Things Jan Says on Podcasts

…this very clearly: that the expectation is that in most parts of the world, the cheapest way of generating electricity will be a combination of renewables, mainly solar and wind plus storage, even factoring in storage at the same time. It will be cheaper than building new gas-fired power stations.

…electricity by 2035, from about 20-ish percentage. We'll come to the sort of final energy question later, but there is clearly an increase in electricity share of whatever energy is being consumed. Do you think that target should include that the electrification needs to come from clean sources?

I suppose you could say the same thing about the Paris Agreement, where there are clear targets about keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius and preferably below 1.5 degrees Celsius. It focuses the mind to actually act on it, even though there is a very real risk that we may even blow…

I think a good way of maybe visualizing this in your mind is to think about the energy flow that we see in the world. And a lot of people have drawn Sankey diagrams. That's a sort of technical term. Captain Sankey, he was, I think, an Irish engineer who wanted to understand how efficient steam…

And so one way to think about it is from the perspective of oil. Like drilling just crude oil is primary energy. Then having refined products in petrol, diesel, or jet fuel is final energy. And then if the fuel is used for motion most of the time, that motion itself, the outcome of that motion, how…

…the network, connect people? Or is it perhaps to connect new devices to make sure we can go through this transition? And then the question becomes, how do we do that in the most cost-effective way that lowers cost for consumers and that gets us to where we need to get in the fastest possible way?

…digital network, so really open to cyber attacks. And of course, electricity is hard to store. Even if we have batteries, electric ones, or heat batteries, it's just not possible to store energy as we can in, say, an oil reserve or a gas reserve. How do you make an electrified system a secure one?

it's already true that the electric system is core to global economics to any country's economics more than any other type of fuel has been you know the oil shocks of the 1970s had a devastating effect on global economies while the oil shock of 2022 or 2026 hasn't quite had the same economic impact…

and there are also examples of cyber attacks or data breaches when it comes to fossil fuel infrastructure you know the examples of pipelines suddenly not working anymore and and and it's not just limited to the electricity sector um but i wouldn't you know i wouldn't want to just brush that away…

let's take uh the framing that you talked about earlier which is more and more countries will use electricity some of these countries are already on that cusp many call them electrostates there is an advantage that comes from it which is if you are generating that electricity at home through…

…take investment at scale. That's why Eberdrola has committed two-thirds of its capex toward building smarter, more resilient networks. Because generating more electricity is only part of the challenge. As demand grows, the future needs a grid capable of delivering it. Find out more at eBadrola.com.

…it may not be. But getting to that future requires you to have political buy-in from people to electrify, which at the cost that prices are today doesn't seem viable. What can governments really do right now to make electricity cheap and show the savings that may come from electrification today?

One aspect of this, which is sort of playing out with the Iran war and where fossil fuel prices are, sure, many consumers have looked to electric options, but a lot of governments' initial reaction has been to find other sources of fossil fuels or to subsidize energy right now because the prices…

I think there's always a short-term scramble to solve the crisis. And that's understandable. I mean, if you're in government and you see prices shoot up by maybe three, four, five, or 10 times even in 2022, that's what we've seen in the gas markets in Europe. You have to react. And you can't just…

In terms of Europe, the biggest share of emissions tends to be heating homes and buildings with natural gas. I know you have looked at electrification of heating very closely. The obvious solution is heat pumps, but there are success stories and then there are failures across Europe when you look…

…with batteries, with renewables. But we still have places like Italy, for example, or the UK, where gas is a very dominant factor in the wholesale market. So reducing that by speeding up the deployment of storage, speeding up the deployment of renewables will also help bring down prices.

…more fossil fuels for 10, 15, if it's a new industrial build, maybe for decades to come. You've worked with governments, advised them, you've showed why an electrification system is a better one. And yet this urgency that we must electrify hasn't quite sunk in with most governments. Why is that?

In terms of Europe, the biggest share of emissions tends to be heating homes and buildings with natural gas. I know you have looked at electrification of heating very closely. The obvious solution is heat pumps, but there are success stories and then there are failures across Europe when you look…

Yeah, I think we know what the ingredients are and it's really quite simple. One of which we already talked about is electricity price. So we know where the electricity to gas price ratio is low. So by low, I mean at least below three, ideally lower than that. People will start buying heat pumps.…

So one unit of electricity should be a third of the price of gas? No.

…There's still some fossil in there, but it's tiny. I think 90% plus of all capacity being built is renewable. So I would be surprised if the additional electricity demand that we're layering on top would be provided with fossil fuels. I think most of it will be served with renewable energy.

…like the United States, where we are seeing a boom because of artificial intelligence and all the data centers that need to be powered, there is clear indication that gas burn is going to increase in the short term. But you think, even in the US, in the long term, this is not going to be the case.

So, let's take this goal that many countries are going to talk about at COP31, which is to increase the final energy of global consumption to 35% for electricity by 2035, from about 20-ish percentage. We'll come to the sort of final energy question later, but there is clearly an increase in…

I mean, one of the problems with such targets is always that you could achieve them in a way that actually isn't particularly helpful. So, let's, you mentioned data centers before, right? You could just build loads of data centers, which drives up the electrification rate. Is that a good thing?…

I suppose you could say the same thing about the Paris Agreement, where there are clear targets about keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius and preferably below 1.5 degrees Celsius. It focuses the mind to actually act on it, even though there is a very real risk that we may even blow…

…this very clearly: that the expectation is that in most parts of the world, the cheapest way of generating electricity will be a combination of renewables, mainly solar and wind plus storage, even factoring in storage at the same time. It will be cheaper than building new gas-fired power stations.

…electricity by 2035, from about 20-ish percentage. We'll come to the sort of final energy question later, but there is clearly an increase in electricity share of whatever energy is being consumed. Do you think that target should include that the electrification needs to come from clean sources?

I suppose you could say the same thing about the Paris Agreement, where there are clear targets about keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius and preferably below 1.5 degrees Celsius. It focuses the mind to actually act on it, even though there is a very real risk that we may even blow…

I think a good way of maybe visualizing this in your mind is to think about the energy flow that we see in the world. And a lot of people have drawn Sankey diagrams. That's a sort of technical term. Captain Sankey, he was, I think, an Irish engineer who wanted to understand how efficient steam…

And so one way to think about it is from the perspective of oil. Like drilling just crude oil is primary energy. Then having refined products in petrol, diesel, or jet fuel is final energy. And then if the fuel is used for motion most of the time, that motion itself, the outcome of that motion, how…