Insider's Guide to Energy

This week Chris and Johan are joined by Niall Riddell,  CEO and co-founder of Paua Tech. He aims to make every electric vehicle owner’s life a bit easier by simplifying the charging and payment process of charging events. The three discuss the peculiarities of such an early development sector and what challenges lie ahead. Listen in to find out why tariff incentives and smart charging will ease the integration of electric vehicles into the grid and what it’s like starting a company whilst providing for a young family. Link to Pauahttps://www.pauatech.com/

This week, Will is joined by Rob Kabera, President and COO at Sync Energy AI. Rob shares that a staggering 92% of power outages are caused by vegetation, a problem which his company uses Artificial Intelligence to solve. He also discusses how the effective provision of finance to developing communities is the single most important tool for their empowerment, and about his desire to use credit finance and energy systems to bring 500-million small-holder farmers out of poverty in the next 10 years.

On time for his publication called "12 Insights on Hydrogen", Gniewomir Flis joins Chris and Johan to talk about his findings. This episode is a deep dive on various topics including the role of hydrogen for climate neutrality, geological hydrogen storage and its future use cases.Listen in, to find out more about grey, blue and green hydrogen as well as the the potential of ammonia. Agora Energiewende and the publication can be found here:https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/projects/12-insights-on-hydrogen/ 

What sounds like an easy question, can be difficult to answer for laypersons. This week Chris is joined by Chris Hopper, who does a good job answering this question. German-born Chris Hopper has come a long way from installing off-grid solar systems in Rwanda as a student to co-founding a software company in California. With Aurora solar he and his team are able to support solar professionals in the design process of solar installations. Listen in to find out why developing an AI for years is finally paying off and where the company is headed next. https://www.aurorasolar.com/

This week, Will is joined by Dr Julia Song, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of ESS Inc. They discuss the company's flagship low-cost, environmentally sustainable battery technology, which uses only earth-abundant iron, salt and water for the electrolyte. Julia also shares some engaging and amusing stories about the early days of the startup which she co-founded with her husband, Craig.

This week Chris and Johan are joined by Nicolas Crettenand who is in charge of operations at hydrospider. The company has a subtle business model by which they supply Switzerland’s fuel cell lorries with hydrogen. They discuss the advantages over batteries and the chicken and egg problem of hydrogen. Listen in to find out why Switzerland is a perfect home market and what this has to do with the heavy-duty tax on lorries. Link to Hydrospider AG:https://hydrospider.ch/en/ 

This week Chris and Johan are joined by Adam Kingdon. He founded Utonomy Ltd, which at its heart addresses the methane leakages in the gas distribution networks. With a combination of specialized hardware and IoT they can drive down costs for their customers. The three discuss physical and cyber hazards associated to this critical infrastructure and how machine learning is implemented in the system. Listen in, to find out how the company optimizes biomethane distribution and how it’s adapting to an ever-evolving market. 

This week, Will is joined by Sharon Mustri, a battery storage analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Sharon discusses the role for economics in protecting the environment, a cause that's close to her heart. She also shares whether the world is likely to run out of Lithium any time soon.

This week Chris and Johan are joined by Marco Terruzzin, Chief Product Officer at Energy Vault SA. Their technology uses the basic idea of potential and kinetic energy to lift and lower bricks to store and retrieve energy. Energy Vault has experienced very steep growth, they have recently raised $100 Mio. in capital through a Series C fundraising round followed by an announcement to list on the NYSE. Listen in, to find out what use cases they are aiming for and why software is so essential.

This week Chris and Will are joined by Chris Gribben live from ETOT to discuss the challenges and opportunities the pandemic has brought to the working environment and the recruiting process. Further, Chris Gribben elaborates on what he looks for in graduates and talents as well as SOCAR Trading’s role to meet the expectations the new generation of traders and analysts might have. Listen in to find out why HR is playing a more vital role than ever in the industry and what privacy regulations have to do with this.