Energy Voice – Out Loud

EVOL: Courting wood, grid zombies and Easter wake loss

This week Wood provided updates on Sidara's proposed £250 million takeover, NESO declared war on zombies in the grid queue, and Equinor and Orsted warned of the impacts of wake loss.
Aberdeen-headquartered Wood received a non-binding takeover bid from Dubai-based rival Sidara worth £250m, a significant drop-off compared to last year's £1.5 billion bid. Our reporters discuss this, Wood's shares being suspended and them impacts of yet another Scottish company being bought over by international competitors. 
Next up, the UK's National Energy System Operator (NESO) unveiled plans to get rid of 'zombies' from the grid queue in a collaboration with regulator Ofgem. This could see up to 360GW of projects on the current queue have their contracts downgraded because they are not ready. What does this mean and is it a result of too much dithering from the UK?
Finally, European energy giants Equinor and Orsted have said offshore wind revenues could take a £363m hit due to other projects getting in the way of their turbines. Although those in the Tour de France peloton don't mind the frontrunner taking the brunt of the wind resistance, turbine operators do. Does industry need to share its survey results so all can benefit from the North Sea breeze? 

EVOL: Neo Next speculation, Kistos' island plans, and HAR2 just has to be good

This week we got further updates on the Neo Energy and Repsol tie-up, Kistos' full year results for 2024 and the results of HAR2. Energy Voice's Ryan Duff, Erikka Askeland and Mat Perry discuss.
First up, what's happening at Flotta? Erikka chats about the gas terminal's hydrogen plans and what attracted Neo Energy's private equity backers to the Spanish firm's UK division. Ryan argues that tax incentives from Repsol's extensive decommissioning liabilities may be the answer. 
Next up, Ryan discusses Kistos and its plans to expand the Greater Laggan Area off the west coast of Shetland. The firm has brought attention to the Glendronach field now that operatorship of the area is changing hands. When talking about gas, there has to be a Trump, the trio discusses how US policy is impacting global oil and gas firms. 
Finally, Mat chats about hydrogen and the results of HAR2. Was it perfect? No, but maybe it doesn't need to be. He discusses some of the talking points from a recent conference in Birmingham, which touched on getting hydrogen "good" but it doesn't need to be "perfect" in order to unlock investment. Price is still a sticking point for this fuel source but the government is aiming to tackle this too. 

EVOL X COMET: From criminal to industrial investigations

For 30 years Alan Smith, now head of investigations at COMET, served in the police before turning his attention to industrial investigations.  
Smith sat down with Energy Voice Aberdeen features lead, Ryan Duff, to discuss his career in the police, his shift to the private sector and how his approach to investigations had to change when he left law enforcement.  
“I knew instinctively that when my police career came to an end that I was going to move into the world of industry investigations,” said Smith. 
The self-proclaimed “career investigator” joined what was then called Grampian Police, where he became a detective. Investigating incidents in the North Sea fell under his remit while in the police, something that set him up for a life in industrial investigations. 
Smith’s career post-police work has taken him to various places around the globe to investigate a range of incidents. Listen to Alan Smith’s full conversation with Energy Voice.

Net zero in jeopardy

Stuart Broadley, chief executive, Energy Industries Council (EIC) has called for an “adult conversation” and “honesty” to admit the UK won’t meet it legal obligation to become net zero by 2050 nor will it meet interim low carbon targets in 2030. However, embracing this reality risks a tumbling a “house of cards” of consequences.
Tune into this hard-hitting interview to find out why, instead, the UK must embrace “all energy sectors” or else the economy will a face a severe jobs crisis with entire clean energy sectors such as hydrogen at risk of never happening.

EVOL: Petrofac’s $500m contract, hydrogen and the Net Zero Innovation show

In this week’s episode of Energy Voice Out Loud, Ryan, Mat and Michael discuss Petrofac’s recent $500m contract award. Is it what the company, and the North Sea services sector in general, need to turn their fortunes around? Both could do with some good news.
And then we heard from Mat, who travelled down to Birmingham this week for the Hydrogen UK annual conference, and spoke to the organisation's chief executive Clare Jackson about how the UK sector has progressed in the past year.
And finally, Erikka was at NZTC's Net Zero Innovation show in Aberdeen and spoke to Mark Anderson, chief acceleration officer at the Net Zero Technology Centre, Paul Pirrie, co-founder of show exhibitor and TechX program graduate Myriad Wind Energy Systems, North Sea legend and UK Technology Platform director Colin Black and last but definitely not least Paul Addison, director of policy and external affairs for GB Energy. 

EVOL: More North Sea merger mania

This week’s episode was rocked by the announcement Repsol was merging its North Sea assets with private-equity backed Neo Energy. Energy Voice reporter Mathew Perry explains this is part of a trend for operators to distance themselves from the basin including Shell and Equinor, while Michael Behr confirms this the supply chain is also making marriages of convenience.
One of the big North Sea buyers has been Ithaca Energy, which last year combined with Eni which in turn had absorbed Neptune Energy. Now they are looking at reviving the fortunes of West of Shetland’s Cambo, the basin’s second largest undeveloped oil and gas find and green campaigner bogeyman.
Lastly, news editor Erikka Askeland tackles Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spring statement that wasn’t, at least for the energy industry, and asks if it’s possible for the UK to claim to be a superpower of both clean energy as well as the defence industry. 

EVOL X Scottish Enterprise: It's high tide time for Scotland's energy mix

Scotland is currently leading the world in the development and testing of tidal stream and wave energy technologies. Two of the world’s first tidal stream arrays have been built and operated in Scotland since 2016. Excitement for the sector is also growing since a number of projects have won support through the UK's contracts for difference (CfD) scheme in recent years.
Turn in to hear Energy Voice news editor speak to Johanna Money, energy transition specialist at Scottish Enterprise, about the vast economic and environmental potential for Scotland underneath the water as it develops energy generation technology that is clean and comes from consistent and predictable tides. We also take a trip up to Orkney to speak with Eileen Linklater, corporate affairs director of European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), where conditions are ideal to prove why the tide will wait for no one.

EVOL: Big moves at GB Energy, Italian FLOW and Acorn CCS

This week, the Energy Voice Out Loud team have been out and about to bring you the first word in UK energy.
It’s been a big week for GB Energy, with its first board meeting up in Aberdeen. Jessica Mills Davies, Mat Perry and Michael Behr discuss the proposed state-owned energy company’s ambitions and what it will take to deliver on them.
Reporter Mat recently travelled to Italy to learn more about the country's efforts to become a world leader in floating offshore wind, and what it might mean for UK firms".
And at DeCarbScotland, Michael caught up with Storegga to talk about their Acorn Carbon Capture and Storage development and how it helps underpin the Scottish Cluster of projects and the proposed renovation of Grangemouth.

Energy Voice Live: Where are the green jobs?

The UK energy industry has reached a critical stage of the transition: at stake is the fate of tens of thousands of workers across the UK, including in the North Sea and Grangemouth, who have the skills to deliver the clean energy of the future.
Tune in to the first ever episode of Energy Voice Live, where a live audience interacts with expert panellists who discuss how industry and government have just a few short months to shore up a plan that will close the gap between energy jobs now and those of the future.
Chaired by Energy Voice news editor Erikka Askeland, hear Nick Dunn, chief executive of Peterhead-based energy services firm Score, and Professor Paul de Leeuw from the Robert Gordon University Energy Transition Institute highlight why we need to tell more people about the “biggest replumbing, rewiring, repurposing” of the energy system in the world.
 

Powering Change with SSE episode 3: How EV charging is powering the UK's EV transition

Power up your listening with the latest podcast from Energy Voice.
 
In this latest episode in partnership with SSE, Mathew Perry talks to Deepa Chandrasekaran, managing director of Source, a charging hub joint venture between SSE and TotalEnergies and Vicky Read from ChargeUK, the voice of the EV charging industry. 
Together they explore the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and the sustainable infrastructure needed to keep them on the road - as well as looking under the hood of the Government’s recent consultation into the phase-out of petrol and diesel cars by 2030.