Energy storage steps up: the growing role of batteries on the grid, and the challenge from winter storms

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Energy Gang – "Energy storage steps up: the growing role of batteries on the grid, and the challenge from winter storms"

Host: Ed Crooks (Wood Mackenzie)
Guests:

• Amy Myers Jaffe (NYU’s Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab)
• Julian Nebreda (President & CEO, Fluence)
  Date: February 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rapid evolution and growing importance of battery energy storage on the US electric grid, especially in the face of capacity stressors like extreme weather, AI-driven demand, and data centers. The hosts and guest Julian Nebreda discuss the record expansion of grid-scale battery deployment, their role during severe winter storms, regulatory and supply chain hurdles, and how batteries are reshaping the electricity sector itself. The episode ranges from practical deployment experiences (like in ERCOT/Texas) to philosophical and policy implications—capturing the high stakes and rapid changes underway in energy storage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of Battery Storage and Market Drivers

• Massive Growth in US Grid-Scale Batteries

  • Rapid scale-up, especially in Texas, framing it as a supercharged capitalist state where batteries have boomed in the past two years ([00:00], [38:36]).
  • Ed highlights US market grew 50% last year to 16 GW installed grid-scale storage ([25:07]).

• Drivers for Storage Expansion

  • Extreme weather, growing industrial and AI data center demand, and limitations on quickly deploying new generation pushed batteries as the fastest, most efficient capacity solution ([06:11], [05:48]):

    “The fastest and most economically efficient way to deliver capacity is battery storage. Even in places where gas is abundant, there’s no way of resolving your capacity needs with natural gas—storage is the best way.”
    — Julian Nebreda [06:56]

  • Regulatory uncertainty, trade issues, and supply chain (“beautiful build act”, tariffs) caused a brief pause in US momentum but not a structural reset ([06:11], [27:02]).

• Batteries and Data Centers

  • Data centers, with volatile, growing electricity needs, are significant new clients for battery storage, especially given lagging grid connections ([04:15], [46:33]).

2. Batteries in Extreme Weather and Grid Resilience

• Performance in Brutal Winter Storms

  • Storage delivered up to 6 GW at peak in recent storms—“only 1%” of US supply but critical in averting outages ([08:05]):

    “If that 1% wasn’t there, you’d definitely notice it… That 1% was the difference between crisis and continuity.”
    — Ed Crooks & Julian Nebreda [09:07], [10:05]

  • Batteries excel for rapid response and maintain grid resilience when generators (gas, coal) falter; can prevent cascade failures ([10:05], [13:57]).

• Two Daily Peaks & Winter Storage Use

  • Debunking the idea batteries can't handle two demand peaks daily; Fluence designs systems for multiple cycles, as seen in Europe and increasingly in the US ([13:13]):

    “We design systems for two charges, two cycles a day… no issues at all, no technical issues.”
    — Julian Nebreda [13:36]

• Cold Weather Performance

  • Modern battery systems (even in Finland!) perform reliably in extreme cold with high availability—matching or exceeding other grid assets ([14:27]).

    “Historically they said in cold weather, batteries don’t work... well, there are no main issues on our ability to respond to weather conditions—even minus 5, minus 10 degrees.”
    — Julian Nebreda [14:40]

3. Functional Role of Storage: Not a Replacement, a Transformer

• Complementarity with Other Generation

  • Batteries are not “fuel tanks” and don’t aim to supplant all gas/coal; rather, they complement by handling rapid response, peak shaving, and buffering intermittent sources:

    “Battery storage is not a fuel tank. We can provide capacity very, very quickly at low cost. Gas peaking should be provided by battery storage today.”
    — Julian Nebreda [18:02]

  • Enables running thermal plants at optimum efficiency (near baseload), lets batteries handle variable demand.

• Changing System Design Paradigms

  • Batteries fundamentally alter the century-old paradigm of always synchronizing real-time generation and load ([18:50], [22:17]):

    “It completely changes the way we can think about the electricity, about how we design electricity sectors.”
    — Julian Nebreda [21:30]

• Grid vs. Decentralization

  • While batteries enable more distributed and virtual power plant models (VPPs), Nebreda and Jaffe agree grid is still the optimum supplier of reliable, economic power for most users. But failure to adapt will drive more customers “behind the meter” ([40:49], [41:09], [43:44]):

    “If the utility sector doesn’t provide it, they’ll figure out a way to provide it for themselves.”
    — Amy Myers Jaffe [40:07]

4. Supply Chain, Policy, and Technology Evolution

• Responding to US Supply Chain/China Concerns

  • Fluence prepared early for MADE IN USA requirements and “foreign entity of concern” rules—aims to localize supply chains and work with trusted global partners ([28:04], [31:20]):

    “We’re working now on the supply chain, the real minerals, battery production—it’s fundamental for security. Top priority as a company.”
    — Julian Nebreda [29:55]

  • Supports US-Canada-Latin America collaboration on raw materials and processing but emphasizes open competition for efficiency.

• Can the US Compete on Cost?

  • Nebreda argues US innovation, market forces, and urgency (from AI and grid bottlenecks) will enable competitive, potentially leap-frogging technologies like next-gen (solid state/sodium/lithium) batteries ([35:46], [37:07]):

    “The speed is going to change the way the US behaves... if the US is something, it’s very good at creating industries quickly.”
    — Julian Nebreda [37:48]

5. Data Centers as Storage Pioneers

• New Demand and Battery Business Models
  • Primary use case: “Speed to power” where batteries bridge data centers’ grid connections with strict curtailment/interruption rules ([46:33], [51:12]):

    “Most data centers want to connect to the grid... the fastest way to meet grid conditions is connecting with batteries.”
    — Julian Nebreda [50:34]

  • Batteries also used for backup, power quality (especially for AI computation’s fast, volatile loads), and reducing diesel genset reliance ([49:47], [50:00]).

6. Real-World Case: Puerto Rico, Distributed vs. Centralized Solutions

• Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl “Apagon” as a Symbol
  • Discussion of grid unreliability in Puerto Rico—debate over distributed (community-scale solar/storage) vs. central grid repair in hurricane-prone regions ([54:55]):

    “In a place with storm history, is it better to go distributed?”
    — Amy Myers Jaffe [58:26]

  • Nebreda endorses a mixed solution—robust microgrids for communities with a resilient grid backbone ([59:00]):

    “It’s a false dichotomy... resiliency of the national grid depends on your ability to connect distributed systems.”
    — Julian Nebreda [59:21]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Texas as Energy Storage Hotspot:

  “Texas is like a supercharged capitalist state... they have deployed a giant amount of batteries in the last two years.”
  — Amy Myers Jaffe [00:00], [38:36]

• Industry Urgency Metaphor:

  “We need, as an industry, take that cassette out and put the faster cassette in. That’s going to drive at a much higher speed.”
  — Julian Nebreda [00:14], [38:52]

• Grid vs. Self-Sufficiency:

  “If the utility sector doesn’t provide [power], they’ll figure out a way to provide it for themselves.”
  — Amy Myers Jaffe [00:33], [40:07]

• Changing Energy System Design:

  “Battery storage does not presupposes a specific source of generation… it completely changes the way we can think about electricity, about how we design electricity sectors.”
  — Julian Nebreda [21:10]

• Cold Weather Storage Myths:

  “Historically… during cold weather, batteries don’t work… but we have solutions in Finland—99% availability, no issues.”
  — Julian Nebreda [14:27]

• Regulatory Lag:

  “The regulator and even utility community hasn’t quite caught up to the potential of the technology.”
  — Amy Myers Jaffe [53:30]

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:00] – Amy on Texas and battery deployment boom
• [01:00] – Ed introduces episode focus: battery storage as hottest sector
• [02:34] – Julian Nebreda’s career path and view on public service in energy
• [05:48] – US market drivers: AI, manufacturing, extreme weather
• [10:05] – Battery role in extreme weather/peak demand
• [13:13] – Two daily peak demand cycles, batteries in Europe & NY
• [14:27] – Battery performance in deep cold climates
• [16:05] – Storage as complement to other generation, not replacement
• [25:07] – US battery storage market: 50% growth, possible short-term dip
• [28:04] – US domestic supply chain and China FEOC rules
• [35:46] – Can the US out-innovate/compete with China?
• [38:36] – Texas as a living case of storage-driven innovation
• [40:07] – Customers may go off-grid if utilities lag; grid still best
• [46:33] – Data center needs: new use cases for large-scale storage
• [50:00] – Stationary storage for power quality in AI data centers
• [54:55] – Puerto Rico: “Apagon,” distributed vs central grid strategies
• [59:21] – Mixed-solution approach for island resilience

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides a fast-moving, nuanced look at the transformative role battery storage is playing as both a disruptor and enabler within the electric grid. The sector’s urgency, complexity, and dazzling growth (especially under the strains of weather and new digital demand) make batteries both a technical tool and a lever for broader system change. The episode ends with a call for flexible, system-level thinking and optimism in American innovation and adaptability.

For listeners who missed it, this summary captures industry context, practical deployment detail, and the high-level strategy debates shaping the future of the grid.

Transcript

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Texas is like a supercharged capitalist state with all the dialogue and all the rhetoric from politicians and so forth. The bottom line is they have deployed a giant amount of batteries in the last two years.

[Julian Nebreda]

We're all in a hurry and you know, you need, we need as an industry take that cassette out and put the, you know, faster cassette in. That's going to drive at a much higher speed. That's the way we need to work.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Those same companies that are going to space, they need electricity and they need it.

[Julian Nebreda]

That's right. Right.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And so if the utility sector doesn't provide it, they'll figure out a way to provide it for themselves.

[Julian Nebreda]

How do we want to make the grid so much efficient that nobody will think, I better disconnect because I can do it by myself because the grid is the best way of providing electricity efficiently, economically and reliably.

[Ed Crooks]

Hello and welcome to the Energy Gang, the discussion show from Wood mackenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Ed Crooks and on this show we're going to be talking about what is probably the hottest sector in the global energy industry right now, which is battery storage. To talk about that, it's a pleasure as always to welcome back Amy Myers Jaffe. Amy is the director of the Energy Climate justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University. Hi Amy, how are you?

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

I'm great. Ed and I survived, you know, minus 10 degrees or whatever it was at night here in the New York metro area. And I just saying I'm excited to have a show on batteries today because miraculously my electric car was buried under a foot and a half of snow for three days. And after I dug it out, it started and the battery was still fully charged. Miracle.

[Ed Crooks]

Fantastic. That is very impressive. And as you say, it's exactly these issues we want to get into with our guest on the show today who is Julian Nebreda. Julian, who is the president and chief executive of the battery storage company Fluence. Hello, Julian. Welcome to the show.

[Julian Nebreda]

Thank you so much. Thank you for the invite and looking forward to discuss.

[Ed Crooks]

Likewise. Very much looking forward to the conversation. So look, I want to come on to Fluence in a moment, talk about what the company does and what its role is in the electricity system. Before we do that though, Julian, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about yourself, your personal story. As you probably know, the first time we have anyone new on the show, we always like to ask them a bit about their careers in energy, how they got started. And so what's your story? What first made you decide to pursue a career in energy.

[Julian Nebreda]

I wanted to be a public servant. I wanted to, you know, go into, you know, public service politics, kind of that. That world. And, and I said, you know, I started working, started looking at electricity and it was the closest thing to public service in the private sector. And that's how I got here. You know, I really, really saw it. I really liked in my career the opportunity, how directly connected is what we do in the power sector in general with a welfare of human beings and how they live and how they. So that's how it started. That's why you decided to go into this industry. And that's what keeps me here today.

[Ed Crooks]

Right. So I've been talking about fluence as a battery storage company. Do you want to explain exactly what it is that you do?

[Julian Nebreda]

So we design, manufacture and deliver and maintain battery solutions or solutions for the power sector using battery technology. So we go from the design of the solution, manufacture the product mostly to contract manufacturer. We are not a contractor, you're not a manufacturing company. And when we deliver the product, maintain the product through its life and helping recycle when the end of life of the product. That's our solution. Define ourselves as a solutions company using battery technology as a core of our technology solution. That's the way you should see.

[Ed Crooks]

And your customer base then is utilities and developers and anyone who needs power.

[Julian Nebreda]

We as a company, we work mostly in front of the meter. Now we're doing some behind the meter, but utility scale. So we sell to utilities, we sell to ipps, to independent power producers with. We sell to developers of power projects and we also sell to cni, including now data centers, which is kind of the new hot topic, which are big consumers of electricity where we can provide utility scale. We don't do residential or small cni. This is our core, our value propositions is with utility scale in front of the meter generally.

[Ed Crooks]

Yeah. And certainly want to come on to data centers in a bit because I think it's worth digging into a bit what's going on there. But just in general terms, I know you've just recently in the last few days reported quarterly earnings for the first quarter of your company's financial year, the fourth quarter of 2025. How are things going? How's business?

[Julian Nebreda]

Well, tremendous amount, you know, we have seen especially in the U.S. after what, 2025, where we had kind of a calm U.S. market to use a software. And now we're seeing the US picking up again, you know, driven some of it AI, but also CNI utilities are also Looking so tremendous investment in the sector. I think that was the defining point of our earnings call.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And do you think in the US market is it extreme weather, is it the realization that you can't really add gener generation capacity quickly and so therefore you need these other solutions? I know in ercot where people believe that it's the home of natural gas, actually batteries have been the solution of choice for the last two years.

[Julian Nebreda]

So a few things in the US market. First, the US market was a little bit went through some disruptions last year with one big beautiful build act which created normal regulatory uncertainty and the Liberation Day tariff announced announcements which also created some trade uncertainty. But so that kind of put a brakes on the US market for doing parts of last year. But that has when now it's picked up. And what we see today in the US market is a tremendous need for capacity, as you were saying, some of it being by the new demand for data centers. But not only data centers. The economy is growing. There's a big effort to bring new manufacturing capacity to the U.S. so those drivers stronger economy data centers and new industrial processes that are coming to us is putting a lot of strain or a lot of strain in the power sectors. And today the fastest and most economically efficient way to deliver capacity is battery storage. As you were saying, even in places where gas can be abundant, there's no way of resolving your capacity needs with natural gas storage is the best way to resolve the capacity needs. We can deliver products, our products can be from idea to actual operations very, very quickly in 18 to 24 months. Compare that to any thermal project or develop any renewal project, it will take much, much longer. So that's what's driving it's a sense of urgency that we have today and the ability of our technology with the cost outs and the improvements in technology that put us in a very, very good competitive position.

[Ed Crooks]

So Amy mentioned extreme weather and very much on everyone's minds the brutally cold conditions we've had here in North America over the past couple of weeks. Weeks I see from looking at my phone now, I think the weather showed me that it's still minus 11 Celsius outside that about 11 Fahrenheit and it's actually warmer than it was yesterday. I think perhaps the worst of it has really passed. So it has been a really challenging period. Very heavy snowfall as well. And in this difficult period of extreme weather on the whole the US power grid does seem to have held up pretty well. If you compare it to winter storm URI in 2021, almost exactly five years ago that killed many hundreds of people, most of them in Texas. But compared to that, there have been this time fewer deaths and fewer power outages. And when you look at the reasons, clearly there's been an improved performance from thermal power generation. Definitely one of the big issues, in fact the single biggest issue is in winter Storm URI was the collapse of gas fired generation and to an extent coal fired generation in Texas. Those sectors have performed much better this time round. So that's, that's an important part of the story. But we all are also now seeing this contribution from battery storage numbers I was looking at. There was a peak of batteries discharging to the grid at about 6 gigawatts in total across the US and that was about 1% then of total power supply across the country. So you could say, well that's not that much, only 1%. But on the other hand, if that 1% wasn't there, you'd definitely notice it. So Julian, I'm interested in your thoughts about this. When you think about grid resilience during this kind of extreme weather event, how important is battery storage now? Do you think so?

[Julian Nebreda]

I think the role that battery storage plays in any sort of strain situation for the grid. Let's say in this case we're talking about natural weather issues, but in any strain situation is the ability that battery storage have to respond quickly and to ensure that new sources of generation can be integrated into the market in an organized manner. Because what happens in the electricity sector we saw this year in Spain when one power generation goes down because a gas line has a problem or a pump doesn't work somewhere, if the market does not react immediately, you go into kind of a domino effect. One falls and then you cannot it goes away. The physics of electricity run the system. What has been the big difference I think from today and a year, besides ensuring that pipelines are weather ready for weather, all of that stuff, is that we had some issues with some gas plants, but battery storage was able in the case of Texas to react very, very quickly to ensure that the market did not see a disruption and that allow a new pipeline, a new gas plant somewhere else or interconnection capability to ring and resolve the issue. And I think that tool has been extremely, extremely, extremely useful and has been tremendously valuable to ensure that the unreliability coming out of weather as a case of of Texas or any other situation does not convert into a crisis. So as you said, 1% doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a lot when you want to ensure that any problems you might have does not convert into a disaster problem.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Well, and some of that 1% is concentrated in key markets, so has a much bigger impact. I was recently on a panel with a very smart person from New York, ISO and they were explaining this thing about, you know, we think about batteries as being really good about solving the duck curve. You know, we have this once a day peak demand in the summer from 4 to 8pm and you know, you can utilize the batteries and some of it can be automated. But he made the point that with winterizing you have two big demand periods. One first thing in the morning, crack of dawn and then the second one actually after peak. So like 8pm when it gets very cold and some people using electric heaters and so forth. He made it sound like batteries can't handle a two a day peak. And then I thought to myself, is that really true? And I just get your input, like, because you're working on these projects.

[Julian Nebreda]

We sell systems that are designed to deliver two charges to the charges and two charges a day, two cycles a day. Especially in Europe, in New York, I don't think we have that. I remember, but in Europe, most of the European cities have two peaks, one bigger than the other one clearly. But they want battery systems that can actually serve both peaks. And we design systems for that without any problems. There are no issues at all, no technical issues of any sort. We can charge them quickly and have them ready. Usually the two pigs have difference of time of, you know, six, eight hours among them. So it's more than enough time to charge the batteries and get them ready for the second peak.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

So and so is my experience, you know, in the past when I didn't have a home charger, I couldn't. There were days where I couldn't actually get the fast charger to charge my car in the winter. But now that I have a home charger, it's been pretty reliable, I have to say, shockingly so. What about cold? Like people say, when you have a car, typically your battery, you have the heat on in the car. Your battery drains a lot faster in the winter. What if it's a stationary solution?

[Julian Nebreda]

Yeah, we have solutions that work in Finland. I would say closer to the North Pole than you can ever get. 99% availability. No issues we had during the recent winter storm in Texas for systems that were not especially designed for cold weather, but they can manage cold weather, clearly, you know, 96, 97% availability, very, very high availability. So no main issues on our ability to Respond to weather conditions, you know, that minus 5 degrees, 10 degrees in the case of Finland, you know, and we go without any problems at all during the year. So historically that was their argument. Oh, during cold weather, batteries don't work, you know, just, it's a matter of, it's like. But you, you know, gas pipelines, if you do not have them ready to work during cold weather, they won't work. But you know, it's not that difficult to ensure that pipelines are weatherized already for cold weather work if they need to. The same with batteries.

[Ed Crooks]

That's very interesting. And just going back to Amy's point, about two cycles a day, something I'm realizing I don't know the answer to is how long does it take to charge, typically a stationary storage battery installation to get one hour of discharge, how long would you have to charge for?

[Julian Nebreda]

You could charge. It depends on what you want, how you want to do it, you know, so generally. But they say you can physically charge it at the same speed you discharge it. No, that's the way you should think about it. If it takes a four hour system, it'll take four hours to charge. Not like your iPhone. That takes a long time to charge it very quickly.

[Ed Crooks]

Exactly, yes. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. So look, I think one of the things I think as I'm hearing you explain this, I think is really important in terms of the broader debate about the energy transition, which is that the implication of what you're saying is that the batteries are very often complements for fossil fuel generation, not substitutes.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

So much so, Ed, that now people who have natural gas peaking plants are talking about associating batteries with them.

[Julian Nebreda]

Them.

[Ed Crooks]

Yeah, absolutely. So for instance, the classic argument is often made, well, look, we've had this extreme weather for two weeks. That's something beyond the capability of any battery system to handle. If you've got a typical stationary storage installation, you might have two hours of discharge capacity or four hours or six. Two weeks is something else entirely from what you're saying, Julian, that's sort of missing the point. You're not really trying to say to people, shut down every natural gas plant, shut down every coal plant, batteries can do it all. You're talking about complementing that thermal generation for rapid response, filling in gaps, maintaining grid stability at points of extreme stress. And you would accept that you are going to need the thermal generation as well. So for those periods when those extreme conditions go on for a long time.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Or some kind of generation. Ed. Because it could be a different Kind of generation depending on your location.

[Ed Crooks]

Very true. Could be nuclear for one. Could be geothermal, I guess geothermal if.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

You'Re Scandinavia, could be hydro if you're, you know, in the Southern hemisphere or even here in the United States and China. And it, I mean in some places it can be solar or wind.

[Ed Crooks]

True.

[Julian Nebreda]

I will say the following. I mean, battery storage is not a fuel tank or does not serve the same function of a fuel tank. You know, you have a fuel tank, you know, one of those huge tanks where you keep gas or oil or coal, whatever you put in there, that primary energy that serves a purpose. No, you keep primary significant huge amounts of energy in a place that is, you know, you're ready to convert into electrons quickly. Battery storage is not that that need is a need that we do not serve. We do serve other needs that a fuel tank cannot serve. We can provide capacity or very, very quickly at a very, very low cost. And what is capacity? Essentially the ability to be dispatched during the peak hours of the day when there's more need than actual production. So that's something that battery storage can do today at a much lower price point and a much faster than any other technology. So some of you, Amy, as and you were mentioning energy gas peaking plants. There's no need for gas peaking plants today. You should have gas plants to serve base load peaking should be provided by battery storage. You should have enough energy, enough electrons being produced to serve all the either by whatever source of generation. Let's not make a point. But let's use the gas or gas plant as an example. But it doesn't necessarily apply only to it. A system should have enough electrons to cover all the needs of the system. But they all don't need to be produced following the demand. They can be produced in the most efficient manner. So a gas plant is most efficient if it serves at 80% of its nameplate capacity without moving it all day. It reduces maintenance costs, it improves your heat rating. You should do that. And then it should be batteries that want when there is no need for those electrons that saves them. And when there's a need for when those electrons are needed, can deliver them. That work is what we do. The fuel tank does something very different. Ensure that that land that needs to be working very stable and have enough primary energy to be able. That's the way you should think about what the role of batteries, but what the role battery storage can play as you define a system. So battery storage does not presupposes a specific source of generation. You know, that's where. I guess that's where you were going at, you know. Yeah, it could be renewals. What do we do when we have renewals? Because you cannot be. They cannot be dispatched. You firm them up when they're not producing, you store the energy when they're producing. When they're not producing, you store. But for a gas plant, we do the opposite. You have your plant running stable. When the energy is not needed, you are storing it. When the energy is needed, you release it, ensuring that the plants are much more efficient and they are a more economic use of that asset. So we are in a way a driver that would change the way that electricity systems are designed. Electricity systems were designed with a view that you always needed to match electricity demand, generation and demand, both in terms of generation, but also in terms of transforming the energy and delivering the energy. With battery storage, that assumption, you could question it. I don't really need that plan because what I need is electrons, not the capacity need. Oh, I don't really need that substation because I can resolve that with energy storage. It completely changes the way we can think about the electricity, about how we design electricity sectors.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And do you think part of the reason why in different parts of the country. I won't mention PJM in different parts of the country, people are having trouble with the concept because they can't think about it in a systems way. They're just, you know, generation heavy in their thinking.

[Julian Nebreda]

Yeah, I mean, they're clearly. I mean, they're need for generation. You know, let's think about it. There are needs for generation. Just as the generation is not needed to pick demand. You know, you need the electrons, you don't need the peak capacity that you need to be able to separate. I mean, it's difficult to. Changes always makes people, you know, takes a while for everybody to, you know, feel comfortable with change or probably a little bit of that, or not necessarily PGM specifically, but some people, you know, some people think, oh, it's the old way. We should not change the way we've been doing it for 100 years. You know, we should do it. You know, I'm afraid that he won't.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

But there's this whole. It won't be reliable. It won't be reliable. But. But the truth is, you know, from your experience, it sounds like what you're saying. And I have to tell you, the statistics bear it out that places that have a high deployment of batteries have less outages.

[Julian Nebreda]

Clearly. No, but think about. Our systems have 99% availability, no gas plants Gets anywhere near. I'm sorry, I'm talking about gas plants, but any gas plant, coal plant, solar plant or wind farm, you know, any sort of generation, no matter what, you know, can never get anywhere near there. Because these are electronic systems using chemistry and they are. They work. They don't have that many moving parts. So they're very reliable. So that they provide a reliability influx into the system that makes the systems a lot safer and a lot more reliable.

[Ed Crooks]

I think that's really useful, actually. I think that's fantastic to have that as a kind of a mental model of what storage is for and how it works. I think I'd never really thought about it in quite that way. And I think that's very valuable to put it like that, I suppose. I mean, just obviously in defense of everyone who is working in the power industry today and something that's been said often about the inherent conservatism of that industry, that's something I have an enormous amount of sympathy for because the costs of failure are enormous and measured in human lives and risk taking is not really something you want to encourage. People are conservative for good reason, I always think. But as you say, it's clear there are opportunities here, there is change that is possible, that more that can be done. And actually in the case of storage, people are embracing. It actually brings me on to what I wanted to talk about, which was the general position of the US Market. I was looking at our numbers. So we follow the North American storage market. At Wood mackenzie, our number is that installations of grid scale. Installations of grid scale battery storage in the US rose by 50% last year to about 16 gigawatts. Very, very fast growing market, as you say. It's clear in terms of the order intake and the way things are going that there's been a slowdown. Probably we may see fewer installations this year than last year. But what you think it's now that market is stabilizing? Julianne, how do you see it?

[Julian Nebreda]

Yeah, I think there will be a cause for the uncertainty we had last year, like it always has, the regulatory uncertainty and the trade issues that we had that lasted a quarter, four months. But I don't think it will not be a reset of the base. What do I mean by that? That it will. Once we get out of the little bit of a dip we will probably see for a period of time, we'll go back to the same old growth. There's a tremendous elasticity of demand on this product. Tremendous elasticity of demand. So the more that the technology is Proven from a technological point of view that the more that is proven from a factual point of view, and as prices come down, this thing multiplies year by year. So we are very, very confident that this year is going to be. You might see some dips because of, you know, when you go back a year, back when these things were contracted, you see a little bit of it, but it's not a reset of the market in any shape or form.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

So let me ask you about that because, you know, one of the arguments that people made when you could see the big beautiful bill coming was that people beefed up their stockpiles of batteries ahead of the bill. Have we worked off that backlog or we still have enough supply, you know, waiting to be deployed?

[Julian Nebreda]

In our case, different than for solar and other technologies. There wasn't a big change in the way the law works. Not significant that it meant that people stockpile on actual batteries because the conditions are very, very much low with respect to electricity, to power, to storage. It did not change in me. It did happen in some other technologies, and that drove some of it. But for our technology wasn't a big driver of. Because you'll get the same, essentially the same treatment before or after the law. So that's the way you used to think about it.

[Ed Crooks]

Although, what about the FIAC rules, foreign entities of concern governing eligibility for tax credits? Those have clearly been designed to try and squeeze Chinese components, equipment, materials out of the supply chain. Chinese companies absolutely dominate the battery supply chain at the moment. So is that a problem for you?

[Julian Nebreda]

No. I mean, let me start. We have a domestic supply chain in the US that we started working years ago. I was of the view when I took on this role, there's no way the US Is going to have a power system dominated by Chinese equipment. It just doesn't want to happen. People thought I was crazy. I remember going to investor conferences and people asked me, well, I said, which world were you? I mean, you got it from my accent, I'm from Latin America. Where I come from, these things don't happen in the US they happen less. So the US Is going to figure. I don't know how. I wasn't clear how it was going to be, but it was clearly going to be. Restrictions on integrating Chinese equipment into the grid play this important role. So we as a company were ready for it or working on it from days ago and ready for the change. The law came up in a way that I think it is very well organized, if you ask me. My opinion in terms of allowing the industry to adapt to the needs to the restrictions over time. So that's what I was saying that there's not like an abrupt thing that hey, this day you have to buy all these batteries. It's organized in a way that everybody can change their supply chain and change look for the investments that they need to adapt to it. I think this is fundamental for our industry. If our industry wants to play a role in the power sectors in the US A significant role, we need to bring the supply chain here that, you know, we're working on many areas, cybersecurity in terms of, you know, the software ensuring there's no software from any, you know, that we control it all from firmware to ensure it's all also things that we control. We know where it comes from if it is in the sign bells. But you know, beyond that we need to go now to the supply chain, to the real the minerals, the battery productions, all those parts. It's fundamental for security element. They think this technology is going to play such a pivotal role in the way the power systems are going to work maybe 10 years from now. It will take time. Changing technology takes 20, 30 years. So it will take time. But in order to be able to do it, to be there and to deliver that value to the US consumers, we need to bring the supply chains to the US and that's what we're working on. This is our top priority as a company.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

You know, in the last couple of years, some of the Americas has kind of like come up to the that challenge like Argentina and Chile. Are you seeing it be. No, no, no. It's going to be US Domestic or you think this trade between the United States, Canada and Latin America is going to sort of pick up over time?

[Julian Nebreda]

I am a believer that we will need. I'm a believer in free trade. You know, you're Saudi Arabia, you're a little incongruent. You were saying that needs to be made in the US I think it needs to be taught. Out of all that supply chains there are many roles to play. So lithium, probably you should mine it in the places where they are good mine for lithium. You know, Chile is probably a good source or Bolivia, but processing, you need to have the capacity to process lithium locally. But it is important not to close the market in a way that you do not compete because then if not, you know, you become floppy, you know what I mean? You do not become efficient. So you need to figure out a way of competing with international players, especially players that you trust that you know, play with by your rules. And that's the world I hope that we can build, you know. You know, I'm not proposing here that we stop buying from China. That's not, you know, I'm proposing that we develop local supply chains that compete with China. I mean, we're gonna have Chinese tough here in the US Competing with what we do here locally and hopefully will make us both better. The Chinese suppliers and the Americans.

[Amy Westervelt]

There's everywhere else in the United States and then there's Texas. It's big, it's proud, it's got a lot going on, and it takes a daily news show to keep up with it all. The Texas Standard tackles politics, business and tech, the arts and the people and things that make Texas unique. It's smart, fast paced, relevant, and sometimes even a little fun. After all, it's the news from a Texas perspective. Subscribe to the Texas Standard wherever you get your podcasts.

[Julian Nebreda]

When I first started doing this and I would talk about climate change, it was like another subject like geology, hydrology, meteorology and it was well received and then at some point, point it got politicized. What made climate change political was the.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Most comprehensive, longest running propaganda campaign in U.S. history. I'm Amy Westervelt, the host of Drilled, a true crime podcast about climate change. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[Julian Nebreda]

Suppliers.

[Ed Crooks]

Is that really possible though, to build that competitive US based supply chain given how much cheaper Chinese materials and components have typically been? They've generally been the low cost competitor, partly, obviously because they get a lot of support from the government, partly probably just because they're better at it, that the Chinese companies are very efficient and very good at what they do.

[Julian Nebreda]

They're clearly the Chinese. It's very difficult to see a real frontier between government support and private sector. When you go and work with some of these companies where they get grants to do a lot of their basic research, they get some of their production that's support by the local government. So I go and visit some of these places and hey, who finances? Hey, the local government. Who finances the local university? So the intertwined between government, the public sector and the private sector in China, it is not as clear as in the US where you see the lines more clear. But I'm a capitalist by belief, they say. So I believe if you're a capitalist like I am, that the best way of investing is for the market to guide it because you'll make less mistakes and you make business more resilient. So I do agree. That day when you looked at China to say, how are we going to go there? How can we do it that quickly? Well, I believe that we can do it. When I look that big, the education in the us, cost of electricity in the US There are few things that we need to adapt, no doubt, but there's no risk, there's not impediment to get there. And I think that the capitalist rules the way of ensuring that decisions are made on thinking about the market, but the market as a guide of what you are going to make sure that we will make much better and efficient decisions that they and we should. But the other point, we should do the same thing that Chinese did to us.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Well, listen, I think the really interesting opportunity here is that it was hard to do because our electricity system didn't. We were like, oh, we're going to replace what we already have with this other thing which we say is more desirable. Now you have a growing market, there's a lot of incentive to have better systems, more optimized systems, to have more efficiency, lower cost. And so the capitalist stimulus I think is there just naturally by the fact that we're having not enough capacity and there are bottlenecks. So the interesting kind of opportunity in that is not only, hey, we have a growing market and so therefore China has overcapacity, but you know, we have a growing market. So that's an opportunity for US companies. But I think the second question really is, you know, is there some technology leapfrog? Because you know, one of the great things about the capitalist system is that, you know, we need these batteries to do A, B and C and like, what's the next generation of batteries? Could it be better? Could we beat the Chinese lithium batteries? Because we're going to have say solid state batteries or that's right, sodium, whatever batteries. Like, you know, where do you think it's going?

[Julian Nebreda]

Well, lithium was invented or you know, in the Western world, in the U.S. you know, so in Japan, so, you know, hey, it's not like they invented it. They realized how to do it at scale, at a much better price and clearly perfected the technology to what it does today when it was originally. So I do believe that once we have. You made a good point, Amy. We in the power sector sometimes are sinking with the paradigm or the view. When we were replacing technology, when the reality, if you were closing a plan and put in a new one, you're no more employment. It's not like it was a change in employment and a change in taxes or a change in the well being of people. It's the same. So no one was in a hurry. No one. No one was in a hurry. Today we're in a different world. We're all in a hurry. If we don't deliver some of our products on time, the school districts do not get the taxes they need to build the new gymnastic or stadium or classes or the hospital. You start looking at it and the speed is gonna change the way the US behave. If the US is something, you know, not having been born here, I see it, you know, how the US creates these industries so quickly that, you know, the oil, all these industries were created here. And you know, I don't think the US has lost that capability of creating an industry. Not at all.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And hey, listen, Texas is like a supercharged capitalist state. And with all the dialogue and all the rhetoric from politicians and so forth, the bottom line is they have deployed a giant amount of batteries in the last two years.

[Julian Nebreda]

So hey, the US I think is gonna do great. We are from the power sector because we were used to 10 years of North America increases. We all feel a little bit afraid. Like this emergency decree that was recently issued. Oh, people, I said that's gonna be there. No, for now, get ready because we're all in a hurry and we need as an industry, take that cassette out and put the faster cassette in. That's going to drive at a much higher speed because that's the way we need to work. And there are many, many industries in the US that work that way. Space today, with all the work we've seen in Space, not only SpaceX, but all the other companies that are changing the way. No other countries going with that. Number of companies, number of people, number of. In an industry that sort of. I think that we need to copy those models and bring it into our. We will do it, it will happen and change the way things work.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And those same companies that are going to space, you know, they need electricity and they need it now.

[Julian Nebreda]

That's right.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And so if the utility sector doesn't provide it, they'll figure out a way to provide it for themselves.

[Julian Nebreda]

And there is something that clearly our technology, but I still believe that grid is the best way of providing electricity. It's the best way. And my technology, when we think about it, we are not thinking about, hey, we want to eliminate the grid with battery storage. It's not the way we think of it. We think, how are we going to make the grid so much efficient that nobody will think, I better disconnect because I can do it by myself. Because the Grid is the best way of providing electricity efficiently, economically and reliably.

[Ed Crooks]

Yeah. Do you not agree with that, Amy? I feel like I strongly agree with that point. The power grid, apart from as we sometimes say on the show with being this organizational technological marvel that it is, is also a fantastic solution for supplying electric power to the customers who need it.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Well, so here's the interesting question about that. It's not that I disagree per se, but as you know, Ed, I've been working on virtual power plant. Like, you know, where are they going in what kind of business model is there? Do they make any money? How do they work? Not one for one, but if you look at the places that have deployed the most virtual power plant technology, it's actually places like Florida where in the end you had no choice. Right. You know, the system was not providing you what you needed. And so a lot of VPP went into Florida big. Now I think you're going to see it building out in Texas. NRG has announced the program and everybody's still grappling with, you know, how do we make money behind the meter if we're trying to do it behind the meter, or how do we make money coordinating with the utility? The utilities themselves, some of them have had VPP programs that weren't successful. You know, Vermont, little grid. But you know, I've talked to people up there, I mean, they eliminated the duck curve in a place where you don't even think there's enough solar radiation for that to even be possible. Right. So I do think that. But if the grid doesn't organize, like, if we can't get the grid to really solve what we need, I think you're going to see more and more and more people like literally take matters into their own hand. And then the question is, you know, how do the ISOs, how do the utilities integrate all of that into their business?

[Julian Nebreda]

No, and I'm not proposing that the grid became, you are required to be connected to the grid since the grid is the most efficient way to do it. And maybe a way to ensure that the grid is efficient is allowing people, hey, you can put your own bpp. And if you can do it better, it puts up an incentive for the grid to be better. But I think the grid, there are clearly exceptions, but I think that from 95% of the cases, a well designed grid and a well designed regulatory system will provide a much better reliability, cost, quality of power than, than any sort of your own solution, type of. But the grain is we need, as an industry, we need to Be faster. Why are the AI, some of the data centers, why are they putting. Bring your own generation? Not because they think it's a good idea, because they have no other option.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Yeah, no other. I mean, that is exactly my point.

[Julian Nebreda]

That puts me, I don't know, run a grid, but if I were running a grid today, I'll be saying, hey, I'm losing a customer. Why I need to be able to do this better than somebody else by.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Itself, you know, so, hey, I saw that firsthand when I was living in California, which was not too long ago, and we had, you know, it was sort of the backdrop of the post Enron electricity crisis mindset. There was this accident at a place called Aliso Canyon, which was the big natural gas storage hub for the state. And, and there was all, you know, crying people on tv. There were regulators saying, no, we're not letting you bring it back on until you could ensure, ensure, ensure the health and safety of everybody near this facility. And Tesla and some of the Sun Run and some of the big aggregators that we still see around today went running to the legislature in Sacramento and said, we can do this with solar and batteries. And they got a nod from the governor and from the legislature. And in like the course of like, I think it was like four weeks, six weeks, they put in 104 megawatts of solar and battery storage down around LA and then Aliso Canyon stayed closed because you could do it with batteries. And it kind of proved it out. And then once it proved it out, there were a lot of players who were like, hey, this worked over here, let's do it over here. And then it really sort of took off in California and it's now something like 6 or 10% of capacity.

[Julian Nebreda]

Yeah. No, no. Clearly, like any market, the grid is a market with imperfections. So, you know. You know, you're right. I'm not. And I think it's very, very important that we allow for solutions like that because that keeps the grid and the grid operators and the grid regulators and our industry behaving well. Because you know that if you don't do your work well, somebody else can resolve their own problem at a faster or cheaper or more, Less. More environmentally friendly or more efficiently.

[Ed Crooks]

So Julian, I wonder then how this is affecting your business at Fluence in terms of the customer base or the use cases that people are finding when they buy your products. Is that changing? I mean, you mentioned behind the meter power. Are you starting to get data center operators coming to you and saying, can you provide us a System to provide behind the meter power behind the meter energy storage. Because that's got to be an essential part of our package for keeping this facility online.

[Julian Nebreda]

So tell you about data center, which is an interesting microcosmos of grid imperfections, if you want to call it network. So we have essentially four needs when you looked at it that we see from data centers and they're overlapped, so don't think they're not defined that way. There's some overlap, but the first one and the one that has a. If you look, if I looked at my pipeline that has the biggest demand is what we call speed to power. So what is it? It's a data center that needs to connect one. It's to connect to a grid, but the grid is telling them, hey, I need to have the ability to interrupt you any times a year or any times a day or I'm not going to give you firm power. I'm only going to give you firm power for eight hours a day, whatever. Each grade has its own, its own limitations and they're bringing battery storage to be able to meet the grid conditions. So the grid tells them I'm going to interrupt you any this amount of hours a year. So you need batteries for that or no firm power. You cannot take any power from the grid during peak hours and that's today the big driver. Even though you read a lot about bring your own generation solution, when you talk to the market, they all want to connect to the grid and they're trying to figure out a way of connecting to the grid, you know, more quickly, you know, as quickly.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Well, yeah, no, listen. The voluntary system in Texas was put in parallel with the curtailment law.

[Julian Nebreda]

That's right.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Right. So there's a curtailment law. But if you want to connect, you can, you can have this voluntary program where like you say, you bring your own resource that's probably going to be battery storage and it sits there and then they give you 24 hour notice and you use it.

[Julian Nebreda]

That's right. So that's today. Then we have the bring your own generation solutions. Some of them are renewal, some of them are thermal. Generally what we do, our technology either firms up renewal generation, we provide or we help flexibilize what we call dispatchable energy. So ensure that if you have a gas plant that is going to have outages and you want it to run as stable as you can, battery storage can help you ensure that, that you can adapt that dispatchable energy to the actual demand. So those are the, I would say if you ask me, the two main bring your speed to power is by far the biggest demand. Then this one is the second and then we have more ancillary supports. One is clearly backup power. Now that you're already connected to the data center, you can rethink the number of gensets you want a diesel gensets you need because hey, you already have that capacity. So we can also deliver backup power. So that's very helpful. And the second one is quality of power. Data centers have very volatile. They move especially AI data centers that are learning. The ones that are running algorithms to learn, they move up and up and down. We can help dampen that, you know, to connect.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

That's interesting. So, so the batteries have a real utility for training and for those companies that are trying to get to AGI because they can help adjust the stability of the electricity as it goes. The load goes up and down.

[Julian Nebreda]

But it's very quick. It needs, you need response times in less than 10 milliseconds. So that's less than 0.01 of a second. It's extremely, extremely quick. So you need high speed. We are not the only solution. As you know, they have all the solutions to address this. They run what they call phantom calculations. So they actually consume energy as if they were training to ensure that they to reduce a little bit the profile. So we are trying to help that. And clearly chips are getting more and more efficient. So we should see over time that will get better. But we help them on that solution. But if you ask me today, where we have the great majority of the demand we have from data centers is speed to power. I have a condition from the grid, I'm going to meet it. There's a huge demand for this. This is what driving is, people. Most of the data centers need to connect to the grid very, very quickly. They know that the best way and the fastest way to meet the grid conditions is connecting to. And we've been working with them and you know, we're very happy, we're excited about this change, you know.

[Ed Crooks]

And so what would a typical contract there look like then? So would a data center, as you say, that's looking for speed to power to get connected to the grid quickly. Would they aim to have all of their power demand covered potentially by batteries? So they'd have, if it's 1 gigawatt data center, you'd have a, a gigawatt of battery supply which could cover it for two hours or four hours or something. And then they would then offer that to the grid and say we will be interruptible. You can cut us off the grid for two hours or four hours a day, whatever it is.

[Julian Nebreda]

If you were fully interrupted, if you can interrupt you fully, you probably need, you know, 100%. But I will say that the fully interrupted are not that many or fully interrupted, you know, every day, you know. So I think they do, you know, probabilistic analysis and then decide and with the cost of availability, they decide how much they want to put. So there's today we don't have. These are new market segment. As you know. I cannot give you like a rule of thumb of how to think if you see, you know, 100 megawatt data center to have 100 megawatts that we're not there yet in terms of where the market will sell.

[Ed Crooks]

Right. As we often say, it's a very fast moving industry. It's evolving rapidly. We're all of us still finding out exactly how these business models are going to work, where the most effective solutions are going to be. And it's a genuine.

[Julian Nebreda]

It's exciting to see for me what makes it the most exciting if I can maybe give you is that it proves a point that we will put the battery storage and we affluence is what we think about this will play a role all around the value change of battery storage power from generation to use. And we will play a role. The roles change. Clearly it's our ability, the versatility of our technology. So we can play the role of demand, the role of generation, the role of a transmission line, the role of a transformer. We can play many, many roles. Chess by charge via ability to charge and discharge very quickly.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Julian has really like, you know, opened my eyes to how broad the role can be for this technology. I mean we've seen it kind of morph out, right. You know, before it was just a backup system, right. And then it was like oh, virtual power plant. We could make it be actual function the same way as generation in terms of supplying the grid at different times of, you know, different time of use, you know, time of day use. And I do think, you know, the sort of regulator community and even the utility community, you know, hasn't quite caught up to the potential of the technology. I mean, I guess that's what I see when I talk to people and you know, work with the statistics for outages and things like that. We haven't really caught up to understanding just how powerful technology could be.

[Julian Nebreda]

Yeah, I think this. Not that we want to play out of tragedy, but this firm. The recent storm I think is bringing people attention. Look how the system behaved. Much, much better. There were more, a lot of investments made into it, but you can actually calculate. And we're in that process ourselves. Hey, what role did we play? What did we avoid? Why did we have not been there? What would have happened? And to bring that up to people's attention.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Okay, so I. I have to mention Puerto Rico because we just finished the super bowl, right. And we had an incredible performance, halftime performance by Bad Bunny and other celebrity singers. And of course, now it's trending on the Internet that when you saw those sort of fireworks in the background, it was symbolic to the blackouts and explosions that happened in the grid in Puerto Rico. Can you tell us a little bit about that? How should we be seeing his music and how it fits in with battery versus grid solutions in Puerto Rico?

[Julian Nebreda]

I'm a fan, but I could understand that Bad Bonnie could be an acquired taste, but I'm a fan. But, you know, I was surprised also. I watched the sue, the halftime show, and as you know, he had like four or five polls, and he went up in one and the polls had kind of caught fire or like, they were showing. And he said it tells you one of the most or the most important star from Puerto Rico dedicating probably his biggest opportunity to present himself to the US Market. Talking about the unreliability of the distribution network or the power systems in Puerto Rico. I mean, I was, you know, hey, but. But it tells you when, you know, I have friends from Puerto Rico, how disruptive to people's life and to people's capacity to, you know, meet their basic needs is having an unreliable. An unreliable power sector. And, you know, the song is called Apagon, which is called. It means in our word in Spanish, it means blackout. It's a song about that from the biggest star. So it was in a way sad, too, that Puerto Rico is going through that. Please. Clearly. But it is good that he brought it to everybody's attention. And now, at least here we are talking about it. And hopefully this will provide more pressure to the people and the powers that can address this, to address it greatly.

[Ed Crooks]

Yeah. I have to say I had never knowingly heard a single note of any of Bad Bunny's music before the super bowl halftime show. But I've become a bit of a fan. I very much. I enjoyed the performance and as you say, in particular, because of this very interesting contribution to the debate over Puerto Rico's grid. The, as you say in that song, El Apagon, which I Actually had looked up, up before this recording, I think, from which. Which is the. It's his last album, is it? Or the previous one from 2022.

[Julian Nebreda]

Yeah.

[Ed Crooks]

I have to admit I don't speak any Spanish, so that was educational to me to learn the Spanish word for blackout. But I thought it was interesting. And I see there's been a little bit of discussion in the wake of this about what is actually the right solution for Puerto Rico. And it's clear that the problems are obvious to everybody. There has actually been some disagreement and I think the current administration has disagreed with some of the things that the previous administration was trying to do in terms of is it better to invest in distributed resources, solar and storage, or is it better actually to invest in the grid and more centralized generation? And so it's a debate.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

And hey, listen, that gets into the hurricane debate. So Julian and I may not 100% agree. I mean, I remember during Hurricane Ian, one of the big takeaways at Babcot Ranch, which was a hundred percent solar community, is that 3 million Floridians were in the dark, but Babcot Ranch had electricity. And so, you know, you do wonder about this question. In a place that has a lot of storm history, is it better to go distribute it?

[Julian Nebreda]

My own view analysis that Amy will probably not necessarily disagree. I do think that distributed generation, we should think about a mixed system. And what do I mean by that? Communities having the ability to sustain themselves, not connected to or essentially sustain themselves, not to connect it to a national grid, but having a national grid that will make it more. And that combination is the right approach. So you think about a smaller communities that hey, we have the ability with our own resources to sustain ourselves and we can either, depending on how you want to be on a daily life, we can export on import electricity for that community use. But when there's a crisis, when there is a storm of any sort of, we will have the ability. And if the national grid gets, in the case of Puerto Rico gets unreliable, you can disconnect yourself and ensure that you can keep. I think a combination like that is a way to work on this. You need to be using. I think it's a false dichotomy in my opinion, to think it's one against the other. It should be both. You clearly need. In a system like Puerto Rico where we will see more hurricanes every three or four years, one passes by. In order for a national grid to be resilient, it needs to be based on distributed systems. You know that your resiliency of the national grid depends on your ability to connect distributed system. I think that will be for Puerto Rico will be probably the most efficient way to deliver that. There's sometimes unfortunately politicians get involved in discussions that are more ideological try to win political points than actually resolving the short term urgency. Hopefully they were all watching yesterday. They all were working together.

[Ed Crooks]

And hopefully also they're listening to this podcast on I think that's, you know, fantastic that we can have very interesting debate, very interesting debate inspired by watching a Super bowl halftime show. So have to say earns a lot of respect for that. Well, unfortunately we do have to leave it there. But it's been fantastic talking to you. Many thanks, Julian.

[Julian Nebreda]

It's great. I enjoyed it very, very much. I want to be part of this gang, you know.

[Ed Crooks]

Well, definitely we would love to have you back again. We will be sure that happens. Many thanks, Amy. I'm sure I'll be seeing you again very soon.

[Amy Myers Jaffe]

Yeah, I'm sure. Ed, thanks so much. It's really been a pleasure today.

[Ed Crooks]

Absolutely. Thanks to our producers, Stuart Duffy, Toby Biggins, Gilchrist and Dan Cottrell. And above all, of course, many thanks to all of you for listening. We really do value your feedback. Please do keep that coming and we'll be back soon with all the latest news and views on future of energy. Until then, goodbye.