Energy Transitions

As the world transitions to net zero, it has never been more important to embrace sustainable business models, no matter how disruptive they may be. As the world faces a time of economic strain with high inflation and volatile markets, sustainability could fall further down the priority list, putting decarbonisation targets at risk. To highlight the importance of circularity, as well as why sustainable business models are critical to maintaining a competitive edge and ensuring a robust supply chain, Pamela Largue speaks to Ionut Farcas, Senior Vice President, Europe & International Hub, Power Products Division at  . “It's completely nonsense to throw away something that is good...doing harm to our earth just to have new things. Circularity, it's one of the things that jointly as an ecosystem we need to accelerate." - Ionut Farcas

The role of Türkiye in Europe's energy markets has grown significantly and Turkish energy companies are stepping up their strategic game to ensure they are well placed to maximise opportunities. One such company is the Turkish renewable energy developer Enerjisa Üretim, which recently started a new subsidiary and unified all commercial activities in Türkiye, Europe and worldwide under a single brand; Enerjisa Commodities. My colleague Patrick Bauduin speaks with Ahmet Özbeyin, Head of Growth and Planning of Enerjisa Commodities, about the changing market dynamics in the South Eastern European region and how Enerjisa is preparing for the region’s future energy landscape.

It has been a tumultuous time in Europe’s power sector, with a variety of internal and external shocks impacting energy markets and net zero progress. Pamela Largue has a candid conversation with Kristian Ruby, Secretary General of Eurelectric, about whether we are on track to meet the 1.5 degree goal, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the importance of protecting our grids from physical, military, and cyber threats. Ruby unpacks the new threat landscape and the radical resilience needed to mitigate these threats and talks about how to unlock a significant uptick in investments needed to speed up the pace of change in the sector.  “If it was just about integrating renewables and connecting a lot of heat pumps, that was the challenge a few years ago. Now on top of that we have a military threat dimension, a very present threat of sabotage that we need to integrate into this.” “Security of supply is the new prerequisite for delivering on net zero – system reliability becomes a critical climate objective”   Resources Connecting the Dots report Register for The Power Summit 2023

Dr. Judith Wunschik, Chief Cybersecurity Officer at Siemens Energy discusses all things cybersecurity and what it means for the digital transformation of the energy industry.

The use of green hydrogen for energy storage and as a clean fuel is certainly not a new concept however the need for a viable hydrogen economy is becoming more pressing as our efforts to decabonise ramp up. At this stage of the green hydrogen game, it is critical to invest wisely in the necessary infrastructure and create the required demand to spur development. To unpack the intricacies of how to build a functional hydrogen economy, Pamela Largue speaks to Professor Dr Emmanouil Kakaras, Executive Vice President, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries EMEA. Prof. Kakaras shares his insights into how to create demand to justify the infrastructure development needed to feed the market and the importance of leveraging industrial use cases to this end. “Demand creation has to happen where green hydrogen is the most competitive substitute” Prof Kakaras also explains the disruptive impact of green hydrogen on the power generation and gas turbine markets, giving us examples of exciting demonstration projects such as the MHI Takasago plant in Japan. It’s home to a variety of electrolysers, storage, compression and hydrogen-fired gas turbines and according to Prof Kakaras, it’s the ‘Disneyland of the hydrogen research’. 

In this episode of the Energy Transitions Series, we hear from Aurélien Schwartz, CEO of Metroscope on the current challenges that the power generation industry is facing. The Power Generation industry, providing energy to the whole economy, is the first in line to achieve full decarbonisation. Every scenario towards net zero requires a massive electrification of society along with a transformation of our means to generate power in the upcoming 10 years. Power generation companies are hence seeking solutions to improve efficiency, lower environmental harm, and reliably diagnose problems to tackle maintenance costs. This episode is brought to you by Metroscope, a Software as a Service company with offices in France, Germany and the US. The company is committed to creating the best software for monitoring and diagnostics for industrial customers. They believe in sober and conscious industrial facilities, leveraging AI and Operating Experience to improve process efficiency, tackle maintenance costs and fight C02 emissions.

Now that the European Commission has published its proposal for electricity market design reforms, Patrick Bauduin talks to Maria Popova, Director for Carbon Neutrality and Renewable Electricity at the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET), about what was proposed and what the implications of those proposals could be for Europe. 

District self-balancing: a way of coordinating flexible use of electricity loads, distributed generation and energy storage. Consumption balancing provides an interesting case study of enabling both energy communities to come online while providing new avenues of flexible congestion management for utilities. Yusuf Latief spoke to Simon Anderson, CEO of The Traxis Group and chair of SmartEn’s Active Buildings and Neighbourhood’s Committee to find out how district self-balancing will play a critical role in our future energy system. "One approach that is being considered by several DSOs is the centralisation of data and control...I think this is going to be an awful lot harder than it sounds and could give rise to major data security concerns..." Simon Anderson

Denmark’s energy islands are at the forefront of innovation, combining scientific advancement and real world application. These hubs will operate as green power plants at sea and are expected to play a major role in the phasing-out of fossil fuel energy sources and allowing countries around the Baltic and North Seas to maximise the vast offshore wind potential in the region. To tell us more about these green energy marvels, I am joined by Jacob Østergaard, Professor and Head of Division, Department of Wind and Energy Systems, Technical University of Denmark.