Energy Unplugged by Aurora

This week on Energy Unplugged, Hugo Batten, Managing Director of Aurora APAC, and Arthur Yanagisawa, Head of Advisory for Japan at Aurora Energy Research, are joined by Virginie Sandilya, Chief Investment Officer of Shizen International and Head of Project Finance for the Shizen Energy Group. 

Japan knows it needs batteries. The question is whether the market can build them fast enough. 

Inve...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Laura Picardo, Aurora Energy Research's Advisory Lead for Mexico, is joined by William Judd, Manager – Origination & Execution, LatAm at Cubico Sustainable Investments. 

After years of limited renewable deployment, Mexico's energy transition is moving again. 

New investment mechanisms, major regulatory reforms, and ambitious deployment targets are creating fresh momentum in one of ...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Caroline Still, Aurora Energy Research's Market Lead for South Africa, is joined by Jan Fourie, CEO of Mulilo. 

Just a few years ago, South Africa's priority was clear: end load shedding. Today, the challenge looks very different. 

As private investment accelerates and the South African Wholesale Electricity Market (SAWEM) begins to take shape, the industry is shifting its foc...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Lara Panjkov, Aurora Energy Research's Head of Research for APAC, and Zelin Chen, Aurora's Market and Research Lead for China, are joined by Anders Hove, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. 

For years, the story of China's energy transition was one of scale: more solar, more wind, more batteries, more transmission. 

Now the challenge is changing. 

As renew...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Oliver Kerr, Aurora Energy Research's Managing Director for North America, is joined by Declan Flanagan, CEO of Blue Star Energy Capital. 

For much of the past decade, renewable energy development was shaped by abundant capital, falling technology costs, and ever-growing pipelines. Today, the industry is operating in a very different environment. 

Demand growth ...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Marc Hedin, Head of Research for Western Europe & Africa at Aurora Energy Research, is joined by Rachel Fletcher, Director of Regulation & Economics at Octopus Energy, to tackle a question at the heart of Britain’s energy debate: why are electricity bills so high, and what would it take to bring them down? 

As the UK pushes ahead with electrification, Rachel argues that the challeng...

For much of the past decade, the challenge was clear: deploy clean technologies at scale. Wind and solar needed to become...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Oliver Kerr, Aurora Energy Research’s Managing Director for North America, is joined by Arushi Sharma Frank, Founder of Luminary Strategies and one of the leading thinkers shaping the future of power markets in the age of AI. 

As data centre demand surges across the United States, electricity has become a critical constraint on growth. The challenge is no longer simply building more infrast...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Rodrigo Borges, Aurora Energy Research’s Market Lead for Brazil, is joined by Carla Primavera, Deputy Managing Director at BNDES, the Brazilian Development Bank. BNDES has been central to Brazil’s energy transition, financing renewables from early utility-scale wind and solar to the next generation of low-carbon technologies. 

Brazil’s power market is entering a new phase. Wind ...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Oliver Kerr, Aurora Energy Research’s Managing Director for North America, is joined by Seyed Madaeni, Co-Founder and CEO of Verse. Drawing on decades of experience in power markets, energy storage, and grid software, Seyed shares his perspective on one of the biggest challenges facing the energy sector today: how to power the AI revolution. 

As data centre development accelerates acr...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Richard Howard, Aurora Energy Research's Global Research Director, is joined by Georgina Hallett, Chief Sustainability Officer & Head of Physical Markets at the London Metal Exchange (LME). The Energy Transition is often described as a shift from fossil fuels to clean electricity. But behind every solar panel, wind turbine, battery and transmission line sits another story - one built from copper, ...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Richard Howard, Aurora Energy Research’s Global Research Director, is joined by Christina Rentell, Research Lead for Aurora’s French and Iberian power markets. Drawing on her expertise in renewable energy, battery storage, market design, and electricity system modelling, Christina helps explain what really caused the April 2025 Iberian blackout and what it means for pow...

This week on the Energy Unplugged podcast, Richard Howard, Global Research Director, Aurora is joined by Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council, to discuss the state of the global solar industry and the opportunities and challenges that come with its rapid growth. 

The conversation explores why solar deployment is experiencing a temporary slowdown in some markets despite continued long-term growth, the impact ...

In this episode of Energy Unplugged, two of Aurora’s energy market experts, Dan Monzani, Managing Director for UK, Ireland and South Africa, and Caroline Still, Market Lead - South Africa, examine one of the most ambitious electricity market reform programmes underway anywhere in the world. 

Their conversation examines South Africa’s transition from a vertically integrated, state-led power system towards a competit...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Richard Howard, Aurora Energy Research’s Global Research Director, is joined by Jan Rosenow, Energy Programme Lead, Jackson Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at Oxford University. 

Drawing on his latest research, Jan explores the concept of the “primary energy fallacy” - the mistaken assumption that the clean energy transition requires...

This week on the Energy Unplugged podcast, Casimir Lorenz, Managing Director for Central Europe at Aurora Energy Research, is joined by Aurélie Alemany, CEO of enercity, to explore one of the most pressing questions facing Germany's energy transition: how can the country solve its growing grid congestion challenge? 

Aurélie became CEO of enercity in July 2024, taking over as Chair of the Board of Management of the Hanover-base...

This week on Energy Unplugged, Joshua Margulies, Aurora’s Market Lead for France, is joined by Olivier Jacquemin, Head of Power Revenues at Amarenco, one of Europe’s leading independent power producers focused on solar PV and battery storage. With more than 20 years of experience across the energy sector, Olivier has played a key role in Amarenco’s expansion into the French battery storage market an...

This week on the Energy Unplugged podcast, Richard Howard is joined by Devrim Celal, Chief Marketing & Flexibility Officer, Kraken to explore how flexibility, AI and distributed energy resources are reshaping the future of electricity systems. 

Devrim oversees flexibility and product capabilities at Kraken, the cloud-based platform that optimizes and orchestrates distributed energy resources including EVs, b...

Recorded live at the Aurora Spring Forum 2026, this episode of Energy Unplugged features John Feddersen, Founder & CEO of Aurora Energy Research, in conversation with Lord John Browne of Madingley - former CEO of BP and one of the most influential figures in global energy and industrial innovation; currently serving as the Chairman of BeyondNetZero and co-Chair of the UK Prime Minister’s Council on Science ...