In today’s enlightening and insightful episode of the "Insiders Guide to Energy," hosts Chris Sass and Jeff McAulay delve into the innovative world of solar thermal technology with special guest Christophe Williams, CEO of Naked Energy. Discover the transformative power of combining photovoltaic (PV) and thermal energy to meet the global heat demand, a critical yet often overlooked aspect of the energy transition. Christophe shares insights into how Naked Energy's groundbreaking technology, Virtu, is setting new benchmarks in efficiency and sustainability by capturing up to 800 Watts per square meter of solar energy.
Christophe is the CEO and Co-Founder at Naked Energy, a British design and engineering business, leading the global innovation in solar thermal and solar PVT. Prior to that, Christophe has been connected to the renewable energy industry for generations. His first inspiration was his grandfather Peter Williams who worked with renowned engineer Stephen Salter in the 1970s to develop 'the oscillating duck', a form of oscillating wave technology generating clean electricity. Christophe previously worked as a senior creative executive in the advertising industry for over fifteen years, gaining many awards from prestigious organisations such as ‘Creative Circle’ and ‘Clio’. He has worked with major blue-chip clients and global brands such as Microsoft, Barclays, BMW, Sony and also directly with a number of UK government bodies, including DEFRA and the Central Office of Information on high profile advertising campaigns on sustainability.
In today’s episode, we learn about the challenges and opportunities in decarbonizing heat, which accounts for over half of the world's energy consumption and is predominantly fueled by fossil fuels. Christophe highlights Naked Energy's role in pioneering commercial and industrial applications of solar thermal technology, from hotels and hospitals to manufacturing, and their contribution towards achieving net-zero emissions.
Join us, as we explore the technical, financial, and environmental aspects of solar thermal energy, the significance of energy density, and the synergy between PV and thermal technologies. Christophe also shares fascinating insights into Naked Energy's journey, their impact across nine countries, and the future of solar thermal technology in driving the global energy transition.
In today’s enlightening and insightful episode of the "Insiders Guide to Energy," hosts Chris Sass and Jeff McAulay delve into the innovative world of solar thermal technology with special guest Christophe Williams, CEO of Naked Energy. Discover the transformative power of combining photovoltaic (PV) and thermal energy to meet the global heat demand, a critical yet often overlooked aspect of the energy transition. Christophe shares insights into how Naked Energy's groundbreaking technology, Virtu, is setting new benchmarks in efficiency and sustainability by capturing up to 800 Watts per square meter of solar energy.
Christophe is the CEO and Co-Founder at Naked Energy, a British design and engineering business, leading the global innovation in solar thermal and solar PVT. Prior to that, Christophe has been connected to the renewable energy industry for generations. His first inspiration was his grandfather Peter Williams who worked with renowned engineer Stephen Salter in the 1970s to develop 'the oscillating duck', a form of oscillating wave technology generating clean electricity. Christophe previously worked as a senior creative executive in the advertising industry for over fifteen years, gaining many awards from prestigious organisations such as ‘Creative Circle’ and ‘Clio’. He has worked with major blue-chip clients and global brands such as Microsoft, Barclays, BMW, Sony and also directly with a number of UK government bodies, including DEFRA and the Central Office of Information on high profile advertising campaigns on sustainability.
In today’s episode, we learn about the challenges and opportunities in decarbonizing heat, which accounts for over half of the world's energy consumption and is predominantly fueled by fossil fuels. Christophe highlights Naked Energy's role in pioneering commercial and industrial applications of solar thermal technology, from hotels and hospitals to manufacturing, and their contribution towards achieving net-zero emissions.
Join us, as we explore the technical, financial, and environmental aspects of solar thermal energy, the significance of energy density, and the synergy between PV and thermal technologies. Christophe also shares fascinating insights into Naked Energy's journey, their impact across nine countries, and the future of solar thermal technology in driving the global energy transition.
09:20.24
chrissass
Welcome Insiders. Im your host Chris Sass and with me as co-host Jeff McAulay. This week we are going to talk about the combination of PVT. PV for Solar and T for thermal. We’re going to talk about putting those together and taking advantage. For many of use, we already understand that the sun can bring a 1000 watts of energy per square meter down to the Earth. But we also understand that traditional PV is not taking advantage of that. Our guest is going to explain more about that in this episode. Let’s start by finding out where this heat is and what heat we’re talking about. Christophe, welcome to the show and please help me understand this.
09:28.91
Christophe
One of the greatest challenges we see facing the energy transition is global heat demand it's more than half of all the energy we consume on the planet. It's 3 times bigger than power consumption and 90%. All that energy is being provided by fossil fuels which means it's 40% of all emissions. So if we don't decarbonize heat. We're never going to get to net zero let alone carbon 0.
10:01.21
Jeff M_
Christoph that's great framing and when you talk about heat. You're primarily talking about industrial heat residential or where is that heat being used.
10:08.61
Christophe
That is all Heat So Global heat demand whether that's hot water in buildings for showers laundries or for space heating your homes or offices and industrial process heat so that can be hot water. All the way up to high temperature process heat and industry all of that is more 51% of all Demand. It's 212 exajoules of Energy. It's vast and it doesn't get any attention or it does get some attention. It's getting more now because it's the waking giant of the problem. A lot of focus has been on power decarbonization but heat decarbonization is kind of the waking giant of the problem.
10:53.14
Jeff M_
It seems that in some parts of the world. It is fairly common to use solar thermal for hot water heating and and in some ways. It's so obvious like why not put the the heat sort of the thermal source on your roof rather than in your basement ah powered by fossil fuels. So in Greece for example, it's fairly common to see solar hot water heaters is that the kind of application you mean.
11:16.74
Christophe
Sort of um, you're right? You know when you stand in ah in the sun on a really cold winter's day so I'm actually in the Uk which is not the sunniest place in the world. But even on a cold day today. It's about and ° outside. But if you stand in the sun you can fill the warmth of that Sun. It's you know it's the. Most of the energy from the sun comes in a form of warmth. So why use fossil fuels why use electricity to heat hot water just use the warmth of the sun and you're right? It's it's a very mature technology in markets like in Greece. In fact I think cyprus has a highest in installed capacity per person. In the world so they have very simple technologies which is like a cylinder on the roof a thermosciphon system that warms the water from the sun and they use that for that for their cleaning and hot water and showering so it saves them gas. It saves their electricity bill. That's one form of solar energy. With naked energy the company that that we founded our focus is actually on the commercial and industrial applications. So traditionally when people think with solo thermal energy. They do think of a single-family home and they think about you know those kind of cylinders on the roof. Our technologies is a kind of pressurized engineered system for. Big heat users. So think of hotels hospitals manufacturing industries. So food and beverage and industry. For example, they need heat all year round and we can provide about 40 to 50% of their total heating demand from a rooftop system. That's well engineered and designed.
12:50.82
Jeff M_
Think a few of our audience members are probably wondering how hot this can get and I think it's important to highlight a couple things one you're not talking about mirrors in the desert pointing the sun at ah, you know boiling water tower. You're talking about either. Ah, evacuated tube or flat plate and so so that's 1 clarification and then 2 that actually even in the u k cloudy days cold days that it can get quite hot. So um, help us understand the the technology you're using and then how hot can this actually get. Relative to the ambient environment.
13:23.74
Christophe
Yeah, great question. So solar thermal technology comes really in in kind of a few different flavors or form factors. You can do low temperature so which typically is like a flat panel. It's a flat surface that gets warm from the sun you flow hot water or air behind it. And you can do space heating which is about anything between 10 to °C which I should know that in fahrenheit off the top of my head so apologies for but the fahrenheit nervous. Um, then you do have vacuum tube technology where you evacuate the air. And it acts like a thermos flask if you're familiar you put hot water in the thermos flask. The vacuum insulates it. It traps the heat that means the warmth from the sun is captured and you can go to higher temperatures which can be up to 120 to °C which I do know it's about two hundred and fifty fahrenheit so it's hot. That's. Hot temperatures which opens up a whole myriad of applications from domestic hot water to process heat and industry and even space cooling. You can use hot water to drive absorption chillers then you've got your big troughs that you mentioned the ones the big mirrors like big paraboas. Kind of go out in the desert. They're not really suited to building applications so they go out in the middle of deserts in in Sunbelt regions. We have lots of clear skies and they do very high temperature. they can go up to °c and they can store the heat in salt.
14:55.28
Christophe
Molten salt and then you can generate power from that esteem. It's a very different application that's kind of near heat to power There is also Csp concentrated solar power where you're doing hot water at high temperatures for very high temperature applications. It could be chemical processes and things like that. But on our to on our technology I mean if I just carry on because I think you asked a question about our specific technology. So um, the technology that we've developed is called ah virtue and we adopt a vacuum tube approach.
15:14.58
chrissass
Now go ahead.
15:30.12
Christophe
Which in the us actually isn't as common I think in the us it's more commonly flat panel designs we like vacuum tubes for the specific reason that we can get elevated temperatures. We can go to higher temperatures which opens up a bigger demand a bigger market. And with the the 2 products we have one does pure heat. The the range is called virtue the solar collector the pure heat product can go up to one hundred and Twenty Degrees Celsius so two hundred and fifty fahrenheit and is really aimed at those kind of commercial applications. It's pure hot water. Have a hybrid collector which you mentioned at the beginning is we call that virtue pvt so it does photovoltaic energy and thermale energy at the same time. It can produce hot water up to c and very efficient pv power at the same time and. Both those products can be installed separately or they can be combined because they operate at different temperatures and they can can be combined with pv systems and heat pump systems for a holistic energy system and and they've been certified independently. So these are all independently certified. Ah, technologies.
16:47.49
chrissass
There's there's been some interesting news about what you've been doing in your your Pvt technology I think there's been folks like barclays and some large support behind what you're doing. Um I guess the 1 question I have is when you mix technologies pv technologies really come down in costs. Because you get the economies of scale and it's very cost effective if I start trying to do both in one solution. So I start bringing the thermal angle in can I still use commercial off the shelfs hardware and software to run this or does this drive the cost of this technology up or are are you driving the cost down.
17:18.69
Christophe
So that's a really good question. So the key factor here is energy density and energy density by that I mean how much energy you can generate for a specific area so you're absolutely right? Pv is like a commodity now. It's it's very ubiquitous. In the market and the costs have come down dramatically we actually benefit from that cost reduction. So we incorporate the pv cell that is that commodity into our product and we've integrated in a very clever way that you get more for a given area. So instead of generating 2 separate sources of energy like heat. And power from 2 different collectors by combining them. We get 2 forms of energy for the same footprint and what's really important is that we're focusing on customers that would need say a roof that's 3 to 4 times the size they have to generate. Meaningful contribution towards their energy bill. Yeah because most commercial industrial buildings are limited by space and so by combining the 2 technologies. It means that you're you're generating greater yields because you you make an investment in your roof. It's like a 101520 year investment you want to make sure that you're maximizing that net present value of that bit of real estate. So it's vital that you make the right decision particularly if you're a heat user if you're a warehouse that only needs electricity pv is a great technology pv all day long. But if you need heat. So if you're a hotel hospital.
18:52.12
Christophe
Need heat from that bit of real estate putting our technology gives you a greater return on investment because you're saving more energy but you're also saving more carbon. So Our technology can can deliver twice. The amount of energy savings for the roof space and 4 times the amount of carbon savings. The same Ru space compared to a standard conventional Pv Module and so customers are really identifying those usps of energy density versus low cost a relatively low IRR on a system.
19:22.55
Jeff M_
How do you design the tradeoff between electricity and thermal and I'm aware I think specifically there is a temperature coefficient for solar whereby above 25 c you lose. I forget what it is exactly half a percent of efficiency per degree celsius you increase. So yes, you can get higher quality heat. But then you're sacrificing on the power. You might have a you know fossil step up to get it to some desired range. But how do you do to that design tradeoff internally.
19:56.43
Christophe
So we deliberately set out to go to higher temperatures as you as you point out there are other solutions which stay to low temperatures which is great for underfloor heating and very low temperature applications that kind of ° that you mention but that's a very small market. That's quite a niche That's maybe swiming pools or underflo heatings. So we wanted to go to a higher temperature of °c which means you can do santary hot water process heat preheating and very specifically we use silicon cells that have a very good temperature coefficient. So they will lose efficiency like most things that get hot they will lose efficiency as you go to higher temperatures but you lose well under half a percent per degree c as you go above 25 so you're still getting really good electrical output and getting that high grade heat at the higher temperature. Um. Yeah, in some markets as well. You get pv systems out in the field. Those panels anyway are getting to °c in direct sunlight and all that heat is going to waste. You're not capturing that he that that heat and and your pv output is limited anyway. So we're just getting more of that pie. We're getting a greater piece of that conversion.
20:58.83
Jeff M_
And.
21:09.23
Christophe
Um, the technology converts typically from the sun you get a thousand meters of a thousand Watts per square of energy per square meter and our technology we can capture up to eight hundred Watts of that Thousand Watts from that square meter. So it's really an efficient energy entity.
21:27.16
chrissass
Let's change from the theoretical to what you've done. Can you give us, um, something that your naked energy has done recently.
21:33.12
Christophe
Yeah, great. Great question so we've now done over a hundred projects in 9 different countries and as I mentioned we're really focused on commercial industrial applications and these range from an installation we're we're doing at the moment with the mandarin oriental high park corner. So. It's a very. Ah, high-end hotel that has very high energy demands particularly heat and high costs. Um and the costs themselves at moment are very volatile so they want to fix those costs and that's another important usp of energy density because if you can fix a greater proportion of your heating bill. With on-site renewable heat then you know you can predict. Yeah your your energy cost going forwards which is great for a business when you're operating margins quite quite thin so Mandarin Oriental which is a great project for us. We've got project in Germany now with Hilton another hotel. Ah, we're we're doing a project now with ihg and Malta one sector we've done quite a lot on that have really struggled with energy costs is the leisure industry so we've done a whole series of sports facilities where again a big proportion of their hot water.
22:48.51
Christophe
Heating demand is for hot water and showers quite large systems. Some of these are within the one hundred Kilowatt two hundred Kilowatt size and and universities we've done quite a few student campus projects whereby we're providing affordable. Zerocarbon heat for the student accommodation and and we've done our very first project in Omaha at creton university in the us so very proud of that one. That's our first very first project in the us and that's with our our local partners called elm companies and that's been operational now for about six months
23:21.76
chrissass
So now that brings up a point you you talked about your local partners. There's plenty of people that probably know how to do Pv installs How hard is it to find the the skill set to do this new and emerging technology. So.
23:26.60
Christophe
And.
23:36.70
Christophe
So I should say um that the technology itself is novel in terms of how we've designed the collectors but in terms of how you integrate it. It's all standard. So the pipes the inverters the the pump stations the tank cylinders. So you need people that are probably more adept to heating and ventilation sector and there's a lot of transferable skills pv installers obviously would be able to install our technology but you need to understand mechanical design. You need to be able to look at a building's physics. Look at the energy profiles and size and calculate the systems. So you you identify a really important point and that's why our our partners in the us they are very much an engineering led business. They specialize in micro-grids battery energy storage systems, utility management and so they really understand the customers. Demand profiles and recommend the best solutions and they do turnkey solutions. So education is a really key thing and it's something that we we keep talking about is skills are there is educating the supply chain. That's the designers. The developers, the installers on how to install these systems. Ah, size them properly so they work well and can deliver the returns and savings that they're promised. So yeah, but typically we'd look at engineers solar thermal installers or Pv installers or technicians from the heating and ventilation industries are are the most adept.
25:11.45
Jeff M_
You mentioned savings so I have to ask about the financing side and instead of asking you know what does it cost on a dollar per watt basis because you're probably not going to comp to normal solar numbers. It's going to be more expensive because you're providing more so how do you quote.
25:13.66
Christophe
See.
25:30.26
Jeff M_
Cost. Do you do it on a dollar per wat basis. Do you do it on a dollar per square foot and then what does that payback look like for the customer um is it financed on ah on a ppa basis or a loan a lease and and how does that materialize from ah from a customer return perspective.
25:45.30
Christophe
Yes, great. Great set of questions so you're right? We don't look at kilowatts peak because we're providing heat and power and in the the virtue hot product. It's it's a pure thermal so we look at Kilowatt hours we look at a sort of levelized cost of heat. And um and it all depends on where the customer is in the world. So how much sunshine do they have what grade of heat. Do they have what what unit economics in terms of what's their utility rates. You know what primary energy are we displacing is it gas electricity fuel oil and um. And so we typically would and our partners would size the system you'd look at the the array and all the balance for plant equipment which tends to be cylinders pump stations inverters and that total capex of a system depending on where you are in the world can range anywhere from a payback from 4 years to 10 years or just over ten years and depending on where you are in the world. Um, and and and that's a a really important point that you raise because we're focused on the commercial industrial sector to date now we are selling systems as on the capex model so customers are paying for. Equipment up front to save them energy for 20 years which is quite tough right? You got to have you got to be a really motivated customer. That's either got really expensive bills or you've got really tough or so ambitious decarbonization goals. So the way that we're looking at it now with some of our partners.
27:17.56
Christophe
And we have a new partnership which has just gone public with a big utility company called eon or the big energy companies is looking how we turn the model which has been very tried and tested with the kind of Pv industry in the power industry in terms of doing ppas is doing heat and power purchase agreements. So we turn it into the opex model which is great because it means these big industrial and and commercial users don't have to write a dollar a single check on day one they they get all energy savings and carbon savings from day one and are they going to get it in a full price which fixes their energy costs. So a lot to a lot to benefit.
27:56.37
chrissass
Now you talked about the customer base you have Today. You talked about the leisure industry universities. Do you envision the heat being used for industrial process as well. The heats you were talking about were pretty significant or could get pretty warm. So is this part of. Industry as well. Are they just using it for heating and cooling type heat.
28:16.13
Christophe
Hundred but yeah, great questions. So absolutely. Um, if you look at industrial applications and you can break them into sort of 3 temperature ranges. There's below a °c above a °c up to about 20250 and above 250 to 450 the fort that really high temperatures to like concrete smelting. That's really really high temperature. We're not talking that and the middle range is very much a chemicals industry very very high temperature as well. We're talking about nearly a third of. All industrial heat is actually below °c so that's you know, food and beverage industry. They need it for sanitization bottling the dairy industry paprom pulp industry textiles industry. It's huge, um, the amount of demand they need. Um, below ° and and we typically look at 2 customer sets. There is an industrial or commercial customer that is looking to transition do the energy transition away either. They've got gas. They're burning ah gas and they want to transition and become sustainable and. By deploying our technology. We help them on that transition by halving the amount of gas they use or they're a commercial industrial customer that's looking to fully electrify so going right? We want to get completely off grid off gas grid a heating grid and for them. They're incorporating heat pumps typically.
29:50.10
Christophe
Them by combining our solution. We're also making those heat pumps or they don't have to be as big because we're producing a lot of energy on site. Okay, it's variable. It's Intermittent. It's during the day but you can store heat right? It means the heat pump is smaller. It means it will work less. It will last longer and we're reducing the opes. That heat Pump. So for those customers. We're also helping them as I go on that electrification Journey become more more. Um, affordable.
30:15.39
chrissass
Do you have a heat battery as part of your offering. So.
30:19.47
Christophe
Every single system that is installed for solar heat solar thermal has storage. It's and it's a great question because actually solar thermal is intrinsically a storage technology in Europe there are over ten million solar thermal systems that have an installed. Storage capacity of one hundred and eighty five Gigawatt hours now that's one hundred and eighty five Gigawatt hours you don't have to generate elsewhere to produce heat because you have to have a cylinder to every time and a heat pump and this is what's really nice because if you want to electrify you go down the heat pump room or route. A lot of the balance for equipment. A lot of the stuff that you'd have to do like a new cylinder and the mechanical stuff is symbiotic to what you need for a solar heat system. So actually you can use the same cylinders and so every solar thermal system. Um, for example, we've done a huge project and it's a famous building which is about become public so I can't name it just yet I can't do a spoiler but ah, it's in central london very very famous iconic building has a fifteen thousand litre hot water cylinder and the beauty of heat storage. You can store heat for days. So if you have 1 really sunny day you can still be using the heat from that sun 2 to three days later it's a wonderful storage medium. You can even store it for weeks and even months if you store it in the ground and you use ground source heat pumps to extract it. So.
31:45.79
Christophe
I'm really pleased. You mentioned that topic because for me, it's kind of like one of the major enablers for the energy transition. Everyone's focused on electrify everything electrify everything. It's like sure yeah electrifications and is definitely going to be a way to go but the challenge is where is all electricity going to come from and you know. Grid itself is is way smaller. It's 3 times smaller than the total heat demand we need I think the international energy agency recently said we need eighty million kilometers of cables to be able to help with electrification of the next up to 2040 and so it's um, that's the entire. Last hundred years of grid infrastructure. We've got to do again in the next seven years I mean it's just not going to happen right? because grids are a multi-decadal kind of infrastructure. So um, yeah, so this heat storage that you mentioned is for us. It's a great way to give flexibility to the grid and every system that gets deployed.
32:33.57
Jeff M_
Um.
32:42.64
Christophe
Whether it's on a home or a big commercial building. Industrial building is adding storage capacity and flexibility to those buildings.
32:52.80
Jeff M_
It's great that you mentioned the complementarity between what you're offering and some of the other electrification of heat you mentioned heat pumps and that there's actually complementarity where you can downsize the heat pump and you mentioned also the storage capability which makes me think of who. Is in charge of managing the dispatch of these different resources or looking at the load and the what's in the bank and which system to use and how to use those together who do you envision as doing the operas operation and optimization of that combined system.
33:23.21
Christophe
So on a typical design system I mean we we are doing more designs ourselves because we're the technology owners we we understand our technology really well. But what we're doing right now is we're training specifiers and engineers and and kind of building engineers as to how. Best to optimize the the solutions but it all really depends again on the customer it depends on what their usage pattern is because there are many different types and and it's one of the big challenges for the energy transition. It's like there are so many different options right? There's There's how many different heat pumps are there. There's so many different types right. And there's new ones coming along and so which one is right for for the particular Application. So I think training educating and the the specifiers and the designs of these systems is really key. Um, um, we're working with some big engineering groups that you know we we are. Building Holistic solutions with but those do need to be standardized to a limit because standardization really helps. But you need a lot of flexibility depending on each customer I've done if that answers your your question.
34:29.50
Jeff M_
It does and as we're going through this Conversation. You're covering a lot of ground both technical financial market and all over the world. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background. How did you get to this point where you've got such a grasp of all of these different facets of the business.
34:52.11
Christophe
Great question. You're not Goingnna quite believe it really because ah I have a very unusual career path to where I am today. Um I used to be in the advertising industry. So my background is um, a creative person I used to work on Global Tv Campaigns um very high end very technically challenging. Very big brands. Um, in that time for nearly twenty years whilst I was doing it I also worked on global climate change campaigns energy saving campaigns have always had ah an affinity and a desire to do something sustainable, but um. Wasn't quite cutting it for me in the advertising industry and I was always looking for a new challenge and I guess that came to me because my grandfather was doing renewables in the 1970 s my grandfather was a very famous scientist that was doing um ah wave power. Um, flywheel technology in the first oil crisis in 1973 so he told me when I was little boy fossil fuels are run out so one day you know we got we got to find alternatives and that that stuck with me and naked energy was the vehicle that I created with some good engineers. To um to try and make a change and they open my eyes to the heat problem and that was when we decided, let's let's design something that can actually have a bigger impact and is very scalable. So um, that's how the transition happened and it's been a fun journey the last last ten years
36:16.83
chrissass
So 1 thing I'd like to do with our guests is ask a crystal ball question and the question is where will this technology be in twelve months from today.
36:31.55
Christophe
Um, great question. Um, so we are now in 9 countries. But I think one exciting development which maybe is more pertinent for your listeners. Is. We want to do more in the us and I think we've got some fantastic partners there now who are building ah a really exciting pipeline of customers and you know Creighton was a really good flagship project I mean just last week we saw data that it was actually producing 10 times more energy in the pv system. The same area which is quite nice and then it was like the big freeze in Omaha I think it was minus ten and it was producing forty degree hot water. So it's lovely. Um, we want to be doing a lot more like that we hope to to be doing many commercial industrial projects in the us. And and and just to keep scaling.
37:23.53
chrissass
Well thank you so much for sharing your journey naked energy story. We've appreciated having you on the show today.
37:31.00
Christophe
Absolute pleasure being here. Thank you.