We were privileged to watch the inaugural Imperial College lecture by Professor Pierre Pinson in a talk titled “Data, people, markets and the energy transition.”

Professor Pinson is a cross-discipline academic, working at the intersection of data and markets. His talk was quite wide ranging and touched on aspects of the Green Energy Transition that you won’t hear elsewhere. For instance, there was discussion about weather forecasting, and how that will need to significantly improve over the coming years, due to the role that weather will play in our energy system.

Professor Pinson highlighted and stressed the fact that energy is a special resource. Energy is special because everyone in society needs access to this resource. Policy makers must account for the social welfare implications of power supply, availability, and price. In other markets, when supply is constrained, price will automatically increase to limit demand. However, we cannot simply increase the price of electricity to the consumer when supply is constrained, since this will exclude large swathes of society from being able to access right-priced energy which is so vital to our way of life. Professor Pinson is clear that the energy model that we have today will need to change.

During his talk Professor Pinson kept using the phrase “weather driven energy production and consumption”. Now this may seem obvious – that as the wind blows, so the production of electricity from wind farms will increase. But we don’t usually hear the last bit of that sentence: “Weather driven consumption”. This is something that Axle Energy are working hard to implement.

During the Q&A, Professor Pinson went further:

“Society needs to accept that there is a paradigm shift underway. We will have a weather driven energy system.”

Paradigm Shift: A fundamental change in the basic concepts or way of doing something.

In practice this means that rather than large power stations creating power, we’ll move to a more decentralised model, and the electricity market will require fundamental re-design.

As Professor Pinson puts it: “The new reality is not fully accommodated by the current models.”

Professor Pinson noted that whatever market design is created, it will be much more complicated than the one that has existed for the past 50+ years.

Data, PEOPLE, markets and the energy transition

Now at Brimstone Energy, we agree with everything that Professor Pinson said. However, we do feel that there must be a much greater focus on the human behaviour aspect of all of this. We would like “people” to have been the first word in his talk title.

The energy market exists to serve people, not the other way around.

There is simply no way that society in the West, let alone societies around the world, are going to accept this paradigm shift if it means a reduction in living standards.

Let me give you an example that is more practical in nature – one that all parents can relate to.

Little Lamb nappies

Babies need nappies. British Babies use about 6300 nappies each, and parents pay at least £1100 buying them. Nappies go to landfill and take 250 years to decompose.

This is not a sustainable practice, and no amount of marketing by the big multi-nationals can pretend otherwise. But disposable nappies have one massive plus point: Convenience.

Sustainable alternatives do exist. Your author has 3 children, and when our twins were born we had a 16 month old toddler. We had 3 children in nappies all at the same time.

We used Little Lamb nappies. Little Lamb nappies are cracking washable nappies. We eulogised about them to any one that would listen, and Cheeky Wipes as well (washable baby wipes). We had a well honed production line to wash, dry and prepare the nappies and wipes for use. We probably had somewhere between 24 and 30 washable nappies and would spend time each evening washing and getting the nappies ready for the next day. We very rarely used a tumble dryer and found that hanging them above the hot water tank was sufficient to dry them overnight.

It was a lot of extra work. But when you have 3 children under 2 years old, your life revolves around their needs, so you are kind of committed anyway.

So what?

Washable nappies are not [the most] convenient [nappy solution available], and [therefore] they remain a niche product. We tried for 6 months to pass the nappies onto a “good home”, but failed. No one was interested.

So I am sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but people will not accept a reduction in living standards – and yes, convenience is a major factor in standard of living.

Our concern is that when we hear phrases like “Paradigm Shift of a Weather Driven Energy System” the technical aspects of this process are being worked on in isolation, away from the daily reality of citizens.

Professor Pinson, working at the intersection of technology & data, the energy market and people, is studying ways to smooth out the green energy transition, and very much has people in his thoughts. He is hopeful that a new market model will enable the transition to a de-carbonised grid.

One thing is for certain. We can de-carbonise the grid fairly easily up to a certain point, by simply adding greater low-carbon generation. More wind farms, more solar panels. However the final element, that bit which allows the grid to remain stable and viable, de-carbonising that element will be very complex. Currently this is done with gas-powered generators, which are able to ramp up supply very quickly to meet demand. We are looking forward to hearing the solutions that can address this aspect, but with highly capable people such as Professor Pinson studying this problem, we are confident that the solution is within reach.

Brimstone Energy UK will guide you through the Green Energy Transition.