Redefining Energy

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/

Clean Energy equities have comfortably outperformed the major indices in 2025. Laurent and Gerard are joined by friend of the show Shanu Mathew, an equity portfolio manager everyone in the sector knows to unpack what’s really driving this performance. We begin by putting recent returns into a longer-term context — and by flagging an important caveat: some of the strongest results are coming from highly concentrated portfolios. Shanu makes a critical distinction that often gets blurred in market commentary: equipment providers versus sellers of electrons. On one side sit companies like GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, Schneider Electric, Caterpillar — and the surprise guest, Bloom Energy. On the other are utilities and IPPs. The divergence is striking. Equipment manufacturers have gone ballistic; utilities have performed, but at a far more pedestrian pace. The difference, unsurprisingly, is pricing power. Equipment suppliers — particularly those insulated from Chinese competition — have been able to push through aggressive price increases, turbocharged by surging demand from Hyperscalers. Utilities, by contrast, remain constrained by regulation, public scrutiny, and political pressure. The result? Hyperscalers are increasingly looking to self-generation: reciprocating engines, fuel cells, and a growing enthusiasm for frontier technologies such as Enhanced Geothermal and Small Modular Reactors. We walk through these alternatives, examine how public markets are valuing them today, and end where every cycle eventually leads us: Are we in a bubble? Or, as Chuck Prince, then CEO of Citigroup, famously put it on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis:“As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.”

Resilience is the buzzword of the moment—from Gerard’s personal resilience on display in Davos last week to the critical issue of grid resilience. The great Doug Houseman draws a useful distinction between reliability and resilience. “Reliability is about how well you keep the lights on, while resilience is about how quickly you can restore power after an outage.” Over the past year, blackouts caused by extreme weather, human error, and physical attacks have exposed an uncomfortable truth: electricity is no longer invisible background infrastructure. It is the backbone of modern society, and when it fails, everything else quickly follows. To explore these challenges, Laurent and Gerard sit down with Ronny Fiuren, one of the Nordics’ sharpest thinkers on energy. Ronny is the Founder of Mylicia Energy, an executive board member, and a strategic business developer with deep expertise in power markets, energy flexibility, and grid-oriented solutions. Together, they discuss why resilience has evolved from a technical afterthought into a strategic priority, and what recent events across Europe and North America are really telling us about the condition of our power grids. The conversation examines how decentralisation, flexibility, and the use of advanced technologies and AI matter more than ever. It also highlights the need for a shift in mindset, not only among grid operators but also regulators. They explore the value of interconnectors in strengthening power systems, while also unpacking their political dimensions and the strong public emotions that can emerge when electricity prices rise suddenly. Beyond weather-related disruptions and cyber threats, the discussion turns to new risks such as deliberate sabotage and how energy systems can be designed to cope with them. From Scandinavia to the rest of Europe, this is a timely conversation about how to build power systems capable of withstanding shocks in an increasingly electrified and digital world.----Read Ember Europe Electricity Review https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricity-review-2026/

Heat pumps sit at the heart of Europe’s strategy to cut emissions and reduce dependence on imported gas. Under the EU’s REPowerEU plan, the bloc is targeting 60 million heat pumps by 2030. By the end of 2025, almost 30 million units were already installed — progress, but still only halfway to the goal.Gerard and Laurent are joined by Paul Kenny, Director General of the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA), to unpack why adoption has surged in countries such as Japan, Scandinavia and parts of the US, while many European markets continue to lag.After a strong year in 2022, European heat pump sales slowed in 2023 and 2024 amid high upfront costs, a shortage of qualified installers, weaker policy support and an unfavourable price relationship between gas and electricity. Paul explains why confidence is returning in 2025, with 1m heat pumps sold across 13 European countries in the first half of 2025, a 9% increase on 2024.We also look beyond residential heating to the rapid rise of industrial heat pumps, which could become a major decarbonisation tool for sectors requiring heat below 200°C, including food processing and pharmaceuticals. The conversation explores how heat pumps can add flexibility to the power system, in some cases reducing the need for battery storage, and why data centre heat management is emerging as a key new application.As the leading voice of Europe’s heat pump industry, EHPA is working to make heat pumps the preferred technology for sustainable heating and cooling — strengthening Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and energy security in the process.-----At Redefining Energy, we are excited to be part of International Energy Week, where some of the biggest names in global energy come together for a packed agenda tackling the ideas, technologies, and policies shaping the future. ENGIE's CEO Catherine MacGregor will be speaking, as well as IEA Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol and Shell's CEO Wael Sawan. Join us there and get 20% off your ticket with the promo code REIEWEEK20. https://www.ieweek.co.uk/--Finally, Gerard and Laurent are invited by Jan Rosenow, professor of energy and climate policy at Oxford university and an energy policy expert, for a live session at Oriel College in Oxford on 25/2/26.

Happy New Year energy nerdsAs tradition demands (and lawyers insist), the first episode of the year is the annual ritual where Gerard, Laurent, and Michael boldly predict the future of the energy transition… and then publicly roast themselves for last year’s bad calls.Before unleashing our 2026 Predictions, we do a mandatory rewind to the crystal-ball disasters of 2025: The 2025 prophecy graveyard:US oil production down in 2025 (MB — bold, brave… wrong)Oil at $40/bbl in 2025 (GR — oof)Geopolitics + broken supply chains + energy chaos = a better, more innovative world (LS — still hoping)A bloodbath for hydrogen in transportation (MB — disturbingly accurate)Record installs: Solar 700GW, EVs 20m, Batteries 200GWh (spot on)The death of all things labelled ESG, Climate, and Carbon (LS — prematurely optimistic)Scorecard: Gerard absolutely nailed Silver: from $30/oz to $60/oz in 18 months. BP technically survived 2025… but welcomed a new CEO, so partial credit at best.Michael wins overall, which he will remind us of repeatedly. After heroic levels of co-host sabotage, Laurent loses again, as is now canon.Our 2026 Predictions:🔥 China battery systems at $40/kWh, full-system LFP (MB)🔥 Half of all announced datacenters will never be built — welcome to the credit + grid crisis (LS)🔥 Wind and solar installs DOWN in 2026 vs 2025 (GR — spicy)🔥 20GW of solar in Africa in 2026 (MB)🔥 The GhG Protocol revision fight gets ugly, personal, and possibly litigious (LS)🔥 LNG glut creates stranded assets everywhere: flat demand, too much supply, tears on spreadsheets (GR)And yes, plenty more hot takes, bruised egos, and inconvenient truths to kick off the year the right way.🎙️ Welcome to 2026. Let’s redefine energy.