Nat Bullard, co-founder of Halcyon and former chief content officer at BloombergNEF, discusses crucial energy trends. He reveals the rise of solar versus stagnating wind energy installations and highlights the mishandling of renewable power amid soaring demand. The conversation also dives into the booming market for Chinese plug-in hybrids and the efficiencies posed by DeepSeek. Bullard underscores the urgent need for better transmission infrastructure, especially due to the energy demands from data centers.
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insights INSIGHT
Solar vs. Wind
Solar installations are rising while wind installations stagnate, especially in the US.
Storage investments now exceed wind investments in the US, driven by solar's growth and grid demands.
insights INSIGHT
California Curtailment
California curtails significant solar power, exceeding 750 gigawatt-hours in spring 2024, despite electricity supply concerns.
The state's net load is negative in spring, indicating more intermittent generation than demand.
insights INSIGHT
Negative Pricing in Europe
Europe experiences frequent negative electricity prices due to excess renewable generation, exceeding 9,000 hours in 2024.
This signals an opportunity for energy storage or flexible load solutions to utilize this surplus.
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Didn’t catch last week’s episode on Nat Bullard’s mega slide deck on energy transition? Start there.
This is the second half of our extended conversation with Nat, the former chief content officer at BloombergNEF and current co-founder at data insights company Halcyon.
In this episode, Shayle and Nat dig into topics like:
Rising solar installations and stagnating wind
Why we’re wasting so much renewable power amid skyrocketing load growth
The rise of Chinese plug-in hybrids and exports
Whether DeepSeek’s efficiency will temper or turbocharge load growth
The woeful state of transmission buildout, despite demand for it
Why one quarter of Virginia’s power demand comes from data centers
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: Does DeepSeek call the data center boom into question?
Latitude Media: To get data centers online, one Virginia co-op is proposing a new business model
Reuters: Exclusive: Global solar capacity hits 2 TW on path to climate goal, data shows
Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
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Catalyst with Shayle Kann