Entech set for energy transition take-off

Executives at Europe’s most innovative energy technology (“Entech”) talk to Montel about the potential for blockchain to enable the next phase of the energy transition by integrating renewables as well as EVs and household appliances through blockchain and AI. How can regulation encourage innovation in the entech space? 

Host:

• Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel. 

Guests: 

• Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity, 
• Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron, 
• Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv. 

Transcript

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Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Montel Weekly podcast. Normally, we bring you energy matters in an informal setting. For today, we're in this amazing control room of the old Craftwork Berlin. So I'm in Berlin, as we say, as at the, uh, at event Horizon, uh, conference. And today I'm joined. By three very distinguished guests, CEOs, and leading energy experts in Europe. Anna, CEO of Grid, singularity, welcome.

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 0:30

Thank you.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 0:31

You're also Vice-Chair of Energy Web Foundation's Foundation Council.

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 0:35

Yes, and very proud that we went live yesterday.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 0:38

Brilliant and Jo-jo Hubbard, you are the CEO of Electron. Welcome to you.

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 0:42

Thanks for having me.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 0:43

So Electron, that's a, that's a London based company, sort of tech based tech energy in the tech energy space.

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 0:49

Yeah. Um, we are trying to repopulate the term n tech so that energy companies don't have to call themselves FinTech companies because it's such a profoundly important, exciting space right now.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 0:59

Absolutely, absolutely. And Maria, Ana, uh, welcome to you. Your CEO of? Of, um, c, C of. So you look at more, not so much. I mean, I think, uh, you Jojo you are looking at more at the balancing side of stuff, but you are looking more at the household level. Is that right, Maria?

Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv: 1:17

Domestic level. So it's kind of the other end of the, the spectrum, I suppose. Mm-hmm. You've got it all between us. Perfect.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 1:23

So from the macro level to the micro. Yeah. Wonderful. Anna, you just mentioned that you launched the energy web chain. So can you tell us a little bit more about that? Why is it important and what does it mean for the energy sector?

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 1:34

For several reasons. First of all, because we created an ecosystem of global corporates and startups who are working together on a single standardized platform where, um, they're launching applications in the Antech. Mm-hmm. Uh, and we are the first, uh, platform that is run by real. Companies, corporates and startups. Um, so it is also news for blockchain. It's the first enterprise level, truly decentralized blockchain. It is also more efficient than other platforms that are there in the market right now, and therefore allows for range of applications. Hmm. And at Event Horizon, our partners, members of the ecosystem have shown applications that are very real, including those that are operated by Electron and w but also Singapore power on GE as well as, uh, American and other innovators globally.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 2:32

So that's like the corporates, the, the sort of established energy companies as well as start startups like Electron and, and, and others. Yeah. Jojo Electron used blockchain to, to help balance the grid, sort of bring in decentralized, uh, and distributed energy, if I understand it correctly. But I see you recently, you launched a sort of grid as asset register. Could you, could you tell us a little bit about that? What, what is it and, and why is that important?

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 2:55

So the next phase of the energy transition is all about making more efficient use of existence. Assets. Whether they're grid assets like transformers or cables or, or generation assets or storage assets. But the boundaries moved. Mm-hmm. Right? The boundary used to be the meter level and the boundaries moved behind the meter. There's all sorts of exciting things going on there too.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 3:16

So when you say behind the meter, I mean for those out there who maybe aren't. I'm familiar with those kind of terms. What, what do you mean? Electric

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 3:22

vehicles? Domestic batteries, uh, electric heating systems. Mm. All of those sorts of things are kind of

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 3:27

fridges or

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 3:30

fridges is always used as an example. Yeah. But, uh, as to whether you coordinate through a domestic, you know, heat or fridges means so many different aggregation models of bringing lots of different types of assets into the market, but being another, you know, kind of really compelling one of those. Essentially, one of the key challenges is. No one party has a view of what and where all the capabilities in the system are anymore. So you've got an awful lot of parties who are holding different types of data, whether it's static data, like here are the attributes of those assets, here's where they are. Or operating data, like here are the meter readings or, or relational data. Like these are the things these assets are qualified or allowed to do. Mm. So to try and pull those together and get kind of whole system value, you need to kind of. Whole system solution. So you have two options, a kind of centralized whole system solution where you create a new central database and coordinate it that way, or a decentralized one. We believe the absolute best way to coordinate this new system is to bring together lots of different data sets and coordinate them through a kind of portal, essentially a thin integration layer, rather than mandating for a new, big central. Data system. And you know, even if you do that, you're gonna get some of the column headings wrong or you're gonna miss some of the important data and you're gonna end up having multiple of those data sets. So Recorder record, DER is the big project we're running in the UK with National Grid, UK Power Networks and Scottish Power Energy Networks. And it's essentially to give a single name for a single asset, maybe a meter id or you know. Something more. And then, uh, on blockchain we sort of run the KYC. So how do you prove that you have the right to control that asset and enter into markets? And we have references to lots of off blockchain data sets. Then we have essentially the market protocols. Which is separate. So one, a market can be a balancing market, and as an example of that, we're doing up in Scotland, it can be a data market. So an example of that, like National Grid paying for more information or more resolution as to what is in the, the lower asset. But the point is anyone can build these data or trading markets on a system of coordinated asset identities. So that's, and that's where the blockchain

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 5:27

comes into that, and it's all

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 5:29

linked. Yeah.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 5:31

So Maria, you at ve you're using blockchain, um, to, to help households and people to look at their energy, use how they can. Perhaps lower their, their carbon footprint. And I saw you recently, uh, you have an energy trading platform. What could you say, tell us a little bit about that. So that's

Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv: 5:45

the, the part that we use the, the blockchain for. So we started out, I mean, we're a data company. So we and Antech. But yeah, so we, we have an iot device that samples current and voltage coming into domestic properties Super quick. So much faster than smart meters. So up to a million times a second versus like once every six to to 10 seconds. And with that volume of data, we can apply AI to it. Mm-hmm. To gain greater insight into the home. So where a smart meter shows you your total consumption, we say it's the washing machine that is costing this much and show people that information in real time. The idea of democratizing energy. Uh, data has been there from the beginning because people didn't understand how to reduce their bills because they don't have access to the information. They don't know if their appliances are efficient or inefficient. Uh, so that's where we began. And then it was through a project also with the UK PN, which is one of the, the network operators, uh, back in the uk. Uh, through a project with them, we were monitoring households that had solar and battery storage, and obviously the means electricity and we could. See that they were generating so much more energy than they needed. And that's where like, hang on a second, like surely we could redistribute this energy to a neighbor that doesn't have some form of, of solar. Uh, and we even had one person say to us, so, you know, like, I'm retired, I've paid my paid for my solar assets, they're all paid off now. Like there's a family next door that I can see are really struggling. And I would love to just give them my, my access orders. You wouldn't even necessarily, necessarily have to pay for it. Maybe you would do need it. To a skill I didn't know. And so then that, that's where our projects came in. And so we were like, we need to trade this energy in some way. We need to record the transactions, but our goal here is to get energy bills as low as possible and hopefully down to zero mm. So the blockchain is the perfect solution for that right now. It's the best technical solution right now to trade something in a way that doesn't need a middleman that's gonna take their cut on every transaction. So that's how it came advice. So the middleman

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 7:37

being who then maybe energy company companies? Yeah. It's massive disruption to, to the, the current set of the retail set of using.

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 7:45

We, we actually would argue that disruption already happened with the centralized assets, with consumers being aware that they have right. To know and that they have right to choose. Uh, so we see blockchain as a solution, actually not, not the disruptor.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 8:00

Yeah. Okay. No, fair enough. I mean, do you think, um, what's the consumer engagement with this? I mean, is there willingness to engage with, with this?

Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv: 8:06

I mean, obviously we've had, uh, very early adopters from the beginning. We've been getting feedback on it. I think. What we have seen, uh, there's a transition happening in technology right now. Mm. Whereas when startups used to be measured on things like monthly active users, daily active users, time spent in the app. Mm. And we actually don't necessarily want people spending hours in our app looking at how much their KE will cost. Mm. And I think technology is now transitioning from this kind of. Screaming toddler, trying to get your attention all the time, like social media to an obedient assistant, and that's what we want to be. So we want to have the technology that enables people to forget about it, to know that they are always paying the cheapest price for their energy. So we do switching as well. And know that they're always getting the cheapest amount and obviously trying to reduce carbon. Uh, also, so yeah, so I think that people are getting wise to it, but it needs to be something that you kind of install and then they're like, yeah, I know that's taken care of. I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 9:00

Yeah, absolutely. I sense there's a, there's a lot of fantastic ideas out here, and the company's involved in this sector. You know, you, you've got some, some good, very good use cases. What does it take then to bring this to the next level? Is there, is there anything sort of holding back development in this sector? Anna?

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 9:17

Actually some use use cases are at the next level. If you call the market the next level.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 9:22

Sure. For example, which ones, for

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 9:24

example, the first one that was really out is the renewable energy certificate. Mm, which is a perfect use case of simplifying the procedure, making it more efficient, making it more transparent, uh, definitely more authentic. Mm. And also what is really important, really enlarging the market in a sense that you no longer have to be a big hydro plant. You can now be a home with a solar panel and participate. In this market. So, uh, this is happening on g uh, in France and Singapore Power and now PTT in Thailand have marketplaces. Uh, Singapore Power announced that now they have a partnership with iex, the international Rec certification bodies. So that means that that app, uh, is global. And that it's not tied to that one market, which is another, uh, feature of, of blockchain. Mm. And then there are apps in EV charging. Uh, like the share and charge app, right? Which, which has been on the market, uh, for a while now. And, uh, well, a while being, a few months in, in blockchain years, it long. Elia is looking at an application in grid balancing, uh, studied. Another companies are exploring how to engage the community, how to engage distributed resources in a way that is more efficient. Their apps like one that we built is grid Singularity called the D three A, which allows one to simulate, configure a market. Hmm. Optimize the market. And then in the next stage, uh, roll that out as a software with own bidding strategies. Uh, where as you see, uh, with blockchain, it's all a big puzzle and we're all working together as part of this puzzle. What jojo and Electron is doing is a protocol that is useful for asset registry that could then be part of this digital, uh, grid, and then the device. Uh, of w uh, would be the one that's participating with its own trading strategies on this simulated, uh, digital grid transactive grid. So, um, that is the beauty of blockchain and that's why we have an ecosystem, uh, where we all work together. It is a peculiar case. Of, uh, cooperation and collaboration on the market.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 11:36

And if I go back to the guarantees of origin or the certificates of origin, how, how is that developing in Europe? I mean, um, you mentioned some kind of hindrances, uh, yesterday in the conference. Could, could you go into more details there?

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 11:48

So whenever we do a survey, regulation comes as the first challenge, I will call it. And it's a challenge, uh, in that if you have a registry of guarantees of origin in a country in Europe, or, or, or another name that they're called in another country, which is highly regulated, then they say this is how they should be registered. Mm. And you need someone to check if you actually have an asset, you need to be an asset of that size and so forth. So it's a procedure. That needs to be changed so that you can say, oh, you can also register a certificate using this blockchain app. Uh, and there it's a matter of time for registries in Europe to recognize that it's a better way to do business. But it does require that they change a relatively small piece of legislation, but it's still a piece of legislation and, and it's also a cultural behavioral change in that aspect, the more of a challenge that we see. See is in peer to peer. Where, uh, for good reason, uh, it is highly regulated who can be an energy trader. Right? Which in your example of a fridge or a dishwasher or, um, you know, your music, uh, whatever you are using as a device doesn't satisfy the rules. To become an energy trader and there it will be a longer road to, to convince. Right. I was gonna, I was gonna say, yeah. And uh, today we had the example of Soul Share, which claims rightly to be the first peer-to-peer grid in Bangladesh. So it's in Bangladesh, it's not in Europe because it's not regulated in

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 13:11

the same way in Bangladesh.

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 13:12

So it is possible that the deployment will be first in countries where this is not regulated. Mm-hmm. And, uh, would benefit, uh, in a sense the economic development and the, um, help them have the stack leap, right? Yeah, absolutely. And then teach us how to do it in Europe. Because in Europe we just have a few test beds. Uh, the first one, uh, starting in uk and I know Electron has been working with 'em. We worked with one in Austria. The issue there is how fast will one go from a regulatory sandbox. Mm. To, uh, mainstreaming.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 13:47

When you say sandbox, what could you say that, what do you mean? Well,

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 13:50

it means that that's an area that is accepted to the general law. Okay. Which forbids it.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 13:55

Okay. So sorry, Georgia, you It's

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 13:57

a safe play area. Safe play. Okay. Fair

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 13:58

enough. With the regulator. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Like sand. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. May I

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 14:02

answer your question as to why, why aren't these things happening already at bigger scale?'cause it's not a tech problem, it's not a, it's, it's not a blockchain problem. In my view now. Um, so that's,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 14:12

is the other markets ready or is there something about the market structure that Yeah, exactly.

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 14:16

So, so if I may as an analogy, I imagine like you're trying to kind of put the football in the goal and right now very few people are allowed on the football pitch and the goal is very, very small. So we need to allow more people on the pitch. So we do that through things like open data and there's some fantastic open data initiatives like with open data task force going on, on the regulatory side. But again, blockchain is a fantastic technology for. Allowing people to take control and allow access to their own data. And, and, and there are other things on, on, on allowing more people on play, like regulators, like roles like, like cooperation and other thing. Energy web foundation kind of really pushes, so more people need to be on this football pitch. But again, we really need to make this goal bigger. And we had on the panel is that today, you know, someone goes over the flexibility market is, is is very small. That's not right, like the flexibility market. Isn't a market, there's a whole series of attributes that the grid needs. Now some are physical, like we need you to do something in this location. We need inertia. And some are, are, are, are preferential or financial, like we want it to be green. We want it to be these. We shouldn't even call green preferential anymore.'cause like we actually do really need as a society it to be greener. So that's largely a market design thing. Like we, we need to allow. Price signals. We need to allow value to be stacked. We, we need to do all sorts of things to make that goal bigger. So amazing innovators and, and in innovative companies. Can go and engage consumers better to, to sort of come into this market.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 15:36

So what needs to happen? How can we make that goal bigger and to, and the pitch bigger? Yeah.

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 15:41

So OO open data and things like sandboxes allow more people onto the pitch. And to make the goal bigger, it's. Things like demanding that flexibility, markets are stackable. Allowing sharper price signals between, like, energy's free now and energy's really expensive now and, and I spoke to the regulator the other day and they were like, oh, people don't like price signals. It feels like going backwards in time and rationing and no one wants to go back to the war. Say, well, let's call it something different.'cause people do want free energy. Yeah, absolutely. Stop subsidizing the polluters as well, and, uh, so important and that that's a regulation in markets as, and enabled

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 16:13

these more flexible, um, piece of generation and demand side to come in. Absolutely. Maria, how, how do you, how do you engage with a regulator? I mean, what's your experience here? So,

Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv: 16:21

again, through a sandbox. So our, uh, peer-to-peer trials that we have done in Hackney in London have been within an off gem. So off gems are UK regulator. It's been within a sandbox and I have to say. They have been incredible in terms of their innovation link and getting us to that point. But I completely take Anna's point of how do we go from there to this being mainstream? And there's, you know, the regulation has changed and the problem with all types of regulation is that the rules are made to protect. The customers from the, I guess the giants. And the innovators have to follow the, the same rules. And that's obviously how it has to be. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it just, it does make innovation more difficult. But I think, you know, the bright side of this is that the texts there and it's done and it's proved. Um, which is really awesome. Yeah. Um, and I think, you know. Living in a, a world where we can trial and create things so quickly now. And in such a collaborative, like global way um, is really amazing. And I think, you know, being able to, you know, particularly be being like, affiliated with you guys, like we can, uh, see what the regulations like in different countries and you can lobby in a different way. Yeah. But I find in the UK, the, and the regulator to be really open to hearing everything. Okay. Yeah. Shout out often. Yeah. Okay. Right.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 17:36

But it's not like that in every country. Because I was gonna ask, is that, I mean, have you, have you kind of plans to roll out what you are doing in the UK to other markets? I mean in, in Europe, or is that, I mean that, and what are the, the barriers to doing that?

Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv: 17:48

Yeah, I mean we, so we have in, in Ireland as well, um, Ireland then, I guess the energy market was a monopoly until not that long ago, which makes it easier, um, because there's small, there's fewer players. So when you can get answers quicker, mm-hmm. And then we've done, uh, so we're looking at kind of Middle East and, and Thailand as well. But yeah, I wouldn't say there's the, I guess Australia probably is a bit less. Heavily regulated and

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 18:12

lots of things happening now on the renewables and storage side as well. Yeah,

Maria McKavanagh, COO of Verv: 18:15

exactly. Um, so yeah, but it's a different experience in, in different countries and it's about trying to place your bets on the, where it's gonna be the first place to, to take this on. And it may not be the uk. We'll see.

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 18:27

Well, I, I dunno, I, I, I like you like huge fan to off gem and really grateful for them for actually, like, leading conversations about innovations and, and, and sandboxes, but. If you look at, and I'm gonna miss some markets out here, but if, if you look at the markets who are really advanced in, in renewables, but you, you've got Germany, you've got uk, you've got Australia, you've got California, you've got Japan, and, and various markets like this, the Nordics as

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 18:48

well are different kind of, and the Nordics as well.

Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron: 18:49

But then if you look at the markets where people are really, really committed to markets and, and, and, and you've got really innovative regulation that does start sending you to Australia and the uk. Mm-hmm. Quite frequently again and again, and. There are no coincidence, those in markets where the regulators are at the table involved in all of these conversations with the tech companies.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 19:07

Yeah, because what, what are you hearing, Anna, in terms of the regulation? Is there a huge variance here? Some are very open to this, some are at the table, some are very shut, firmly behind some doors and, and I

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 19:16

see a greater push recently that there is less climate change denial. Mm. And a generally stronger push from the citizens and several leading governments to deal with it now rather than delay to the next political mandate. Mm. And I believe that will be part of the push that will also help regulators, uh, allow for blockchain solutions. Because blockchain solutions facilitate, uh, the user renewables, um, to the, hopefully a hundred percent.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 19:47

There's a lot of talk here about private and public blockchains. Where do you stand on this, Anna? What's I can see a lot of projects that have gone on with the blockchain have, have been in, in on private ones, which maybe doesn't, maybe goes against the ethos of, of the blockchain itself. I mean, what

Ana Trbovich, co-founder and COO of Grid Singularity: 20:04

Well, the single most important feature. Of blockchain is that it enables trust If you are private and centralized. In my opinion, it is not the blockchain in the authentic meaning of the word or the intention of the technology. So the structure that the Energy VE Foundation has developed is one of a public blockchain, but with known permission. Validators that give a sense of security to people using it in that those are companies with a serious reputation that they're staking because they want the platform that is truly global, truly decentralized. Over time, the number of those corporates and startups will grow. They're already geographically very diverse. And in that sense, it's a truly decentralized. Blockchain owned by no one, controlled by no one except the community, which will discuss different technical upgrades and vote on those technical upgrades, whereas the applications that are run on it are those that need to account for any regulatory compliance that they may need to have, depending on what it is. Obviously, if they are a backend billing app. They don't, or, or may have some of that, but, uh, peer to peer may be one that is tied to a certain jurisdiction. And as we move to scale and so-called part chains, which are enabled by projects like polka dot, what that would imply is that, for example, you may have an app that runs on one chain that is for certain jurisdiction and another for another jurisdiction, and then they all meet. Hmm. On this main, uh, blockchain, uh, that provides the security and the standard, uh, platform, uh, uh, specifications for everybody to use and take advantage of. Yeah,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 21:51

perfect. I mean, it seems like we're only just at the beginning and in fact, we, we have to, we have to end here. Uh, we've just, I think we've just scratched the surface. So, so, thanks, uh, again, for, for joining us. It's been a privilege to have you here and. And, and good luck with all, all the projects and, and yeah, in the future. Thank you, you, thanks for having us. For the latest news from the energy markets, go to our Twitter at Mont News and follow us also on our website at Mont News. Be sure to subscribe to our podcasts. You can find us on Spotify and also on iTunes. This is all for today's episode. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Goodbye.