Energy Transitions

In the first episode of a special four-part miniseries of the Energy Transitions Podcast zooming in on Spain’s journey to greener mobility, host Yusuf Latief speaks with Pierpaolo Cazzola and Matteo Craglia, two leading transport and energy policy experts from the University of California, Davis’s European Transport and Energy Research Centre. Together, they unpack why, despite offering significant subsidies since 2009, EV adoption in Spain still lags behind countries like Portugal. Ultimately, Pierpaolo and Craglia explain, Spain is making progress in the sector—but more is needed to fully unlock its potential. Do you want to join the conversation about mobility? Visit the Mobility Zone at Enlit Europe. Register now to attend Enlit Europe, taking place from 18–20 November in Bilbao.

Pamela Largue speaks with José Luis Adanero López, Head of Planning, Regulation & Investment Office at Iberdrola and Simona Rossetti, Senior VP of sales Europe for Grid Technologies at Siemens Energy. López and Rossetti explore the causes and aftermath of the Spanish blackout, as well as the critical roles of grid inertia, regulatory stability, and strategic investment to build a resilient energy grid in Europe. In this episode you will learn more about: How the energy transition is causing a heightened need for resilience strategies, Lessons learned from the Spanish blackout and how to transform those lessons into actions, The impact of eliminating fossil fuels and the loss of rotating mass, The hidden challenges of introducing renewables into the system, Regulatory strategies to improve grid resilience, How to direct investment to ensure a more proactive rather than reactive approach to grid resilience, The role of digitalisation in grid stability.

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue speaks with Dr Kirsty Hewitson, Director at UK's Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration (RAICo), to explore the groundbreaking use of embodied intelligence in nuclear decommissioning. According to Hewitson, whether drones or quadrupeds, data and decision making on the fly is empowering site operators and transforming the sector. In this episode you will learn more about: What RAICo is working on currently and the role these solutions can play in the UK's nuclear industry, How AI and robots are revolutionising the nuclear sector in the UK and around the world, The challenges of nuclear decommissioning, The role of embodied intelligence in derisking nuclear decommissioning, How to train quadrupeds and people that operate them, How to address existing skills and equity gaps, as well as ensure the next generation of talent is equipped for the future working environment, Real world applications for technologies being developed at RAICo, Whether robots will totally replace human beings in this sector.

So how can developers mitigate this risk factor, and what strategies are most effective in the current US energy landscape, which can be both polarised and politicised? Pamela Largue speaks to John Lacey, Senior Vice President and Director of Public Affairs at US-based communications firm Mower Agency, about why it's critical to build trust with communities and customers. Ultimately, according to Lacey, trust and human connection are core ingredients to ensuring energy infrastructure projects can be built at the speed and scale required, while ensuring people remain at the heart of the energy transition. In this episode, you will learn more about: The current state of US energy policy and the impact of recent changes on developers; Whether there is any political consensus on infrastructure development; What community opposition to power projects looks like and why it happens; Understanding the NIMBY mindset and mitigating it through earning trust; The importance of tailoring communication strategies to communities and technology types; Prioritising relevance over green messaging; The link between building trust and protecting the bottom line.

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue speaks with Christophe Williams, CEO of Naked Energy, to find out how their innovative solution of evacuated tubes produces both electricity and heat, converting up to 80% of the sun’s energy into usable power and hot water. It's an important step forward in helping to decarbonise heat, the “warm elephant in the room” of climate action, says Williams. In this episode you will learn more about: Why the company chose to be called Naked Energy; What it means to redefine a mature technology like solar power; How Naked Energy is employing novel design techniques to achieve greater solar thermal efficiencies; How the British Library is using solar thermal technology to decarbonise and keep precious knowledge safe; The use cases for solar thermal technology in decarbonising the commercial and industrial sector; Christophe’s journey from the creative industries into clean tech.

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue has a candid conversation with Monica Collings, newly appointed Chair of POWERful Women and recent recipient of an OBE, about the pressing need for greater gender diversity in the UK energy sector. Collings highlights the encouraging and disappointing results of POWERful Women's 2025 State of the Nation Report, and explains why deep structural change is needed to get the UK power sector's diversity strategy back on track. In this episode you will learn more about: How POWERful Women is tracking on its mission to achieve 40% of energy sector leadership and middle management roles to be held by women by 2030; The standout results from POWERful Women's State of the Nation report; How a lack of diversity is impacting the UK's energy sector; How to attract and retain talented women with a supportive workplace culture; Whether DEI needs to be reframed to achieve more; Why diversity in leadership is good for business and critical for the energy transition.

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue speaks to Per Löfberg, Senior Project Manager at charging solutions scale-up Elonroad, to find out more about how charging innovation is helping to drive electrification. In this episode you will learn more about: The challenges facing e-mobility in Europe and limitations posed by the grid infrastructure and battery dependency; How Elonroad's innovation is using conductive electric roads to enable on-the-go charging; The differences between indictive and conductive charging; Why road electrification holds great promise for port decarbonisation in particular; Why the US, Sweden, France and Singapore are exploring e-mobility innovation like electric roads; The popular use cases being explored for deployment of these systems; Addressing regulatory and investment gaps hindering development of e-mobility innovation; What's next for Elonroad on its innovation journey.

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue speaks with John Ahlberg, Founder of nuclear scale-up Kärnfull, about the polarised opinions concerning Swedish nuclear energy and whether this divide still exists. Ahlberg also highlights the game changing technologies and business models that are building confidence in the sector. In this episode you will learn more about: Why nuclear energy is a controversial topic in Sweden; Why the government is warming up to nuclear energy; What technology options are most likely going to materialise in the country; New business models that could influence the future development of the sector; The challenges and pressure points in the region's electrification journey and the role of nuclear in mitigating these.

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue speaks to Linda Wennberg, Agile Unit Leader Sustainable Energy at ABB's Smart Power Division, about how to foster innovation through effective partnerships. In this episode you will learn more about: The challenges and opportunities around innovation in energy; Why acceleration and scalability are important to make the most of the opportunities to innovate; Why companies that can quickly scale their innovations gain a competitive edge; How to innovate in a sector where product lifecycles are decades long; How the need for speed is changing the way engineers work on energy transition solutions; The partnerships that ABB Smart Power has invested in to accelerate innovation; The main technology/innovation trends that will have the biggest impact on the energy transition. This episode is brought to you in partnership with ABB’s Sustainable Energy Unit Listen to all episodes here: https://www.enlit.world/podcasts/energy-transitions/ Connect with our host, Pamela Largue, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-largue-95897245/

In this episode of the Energy Transitions podcast, Pamela Largue speaks to Alex Robertson, newly appointed CEO of ENERGYNEST, about why he believes power-to-heat technology is more than just hot hair and holds genuine promise for Europe's pathway to industrial decarbonisation. He also explains why the switch from gas to electrification is less daunting and more intuitive than we might think. In this episode you will learn more about: Why power-to-heat is an effective way to decarbonise the energy system, providing flexibility and heat when and where needed; How the industrial mindset is shifting from being gas consumers to actively participating in the electricity market; The applications where power-to-heat is having the biggest impact; The infrastructure requirements to implement a power-to-heat solution and the cost implications involved; Challenges to overcome in terms of implementing these solutions; such as intermittent renewables, heat storage requirements and the need to reach high temperatures for some industrial processes; The importance of these solutions for industrial competitiveness in Europe; The maturity of these solutions and potential for innovation and efficiency improvements; Why power to heat is a good compliment for renewable energy.