
Spark Club Podcast
Spark Club brings entrepreneurs in the energy field together with a common objective, to build energy businesses. We draw on each others experience to support, learn and grow energy businesses. The podcasts are hosted by Grant McDowell and are recordings of our Fireside chat with leaders in the energy transition.
Latest episodes

May 2, 2021 • 44min
Demand Response Event - Marija Petkovic
Spark Club is hosting Live Events again! We will hear from Marija Petkovic from Energy Synapse about the Demand Response rule change to come in on the 24th October 2021. Grant McDowell interviews Marija to explore the global context for Demand Response and the impact the rule change will have on commercial industrial electricity consumers, retailers and aggregators entering the market. This is a fantastic insight to the Demand Response rule change to come through in the Australian National Energy Market in October 2021. Enjoy the podcast.

Sep 23, 2020 • 21min
OpenSolar - Maaike Gobel
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell will be interviewing founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets. This is program seven in the series with my conversation with Maaike Gobel from OpenSolar.

Sep 15, 2020 • 41min
David Morgan - Iron Matrix
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell will be interviewing founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets. This is program six in the series with my conversation with David Morgan from Iron Matrix.

Sep 8, 2020 • 25min
Fulcrum3D - Jo Hume
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell will be interviewing founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets. This is program five in the series with my conversation with Jo Hume from Fulcrum3D.

Sep 1, 2020 • 30min
Energy Renaissance - Mark Chilcote
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell will be interviewing founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets. Our four conversation in the series is with Mark Chilcote from Energy Renaissance.

Aug 25, 2020 • 35min
MGA Thermal - Alex Post - Export Series
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell interviews founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets. This is our third conversation in the series with Alex Post from MGA Thermal.

Aug 18, 2020 • 25min
Enosi - Steve Hoy - Export Series
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell will be interviewing founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets.

Aug 11, 2020 • 32min
SwitchDin - Andrew Mears - Export Series
Welcome to the Spark Club Export Podcast series. In this export series Grant McDowell will be interviewing founders and leaders from seven energy tech companies based in Australia. We’ll hear the back story on how they got started, what problems they aim to solve and what the future holds, here in Australia and in global markets. We kick off the with the first conversation with Andrew Mears from SwitchDin.

May 3, 2020 • 55min
Mega Trends & Big Levers - Andrew Birch - OpenSolar
In mid-March this year, just days before lockdown in Australia, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Birchy, as he's known, to talk about what he's been building at OpenSolar and SolarApp. In our conversation Birchy shares his views on the mega trends in energy and the work he’s doing on the big levers with the objective to bring about big change in the energy transition. Birchy and his team have bold ambitions for OpenSolar, the online solar design tool they are developing for the global market, and in order to scale quickly it's FREE.

Apr 8, 2020 • 1h 4min
5 Minute Settlement Event Podcast
How our world has changed in a simple matter of weeks. On the 4th March 2020 the Spark Club community came together at EnergyLab in Sydney to hear a panel discussion on the biggest rule change in the Australian electricity market in decades. We are now in a new world and the impacts have stretched to include the 5 minute rule change start date. In this podcast you'll hear a broad consensus that the rule change, whilst contentious, was on target to meet the 1st of July 2021 start date, now delayed a year. As a global community we're having to adapt to change rapidly and accept the world is moving on. There is a cost to delaying the inevitable and the 5 minute settlement ruling is no different. Enjoy the podcast. Our panel included Kris Funston who oversaw the rule change when he was at the AEMC, David Havyatt from Energy Consumers Australia and Jamie Lowe from Engie.