EP. 276 Scaling the Energy Transition: Flexibility, Capital and Execution

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Feb 11, 2026

Pieter-Jan Mermans, co-founder and managing partner at Junction Growth Investors and former founder of REstore, discusses how flexibility, optimisation and software have moved to the center of Europe’s energy transition. Short takes cover demand-side response, automated trading and batteries, grid-enhancing digital solutions, and why execution, unit economics and market design now shape what scales.

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ANECDOTE

From Phone Calls To Virtual Power Plants

In 2010 most flexibility came from jet engines and open-cycle gas turbines, with manual phone-call processes to curtail demand.
Restore automated those manual chains and built virtual power plants from small, unreliable demand-side assets.

INSIGHT

Automation Turned Storage Into Active Market Liquidity

Robot trading, front‑of‑meter batteries and liquid intraday markets transformed liquidity and automated storage optimisation.
Machine learning and automation made fully automated trading a major source of system flexibility.

INSIGHT

Hidden Residential And EV Storage Potential

Residential batteries and EV fleets represent huge latent capacity that remains largely idle behind meters today.
Integrating these distributed assets into markets is a major opportunity for the next decade.

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In this episode of Energy Unplugged, Simon De Clercq is joined by Pieter-Jan Mermans, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Junction Growth Investors, to explore how Europe’s energy transition is shifting from rapid build-out to a more operationally complex phase. Reflecting on the last decade of renewables, electrification and storage growth, they discuss why today’s biggest challenges are no longer technological, but lie in flexibility, market design, and making existing infrastructure work harder.

Pieter-Jan brings first-hand experience from founding and scaling REstore into a global leader in demand-side flexibility, before joining Centrica Business Solutions’ executive team following its acquisition. Drawing on this background - and his current role investing in European energy transition scale-ups - he explains why flexibility, software and optimisation have moved from the margins to the core of power markets, and how grid-enhancing technologies can unlock value faster and more cost-effectively than network expansion alone.

Set against tighter capital markets and evolving policy priorities, the conversation argues that the next phase of the energy transition will be defined by execution and unit economics. From residential and industrial flexibility to smarter trading, automation and regulation that reward system value, Simon and Pieter-Jan make the case that aligning markets with real-world system needs will be critical to keeping Europe’s transition investable, reliable and competitive.

You will learn:

Why flexibility and optimisation - not new generation - are now the biggest levers in Europe’s energy transition.
How demand-side response, storage and software can unlock system value faster than traditional grid build-out.
What scaling an energy-tech business reveals about the real-world barriers to deploying flexibility at pace.
Why execution, unit economics and market design will determine which transition technologies succeed in tighter capital markets.

Registration for the leading annual gathering of the European energy industry – the Aurora Spring Forum, taking place on 29th April 2026, in London is open - a one-day deep dive into the biggest strategic questions shaping Europe’s energy transition, plus top-tier networking and a live recording of Energy Unplugged.

Book now at https://auroraer.com/events/aurora-spring-forum-2026 and use code PODCAST20 for 20% off.