240. The CHINT Blueprint, or the Chinese Solar revolution from the inside - Aug26

During Intersolar (The Smart E), Gerard sat down with Dr Chuan Lu, CEO Astronergy and Director of Chint Group to discuss, from the inside the Chinese Solar revolution. 2026 was Dr Lu and Chint 15th participation to that massive European Exhibit that epitomise the growth of renewables. 18 halls the size of a football fields and more than 100,000 visitors.  CHINT is a vertically integrated Chinese energy conglomerate whose solar business is profitable, mid-growth, and margin-focused rather than driven by hyper-scale manufacturing. Its portfolio includes Astronergy (modules), CPS (inverters), CHINT Solar (EPC/IPP), and CHINT ANNENG (residential PV), generating approximately $650–700 million in operating profit and implying a valuation of $12–16 billion. Annual growth of 15–20% trails peers but reflects CHINT's focus on profitability, diversification, and disciplined capital allocation. The result is a stable, globally active, Tier 1-certified solar group that operates more like an integrated industrial compounder than a scale-at-all-costs PV manufacturer.  The modern Chinese solar industry began to take shape around 2006 as a predominantly export-oriented manufacturing sector, driven by demand from Europe and other international markets. As a privately held enterprise, CHINT has operated within a unique ecosystem where entrepreneurial initiative has been complemented by government policy support. A pivotal moment came in 2012 with the introduction of China's Feed-in Tariff (FIT) programme, which stimulated domestic demand and transformed China into the world's largest solar market, creating significant opportunities for companies such as CHINT to expand beyond export manufacturing.  CHINT's development has also been shaped by China's regional economic and cultural differences. Originating in the entrepreneurial, resource-poor southeast of the country, the company embodies a private-sector culture that contrasts sharply with the coal-dependent, state-controlled industrial base of northeast China.  Looking ahead, management recognises the challenges posed by overbuilding and excess manufacturing capacity in the utility-scale solar market. In response, CHINT has diversified aggressively into distributed generation through its residential rooftop solar business, CHINT ANNENG, which has installed more than 60 GW of capacity across over 1.2 million rooftops throughout China, positioning the company to benefit from a broader and more resilient mix of solar market opportunities.  A great thanks to Jonathan Gifford of Climate Copy for organising the recording.  

Laurent and Gerard set out to explore one of the biggest ideas emerging alongside the excitement around the SpaceX IPO: datacenters in space. To refuel those satellites emerged the concept of an orbital grid where beams are directed to provide electricity to space crafts, like a gas station in space.  It may sound like science fiction, but it is rapidly becoming a medium-term engineering challenge being tackled by some of the brightest minds of our generation.  One of those pioneers is Andrew Rush, CEO of Star Catcher, a company building what will become the world's first orbital energy grid—a network of satellites capable of wirelessly transmitting power to other spacecraft on demand hundreds of kilometres away.   Andrew is the man for the mission: he previously served on the Technology, Innovation and Engineering Committee of the NASA Advisory Council, helping advise NASA's Administrator, the Office of the Chief Technologist, and its Mission Directorates. Before founding Star Catcher, he successfully built and exited two leading space companies: Redwire and Made-In-Space.  His vision is ambitious: create an "energy-as-a-service" platform for space.  Rather than forcing every satellite to carry increasingly large solar arrays and batteries, spacecraft could draw power from a shared orbital network whenever they need it. If successful, this infrastructure could become as fundamental to the space economy as the electrical grid is on Earth.  Investors are taking notice. Star Catcher has raised approximately $88 million to date, including a recent $65 million Series A led by B Capital, Shield Capital, and Cerberus Ventures. Andrew believes SpaceX's reusable rockets have dramatically reduced the cost of reaching orbit, unleashing an explosion in satellite deployment. The next major bottleneck, however, is no longer launch—it's power. Star Catcher aims to build the energy infrastructure that enables the next generation of space-based industries.  In this conversation, we explore what's real, what's possible, and what's still myth when it comes to energy in space. We also discuss why technologies that once seemed decades away may arrive much sooner than most people expect.   The future of the space economy isn't just about getting to orbit—it's about powering everything that comes next.  Live long and prosper.

In June 2026, Gerard and Laurent recorded a live episode at DLA Piper’s Charging Up Capital 2026 Global Energy and Digital Investments Forum with Rowan Parkhouse, Managing Director at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).  CIP has emerged as one of the world's leading specialist energy transition investors, ranking among the top infrastructure fund managers globally by both assets under management and fundraising. So, what is CIP’s Playbook?  We explore how infrastructure investing has evolved over the past five years—what has become easier, what has become harder, and where the biggest opportunities now lie. The conversation covers data centres, batteries, grids, transmission, renewables, EVs, independent power producers, and CIP's relationship with Ørsted.  We also discuss some of the most important questions shaping energy infrastructure today: the impact of AI-driven power demand, whether grid constraints have become a bigger bottleneck than generation, the changing political priorities around energy security and competitiveness, the rationale behind CIP's acquisition of Ørsted's European onshore business, and the future of energy storage.  A fascinating deep dive into how one of the world's most successful energy transition investors is helping build the infrastructure of the future.  We would like to thank Natasha Luther-Jones and Nicolas Stofenmacher for a flawless organisation and the impressive array of talents around the table.

Gerard and Laurent first welcomed David Scaysbrook to the podcast in Episode 66, back in January 2022, for a conversation about the future of 24/7 power. Four years later, it felt like the right moment to reconnect and take stock of how profoundly the market has evolved.  Since then, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners has continued to establish itself as one of the leading specialist investors in the energy transition, orchestrating and deploying billions of dollars of capital through project finance structures and platform companies.   As of today, the firm has participated in more than $27 billion of transactions, developed or acquired over 240 projects, and built a portfolio exceeding 40 GW across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.  Our discussion traces Quinbrook's own transformation alongside that of the broader energy landscape. We revisit the firm's strategic exit from wind generation, marked by the sale of its Scout platform to Brookfield in 2023 for more than $1 billion, and explore how its focus has shifted toward utility-scale solar and long-duration energy storage across the United States and Australia.  More fundamentally, David explains how Quinbrook has moved beyond the era of single-technology investment funds. Instead of financing isolated generation assets, the firm now builds integrated, multi-technology platforms designed to solve specific customer problems. The objective is no longer simply to inject generic electrons into the grid, but to work backwards from the needs of large electricity consumers—particularly hyperscale datacenter operators—and develop bespoke energy solutions around them.  This philosophy is illustrated by Rowan, Quinbrook's datacenter development platform, which attracted a $1 billion co-investment from Blackstone. As hyperscalers race to deploy new computing capacity, speed has become the defining constraint. Waiting for the grid is no longer an option, making "bring your own power" an increasingly compelling proposition.  The conversation also explores how advances in software and long-duration energy storage are improving behind-the-meter performance, allowing energy infrastructure to become more resilient, flexible, and economically attractive.  Ultimately, David argues that we are witnessing a profound shift in thinking. In a world increasingly captivated by virtual technologies and digital intelligence, the greatest opportunities may lie in investing in the physical infrastructure that makes them all possible.“Let’s get Physical”  

In May 2026, our co-host Laurent Segalen had the privilege of chairing a high-profile panel hosted by SolarPower Europe at its annual Solar Power Summit in Brussels, one of the leading gatherings for the European solar and energy storage sectors.  In this episode, we bring you highlights from the hour-long conversation, featuring two distinguished industry leaders: Fredrik Andrén Sandberg from RWE and Hanna Kunzmann from EQT. Between them, their organisations oversee more than 10 GW of battery storage projects either in operation or under development, offering a unique perspective on the realities of financing and scaling storage assets.  The discussion addressed one of the most important questions facing the energy transition today: the bankability of battery storage investments. As battery deployment accelerates across Europe and beyond, investors, developers, and policymakers are increasingly focused on understanding the risks and opportunities that will determine the sector's long-term attractiveness.  The conversation examines battery bankability through four interconnected dimensions. First, technology risk: are batteries still exposed to meaningful technological uncertainty, or have the key challenges shifted towards commercial execution? Second, commercial risk: how should investors evaluate revenue models, merchant exposure, and the growing role of hybridisation strategies? Third, regulatory risk: what policy and market-design uncertainties could affect future returns, from evolving capacity mechanisms to unexpected rule changes? Finally, digital risk: how critical are cybersecurity, battery management systems (BMS), and energy management systems (EMS) in safeguarding performance and protecting asset value over the long term?  The session attracted a packed audience in Brussels and has since been widely praised for the quality, depth, and practical insights of the discussion. Whether you are an investor, developer, policymaker, or simply interested in the future of energy storage, this episode offers a valuable window into how some of the industry's leading players assess risk and opportunity in one of the fastest-growing sectors of the energy transition.

Gerard and Laurent welcome Michel Boutouil, co-founder and CEO of Polarise, a leading European AI infrastructure provider and NVIDIA Cloud Partner based in Berlin. After discussing about what happens outside of a datacenter, it is time to dive inside one.  Polarise is one of the few genuinely European NeoCloud companies — essentially a European counterpart to CoreWeave — specializing in GPU infrastructure for AI inference. Through its partnership with NVIDIA, Polarise designs its datacenters around the GPU rack itself, using liquid cooling from the outset rather than starting with a traditional real estate-first approach. The company has already developed AI factories in Germany, Norway and the UK.  In the conversation, we explore the growing commoditization of large language models and why the real long-term value may lie in AI factories — facilities that are fundamentally different from conventional datacenters. Given Europe’s notoriously long grid-connection timelines, Polarise focuses on refurbishing brownfield sites with under 50MW of grid access instead of pursuing massive gigawatt-scale campuses. It’s a pragmatic “pod” strategy: adapt to the grid’s constraints rather than try to reshape the entire energy system.  We also tackle the thorny issue of digital sovereignty. With the U.S. CLOUD Act allowing U.S. authorities access to data managed by American tech companies, it is fair to ask what hyperscalers are doing with European data — and whether Europe needs its own sovereign AI infrastructure. Polarise has secured €1 billion in backing from Swiss investor SWI Stoneweg Icona, but even that is modest compared with the hyperscalers’ spending power. For comparison, SpaceX has reportedly invested around $40 billion in Colossus 1 and 2 alone.  So, what does the future of the European AI ecosystem look like? Michel’s answer is clear: Europe should not try to outspend China or the United States head-on. Instead, it should play to its strengths — smart execution, agility, flexibility, and the ability to learn quickly from the mistakes being made elsewhere.    “Today’s show is supported by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. The BMW Foundation unites leaders across sectors to develop solutions that foster an innovative economy and a future-proof society. A key focus is "Energy Transition & Climate Change," where the Foundation drives "International collaboration to accelerate the energy transition." With rising energy demands from AI and data centres, new partnerships, effective collaboration, and the exchange of science-based solutions and strategies are essential.”  

At the Eurelectric Power Summit 2026 in Helsinki, Laurent had the opportunity to sit down with Catherine MacGregor, CEO of ENGIE and Vice President of Eurelectric, for a wide-ranging discussion on the key issues shaping Europe's energy future.  We began with the themes at the heart of Eurelectric’s agenda this year: security of supply, affordability, competitiveness, and the challenges and opportunities created by the rapid growth of data centres.  One of the most striking insights from our conversation was that Europe does not have an electrification technology problem — it has an electrification coordination problem. This was also the central conclusion of the report Power Couples: Enhancing Industrial Competitiveness through Electrification, launched by Eurelectric and Accenture at Power Summit 2026. The report finds that electrification projects rarely fail because technology is unavailable. Instead, they stall when power economics, grid access, infrastructure delivery, financing structures, and industrial investment timelines are not aligned.The proposed solution is a new delivery model: “Power Couples”, bringing together industrial players, utilities, technology providers and capital partners to accelerate deployment at scale.  We also reflected on ENGIE’s remarkable transformation under Catherine’s leadership over the past five and a half years. The company’s strategy has been defined by two parallel moves: more than €15 billion of divestments from fossil and legacy assets, alongside concentrated investments in renewables, networks, batteries, and regulated infrastructure — all while maintaining strong financial discipline, with net debt-to-EBITDA around 3.  The results have been impressive. Since 2021, ENGIE has delivered the strongest risk-adjusted equity performance among major European utilities, combining substantial dividend distributions with significant share-price appreciation. With an annualised IRR of roughly 20.5% since January 2021, ENGIE has outperformed the net returns of many leading global infrastructure investors, effectively delivering private-equity-style returns with public-market liquidity.  Our discussion also covered ENGIE’s leadership in power purchase agreements (PPAs), its support for 24/7 Scope 2 accounting, the recent acquisition of UK Power Networks, progress in EV charging infrastructure, and its fully integrated strategy for data centre development.  Finally, we explored ENGIE’s investment plans for the years ahead and the broader structural shift underway across the energy system: the continued transition from molecules to electrons.    Eurelectric Report: Power Couples https://www.eurelectric.org/publications/industrial-electrification-power-couples/

The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) have made significant progress in recent years. Yet they remain largely top-down institutions shaped by policy priorities. When trillions of dollars in investment decisions are at stake, investors and operators increasingly turn to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) and its team of more than 400 specialists.  Why does BNEF command such trust? BNEF combines Bloomberg’s unparalleled market data capabilities with deep expertise in batteries, solar, electric vehicles, and electrification. Unlike many international agencies, BNEF operates without a political mandate or advocacy agenda. Its bottom-up analysis provides investors with a more practical view of market realities than traditional top-down forecasts.  In this episode, Gerard and Laurent welcome Albert Cheung, CEO of BNEF, to discuss the findings of the New Energy Outlook 2026.   The discussion begins with a review of NEO 2020. BNEF was notably accurate in forecasting the "electrons" side of the transition—solar, batteries, and EVs—while overestimating the pace of hydrogen and carbon capture deployment. Even so, its forecasting record remains among the strongest in the industry.  Looking ahead, NEO 2026 projects a rapidly electrifying global energy system. Solar power, batteries, EVs, and heat pumps are reshaping demand while reducing exposure to fossil-fuel price shocks. Oil demand is expected to decline as EV adoption accelerates. Gas demand may continue growing in the near term to support rising electricity consumption, but both oil and gas fall sharply under stronger net-zero pathways.  By 2032, solar is projected to become the world's largest source of electricity. Battery storage will scale rapidly, enabling more flexible and resilient power systems.  The report also makes clear that, despite substantial progress—especially in China—current technologies and policies are still insufficient to fully achieve global net-zero goals. However, the gap between ambition and reality is narrowing thanks to energy security concerns, declining costs, and continued technological progress.  Overall, it was a thoughtful, insightful, and hopeful conversation. The energy transition is advancing. We are getting there.  Resources New Energy Outlook 2026: https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/new-energy-outlook/  BNEF Electric Vehicle Outlook 2026:https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/electric-vehicle-outlook/      

Gerard and Laurent have the pleasure of welcoming Fintan Slye, CEO of NESO — Great Britain’s National Energy System Operator.  In a lively and wide-ranging discussion, we explored NESO’s governance and its critical role across the British energy system: from real-time system operation — balancing supply and demand every second — to whole-system planning, market design, and transmission network operation.  We covered an extraordinary breadth of topics: balancing costs, electricity prices for consumers, energy security, and the challenge of delivering Power 2030 in a system increasingly reliant on renewables. We discussed batteries, the evolution of balancing markets, the explosive growth of datacenters, and the ever-growing grid connection queue — and, above all, how to keep the entire system stable and efficient through this transformation.  One of the most fascinating parts of the conversation focused on datacenters. NESO is currently facing more than 100GW of connection requests, while Fintan estimates that only 8–12GW are likely to materialise. He shared the three key criteria NESO uses to prioritise and filter applications — a crucial issue as electricity demand enters a new era.  Fintan is also a strong advocate for interconnectors. We discussed the strategic value of the current fleet and the long-term vision for expanding connections through the North Sea Islands and potentially even towards Canada.  Throughout the conversation, one message came across clearly: there is a highly competent team at the helm of the GB energy system, and the grid will continue to improve through investment, innovation, and digitisation.  Fintan embodies the calm confidence you want from the person helping run one of the most complex energy systems in the world. The ultimate “cool” operator.   NESO operates today’s electricity system and designs tomorrow’s energy system to deliver reliable, clean and affordable energy for Great Britain. Find out more here: https://www.neso.energy/    

The global auto industry is splitting into two very different worlds — what legendary auto expert Michael Dunne calls “a tale of two countries.” Dunne, CEO of Dunne Insights LLC, has spent decades at the centre of the industry, including leadership roles as President of General Motors Indonesia and Managing Director of JD Power China.  On one side stands the United States, increasingly resembling a modern-day Cuba: a market dominated by oversized, fuel-hungry SUVs aimed at a shrinking audience, while legacy automakers squeeze the last profits from internal combustion engines. Last year alone, Detroit’s Big Three wrote off more than $50 billion in EV investments.  On the other side is China, moving at extraordinary speed and scale. The recent Beijing Auto Show showcased the country’s relentless innovation: 38 hectares of exhibition space — roughly 50 football fields — featuring 1,451 vehicles, including 181 world debuts, and attracting 1.3 million visitors, with only 65,000 coming from overseas. It is no longer just about BYD. Chinese giants such as Geely, SAIC, and FAW have caught up rapidly, transforming China into a market where internal combustion vehicles already feel like an afterthought.  Only two foreign automakers still command real respect in China: Toyota and Tesla. Others — including Honda, Nissan, and most European manufacturers — are steadily losing ground.Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world is accelerating toward electrification as rising oil prices reshape consumer behaviour. Countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Mexico are embracing EVs, while electric vehicle sales continue to surge across Europe.  Battery technology is still advancing, but the next decisive battleground is autonomy. Here, the United States maintains a lead through companies like Waymo and Tesla — though Chinese competitors are closing the gap quickly.   2026 may also mark the tipping point for electric trucks becoming mainstream, with adoption expected to accelerate rapidly once scale economics take hold.  So how can non-Chinese automakers compete? Not through protectionism, but by learning from China’s playbook: moving faster, investing more aggressively in next-generation technologies, and, in some cases, partnering directly with Chinese firms.  Yet another major challenge looms over the industry: excess manufacturing capacity. Factories in both Europe and China are currently operating at only around 50% utilisation, with the United States performing only slightly better.  Dunne’s upcoming book, Car Wars, due out next year, explores this seismic shift in detail. It tells the story of how China built the world’s most powerful EV ecosystem — and whether Western automakers can survive the collision.