Rethink Energy Podcast
by Rethink Research
The Rethink Energy Podcast complements Rethink Energy's weekly strategy bulletin, as we dive deeper into the dynamic factors of the energy market. From offshore wind to carbon credits, we discuss the week's key issues, while providing insight into our own research and forecasts to explore where momentum is building through the energy transition.The team: Connor Watts, Bogdan Avramuta, and Andries Wantenaar.If you want to stay ahead of the game, and avoid falling victim to the under-optimism of the market giants, find out more at rethinkresearch.biz/product/rethink-energy/
Episodes
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 18: Nuclear Power with Ed Ho, Part 2
In this final episode of the Rethink Energy Podcast, consultant Ed Ho makes a return appearance to conclude our discussion of the nuclear power topic. This time, the main topic is the near and medium-term outlook for the industry's development, as it heads towards a revival across the West.
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Rethink Energy 231: US nuclear strategy, China's future manufacturing dominance, BESS exports up over 400%
The US will default to a nuclear-centric energy strategy as nuclear enjoys bipartisan support from policymakers - unlike either renewables or fossil fuel plants. More broadly worldwide, the growing need to pair intermittent renewables with energy storage is eroding their perceived cost advantage...
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Rethink Energy 230: Flying cars to redouble all-solid-state R&D; VPP progress to accelerate EV adoption via V2G
Flying cars are being brought to market by several major EV manufacturers in 2025 and 2026 - and their demand for weight efficiency will boost adoption of autonomous driving and all-solid-state batteries, even if those technologies are too expensive for standard EVs. Chinese OEMs have unveiled a...
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Rethink Energy 229: Rio Tinto bets on future lithium price recovery; trends in TOPCon solar technology
Rio Tinto has announced a further $900 million investment into lithium mining in Chile - we discuss the inexorable logic that today's 2x overcapacity will give way, due to constantly growing demand, to a second lithium shortage within the next 10 years. JinkoSolar's whitepaper on their latest...
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Rethink Energy 228: the latest renewable energy capex costs
With Republicans sabotaging renewables and Democrats bound to push out fossil fuels, nuclear stands to benefit as the 'least interfered with' option. President Trump has signed a new EO upping the Biden 2050 target of 200 GW, to 400 GW of nuclear power - to include 10 constructions beginning by...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 17: discussing Nuclear Power with consultant Ed Ho
In this episode Toronto-based energy consultant and analyst Ed Ho joins us to discuss the present situation of the nuclear power industry - and the prospects for future deployments. We ask - what is the "true" cost of nuclear power - is it more like the recent Western new-build overruns on cost…
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Rethink Energy 227: Battery industries up 60%+ in Q1
Both the EV power battery industry and the energy storage industry have grown over 60% year-on-year in Q1, according to various statistics - but even a fourfold growth in demand could be acommodated by the existing production capacity of lithium, as the energy storage segment can respond to…
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Rethink Energy 226: China's power market reform and energy strategy
China will implement a major new power market reform next month, introducing Contracts for Difference (CfDs) and an ancillary services market which will greatly increase the revenue of battery energy projects. Renewable additions will slow down compared to the immense boom of the past two years,...
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Rethink Energy 225: South Korean wind, Polish nuclear, battery supplies
South Korea is to develop a 3.2 GW, $13 billion offshore wind complex - which will also require transmission expansions to deliver power to load centers. Poland's nuclear development deal with Bechtel and Westinghouse has been renewed - with as much as $51 billion and six reactors at stake, with...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 16: Hystar's PEM electrolyzer manufacturing
In this episode we spoke to Tina Anderson, Head of Sales at Hystar, a Norwegian electrolyzer manufacturer with 100 MW production capacity - growing towards 4.5 GW. We cover topics including ramping up and down to react to electricity prices - as well as providing demand response services to the...
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Rethink Energy 224: Spain's historic blackout, thermal energy storage for industry, and the future of the silver shortage
Spain's massive blackout vindicates the investments being made into synchronous condensers and grid-forming inverters in Australia and northern China. While an official post-mortem has not been released yet for Spain's blackout, South Australia's 2016 blackout may provide a close parallel -...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 15: Voltalis demand-side flexibility operation comes to the UK
In this episode, we spoke to Randall Bowen, Managing Director of Voltalis UK – the biggest European demand-side flexibility operator. Of particular interest to the UK's energy strategy is its GW-scale fleet of storage heaters, which are not currently responsive to spot market electricity prices....
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Rethink Energy 223: Australia's pumped hydro fleet, Trump kills offshore wind, solar manufacturing output shrinks 45%
Australia's pumped hydro fleet now promises over 500 GWh of storage capacity - meaning the county is set to be a world leader (or leader of the West) on pumped hydro, mostly with 10-hour duration, just as it was a world leader on BESS adoption. President Trump has mauled the offshore wind…
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Rethink Energy 222: Trump's tariffs, UK and South Korean zonal pricing, Trina Solar's perovskite licensing
Trump's tariffs mark a redoubled shift of the US away from free trade, but it's hard to find a direct impact on renewables - since the US was already a hostile policy environment, and the rest of the world already had Chinese overcapacity. The UK and South Korea are both considering zonal pricing...
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Rethink Energy 221: Solar manufacturing and the future of silver demand and supply
Silver paste usage in solar cell manufacturing remains at around 10 mg/W, or 10 tons per GW, and the global silver demand remains elevated at 20% higher than supply even since 2021 - with the solar industry accounting for 20% of all demand for silver worldwide. This is causing a constant increase...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 14: Meteomatic's weather forecasting for renewable energy
In this episode we spoke to Chris Hyde, senior Sales Manager and Meteorologist at Meteomatics - a company which forecasts the weather for the energy sector. Forecasting data is useful for everything from deciding where to build wind and solar power plants, to deciding when to discharge batteries…
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Rethink Energy 220: Trina Solar's perovskite module, Texas reverts to gas power
Trina Solar has announced a 3.1 square meter, 808-Watt silicon-perovskite tandem solar module, which with 26% efficiency is better than any module on the market today - but extra manufacturing cost and a shorter lifespan means the upcoming semiconductor is not across the finish line yet. Texas…
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Rethink Energy 219: The 300 MW RWE-TotalEnergies electrolyzer deal , Kelin Electric's $200 million perovskite factory
RWE and TotalEnergies have signed a 30,000-ton annual green hydrogen supply deal to run from 2030 to 2044 - how can green hydrogen production become cost-effective in the context of the German energy crisis? Kelin Electric has announced an intention to raise $200 million for a 1 GW perovskite…
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Rethink Energy 218: Spain upgrades its hydro to pumped storage, UK cuts offshore wind permitting times, perovskites seek funding
Spain's utility Iberdrola is upgrading its pre-existing hydropower reservoirs to pumped hydro - a huge potential storage reservoir for Western Europe. The UK has announced it will expedite offshore wind permitting times, potentially halving lead times in the world's second-largest market for such...
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Rethink Energy 217: Data centers and the energy trilemma, Aus-NZ transmission link
Data centers are pursuing a mixture of renewable energy, gas, and nuclear power to ensure they have a supply of sustainable, reliable and affordable power, in a microcosm of the energy trilemma A 2,600-kilometer submarine HVDC line has been proposed to link New Zealand and Australia - with huge...
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Rethink Energy 216: Transmission build out limitations, Germany's lacking energy strategy
German elections have seen the Green Party sidelined and a centre-right government taking power - but this seemingly won't be enough to prompt a restoration of mothballed nuclear plants, even as German industry shrank for the seventh quarter in a row due to energy costs. The IEA has published a...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 13: AXIS Capital and insurance in the energy transition
In this episode of Rethink Energy Talks, we're joined by Joe Dutton, Axis Capital's Innovation Lead, to discuss the role of insurance in the renewable energy sector, beginning with offshore wind and Chinese imports, then expanding to a sweeping discussion of the energy transition as a whole.
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Rethink Energy 215: China's power market reforms, Trump Admin's fossil fuel agenda
China will switch its renewable energy power projects over to market-based pricing from June 1st 2025, while also abolishing battery co-location requirements, following on from ever steeper time-of-day pricing, and a 2024 reform which introduced capacity payments for coal and gas plants. China's...
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Rethink Energy 214: Estonia's underground pumped hydro, green hydrogen's cost-viability
As the Baltic states switch synchronization from the Russian to the Western European grid, construction will soon begin at an Estonian pumped hydro project with deep underground excavation works. meanwhile Norway has backed off from an offshore wind expansion which would have increased its...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 12: Enervenue's long-duration nickel-hydrogen batteries
In this episode of Rethink Energy Talks, we're joined by Jorg Heinemann, CEO of Enervenue - whose nickel-hydrogen energy storage batteries promise 30,000-cycle lifespan, enduring draining to zero, partial discharge, and potentially scaling to up to 12 hours of storage duration. So this is a...
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Rethink Energy 213: Batteries versus gas in the capacity market, Western wind OEMs rally
With DeepSeek and other LLMs achieving reduced energy intensity, data centers in the US can still add easily 40 TWh of power demand per year - under President Trump, some of this will be met by gas plants. Batteries have replaced gas plants in the new-build category in the Polish and UK capacity...
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Rethink Energy 212: Deepseek and future power demand, China's battery exports, VPP adoption
DeepSeek and other new AI models promise the same performance for one order of magnitude less power consumption - does this really change forecasts for load on the grid? China's battery exports are up 17.1% year-on-year in December by volume - but the dollar value was stuck at $60 billion for…
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Rethink Energy 211: Trump quits Paris Accords, solar industry losses and growth, China-US Capex comparisons
The Trump Administration has quit the Paris Accords as is clearly opposed to wind power. But if the Administration doesn't support renewables, corporates will, as data centers add ever more load to the grid. The solar industry continues to post record manufacturing scale, demand, and low prices...
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Rethink Energy 210: Hydrostor's compressed-air storage, feed-in tariffs cuts boon for VPPs
Hydrostor has received a $1.76 billion loan guarantee from the Biden Administration for its compressed-air energy storage project in California - how does this technology compare to BESS? Australia's Victoria state is the latest government to slash solar feed-in tariffs, which will force...
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Rethink Energy 209: Data center power demand, China's green hydrogen production cost
Data center power demand will grow to between 6.7% and 12% of total US power demand by 2028, per a new report published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - growing to fit the grid. China's green hydrogen industry has achieved $1.6 per kilogram green hydrogen, but this still isn't cheap...
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Rethink Energy 208: Nexwafe wafers, solar industry's 500 GW 2024
The global solar industry will install over 500 GW this year, with a final module cost of just $95 per kW as overcapacity continues to mount Nexwafe posts 24.4% cell efficiency built on its wafers made via epitaxial deposition - a significantly cheaper alternative for the solar supply chain...
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Rethink Energy 207: Chinese export controls, 2025 battery pricing, low-light perovskite performance
China's export controls will spur further price increases for high-end semiconductor and other materials Battery prices set for consistent gradual decline through 2025 and beyond More investments into perovskite factories and pilot projects - is low-light performance good enough tyo conquer…
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Rethink Energy 206: Chinese perovskites, German battery additions
China's perovskite sector keeps announcing new factories - but what's needed to produce a Minimum Viable Product solar panel using the new semiconductor? Germany's 215 GW solar target for 2030 implies up to $100 billion investment also needed in energy storage batteries on the grid. Policy…
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Rethink Energy 205: Northvolt's collapse, Entrion's deep sea wind
Northvolt, Europe's flagship battery manufacturer, has filed for bankruptcy - in keeping with the region's weakness in upstream manufacturing. Entrion has patented a guyed monopile design which blurs the distinction between fixed-base and floating wind projects. China's government has issued...
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Rethink Energy 204: China to export 140 GWh energy storage batteries in 2024
China has exported 116 GWh of energy storage batteries and battery systems in the first 10 months of 2024, indicating 140 GWh full-year and a global manufacturing scale well north of 200 GWh, meaning the industry is grow between 50% and 100% year on year India became a net exporter of solar...
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Rethink Energy 203: Solar manufacturing falls by one-third, looming Trump Admin oil and gas agenda
The EV industry's initial adoption of solid-state batteries remains set for 2027, just one of the quality upgrades which will offset the pain inflicted by tariffs. Global solar manufacturing has fallen by over one-third if you measure from the historic peak in March 2024 to October, with the...
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Rethink Energy 202: The second Trump Administration's energy policy
The second Trump Administration will disrupt the energy transition in three ways - disrupting equipment imports, cutting federal funding, and preserving the fossil fuel industry. Energy storage batteries will go from strength, with ever more price volatility including negative pricing on the one...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 11: Halocell talks perovskite low-light performance, commercialization
In this episode of Rethink Energy Talks, we're joined by Paul Moonie, CEO of Australia's perovskite company Halocell, to discuss perovskites' performance in low-light conditions, dusk, and dawn - starting with a Microquanta test from a few months ago in which perovskites had 38% more usable...
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Rethink Energy 201: The true price of China's solar panels, carbon fiber production capacity expanding
In this week's episode, the Rethink Energy team discusses: The true price of China's solar panels - they're being sold below cost, but how far below cost? Carbon fiber production capacity is set to expand dramatically, courtesy of China, with just three factories in the past couple of months...
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Rethink Energy 200: New aircraft designs needed for new fuels, Rethink Energy's new perovskite solar forecast
In this week's episode, the Rethink Energy team discusses: The 14th ICAO Air Navigation Conference has called for streamlining regulatory processes for implementing new aircraft designs which will accompany the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen and battery power. Rethink Energy has...
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Rethink Energy 199: Perovskite tandems reach threshold of viability, SAF's strategic hurdles go well beyond feedstock, large-size wind turbines survive Typhoon Yagi
In this week's episode, the Rethink Energy team discusses: Tandem perovskite modules are being shipped to customers by Caelux, Oxford PV and others - these are still small-scale trial shipments, but this signifies that the technology has reached the threshold of parity on lifetime power output…
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Rethink Energy 198: hydrogen combustion engines for trucking, Australian solar reshoring
In this week's episode, the Rethink Energy team discusses: Hydrogen has a little-explored route into the trucking segment, with hydrogen-fired combustion engines offering lower Capex than battery EVs. Australia has committed $1 billion AUD to solar manufacturing - but this only enough for the...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 10: Lion Energy talks battery energy storage
In this episode of Rethink Energy talks, we're joined by Tyler Hortin, CEO of Lion Energy, to discuss the future of battery energy storage in the US. That includes Lion Energy's use of technology such as EMS and BMS to optimise charge and discharge timing, integrating multiple demand and supply...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 9: Hometree talks heat pump adoption
In this episode of Rethink Energy Talks we're joined by Nicola Battey, Director of Sustainability at Hometree - a residential installer of heat pumps, solar panels and batteries in the UK. We discuss the adoption of heat pumps and other residential energy systems - including why the UK is behind...
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Rethink Energy 197: South Korea's hydrogen trams, Dominion Energy's $715 million wind turbine installation vessel
In this week's episode, the Rethink Energy team discusses: South Korea's hydrogen fuel cell powered tram system, due for mid-2028 - and why such experiments should be shelved in favour of electric power. The US now has one wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) compliant with the Jones Act - but...
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Rethink Energy 196: Hazer Group's turquoise hydrogen, 100 GWh of energy storage batteries manufactured in H1, Ming Yang's floating wind turbine
In this week's episode, the Rethink Energy team discusses: Hazer Group's turquoise hydrogen production pilot scheme and whether the synthetic graphite byproduct will compensate for the cost of its high energy intensity. China has produced 100 GWh of energy storage batteries in H1 2024 - showing…
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Rethink Energy 195: ClearVue's BIPV glass, Illinois SAF fuel incentive
In this week's episode , the Rethink Energy team discusses: ClearVue's Building-Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) glass, and the startup's latest agreement with Alu-Tec WLL to foster distribution of its products through the MENA region. Illinois has introduced a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)...
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Rethink Energy 194: solar manufacturing stalls for first time in a decade, SAF pulls ahead of hydrogen in aviation race
In this week's episode , the Rethink Energy team discusses: Solar manufacturing output has stalled for the first time in over a decade, passing 50 GW a month in June 2023 - a level from which it first grew to 70 GW, before shrinking back to 50 GW in June 2024. This reinforces the reality of vast...
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Rethink Energy Talks Ep. 8: Reactive Technologies discusses grid frequency stability
In this episode of Rethink Energy Talks, we're joined by Duncan Burt, the Chief Strategic Growth Officer at Reactive Technologies, a pioneering grid frequency stability company which measures the stability of power grids around the world. These measurements replace the old method of modelling -...
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Rethink Energy 193: China's ammonia-coal co-firing pilot, First Solar's TOPCon patent infringement, offshore wind breakage issues
In this week's episode , the Rethink Energy team discusses: China's ammonia-coal co-firing pilot scheme, and how otherwise-curtailed renewable energy could help to make green ammonia affordable. China curtailed 17 GWh of its wind and solar in 2023. First Solar's TOPCon patent investigation which…
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About this show
The Rethink Energy Podcast complements Rethink Energy's weekly strategy bulletin, as we dive deeper into the dynamic factors of the energy market. From offshore wind to carbon credits, we discuss the week's key issues, while providing insight into our own research and forecasts to explore where momentum is building through the energy transition.The team: Connor Watts, Bogdan Avramuta, and Andries Wantenaar.If you want to stay ahead of the game, and avoid falling victim to the under-optimism of the market giants, find out more at rethinkresearch.biz/product/rethink-energy/
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