Utility Week

9 ISSUE 01 OCT/2018 What's the most exciting bit of technology you are working on at the moment and why? At Electron we're developing shared digital infrastructure for the energy sector. For example, an asset register that creates a digital twin for all energy assets in the UK, whether generation, storage or gas and electricity supply points. is might sound fairly basic at first, but it provides the foundation for a truly optimised, distributed grid. Without knowing what and where the capabilities in the system are it is impossible to make efficient use of the asset base we already have, let alone all the new assets, such as electric vehicles, that are about to hit. Moreover, this platform will provide a basis for an 'app store'-type model in which various service providers can interact with asset owners. ink any sort of contract from supply, aggregation, insurance, data procurement… e energy service model is about to change very fast. We have the data framework in place and are launching a project to populate it in October with National Grid and two network operators. It's early days, but it's the first step as we see it to a digital grid. What technology, piece of kit or process advancement has excited you most in your working life and why? First solar and then batteries – now EVs. Can I have three? What unites these technologies is that their roll-out is consumer-led, and that means very fast and not subject to central planning. Taking solar in the UK alone, nothing in 2000; more than one million installations today and likely closer to five million by 2030. ese technologies just get adopted and it changes the game that everyone can play around them. One day we are on a chess board, the next day it is a surf board! e markets have to play catch-up. How do you like to communicate? Face to face. We are all drowning in daily emails and messaging apps. It feels like someone else's to-do list being forced upon you. If you really want to know what someone thinks, you sort of need to look them in the eye… What bit of technology couldn't you be without at work? My Uber app. at's going to be a deeply unpopular answer and I may get black- balled by the London Cab Association. But I travel a lot – four-plus flights a week and outside of Europe. It means a lot to land somewhere foreign and walk out into a car both from an efficiency and a safety point of view. e resource efficiency of the Uber business model is also very compelling. No wonder people have been claiming "the Uber for X" business models for so long. What could it be in energy? Uber for batteries? Surge for batteries? …and at home? is one is so obvious. I'm famously attached to my phone. My husband has threatened to buy me one of those collars that dogs wear round their necks after an operation to stop me checking it all the time! U P F R O N T techno file J o - J o H u b b a r d In the first of a new series, the co-founder and chief operating officer at Electron, a developer of blockchain- enabled trading platforms, talks us through the important tech in her life. By Denise Chevin If money was no object? BMW i8? Actually, I don't think it will ever make sense to own a car in the city. Maybe a microgrid with a bunch of kit on it for experiments. Most admired entrepreneur or business leader I'm not sure there is any one individual. I'm sort of an iconoclast so it is easier to align with causes than individuals. For example, everyone in cleantech owes a huge debt to Elon Musk for dropping the cost of capital for the industry at a much-needed time. e other day I read a pretty inspiring interview with Whitney Woolfe (the founder of Bumble, an online dating platform) about not being afraid to cannibalise your own market in order to better serve your customers and stay on the front foot of transforming a market. She is extremely impressive. Technology can never replace… Physics. Ethics. Relationships… Book/talk that has inspired you? I still remember a talk by Zadie Smith (a British novelist) that I heard when I was at Oxford entitled "Fail Better". It was about the relationship between one's work and one's sense of self. e need to get started, create something, make mistakes, forgive oneself, go again and then fail again but in a new way. Viewing the act of creation as iterative rather than finite is empowering. Jo-Jo specialises in digital transformation and the distributed grid. She started her energy career in asset financing for renewable projects before moving to McKinsey as a strategy consultant with a focus on digital transformation. She co-founded Electron in 2016 with a mission to create more efficient energy and flexibility marketplaces.

• Cover