Transmission

Battery factories can now produce roughly twice the storage cells the world installs each year, yet cell prices rose in 2026. Lithium, tariffs and sourcing rules, not manufacturing costs, now decide what a battery costs and where it can be sold.Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, returns to Transmission to explain what is really moving the global battery market, from Chinese factory lines to US tariff schedules.They cover:Why a storage cell costs around $50/kWh in China, while US prices are ticking up, and why there's no longer one global battery price.What China's anti-involution campaign...

Battery factories can now produce roughly twice the storage cells the world installs each year, yet cell prices rose in 2026. Lithium, tariffs and sourcing rules, not manufacturing costs, now decide what a battery costs and where it can be sold.Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, returns to Transmission to explain what is really moving the global battery market, from Chinese factory lines to US tariff schedules.They cover:Why a storage cell costs around $50/kWh in China, while US prices are ticking up, and why there's no longer one global battery price.What China's anti-involution campaign...

Germany’s battery storage pipeline looks like a “tsunami” on paper, but grid connection requests say little about how many projects actually get built. The ones that do face a hard deadline: reach final investment decision this year to keep the grid fee exemption, while the rules that replace it are still being finalised.Ed Porter is joined by Marie-Sophie Braun, Head of Markets and Regulatory Affairs at Kyon Energy, a German battery storage developer that now operates its own assets as an independent flexibility provider, to unpack how investment decisions get made when the rules are still moving.They cover...

Germany’s battery storage pipeline looks like a “tsunami” on paper, but grid connection requests say little about how many projects actually get built. The ones that do face a hard deadline: reach final investment decision this year to keep the grid fee exemption, while the rules that replace it are still being finalised.Ed Porter is joined by Marie-Sophie Braun, Head of Markets and Regulatory Affairs at Kyon Energy, a German battery storage developer that now operates its own assets as an independent flexibility provider, to unpack how investment decisions get made when the rules are still moving.They cover...

What if a battery storage project could lock in its revenue before it's earned it? SSE and Statkraft have done just that with a battery revenue swap: SSE gave up the ups and downs of battery income for a fixed price, Statkraft took them on, and both energy companies came out with less risk.On this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Josh Brown, Origination Team Manager at SSE, and Cian O'Duffy, Energy Markets Quantitative Analyst at Statkraft, two people behind the deal, to explain how energy trading deals like this work and who could do one next...

What if a battery storage project could lock in its revenue before it's earned it? SSE and Statkraft have done just that with a battery revenue swap: SSE gave up the ups and downs of battery income for a fixed price, Statkraft took them on, and both energy companies came out with less risk.On this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Josh Brown, Origination Team Manager at SSE, and Cian O'Duffy, Energy Markets Quantitative Analyst at Statkraft, two people behind the deal, to explain how energy trading deals like this work and who could do one next...

Battery storage in Germany has a grid connection problem: far more projects want to connect than the grid can take, so Germany has scrapped first come, first served and moved to a maturity-based allocation scheme that rewards projects that are ready to build. But for 50Hertz and Germany's other transmission system operators, connecting BESS is only half the challenge. Merchant batteries could push grid congestion costs and grid fees up, or bring them down.Wilhelm Kiewitt, Head of Energy Economics at 50Hertz, one of Germany's four transmission system operators, joins Ed Porter to explain how a grid operator sees the...

Battery storage in Germany has a grid connection problem: far more projects want to connect than the grid can take, so Germany has scrapped first come, first served and moved to a maturity-based allocation scheme that rewards projects that are ready to build. But for 50Hertz and Germany's other transmission system operators, connecting BESS is only half the challenge. Merchant batteries could push grid congestion costs and grid fees up, or bring them down.Wilhelm Kiewitt, Head of Energy Economics at 50Hertz, one of Germany's four transmission system operators, joins Ed Porter to explain how a grid operator sees the...

Battery storage investment in Europe now depends less on whether the revenue exists and more on how it gets financed. With Italy's first MACSE auction won largely by a single player while Germany's fully merchant market is pushing lenders towards shorter, tighter debt, investors have to work out what makes a battery project bankable without a long-term contract.Grace Kankindi, Deputy Head of Investment Management at Aquila Clean Energy, joins Ed Porter to walk through how she assesses battery investments across multiple European markets.They cover:- Why the first MACSE auction worked as designed, even though prices cleared low...

Battery storage investment in Europe now depends less on whether the revenue exists and more on how it gets financed. With Italy's first MACSE auction won largely by a single player while Germany's fully merchant market is pushing lenders towards shorter, tighter debt, investors have to work out what makes a battery project bankable without a long-term contract.Grace Kankindi, Deputy Head of Investment Management at Aquila Clean Energy, joins Ed Porter to walk through how she assesses battery investments across multiple European markets.They cover:- Why the first MACSE auction worked as designed, even though prices cleared low...

Batteries earn volatile revenues, but lenders want fixed ones. Financial swaps that trade a fixed payment for floating battery revenue, from day-ahead spreads to full revenue indices, are how that gap is starting to close.Chris Kennedy, Founder & Managing Director at Miranda Energy, joins Ed Porter in Berlin to explain how battery swaps actually work, where basis risk hides, and why he treats power volatility as an asset class in its own right.They cover:- Why basis risk is the most misunderstood part of day-ahead TB swaps, and how round-trip efficiency, degradation schedules, payout caps and availability adjustments bring...

Batteries earn volatile revenues, but lenders want fixed ones. Financial swaps that trade a fixed payment for floating battery revenue, from day-ahead spreads to full revenue indices, are how that gap is starting to close.Chris Kennedy, Founder & Managing Director at Miranda Energy, joins Ed Porter in Berlin to explain how battery swaps actually work, where basis risk hides, and why he treats power volatility as an asset class in its own right.They cover:- Why basis risk is the most misunderstood part of day-ahead TB swaps, and how round-trip efficiency, degradation schedules, payout caps and availability adjustments bring...

Poland's battery storage market is skipping the pilot phase, with its first projects starting at 200MW, a size it took Germany five years to reach. And because of the way Poland runs its grid, two identical batteries in different locations can earn very different amounts. With over 2GW of batteries expected on the grid by 2028, the market is about to change fast.Ed Porter is joined by Aleksandra Radwańska, Country Lead Poland at Entrix, and Jan Kłoczko at Entrix, to unpack what it takes to optimise batteries in a market scaling this fast.They cover:How two identical ba...

Poland's battery storage market is skipping the pilot phase, with its first projects starting at 200MW, a size it took Germany five years to reach. And because of the way Poland runs its grid, two identical batteries in different locations can earn very different amounts. With over 2GW of batteries expected on the grid by 2028, the market is about to change fast.Ed Porter is joined by Aleksandra Radwańska, Country Lead Poland at Entrix, and Jan Kłoczko at Entrix, to unpack what it takes to optimise batteries in a market scaling this fast.They cover:How two identical ba...

As the electrification of heat increases and technologies like heat pump adoption grows, it's tempting to assume the gas network can simply be wound down street by street, in line with falling demand. But it’s not as simple as this: network topology, not customer count, decides when decommissioning is actually viable, and the UK gas network is nowhere close to that point today.Sam Wilson, Director of Energy System Operations at Cadent, joins the podcast to explain the engineering reality behind that constraint — and how things like pressure control, storage, and gas injection all factor into it.They cover:Why...

As the electrification of heat increases and technologies like heat pump adoption grows, it's tempting to assume the gas network can simply be wound down street by street, in line with falling demand. But it’s not as simple as this: network topology, not customer count, decides when decommissioning is actually viable, and the UK gas network is nowhere close to that point today.Sam Wilson, Director of Energy System Operations at Cadent, joins the podcast to explain the engineering reality behind that constraint — and how things like pressure control, storage, and gas injection all factor into it.They cover:Why...

The grid is swapping spinning turbines for grid forming inverters, and something is getting lost in the trade. A turbine could always throw 5 times its normal output to clear a fault, for free, using nothing but physics. Inverters can only manage around 1.5 times theirs. So if renewables are going to take over, where does that missing strength come from instead?Ben Braun is Chief Engineer at Fluence, where he's spent his career working on power electronics - from batteries to the grid. In this episode, he breaks down grid forming vs grid following inverters for everyone without an electrical engineering...

Joe McDonald says close to 30% of a business power bill can go to trading desks, balancing costs and wholesale market fees most customers never see. Behind suppliers can sit five or six more intermediaries, each taking a cut before the energy ever arrives. Is that a market working as designed, or one taking more than it should?Joe is Founder & CEO of Tem Energy, and has spent over a decade inside the middle of the energy market, watching where the money actually goes on its way to the meter. He's now building the AI infrastructure to strip those middlemen out...

Joe McDonald says close to 30% of a business power bill can go to trading desks, balancing costs and wholesale market fees most customers never see. Behind suppliers can sit five or six more intermediaries, each taking a cut before the energy ever arrives. Is that a market working as designed, or one taking more than it should?Joe is Founder & CEO of Tem Energy, and has spent over a decade inside the middle of the energy market, watching where the money actually goes on its way to the meter. He's now building the AI infrastructure to strip those middlemen out...

Battery storage went from an unproven bet to one of Europe's fastest-growing energy assets in a but the exceptional returns early investors saw have already faded as more batteries crowd the market. The real question today isn't whether a battery can make money, it's whether an optimiser can keep making money from it, market after market, year after year.In this conversation, Brecht Dierckx, Director of Physical Asset Trading & Optimisation at Centrica, joins Ed to unpack what actually separates a good battery optimiser from an average one, and why pricing, contracts and risk are becoming as important as trading itself...

Battery storage went from an unproven bet to one of Europe's fastest-growing energy assets in a but the exceptional returns early investors saw have already faded as more batteries crowd the market. The real question today isn't whether a battery can make money, it's whether an optimiser can keep making money from it, market after market, year after year.In this conversation, Brecht Dierckx, Director of Physical Asset Trading & Optimisation at Centrica, joins Ed to unpack what actually separates a good battery optimiser from an average one, and why pricing, contracts and risk are becoming as important as trading itself...

This summer, Britain recorded its first ever four consecutive months of 35°C+ heat and according to the Climate Change Committee, the UK isn't ready for it, physically or emotionally. As political pressure mounts in the net zero debate over whether Britain should slow its climate transition, the CCC's chief executive makes the case that affordability and climate action are the same fight, not competing priorities. Ed sits down with Emma Pinchbeck, Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), to find out what preparing for a hotter Britain actually looks like, and why extreme heat has quietly overtaken flooding as t...

This summer, Britain recorded its first ever four consecutive months of 35°C+ heat and according to the Climate Change Committee, the UK isn't ready for it, physically or emotionally. As political pressure mounts in the net zero debate over whether Britain should slow its climate transition, the CCC's chief executive makes the case that affordability and climate action are the same fight, not competing priorities. Ed sits down with Emma Pinchbeck, Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), to find out what preparing for a hotter Britain actually looks like, and why extreme heat has quietly overtaken flooding as t...

Poland has cut coal's share of power generation from 95% to roughly 55% in a decade, with renewables generating over 30% of the country's power last year. That mismatch is already producing negative prices and turning battery storage into one of the country's biggest investment opportunities.Ed is joined by Tomasz Sęk, Founder and COO of R.Power Renewables, which holds a 1.7GW / 6.3GWh capacity-market-secured storage portfolio, one of the largest in Poland, to unpack how the country's power market is transforming.They cover:- Why coal's inflexibility, not its shrinking market share, is now Poland's biggest driver of negative prices and b...

Poland has cut coal's share of power generation from 95% to roughly 55% in a decade, with renewables generating over 30% of the country's power last year. That mismatch is already producing negative prices and turning battery storage into one of the country's biggest investment opportunities.Ed is joined by Tomasz Sęk, Founder and COO of R.Power Renewables, which holds a 1.7GW / 6.3GWh capacity-market-secured storage portfolio, one of the largest in Poland, to unpack how the country's power market is transforming.They cover:- Why coal's inflexibility, not its shrinking market share, is now Poland's biggest driver of negative prices and b...

Most people assume Great Britain's grid connection queue works on a first come, first served basis. It doesn't - and that misconception is costing developers time and money. Connections reform was meant to bring clarity to the queue, but projects that were declared protected and pushed to the front are still missing their connection dates, and new contract disputes are now stalling projects that should already be moving. It all comes down to what actually gets built — and whether Britain can get anywhere close to Clean Power 2030.Catherine Cleary, Specialist Connections Engineer at Roadnight Taylor and a returning Transmission guest, jo...

Most people assume Great Britain's grid connection queue works on a first come, first served basis. It doesn't - and that misconception is costing developers time and money. Connections reform was meant to bring clarity to the queue, but projects that were declared protected and pushed to the front are still missing their connection dates, and new contract disputes are now stalling projects that should already be moving. It all comes down to what actually gets built — and whether Britain can get anywhere close to Clean Power 2030.Catherine Cleary, Specialist Connections Engineer at Roadnight Taylor and a returning Transmission guest, jo...

Battery storage costs have fallen by two-thirds since 2022 and the cell chemistry currently dominates the grid barely existed at scale five years ago, and the same disruption could be about to happen again. Meanwhile, the supplier market is fragmenting rather than consolidating and the biggest names today aren't guaranteed to stay on top.Marek Kubik has watched these shifts happen from inside the industry since the early days. He joins Ed to explain why the balance of power in battery storage keeps changing, and what's coming next.They coverWhy battery storage costs have fallen two-thirds since 2022 - and why that...

Battery storage costs have fallen by two-thirds since 2022 and the cell chemistry currently dominates the grid barely existed at scale five years ago, and the same disruption could be about to happen again. Meanwhile, the supplier market is fragmenting rather than consolidating and the biggest names today aren't guaranteed to stay on top.Marek Kubik has watched these shifts happen from inside the industry since the early days. He joins Ed to explain why the balance of power in battery storage keeps changing, and what's coming next.They coverWhy battery storage costs have fallen two-thirds since 2022 - and why that...

GB Energy's £1 million solar investment freed up savings a Hull hospital had left on the table for years. It's an example of what can happen when a state-backed investor takes risks the market won't. GB Energy calls itself an activist investor, built to put public money behind the frontiers where private capital moves too slowly: deepwater wind, long duration storage, public sector solar. The interesting question now is how far this model can scale, and how well it keeps sharing that risk with private capital as it grows.Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, joins Ed Porter to explain h...

GB Energy's £1 million solar investment freed up savings a Hull hospital had left on the table for years. It's an example of what can happen when a state-backed investor takes risks the market won't. GB Energy calls itself an activist investor, built to put public money behind the frontiers where private capital moves too slowly: deepwater wind, long duration storage, public sector solar. The interesting question now is how far this model can scale, and how well it keeps sharing that risk with private capital as it grows.Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, joins Ed Porter to explain h...

Germany looks like Europe's most attractive battery storage market on paper: deep power price volatility, a fast-growing renewables build-out, and nearly three gigawatts of batteries already live. In reality, developers are navigating uncertain grid connection queues, gruelling commissioning phases, and a tolling market still working out how much risk is fair to price in.Christina Hepp, Director Strategy, and Leandra Boes, Director Asset Management, both at Green Flexibility, join Ed Porter to unpack what building and operating batteries in Germany actually looks like once the PowerPoint slide meets the grid.They cover:- What a Flexible Connection Agreement actually is...

Germany looks like Europe's most attractive battery storage market on paper: deep power price volatility, a fast-growing renewables build-out, and nearly three gigawatts of batteries already live. In reality, developers are navigating uncertain grid connection queues, gruelling commissioning phases, and a tolling market still working out how much risk is fair to price in.Christina Hepp, Director Strategy, and Leandra Boes, Director Asset Management, both at Green Flexibility, join Ed Porter to unpack what building and operating batteries in Germany actually looks like once the PowerPoint slide meets the grid.They cover:- What a Flexible Connection Agreement actually is...

Many people picture a power purchase agreement as a 15-year mega-deal between a tech giant and a solar farm. In reality, 99% of UK PPAs look nothing like that. Power purchase agreements now sit behind a growing chunk of how the UK's electricity supply is sourced, and getting the price wrong could mean getting locked in well above the market rate for years.Ed sits down with Rob Ogden, Founder and CEO of Renewable Exchange - one of the UK's largest PPA marketplaces - to unpack how PPAs are actually priced, why REGO certificate prices have swung from over £20 to just a...

Many people picture a power purchase agreement as a 15-year mega-deal between a tech giant and a solar farm. In reality, 99% of UK PPAs look nothing like that. Power purchase agreements now sit behind a growing chunk of how the UK's electricity supply is sourced, and getting the price wrong could mean getting locked in well above the market rate for years.Ed sits down with Rob Ogden, Founder and CEO of Renewable Exchange - one of the UK's largest PPA marketplaces - to unpack how PPAs are actually priced, why REGO certificate prices have swung from over £20 to just a...

How dangerous are battery storage fires, really? Despite the headlines, grid-scale battery fire failure rates have fallen 99% since 2018 - from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour to under 0.1. Even as global deployment scaled into the tens of gigawatt hours. Most people still picture a whole site going up in flames. The engineering tells a very different story. Dan Sherlock-Burke, Director of Asset Management at Gore Street Capital, joins Ed Porter for a technical look at how battery fire safety actually works - from the Moss Landing fire that shaped public perception, to the data that can flag a failing module weeks...

How dangerous are battery storage fires, really? Despite the headlines, grid-scale battery fire failure rates have fallen 99% since 2018 - from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour to under 0.1. Even as global deployment scaled into the tens of gigawatt hours. Most people still picture a whole site going up in flames. The engineering tells a very different story. Dan Sherlock-Burke, Director of Asset Management at Gore Street Capital, joins Ed Porter for a technical look at how battery fire safety actually works - from the Moss Landing fire that shaped public perception, to the data that can flag a failing module weeks...

The atmosphere is unpredictable, and weather forecasts are far more reliable on some days than others. For anyone trading power or gas across Europe, knowing the difference is everything. It's what separates a confident call from an expensive guess. In this conversation, Ed is joined by Matt Dobson - Head of European Energy Forecasting and Emma Patmore, Energy Meteorologist from MetDesk. They walk us through when they can trust what they're seeing and when they can't, and how they turn an uncertain forecast into something traders can actually act on. Along the way they cover wind droughts (or Dunkelflaute), a...