Episode 144, next week. Laurent, Gerard and Michael are going to analyse Bill Gates fascination for Vaclav Smil and David MacKay.  We will dissect how...

This week, it is a solo by Gerard Reid. This is the audio of its remarkable presentation at EcoSummit Berlin in June 2024. The topic is “Batteries vs Hydrogen” Link to the YouTube   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAbr4byi414

Texas and California have witnessed a crazy growth in Solar and Batteries in recent years. In 2024 California has 24GW of Solar and 9GW of batteries on its grid; Texas has grown even faster with 31GW of Solar and 10GW of batteries. When it comes to the Energy Transition, you can make the following analogy: public policies are the land and financial markets are the rain. But the seeds are battle-hardened entrepreneurs. Laurent and Gerard love to invite such heroes of the development of...

After a crazy Intersolar in Munich which welcomed more than 120,000 visitors, the pace of Solar deployment in Europe is going exponentially. Gerard and Laurent bring in Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of Solar Power Europe, to discuss the development of Solar, and through the new report “Mission Solar 2040”, how we are on the cusp of a Flexibility Revolution. The Report is available here: https://www.solarpowereurope.org/insights/thematic-reports/mission-solar-2040-1  

Glencore’s CEO Gary Nagle has once described ESG as “some person in the basement in office number 27 engaged in a box-ticking exercise.” And a lot of fossil fuel companies – while being less explicit – share the same opinion on ESG… and have voiced their hostility indirectly through complicit media outlets. The ESG movement is facing a significant backlash. On the one hand there has been too much greenwashing, on the other hand, ESG has become a political punching ball in certain US States...

We bring in Nick Wayth, CEO of Energy Institute (EI), for the release of the 73rd Edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy. The Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy™ analyses data on world energy markets from the prior year. Previously produced by bp, the Review has been providing timely, comprehensive and objective data to the energy community since 1952. The Strategic Review is now a collaboration between the EI, KPMG, Kearney and Heriot University. Five key stories...

UK is at the nexus of the subsea interconnector’s new economy. Great Britain is connected to Continental Europe by 8 interconnectors representing up to 15% of its power consumption. Subsea cables are now a growing industry because of the benefits they bring to the grids, such as resiliency, capacity, lower prices, and renewable energy balancing. Alongside batteries and pumped Hydro, interconnectors are the best flexible green infrastructure currently available on our road to net-zero. How...

Laurent interviews Georgios Stassis, PPC’S CEO, during Eurelectric Power Summit 24. PPC, the Greek Utility, is a remarkable turnaround story: from a soviet-style dinosaur a few years ago, PPC has become a thriving forward-looking profitable modern Utility. With Georgios, we discuss the investment in renewables, the phase out of lignite, digitisation, the investment in new segments (Datacenters, E Mobility, Demand Response…) and share an overview of regional integration with interconnectors...

In April, we did Ep129 Minutes about China and announced the interview with a real expert. Here it is. With David Fishman, an American based in Shanghai, we dig deep into China’s Energy Transition. We try to reconcile the rise of renewables and the rise of coal use. We try to decipher what is decided locally and nationally. We investigate what is the result of command-and-control measures vs market forces. We cover wind, solar, batteries, EVs. Our goal is not to give good points or bad...

Last week, Laurent was in Athens for the spectacular Eurelectric Summit (we will talk more about it in 2 weeks’ time, with a special Episode) meanwhile, we bring in our friend Jan-Michael Hess, organiser of the Berlin EcoSummit 4-5 June to discuss Clean Tech and his annual gathering of more than 100 Start-Ups and hundreds of investors. If you don’t have your tickets (yet) https://ecosummit.net/  

"McKinsey, BCG and S&P Global Commodity Insights project electricity demand tied to data centers to increase at a CAGR of 15% through 2030." “Booming AI demand threatens global electricity supply (FT)”. Media and consultants have recently raised the alarm about the unquenchable energy thirst of AI and datacentres.  Can we believe those predictions or is it another scaremongering wave like we saw 15 years ago, when prophets predicted that the internet would soon consume 50% of the world...

We bring in the star of the week, Ember’s Dave Jones, to discuss the Global Electricity Review 2024, published last week. Main take aways (thank you Nat Bullard):  Renewable sources (hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass) are now 30% of global electricity supply.Solar generation increased 23% yoy; wind 10%.Fossil fuel generation increased 0.8%.If not for a decline in hydro production, renewables would have met almost the entirety of the global increase in electricity demand. We are entering...

Distribution grids are facing new challenges. On the one hand, they experience a growth of local demand, with EV charging, heat pumps and datacenters. On the other, they must accommodate with the fast deployment of decentralised energy such as rooftop solar and batteries.  How to reconcile those challenges while maintaining grid stability? And how can Utilities, hooked up on rates and CAPEX start thinking differently and adopt new technologies? Beyond the regulatory changes and technical...

We hear conflicting messages regarding the status of the EV market. On the bright side, IEA predicts 17mEV to be sold this year, EV and Hybrids reach 50% market share in China for Q1, more than 500 EV models are currently on the market. On the dark side, Tesla and BYD deliveries were down in Q1_24, Tesla revenues were down 9% compared to Q1_23 and the price war has cut the EPS in 2. Has Tesla lost its mojo or will Elon refocus and reboot. Lots of announcements, but also a 10% cut in the...

Laurent and Gerard have a rapid overview of what’s going on regarding the Energy Transition in China and its political implication in the West. Record production of this, record production of that, overcapacity everywhere… We babble a lot, rant a bit, and conclude that we need to invite a real expert on the show.  

What is the value of green electrons? Hard to say. Depends where, depends when. What is sure is that, in view of recent regulations and corporate commitments, they must be tracked. From an annual basis, we are now moving to an hourly basis, under the thrust of corporate initiatives like the GhGProtocol, RE-100 and EnergyTag. Behind this movement, BigTech such as Microsoft and Google see a need to track those green electrons as their energy consumption is on the way up… and it has to...

This week, Gerard and Laurent have been invited to a private event organized by Aquila Capital in March 2024, during the Global Infrastructure Conference, where they debate with Markus Wandt, CIO Aquila if “Renewables are still an Infrastructure play?”

The main hindrance to the development of renewables is the connection queue. Basically, grid operators tell developers “Sorry guys, we’re full”. A recent study by RMI has proven that this is simply not true. Grid operators are either too conservative or not incentivized to take more load. Old solutions. Old thinking. Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) are hardware and software solutions that are deployed within the existing transmission system, helping increase the capacity, flexibility, and...

This week, Gerard and Laurent talk about the 3 big energy gatherings that happened this week. Houston (CERAweek), Bilbao (WindEurope) and Berlin (Global Infrastructure Summit). Laurent and Gerard were in Berlin and report what they saw and heard. In a simple sentence à la John Wick “Yes, I think I’m back”