This week on the Renewable Energy Movement Podcast, Tom sits down with James Innes, Head of UK Development at Elmia.
James started out in oil and gas before moving into renewables in 2005, joining Iberdrola as the UK onshore wind market was starting to grow.
Since then, he’s seen almost every side of the UK renewables market, from developing wind projects with Iberdrola and Scottish Power, to moving into solar, and now working on battery storage at Elmia, where he’s helping manage a 7 GW portfolio across 14 projects.
In this episode, James explains what the UK’s CP2030 grid changes actually mean for developers, why getting a grid connection now looks more like an auction than a queue, and why he believes the UK needs around £100 billion of new grid infrastructure by 2035.
We also talk about what he sees as one of the biggest risks to renewables: oil and gas becoming cheap again and why solar and battery technology needs to keep getting cheaper to compete.
We cover:
• Moving from oil and gas into onshore wind in 2005
• Building wind projects with Iberdrola and Scottish Power
• Why a major wind project in Wales never got built
• Moving from wind into solar
• What CP2030 means for UK grid connections
• Why battery storage struggled under the new grid rules
• The £100 billion of grid investment James believes the UK still needs
• Why cheap oil and gas could be a major challenge for renewables
🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.