Can local flexibility markets fix grid congestion with James Johnston (Piclo)

Hello, and welcome back to transmission. Today, Q is joined by our returning guest, James Johnston from Piccolo. In this conversation, you'll hear how Piccolo has scaled to a global flexibility marketplace with one gigawatt of assets across fifty US states and over thirty gigawatts in the UK. James introduces Project Ace, a new model where data centers fund local virtual power plants to fast track their own grid connections. And he explains why scaling flexibility will fundamentally solve the energy trilemma regardless of politics by addressing the missing money problem that's been holding back grid investment. Want the latest news, analysis, and price indices from power markets around the globe delivered to your inbox every week?

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Now let's jump in.

Hello, James. Welcome to the podcast. Hello. Well, actually, welcome back to the podcast. We we figured out it's been almost two hundred episodes since you came on.

I think you're our fifth guest Wow.

Back three and a bit years ago before when we were at the Moto Energy Podcast, before transmission, before all of this.

So firstly, very warm welcome back to the podcast, and a lot has happened in that time. So I guess I've gotta ask you what's new at Piclo? What's happened since we last spoke?

Goy. What has happened in the last three years? What a what a a nasty question to start with.

You you know, in the in the startup world, you you cut it's more like dog years. Right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So that's like fifteen or twenty five startup years. Right? So, well, shortlist, we've we've scaled internationally. We've transformed our entire marketplace away from building a bespoke bespoke setup every time we have a new client to having an open marketplace shared worldwide.

And, yeah, we're really innovating alongside the the next big thing in in the in the sector, which is obviously how do we connect all these data centers to the grid.

I I wanna ask you about that in a second. But before we get there, when when you were first on the podcast, I think you just set up in Italy, and you were talking about global expansion, but it hadn't really happened yet. Not because you not for it. That's not nothing disparaging. Just it takes some time. So what's the Piccolo experience been like internationally?

Yeah. I think the I mean, what is self evident is the energy sector is so regional. Every country or every state is its own little empire. It's own you know, it's got its own ecosystem of rules, players, you know, ways of working, and and there isn't really a concept of a global energy market. And and that's the approach that we're taking of, like, how can we have a a single approach, a single platform that can scale literally everywhere?

And that obviously doesn't come without challenges.

But, you know, really, the idea is on the technology side, the platform, that is a, you know, a single, you know, a single approach. But then on how we implement it and how we work with local partners, that then is customized. And and so is that kind of marrying together of, you know, designing for the local setup and and having that common platform is is what works?

It's so hard to do, isn't it? The I did you do an MBA? I didn't do one. But in America, you find a lot more people have done MBAs. I had someone I was at dinner and they they'd done they'd gone to Yale Business School or something like that.

And they were saying that at business school, they teach this idea about hyper local markets. Right? So if you are if you run a business and you wanna scale, they they tell your business school not to scale into hyper local markets. And what that means is famously restaurant businesses.

If you once you get to, like, five restaurants, ten restaurants, the founder CEO can manage those restaurants. You can hire good general managers. You know where the right locations are. You can do quality control.

Even the cleaners get know your name. And then once you get beyond, like, ten restaurants to fifty restaurants, and you saw you've seen this in lots of casual dining restaurants in the UK.

The quality control drops off. You can't manage them in the same way, and it's because they're hyper local and need lots of local local talent. And I always think about our business as a bit motor energy is a bit like that. Right?

Business school will tell you not to do it because you have to be you have to be sell the trust product, and you have to be ahead of the curve of the power markets in so many hyper local markets. It's just such an execution challenge to get the right people in the right seats. But in your case, I guess there's probably more of what you can do that is global than us, because we have to build models and apply models in each region, and each region's got different inputs, and it's incredibly complicated. But my my thinking is that on the market side, in the marketplace, you can do more centralized.

Is that right?

I think I think we have very similar challenges, but just completely different. So the the fundamental challenge for building a marketplace is the chicken and egg problem or the cold start problem. Like, if you don't have all the buyers there, the sellers won't turn up. The buyers won't turn up. The sellers are not there. And that is the defining problem for any marketplace business.

And then you layer in the fact that it's a heavily regulated space. I believe it's the most regulated sector apart from nuclear power. You know, grids and energy retail and etcetera is, like, highly prescriptive.

There's not much room for real innovation, but it's compared to other other sectors. So it's you layer that in with the cold start problem, and it's fiendiously difficult to to build what we're doing. And, yeah, I don't know why I do it sometimes.

Well, I guess if you had to listen to everything they tell you at business school, then then, yeah, business would be boring. But it's challenging. I imagine a lot of the mechanics a bit like us, we can build centralized models, and then we think about each region as the last mile, a bit like last last mile delivery. I assume that there's a lot of central technology that you build, and then you can apply that to regions.

Yeah. I I think what's different is we have a single global platform. There are regional differences in terms of data residency rules. And obviously, you're familiar with the European setup. There's a different setup in Australia, for example. And then we have a set of modules.

So if you are, let's say, a utility and you want to procure via our platform, you use the procurement module. If you wanna then connect your derm system and dispatch or, you know, settle via the platform, you can also use that functionality. So it's it's quite a modular capability.

I think what is Interesting is there's a greater difference between what individual customers decide to use on the platform in the same region than between regions. So it's it's it's quite flexible, excuse use overusing the word, setup. But then it's all about the the playbooks. You know, how you know, a big strength of ours is how do we, you know, grow liquidity? How do we, you know, get this out in front of VPPs, flexibility providers? How do, you know, what are how do we take the learnings from the years of scaling this up in in the UK and elsewhere and and say, well, you know, these are the five things that you need to get right when you design this market. This is the this is the one contract term that you should avoid or or add in.

This is how you need to do baselining. And and and take those learnings and and and wrap it into a kind of playbook and then coach our local teams, whether they're in the US or Australia or in in Southern Europe, to then have that baseline knowledge that then they make their own. Because there'll be some nuance in the market that we don't we didn't get, we didn't understand, and that's where the local knowledge comes in.

And so how many regions are you in now?

So we I mean, we characterize it as the UK and then Europe, whether that's two regions, maybe beyond the the point. Then there's North America and Australia.

But the the next wave of development on our platform is it's a self-service marketplace. And actually, anyone can create an account anywhere, Much more akin to a digital service or an Internet company rather than an energy company of, like, anyone in the world can set up and sort of start placing orders or showcasing the available flex that they have.

And we just enable them to find the right counterparties and and kind of breaking down the barriers of, you know, are you in your ERCOT market? Are you in the GB market? Are you in France? It's more like it's just, you know, wherever you want to, you'll find a counterparty and find a trade and and undertake it. That's that's possible now.

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Enjoy the conversation.

So I wanna ask you about the journey with Piclo because you've, Of course, You've been mister Piccolo for thirteen years or so. Right? And you Piclo has evolved over time. Originally, you were more of a marketplace business, and then you saw an opportunity in distribute distributed flex and enabling that. And now you're adding back in the marketplace part. What's that been like as a journey?

I think one thing I really believe that you you have to, in in order to innovate, you have to be willing to sort of disrupt yourself and and and and stay ahead of the narrative rather than following other people's narratives, like create that narrative and and and and set the stall out. So we're always in pioneering in this space, and we got it wrong sometimes. You know, that's also a key point. Like, we the the key thing that we've got wrong in the past has been too early rather than having the wrong idea, But just, like, five years too early, and it might as well be, you know, the wrong idea.

So and that was very much the case with our peer to peer energy trading piece. You know, we were one of the first pioneers of twenty four seven Regos.

That was the model.

First utility days.

No. Open utility days.

Open utility days. Sorry.

Yeah. Exactly. And and that's now starting to take off as, you know, there's lots of players in the space, and I think that's great.

And and and so we we learned from that, like, you can have a great idea, but if you're too early, you know, it's game over. And and and where we saw the sort of the where the market was moving in in the UK on the grid level, on the distribution level, was this emergence use of flexibility to to manage, you know, deferring investments into the the grid or, you know, manage power flows more generally. And this was kind of like a greenfield space. Like, these organizations had never really procured flexibility in any scale before.

So we're open to new ideas and using a marketplace, etcetera. So that that was that was us getting really hyper focused on solving that, you know, specific problem of, you helping create liquidity for DSO flexibility markets. And that remains a really important scaling journey for our business. So, you know, especially with some, you know, the upcoming regulatory changes in Europe, you know, every DSO in Europe is going to need some sort of platform or marketplace to help them, you know, manage the grid more effectively.

So that is great. Now what we have also then, as we've got more and more international and as we start scaling into the US, realize that We can simplify this proposition rather than making it hyper focused on the one use case. How can we generalize the marketplace concept so that anyone who is looking to buy and sell any kind of contractual flexibility product, whether they're a TSO and ancillary services or a DSO or a utility with a utility program or even an energy trader or retailer or, in fact, data center organizations, they they all need the same types of, you know, workflows. Like,

they need to qualify on or, you know, assess the the capabilities of the counterparty. Are they reliable? Do they have the right technology? Is it located in the right relevant place?

What's the kind of price, you know, price finding? So whether it's an auction or other mechanisms, settling on the contract, delivery of the service, whether that's scheduled in advance or a real time signal, and then verifying because flexibility is always very complex. You need to did that was that flexibility delivered is a really easy question, hard to answer. And and so the whole measurement verification settlement thing, these are all ultimately payments.

These are the same workflows for all these different use cases. And and that's how we start simplifying this down. And the other the key simplification that we're gonna be launching later this year is right now, there are different account types, Whether you're a buyer organization or a seller, a utility or a a a flex provider, We're seeing the emergence of, you know, buyers and sellers or or organizations doing both buying and selling. So we're gonna simplify that down into you just have an account type, and you can buy or sell as an action on the marketplace.

So it it it feels very refreshing to simplify a product.

It's much easier said than done, but, like, with all these learnings, that's the direction of travel.

I find it deeply gratifying to cut bits of product or to simplify our products. Especially when you got bits where where you can see users aren't using it very much. And in every time you simplify, mean, you can you can spend more time and effort building in other areas which users really care about. So alright.

Let's talk about this data center thing.

So big announcement from Piccolo. All very exciting. Take it from the top. What's going on with Piccolo and data centers?

Well, so the acronym we want everyone to be talking about is ACE. Accelerated community energy. And Accelerated community energy. Yeah.

Well well Accelerated we'll have to do some Yeah.

Drop in.

Accelerated community energy.

This is this is, I think, a transformational concept. It's so simple in its in its basic premise, which is, you know, in the US, for example, McKinsey, you know, forecasts a trillion dollars to be invested in data center facilities over the next four years.

A big t. You know, that's a lot of money. Problem is, as you know, that everyone's stuck in a queue to get connected. So that money is not being able to be spent right now. And there's know, how how do we how do we get there?

So then the other I actually think of the queue, just to jump in there.

Yeah. The q wasn't such a mess, that one t would be a much bigger trillion.

Yeah. I mean, with recent announcements with, you know, OpenAI and NVIDIA, like, you know, that's just kicking off the race for the next wave of, you know, money.

And Yeah.

I think the I think the the the constraining issue is the the the grid connection, not the capital. I think people would yeah. I think the hyperscalers would spend the money to build faster if they could get time to power.

Yeah. Yeah. And then on the other equation, you've got you got an affordability crisis of, you know, the cost of energy going up. And essentially, there is a, you know, a challenge. You know, the fundamental challenge on the public network is how can you argue to increase rates by, you know, investing in, you know, flexibility. So flexibility is the inherent solution to all of this, but there's a missing money problem on the public network because of the increased scrutiny of how can we spend ratepayers' dollars, And just examples, like, around the US, California quite recently with the SGS programs being canceled because there's budget cuts.

So you add these two things together. You've got a trillion dollars of capital that can't be spent by the private sector, and you've got a public sector that knows flexibility, the the, you know, public networks, knows flexibility solution, but cannot access that money. So the idea is very simple. How can we start, you know, shift some of that capital from the left hand side to the right hand side? And and so the the concept here is the the large load that's connecting the data center company, they allocate circa three percent of their investment in building infrastructure, essentially subsidizing out virtual power plants on the local utility grid.

So the money comes from the private sector, but then these assets are essentially then, you know, exactly to determine what what would be useful for the utility, where they get essentially control over these assets or over a period of time. And what's really interesting about this three percent figure is that's what we estimate would get you seventy five, eighty dollar kilowatt years for five years as an incentive to cover a hundred percent of the maximum demand of the data center.

So it becomes quite an quite an attractive incentive.

So just so I've got this right. So the just to play it back to you. So the data center folks have got a trillion dollars to spend.

Yeah.

But there's a problem on The grid, in that we need loads more flexibility, especially if you're connect to all these data centers. Yeah. But it's a highly political issue because it's now like a price of eggs problem in the US.

Yeah.

So the solution is the data center owner, the person who's spending the CapEx, They're gonna subsidize and pay for the flexibility elsewhere on the network, but receive the net benefits By being able to connect and being online, that kind of thing?

Yes. So to paint a picture, so let's say it's one hundred megawatt data center that cost about one point three billion dollars give or take. You know, allocating three percent of that, around about forty million dollars. Now if that forty million dollars was then, you know, kinda like a capacity market thing, it was, like, then allocated you know, pick load run at auction, so you get the best price.

And VPPs bid in and get their allocation of that. You're talking at a, you know, ballpark of that seventy five dollars you know, for a kilowatt year for a five year contract. So Quite a chunky bit of revenue.

Oh, the flexibility provider. They they are the ones who get seventy five, eighty dollars Yeah. Per kilowatt per year over a longer period. Yeah.

Okay. So they can actually start thinking can either invest in a new asset or they can upgrade existing asset or yeah. Okay. Got you.

Yeah. So so that so that then stimulates and creates new additional flexibility that wasn't necessarily going to come.

That's a lot, though. Right? Eighty grand a megawatt for well, eighty Dollars a Kilowatt. Jumping around.

Why the numbers kind of kindness is that's a lot.

This is what I'm saying.

Do a lot with eighty grand a kilowatt at megawatt.

And the kicker is the return on investment for data center is two months. If they if they connect to the grid two months faster than they would have without doing this mechanism, They return on investment because the there's another metric for you here, which is, I think, the the average revenue for data center operator per kilowatt, because they measure data centers in kilowatts and megawatts these days, is a hundred and eighty dollars per kilowatt month.

So you basically for this hundred megawatt scale data center, that's about, You know, almost twenty million dollars a month of lost revenue. Every time every month, there's not getting energized.

And therefore, it pays itself from this private capital back. There's a really compelling reason for them to do this if it speeds up their connection by two months or more. And if we're talking about someone in a five year queue getting you know, this is actually very significant for them.

And then the money is highly significant for the flexibility market.

So It it's quite compelling in in all senses. What are gonna do about the location impact, though? Right? So flexibility in some locations is worth more. Why am I telling you that you're the Piccolo guy? You know this more than anyone.

Exactly.

Flexibility in some locations We have a solution for that.

Worth more than different looking. Yeah. So what does that look like?

So this is like this is a classic example of what we're just talking about before. Like, we have the platform. We can do this today. Like, everything I've just mentioned, we we're ready to go.

We need local partners, whether these are, you know, the data center operators, their investors, and utilities to have a dialogue around what this means for them. So if the constraining factor of getting energized is a transmission constraint, then in theory, anywhere on the utility network as long as, you know, behind that con constraint, It doesn't matter. But then they might go, well, actually, also, we have some congestion issues here. If you're if you're giving me this free asset anyway, can you make sure you prioritize different areas?

So I do think this is gonna be a sort of partnership dialogue with the utility in terms of what they want to see.

But the you know, it what's really interesting is, like, it's this is already happening both in terms of data center operators are setting bilateral arrangements with ad hoc flex providers. And of course, utilities are, you know, running programs to get more flex on the grid.

But what is what we're talking about here is systemizing this. So scaling this up so it can scale up to enable that full trillion.

And if the utilities don't move, right, there's a lot of private wires going in, and data center developers are starting to think about off grid as certainly a short and medium term solution while the grid catches up.

And so you think as a utility, they also want these data centers to connect. Want more load as well. I know everyone complains about it, but they want more load. So you think they've got a pretty good incentive to do this too?

Absolutely. I think in theory, if you're adding you know, if you're consuming or making more use of the existing network you're not adding to the peaks because you've got the flexibility to to, you know, soften those peaks, the the the rate charge for everyone should, in theory, go down because you're you're using the same level infrastructure with more utilization. So so it can be a good thing. And and I think the other piece I haven't mentioned, which is super important, is community buy in.

Now, you know, data centers are becoming quite unpopular with the general population. Yes, they like the benefits of AI, but they don't want a big Yep. You know, stonking data center in their backyard.

But what happens if they were given a free battery that then made them resilient and then gave them a little extra income stream? That might change their mind.

Some of them don't like batteries either, though. That's the problem, James. Yeah. They turned on batteries as well. They they they want the Memojis, but they don't want the data centers and the batteries.

But then the one thing they can probably get behind is lower cost electricity.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. So where first?

So we're we're gonna be catalyzing, a number of partners across the US and also in the UK to to try and Establish a proof of concept here. We're talking about proof of concept in the data center world. This is gonna be pretty big, and, also, we're gonna do it very quickly. So this is not a utility pilot. This is a, you know, data center AI industry, project. And, yeah, we're you we'll have a few things to announce shortly, but know, we're hoping to, you know, demonstrate the concept this final quarter of the year.

Awesome. Where did the idea come from? Was it how do we These data center things are creating problems for the grid. How do we use our technology to solve that? Or did you speak to a data center developer or owner and they said, hey, Piccolo, you've got to fix this?

We've been exploring the concept of data center flexibility for over a year. I did forecast that there was going to be a big discussion around flexible compute and on-site flexibility. And that's going to be part of the equation here as well, of course. And I was almost on the point around waiting for timing, kind of realizing that the the industry needs to catch up a little bit here. And I think right right now is the point, you know, here in New York and and climate week, pretty much every conversation I've had has been around the points I've just mentioned, the missing money problem, how do we scale up VPPs, how do we connect large loads?

This is the topic of the day. And and I think six months ago, I don't think this was quite on everyone's radar, but I think it's hit home. So for me, it's like, you know, we've had this idea for a while. It's just now is the time to to actually catalyze it.

Alright. Let's go back to Classic Piclo. You're scaling across the US right now. How's that been for you as one European company that is doing the same thing in the US, roughly around the same time? I think we both both started off in the US in the last couple of years. How have you found scanning across the US?

I think the The first point was we we found a great first partner in National Grid.

And I think the fact that they're a British company as well as they kind of very exposed to the the emerging DSO model and, like, you know, open minded working with a company at that point hadn't been proven elsewhere on on in the US. So that was all, you know, really lucky to find a great first partner. And then building off of the early successes there, we then started scaling first relatively slowly into some neighboring states, Connecticut. We've got a really amazing project there, now in Massachusetts.

And then this summer, we started this open marketplace approach. And and how we're doing this is the rec the recognition of, like, flexibility markets and flexibility programs, demand response programs are kind of invisible.

You know, every utility website in various different forms may, you know, describes what they're doing, but there's no consistent, you know, language or a place to go to find out this stuff. I thought maybe some consultancies, would do this for you. So we thought, well, You know, if we wanna sort of be the open marketplace, you wanna go in there and find everything. So we started the journey of essentially cataloging or indexing every single utility, every single demand response program, first of all, in the US. And now we're scaling this across the world using AI, of course, to help us do that effectively.

And so that has really brought to life the marketplace. You can go on to pickle dot com. You can go into state of your choice or country of your choice in this. Go and explore what's going on. You know, that has then helped helped convince the other side of the equation, VPP, the aggregators to go, right. Well, I'm gonna now upload my entire nationwide portfolio of assets.

And we now have one gigawatt of registered assets across fifty states.

Congrats.

That's a big number.

I know. It's it's pretty exciting. And this is just the beginning. You know, we have over thirty gigawatts in in the UK.

So, like, there's a lot a lot more to go here. And and so then you start creating, You know, conversation around matching. I've got assets. There's this program here.

How can we start matching these two things together? And so that's the really exciting thing around this new open marketplace. It's yes. We continue to have enterprise arrangements with utilities that decide to use the full set of functionality on the platform, outsource to procurement or run the end to end market on us.

But we now have this lightweight approach where any utility in the world can claim their free account and then start to manage their their opportunity listings, get aggregate insights, and start to get value from the platform with very low barriers. And and and this is all coming back to what I mentioned earlier. This is all in the name of helping kind of break down that chicken and egg problem. Now we have a marketplace where, actually, both sides, the buy side and the sell side, are quite richly populated.

And now the focus for us is, like, enabling trades to happen, whether it's sellers saying, I've got, this kind of offer available. Who wants to buy this or buy or say, you know, connecting essentially helping recruit into utility programs.

And then the the data center angle with project ACE then, you know, can supercharge all of this. Then you've got money flowing in, the, you know, more opportunity for sellers, more fulfillments from the utility side. And that sort of doesn't just catalyzes this as well, which is great.

Alright. A gigawatt across fifty states. Yeah. That's wicked. Yeah. Congratulations. That's a it's a big moment.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, James. Round two. Round two of your contrarian view. So what do you believe that not a lot of other people belief.

I'm gonna be a bit cheeky.

And and and this is like Your podcast sucks, Quentin. Is that contrarian?

Allowed that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Thought this is contrarian views.

No. So I I mean, I think the obvious one is, you know, here in America, the conversations moved away from decarbonization.

And, you know, with the energy the energy trilemma, obviously, being decarbonization, affordability, and resilience, There's a bit you know, in our domain, there's a bit more emphasis on the latter two now. Our company mission is to decarbonize the world's grids. And and so we've always and and we've always, you know, known that we're solving every aspect of the trilemma.

So I think the The interesting question I think everyone in this space is now, you know, having is like, what does this mean? Like, are we are we backtracking from climate? And I think the contrarian view is It's, You know, and we're here at climate week in New York.

I think it's almost independent on how much you emphasize your mission statement or, you know, the language you use when selling to a new client, etcetera. It's more about the actions that you do and what what outcomes does that drive? And so for me, independent of all the branding and, you know, whether, you know, some phrases in or out or whatever, fundamentally, if we can scale up flexibility, you know, missing money problem, the visibility issue, getting trades done, if we can scale that up, that's gonna solve the energy trilemma. It's gonna decarbonize the world's grids, and that's the most important thing. So I don't know if that's a contrarian view, but, like, it's that's how we see that's how I personally see things.

Yeah. I don't I agree with you. I don't I don't think that they're at odds with each other. I think that this just ended up being this this way of thinking this the spread, The is that renewables and decarbonization are odds with cheap power. I I don't think that's true.

I I think the way that some yeah. That you can point to many subsidies and applications of decarbonization programs that have increased costs. But net net, you have a rapidly decreasing cost base across solar and batteries, and you have a mass electrification of everything that needs to be solved Solved.

And we can't keep on burning stuff the way the way that we are. But the fuel costs for renewables and batteries now, if you go hard at solar and storage and you become if you go hard, particularly at solar and storage, there's a case for wind here, but I just don't I think the cost the cost situation is very difficult right now. If you go hard at those solid state devices, you could it's very easy to make an argument that that's the cheapest way to go, and nuclear, of course. But there seems to be some some way of thinking that's got everywhere, which is that that is at odds with cheap power and about an energy abundance is is necessary for electrification and AI and everything else. But I don't know where it's come from. I think it's politics. I think it's I think it's nonsense.

This this this is the one thing. Like, there is a missing money problem, You know, that that is a real problem. That's not a branding issue.

And What what do what do you mean? Like, missing money where?

There's no there's a, you know, there is a reluctance for public subsidies Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Behind which, you know, which with the with the IRA existed, you know, in spades. It's been taken away. Yeah. There's you know? And then with the affordability crisis, individual state actors, utilities are really concerned about budgets, etcetera. So for us, if we can help solve that problem, that will probably have a much bigger impact on on everything. Because I think we have all the kind of tools we need.

You know, I go talk to utilities.

They know the value of flexibility, But they they're kind of stuck in in many cases because they need to open up a a conversation with the regulator on on how they unlock more funding for this.

And and whilst there's appetite to do that, it take draws everything out, and it takes a long time. And we don't have much time now for for all these different things. So solving that missing money problem, I think, can really flourish flexibility. And and then with flexibility, then then you can put more renewables on. You can electrify more. You can you can you can enable more as well as build more grid. But build more grids prudently.

Don't overbuild.

Don't don't overpromise what you can build and then actually backtrack when you don't have the permit or, you know, the community buy in.

And and so, like, flexibility is not just this niche part of the sector. I think it is the core of the sector if we get this right.

This is this is how the whole thing works.

Yeah. Agreed.

It's funny. It says climate week this week, as you mentioned. I've heard so many people at various events say crazy things like climate is dead, blah blah blah blah. Right? So, yeah, a lot of climate VC got burnt, investing in the wrong things.

Investors felt that that climate metrics were more important than return on capital metrics, which isn't true because that's a very short term thinking because then the capital dries up. So there's loads of reasons why people got burned. But I don't think climate's dead at all. I just think that I think companies that made too much for me a lot of the decarbonization thing as if they weren't companies to make profit as well, I think they've got burned because there is you know, this only works if if you get a return on capital.

I mean, our mission at Modo is to make sure that capital gets allocated into the right projects. And we define right as in the ones with the highest return and the best best technologies and quality projects. If we do that, then the outcome of that is decarbonization, and that is one of the biggest impacts we can have. It's like more projects, more more batteries, more solar.

Know, that is how you actually enact change rather than, you know, slogans on websites. So, yeah. So it's a bit taboo to say, but I agree with you. It feels like there's there's that we're at some sort of impasse where there's some folks in the climate crowd who have gone so hard.

They've got the the thing banging on about climate so long at the cost of other things that now they're having to wonder where their place is in the world. Right?

But I don't think it's dead. I know you didn't say that, but I've heard a few people say, I don't think it's dead. I think there's some rationality back to it, I think that's a good thing long term. Yep. So James, thank you very much for joining us on the podcast.

Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. I'll come back in another two hundred episodes.

It's awesome to have you on again. Yeah. We'll see you at episode four hundred or or whatever it is. So if you're listening to this and you wanna find out more about Piccolo and their announcement around data centers and all the incredible work they're doing, we're gonna put some links in the show notes so you can head down there and have a look at that. And, of course, you can reach out. James, how do they get you? Twitter, LinkedIn?

I'm on LinkedIn. Yep. You can find me there.

Okay. Yeah. Alright. Thanks again. Alright. Thanks again. Cheers.