Dr.Billy Wu, Imperial College

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What’s it all about?

I first heard Billy Wu speak at a renewable energy event in London about four years, and my inner battery nerd was born and thrust into the world. Dr Billy has the knack of being a fully fledged Dr of batteries, whilst being able to articulate to non scientific nerds like me, and possibly you, if you are reading this.  We talk batteries, supercapacitors, and of course Hydrogen Fuel Cells, where we are, what’s next, and who will win!

About our guest

Dr. Billy Wu is a senior lecturer in the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London where he co-leads the Electrochemical Science and Engineering group. His research activities include: energy storage/conversion technologies (lithium-ion batteries, redox flow cells, supercapacitors and fuel cells) and manufacturing (3D printing, nanofibre electrospinning).

He has published 35 peer reviewed journal papers, 2 book chapters and 4 patents since completing his PhD in 2014 and sits on the editorial board of Scientific Reports. He has been an investigator in research projects worth in excess of £46M, directly managing a budget of >£2M and is a co-investigator for the UK Faraday Institution battery research centre. He directly leads a team of 7 post-docs and 6 PhD students within the wider Electrochemical Science and Engineering group which has >50 researchers. Prior to his PhD in automotive proton exchange membrane fuel cell-lithium-ion battery hybrid systems, he completed his masters in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2010.

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Florent Andrillon, VP Energy Leader at Capgemini Invent

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Synopsis

We all know the energy and mobility transitions are happening at a pace. This is the world myself and the team at Hyperion Executive Search live and breathe every day, much like our guest today. Florent has a deep interest and insights into the transitions which he shares with us today.

About our guest

Florent Andrillon, Energy Transition Global Lead of Capgemini Invent:

  • Florent Andrillon is the energy transition global lead for Capgemini Invent, where he advises companies from different sectors on their energy and low carbon transformation projects
  • Capgemini Invent is Capgemini group’s digital innovation, consulting and transformation global business line. Capgemini Invent combines market leading expertise in strategy, technology, data science and creative design, to help CxOs envision and build what’s next for their businesses.
  • Florent has been witnessing the rise of e-mobility for many years now, starting with an mobility market forecasting project where he projected the rise of electric vehicles and the impact on fuel consumption.
  • Florent graduated from EM Lyon in 2001. He started his career at Schlumberger, the giant oil services company, before joining Capgemini Invent in 2005. Since then, he has worked in France and abroad with players in the Energy and Utilities sector: large companies, players wishing to enter this market or parapublic organizations. He has supported these organizations since 18 years now in their strategic projects of energy transition, acceleration, and global transformation. More recently, Florent worked a lot with clients willing to leverage digital technology to accelerate their energy transition projects, especially in the area of smart building, e-mobility and smart energy.
  • At Capgemini Invent, our ambition is to help our clients designing and executing their transformation to achieve their low carbon ambition, enabling the 2°C scenario. Within our portfolio of clients, we partner to be the one
    • Increasing the share of low-carbon fuels for all types of transportation (electric, natural gas, hydrogen…)
    • Helping industrials, buildings and cities to reduce their energy consumption and more widely their CO2 footprint
    • Leveraging AI & digitalization to reduce CO2 emissions and create new business models

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News stories discussed this week

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Martin Baart, CEO Ecoligo

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What’s it all about?

Martin Baart has a passion to bring solar projects to the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) sector in emerging markets. Fighting against local misconceptions about what solar can do, and bigger issues around how to fund such projects, they found a solution through crowdfunding, and transparency in all areas of the business. Martin and ecoligo have a great business and story to tell.

About our guest

Martin Baart has more than 14 years of experience in the renewable energy industry with more than 10 years in emerging markets. He started his career with a German regional municipality on grid integration of grid-scale solar PV projects. During his Masters he lived and worked in Australia for the global leader in Microgrids, Powercorp, on the technical integration of solar and wind solutions into Microgrids, mainly for remote communities, mining operations and island utilities. Moving into business development he opened up the European office for Powercorp. After successfully entering the market, he supported the management in its sale of the business to ABB. For ABB he build up the Microgrid business unit in Madrid, after which he left to join Berlin based Start-up OneShore Energy as CTO and first employee. With them he developed the East African markets and technologies suited for the risk minimization of Off-Grid Solar PPA’S. After building up the company, he left in 2015 to prepare for the foundation of ecoligo, addressing the key barrier for solar projects in emerging markets: a fully serviced and financed solution, taking away all worries from the clients. Since then, he led the business into regional hubs in Central America, West Africa and East Africa and introduced the solution also for energy efficiency projects in the markets.

Martin is a qualified Electronics Technician, has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Trier University of Applied Science, a Master of Business and Engineering from Steinbeis University in Berlin and a Global Executive Master of Business Administration from IE business school in Madrid. He also is a Certified Expert for Climate & Renewable Energy Finance from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

ecoligo provides a fully financed solar-as-a-service solution for businesses in emerging markets. With a complete digital platform for financing and delivering solar projects, ecoligo removes the barriers that prevent such projects from being realised. Supplying businesses with affordable electricity enables them to grow and boost the local economy. The solar projects are financed through the crowdinvesting platform www.ecoligo.investments, offering fixed and attractive returns to private investors. Investments start from 100€ and save tonnes of CO2 emissions, enabling impactful citizen participation in the global energy transition.

News stories discussed this week

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Sven Schulz, CEO Akasol

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What’s it all about?

Sven has a great story to tell, from a 5 person academic start up, to IPO and international expansion in just 10 years. Sven shares the highs and lows of the journey, what it takes to build a battery Gigafactory in Europe, and some possibly controversial thoughts on electric flight.  A slightly longer than usual episode, but there was so much to cover. Tuck in.

About our guest

Sven has a great story to tell, from a 5 person academic start up, to IPO and international expansion in just 10 years. Sven shares the highs and lows of the journey, what it takes to build a battery Gigafactory in Europe, and some possibly controversial thoughts on electric flight. A slightly longer than usual episode, but there was so much to cover. Tuck in.

Sven Schulz has been the CEO of AKASOL AG since May 2018. He co-founded and was the sole investor of AKASOL GmbH in 2008 and served as Managing Director since that time, playing a key role in the development of the company.

An industrial engineer by trade, Sven has been active in the automotive industry since 2001 and is an excellent generalist in terms of technology. He completed his management training at the University of St. Gallen, where he holds an MBA.

AKASOL is a leading German manufacturer of high-performance lithium-ion battery systems for buses, commercial vehicles, rail vehicles, industrial vehicles, ships and boats. With almost 30 years of experience AKASOL is a pioneer in the development and manufacture of lithium-ion battery systems for commercial applications. AKASOL AG’s shares are traded on the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since June 29, 2018.

Based in Germany, AKASOL operates a production facility in Langen (Hesse) with an annual production capacity of up to 300 MWh, which will be expanded to 800 MWh by 2020. According to AKASOL, this is Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery system production plant for commercial vehicles, which can currently produce battery systems per year for up to 1,500 fully electric buses or for up to 3,000 medium-sized commercial vehicles, depending on battery size. AKASOL systems are manufactured according to the requirements of the industry standards of leading OEM customers. Current customers include Daimler, a Scandinavian bus and truck manufacturer, Alstom, Bombardier, Rolls-Royce Power Systems (MTU Friedrichshafen) and several more. AKASOL has a technology-independent product portfolio. This allows the company to use the best battery cells and battery chemistry according to the clients’ individual needs.

Sven Schulz on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/sven-schulz-72a121137/

Sven Schulz on Twitter  https://twitter.com/svenschulz

Akasol GmbH on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/akasol-ag/

Akasol GmbH website https://www.akasol.com/en/

Akasol GmbH on Twitter  https://twitter.com/AKASOL_PR

News stories discussed this week

Akasol opening manufacturing facility in Detroit. https://www.akasol.com/en/news-akasol-location-usa

AKASOL CELEBRATES GROUND-BREAKING CEREMONY FOR NEW HEADQUARTERS IN DARMSTADT https://www.akasol.com/en/news-akasol-headquarters-ceremony

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Hans Eric Melin – Founder, Circular Energy Storage Consulting

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I’m sure you get frustrated with all the EV and battery haters telling you how dirty and wasteful they are, and how they can’t be, or aren’t recycled. I do. So I approached an industry expert to shed some light on the life and uses of a lithium-ion battery. The answers even surprised me a little. Take a listen.

About our guest

Hans Eric Melin is the founder of the London-based Circular Energy Storage (CES) which is a consultancy focused on lifecycle management of lithium-ion batteries. He is also the main contributor to the company’s report “The lithium-ion battery end-of-life market” covering volumes, prices, market and technical development in the recycling and reuse industry.

Prior to starting Circular Energy Storage Hans Eric served as Vice President New Markets at Battery Solutions in Michigan, USA where he primarily worked with collection solutions and reuse of lithium-ion batteries. Before that he was the CEO of Refind Technologies in Gothenburg in Sweden which is a leading company in intelligent sorting of batteries and electronics. Besides batteries and recycling Hans Eric has long experience from working with eco design and renewable energy. He holds a BSc in Communication Studies and Business administration from Gothenburg University.

Circular Energy Storage Research and Consulting is a London-based consultancy specialized in life cycle management of lithium-ion batteries. We help battery companies, car and device makers, utilities and recyclers to develop end-of-life strategies for lithium-ion batteries, and advise investors and the raw material industry on how the the end-of-life sector affects the overall energy storage market. We do it through reports and monthly updates as well as through bespoke consulting projects.  As a foundation of the work lies a continuous data collection of what’s happening on the energy storage and raw material markets as well as trends in mobility and consumer electronics

News stories discussed this week

This is the state-of-the-art in lithium-ion battery reuse and recycling research https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/state-of-the-art-lithium-ion-battery-reuse-recycling-research-melin/

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Dr. Christian Chudoba – Founder and CEO of Lumenaza

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I’ve met Christian Chudoba at the last couple of Ecosummit events in Berlin, and his business is a perfect reflection of how energy is being digitalised and democratised, and how useful and influential learning from the telecoms and mobile communications transition can play a huge part in the energy and mobility transitions. Christian tells the story of his leap of faith from life at a large Telco giant, to the world of a cleantech start-up.

About our guest

Dr. Christian Chudoba has more than 15 years of leadership experience in strategic business development, business development and marketing. He developed a new business idea based on flexible software and drove it to a new business area as a startup in a corporation. In this position, he also made a strategic investment in a partner company that manufactured a key technology. He worked with Bernhard Böhmer to grow the start-up. Based on this experience and his interest in sustainability, he has been driving the development of Lumenaza since the beginning of 2013.

Christian Chudoba studied physics at Freie Universität Berlin and received his doctorate from Humboldt Universität Berlin. He then worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the Institute of Electrical Engineering.

Lumenaza started in 2013 to connect and intelligently control producers and consumers of renewable energy. Today the modular software platform works literally as a “utility-in-a-box”, shortening the time-to-market for any company to participate in the energy market by enabling innovative business models for the new, decentralized and digitized energy world. The “utility-in-a-box” software answers the increasing demand for transparency and personalization by energy customers, as well as the trend towards building communities and delivering tailor-made solutions to its participants. Lumenaza’s scalable and flexible software connects renewable energy producers, from small rooftop PV systems up to large wind farms, with energy consumers and enables precise billing.

Christian Chudoba on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianchudoba/

Lumenaza on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumenaza-gmbh/

Lumanaza website https://www.lumenaza.de/en/

Christian Chudoba at EcoSummit 2019https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBANbHk2gVc

Lumenaza on Twitter  https://twitter.com/lumenaza

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I’m very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter.

If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.

Twitter twitter.com/weekincleantech
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Alisa Murphy – CEO, Life Size

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What’s it all about?

This week I catch up with Alisa Murphy of Life Size, and extract a confession from her early pre-Cleantech career. We discuss her start-up journey and challenges, including the opening overseas business units. We also chat about her tips and advice for any cleantech company on how to manage your communications, and to stand out from the crowd.

About our guest

Alisa Murphy is CEO and Founder of Life Size, one of the only communications agencies in Europe that works exclusively in cleantech. For nearly 10 years, Life Size has used communications to help build market-leading cleantech companies. The company is focused on growth-stage companies and builds campaigns around significant commercial goals including raising finance, planning for exit, driving sales and international expansion. Life Size has offices in London and Berlin and works with clients across the continent. The company also works closely with several venture capital funds.

Alisa has built an international team from very different paths, though all share a desire to do stimulating work that matters. The agile working culture and common ambitions at Life Size make for an agency which not only fights for global sustainability, but lives for it too. Alisa is certain that the role of communications is crucial for business success and shares this belief through workshops, keynote speeches, videos and webinars.

Before Life Size, Alisa was the CEO of a clean energy start-up in the carbon capture industry, where she led a major media campaign and engaged with industry and government to promote awareness of new decarbonising technology. Prior to that, Alisa’s eclectic background included co-founding Life Slice Films, an independent film company producing documentary films to raise awareness of social issues.

Alisa doesn’t often admit this, but she originally trained as an actor, studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and subsequently working in film, television and theatre for several years. The connecting threads throughout her career are her belief in the power of good storytelling and desire to positively impact audiences. Her background is unusual inthis industry and her punchy attitude a breath of fresh air against an often-traditional demographic.

When she’s not thinking about ways for cleantech to proliferate the mainstream, Alisa is a wife and mother, plus is currently learning German.

Alisa Murphy on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisamurphy/

Life Size on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/life-size-media/

Life Size website https://lifesizemedia.com/

Alisa Murphy at EcoSummit 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjXt0jiSxi8&feature=youtu.be

Life Size on Twitter  https://twitter.com/LifeSizeMedia

News stories discussed this week

Simon Sinek TedTalk Why https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA

Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe

I’m very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.

Twitter twitter.com/weekincleantech

Facebook www.facebook.com/thisweekincleantech/

Instagram www.instagram.com/davidhunt2013/

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Christoph Ostermann – CEO and Co-Founder, Sonnen

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What’s it all about?

This week I travel to one of my favourite cities, Berlin, in a balmy 36C degree heat, to meet sonnen CEO Christoph Ostermann. The sonnen story is a highlight of the cleantech sector, from bootstrapping, through many rounds of fundraising, to a significant sized acquisition from Shell. I’m delighted to have worked with sonnen as a client, since their first expansion out of Germany, and to meet Christoph again to share this super success story.

About our guest

Christoph Ostermann is Co-Founder and CEO of sonnen, the global market leader for residential energy storage systems. In 2008, when even in Germany the market for storage systems was still non-existent, he and his co-founder Torsten Stiefenhofer decided to join forces and to use their complementary skills to turn their vision into reality. Since the launch of the first prototype in 2010, Christoph is now on the mission to create a global one stop shop for decentralized energy and to disrupt the energy market. Christoph is a serial entrepreneur and started his first venture at the age of 18. Before launching sonnen, he had already built and developed four companies. In addition, Christoph spent five years in consulting, focussing on marketing and sales. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration.

The sonnen Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of smart energy storage systems and a pioneer of clean, decentralised and networked energy system technologies.  As one of the fastest growing tech companies in Europe, sonnen has received numerous internationally recognized awards. With its virtual battery, which consists of digitally networked home storage systems, sonnen offers new and highly innovative energy services for network operators and customers. sonnen’s products are available in many countries and has offices located in Germany, Italy, Australia, the UK and the USA.

Christoph Ostermann on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/christoph-ostermann-bb804976/

Sonnen on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/sonnen-gmbh/

Sonnen website https://sonnenbatterie.co.uk/(UK)

https://sonnenusa.com/en/    (USA)

https://sonnen.de/(DACH)

News stories discussed this week

Christoph Ostermann at EcoSummit 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z30_Ij4TEM

Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe

I’m very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.

Twitter twitter.com/weekincleantech
Facebook www.facebook.com/thisweekincleantech/
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Petr Míkovec – MD and Co-Founder – Inven Capital

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What’s it all about?

This week I’m in Berlin, speaking at the 10th anniversary Ecosummit, and took the opportunity to record this podcast on the banks of the Spree, with leading cleantech investor Petr Mikovec, or Inven Capital. I think his insights into what an investor is looking for before investing is invaluable to any start-up, but also gives great insight into the challenges we all face to bring Cleantech to the mainstream.

About our guest

Petr Míkovec is Managing Director and co-founder of INVEN CAPITAL where he is responsible for overall fund strategy including fundraising, deal sourcing, investment process and portfolio value enhancement. Petr was directly responsible for the successful raising of EUR 50 million from the European Investment Bank, investments into sonnen https://www.sonnenbatterie.de/en/start, tado° https://www.tado.com/de/ and Cloud&Heat technologies https://www.cloudandheat.com/de where he serves as an Advisory Board Member. In addition to this, Petr represents INVEN at the Corporate Club of Environmental Technologies Fund based in London.

Petr has over 10 years of experience in the Energy sector, and over 5 years in Investment Banking. Prior to joining INVEN, Petr worked at various positions in CEZ a.s. where he, as Corporate Development Director, implemented the corporate venture fund as one of the key building blocks of CEZ group strategy and raised EUR 190 mil from CEZ group. He introduced the scenario approach to valuations and supervised/led valuations of large investments and divestments between EUR 100 million and EUR 1 billion.

Prior to his energy career, Petr worked as the Head of Online Business at Patria Finance (leading investment bank in CZ, member of KBC Group), where Petr turned firms Patria Online and Patria Direct to profitability within two years.

Petr holds a Master’s Degree in Finance and Managerial Information Systems at the University of Economics in Prague. He graduated with the highest GPA in his class and completed an eight month Professional Diploma Program in Business administration,  including taking part in an International Internship program as equity analyst at Technovision management fund (hedge fund based in Los Altos Silicon Valley) at UC Berkeley XT (California).

News stories discussed this week

Petr Míkovec on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/petr-m%C3%ADkovec-ba654a14/

Inven Capital on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/invencapital-cz/

Inven Capital website http://www.invencapital.cz/

Inven Capital at EcoSummit 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfr_YbtQIPM

Guy Kawasaki https://guykawasaki.com/

Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe

I’m very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.

Twitter twitter.com/weekincleantech

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Sabine Scheunert – VP Digital & IT Marketing/Sales (Mercedes-Benz)

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What’s it all about?

I was fortunate to be invited to Daimler HQ to record a short video with Sabine, whilst also in Stuttgart to attend the Electric and Hybrid vehicle trade show and conference. Sadly whilst we got to film, schedules for the podcast got delayed, so we recorded this via mobile a few days later. Digitalisation is massively affecting all areas of business and society, and none more so that the automotive sector.

About our guest

Sabine Scheunert studied Business Mathematics in Bielefeld, Germany, and European Business Management at the German Business School (FDHW). In 1998, subsequent to graduation, she launched her career in the automobile industry at BMW, where she occupied a number of positions in Germany and France, ultimately in an executive function in product management, before relocation to Eastern Europe for BMW in 2006.

In 2010 Sabine Scheunert joined PSA Peugeot Citroën in Paris and worked for the French automobile manufacturer as the worldwide head of Customer Relationship Management for all the brands under the PSA banner. As the first ever female CEO within the PSA Peugeot Citroën Group, Ms. Scheunert managed business activities for the Group’s Citroën brand in Shanghai from the beginning of 2015 until her move to Mercedes-Benz.

Since joining Daimler Group Sabine has been heading up the new digital unit at Mercedes-Benz as Vice President Digital & IT Marketing/Sales Mercedes-Benz since July 2016. This newly created function brings with it responsibility for the whole range of associated IT-based marketing, sales and after-sales activities – and for the entire scope of digital customer experiences for the Mercedes-Benz brand.

In addition to the continued expansion of the company’s pioneering IT landscape, Sabine Scheunert’s remit also includes the development of new and profitable customer-centric digital services. The digital unit operates on a global scale and cooperates with a wide range of incubators and start-ups – right around the world. Sabine Scheunert is also the CIO of Mercedes me, the Mercedes-Benz personalised customer portal.

Sabine Scheunert on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabinescheunert/

Daimler on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/daimler/

Daimler website https://www.daimler.com/en/

Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe

I’m very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.

Twitter twitter.com/weekincleantech
Facebook www.facebook.com/thisweekincleantech/
Instagram www.instagram.com/davidhunt2013/

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