Insider's Guide to Energy

This week Marcelo Ortega is joined by Surojit Sen, Hugo Stephens and Shreeja Basak members of the University of Nottingham Racing team. The team shares the complexities of designing and building electric vehicles optimized for different characteristics to compete in student events, from prioritizing endurance and range in a solar PV-powered car for the Solar Challenge to designing electric vehicles focused on speed and manoeuvrability for the Formula Student.  

This week Chris is joined by Gregg Dixon, the Chief Executive Officer of Voltus Inc. Voltus is a Distributed Energy Resources platform allowing consumers to act as the supplier in local energy markets. The two discuss the environmental benefits of DERs, the future of local energy markets, the challenges DER platforms face today and how a DER company operates. Listen in to hear more about the green energy transition and distributed energy resources. Voltus’s homepage:https://www.voltus.co

This week Chris and Johan are joined by Katherine Blunt, the author of California Burining: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America’s Power Grid. In the book, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. The three discuss the history of the PG&E company and how the company was somewhat accountable for the California Camp Fire incident. Listen in to hear more about the book and the less glorious parts of the energy industry.   To order the book:  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670012/california-burning-by-katherine-blunt/  

This week Chris and Johan are joined by David Leevan, the CEO and Founder of cQuant.io. cQuant.io provides a sophisticated analytics platform for the energy industry’s most challenging data-driven problems. The three discuss how cQuant is filling the gap of “quants” in the energy industry with their innovative energy solutions. Listen in to find out more about cQuant’s models, which integrate with up- and down-stream business processes that are causing the company’s impressive YoY growth. cQuant.io’s homepage: https://cquant.io

How do we know the best technology mix to achieve the energy transition? With the collaborative project Nexus-e Marius and fellow researchers are developing an open-source modelling platform aiming to reflect the complete energy system from ground up. The software which includes modules from engineering to markets, investment and policy interventions is run on the university’s supercomputer and aims to guide our path towards a zero-emission society. Listen in, to find out how Marius’ transition from research to project management has been, why hydrogen might only play a small role for seasonal storage in Switzerland and why autarky is not the solution.   Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marius-schwarz89/ https://nexus-e.org/ 

This week, Will is joined by Jo-Jo Hubbard, co-founder and CEO at Electron, a provider of digital energy marketplaces. Jo-Jo shares how the problem of integrating renewable energy onto electricity systems has long inspired her and ultimately led to the creation of Electron. She also shares her view on markets as a conversation about price, and how the ultimate goal is an economically rational net zero energy system.

This week Chris is joined by Melissa Lindsay, the Founder of Emstream & Emsurge.Emstream is the world’s first technology-backed physical LNG and Environmental Products brokerage, powered by its tech platform, Emsurge. The two discuss the latest updates on the carbon market and new solutions for cleaner and more efficient LNG trading. Listen in to find out more about how to embrace digitalization to drive efficient markets and how carbon offsets drive the faster reduction of GHG emissions.  Emstream & Emsurge’s homepage: https://www.emstream.co.uk 

Using the process of desalination, Desolenator contributes to solving global water scarcity issues. Supriya shares her story how she joined the company as a post-graduate intern and subsequently become an R&D engineer at the firm, responsible for the design and optimization of its plants. Listen in to hear about the projects they are running across the globe and what advice she has for young engineers. Links: https://www.desolenator.com/  https://www.linkedin.com/company/desolenator/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/supriya-mhatre-2093/  

This week Chris and Johan are joined by Paris Smalls, the CEO at Eden GeoTech. Eden develops a new Electrical Reservoir Simulation Technology to fracture reservoir rock. The three discuss the environmental and technical benefits of a first-of-its-kind technology of recovering Earth’s natural resources and its role in achieving carbon neutrality. Listen to find out more about how the Electrical Reservoir Simulation improves renewable geothermal power generation and it decreases the ecological footprint of mining.Eden’s homepage: https://www.edengeopower.com/

From building electric scooters at the age of twelve to being a member of a solar car racing team Damian has always been an extraordinary engineer.   Together with his team, the Solar Energy Racers at Buhler, he constantly works to design and improve the solar powered race car. With the vehicle they partake in races in Belgium, South Africa and Australia. Listen in to find out more about each component of these cars and why sometimes only half of the participants make it to the finish line.  Links: https://www.buhlergroup.com/ http://www.solarenergyracers.ch/  https://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/