Interchange Recharged

COP28 gets underway next week. 7 years on from the Paris Agreement, and a global stocktake of decarbonisation efforts lies ahead. Collective action is crucial, as is an exponential increase in these efforts; current policy is not enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. We are joined by Angela Wilkinson, CEO of the World Energy Council, to discuss the actions and pledges the world needs to see fr...

Recycling plastic into feedstock is a crucial piece of the energy transition puzzle. We use a lot of plastic – 380 million tons of it is produced every year. Reducing the amount of fossil fuels used in its production, and minimizing waste going into landfill is crucial as we accelerate towards net zero. Plastic Energy is a plastic producer who are leading this charge. In this week’s Interchange: R...

New forecasts for weather patterns could help the solar and wind industries make better investment decisions in the long term. Climate trends are accelerating rapidly. Global temperatures hovered consistently at around 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels from January to August. Then in September, they shot up to 1.8 degrees. Dr Zeke Hausfather, research scientist at Berkeley Earth, opined in a...

Carbon capture, utilization and storage is evolving rapidly from a niche market to a mainstream investment theme. To explore the technology, financing and science behind this key piece of the energy transition puzzle, industry leaders and analysts met in Houston for Wood Mackenzie’s CCUS Conference.  The Interchange Recharged was there, capturing the best conversations and debate from a packe...

We’re facing a triple crisis: energy security, deadline for decarbonization and a fragile global economy. We’re at a pivotal moment where sustainable commitments can become a reality, now that technology has aligned with intention. We’ve seen extreme weather across the globe in the past few months, and it’s only going to increase in frequency. Mitigating these risks, strengthening the grid and red...

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage is evolving rapidly from a niche market to a mainstream investment theme. To explore the technology, financing and science behind this key piece of the energy transition puzzle, industry leaders and analysts met in Houston for Wood Mackenzie’s CCUS Conference. The Interchange: Recharged was there, capturing the best conversations and debate from a packed day...

Alight is a company riding the solar-coaster and enjoying the heights. In November 2021, we sat down with Harald Overholm, co-founder and CEO of Alight.  The focus of that discussion was on the emergence in popularity of Power-Purchase Agreements, in the solar sector. Alight, as one of the biggest providers in the Nordics, was looking to continue expansion throughout Europe. Since then, there...

A new linear generator could be the answer to the risks of extreme weather. The prospect of an extended blackout during a heat wave is not only alarming, but a potential public health emergency. According to a recent report in the New York Times, 800,000 residents would require hospitalisation if a major heatwave coincided with an extended blackout. The study, conducted by the Journal of Environme...

280 million EV’s worth of battery material is sitting on the ocean floor, but do we need to mine it? The end is nigh for the internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles will be phased in across the next decade, with two-thirds of vehicles sold in the US by 2032 mandated to be electric. In California, 100% of cars will need to be electric by 2035. As a result, demand for the critical metals...

The energy transition can’t be solved simply by focusing on infrastructure, digital solutions or investment alone. These three parts of the puzzle need to fit together.  The federal government recognises this; at the end of June the Environmental Protection Agency, funded by the IRA, dedicated $7 billion to community solar projects. These projects will focus on supplying solar to lower-income...

Back in May, we heard from two climate economists – Gernot Wagner and Bruce Usher, both from Columbia University. Together we explored the flow of capital going into the four largest sources of renewable energy: hydrogen, nuclear, solar and wind. Examining where the money is coming from and where it’s going? It's coming primarily from venture capitalists, but in the last two months there’s been si...

Changes to the way emissions are reported will have a big impact on renewable investment. It might be the most important piece of sustainability material in corporate and climate work that no one’s ever heard of, and it drives a huge amount of corporate behaviour.    In 1998, the  GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard launched, and set out a standard for businesses to...

Solar is attracting the power generation industry’s best talent. As solar and storage enter a new era of applied strategy, better analytics and tools are accelerating growth. Pine Gate Renewables is aiming to ‘get solar done’ by providing renewable energy to local communities across the country. On today’s episode of the Interchange: Recharged, we are joined by David Groleau, Senior Vice President...

We are in San Francisco, bringing you the second of three special episodes recorded live at Wood Mackenzie’s Solar Energy and Storage Summit.   From the live podcast studio in the Gold Ballroom at the Palace Hotel, we brins you the best bits from a packed second day of presentations and interviews with leading solar policymakers, innovators and specialists. The focus shifts today to storage:...

We are in San Francisco, bringing you the first of three special episodes recorded live at Wood Mackenzie’s Solar and Energy Storage Summit.    From the live podcast studio in the Palace Hotel, we bring you the best bits from a packed first day. Interviews with leading solar policymakers, innovators and specialists uncover the latest trends in the US solar market. One year on from the IR...

In the US last year, solar PV capacity totalled 142 GW, enough to power 25 million homes. Falling costs, advancements in storage and cell technology and supportive government policies drove record growth in 2022. This was an 11% year on year increase. Residential solar in 2022 had a record year, with nearly 6 GW of installations, a 40% increase on 2021. It wasn’t all plain sailing. We saw some dow...

When can we expect to see a lithium-ion battery that costs half as much as today, charges an EV in minutes and is made from recyclable materials?   Accelerating the energy transition requires more and more electrification every year. Powering our micro grids, electric vehicles and devices with the most efficient batteries possible is crucial. One of the main issues with batteries today is the...

Solar, wind, hydrogen and nuclear – we need more investment in these renewables, but where can the money come from?  In 2022, worldwide investment in renewables hit almost half a trillion dollars. Investment in solar – the largest sector - jumped 36% to 308 billion. Investment in wind – the second largest – remained stable at 175 billion. Overall investment in the energy transition topped 1.1...

How do we manage the explosion of data across the grid? Digitization is transforming the way energy is produced, directed and spent. Power plants are using real-time data to drive efficiency, smart grids are directing energy where needed and data models are now essential to help us make sense of the market. Across devices and sensors, we’re seeing an explosion of data which needs to be analysed to...

The nuclear renaissance is underway, but can technology deliver the efficiencies needed?  Nuclear power is back in the spotlight. Energy security concerns coupled with economic uncertainty have influenced a shift in global attitudes to the energy source. Policy and investment in nuclear are accelerating as the existing fleet of reactors ages. By 2050, at least 10% of the current nuclear fleet...

When we think of renewables, we think of wind and solar. Investment in these established, scaled technologies dominates the global renewable market; almost half of new investment in renewables is solar. Onshore wind investment in 2020 topped $40 billion, a record year. The downside of wind and solar however, is that it’s sporadic. We can’t predict how much wind or sun we’ll get, and so backup powe...

Electric vehicles find themselves on a rocky road. Following years of growth and advancements in battery technology, supply chain bottlenecks have created uncertainty in the market. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was stacked with tax incentives intended to drive EV adoption, but it was vague on battery requirements. The focus on growing the mineral and battery component industries in th...

We’ve got billions in the pot for renewables. The technology is there for wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear, but there’s still a significant hurdle to overcome: the issue of storage.    Energy Vault is a company exploring innovative solutions to this problem. Using the science behind pumped hydro as inspiration, they created a gravity and kinetic-energy based system around massive compos...

Examining the pioneering ways that smart infrastructures could drive efficiencies. The energy transition will put a huge pressure on the grid. In order to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, annual investment must increase from today's 1 trillion to 4 trillion by 2030. This will fund new technologies such as renewables and storage, but also upgrade the energy grid for transmission and distribution...

Back at the start of December, leading industry experts and energy figures converged in Phoenix, Arizona, for the annual Grid Edge Innovation Summit. As we look ahead to this year’s Solar and Energy Storage event on 21-22 June in San Francisco, we thought we'd dip into the archives and release some of the best interviews and unheard content from last year's summit. Hear from Wood Mackenzie’s exper...