Net Hero Podcast – With Sumit Bose

What’s the best way to decarbonise?

In this week's Net Hero Podcast, Sumit Bose interviewed Javier Cavada, CEO of Mitsubishi Europe, Middle East, and Africa, about the current state of electrification
We've introduced a new viewing system for our podcasts to give you early access. We will release episodes on our usual channels a week later if you're unable to register to our early access platform, visit: Net Hero Podcast
To read the full article by our producer Garima Satija, visit: Net Hero Podcast: What’s the best way to decarbonise?

Hydrogen: the marmite of net zero!

In this week's Net Hero Podcast, Sumit Bose speaks to scientist at the National Physical Laboratory, Ali Al-Sikab on the role of hydrogen in a net zero future
We've introduced a new viewing system for our podcasts to give you early access. We will release episodes on our usual channels a week later if you're unable to register to our early access platform, visit: Net Hero Podcast
To read the full article by our producer Garima Satija, visit: Net Hero Podcast: Hydrogen – The Marmite of Net Zero

Is your thermostat smarter than you?

In this week's Net Hero Podcast, Sumit Bose spoke to Ian Rose of smart thermostat company Passiv UK about decarbonising heat at the lowest cost to consumers
 

Abracadabra! Ordinary plastic turns biodegradable!

In this week's Net Hero Podcast, Sumit Bose speaks to Executive Director at Symphony Environmental Michael Stephen about technology that turns ordinary plastic biodegradable

Home EV charging upgraded!

Investing in at-home charging infrastructure can help you save over £1000 a year compared to public charging, said Michael Goulden, Co-Founder of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure supplier, Kerbo Charge.
In this week's episode of the Net-Hero Podcast, Michael told us: 'Around 40 percent of residents in the UK and 60 percent in London, don't have driveways.
'And the problem for those people is that the average price of a slow neighbourhood charger in the UK is 55p a kilowatt hour. That works out to be more expensive per mile than a petrol car.
'So there is a lack of incentive for people to move to electric - new EVs are more expensive at the moment and the cost of using a public charger is more expensive than running your petrol car.
'And it is the residents in cities that we want most to move to EVs that are most reluctant. They are the most vulnerable to air pollution.
'Data tells us that about 300,000 people in the UK died prematurely because of air pollution. And pollution from cars is a big part of that.'
Kerbo Charge provides at-home charging infrastructure without the need for a driveway.
He said: 'So we know that people want to be able to charge at home and it's about getting the power safely from their house to their car.
'The product that we've developed is a through pavement EV charging channel.
'We've talked to councils and they told us that it needs to sit flat with the pavement so it doesn't create a trip hazard. We only want the cable to be going in when the resident is charging and then they need to be able to take it out. It needs to have a lid with a self-closing design so it can't be left open by accident and it needs to be able to bend with the pavement surface. And we made a product that does just that.'
Michael told us that the infrastructure can also be used for flats.
He said: 'We've developed something for people living in flats especially those on higher floors, which is a sharing app.
'The way this works is if the ground floor flats can hook up their power to a charger and then run that through the Kerbo Charge channel, then anybody in the block of flats can borrow the power supply.
'The app records exactly how much electricity is used and then the owner of that flat is paid for the cost of electricity before they pay their bill.'
Although the cost of installing EV charging infrastructure is expensive, Michael tells us that government subsidies and the long-term benefits of having at-home charging can help.
He said: 'There is now a government grant for everyone in the UK and it is £350 off the price of your charger once you get one of these channels.
'So that helps bring the bundled price down. So if you get the channel that is about £1000 and a charger would be about £900 fully installed, you take £350 off that.
'But with chargers you can get a subscription service and that, coupled with the fact that at-home charging is cheaper than public charging, will pay itself back.
'There are also councils that are helping with the cost of installing Kerbo Charge. So in Nottinghamshire, they are putting our units in for free. In Reading and Milton Keynes, they are expected to subsidise the costs. So there is allocation of cash for local authorities to help EV drivers.'
Watch the full episode below and don't forget to register to the Big Zero Show Online: 100 days of Labour event.
 

End of the office AC wars?

Energy efficiency shouldn't cost you thousands in retrofits, said Tom Ascough, Managing Director of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) company, Symphony Energy.
In this week's Episode of the Net Hero Podcast, Tom told us: 'There is a significant performance gap in HVAC. Practically every building suffers from it, where you think you're going to get a lot better energy performance based on design and you don't.
'We need to match theoretical energy efficiency to actual efficiency.'
Tom told us that the challenge of decarbonising heating and cooling is massive.
He said: 'The challenge with cooling is that as you tackle heat, you actually worsen the cooling challenge because your buildings are better insulated and retain heat.
'In terms of global statistics, buildings account for 40 percent of total global emissions, 27 percent is just the operation of buildings and half of that is just HVAC.'
Symphony Energy helps buildings improve on their existing HVAC infrastructure without excessive costs.
He said: 'One of our technologies dubbed performance algorithms takes your existing HVAC infrastructure and forensically examines it and identifies the environmental signature of the building.
'Demand for heating and ventilation changes every day in every part of a building and we identify that pattern. And then we look to match that pattern with output, put those together and automate them.
'In terms of the retrofitting – two of our technologies, including the performance algorithms, doesn't change anything physically in the buildings, just the programming. And the last of our technologies is a small device that needs to be retrofitted but it is just tiny stuff.
‘So it costs very little and doesn’t cause much of a disturbance.’
Symphony Energy’s technologies can significantly increase energy efficiency.
'With the combination of our technologies, we can typically reduce energy consumption in a building by 60-80 percent.
'We had a client who wanted to test us and they gave us one of their best performing buildings, in the top 5 percent, to improve.
'Initially we thought, what can we really do? But when we deployed our three technologies, we ended up reducing the HVAC electricity by 75 percent and the HVAC gas by 76 percent. We brought that energy use intensity of that building from 121 down to 44.'
Watch the full episode below and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter.

Greener shipping, cleaner goods

In this week’s Net Hero Podcast, Sumit spoke to Roger Holm, Executive Vice President at marine solutions company, Wärtsilä on how they’re trying to clean up the world’s shipping lanes
We need to future-proof the shipping industry, said Roger Holm President Marine & Executive Vice President of Wärtsilä.
Speaking on the podcast, he said: ‘Global trade is dominated by shipping.
‘More that 80 percent of global trade is handled through ships. We have around 100,000 ships around the world that transport everything from cargo to passenger travel.
‘So it really is the lifeline of global trade and it impacts all businesses around the world.
‘But this also makes it one of hardest industries to decarbonise. The reason why you can’t electrify shipping like you can do with so many other industries, is because of the weight of the batteries and the space you would need.’
The shipping industry is concerned about its footprint and The International Maritime Organization (IMO) decided last July to commit the global shipping sector to net zero by 2050.
‘We currently use both diesel and liquified natural gas (LNG). LNG is gaining a lot of traction and it can help us decarbonise.
‘Recently, we have also gone from a single-fuel environment to a multi-fuel environment. Green methanol, for example, which is a carbon neutral fuel has been taken up quite a lot in the last year.
‘The engine technology that we use is actually very good because it gives us flexibility. You can invest in a ship now that runs on LNG today and then when green fuels become widely available, you can convert the engine to run on green methanol or green ammonia, for example.
‘So it gives you the flexibility to change the ship during the lifetime of the vessel, which is necessary for us to get to net zero by 2050.’
Watch the full episode below and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.
 

Construction with less Carbon?

Globally the construction industry, the built environment if you like, is responsible for 1% of global emissions, that sounds small but it's actually huge. That's just what it takes to build something, let's not forget all the embodied carbon it takes to make a concrete slab, a steel bar or clay brick.
So how can we cut down that footprint?
In this episode I chat to Mats Skoldberg, Head of Technology from Volvo Construction Equipment, they make a huge chunk of all the diggers and excavators, lorries and dump trucks used around the world.

Market-Wide Half-Hourly Settlement: Set to revolutionise electricity and accelerate the pathway to net zero

In recent years, Great Britain has felt the impact of the unpredictable and at times, volatile energy market. As a response, the government has introduced various policies and strategies to enhance energy security while progressing towards achieving net zero by 2050.Kunal Sofat, Head of Programme Delivery here at TotalEnergies, explores MHHS, why it's been introduced and how these changes are set to impact consumers and what role there is to play in achieving net zero.

Put away your ideological prejudices!

Put your prejudices away and help a common goal.
That's the advice from Bob Ward, Policy Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. He was my guest this week as we worked through the challenges facing the new Labour government.