Check out Ecologi at https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth.
Juliet Davenport founded Good Energy and spent 20 years proving that a distributed renewable energy business could actually work driven by the philosophy that ordinary people, not governments or corporations, should drive the energy transition.
This conversation goes deep into the parts of the energy debate that almost nobody explains clearly — why your energy bills are high, who's actually responsible for fixing the grid, and whether lower carbon and lower costs can genuinely happen at the same time.
We talk about why wind and solar were designed to maximise output rather than serve customers, how the national grid went from managing 30 power stations to millions of generators overnight, and the uncomfortable truth about why fossil fuel lobbying works as well as it does.
Juliet also shares the framework that shaped her entire approach to climate action — and why she thinks getting angry at bad actors is one of the least effective things you can do.
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This podcast is brought to you by Ecologi, the UK's most trusted climate action platform. They help businesses reduce their emissions, restore our planet and report their progress for every step of their climate journey. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth
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In this episode, we dive into:
Why energy conversations should be about people, not power stations - and how we've spent decades designing renewables to maximise output instead of delivering what consumers actually need
The engineering mistake that's costing us billions: wind turbines designed for maximum megawatt hours instead of smooth, predictable output that matches when people use power
How the UK energy system went from managing 30 fossil fuel generators to millions of renewable sources - and why the data and software still aren't good enough to handle it
Marginal pricing explained: why gas sometimes sets the energy price (and sometimes doesn't) - and why in summer we actually get too much renewable power, causing prices to go negative
The price cap paradox: why the policy that protected consumers for 15 years might now be keeping energy bills higher than they need to be (because everyone buys power at the same time)
Why decoupling energy prices from gas isn't the answer - it'll happen naturally as renewables grow, and there are bigger regulatory fixes that would cut bills faster
The lobbying reality: fossil fuel companies will fight to protect their business model until they can't - so Juliet built Good Energy to prove a zero-carbon business could work commercially, not as a charity
Why AI energy use is like "using precision laser tooling to cut bread" - we need quantum computing for low-accuracy tasks and smarter algorithms, not powering everything with coal-fired data centers
The three forces needed for systemic change: activism (to open conversations), policy (to set direction), and business (to deliver) - and why anger between bad actors and activists can actually get stuck in a loop that prevents progress
What Juliet would do with a billion pounds: grid reinforcement, European interconnectors, automatic meter readers in every UK home (not overcomplicated smart meters), an innovation fund for energy efficiency, and a democracy campaign so people understand energy beyond media filters
Why households should run like mini power stations - using energy at the right time of day automatically, without expecting consumers to think about it
The Finnish town heated entirely by waste heat from a data centre - and why tech companies aren't being smart enough about secondary energy use
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Subscribe to the Climate Unf*cked podcast at https://climateunfucked.substack.com/
And connect with me on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-coop/
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00:00 Energy Should Be About People, Not Power Stations
04:30 Why Renewables Were Designed Wrong From the Start
08:30 The 2030 Clean Power Plan & Fixing Government Contracts
12:00 Why the National Grid Is Struggling to Keep Up
16:30 Can We Have Lower Bills AND Lower Carbon?
20:30 How Energy Prices Are Actually Decided
27:00 Are Fossil Fuel Companies Actively Blocking Change?
33:00 Why Getting Angry at Bad Actors Doesn't Work
40:30 Why Activism, Policy & Business Are The Levers of Change
48:30 AI's Energy Problem & Why Big Tech Isn't Being Smart
56:00 Where Juliet Would Spend £1M, £1B & £100B
1:03:30 The Question Nobody Asks Her
1:06:30 How Do We Accelerate the UK's Clean Energy Transition?
