Interchange Recharged

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...

The Interchange is back! As we near the end of January, the focus in the energy world is on viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Hydrogen has dominated the conversation in recent months, touted as the ‘silver bullet’ for tackling the climate crisis. But is that the case, or is it just hype?    In 2021, hydrogen production that was ‘green’ (produced from renewables) was at 1%. In 2022, th...

On this special episode of The Interchange: Recharged, we highlight some of his favorite and most memorable moments on the podcast this year.  It was a very eventful year in the world of energy, and we have been lucky enough to sit down with some of the CEOs and sustainability experts around the world who are finding innovative ways to help us reach our net-zero goals. We discussed policies a...

Wood Mackenzie’s Grid Edge Innovation Summit has wrapped, and we’re bringing you a full recap and some bonus content from the two-day conference.  Listen in as we reflects on our time in Phoenix, where he had the pleasure of sitting down with experts and representatives leading the charge in grid data, energy efficiency, and innovative EV charging solutions.  This episode inclu...

Wood Mackenzie’s Grid Edge Innovation Summit is now on and we’re bringing you all the action from two days of talks right here on The Interchange Recharged.   We are live in Phoenix, bringing you highlights from each day of the conference.   On the second day, we talk to experts and representatives from the leading distribution utilities, automotive industry experts, software techno...

Wood Mackenzie’s Grid Edge Innovation Summit is now on and we’ll be bringing you all the action from the two days of talks right here on The Interchange Recharged.   Host David Banmiller is live in Phoenix, bringing you highlights from each day of the conference.   Across the next three episodes, David talks to experts and representatives from the leading distribution utilities, sof...

The world is undergoing a slow but much needed transition. The need to phase out fossil fuels and transition to renewable sources of energy was a major theme at COP27. But with past efforts to reach certain goals falling short, what technologies are being developed to put us back on track? On this episode, we are joined by Fredrik Mowill, CEO at Hystar. Hystar is a high-tech company that spec...

As we publish this episode, COP27 is well underway. World leaders and policymakers are gathering in Egypt to formulate plans to tackle the climate crisis.  Recent reports, notably a report from the UN in recent weeks, indicate that the current efforts being made by the world are not enough to restrict us to 1.5c of global heating. With the pledges made at COP26 a year ago still not being...

Power grids across the world are under huge strain, as communities and businesses struggle to keep up with costs and the unreliability of an aging infrastructure.  We’re seeing it now in the UK as the National Grid warns of planned blackouts throughout the country. While in the US, electricity companies prepare for the winter with an unreliable grid. But how can energy users help restore bala...

With 90% of the world's trade being transported by sea, the cost to the environment is significant.  Following our focus on commercial sea travel in the last episode of The Interchange Recharged podcast, we now step onto the decks of Maersk, who are looking to alternative ways to power their engines.   Hydrogen has been seen as the go-to sustainable aviation fuel, but can it power t...

On this episode we step aboard a hydrogen-powered ferry that’s hoping to lead the shift away from fossil fuels in a carbon-intensive industry.  We’ve examined technologies that are helping the energy transition on land, such as wave drilling technology and data-driven tools that help consumers slash emissions, and in the air with aviation companies working to develop hydrogen-powere...

With major airline companies setting net zero goals by 2050, we’ve talked a lot about the aviation industry and its contribution to our emissions problem.    In recent episodes we have featured several companies which are creating technologies that will get us closer to meeting this goal. We’ve visited the world of sustainable fuel, had a layover in the land of hydrogen-powered engi...

It’s something we reiterate every episode: we’ll achieve net zero by adopting the new energy transition technologies that are developed every day around the world. Often we focus on the main areas: the solar tech, the ways the industry is maximizing wind power or the developments being made in sustainable aviation fuel. This week however, David turns his attention to an often over-looked but impor...

Today, the global aviation industry is responsible for around two percent of carbon dioxide emissions. With major airlines pledging to hit net-zero by 2050, all eyes are on sustainable fuel manufacturers to help power these airlines towards their goal. But what if there’s another way?   When it comes to making aviation sustainable, the industry seems to have just two options: make the fu...

We talk a lot on the podcast about the technology that powers the latest innovations in energy supply. But what about a solution to the problem of energy procurement? A few episodes ago, we spoke to the Founder and Executive Director of WattTime, a nonprofit tech company that uses the power of data to reduce emissions at the consumer level. By using more energy when the grid is powered by renewabl...

The energy transition is a machine with hundreds of moving parts. The problems we face in getting to net zero will be solved by a combination of technology, policy and consumer action. The cleantech sector is awash with technological marvels. Today, we look at a company with huge potential – a tech company that utilises the power of waves. On the podcast: how harnessing that power can fill in a cr...

9 months ago The Interchange spoke with Harald Overholm from Alight. Alight is one of the leading providers of Power Purchase Agreements in Europe. Since then we’ve seen massive changes in the market, rampant inflation and stock market turmoil. To analyse the changes currently underway in the PPA sector, we are joined by Luca Pedretti, from PexaPark. PexaPark use unique data sets to offer pricing...