Great to see Ann Mettler, one of the key proponents of energy resilience, continuing to advocate for increasing incentives and the need to foster innovation not only in green technologies but also throughout the policy and deployment process. For the global energy transition to succeed, it is imperative major energy providers, climate innovators, policymakers and financial institutions, collaborate to deploy crucial solutions that will secure a clean energy future. #ERLG #EnergyResilience #CleanTech #Innovation
Vice President, Europe at Breakthrough Energy. Previously, Director-General at European Commission. Views are my own, often rooted in 20+ years of experience in public policy.
🌍 Day 3 at ONS: What is the EU’s strategy to maneuver seismic geo-economic shifts? What a privilege – and how sobering - to spend time at a global energy conference. There are seismic power shifts underway: 💪 Fossil producing countries: Even as we are working towards the energy transition, fossil producers remain strong – and have become stronger since the beginning of the Ukraine war. This includes Norway, our host country. Despite its modesty, it has outsized importance for the EU. But here I also note the confidence with which countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar showed up. 💪 Mass manufacturers: This is primarily China, which seems to have an almost unassailable lead in virtually every clean technology. It was interesting that India has bold plans to wean itself off its dependency and become a global producer of solar panels and other clean tech, also with a view to export. Quote: ‘we want to take the dependency down to zero’. 💪 Countries rich in critical minerals: Chile (copper and lithium), Indonesia (nickel), DRC (cobalt) China (rare earths) and Australia (lithium) are key to the clean energy transition and therefore hold significant sway. And China’s absolute dominance in critical minerals processing makes it a key global player, including for the resource-rich countries. As an observer from Saudi-Arabia drily noted: ‘I’m afraid that these trends don’t bode well for the EU’. That is, unless we figure out how to turn our relative resource poverty into an asset by being more innovative, creating new markets, moving up the value chain. And that is of course precisely the promise of the Clean Industrial Deal. I believe that the Energy Resilience Leadership Group, which I co-founded together with Christian Bruch, CEO of Siemens Energy, can be instructive for future EU policy. Discussing the evolution of the ERLG since its founding at the Munich Security Conference 2023 in the morning plenary session, I argued for the following core elements in the EU’s future strategy: ➡️ Focus on creating new markets, using (emerging) clean tech for industrial decarbonization ➡️ Generate demand, and don’t confuse (short-term) subsidy straw fires with genuine and sustainable economic activity. As one CEO noted: ‘I do nothing just because someone gives me a target. You want me to invest, give me a business case’. ➡️ Socialize the (investment) risk. Currently, there is often a first-mover *dis*advantage in clean energy. The EU will need to find clever ways to incentivize, unleash, give confidence. I made the same points in several of my meetings today, including with Anders Opedal, CEO of Equinor as well as at the ONS International Advisory Board of which I’m proud to be a member. Finally, huge thanks to Inger Lise Rettedal, ONS Programme Director (photo) and Leif Johan Sevland, President and CEO. This charismatic duo moved a mountain in the world of energy this week. Congratulations 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 #ONS24 #ONS2024 Photo credit: Erik Krafft