Upbeat interview about UK renewables and the XLinks project
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money ... -66zd57wtw
I was able to read it in full using 12ft Ladder but don't seem to be able to share that cleaned version.
XLinks Chair interview
XLinks Chair interview
Tesla Model 3 Performance
Oversees an 11kWp solar array at work
Oversees an 11kWp solar array at work
Re: XLinks Chair interview
Here it is
UK renewable energy is a success story I’m proud to be part of
Simon Morrish on what he has learnt building two renewable energy companies and how his ambitious Xlinks project narrowly escaped the ‘valley of death’
Simon Morrish
Monday January 27 2025, 12.01am, The Times
Storm Éowyn may have wreaked havoc over the weekend but the recent warnings about potential UK energy blackouts when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow were a stark reminder that we shouldn’t take our energy for granted.
In the end, we didn’t come too close to a temporary electricity shutdown, but it has triggered a fresh debate over supply.
The National System Energy Operator (NESO) issued a “capacity market notice” in January. That’s a signal that there may be less electricity generation available than it expects to need. The market responded, bringing extra generation online to keep the lights on — albeit at up to 50 times normal wholesale prices and mostly through imported gas, which we need to wean ourselves off to address the climate crisis.
That was the third notice this winter, as cold temperatures combined with dunkelflaute — a German term for weather with very low wind and very little sunlight that doesn’t allow for much, if any, energy generation — to create the perfect storm of high demand and low supply.
Despite these strains and stresses on the system, UK renewable energy is a success story — one I’m proud to be part of as founder of Solarventus, which has over 100 wind turbines generating electricity, and of Xlinks, the company behind a project to bring solar-generated electricity from Morocco to the UK via an undersea cable.
Last year was record-breaking for green energy generation, with UK renewables providing 58 per cent of all the power we consumed. Wind was the largest source (30 per cent of the energy mix compared with 26.3 per cent for gas).
This trend is set to continue, not least given the massive reduction in the cost of renewables over the past decade. In fact, if we had driven the rollout of renewables harder in recent years and invested more in its transmission, we would all be better off, with the cost of everyday items, as well as home heating bills, being lower.
The trick now is to bring on enough new, reliable supply. The government is endeavouring to do that, with officials focused on the prime minister’s pledge to cut carbon emissions by 81 per cent by 2035, and Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, leading their efforts. But the government needs to do more and even faster.The UK has already phased out coal and significantly reduced its carbon intensity. And the renewables sector, which provides some 280,000 British jobs and attracts billions in inward investment, is thriving thanks to innovative startups and passionate entrepreneurs. The growth of Octopus Energy, which is an investor in Xlinks, or projects like Dogger Bank, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm which is being built about 80 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire, are great examples.
The National Grid has delivered projects such as the North Sea Link, the world’s longest subsea interconnector, between the UK and Norway, which is particularly helpful to store excess electricity from the UK when the wind is blowing and release it back to the UK when the wind eases.
Interconnectors increase energy resilience: if one country is generating too much power and its neighbour not enough, they allow for electricity to flow from the nation with extra supply to the nation in need. There are seven interconnectors serving the UK.
The proliferation of these will create a global energy grid where renewable resources can unlock economic opportunity in one country, and increase energy diversity and stabilise prices in another.
Xlinks’s Morocco-UK project will use long-distance connectors. It will be in operation from the early 2030s, power seven million homes, cut carbon emissions by a further 10 per cent, and help reduce and stabilise energy wholesale prices in the UK.
It will unlock huge economic opportunity for Morocco, including tens of thousands of jobs and industrial development, through our plans to source a significant proportion of the requirement locally. Most importantly it will provide electricity between the peak hours of 7am and 11pm to our grid at a rate of consistency which is similar to nuclear (and with considerably lower costs).
The project will be funded by the private sector, requiring no government investment other than pricing guarantees. It will comprise a solar, wind and battery facility in Morocco — building on a 200-year-old trading relationship between the country and the UK — connected to the UK through about 2,500 miles of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cables.
Of course, a project like this was never going to be easy. We’ve had our fair share of lessons. It took us a while to realise we were too big for venture capital, and when we moved into raising the finance we need for construction, too early-stage for low-risk infrastructure funds. We were caught in what is often referred to as the “valley of death”, where promising startups get caught as they struggle to raise finance, and where many die.
Eventually, we focused all our efforts on strategic investors. These range from companies that already sell energy such as Octopus, Total and Taqa, the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, or supply renewable equipment, like GE Vernova. They had both the vision, appetite and the capacity to invest at this early stage of our business.
We did, however, find that being based in the UK meant it was much harder to raise funding than if we had been an equivalent business in the US, where the appetite for risk — which is inevitable in the early stages of any company — is just much greater.
UK renewable energy is a success story I’m proud to be part of
Simon Morrish on what he has learnt building two renewable energy companies and how his ambitious Xlinks project narrowly escaped the ‘valley of death’
Simon Morrish
Monday January 27 2025, 12.01am, The Times
Storm Éowyn may have wreaked havoc over the weekend but the recent warnings about potential UK energy blackouts when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow were a stark reminder that we shouldn’t take our energy for granted.
In the end, we didn’t come too close to a temporary electricity shutdown, but it has triggered a fresh debate over supply.
The National System Energy Operator (NESO) issued a “capacity market notice” in January. That’s a signal that there may be less electricity generation available than it expects to need. The market responded, bringing extra generation online to keep the lights on — albeit at up to 50 times normal wholesale prices and mostly through imported gas, which we need to wean ourselves off to address the climate crisis.
That was the third notice this winter, as cold temperatures combined with dunkelflaute — a German term for weather with very low wind and very little sunlight that doesn’t allow for much, if any, energy generation — to create the perfect storm of high demand and low supply.
Despite these strains and stresses on the system, UK renewable energy is a success story — one I’m proud to be part of as founder of Solarventus, which has over 100 wind turbines generating electricity, and of Xlinks, the company behind a project to bring solar-generated electricity from Morocco to the UK via an undersea cable.
Last year was record-breaking for green energy generation, with UK renewables providing 58 per cent of all the power we consumed. Wind was the largest source (30 per cent of the energy mix compared with 26.3 per cent for gas).
This trend is set to continue, not least given the massive reduction in the cost of renewables over the past decade. In fact, if we had driven the rollout of renewables harder in recent years and invested more in its transmission, we would all be better off, with the cost of everyday items, as well as home heating bills, being lower.
The trick now is to bring on enough new, reliable supply. The government is endeavouring to do that, with officials focused on the prime minister’s pledge to cut carbon emissions by 81 per cent by 2035, and Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, leading their efforts. But the government needs to do more and even faster.The UK has already phased out coal and significantly reduced its carbon intensity. And the renewables sector, which provides some 280,000 British jobs and attracts billions in inward investment, is thriving thanks to innovative startups and passionate entrepreneurs. The growth of Octopus Energy, which is an investor in Xlinks, or projects like Dogger Bank, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm which is being built about 80 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire, are great examples.
The National Grid has delivered projects such as the North Sea Link, the world’s longest subsea interconnector, between the UK and Norway, which is particularly helpful to store excess electricity from the UK when the wind is blowing and release it back to the UK when the wind eases.
Interconnectors increase energy resilience: if one country is generating too much power and its neighbour not enough, they allow for electricity to flow from the nation with extra supply to the nation in need. There are seven interconnectors serving the UK.
The proliferation of these will create a global energy grid where renewable resources can unlock economic opportunity in one country, and increase energy diversity and stabilise prices in another.
Xlinks’s Morocco-UK project will use long-distance connectors. It will be in operation from the early 2030s, power seven million homes, cut carbon emissions by a further 10 per cent, and help reduce and stabilise energy wholesale prices in the UK.
It will unlock huge economic opportunity for Morocco, including tens of thousands of jobs and industrial development, through our plans to source a significant proportion of the requirement locally. Most importantly it will provide electricity between the peak hours of 7am and 11pm to our grid at a rate of consistency which is similar to nuclear (and with considerably lower costs).
The project will be funded by the private sector, requiring no government investment other than pricing guarantees. It will comprise a solar, wind and battery facility in Morocco — building on a 200-year-old trading relationship between the country and the UK — connected to the UK through about 2,500 miles of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cables.
Of course, a project like this was never going to be easy. We’ve had our fair share of lessons. It took us a while to realise we were too big for venture capital, and when we moved into raising the finance we need for construction, too early-stage for low-risk infrastructure funds. We were caught in what is often referred to as the “valley of death”, where promising startups get caught as they struggle to raise finance, and where many die.
Eventually, we focused all our efforts on strategic investors. These range from companies that already sell energy such as Octopus, Total and Taqa, the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, or supply renewable equipment, like GE Vernova. They had both the vision, appetite and the capacity to invest at this early stage of our business.
We did, however, find that being based in the UK meant it was much harder to raise funding than if we had been an equivalent business in the US, where the appetite for risk — which is inevitable in the early stages of any company — is just much greater.