Speaker 1: With Laurent's Segeland from London and Gerard Reed from Berlin.
Speaker 2: This is redefining.
Speaker 3: Energy today, I really find energy. What I thought we
Speaker 3: would talk about immobility, and we ended up talking about
Speaker 3: energy security because my guest was Christian Ruby, a Secretary
Speaker 3: General of your electric.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sorry I missed this, but I will
Speaker 1: say that I did have a similar conversation with Christian
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago at the Munich Security Conference. So
Speaker 1: from looking forward to actually recap with you the conversation
Speaker 1: and give you my little bit of an idea and
Speaker 1: viewers on it.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's bring Christian in the show. Christian, welcome to
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: But it's your third time and every time it's just
Speaker 3: get better and better. So today we're going to talk
Speaker 3: about energy security and immobility and you're going to kind
Speaker 3: of explain how it's so connected. But probably start with
Speaker 3: your trip in Ukraine and what have you seen there
Speaker 3: with our friends and colleagues from d Tech.
Speaker 2: Yes, a month ago I went to visit our colleagues
Speaker 2: from d Tech and to see what operations of the
Speaker 2: electricity system look like in a war zone. And I
Speaker 2: got to say that was a genuinely humbling and very
Speaker 2: inspiring experience. We essentially came into Ukraine and had a
Speaker 2: mission to inspect the power plant that has been hit
Speaker 2: more than a dozen times throughout this war by bombardments,
Speaker 2: and it really gave us a taste of what these
Speaker 2: people are are doing. So immediately on arrival at the site,
Speaker 2: the air alarms go off. We get the intel that
Speaker 2: Make thirty one's with Kinsel missiles have left a base
Speaker 2: in Russia and could be headed towards this power plant.
Speaker 2: So we have to rush towards the bomb shelter together
Speaker 2: with the other employees from the plant, and on the
Speaker 2: way there we see convo pickup trucks with roof mounted
Speaker 2: air defense guns that are on their way to positions
Speaker 2: in order to try to shoot down any aggressor that
Speaker 2: might be coming. And what was striking about that scene was,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, the seriousness of what was going on,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, the fact that this was everyday life.
Speaker 2: People were proceeding to the shelter, they had their smartphones out,
Speaker 2: We're texting with friends and family. But it was, in quotation,
Speaker 2: marked normal event in a day in the life of
Speaker 2: a Ukrainian power engineer, So moving on to the side.
Speaker 2: Once the air alarm had been called off, we went
Speaker 2: inside the power plant and as I said, it had
Speaker 2: been hit some twelve times or more throughout the last
Speaker 2: three years, and the destruction on this side was just incredible.
Speaker 2: Windows and walls were missing, replaced with blue tree. In
Speaker 2: many ocare agents, the walls had been completely destroyed. In
Speaker 2: some places the roof was missing. There were two units
Speaker 2: that have been struck in the last bombardment completely destroyed,
Speaker 2: and outside the pylons of the transmission lines wrought out
Speaker 2: in grotesque shapes from explosions of incoming drones. So it
Speaker 2: was really sort of a Dantean infernal image that met
Speaker 2: us on the one hand, and on the other hand,
Speaker 2: you just had this quiet, persistent determination of the people
Speaker 2: working there welding, removing rubble from the floor, putting in
Speaker 2: interim solutions at the best of their ability, and just
Speaker 2: making this work in order to keep the power flowing
Speaker 2: and keep the society going in the midst of this
Speaker 2: brutal and unnecessary attack from the Russians. So to see
Speaker 2: them how they coped and also to see how they
Speaker 2: insist on having an even constructive and positive attitude in
Speaker 2: the midst of this was really really inspiring.
Speaker 3: The Ukian network is now connected with the European network,
Speaker 3: and also we had in recent weeks the old Baltic
Speaker 3: system managed to plug off from the Soviet one, and
Speaker 3: that really embodies that report you put out last months
Speaker 3: really finding energy Security excellent titled can you speak more
Speaker 3: about this now approach around energy security of what your
Speaker 3: electric is doing and what is it proposing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so, we launched our new flagship study about energy
Speaker 2: security and the age of electricity at the Munich Security
Speaker 2: Conference a couple of weeks ago, and essentially this report
Speaker 2: starts from the fact that Europe has been almost in
Speaker 2: this kind of harket of time for the last three decades.
Speaker 2: We've essentially been on a vacation from world history in
Speaker 2: the last thirty years, where we've enjoyed, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: very cheap supplies of fossil fuels from Russia and others,
Speaker 2: and on the other hand enjoyed very cheap security provided
Speaker 2: by NATO and our Transatlantic alliance. Now we're in a
Speaker 2: new situation in the last three years where these things
Speaker 2: have changed very rapidly. We can no longer rely to
Speaker 2: the same extent on historical alliances. We can no longer
Speaker 2: rely on one or a few supplies of fossil fuels,
Speaker 2: first of all, because we want to decarbonize. Secondly, because
Speaker 2: they've proven unreliable and therefore we need to enter into
Speaker 2: a new thinking about energy security. And this is what
Speaker 2: we call the Age of Electricity, one where we double
Speaker 2: down in Europe on our indigenous resource, which is homegrown
Speaker 2: clean electricity. The core of this is to electrify society faster,
Speaker 2: but it also means that when society becomes more reliant
Speaker 2: on electricity, it is really crucial that electricity is reliable
Speaker 2: and that has implications for the way we design the system,
Speaker 2: both when it comes to the sources of generation, but
Speaker 2: also very much when it comes to the sources of
Speaker 2: flexibility and the infrastructure that we build. So this new
Speaker 2: paradigm of doubling down on electrification of society and stabilizing
Speaker 2: and building a more resilient electricity system, that's really the
Speaker 2: vision that we're putting forward with this new study.
Speaker 3: And we've said also in Ireland, almost a thought of
Speaker 3: the greed going down because of what is it, hurricane
Speaker 3: or tempest and It's very important that we explained that
Speaker 3: direcricy system is a community and you know, everybody is
Speaker 3: supporting each other. It goes much beyond the nation's sometimes
Speaker 3: a petty interest.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and essentially what we're trying to show in this
Speaker 2: report is that not only sort of the big picture thinking,
Speaker 2: but also the more detailed metrics and the way we plan,
Speaker 2: invest and operate the system needs to change because we're
Speaker 2: facing a completely different challenge landscape. The new normal for
Speaker 2: the electricity sector is that we have hot wars going on.
Speaker 2: We have cyber attacks on our sector, we see hybrid
Speaker 2: war style attacks on the system, we see increase in spionage,
Speaker 2: and we have the constant threat of extreme weather events
Speaker 2: that is becoming ever more frequent. So we need to
Speaker 2: essentially take a new approach when we operate the system.
Speaker 2: We need to start planning for the unexpected. We need
Speaker 2: to invest much more in resilience, and then we need
Speaker 2: to operate both with efficiency but also with an increased
Speaker 2: situational awareness as we call it. We need to be
Speaker 2: more aware of what's going on around us. That requires
Speaker 2: people to take a different type of approach to their work.
Speaker 2: They need to do exercises. For these extreme situations, they
Speaker 2: need to be in closer contact with authorities and basically
Speaker 2: report unusual events going on around the plants. It is
Speaker 2: a new approach, it is a different way of going
Speaker 2: to work, and it's a different way of planning and
Speaker 2: investing in the system.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And of course also recently we had the Russians
Speaker 3: and the Chinese reaping up cables in the Baltic Sea,
Speaker 3: which frankly is despeakable. In the law of the sea
Speaker 3: of the eighteenth century, the captain would be just hanger
Speaker 3: on the highest mast and that would give a lesson.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I wonder if in these actors, as you say,
Speaker 3: stealth war or semi war, makes sense to use civil
Speaker 3: laws for those type of things which are blatant to
Speaker 3: attack on our existence.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a security conundrum that power engineers are not
Speaker 2: used to deal with. You can say even it's a
Speaker 2: bit above our pay grade, but it's something that we're
Speaker 2: forced now to deal with. And the way we need
Speaker 2: to deal with this is to have a different type
Speaker 2: of contact with authorities. We need to have a military
Speaker 2: course of action on this or security course of action
Speaker 2: on this, and we need to have an operational engineering
Speaker 2: course of action. But if we speak first about the
Speaker 2: engineering challenge here, it's clear that the infrastructure and the
Speaker 2: system needs to be designed in a different way where
Speaker 2: we have less examples of a single point of failure,
Speaker 2: where we have more redundancy in the system, and also
Speaker 2: where we equip the critical infrastructure with sensors and alarm
Speaker 2: systems that allow us to be able to detect early
Speaker 2: such attacks or attempts at at sabotage. On the security
Speaker 2: side of this, NATO has recently put in place and
Speaker 2: new initiative and the Baltic Sea, and I would say
Speaker 2: this is really something that is developing as we speak.
Speaker 2: There needs to be a fine balance between taking decisive
Speaker 2: action against such attacks, on the other hand, assessing how
Speaker 2: those actions affect the broader security situation and to what
Speaker 2: extent they cause an escalation of the conflict. The practice
Speaker 2: that has now been established is to essentially board and
Speaker 2: in some cases seize ships that are under suspicion, and
Speaker 2: I think this can be an effective step. Also, there's
Speaker 2: been some first legal analysis looking into how it can
Speaker 2: be dealt with from a legal perspective. Can you use,
Speaker 2: for instance, environmental law to basically seize these ships or
Speaker 2: can you use other types of legal requirements to make
Speaker 2: sure that you do then necessary? From security perspective, this
Speaker 2: is a very new situation that we've not been used
Speaker 2: to in the last thirty years. So most of the
Speaker 2: people employed in the sector today just don't have this
Speaker 2: type of opunience.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that was a bit grim. Let's probably pivot
Speaker 3: to something a bit more joyful, which is immobility. You
Speaker 3: had a few weeks ago this extraordinary gathering in Brossers
Speaker 3: to talk about immobility. So what are the main takeaways?
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe to make the connection to the security piece.
Speaker 2: Of course, immobility the transition to an electric transport sector
Speaker 2: in Europe is part of this challenge we're facing to
Speaker 2: have a much more electric society, which again requires us
Speaker 2: to have a very reliable system. The good news here
Speaker 2: is that actually if we activate the fleet of electric cars,
Speaker 2: it can really do a significant contribution to stabilizing the system.
Speaker 2: Once we have all those millions of electric cars out
Speaker 2: there with their batteries, they have the opportunity and the
Speaker 2: potential to stabilize the electricity system much more than is
Speaker 2: the case today. Because, as you know, we're moving into
Speaker 2: a much more renewable future where we have issues with
Speaker 2: highs and lows in the system, and this is where
Speaker 2: a big fleet of batteries can come in. What we
Speaker 2: need in order to activate those batteries for the better
Speaker 2: of the system and for the benefit of the customer,
Speaker 2: by the way, is to have proper frameworks in place
Speaker 2: that allow us to buy and sell electricity much easier
Speaker 2: than it is today, sell it back to the grid
Speaker 2: a so called bt G technology, so that when the
Speaker 2: cars are idle, they actually actively contribute to the system
Speaker 2: stabilization and get remunerated for that service. So that's what
Speaker 2: we're showing in that report, and what's really interesting is
Speaker 2: that the cost savings for the consumer are very very significant.
Speaker 2: Compared to buying a fossil fuel as you be today,
Speaker 2: you can save up to a quarter of the total
Speaker 2: cost of ownership if we have the right systems in
Speaker 2: place and people are able to actively flex with their batteries,
Speaker 2: very significant saving for a normal family.
Speaker 3: What made that move to VTG possible is the podcast
Speaker 3: done in batteries, Because I remember five years ago when
Speaker 3: that theme started to emerge, the batteries could do three
Speaker 3: thousand cycles, four thousand cycles. So of course the O
Speaker 3: and m's were a bit reluctant because you know, they
Speaker 3: were afraid it would arm the battery. But now the
Speaker 3: batteries I'm investing in two they have fifteen thousand cycles,
Speaker 3: so you know, plug into the grid is not gonna
Speaker 3: arm the battery in any shape or forming. The battery
Speaker 3: is still going to be around when the car's gone.
Speaker 3: The advancement in batteries allows that old VTG to come
Speaker 3: back into the scenario, and I guess that means, you know,
Speaker 3: double flow, but detail is there. There's a lot of startups,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of very intellgent people are working
Speaker 3: around it. So that looks impossible a five years ago,
Speaker 3: and now it looks kind of doable, and of course
Speaker 3: going to take time and you need to build standards
Speaker 3: and do sumple things. But I think it's very helpful
Speaker 3: for everybody that we'll be able to start integrating the
Speaker 3: immobility as an extension of the grid.
Speaker 2: What's good news is that technologically speaking, from the perspective
Speaker 2: of the battery, this is possible with today's technology, and
Speaker 2: presumably even more feasible as we move towards twenty thirty
Speaker 2: What we really need to do is to unlock this potential,
Speaker 2: and that's going to require a few changes across the board.
Speaker 2: What we see today when it comes to the cars
Speaker 2: coming to market is that they're not all of them
Speaker 2: V to G enabled, So there needs to be a
Speaker 2: step change on the side of the OEMs to sort
Speaker 2: of make this a standard in the cars that they
Speaker 2: put out. Of course, that also comes with a little markup.
Speaker 2: The second thing that needs to happen is that we
Speaker 2: need to prepare the system better for this and have
Speaker 2: a proper frame work for this new type of flexibility,
Speaker 2: because it is very different from the distance we had
Speaker 2: in the past, which were about transporting centrally generated electricity
Speaker 2: all the way one way to the customer. What we
Speaker 2: have today is a much more more nimble system and
Speaker 2: one that has much more complex power flows. And the
Speaker 2: system and the political framework, the remuneration frameworks need to
Speaker 2: be there in order for people to have the incentives
Speaker 2: to do it. So we need stuff like local flexibility markets.
Speaker 2: It would be helpful with a framework for aggregators that
Speaker 2: could monetize a whole fleet of cars, for instance. So
Speaker 2: all these nitty gritty details need to come in place,
Speaker 2: and this is what we're talking with policymakers and brousses
Speaker 2: about in capitals to make sure that we accelerate the
Speaker 2: implementation of a lot of legislation that's in fact already there.
Speaker 2: So the potential is there, the legislation is in principle there.
Speaker 2: Now it's about making it happen and then incentivizing consumers
Speaker 2: to take up this light challenge.
Speaker 3: Appristian, Well, I'm not going to s enthusiastic, but this
Speaker 3: is great that we managed to start to have autistic
Speaker 3: approach where energy security and immobility are about to do
Speaker 3: the same debate and some solutions is going to emerge
Speaker 3: so they can feed on each other. What's the way
Speaker 3: forward for your ectric?
Speaker 2: What's really interesting is that link between this new flex
Speaker 2: potential and then the bigger system that we described in
Speaker 2: our new Energy Security Report. And what's really important to
Speaker 2: understand here is that when it comes to the flexibility
Speaker 2: challenges that we're facing going forward, we have to take
Speaker 2: a very pragmatic and honest approach because it's really going
Speaker 2: to have to be an all of the above approach
Speaker 2: if we want to meet the flexibility needs of the future.
Speaker 2: In our report, we estimate the twenty thirty potential of
Speaker 2: eed flexing for the system to be around four percent.
Speaker 2: What we need by twenty thirty is a tripling of
Speaker 2: flex capacities on a daily basis. So what that means
Speaker 2: is that while doing this piece, we need to ramp
Speaker 2: up every single other source of non fossil flexibility that
Speaker 2: we have available. Otherwise we're not going to succeed. And
Speaker 2: this is the reality that we're looking into when it
Speaker 2: comes to the energy security paradigm that we're moving into.
Speaker 2: I believe that the new reality that we're in forces
Speaker 2: us to really deploy very pragmatic and honest thinking about
Speaker 2: this because in this new and more electric world, the
Speaker 2: reliability of our system is directly linked to the functioning
Speaker 2: of our metro systems, of our payment systems, of the
Speaker 2: electric equipment and hospitals, but also our cars, our heat pumps,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So it's really really crucial that
Speaker 2: we take seriously the fact that the system needs to
Speaker 2: work every single day, it needs to be sufficiently flexible
Speaker 2: every single day, and therefore this transition towards the new
Speaker 2: sources of flexibility needs to be handled with great care
Speaker 2: taking into account the existing sources of flexibility on the system,
Speaker 2: and then of course we need to think out of
Speaker 2: the box and see where we can interconnect in new ways,
Speaker 2: where we can connect our markets to others in new ways,
Speaker 2: and also connect the dots in Europe better with stronger infrastructure.
Speaker 3: And of course the Transatlantic cable. That's my mission, that's
Speaker 3: my colling, and I'm very glad that your Electric has
Speaker 3: invited us at your power submitting June to present our
Speaker 3: latest development. Christian, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 3: the show, and at Redefending Energy we're a big fan
Speaker 3: of your electrics work, so keep on the break work.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: And as your security is back with a bang.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you're the Munich Energy. So what did you
Speaker 3: hear beside the cables?
Speaker 1: And there was a few things that struck me. One
Speaker 1: was listening to a CEO European utility turn around and
Speaker 1: say that there are daily attacks by the Russian on
Speaker 1: his country's power system, daily attacks, and that he has
Speaker 1: weekly meetings with the head of security services, the head
Speaker 1: of the army and the head of the police. That
Speaker 1: tells you everything you wrong. But I will add to it.
Speaker 1: It's all great. If North Stream goes out, if your
Speaker 1: electricity system goes out, it's sort of game over for
Speaker 1: a large city. And so that's energy security. Energy security
Speaker 1: is it's much more important than it was before because
Speaker 1: of the fact that electricity is our critical energy source.
Speaker 1: We cannot do anything without it. And I think I've
Speaker 1: said to you, I listen, I've lived in Ireland here
Speaker 1: through what was a blackout for one third of the country. True,
Speaker 1: I call it high winds, you call it climate risks.
Speaker 1: Not pleasant, especially when you have a digital economy, and
Speaker 1: certainly you cannot use your mobile phone to pay for anything,
Speaker 1: and in fact, you can't even load up with diesel
Speaker 1: or oil or gas because guess what, the electro pumps
Speaker 1: which run electrocity don't work right and new ones can't
Speaker 1: pay for it. So energy security is back on the bank.
Speaker 3: And I really like the conversation because it's all encompassing.
Speaker 3: It's a cybersecurity, as you said, and it's really flexibility,
Speaker 3: which is a world that do not appear two years ago,
Speaker 3: and now it's on everybody's mouth. Look, the good news
Speaker 3: is number one, the batteries are developing extremely fast. They're
Speaker 3: getting cheaper, they're getting better and of course this all
Speaker 3: planned at European level is the V two G, which
Speaker 3: is vehicle to grid, which means that within ten years
Speaker 3: we will be able to use some not all, but
Speaker 3: some of those batteries on will to support the grid.
Speaker 3: But also there's going to be a lot of digital
Speaker 3: because if we electrify our eating system, the eating system
Speaker 3: of a kind of latency. If a smart tumble stat
Speaker 3: you know, you don't need to power exactly at peak.
Speaker 3: So it's going to be all of the above. And
Speaker 3: of course at the end we talk about interconnection, more interconnection,
Speaker 3: we talk about the transactionenty cable and is in favor.
Speaker 3: It's just a rainbow of solutions that's going to bring
Speaker 3: energy security through resiliency and flexibility.
Speaker 1: I think the key word is resilience. We need to
Speaker 1: build a resilient system. And I tell you we need
Speaker 1: to just put our hands up and say we don't
Speaker 1: have a resilient electricity system. And we don't. And as
Speaker 1: I said, that example in Ireland shows me that we don't.
Speaker 1: Climate risks as well as geopolitical risks. They're not going
Speaker 1: down anytime, so they're going in the other direction. So
Speaker 1: you have to deal with those risks promptly because it's
Speaker 1: not pleasant to have no electricity, right, it's not. And
Speaker 1: that's actually my message to everyone. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it's very good at Christian Is also they're saying the
Speaker 1: same thing. They think, guys, we need to wake up here,
Speaker 1: We need to really really invest and prepare for the worst.
Speaker 1: That's the world we live in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's incredible how the zeitgeist has changed
Speaker 3: in the past three years. Three years of decombonization was
Speaker 3: older rage and now it's okay. It's energy security and
Speaker 3: residency with dicambonization as a side effect, positive side effect,
Speaker 3: but as a side effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I would add to that is that climate change
Speaker 1: risk is now a reality. It's not just about high
Speaker 1: winds in the West of Ireland. It's also declining water
Speaker 1: levels and rivers, which impacts you know, the ability to
Speaker 1: cool nuclear power stations for example. So it's far reaching
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, and we really now need
Speaker 1: to think about how do we build our energies so
Speaker 1: that it is resilient to withstand climate risk going forward.
Speaker 1: I would use the example you talked about vehicle to
Speaker 1: grid earlier on if you're talking about actually showdly come
Speaker 1: up with solutions pretty quickly. The lovely thing about it
Speaker 1: an electric vehicle is it's a battery on wheels. All right,
Speaker 1: So guess what if you're afraid of your mobile network
Speaker 1: going out because guess what it doesn't have electricity, Well,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you open up the area around the world
Speaker 1: wild Tower to ev charging so that in the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario, Guess what you can do? You can use
Speaker 1: that battery as a backup, PA. But I can do
Speaker 1: the same my home. And that's actually where we're going.
Speaker 1: Because you know, to trying to go and build all
Speaker 1: the infrastructure in and around climate risk, it's going to
Speaker 1: be expensive and going to take a lot of time.
Speaker 1: But actually, if you add existing infrastructure that's been bought
Speaker 1: and allow that to be part of the system, you
Speaker 1: actually lower the cost and you increase the resilience. And
Speaker 1: again I would say the exact same thing if I'm
Speaker 1: in a in a war situation. You want to have
Speaker 1: decentral lives. Energy solutions and mobile batteries are a huge,
Speaker 1: big part of.
Speaker 3: That solution, right, absolutely, well, Joab, we thank Christian for
Speaker 3: coming on the show. We support your electric everything they do.
Speaker 3: You know, we strip to Ukraine. Very inspiring and job.
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look forward to my friend. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Redefining Energy. Don't forget to read the show and
Speaker 1: subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or the platform of your choice.