Energypreneurs

James Hamilton, John Poljak, Paul Martin, and I explored the Hydrogen debate's dark side (00:40 min) and the fundamental point of why it does not make sense to use Hydrogen as a fuel (03:00). While we hear about Mega projects like the $21 billion Asian Renewable Energy Hub, the viable entry points (07:00) remain unclear. We explored the key numbers (10:20 min) and established why Hydrogen is a Win...

Vehicles to the grid are exciting and may create massive disruption in today's electricity supply industry of the future. In this episode, I caught up with Claire Miller, the Director of Tech and Innovation at the Octopus Electric Company, UK. We explored the technology (2:00 min) for the different elements of the vehicle to grid and how it may support and eventually disrupt today's electricity di...

Hydrogen is not only highly flammable; it's a hot topic in the energy world today.  In this episode, Xavier Lara, James Hamilton, David Wenger, John Poljak, and I introduced (01:00 min) and engaged in a conversation with Project Examples (06:30 min), Gray, Green, Blue, and Numbers (11:30 min), the  Hydrogen and Ammonia (27:45 min), the Kilos and Gigajoules (33:25 min) and new Market Opportunities...

Keisuke Taketani is a graphic facilitator or designer who does something magical; he turns long reports into a single page of graphics that are easy to understand. Today we discuss visualization and communication on climate Issues (01:20 min) and how to turn long boring presentations into exciting insights (06:09 min). Keisuke insists that we have to communicate better as we don't have time (14:22...

Aliman Temirbek is high energy and engaging communication professional. She heads Asian Development Bank's communication in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic. Today she tells a story (0:33 min) about her not keeping a secret to herself (09:00). We discussed electric cars (22:00 min), charging business opportunities (26:00 min), and electric vehicle retrofit (30:22 min) opportunities in the Kyrgyz Republic....

Johan Karlsson, co-founder of State of Charge, Melbourne, discussed the fascinating state of play in the electric vehicle space in Australia. We discuss the story behind their startup, the energy transition (07:50 min) in Australia and the re-thinking (09:46 min) of the EV charging business. Johan explained their start up (13:00 min), bi-directional charging opportunities (23:00 min) and why there...

Robert Siy is a columnist and advocate for sustainable mobility in the Philippines. In today's episode, we get to hear his view on why electric vehicles are only part of the solution for the Philippines. We discussed the main challenges in changing our policies and systems (05:00 min), the flooding by the motorcycles and financing options (12:00 min) for electric vehicles.  We explored investment...

Today, Emily So, a renewable energy specialist with the Asian Development Bank, shares her professional transformation from working in a think-tank to a startup to finally a development professional today.  In this episode, we hear about her challenges in installing solar power in luxury lodges in Africa, poor off-grid locations in Bangladesh, and countries across the Pacific. She explains why and...

Today, we tap into the experiences of Darshak Mehta, a technical guru of climate change accounting and an energy efficiency veteran of the 90s. Our conversation tried to decipher the ecosystem of technical terms: Green House Gas Accounting, Clean Development Mechanism, and reference to many guidelines and International Protocols that created this ecosystem.  We tried to explain these items in term...

Manuela Prina explains how to anticipate the skills that may be necessary for the future. She works for the European Training Foundation, an European Union agency specializing in human capital development policies, especially education and training, vocational and technical education, and labor market policies.  Today, we talked about upskilling and reskilling, including skills that may be essenti...

Yuji Tsujiki, the CEO of "forestdigital, inc.", explains how his new startup can organize a trip to your favorite Japanese forest without leaving your living room, corporate relaxation room or a hospital bed or from anywhere. Yuji's Tokyo-based startup specializes in Virtual Reality. With the help of their intelligent software and cloud computing, they can capture and "replay" the forest experienc...

Emilie Smith, the CEO of ExO Works, is in the business of transforming business with a purpose. Her motto is to accelerate technology adoption into society; exactly how a few developers started companies like Google, Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook and eventually defined today's way of life, transforming many things in their ways.    In this episode, Emilie shared how her company helps clients to innov...

Jason Rush, ADB's Team Leader for Communication, Knowledge and External Partnerships in Southeast Asia, started his career as a lawyer in the United States. He then moved to Asia, focused on communication work in UNICEF, others before joining the Asian Development Bank. In this episode, Jason explained the impact of analog to digital transformation in large organizations. While communication has c...

Emily Morris returned as a guest and updated me on Emrgy's latest projects and their expansion in New Zealand, South Africa, and Asia. She explained why she is convinced that the future of electricity is distributed. We discuss why the levelized cost of micro-hydropower could be between 2 to 6 cents a kWh, while the capital cost is relatively high ($1500 to $4000 per kW). We analyzed situations wh...

Dr. Vinod Nair is currently the Chief Technical Officer and co-founder at FaradPower, Inc., developing advanced battery materials from agricultural waste. In this episode, he explained one of his innovations to use anode made from domestic waste and replace graphite, the hard carbon material. Vinod also touched on the idea of DC vs AC electricity, and in his view it was a "historical mistake" to o...

A long-term renewable energy and storage veteran, James Hamilton, shared his industry insight today. He leads the technology innovation and hydrogen team in BayWa Renewable Energy. In today's episode, James shared his renewable energy journey, especially his views on our path to net zero. He argues, solar, wind and batteries are great, but they won't be able to deliver a 100% decarbonized economy...

Daniel Hersson and innovation go hand in hand. His early work on innovation is now switched to support climate-friendly venture capital investments. ADB Ventures provides capital and support to early-stage, climate-focus tech start-ups from all around the world. They are helping entrepreneurs build long-term relationships faster and create value. In this episode, we also discussed how ADB Ventures...

Leandro Leviste, the CEO of Solar Philippines, started his solar venture in 2013 when the Philippines had less than 10 MW of installed solar power. Today his ambitions are big: he wants to build solar plants on his 10,000-hectare land through partnerships and enable the transition from coal and gas. Although Leandro started from a mindset of distributed generation, today he believes in large centr...

Sebastian Groh, the Managing Director at SOLshare, shares his journey from an investment banker in Europe to the CEO of an off-grid solar company in Bangladesh and its evolution over the past years. His interests are in distributed energy, e-mobility and energy storage. He explains how he became an "entrepreneur" by accident. Sebastian's business is focused on peer-to-peer grid trading excess elec...

Janice Baird is currently the Principal at Earth & Every, an environmental advocacy start-up. Her passion: seeking regulatory best practice for major projects, with a focus on energy and fossil fuels. Her team works with communities across the board—from affected areas to concerned citizens. Today we heard from Janice about her exciting work with conservation organizations and some of the projects...

Dr. Priyantha Wijayatunga,  Chief of the Energy Sector Group,  of the Asian Development Bank and I discuss the behind the scenes activities and thinking, which became the recently approved Energy Policy of ADB. We analyze the impact of this new energy policy on the generation, transmission, distribution segments of the power sector and the importance of climate change. Please listen in to find out...

Dr. Cindy Tiangco's 25-year work experience includes 10 years in ADB leading clean energy projects—solar PV, mini-grids and battery energy storage systems in the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu. In some countries in Central Asia she is the "Mother" or "Queen" of Solar. In this episode, Cindy explains the transformation she has seen in the clean energy journey from landlocked and f...

What a high-energy discussion on innovation? How to choreograph elephants to dance and create a trend. How to amplify the benefit of innovation by aligning them with megatrends. In this episode, Dan brought his perspectives from his 40+ years of system automation and transformational change in different industries. Jen brought her perspectives from the humanitarian sector, working globally. We slo...

Dr. Michael Friedman is a medical doctor and medical epidemiologist. As the Country Director, CDC Bangladesh, as his last posting, he was at forefront of Bangladesh's battle with Covid-19. After 25 years, with the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (USCDC), he is exploring the next chapter of his life—contemplating what to do next, specifically initiatives on global warming. A...

In this episode, I was able to hear two scientists' views on the future of electric batteries, their safety, and racing.  Dr. Xu's research group focuses on Lithium-ion battery safety, design, and development of multifunctional energy storage systems among others. Dr. Mesbah Uddin, Professor, and Director of NC Motorsports and Automotive Research Center at the University of Charlotte.  We discusse...