Energypreneurs

Today we meet Sean Luangrath, the CEO of Inergy, a US startup focusing on off-grid solar power. We get a wide angle view of the emerging world of "mail order home solar power".

From remote health clinics in Haiti to middle of the Amazon Jungle, Sean's team is displacing diesel generation and bringing lights to many for the first time. Sean invites new entrepreneurs in this nascent industry with: "if a refugee boy who came to this country with nothing can do it, anyone can"

Company Website:

• Inergy Technologies - Power For Life

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

Australia is leading the world in rooftop solar and home batteries. My today's guest Simon Franklin, Managing Director, of ITP Renewables in Australia, shares his insights on the home battery segment in Australia—price, performance, government incentives, and what to look for while buying a battery. Simon talks about the huge uptake on utility-scale batteries in Australia and the reasons behind it, especially now that data shows how a big battery can respond faster than a gas generator to meet system needs. Simon explains the price trend on the solar modules, where prices have fallen from $8 a Watt to 19.5 cents a Watt in a couple of decades –today solar allowed consumers to generate power, and tomorrow with lower battery prices, the majority of the houses will be able to run on island mode. This will hugely impact the energy industry especially with the anticipated explosive growth of electric vehicle numbers. If you want to find for on these topics, and more, please listen in.

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

After transforming Sarawak Power as the CEO, Torstein went back to Norway to retire. Retirement was too boring, so he decided to build a Giga factory on a 500,000 square meter of land with 32 million KWh of battery cells a year. We discuss the future battery price and how his Norwegian battery plans to supply all of Europe.

Torstein Dale Sjøtveit is currently the Executive Chairman of Freyr AS. We discussed how batteries are competing with gas power generation head-on. He explains the cha lenses in building a new company and how the world is changing.

About Torstein Dale Sjøtveit:

• Wikipedia Page

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

In this episode, my guest was Hang Yin, who is part of the Corporate Strategy team of NIO (https://www.nio.com), who really believes the future is in smart, electric and autonomous vehicles.

This was an exciting discussion, we discussed Nio and it's new cars: all the stats of their different models, range, price etc. I finally found someone, who like me, believes that electricity could be free or have a near zero price in near future. If you want to see the future through our eyes where every home has batteries, solar panels and all cars are autonomous, please join us.

Hang Yin was oozing with energy and fully believed her company's motto: in the past, cars gave people the freedom of mobility. In the future, cars will go one step further and free people from driving, giving them the freedom of time.

Please come and join us on a fascinating journey.

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

When we convert our first physics experiment in life—create fire with sun and a magnifying glass—on a Giga scale, we get something close to concentrate solar power. This technology simply uses mirrors or lenses to concentrate sunlight from a large area on a single receiver, and covert that concentrated light into heat than to steam and then to electricity.

Concentrated solar power projects are big — The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, located in the Mojave Desert, is the largest CSP in the world, and uses three power towers and generates about 377 MW.

My today's guest will discuss details of this technology, the price trend, and some specific projects

Let's welcome Xavier Lara

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

Pierre Langlois, the President and Chairman of the Board at Econoler, and I discuss energy efficiency. What is Energy Effciency? A service or an investment? Why it is so difficult to understand and convince clients on energy efficiency projects? How many people does it really take to change a light bulb?

Pierre and I worked on an energy efficiency project many years back, and today we discuss success and failure in many energy efficiency projects.

We delve into the electric vehicle industry and explore how the "benefit sharing" approach from the energy efficiency industry can be used to sell electric car as a service package

Please join us to explore more:

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

We hear a lot about battery prices going down but mostly from researchers and reporters. My today's guest is Fancy Lu of Liyuan Battery Company, a battery manufacturer, who will share details of their products and some pricing. I learned lot about batteries on the market from her and was surprised that batteries with about 5,000-6,000 cycles are becoming so common. We discuss the large MWh scale batteries with system cost of about $300 per kWh or the plug and play home batteries from $5,000 to $20,000. To find out more, please join in:

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

Discussing electric vehicle with a man from the future

James and I explore predictions and possibilities about the future of EV and how that might impact the energy sector.

Putting my future of energy glass, I tried to view the EV world of futurist James's. We discuss stranded assets for the power sector and the possibility of distribution companies breaking up into micro-grid and eventually to off-grid for many.

The impact of autonomous cars—a slow retreat from downtown centers but offset that reduction by the increased flurry of delivery activities.

Join us in our journey to the future where on some issues and contradict on many riding an electric vehicle charged by rooftop solar.

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

In this episode, Anthony Jude, an ex-ADB staff, explains the transition to renewable energy and explains the floating solar technology, its limitations, and challenges, especially the associated environmental concerns in Bangladesh where floating solar is proposed in fish farms and shrimp farms.

He explains how Bangladesh has dramatically increased energy access to about 90% of households with increased nationwide generation capacity from 5,500 MW in 2009 to about 21,700 MW in 2019. Bangladesh still relies on about 95% fossil fuels, importing about $1-$1.2 billion of fuel, and with declining domestic reserve government has resorted to importing LNG.

While 5,000-7,000 MW may be possible from rooftop solar in Dhaka alone, the government has not looked into this segment seriously yet. Anthony explains that 1.3 million diesel pumps operating in the country and solar irrigation pump is growing fast.

We discuss drones, aeroponics, and other high technology use in Bangladesh. Overall, I got the impression that many solar power-related opportunities, in this country of 160 million people, is yet to be explored.

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie

What is an electric vehicle for the poor? Is it a repurposed old Toyota or a cheap new small electric car? Listen to this episode where Paul takes me through the entire conversion process, the necessary steps, equipment, suppliers, and the component prices. However, Paul may convince you that car conversion is not a good idea as battery prices are still high, but I am not convinced.

What's your take? Car conversion or brand new?

We discuss the future of hydrogen, the need for a carbon tax, and why we need the right perspectives about fossil fuel —petroleum and natural gas has many uses other than burning fossil fuels.

Our views also contradict the timing of the magic price point of $100 a KWh for battery pack—a decade or couple of years? What's you take?

Please listen to this exciting episode on the future of our energy world

Connect with Sohail Hasnie:

• Facebook @sohailhasnie
• Twitter @shasnie
• LinkedIn @shasnie
• ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie