The Rethink Energy Podcast complements the Rethink Energy weekly strategy bulletin, as we dive deeper into the dynamic factors of the energy market. We discuss the week’s key issues, while providing insight into our own research and forecasts to give clearer direction of where momentum is building through the energy transition.
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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 amounting to 82,000 tons – half of global demand
-India’s $386 billion in energy transition finance pledges heavily feature solar manufacturing expansion – but how much wafer output will they achieve?
-Li Auto has disclosed some details of its AI-centered approach to Full Self Driving (FSD) development – including the size of its database and the scale and cost of the necessary computing capacity.
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 published a new forecast on perovskites – which will take over the solar industry by 2040, with certain segments being revolutionized ahead of 2030. Solar’s quality improvements will keep rolling in through 2050 and beyond.
-Carbon fiber prices have almost halved in the past 14 months in China – allowing wider usage in wind turbines.
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 with conventional silicon modules.
-Per a new study from Boeing, 12% of global feedstock requirement for SAF could be met from South-East Asia alone – but SAF’s logistical hurdles extend beyond simple creation of the feedstock.
-Typhoon Yagi has destroyed some wind turbines – but for the most part the disaster has acted as a proof of reliability for the new plus-size turbines deployed in south China.
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 module segment, plus something more in the cell segment – maybe perovskites? Also in Australia, the value of curtailed energy per year, if stored and dispatched, is growing rapidly towards a similar $1 billion per year.
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 sources as well as accounting for electricity price variation on the grid. We also discuss the US reshoring agenda, the indefinite dominance of lithium-iron phosphate, and the rapid growth of the battery segment.
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 mainland Europe, and the abrupt rise to viability of batteries, even without a photovoltaic system.
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 its final cost came to $715 million, larger than the original $500 million price tag from back in 2020, and double the usual global price. This represents another cost factor hindering the nascent US offshore sector.
-JetZero’s decision to go with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for its blended wing-body (BWB) airline design will prove a mistake in the long run, with hydrogen set to take over the industry over time.
-Natron Energy has announced a 24 GW sodium-ion battery factory in the US, geared towards short-duration, high-power applications such as EV fast charging infrastructure and securing industrial power supply.
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 the continued rapid growth of the BESS industry to accompany wind and solar at scale.
-Ming Yang’s 16.6 MW dual-rotor wind turbine has put out to sea – but floating wind is always going to be more expensive than fixed-base, which in turn is more expensive than onshore.
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) incentive – not steep enough to close the gap with jet fuel, but another step toward the new industrial segment.
-NREL’s latest offshore wind transmission research, which includes a description of a $100 billion intra-regional HVDC backbone stretching from North Carolina to New Hampshire – going far beyond the limited approach of connecting each project to the shore piecemeal.
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 solar equipment stockpiles, and that the new limiting factor on project development is transmission.
-A hydrogen demonstrator flight should be achieved in 2026 by KLM and ZeroAvia – and with SAF-based pilot flights already achieved a few years back, that means the gap between the two aviation fuel routes has widened to the better part of a decade. But the bigger SAF gets, the bigger hydrogen, which is a feedstock for SAF, also has to become. And the slower hydrogen adoption is now, the more sudden and steep it will be when it finally takes off.