4.3K
Downloads
32
Episodes
Host Torsten Brammer wants to investigate the question; “What does it take to get solar to the next level?”. On the podcast he interviews industry experts, discussing their journey in the solar industry and opinions on current topics and events.
Episodes
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Another new episode this way comes with double the power. This week Dr. Brammer is joined by Konrad Perényi and Steffen Mangold of Solytic. Solytic is a digital platform used to maximize solar performance to save costs, drive profits, and extend life cycles. Its mission is to automate top performance for solar PV.
Konrad Perényi and Steffen Mangold are two of the four founders and focus on the marketing place/marketing, and tech/product respectively. Started in 2009, Solytic has come a long way since its humble beginnings and continues to change the world. Tune in to hear more about the company and what they're doing to advance solar.
Connect with Konrad and Steffen on LinkedIn.
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Friday Mar 25, 2022
Friday Mar 25, 2022
The hits keep on coming with another episode of The Solar Journey with Dr. Torsten Brammer. In episode #11 Dr. Brammer speaks with Andreas Bentzen of Otovo. Based in Oslo, Norway, Andreas acts as CTO and Co-Founder of Otovo, and Owner and Founder of Beacon. Andreas received his Master of Science in Physical Electronics at NTNU and his Ph.D. in Physics at UiO. In this episode, Torsten and Andreas discuss key pressure points in solar, how Otovo qualifies suppliers, and what it takes to get solar to the next level. Connect with Andreas on LinkedIn.
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Wednesday Mar 09, 2022
Wednesday Mar 09, 2022
We're back with another episode of The Solar Journey podcast with Torsten Brammer! This week, in episode #010, Torsten speaks with Radovan Kopecek, Co-founder and Director of ISC Konstanz.
Dr. Radovan Kopecek, born in Brno (former Czechoslovakia), obtained his Diploma in Physics at the University of Stuttgart in 1998 in the field of Superconductive Fullerides. In addition, he studied for one year at Portland State University (Oregon, USA) where he obtained a Master of Science degree in 1995. During his studies, he worked at the Max-Planck-Institut (MPI) and at the Institute of Physical Electronics (IPE) in Stuttgart as a research assistant in the field of crystalline Si for PV applications. He joined Professor Ernst Bucher´s group in 1998 for his Ph.D. dissertation, which he completed in November 2002 in the field of Thin-Film Silicon Solar Cells.
One of the founders of ISC Konstanz Dr. Kopecek is working as a full-time manager and researcher since January 2007 and is currently the leader of the advanced solar cells department dealing with novel cell technologies. He is responsible for several European and national research projects. Since 2017 he is a board member of EUREC and from 2018 on a founding member of AtaMoS-TeC in Chile.
The overall goal is to turn Germany´s energy supply to 100% solar and other renewable energy resources until 2030 and to assist other countries with the same goal. 70TW PV till 2050 is possible.
Connect with Radovan on LinkedIn.
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Friday Apr 16, 2021
Friday Apr 16, 2021
We were very fortunate on Episode #009 of The Solar Journey Podcast, to host Tobias Schuett, CEO of German company DZ-4.
DZ-4 is Germany’s first distributed utility company that sells solar PV energy to residential homeowners in a “behind the meter” concept.
Tobias is a true entrepreneur and solar PV passionate with a proven track record of successfully developing, executing, and growing new business opportunities. In his roles, he's been able to push the limits of what has been considered financeable (be it large-scale solar PV projects, a start-up with a complex business model, or portfolios of residential solar PV systems). All his activities correlate with his core values: reliability, common sense, solutions-driven, sustainability, partnerships.
Connect with Tobias on LinkedIn.
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Friday Apr 16, 2021
Friday Apr 16, 2021
On Episode #008 of The Solar Journey Podcast, we're honored to host Harald Överholm, founder (and CEO) of Swedish solar company Alight.
Founded in 2013, Alight (previously Eneo) is the leading solar Power Purchase Agreement provider in the Nordics. Alight is committed to helping large corporations save money and do good, now and in the long term, through sustainable solar technology.
Harald Överholm is based in Stockholm and has a Ph.D. from Cambridge, where he focused on market development of the US solar PPA market. He's a solar energy believer with 10+ years of experience. Building the solar corporate PPA market in the EU, helping businesses across Europe switch to solar and pay less for energy (than they pay their utility) while displacing fossil energy is his main game.
Connect with Harald on Linkedin.
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Thursday Nov 05, 2020
Thursday Nov 05, 2020
Episode #007 of The Solar Journey Podcast is a little different than our previous episodes. Our honored guest is Alexandra Münzer. She was introduced to us as the “Mother of European Guarantees of Origin,” and we used the opportunity to take a deep dive into a very complex topic: The scope and application of the Guarantees of Origin (GOs) System (also known as green certificates) in Europe.
We peppered Alexandra with questions about the purpose, practical application, and possible shortcomings of the GO-System. This system is at the heart of Europe’s goal to become the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050.
We learned a lot and are excited to share these fundamental insights with our listeners.
Alexandra Münzer is the Managing Director of Greenfact. Greenfact is a market intelligence and price transparency service in the renewable energy industry. She holds a Ph.D. in physics with a special focus on semiconductor sensors, from TU-München. Alexandra was born in Austria, studied in Germany, and now lives in beautiful Oslo, Norway.
Connect with Alexandra on Linkedin.
Show notes
(Interesting points covered in this episode for those of us on our own Solar Journey):
- [00:04] Alexandra's big move from Germany to Norway
- [00:12] Explaining green certificates as if speaking to a child
- [00:18] The GO and its international counterparts
- [00:21] How the GOs are traded
- [00:36] Oversupply of GOs on an annual basis
- [00:42] Market pricing of different green electricities across Europe
- [00:56] The three different scopes of carbon emissions of corporations
- [01:04] Who are typical customers of Greenfact?
- [01:08] What can individuals do to be more conscious in their power choices?
- [01:10] How do you see the future of renewable energy playing out?
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Thursday Sep 24, 2020
Thursday Sep 24, 2020
In this episode, we had the immense pleasure to talk to Jonas Corné from Sweden. He is immensely bullish on renewable energy for many reasons that he shared with us.
After getting an excellent education at ETH Zurich and even an executive program at Stanford University, Jonas has started a string of companies. All of his business ideas were in the tech space. As these things go, not all of them survived, but that is a really good thing for us, because with his latest venture, Greenbyte Jonas and his team of around 80 people are now fighting climate change with code!
Jonas is the CEO and founder of Greenbyte, which launched its first product in 2010. Greenbyte is a data aggregator and management hub for the optimization and yield forecasting for different kinds of renewable energy.
Connect with Jonas on LinkedIn.
Show notes
(Interesting points covered in this episode for those of us on our own Solar Journey):
- What are the two most important ingredients in starting a business? [00:05:14]
- What is the founding story of Greenbyte? [00:08:00]
- How does Greenbyte create value for its customers? [00:14:05]
- Which way will Greenbyte develop their product? [00:22:18]
- Who will dominate the future of the renewable energy sector? [00:27:41]
- What appears to be the biggest advantage for a business in the race to acquire solar assets? [00:30:41]
- Why is Jonas super optimistic and bullish on renewable energy? [00:40:00]
- How do capitalism, sustainable energy, and mispriced external risks play together? [00:42:14]
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website, on the blog page, under interviews **
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
In this episode, we had a chat with Swiss national Luca Pedretti. Luca has a vast background as an energy trader and held various positions at EGL and Axpo. One of his first tasks working for a utility was to assist in negotiating a PPA for the first 100 Megawatt wind park in Poland. It was then that he realized that PPA's are going to become the driving force for furthering investments in renewable energy.
Luca has dedicated his career to the development and negotiation of PPAs and has been riding the PPA boom in the last couple of years.
Luca is the co-founder and COO of Pexapark, the Swiss fintech startup. They specialize in providing risk management and energy trading expertise as well as software tools to the energy investment market.
Connect with Luca on LinkedIn.
Show notes
Interesting points covered in this episode for those of us on our own Solar Journey
- Why did Luca dedicate his career to the creation of PPA's?
- How is it that PPA's are a critical requirement in obtaining project financing of a renewable asset?
- What is the critical difference in the EEG feed-in tariff and certificate-based systems in other countries?
- How does the core business model of Pexapark works?
- What are the biggest challenges in the energy investment market?
- What are the factors influencing the electricity price in a PPA?
- What are the risks in a PPA transaction and how do they interact?
- What's a surprising side effect of the advent of PPA's?
- What is the required change in thinking to achieve a world that is power with 100% renewable energy?
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website > Blog > Interviews **
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Our guest in episode #004 of The Solar Journey is Christian Breyer. Christian is a professor of solar economy at the renowned finlandian LUT University. Prior to engaging in world-changing research, and publishing more than 250 scientific papers and 20 books and book chapters, Christian worked at Q-Cells in various roles in R&D and the market development department.
Christian is a co-founder of Energy Watch Group which regularly publishes cutting edge research about the energy future of our society. As part of his roles, he co-authors the “Global Energy System Based on 100% Renewable Energy” report. In this extensive report, it is clearly stated that a transition to 100% renewable energy is feasible with current technologies and most likely we, as a society, will even save money if we do it!
If you want to connect with Christian Breyer you can find him on LinkedIn.
Show notes
Interesting points covered in this episode for those of us on our own Solar Journey:
- Hear an innovative approach to shift the corporate culture of established utility companies.
- How did Christian make a move from a tax advisor to physicist and then professor of the solar economy?
- What opportunities lead Christian to Finland, of all places, considering Finland doesn’t have a lot of sun?
- Hear some insights into the manmade nature of global warming.
- Climate change is more dangerous than COVID-19: Why does humanity struggle with recognizing its threat?
- What are the required resources to compute his hallmark 100% renewable energy model with 50M variables and 50M constraints in a stable way?
- Hear a discussion of the three key scenarios on how to get to a 100% sustainable energy system.
- Learn the number of installed solar Gigawatts required to run a 100% sustainable global economy.
- How reliable is the IEA Global Energy Outlook?
- What is the outline of a pathway to a sustainable aviation industry?
- Who has to make the call to get all of us on the path towards a sustainable future and ensure our survival?
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website > Blog > Interviews **
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
Similar to a few of our other guests, Simon Chau is a serial entrepreneur having started a number of enterprises in the renewable energy space. Having had a background in the financial industry, Simon decided to pivot into the sustainable energy space mid-career. Wanting to make a difference and leave a legacy with his work, Simon finds himself onboard the exciting "solar-coaster" on a daily basis. He has now been in the space for a little over a decade.
Simon is currently working at Canadian Solar Inc, managing the commercial and industrial divisions of one of the largest vertically integrated solar PV module manufacturers in the world. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Show notes
Interesting points covered in this episode for those of us on our own Solar Journey:
- Why would someone pivot mid-career to start their own solar journey?
- How did Australia manage to find themselves with 1 in 5 homes having a solar system installed?
- How does Simon view large oil and gas companies entering the alternative energy space?
- What is the role that government policy plays not only in solar project pipelines but in the financial health of entities involved with project development and operation?
- How could an electric vehicle become your family home’s rechargeable battery?
- Hydrogen battery cells – how does this energy platform compare to more "conventional" renewable energy sources like solar?
** Find this episode's transcript on The Solar Journey website > Blog > Interviews **