Transmission

Chris Stark is Head of UK’s Mission for Clean Power, As Head of Mission Control at DESNZ, no one sees the constraint costs, grid bottlenecks and reform of National Pricing trade-offs more clearly.
The UK is building a clean power system at a pace not seen since the 1960s, connecting record volumes of wind and solar while transmission, storage and gas all reshape around them. Constraint costs have hit £7 billion, gas is being squeezed off the system, and the government has just rewritten the rules of the wholesale market.
Chris joins Ed Porter to break down what Mission Control is actually delivering, where flexibility and storage fit into the 2030 plan, and what Reformed National Pricing means for investors, generators and consumers.
They cover:
Why building UK transmission lines takes 8-10 years — and why bringing two projects forward by a year is worth £4bn to consumers.
Why the UK chose to build the grid and the generation simultaneously, and the risks that creates.
Why the strategic spatial energy plan is the biggest energy decision coming in the next 12 months and how it sets up a "build it once" network for the future.
The reform of National Pricing decision, what the wholesale CfD means in practice and how electricity is being de-linked from gas.
Why flexibility is the "forgotten third child" of the energy transition and how dunkelflaute, long-duration storage and household batteries fit into the 2030s system.
Chris's contrarian take on carbon pricing - why he thinks the Treasury's decision to remove the Carbon Price Support from gas signals carbon pricing is "coming down the list of things that matters.”
Want to model how Clean Power 2030, REMA and the wholesale CFD reshape GB power prices? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=chris_stark&utm_content=ko_signup
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⏱ CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
01:09 - What everyone gets wrong about Mission Control
03:00 - Constraint costs as a UK grid health metric
04:30 - Why the £7 billion constraint cost forecast may not land
09:18 - The biggest UK transmission build since the 1960s
10:36 - Sea Link, Norwich to Tilbury and the £4 billion question
15:29 - Building a UK grid ready to double electricity demand by 2050
17:59 - From centralised transmission to flexible, dynamic networks
21:16 - Reform of National Pricing: why the UK said no to zonal
28:48 - Wholesale CfDs and decoupling UK power from gas prices
37:13 - Flexibility, batteries and the forgotten third pillar
42:16 - Markets versus state intervention in UK energy
47:28 - Long duration energy storage and the battery technology race
49:35 - Managing the UK gas fleet down to 5% by 2030
53:21 - Chris's contrarian view: the end of carbon pricing?
55:42 - Closing thoughts
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Germany sits at the centre of Europe's energy transition: over 800 distribution networks, deep intraday markets, and a flexibility gap roughly 40 times its battery fleet. But the real question isn't whether the market is big - it's whether it saturates as battery capacity grows, or scales for years yet.
Philipp Man is co-founder and CEO of Terralayr. He joins Ed Porter to unpack the operational reality of building Germany battery storage at scale, the regulatory tension around grid fees, and the contrarian view that Germany's flexibility market is structurally larger than most forecasts suggest.
They cover:
- Why operating Germany battery storage is harder than capital alone can solve.
- Why Germany's TSOs are positive on BESS, why DSOs are nervous and what regulators need to fix.
- What the Bundesnetzagentur grid-fee review means for the BESS exemption running to August 2029.
- How splitting merchant capacity across multiple optimisers outperforms single-optimiser tolls.
- Why flexibility revenues are convex, dominated by tail events, and structurally larger than forecasts predict.
Want to track Germany's battery storage pipeline, grid-fee changes, or flexibility market data? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_campaign=philipp_man&utm_content=ko_signup
Transcript available here:
⏱ CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:01 What everyone gets wrong about Germany battery storage
04:50 Inside Terralayr's 8 GW pipeline
07:00 German grid fees and the 2029 BESS exemption
11:00 Why DSOs are nervous about battery storage
14:30 Nodal pricing, FCAs and the one-price-zone problem
18:30 How layer's virtual battery auction works
24:30 Will Germany's BESS market saturate
35:30 Markets outside Germany — UK, Spain, Nordics
37:00 Advice for new entrants and the coming consolidation
40:30 Contrarian view: flexibility revenues are convex`
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
Music licensed via Artlist.

Developing battery storage in emerging markets isn't a technology problem - it's a regulatory, offtake, and capital problem. The frameworks, offtake structures, and capital mandates weren't built for storage and that gap is exactly where the risk sits.
Hassen Bali, co-founder and director at Ion Ventures, joins Ed Porter to discuss what it actually takes to develop battery storage projects across markets at very different stages of maturity, from the UK to Southeast Asia.
They cover:
- Why battery storage development demands a different approach to solar or wind and why you have to decide your commercial endpoint before you break ground, not after.
- How project conversion rates in the UK BESS market have dropped from 30–40% in the early days to roughly 10–15% today, and how that affects pipeline management and investor communications.
- Why early-stage BESS markets like Malaysia and the Philippines are still reliant on bilateral offtake and what that means for project bankability.
- Why FCA-regulated investors face hard legal barriers to project finance in sub-investment-grade countries and what that means for who can actually back early-stage BESS projects.
- Hassen's contrarian view: that reform of merit order and legacy thermal contracts is the most direct lever for accelerating energy transition globally even if it means unwinding agreements that investors consider bulletproof.
Want to model BESS revenue across different market structures? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Want to model BESS revenue across different market structures? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up here.
Transcript available here:
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:53 What People Get Wrong About Developing Battery Storage Projects
2:41 BESS Project Development Pipeline: How to Manage Investors and Conversion Rates
5:58 Why Ion Ventures Expanded Into Southeast Asia
7:34 BESS Market Readiness in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei
8:32 Replacing Coal and Diesel: What Southeast Asian Grids Look Like Today
11:35 BESS Project Success Rates in Emerging Markets vs the UK
12:39 Why Bilateral Offtake Models Dominate Early-Stage BESS Markets
15:17 Why Long-Term Contracts Can Actually Help Battery Storage Bankability
16:05 Why Country Risk and OECD Classification Block Capital From Emerging BESS Markets
21:02 Can Emerging Markets Leapfrog to Grid 2.0? The Telco Analogy Explained
22:59 How to Build a Battery Storage Roadmap for a Nascent Grid: Lessons from Bangladesh
30:06 How to Avoid Grid Congestion When Scaling Renewables in Emerging Markets
32:17 Contrarian View: Should Merit Order Reform Unwind Legacy Thermal Contracts?
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Spain has approximately 42GW of utility-scale solar and 50GW when rooftop is included, yet less than 100MW of grid-connected battery storage. In February, solar capture rates hit €1.30 per megawatt hour, a fraction of the €30–35/MWh needed for a solar project to break even. So why hasn't battery storage followed the solar boom and could it be the key to rescuing solar revenues?
Pablo Martinez Serrano, Iberia Industry Lead at Modo Energy, joins Ed Porter to break down why Spain's energy market defies easy assumptions, and what the Iberian blackout changed.
They cover:
- Why Spain's hydro fleet masked the need for batteries for years, and why that's no longer enough as solar saturation bites.
- Why solar developers are earning less and less for every unit of power they generate and what that means for the projects still in the pipeline.
- The co-location thesis: why existing solar asset owners are turning to BESS to fix their generation profile and unlock ancillary service revenue
- What actually caused the Iberian blackout: voltage instability, cascading disconnections, and why the TSO had already flagged the risk
- Spain's new voltage control market: how it works, why priority of dispatch may be more valuable than the reactive service payment itself
Want to model battery revenue stacks in Spain or track Iberian power market dynamics? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://help.modo.energy/en/articles/13335470-ko-your-ai-analyst?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_apps&utm_id=pablo_martinez
⏱ CHAPTERS
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:50 What everyone gets wrong about Spain
00:01:54 Spain's generation mix: solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear
00:04:43 Seasonal demand dynamics and why spring is the problem
00:06:03 Solar capture price collapse: €42 to below €30/MWh
00:08:19 PPA contracts, negative prices and the solar momentum problem
00:11:52 The co-location pivot: why developers are turning to storage
00:13:58 Why Spain has less than 100MW of batteries vs GB's 6GW
00:15:33 Where the money is coming from: two types of investor
00:17:11 The Iberian blackout: what went wrong and why
00:20:04 How Spain is rebuilding grid stability after the blackout
00:21:04 Spain's new voltage control market and what it pays
00:24:43 Grid forming inverters and the future of ancillary services
00:26:38 Contrarian take: Spain hasn't actually decoupled from gas
00:29:15 The three phases of displacing thermal generators
00:30:39 Closing remarks
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Smart EV charging isn't just about saving money on your electricity bill, it's quietly becoming one of the most scalable sources of grid flexibility in Great Britain.
Ohme has run the numbers: incentivising 22,000 customers to plug in more often drove a 32–37% increase in plug-in frequency, unlocking dispatchable flexibility across 60 National Grid events.
In this episode, Ed is joined by Joshua Willetts and Dan Norton from Ohme. Josh is part of Ohme's customer operations team and starts the conversation with a live demo of the Ohme Home Pro, and then Dan Ohme's Commercial Director takes us through a deep dive of the economics, regulation, and long-term potential of smart home charging.
They cover:
- How the Ohme Home Pro works, tethered setup, app pairing, tariff integration, and smart scheduling on Octopus Go and equivalent time-of-use tariffs.
- Why plugging in little and often (rather than running to empty and topping up) is the behavioural shift that unlocks real-world EV flexibility.
- The CrowdFlex trial results: how a 1–3 GBP/week incentive delivered a 32–37% rise in plug-in frequency and fed directly into National Grid dispatch events
- What smart charging regulation, including the Energy Smart Appliance (ESA) framework and load control licensing means for charger manufacturers and aggregators
- How V2G and vehicle-to-home could evolve once older EV fleets start cycling into second-hand markets, and what cultural shifts are needed first
Want to model EV flexibility potential in your market? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://help.modo.energy/en/articles/13335470-ko-your-ai-analyst?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=video&utm_id=ohme
Transcript available here: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/d2135750-c32a-49dd-a218-e3f69cfc48d7
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⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro — Ed Porter, Welcome to Transmission
1:04 Meet Joshua & the Ohme Home Pro
1:52 App Setup, QR Code Pairing & Smart Scheduling
4:44 Why a Box? What's Inside an EV Smart Charger
5:22 Live Demo: Charging a Light Bulb via the Ohme App
7:53 Charge Speed, Battery Times & Little-and-Often Strategy
11:37 Introducing Dan: EV Adoption Stats & the UK Home Charge Market
13:33 Barriers to Home EV Charging Installation
18:44 Home Charging vs. Public Charging: The Economics
20:06 CrowdFlex Explained: Smart Charging as Grid Flexibility
23:11 CrowdFlex Results.
26:32 Smart Charging Regulation: ESA, Load Control & Revenue Certainty
28:43 How Big Could EV Flexibility Get? GB Grid Scale
30:34 Vehicle to Grid (V2G) & Vehicle to Home: What's Coming
34:40 What Would You Change? Flexibility Contracts as Steel in the Ground
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You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter — Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.