Transmission

The AI boom has created an energy problem no one quite planned for. Every new data center needs power now - not in three years when the grid connection finally arrives. Developers are skipping the queue, installing on-site generation at a scale that would have seemed extraordinary five years ago.
But speed to power isn't the only pressure. Data center operators are also staring down net zero commitments, sustainability departments that want decarbonisation, and an energy trilemma of cost, carbon, and resilience.
In this episode Alejandro is joined by Alex Marshall, Group Business Development and Marketing Director at Clarke Energy. Alex explains why gas engines have become the bridging technology of choice for hyperscale data centers, what a 450 MW peaking station outside London actually looks like, and whether the engineering department and the sustainability team will ever agree.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst
Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter: https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch
Chapters
- 0:00 — Introduction
- 1:44 — Guest intro: Alex Marshall & Clarke Energy
- 3:30 — Data centers and the shift to self-generation
- 5:00 — The inflection point: Ireland to the US
- 7:00 — Biggest project: 450 MW peaking station, London
- 7:45 — Gas engines vs batteries: what fills the dunkelflaute gap
- 9:00 — What US data centers actually buy
- 10:20 — The net zero pathway for gas engines
- 14:00 — Speed to power vs cost savings
- 17:00 — Europe vs US: sustainability and energy culture
- 18:00 — 45Y production tax credit: what's at stake
- 22:10 — Clarke Energy's business model
- 22:40 — Project highlights: Ireland, Indiana, Nigeria, Romania
- 25:00 — The contrarian view: biogas & organic waste

Australia has built one of the world's most competitive battery storage markets — and it got there faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. What started as an experiment in South Australia in 2017 has grown into a mature, multi-gigawatt industry that is now redefining what grid-scale batteries can do.
In this episode of Transmission, host Wendel Hortop sits down with Jérémie Yvon, Head of Energy Management at Neoen Australia, to explore how one of the country's largest renewable energy companies is navigating the rapidly evolving battery landscape across both the National Electricity Market (NEM) and the Western Australian Electricity Market (WEM).
They cover the maturation of the Australian battery market, how Neoen structures battery revenue across two very different market designs, the rise of virtual batteries and firm renewable PPAs, long-duration storage investment, and why Jérémie believes battery oversupply is a credible - and under appreciated - risk.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Wendel Hortop - Head of Australia
Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter:
https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch
Chapters
0:00 Introduction — the hospital generator analogy
1:45 Guest intro: Jérémie Yvon and Neoen Australia
4:30 NEM vs WEM: how battery economics differ
8:30 Hornsdale: from proof of concept to system services
11:30 NEM design — volatility and five-minute trading
14:00 WEM design — capacity market mechanics
17:00 Revenue compression in ancillary services
20:30 How Neoen builds optimisation capabilities in-house
23:00 Battery + wind firming: delivering baseload renewables
25:30 Virtual battery products explained
29:00 Risk management for firm products
32:00 Solar cannibalisation and price suppression
38:00 Long-duration storage pipeline
44:00 Rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) services
47:00 Are batteries now the cheapest system service provider?
50:00 Contrarian view: what the market is getting wrong
51:39 Wrap-up
Modo Energy | modoenergy.com

The energy grid needs reliable, carbon-free power around the clock and geothermal might be the most underestimated solution on the table. A century of oil and gas expertise is now being repurposed to unlock heat sitting beneath our feet almost anywhere on Earth, and in doing so, it's also unlocking a new form of long-duration energy storage that requires no mountain, no reservoir, and no battery chemistry.
In this episode, host Alejandro Diego sits down with Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geo Systems. Together they explore how Sage is moving beyond the geological constraints of conventional geothermal, what it takes to engineer a reservoir from scratch, how their underground pressure storage system works like an inverted pumped hydro plant, and why companies like Meta and the US Department of Defense are already signing on.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst
Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter:
https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch
Chapters:
00:00 Next-gen geothermal intro
01:49 Cindy Taff background
04:51 Geothermal opportunity
07:19 Conventional geothermal limits
08:39 How geothermal works
10:38 Geothermal grid baseload
11:44 US heat resource map
13:13 Oil and gas drilling tech
16:50 Discovering underground storage
17:21 Earth Store technology
18:07 Storage capacity explained
19:35 Fast dispatch no degradation
21:42 Pelton turbine explained
23:47 Why viable now
25:30 Energy storage business model
27:12 Target customers
28:27 Development obstacles
29:52 Permitting process
31:36 Meta 150MW deal
33:41 5.5 terawatt potential
36:17 Grid transformation impact
37:49 What drives Cindy
39:16 Direct heating use case
40:30 Sage 2035 milestones
42:20 Energy expansion contrarian view

How a battery gets optimised, from the moment a contract is signed to the millisecond a trade is placed, is still a black box for most people in the industry. Understanding that process is the difference between leaving money on the table and extracting maximum value from every asset.
In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter is joined by Fabrizio Fenu, Head of Business Development at EDF UK. They pull back the curtain on how battery optimisation actually works at scale: how assets are treated fairly across a large portfolio, why merchant, floor and tolling contracts suit different investors, what role AI and algorithms play on a live trading desk, and why co-located solar and battery projects are harder to finance than they look.
Chapters
00:00 Intro: Optimising 5GW
01:18 EDF's Battery Business
01:47 5GW Portfolio Scale
02:25 From 50kW to Commercial
04:44 Inside the Trading Floor
06:22 Winning Big Battery Contracts
08:01 Debt and Revenue Certainty
09:21 Merchant vs Floor vs Toll
11:05 Optimiser Market Consolidation
13:39 AI in Energy Trading
16:10 Energy Careers Advice
17:57 Fair Asset Treatment
19:25 Day-Ahead and Ancillary Markets
22:45 Enduring Auction Capability Explained
25:51 Intraday Pricing and Indexing
28:37 Perfect Battery Asset Quickfire
31:45 Co-location Solar and Battery
35:12 Battery Retrofitting Explained
36:21 Connection Reform and Scale
37:37 Simplify the Energy Industry

The energy grid fails in silence, long before the lights go out. The real problem is that most of the infrastructure keeping the grid alive is inspected too slowly, too infrequently, and with sensors that drift. We pour billions into building new power infrastructure, yet some of our biggest reliability gains might come from simply seeing existing assets more clearly. Quantum sensing promises exactly that, and it is closer to deployment than most people realise.
In this conversation, Alex sits down with Emma Wong, Nuclear Principal Lead for Innovation, Quantum Technologies, and International Engagement at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), to explore how quantum sensing technology could transform grid reliability, reduce costly downtime at nuclear plants, and reshape how we think about energy security, from US utilities to communities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Chapters
00:00 Seeing Problems Early
01:53 EPRI's Mission
03:34 Into Nuclear Innovation
06:27 Quantum Technologies Overview
09:15 How Quantum Sensors Work
12:33 No-Drift Sensing Advantage
15:34 Real World Applications
22:21 Cutting Nuclear Downtime
25:20 Utility Pilot Programs
26:15 Quantum Meets AI
32:29 Key Stakeholders for Quantum
35:37 Nuclear in a Renewable Grid
41:43 Modern Reactor Safety
46:43 G20 Nuclear Summit
48:43 Energy Access in Africa
53:22 Contrarian Energy Take
#Nuclear #QuantumTechnology #EnergyTransition #CleanEnergy #FutureOfEnergy