I had a brilliant conversation with Freddie Baker at the Future of Utilities Summit this week. He’s recently joined Centrica’s graduate scheme and is already working across European carbon and energy markets. It was great to see the next generation of industry professionals getting straight to the point.
He made short work of one of energy’s most persistent myths - that decarbonisation and energy security are in tension. He argued that a renewables-dominated grid structurally lowers wholesale prices by displacing gas peakers, and that battery storage is what makes the whole thing viable.
He’s also watching European subsidy mechanisms, and said that without serious grid investment, feed-in tariffs and CfDs risk creating a system that pays generators to switch off while simultaneously paying conventional plants to come back on.
But the most interesting insight was that Freddie thinks about technology as a system rather than a set of competing bets. His example of high-temperature nuclear enabling pink hydrogen production through electrolysis was the kind of joined-up thinking the sector needs far more of - and I’ll be exploring the concept of technology as infrastructure more over the coming weeks on Talking Energy.
We talk a lot about the talent pipeline and building the experts of the future - I think we’re in good hands! Thanks so much for talking to be Freddie!
🎥 Watch the full interview here: #EnergyTransition #FutureOfUtilities #GraduateScheme #Centrica #TalkingUtilities #NextGenEnergy