The nuclear renaissance is underway, but can technology deliver the efficiencies needed? 

Nuclear power is back in the spotlight. Energy security concerns coupled with economic uncertainty have influenced a shift in global attitudes to the energy source. Policy and investment in nuclear are accelerating as the existing fleet of reactors ages. By 2050, at least 10% of the current nuclear fleet will retire, prompting the need to look to new and innovative technologies to replace them.  

As ever, cost-efficiencies will drive adoption. The levelized cost of electricity for conventional nuclear is over three times the cost of wind and solar per MWh. New, advanced reactor technologies are needed to lower costs. Small Modular Reactors are one of these. As global innovation in nuclear evolves, these reactors could deliver energy at less than $80 a MWh. Investment in SMRs is focused on the US Canada and Europe. 

On the Interchange today, David Banmiller is joined by a panel of industry guests to identify the paths to safe, reliable nuclear power. Dr Kathryn Huff is Assistant Secretary at the Office of Nuclear Energy, at the US Department of Energy. She explains the decisions that have influenced the shift in government policy towards nuclear in recent months and outlines the plans for investment in new projects. The Natrium reactor, from TerraPower, is benefiting from a slice of the $2 billion in funding from the DOE. Jeff Navin is Director of External Affairs at TerraPower, and he also joins us on the show.  

The renaissance in nuclear power is driven by a multitude of factors but shifts in attitudes and the change in policy since the start of the Ukraine war have played a significant part. Maria Korsnick is the President and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute. She joins the podcast to explain how the next generation of nuclear reactors will help power the energy transition. David Brown is Director of the Energy Transition Service at Wood Mackenzie. He completes the panel on the show today to forecast the future of nuclear around the world. Where is investment needed, and where is it coming from? Policy needs to start rewarding nuclear for what if offers in low-carbon dispatchable power. What technologies are enabling efficient nuclear power to slot into the grid?  

Wood Mackenzie’s Solar & Energy Storage Summit is back, taking place at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on June 21 and 22. Join expert solar and storage analysts for discussions with leading grid-scale utilities, solar and energy storage developers and federal policy makers.  

How is the IRA catapulting the development of solar and storage in North America? How can we continue to build a productive environment for solar and energy storage as we move forward with the energy transition?

What is required to nurture the development of a thriving localized storage component supply chain?  

Expect two days of panel discussions, presentations and workshops, as we explore the opportunities for solar and storage in the coming decades.   

If you are interested in sponsoring or attending find out more on woodmac.com/events/solar-energy-storage-summit 

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When we think of renewables, we think of wind and solar. Investment in these established, scaled technologies dominates the global renewable market; almost half of new investment in renewables is solar. Onshore wind investment in 2020 topped $40 billion, a record year. The downside of wind and solar however, is that it’s sporadic. We can’t predict how much wind or sun we’ll get, and so backup power generation is needed. One thing we can predict is the tides. 

Wave power has grown steadily with record investment from the US Department of Energy in 2022 funding new projects, but power generation from undersea currents hasn’t yet seen the same investment. In October 2022, the DOE announced a further $35 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to advance tidal and river current energy systems. However, compare these grants to the total $20 billion invested in wind in 2021 and there’s a clear mismatch. In the US, there are no large-scale tidal plants and there are only 3 projects that exist worldwide. 

What have we seen in the last few years in tidal power? In 2021, in waters off the northern-most tip of Scotland, the 02 tidal turbine started turning its massive blades for the first time. The largest commercial-scale turbine in the world is a project from Scottish marine power company Orbital and represents the culmination of 15 years of project development. In 2023, in the waters of the Etel Estuary in Brittany, France, another steel turbine is turning, powered by the tides to a maximum speed of 27 RPM. This was France’s promising, but stalled foray into tidal power restarting, this time by another tidal power manufacturer – NovaInnovation. Backed by the EU’s 5 million euro Element Marine Renewables Technology Development Scheme, the 50kW turbine was the first step on the journey to a whole new market. The EU Strategy on Offshore Renewable Energy laid out the plan to have 1GW of ocean energy projects operating by 2030. Only 67kW of tidal stream capacity was deployed in 2022, the lowest addition since 2010. 

So why aren’t we seeing investment in marine power on the same scale as wind and solar? On the Interchange today, host David Banmiller is joined by Andrew Scott, CEO of Orbital Marine Power, and Tim Ramsey from the US Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office, to look at the technology that could drive marine power into the same league as wind and solar. 

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Electric vehicles find themselves on a rocky road. Following years of growth and advancements in battery technology, supply chain bottlenecks have created uncertainty in the market. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was stacked with tax incentives intended to drive EV adoption, but it was vague on battery requirements. The focus on growing the mineral and battery component industries in the US has prompted fresh scrutiny on China’s dominance of production as exports of Chinese-made EVs rose to almost a million in 2022. 

Currently Indonesia and Thailand are planning similar government subsidies for EVs, while global organisations and governments have asked the Biden administration to relax its strict requirements around what EVs qualify for a tax credit. These policy debates continue against a backdrop of ever-increasing demand for EVs. Despite a 6% year-on-year decrease in total sales in December 2022, last year was a record year for EVs. 10.4 million units were sold. 

On the Interchange: Recharged, host David Banmiller is joined by Michael Insulan from Electra, and Egor Prokhodtsev from Wood Mackenzie. Michael is interim CFO and VP of Commercial at the battery manufacturer, and explores how Electra is working to meet the demand for batteries by utilising new technologies and materials, as well as looking to recycle obsolete batteries. Egor is Senior Research Analyst at Wood Mackenzie, and with David examines the current state of the EV market. 

Demand is growing, and something has to power the millions of vehicles sold each year. There’s a huge opportunity for organisations at the right place and right time to secure their future as supplier to the world of lithium, cobalt and nickel. National bans on ICE vehicles in the UK and Germany by 2030, France by 2040, and California by 2035 are snapshots of where the world is heading. Smoothing the road ahead so EVs can drive us to a net zero world is critical. 

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We’ve got billions in the pot for renewables. The technology is there for wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear, but there’s still a significant hurdle to overcome: the issue of storage. 

Energy Vault is a company exploring innovative solutions to this problem. Using the science behind pumped hydro as inspiration, they created a gravity and kinetic-energy based system around massive composite blocks. Excess renewable energy lifts the blocks, then when the energy is needed again, it drops them and converts the kinetic energy into electricity. 

The main problem with the grid is that it is designed as a ‘pre-generation’ storage solution, in that we simply convert fuel into energy. Post-generation storage, where we actual store the electricity, is lacking. The grid needs upgrading, and Energy Vault’s system is one solution.

On the Interchange: Recharged, David is joined by Co-Founder and CEO Rob Piconi. Rob believes that the biggest step we need to take to decarbonise is solving our storage problems. 

The discussion explores the technology behind Energy Vault, the every-present issue of the supply chain, and the future of investment for the company.

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Examining the pioneering ways that smart infrastructures could drive efficiencies.

The energy transition will put a huge pressure on the grid. In order to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, annual investment must increase from today's 1 trillion to 4 trillion by 2030. This will fund new technologies such as renewables and storage, but also upgrade the energy grid for transmission and distribution. Outdated power grids in urban areas are currently largely unable to integrate necessary renewable energy sources.  

The technology to propel us through the energy transition already exists. The puzzle to solve is how to use it most efficiently. There's not a one size fits all solution to upgrading the grid, but data and smart infrastructure are emerging solutions that promise to drive efficiencies across the network. Every percentage point increase in energy efficiency or energy reduction moves the needle globally in tackling climate change. 

On the Interchange: Recharged, host David Banmiller chairs a panel discussion with three experts in grid innovation. Rachel Steinberg is Head of Mesa, an initiative from Google's Sidewalk Labs on a mission to drive energy efficiencies in buildings. Josh Chappell is Head of Engineering on the project and also joins us to discuss the technology behind it. The modernisation of the grid is crucial for the energy transition, so understanding these elements is key. To explore the policy reforms and investment driving the changes to the grid is Wood Mackenzie’s Sam Howe, Research Analyst in Building Decarbonisation.  

Together, they examine the pioneering ways that clean electricity is directed to the right place. 

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Back at the start of December, leading industry experts and energy figures converged in Phoenix, Arizona, for the annual Grid Edge Innovation Summit.

As we look ahead to this year’s Solar and Energy Storage event on 21-22 June in San Francisco, we thought we'd dip into the archives and release some of the best interviews and unheard content from last year's summit.

Hear from Wood Mackenzie’s experts and representatives from the leading distribution utilities, software technology developers, public utility commissions (PUCs), and distributed generation players in North America addressing key issues affecting the sector, including the latest insights on grid modernization, distributed energy resources (DER) aggregation technologies and transportation and building electrification. 

Featuring on this episode:

• Aimee Bailey, Director of Innovation and Portfolio Management, National Grid Partners
• Kathy Knoop, Manager, EV Stakeholder Solutions, General Motors
• Anna J Siefken, Commercialization Executive, U.S. Department of Energy
• Fahimeh Kazempour, Head, Grid Modernization, Wood Mackenzie
• Giri Iyer, Vice President, Business Development, Sentient Energy, a KES Company
• Vince Faherty, Head of Energy Marketplace & Implementation Partnerships, Google
• Tiya Gordon, Co-Founder, itselectric

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The Interchange is back! As we near the end of January, the focus in the energy world is on viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Hydrogen has dominated the conversation in recent months, touted as the ‘silver bullet’ for tackling the climate crisis. But is that the case, or is it just hype? 

In 2021, hydrogen production that was ‘green’ (produced from renewables) was at 1%. In 2022, that number has barely increased. Most of our current hydrogen production is from fossil fuels and used to produce other chemicals such as ammonia. All the focus in the industry, and the media, is on the green and the blue. These yield 11 million Google results, against 95,000 for grey and 49,000 for brown. Great news – we must be currently produced green hydrogen in the majority. Wrong. Only 0.04% of hydrogen produced is green. 96% is grey, or brown, produced for use in oil refineries and for manufacturing ammonia. 

On the Interchange this week, David is joined by Luke Johnson, Managing Director and Founder of H2 Green. They’re a UK based company aiming to build green hydrogen production hubs across Europe, to produce and deliver hydrogen where needed. Luke is a serial entrepreneur with experience in energy and technology, across Australian, US, German and UK markets. Wood Mackenzie’s Melany Vargas also joins the show - she’s the Head of Hydrogen Consulting at Wood Mackenzie, and brings experience across the global energy value chain. 

Together they look at the agenda of governments worldwide to turn this ship around. Do plans even exist to do so? Is the focus on green hydrogen production a distraction from the true industry practices? Can we rely on hydrogen as a viable alternative source of energy and can it be produced sustainably? At the moment, it’s not looking good. 

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On this special episode of The Interchange: Recharged, host David Banmiller highlights some of his favorite and most memorable moments on the podcast this year. 

It was a very eventful year in the world of energy, and David has been lucky enough to sit down with some of the CEOs and sustainability experts around the world who are finding innovative ways to help us reach our net-zero goals. We discussed policies and early-stage investments helping to support the energy transition. We took this podcast on the road and brought you live recaps throughout several days at the Wood Mackenzie’s Solar Energy and Storage Summit in San Diego, and The Grid Edge Innovation Summit in Phoenix. 

Listen in as David reflects on the year, and feature clips from interviews with Quaise Energy, KMX Technologies, Boom Supersonic, Maersk and more. 

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Wood Mackenzie’s Grid Edge Innovation Summit has wrapped, and we’re bringing you a full recap and some bonus content from the two-day conference. 

Listen in as host David Banmiller reflects on his time in Phoenix, where he had the pleasure of sitting down with experts and representatives leading the charge in grid data, energy efficiency, and innovative EV charging solutions. 

This episode includes interviews with:

               •              Fahimeh Kazempour, Head, Grid Modernization, Wood Mackenzie

               •              Giri Iyer, Vice President, Business Development, Sentient Energy, a KES Company

               •              Vince Faherty, Head of Energy Marketplace & Implementation Partnerships, Google

               •              Tiya Gordon, Co-Founder, itselectric

               •              Carter Li, CEO, SWTCH Energy Inc. 

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Wood Mackenzie’s Grid Edge Innovation Summit is now on and we’re bringing you all the action from two days of talks right here on The Interchange Recharged.

Host David Banmiller is live in Phoenix, bringing you highlights from each day of the conference.

On the second day, David talks to experts and representatives from the leading distribution utilities, automotive industry experts, software technology developers, public utility commissions and distributed generation players in North America. 

David is joined by:

               •             Scott Peattie, Director Business Development / Head of Grid Services, Sunrun Inc.

               •              Amaiya Khardenavis, Research Analyst, EV Charging Infrastructure, Wood Mackenzie

               •              Kathy Knoop, Manager, EV Stakeholder Solutions, General Motors

               •              Adam Langton, Energy Services Manager, BMW of North America, LLC

               •             Ken Schisler, Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, CPower Energy Management

               •             Anna J Siefken, Commercialization Executive, U.S. Department of Energy

               •              Trudie Wang, VP of Product, Heila Technologies

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