Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change19 Aug

The Next Frontier of Electrification? Industrial Heat | Ep271: James Macnaghten

Around the world, factories making food, drink, pharmaceuticals and other everyday products rely on steam, often produced by fossil-fuel boilers. James Macnaghten, founder and CEO of Caldera, is betting that thermal batteries can provide a cheaper and more flexible alternative that stores electricity as heat, and delivers steam on demand.

This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington visits Caldera's factory to see how it makes its heat batteries: combining recycled aluminium and iron ore pellets to create a long-lasting, efficient heat store. The technology is designed for industrial processes up to 200°C, which James sees as a major opportunity for electrification.

They discuss how thermal storage can help factories manage peaks in demand, use electricity when it is cheap or abundant, and reduce pressure on congested grids. They also explore Caldera's plans to scale, its journey from domestic heating to industry, and why James believes a more pragmatic approach to electrification is needed.

Topics discussed in this episode:

The hidden opportunity in industrial heat
How Caldera's heat batteries work
Why steam still matters
Heat pumps and thermal storage
Managing industrial demand spikes
Turning surplus power into heat
Scaling a UK climate-tech company
The case for pragmatic electrification

Leadership Circle:

Cleaning Up is proud to be supported by its Leadership Circle. The members are Actis, Alcazar Energy, Arup, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Cygnum Capital, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Schneider Electric, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information about the Leadership Circle, visit cleaningup.live

Links:

James Macnaghten’s bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-macnaghten
Caldera: https://www.caldera.co.uk/
Professor Ning Li on Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCUASv01bVY
Subscribe to our newsletter: https://cleaninguppod.substack.com/
JVs - Joint Ventures
IP - Intellectual Property

Chapters:

00:00: Intro
01:53: About Caldera Batteries
03:42: Heat Storage
09:47: Caldera Factory Tour
14:40: Funding Caldera
17:44: Scaling Up
25:37: Thermal Storage
29:02: Energy Price Shocks
30:27: Flexible Demand
35:22: UK Success Story
37:32: Outro

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(301)

How Much Better Can Solar Get? Deep Dive Australia 08: Martin Green

Solar was once dismissed as a marginal technology. Today, it is transforming the global energy system, and few people have done more to make that possible than Professor Martin Green. Innovations deve...

17 Aug 52min

AI Has An Electricity Problem | Ep270: Arshad Mansoor

Will AI break the grid? As hyperscalers race to build ever-larger data centres, electricity demand is soaring. The question is no longer whether power demand will grow, but by how much, how quickly, a...

12 Aug 1h 8min

How Renewables Are Replacing Australia's Ageing Coal Fleet | Deep Dive Australia 07: Paul Simshauser

Australia has one of the world's fastest-moving electricity systems. It leads the world in rooftop solar, has deployed grid-scale batteries at extraordinary speed, and is now starting to replace its a...

10 Aug 48min

The Unseen Agents of Climate Change | Ep269: David Kirchman

Microbes rarely feature in discussions about climate change, yet they play a central role in regulating greenhouse gases through the Earth's carbon, methane and nitrogen cycles. As the climate changes...

5 Aug 1h 2min

Why The Transition Hasn't Made Australians Rich Yet | Deep Dive Australia 06: David Pocock

David Pocock is one of Australia's most influential politicians, working as the Senator of the Australian Capital Territory. He brings a distinctive perspective to some of the country's biggest debate...

3 Aug 52min

The Crisis Forcing An Energy Revolution | Ep268: Jonathan Maxwell

The UK is heavily exposed to global energy markets and has some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. At the same time, vast amounts of heat generated across industry and infrastructure go unus...

29 Juli 1h 8min

Can Australia Become A Clean Tech Superpower? Deep Dive Australia 05: Ross Garnaut

Across huge swathes of the global economy, clean solutions are already cheaper than their fossil alternatives, and so a carbon price isn’t needed. But in other sections of the economy, the costs of gr...

27 Juli 57min