From 50 to 500MW: How to Manage Mega-Projects - EDF

Imagine running a fleet of taxis. Some are small, some are electric. Some can drive all day, others need to stop and recharge after a few hours. Every morning, you decide where to send each car, airport runs, city centers, surge pricing, knowing traffic, weather, and demand will all change by the hour. Now imagine doing that, not with taxis, but with five gigawatts of batteries.

Our guest today is Fabrizio Fenno, who leads battery route to market and optimization at EDF Wholesale Market Services.

In Britain, EDF already has two gigawatts of batteries live under management with three gigawatts more due to energize by twenty twenty eight.

At the same time, the projects themselves have changed. What used to be a twenty or fifty megawatt site are now one hundred, three hundred, or even five hundred megawatts. So what does optimization actually look like at that scale?

This episode is about how battery revenues are really made and who is optimizing these massive storage systems.

I'm Ed Porter. Welcome back to transmission.

Hello, Fabrizio. Welcome to transmission.

Hi, Ed. Thanks for inviting. I'm a bit nervous about being here. You had such great guest in all the life of the podcast. I'm really humble. Thank you.

And let's continue that tradition with another great guest. So could you introduce yourself and your company?

My name is Fabrizio Fenum. I'm the head of business development and account management services for EDF business and wholesale market services.

Okay. And EDF is massive. Right? So what is your area and what do they do?

So in our area, we trade energy in the real time market, in the shorter term. In particular, the area I work, with, we trade the energy for, batteries. So we trade energy and we do optimize batteries.

Now that team has a wider scope because obviously being a TDF that we trade energy in the real time market also for the energy that we procure from renewable, the energy that other my other supplier can they need to trade it. Let's do it.

Okay. And then go into so are you optimizing just your own assets or are you optimizing another party's assets?

We optimize mainly third party's asset, but we optimize also some asset owned by EDF Power Solution, which is a separate company of EDF investing in their portfolio. They're a significant partner, but it means for us about ten percent of our fleet.

Okay. And ten percent of fleet. So, let's give listeners some idea of, like, how big that fleet is. So how many batteries have you got that are currently running, and how many batteries have you got under contract that are soon to deploy?

At the moment, we have contracted about five gigawatt of batteries.

About two gigawatt are already live, which means it's about twenty percent of market share. The remaining part is going to be energized between now and twenty twenty eight if everything goes as planned and there are no any delays because in this industry, there are no delays, never.

That yeah. Yeah. Like, of course, that that is the biggest portfolio under management. Right? So let's let's just talk about that. So how did you get there?

What do you think the the secret sauce has been in terms of being able to put that portfolio together?

Well, we started in twenty eighteen. At that time, we were doing some testing with, but it was very small, fifty kilowatt, installed in one of the EDF facilities, and we kept it obviously we we couldn't see any service with a battery like that. So we kept it to a to test, wholesale market. At the time, revenues in the battery space were coming mainly from ancillary and, FFR or a firm frequency response. But we wanted to prove the case for the wholesale market, so we, and how the battery work with the wholesale market, so we start testing, with this small asset. From the time we started to, onboard commercial asset, the first one was co located ten megawatt battery and solar. And after that, we expanded the portfolio quite quickly.

And that's that's a big step up. Right? Because, like, fifty kilowatts is like fifteen to twenty kettles worth, that's tiny.

Then ten megawatts That's more than a mobile.

Yeah, exactly, it's then just a massive step up, right? And then you're into the commercial optimisation, you're doing this for real, for big sums of money.

Yeah, Imagine, like, we we've grown with partnership with several investors.

We went quite wide with the number of people we were dealing with instead of focusing only in a very deep relationship with one counterparty or another. Also, because at the time, there was not it was not easy to understand who would have grown the most. So we partnered with many player.

Some have grown massively in in the meantime.

If you think how I've grown, like, it's been a significant journey also for for us together with them.

Agree. And let's just give some context to this. Right? So you've got these partnerships in place.

If I'm someone who this is the first time I'm hearing about batteries and optimization. Firstly, welcome to transmission. You're gonna find a lot of this content here. But secondly, like, when when they walk into the the the trading, like, room and the trading floor, are they gonna see sort of one algorithm working away in the background sort of seamlessly solving everything?

Or are there still those sort of energy trader heads, like, working away, hammering keys, talking to people all the time around what's happening in the market? Like, what's what's the balance?

It's a bit of a mix of different functions. So we we have created a platform called PowerShift, which is a mix of capabilities, tracking trading capabilities, software, operation capabilities, asset management capabilities because all these elements are important then to extract the revenue from from the batteries. If you walk into the trading desk, you will see obviously where there are the traders, this massive screen. We have a lot of information about the market and all the volume that moves around. The algorithm, you don't really see it because obviously it's embedded in in in the machines. In in terms of structure, there is operation team, making sure that the asset has the right characteristic and is treated respecting the right characteristics. And, there is optimization making sure that with the right characteristic, we maximize the revenue.

And I think I did cut you off a little bit earlier around how you built up that portfolio just in terms of how you got to the size. So we talked about the very small site. We then talked about a sort of ten megawatt colocated site. Then we talked to making partnerships and that's starting to grow and some of those groups have gone really big.

But it feels like there are still some holes in getting to five gigawatts contracted. They still feel like there are some some big chunky projects that you had to win. So how are you are you going to get those big contracts through the door?

So I think it's fair to say early days, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, batteries were from twenty to fifty megawatt each. Yep. Then there has been a change in the regulation, in the application for the planning, where you could actually go beyond the fifty megawatt without, a lot of extra admin work. So people took the chance to actually go bigger on on some projects, and we started to see the size of the project growing. It's also fair to say that early days, we were doing pretty much fifty fifty between floor agreement and merchant agreement.

With the size of the project getting bigger and probably project financing requirement or some equity requirement, the investor wanted to have more revenue certainty, so they contracted with EDF or other companies that could provide that revenue certainty even more. So it's it's a mix of working with many different investors and the project that they were developing and, building getting bigger and bigger. Today, the largest we have contracted is five hundred megawatt, To give you a scale is Yeah.

It's huge. Two hour system?

In that case, yes. But we start to see also, like, three hour systems, some four hour system. So this market is changing quite quickly in terms of the configuration of the site.

It's really interesting you've got the sort of as as the sites get bigger, the type of people that finance those sites go from being the early stage enthusiasts who might have a lot of equity they were looking to put in but actually you're starting to get the infrastructure funds coming in, people who want to put debt into projects and when debt turns up into projects, the only thing they want to know is are they gonna get repaid and so if EDF sits behind the project and says I will put a floor in place that will make sure you get forty thousand pounds per megawatt per year, that for them is like you know they can kind of get behind that and that allows them to put more debt into these projects which makes the cost of financing cheaper.

And so just to kind of explain that for listeners that kind of that's Totally right.

That's the the process going on.

I think In certain cases, also I have to say that sometimes it's even the equity.

So it's not necessarily because of the debt. In some case, the investor, it's himself, require for preferences, bottom in terms of revenue. And in that case, we are happy to provide the floor.

Yeah. And and and we're kind of we've kind of snuck into the conversation, right, that you take merchant, so there is not a sort of underwritten process in that contract. And so the revenue could be anything. It won't be anything. That's not how markets work, but like It could be. It could be in theory.

And then you've got the the floor. So essentially EDF is saying right, there's a floor to this. So if the revenue goes below that floor, we'll top it up. Yes. There's another type of contract out there which is a toll and that is effectively when you say look, we'll just take all of the risk of the asset and guarantee you a hundred, whatever the number is. You like the first two, but you don't like tolls. Why why is that?

First thing, at the moment. At the moment. You never know.

It can be that we meet in six month time, and maybe we we have changed our preferences. But at the moment, we started offering merchant and floor. We think it was a very solid offer. It's quite simple to understand, and we are happy at the moment to work in that way.

I think there is need of for for tolling because I recognize in some negotiation with, some counterparty, even on floor, they want certain kind of certainty and guarantee that we can't offer. The floor is okay, but it gives you certain guarantee. It allows you to capture high revenue when they are available, but it's set in a certain way. If you need the kind of guarantee that a tolling provides, then you need to go for a tolling, but then you need to give up the higher part of the revenue when, when they materialize, obviously.

No. So you you need to choose which kind of commercial configuration you want. Now the beauty of this market is that even today, there is space for everyone. People are still contracting on merchant, are contracting on floor, they are contracting on tolling.

And I only see new a new player actually coming to the market and offering these products.

I'm not sure there is space for everyone. I think that gets said quite a lot and it's said quite a lot in the battery space as well. People say stuff like we need all technologies, we need all types of storage. And I think maybe like ten years ago, of that was true, we needed to see and kind of find out which texts were coming through. If I fast forward ten years, I think about like who are the entities who can actually provide like a floor contract or a toll contract, like it's actually not everyone, Like, it is some of the big players are gonna have to do it.

You have to have a hundred million or a billion in your balance sheet, right, to be able to do this.

I I agree with that. But if you think like twenty eighteen, there were probably five route to market provider including us. Not more than that. And probably four of them were software techie company that then have been bought little by little by or bigger fund or utility. Yeah.

For example, Kiwi Power NG.

Yeah. Or one we've seen probably last week.

Of course, flex electricity were sold from Quinn Brook, an infrastructure fund, to drugs.

So I think that there is a kind that there has been a kind of natural consolidation of the market.

But if I look at the number of other player that came in providing floor or tolling

Well, that number is quite has increased quite a lot. Now, obviously, when you provide a tolling, probably it's easier for a new entrant to, come and say, I'm happy to pay this amount for your asset, no matter what I do with with the asset. If you offer a floor, that conversation is more difficult because you need to have track record, proven track records. Fortunately, we have because we are trading since about since twenty eighteen. So we we are we are in a good place for that. But I think that is particularly important. The performance, when you have a merchant or a floor agreement are really like the most important thing.

And there are other ways around this, right? So to disagree with myself around like it being a closed market, there are some tech providers who are able to go and find another party who can help out on like providing some security. So there are other routes, it just gets more complicated. And I think we'll see this in other markets as well. So I think TB is quite far ahead, but then we go into say Germany, for example, all of a sudden, I think these questions are gonna start to be asked quite quickly in terms of who can actually put together a really compelling floor or toll offering and can they actually back it up because those credit risk teams are on the ball. Okay.

Let's move on from that and let's let's talk a little bit about one of the major major themes in energy and I think broadly across the sort of working world and that is sort of the use of AI.

I'm really interested to kind of look a little bit under the bonnet of EDF is is how do how do you think about AI? Do you when you walk past the trading desk, do we see sort of ChachiBT, Claude running away?

It's a robot.

There is actually a robot.

There's an official robot that's doing it.

Humanoid actually doing the training. Well, we love AI, we love algorithm because, they help a lot making this work better.

They reduce the possibility of mistakes, of human error quite a lot. We still don't believe in the fully algo or a hundred percent algoly Yeah. Way of managing, the trading.

So you've got human in the loop always.

There is a human in the loop. Yes. But we use AI and algorithm in many different element of the chain. It don't give away too much, but we we use it on, price forecasting. We use it on the optimization and re optimization of the asset in the intraday. We use it on certain pricing for certain markets. So it's it's heavily in the mix of generating the the value.

We don't believe it can be done only by that. Okay. Also because and who procure the ancillary services or the energy who is on the other side of the trade is not a perfect algo. So it's very difficult to, have an algorithm who can or even if it's driven with machine learning That can learn how the buyer behaves, especially in a context where it changes every year, you have new services every year, you have new composition, new generation mix every year. So we don't think it perfectly applies yet. But it's becoming more and more, present in all the chain of generating the value.

So this may be a little bit of a leading question.

Right? But let's look at Fabrizio age sixteen and say, if you were to give him advice knowing what you know about how the workplace is changing, the tech is changing, know, you've seen under the bonnet of this. Right? So what advice would you give to Fabrizio to get into the trading world or the origination world?

Stop everything you're doing, go learning, writing, and coding, and go work for a hedge fund. Okay. This would be my advice.

But well And if there's a burning passion to get into energy?

Well, I believe that a lot of them are actually into energy. So can be used, but still better than badly for them.

It's interesting you say coding. Right? I I feel like it's becoming less a valuable skill. The better the yeah. Yeah. The the better the things like Claude become, the less you need to know this.

And so perhaps it's more like being very familiar with those tools that's such a critical part of how some of these trading floors are gonna work in the future.

I agree, but I've I'm not too sure. Like, looking at the, how to say, the job market like them, I have a lot of friends working in the coding industry, in the software industry.

They're doing alright. They're doing okay.

Okay. Okay. So let me ask a question that I think gets asked all the time to originators, which is how do you ensure that my asset gets oh, like, let's say there's a really good price out there. How how do you make sure that my asset gets a good price?

I don't know if to really thank you for the question, Ed. Yes. No. You're right.

So we get this question asked a lot. Would say that people are always very concerned that, we treat them fairly. They don't want to be, over overlooked. Is it English?

Yeah. Overlooked. But but but that's totally fair. Right? So so you you have all these trading screens, you have all these traders, you know so much and they are experts in asset development and they just kind of brought it to the point where it's operational. Right? So you can see where the the balance or the the sort of you you hold all the cards.

So let me try. Can go a bit technical here and there, but let's So first thing, not every asset are the same. In our portfolio, there are some very, early days, thirty minutes asset. Some distribution connected asset, transmission connected asset, some two hour, two hour and a half, three hour. Some asset that can run one cycle and a half per day. Some asset can run three cycle per day. Some asset have warranty condition, like, just yearly maximum number of cycle.

And so when you're then, like, working out the price for those, they're sort of set they're distinct by price anyway. So Yes. So you kind of know which order they go in.

Yes. We do the strategy per each asset one by one, taking into account the asset characteristic. This is, a couple of days before the delivery. Okay?

So the asset characteristic drives what are the cost opportunity of each asset in each market in the hypothetical world that the strategy, the optimization team sees a couple of days before the delivery. Then we enter into the delivery the day before. We bid on day ahead, and ancillary services, and this start to, generate the profile of the batteries. And then we complete the optimization of the battery for the other time where we didn't lock, the battery at the head stage, operating them into the, into the market or balancing mechanism or cash out subject to each site configuration.

There's Coming back Well, let's let's just pause there because there's a lot of things that have just have just kind of come through.

So the day ahead market, that's got a lot of volume in it.

That's where a lot of the energy market in the UK balances. And so there's plenty of volume coming through. So in that case, probably quite straightforward.

Yeah. So in that case, for example, you probably don't even need to think about which asset will get this megawatt because in reality, there's enough liquidity for everyone. Let's do ancillary services. In ancillary services, it's more shallow. That market is a bit more restricted.

But again There are fewer gigawatts being procured.

Yeah. Yes.

But they the volume changes every day.

This where the asset characteristic also have a role.

If you have a one hour duration battery, you will price yourself out or too high on certain services in terms of pound per megawatt because certain services requires the battery to behave in a certain way and have a certain element of capacity instead of the power. Yes. Where if you have a such if you have a short battery, it's better for you not to bid for those services.

So you will orient the strategy towards the other.

The service requires you to hold buffers on either side. And so if you're like an hour system, it's very hard to be able to bid competitively, whereas if you're a two hour or four hour system, the buffers are relatively smaller portions and so it's easier to bid competitively.

Potentially, yes. By that stage, the optimization team also check what are what is the cost opportunity to stay into that service. So when they do the strategy is an evaluation of the asset characteristic and the cost opportunity that that asset with that asset characteristic has in all the markets, and they price all the markets with that.

Okay?

So they in they had we you you wouldn't see problem of liquidity. Ancillary, National Grid has become much much better in buying ancillary services and, make sure that the frequency on the grid is, balanced so that we avoid the bigger problem.

They've launched something that's called Yak in the in the slang.

So the enduring auction capability? Yes. Very exciting.

Yes. It's fantastic. Now when it has been introduced, the price has plumped a bit. It's bad for the battery, great for the community because it was a way for, Nizo to actually manage in a more efficient way the grid has been. So it has been a great achievement.

So so one example would be they have two exactly the same services or pretty similar services. One is ten megawatts short, it needs ten megawatts and the other one's oversubscribed by ten megawatts. The way it used to work is that you NISO couldn't move ten megawatts from one to the other. The way the EAC works is that you could now say, actually, I can see I've got ten megawatts over here that's really cheap. I'm just gonna move that over and there we go. And all of a sudden, clearing prices come down as you as you mentioned, and that's good for consumers. Right?

Absolutely. Yes. And the fun what I find fantastic is that this happened because the trader, the route to market provider, can set certain baskets of offer. So that is not sending anymore just one price for one services, but can send up to, I think, twenty five basket per each asset, which means you provide the operator with a lot of optionality on how to use your asset. And then it's Nizo actually defining what is the best basket for the needs that they have. Yeah. So, again, coming back to your question, Nizo is making that decision now on which asset to pick up.

So you create the prices, but Nizo, the system operator is essentially selecting one. You're doing very well so far, but let's get into intraday and the balancing mechanism because I think this is where it gets a little bit more spicy.

It gets a bit more spicy. Yeah. So balancing the balancing mechanism, again, relatively easy.

The route to market provider will provide a price to charge a bit or discharge a bit or charge a bit less or discharge a bit less. Yeah.

You you always give, like, bid offer pairs. Right? So you to go up or to go down, that allows the system operators to know what the price of flexibility is in either direction.

Perfect. And all this is perfectly transparent. So so when we bid in balancing mechanism, we provide the national greeting with information about when we plan to, do our charge, our discharge, and what is our price for being, to to modify our behavior, whatever nasal can require to, charge a bit more or discharge a bit in certain situation to deviate from what was our baseline.

All this information are public, so every customer can actually then challenge us asking why my asset had, this strategy while another had a different strategy, and we're very happy to, explain the reason behind.

Typically, it will go back again to, asset characteristic, potentially, asset utilization and, other element of the trading strategies.

Okay.

Let's go on to intraday.

Intraday intraday is in reality the only one the only element where you don't have a perfect visibility Because it's not, I don't believe it's fully transparent somewhere.

So someone who's trading each day will see a screen and they'll see a load of offers, like five offers that'll have slightly different prices and then five bids that'll have slightly different prices.

And you could kind of you could hit the offer, you could hit the bids or you could wait to be sort of taken, but there's not sort of ten gigawatts going through in one go Yeah.

In the same way that happens in their head. Often, it's like a fifty megawatt trade.

Yeah. And potentially, you have two way to to work in that scenario.

Or you, you can trade allocate, so you can directly, allocate that specific trade that happen, that single megawatt hour from one counterparty to another at a certain price.

Then you will get the challenge of have I got I'm I'm the customer. Have I got the best trade in your portfolio or you gave me the bottom one because, actually, I negotiated a very cheap price with you. So we have bypassed all these. We had in mind since day one that we wanted to go big.

So we have created, an index. So at the moment, at the intraday, we settle on the basis of an index. All our customer get one single price per the half hour, is the way we found to, make sure that it's absolutely fair between the team. And we take some risks because we can potentially trade better than the index.

We can trade worse than the index. It happened both. Yeah. So but but we think it's the cleanest way to manage a lot of different counterparties.

Okay. Thank you, Fritzia. I know that's a really tricky question, and you've done a really good job of kinda walking us through.

So No.

No. Hope so. It's it's always very complicated. The the reality for me, if I'm the the buyer, all this is fantastic, but this is technical.

There are way commercially to manage it. You can, work in the agreement where you will have benchmarking in the agreement. You will have requirement to be treated fairly. We also, provide the customer with regular session where we actually navigate them through what we have done, and that helps a lot. Because in the end, it's big relationship of trust.

The route to market provider is in charge of practically all the revenue of the project for the investor. So it's normal that the investor will want to scrutinize how you're actually trading their position.

Okay. I'm gonna change gears here and I'm gonna go to a quick fire round. Right? So you've seen a lot of assets come through your doors and I'm gonna try and find out what that perfect asset looks like for you. So let's get started. Would you like a small asset ten to fifty megawatts or large hundred megawatts plus?

At the moment, we would prefer a large asset. Say a hundred plus, so we prefer.

Okay. And then, short duration, so anything like sub two hours, or are you going long duration four hours plus?

Not plus.

So for us, depends on on the investor in the end because the the investor give us the asset to, to trade. We have seen a switch in twenty twenty five quite rapid from two hour to three hour, some four hour. We have contracted the first three hours. And what do you want? Modeling.

I think it's probably a very good question. I would say at the moment, probably, we will prefer a three hour or a four hour. But mainly because we have already contracted some two hour and one hour. It's Bit of variety in the portfolio.

Yeah. Okay. Transmission connected or distribution connected?

The reality is that the asset are becoming more transmission connected compared to distribution.

Just statistically, we are seeing more transmission, so I would say transmission.

Yeah. And you're a hundred megawatts plus anyway. So you you've already been selected for that category. Okay. Lithium systems or or something else?

Something else. Why not? Something else. But but people continue to do the project that reach FEED, the the project that reach final investment decision are all done with Leafy Mine at the moment.

So Okay.

And then in terms of the length of agreement, do you like sort of the three year terms like a shorter merchant optimization or something like a ten year floor? Like, what what would be your preference?

We like both.

We like both. We we we want to have a mix in in the fleet. We don't want to have only one product. So for us, on this, I can't choose on this one.

Either way. Okay. And then is that asset do you want it to be going live in six months or do want it to be going live in three years time?

We definitely prefer probably one month.

One month. Okay. Let's get this thing live. And then last question, do you want it to be standalone? So a single asset, one battery per site, or do you wanna do a colocated asset? So batteries and solar.

That that's tricky.

We love both. I think that actually about ten percent of our fleet is colocated. Now a lot of collocation are going live really as we speak or will go live in the next months. But we we have a team that does also the power purchase agreement for the renewable part. So we really love both.

Okay. Okay. So let's let's wrap that up. So you want a hundred megs and then something that's three to four hours, transmission connected, new tech.

I think you said either three years or ten years going live in one month time and you didn't give an answer on standalone or collocated. No. It's okay.

With one and the other. We love both.

You're one of those assets, then Fabrizio is the person to get in touch with. Okay. Alright. Let's talk about a little bit more about collocation because it is a key theme. We are seeing more of it. But do you think that we are sort of pushing that fast enough as a sector, or or do you think we should be sort of saying, actually, you know what? These assets are better separate.

So you tell me how many people came to you guys asking you modeling about collocation?

Quite quite a few, actually. People people model collocation quite often. It doesn't get delivered that often. Yes. And I think that's a that's a grid connection problem. Yeah. I think I think we've been a bit unimaginative in our connections planning.

I believe it's a myth. Well, I think you probably see more the technicality of it. I don't.

I see more being closer to the investor, I see more the difficulty that some investor have in the risk profile of the two, the two assets. Yeah.

We we have we've done the same journey. We have done a lot of modelling on, colocation because everybody were driven by the idea, these two class of asset, obviously, they will, offset. It makes perfectly sense to have a renewable and a battery.

Yes.

But you need to accept that these two assets are different, works in different way, and have different risk profile. You can potentially have more certainty on the pricing of the renewable. You will have less certainty on the pricing of the battery unless you find someone who give you the tolling we were discussing earlier For a collocated project.

Because otherwise, the battery if it's merchant or if it's on a floor, it will be pretty much considered merchant from the investor point of view. And it is exposed to volatility because battery is nicely exposed to volatility. This is where it makes most of the money and why it has bigger revenue.

But the two, the these two class of asset, they they are complementary. They they looks can be very close. They're really different in terms of project financing and risk profile. So you need to accept that to actually deliver it. I don't feel that a lot of people did.

So if I'm if I'm someone developing a colocation asset and I'm planning to come to you in a year's time, like, what's the piece of advice that you would give me?

Speak with Ed.

Please Great advice.

Spend your time speaking with Ed before.

No. Really, really. I think they need to be more aware of the of the revenue streams and how they work.

If they come from the battery sector probably is easier. And in fact, I think that some of the project we have contracted is, done by people that are closer to the to the battery as a as a product, and they've gone for a collocated, because of interest, of the company in the collocation.

When we have done the way around speaking with a renewable investor, it conversion rate has been a bit lower. Because when they realize how purely volatile it is, they get it's more challenging for them to to go through the line.

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. With a two gig portfolio under management, you must be getting close to or must have had assets being retrofitted within that fleet. As an optimizer, do you care if something gets retrofitted? How does that work?

There's one element of the retrofitting that is a bit we never obviously, when they do the retrofitting, the asset disappear for a period of time. Yeah. That is a bit painful because we can't generate money.

And for the customer and for us But you get a better asset at the end.

Right?

Yeah. Exactly. So we love at the end, but for that time, okay, we have to tolerate that the asset is not there.

It happened on a couple of asset and but we obviously, we welcome it because the asset become better.

Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And then we've just seen connections reform come through, and we have this wave of battery projects that want to connect, in theory protected projects for twenty twenty six, in reality maybe that'll be like end of twenty twenty six starts twenty twenty seven, we might get a big chunk of projects coming through all at once. How do you think about that? Like are you kind of confident that you can bring on two, three gigs in the space of like a couple of years?

Well, we we don't do it.

Of course. And you do manage it. Right? You have to you have to be in the in the processes.

Yes. But so, yes.

We we start early in the process. If you want, we can touch base on the onboarding part, which is a particular aspect of it. I think that the biggest, effort is with the the owner and the fact that they they are able to manage all these project and, develop all these project in the next, months. From a route to market provider, nine out of ten, we always work on greenfield. So we all always have a sort of twelve month, eighteen month delivery from when you contract. So we have contracted now, basically, almost all the assets that we will be managing between now and twenty twenty eight. So we can absolutely plan the team, the resources to make sure that we can manage it properly when the asset go live.

Yeah. Okay. Makes sense.

Let's move on to my final two questions. So first of all, is there anything you'd like to plug?

No.

Nothing? All covered? Okay. Then let's go on to your contrarian view.

Well, I'm not sure how how you will receive this, but I heard in the market that actually there is power cast. Do do you know it?

I know. Yep. I do know it.

It's a it's a podcast done by EDF. It's better than transmission, or at least it has, better guest, I would say.

You've been I think the first external guest we had.

The first external yeah. You've kind of you've kind of got me in this really awkward position, right, where where where yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was great to come on Powercast. It was loads of fun. David and team it's a huge fun to come on and talk about batteries and nice to be as a as a guest rather than a host.

If you're listening to this episode, go and listen to that one because I think you gave a lot of good insight about batteries and how this year will go.

Thank you very much. That's very kind.

I'm gonna push you for a second contrarian view because I feel like that one was just trying to Yeah.

To plug some.

Yes. Definitely.

As a contrarian view, I think I believe that there are a lot of super intelligent people in this industry.

I'm not sure if these super smart people are doing enough to actually simplify.

I think that this is where you guys have been a big game changer in, in the industry, in the batteries.

A lot of people still love to keep it difficult, keep it very complicated so that only them can talk the lingo. Instead, no. I think we we we could all do much better if we unlock it, simplify it. It will be easier for other people to get into this industry and and do better in the end.

And when we think about the transition more broadly, right, we have to get people bought into this. So people within Westminster have to understand like what batteries are doing. And if we go around serving present company completely included in this, if we go around talking about EACs then then like the the politicians, their minds will just explode and so we have to try and make it as simple as possible. So yeah, I love that. And for me too, I'm gonna wrap up by saying thank you very much for coming on. Let's check-in in a few years time and see how that five gigs is doing.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Ed.