Georgia:

Hello, and welcome back to “Watt's up with energy?”, a gridX podcast. This is Season 4. I'm your host, Georgia, and this season we are talking about a hot topic in the energy industry, at least in Germany. It's been a hot topic since, I don't know, the mid-2023, maybe. This is paragraph 14a of the Energy Industry Act. 

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If you've been listening to the past few seasons, you've probably heard some of our guests talk about paragraph 14a without really talking about what it is. And if you don't know what it is, don't worry, because that is what this whole season will be about.

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And to help me expand upon this topic, let me introduce my guest, who will be with me for the next few episodes.

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We have Nicolai Stickler, our Innovation and Partner Sales Manager here at gridX.

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Welcome, Nicolai.

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Nicolai:

Hi, Georgia. Thanks for having me.

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Georgia:

Thanks for joining. So before we dive into 14a, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, what brought you into the energy industry, and what exactly it is that you do as an innovation and partner sales manager?

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Nicolai:

Yeah, sure. I can do that.

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So how did I come to gridX, right? And what did I do before?

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So I studied here in Munich at the Technical University, and my major during my master's was energy engineering, it was called.

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So it basically consisted of several parts, right? One was the really engineering part, so how do you produce energy and transport it, and how do you use it? And I had a lot of technical classes, but also around the economics, right? So what would be a viable business model around anything, of selling batteries, for example, or EVs, and also regulation, or at least a little bit.

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So I studied that, and I really enjoyed it. I was happy that I selected it before I had no clue, right?

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And then after that, I worked in a consultancy company, and that company was focusing not on energy itself, but on procurement and supply chain topics. And I was just interested in how, let's say, just like the things work, right? And that company really gave me the chance to, we visited a lot of like suppliers, right? Because we were in procurement, so we were looking at goods and services.

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Our clients were buying. So I really saw a lot of production and manufacturing sites. That was really interesting. And a big part of it was always like procurement of energy, right?

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So that was like a big chunk of like, imagine you have a company that's just doing something with steel, right? So they will consume a lot of energy, so you will see it on the bill, right?

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And there's always the question, how can we improve that? And I also visited companies like, for example, Siemens Energy, right? Doing wind turbines.

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And after four years there, a little bit longer, I just realized I wanted to do like a job which is like really at the center of renewables. And so I was looking for something new.

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And luckily, I found gridX, or they found me, right? And it was a match. So that's how I came here.

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And you asked what I'm doing here, right? Also important question. So the title of my role is quite long, but what it basically means, or what I'm doing, I started at the beginning of the year, is I'm working very closely with like two product managers. And while their job is really focusing on developing the product, I'm always looking from the client side.

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So our teams that are engaged with our clients, they had a lot of questions, right?

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How do they sell products to end customers?

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And my job is really having like the head of the customer, right? And make sure we translate the very complex topics we do in like easy language, help them roll out the products. So that's what I do, and that's what I did for or currently doing for 14a.

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Georgia:

Okay. You said part of your studies was also studying energy regulation?

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Nicolai:

Yeah, it's the work classes.

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Georgia:

Is that just...was that just German regulation, European, international?

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Nicolai:

Yeah, yeah, good question. So it was very much focused on Germany. So we were looking at the broader context of as we have like a European energy grid, right? And countries are producing energy in different ways. And so we are also looking at that.

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But regulation, I mean, it's a complex topic, right? And then you have like the countries, and you have the European legislation, and how that like interconnects.

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But yeah, for the German market, we were mainly looking at this... Yeah, I don't know how it's called in English, right? But mainly how they like changed regulation in the energy market and different market roles we have today.

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Because earlier, it was just you had a big monopoly, right? A company would produce the energy, transport it and sell it.

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A little bit more complex, but that was like the back in the day, and now you have like really all those different roles, right?

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And they have to work together, yeah, to bring products to market. And we're talking about that a lot. So liberalization of the energy market, maybe in English is how we'd say it out.

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Georgia:

Okay. And then another still not 14a question that I have is I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you describe yourself as a “renewable energy evangelist”. And this is something I've been seeing with more and more people in the energy industry.

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I saw it when a year ago with someone who works for Octopus Energy, and he described himself as an “energy evangelist”.

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But you're just the first one I've been able to talk to in person. 

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What does that mean?

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Nicolai:

Well, my interpretation of the word is just it's someone who is really like into a topic, right? And believes in it and advocates for it.

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And what that basically means in that case is you will see me talking about, let's just say, renewables and how they help to stop climate warming and so on on LinkedIn. But you will also see me with my friends maybe in the pub talking about that until a point where some of them might be annoyed of it, right?

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And so that's how I would interpret it. And as on LinkedIn, I mean, LinkedIn is a marketing website in the end, right? So it's also a bit of self-marketing, really, so that people have an idea, like, who's that person if you talk to someone, but yeah.

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Georgia:

Okay, nice. And I guess to start talking about Paragraph 14a, we first need to talk about the Energy Industry Act.

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Could you explain what this is? Also, what it's called in German, because I'm obviously using the English term. I am not going to try to pronounce it in German, but if you could say it in German.

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Nicolai:

Yeah, I can say it. So, Energy Industry Act in German is Energiewirtschaftsgesetz, ENWG. So, that's the short of it.

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Yeah, and so, what it is, I mean, there is a...Germany has a lot of regulation. I think that's not a secret. And there are several laws, legislation that is covering or governing like energy, right? But that one is maybe the, you could say, most prominent, right? There's also others like EEG, and yeah, just a few more.

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And what it basically is, you could say it's the primary legislation, right? Around the energy sector. So, it's a legal framework for how we like produce energy and distribute it, and then a lot of details.

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It's about, like, in the end, also how money, like, people have to understand it, right? To also build business models around it. So, yeah, and it's like under constant, you know, like development, I would say, especially maybe in the last years.

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I think I googled it yesterday, and I think I remember correctly, it's really old. It's from, I don't know, 1930s or 40s, right? You know, like, it just goes way back.

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So, or at least the original version of it, right? And yeah, and especially last years, I would assume I didn't check that, but there were a lot of amendments.

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And so 14a also is, you know, part of it, right? And that's also a little bit older, originally. And just the last amendment is the part we're going to talk about in detail.

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Georgia:

Because there was already a paragraph 14a in the Energy Industry Act, but the big thing that happened in 2024 was that there were updates to the paragraph, right? And that's what happened.

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It wasn't that paragraph 14a didn't exist before, but now they have just revised it.

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Nicolai:

Correct, yeah..In German, you say a Novelle, right? So if you...I mean, I'm not a lawyer, right? But my understanding, if they say there's a GesetzesNovelle, they just mean they're changing a lot of things, right?

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In English, it's, I guess, just amendment or...

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Georgia:

I think just amendment. Yeah.

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I guess then let's dive in to what exactly is 14a. What does it do? Why do we have it?

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Nicolai:

Yeah. Okay. Big question.

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So, I mean, I know the audience is into the topic, but however, I would maybe just zoom out a little bit, right? To give more context.

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So, if we look back on our energy system, maybe a few years or decades ago, right?

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And you would describe it, you could say, it was really carbon-based, central and really demand-focused, right?

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So, what do I mean by that? So, carbon-based is obviously, we just burned oil and gas and other CO2-emitting energy sources. And we still do, but we did even more in the past, and it was very central, meaning we had a few production plants, it's still 10,000, right? But less than we have today.

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It was really, like when I say demand-focused, what I mean is just if we needed more energy, we just produced more, right? So, in a very easy way.

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And I mean, this energy system still exists, but we are in a big transformation. And I mean, the reason for that is pretty simple, right? Because we realized global warming, CO2-emittance, right? It's really pushing global warming. We said we want to stop that.

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And we had to come up with solutions, right? And so, like, these old world, carbon-based, central and demand-focused, is just changing, right?

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And a part of it is that when we move away from carbon-based energy, and we say, okay, let's produce energy from wind and PV, which is great because it's not emitting CO2, the system becomes, I mean, it becomes just different and maybe also more difficult to handle because these sources are by nature intermittent, right? So you just, if you, wind is just blowing when it's blowing.

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And at the same time, we also just need more energy, right?

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So we are, we have an increasing population, and the people living on the planet are also unfortunately using more and more energy.

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So that just means we just need more, right? And we need it from different sources.

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And that's very, like, it's just a complex task. And the way of, like, now coming to this regulation, the way that how the regulation at least was, right, really was supporting the old system, which makes sense, right?

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And now when we switch to another system, like, from a technical perspective, we also need to adapt the regulation.

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So that's, I would say, like, the context in why that happened.

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And now coming to 14a itself, so if you, like, imagine, you just, you know, live in your house, right, and you buy an electric vehicle, and you maybe also buy, like, a heat pump, right, because you just want to move away from your oil or whatever heater.

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And all your neighbors are doing the same, right?

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Then it just can happen that at certain times, like, the grid, which was constructed, right, like, way back, just can support everyone drawing, like, energy from the grid at the same time, because you can imagine it's just night or it's Christmas, right? Everyone's at home and heating and charging their cars because they want to pick up the grandma from the train station.

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And they all do it at the same time, and they just draw so much energy from the grid that it just, the grid can't support it anymore.

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And that would be a problem.

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But because we want people to buy heat pumps and electric vehicles, right? The legislator said, OK, let's maybe just do a little trick, combine that, right? And give people the chance, they can buy it.

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And whatever happens, the grid operators always have to accept the heat pumps because you have to call them and tell them you're going to buy one. And they accept that.

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But at the same time, the grid operators have the job to stabilize the grid, right? And because they were afraid of maybe destabilizing the grid, if people would do that, they needed a tool. And that tool is really the 14a.

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The 14a is after they amended it, right?

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Really just saying the DSO, so the transmission system operator, OK, here's a tool. So in case you foresee that the grid might destabilize somehow, right?

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You have the right, like for very special assets, like what I said before, heat pumps and wall boxes, for these very special assets, for a specific time, so not forever, just for a specific time, you can reduce the maximum power of these assets drawing from the grid.

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So that's basically it, right?

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And that would never mean that the lights switch off or you start freezing. It just means your car might charge a little bit slower.

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So, yeah, nobody has to be afraid of anything, right?

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But that's basically what it says. Like, really, a specific period of time for specific assets, they just dim the maximum power you can draw from the grid.

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That's basically it.

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Georgia:

But only for these renewable energy assets? Like, only EV heat pump, not for normal lights?

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Nicolai:

Right.

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Georgia:

Ahhhh. That part I did not...

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Nicolai:

So, if you have a house, right, and you have, like, your normal house consumption, so there would be light and all your white appliances, like your washing machine or whatever you have, they're not part of a legislation, so they're, like, separated, right?

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So you just do what you do.

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But for these assets I was mentioning, so there's a list of it, but basically what is the...

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Like, in simple terms, it's really the heat pump, right? It's the... It's not the car itself, it's the chart, the wall box, right? And it's batteries. You could ask why, so maybe we come to that later. But batteries also.

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And in combination with another law, where we don't have to deep dive into it, but it's also then, like, the PV, right?

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So these assets are, yeah, covered by this law.

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And another important fact, it's only...important to you if you install them after 2024, which is right when they amended this section. Yeah. And maybe from an end customer perspective, you could now say, OK, what's in it for me, right?

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Yeah.

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So in the past, the DSOs, they were allowed, or if you asked them, hey, can I install a heat pump, right? Because you have to tell them or a PV or whatever. They could actually say no, right? Because their job is to protect the grid, and they would just say, no, we can't do it because the grid might destabilize or whatever. I don't know what they would say, but something like that.

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And as I said before, right, as we want people to buy these assets, the law now says the DSO has to accept it, which is great because if you want to buy these things, right, then you're good now. So they have to accept it. So that's the one big advantage for, like, let's say, the homeowners.

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And the second one is that when you participate in this, yeah, this law, this regime, you also pay less grid fees. So you just get money back, right? €150 or even more, depending on details, but I'd say 150 at least per year, which is a great saving, I would say.

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Georgia:

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I mean, we've been talking about this for more than a year now. I don't know how I didn't realize this only affected renewable energy assets.

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I thought it was affecting all forms of energy in a house period, but that it was that the renewables with an energy management system gave you more control over like when this dimming happens, and then you don't have to worry.

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Nicolai:

Yeah, we can come to that. Like I can say something like that also, right? How gridX or other EMS, like how they support this, right? But regarding that question, it's really like the assets I was mentioning.

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There is obviously like every lawyer is more detailed to its specifics and edge cases and so, but let's just keep it simple.

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That's yeah, that's it.

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Georgia:

Was there a specific event or series of events? Series of events that led to the amendment of paragraph 14a? Like why 2024 specifically? Why didn't they do it earlier?

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I guess not later because the earlier the better, but like why now?

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Nicolai:

Yeah. So I'm sure there were a lot of events, right?

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I guess like the broader picture, the broader context is that Germany and other countries, they pledged to be climate neutral until a certain point in time, right? They are part of the Paris Climate Agreement and so on.

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So I would assume that they were just working on the legislative tools, right, to make things happen.

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And I'm not sure about it, but right, there was also like the event of the war in Ukraine. And I can't, I mean, I can't say for sure, because I really don't know. But as what I know is that when they amended this section, right, it was in like end of 2023.

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It was really a very short period of time, because before it came into effect, right? And like people from like the industry were also like wondering, right, how that should work.

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But they really like tried to push that, right?

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And maybe so you had like this general trend, and then like some events, like the war in Ukraine, like really pushing the topic.

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And also what is happening in Germany for the last couple of years, really getting better at producing energy from renewables. Right? I think this year we reached like 55 something percent of our electric energy comes from renewables, which is great.

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So we're getting better at that. So we really need these tools to stabilize the grid. So I guess that was also part of the legislature to say, okay, let's go, let's do it.

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But I'm sure someone in the government has like the exact, can connect all the dots. I was not part of that.

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Yeah.

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Georgia:

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of documentation going on. I'm sure it was written on a physical piece of paper.

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Nicolai:

I'm sure.

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Georgia:

Not digitally. What were some of the key objectives that the German government aimed to achieve with the introduction of this paragraph?

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Nicolai:

If you break it down, I would really say it's the two blocks, right? Give people, like, don't stop the energy transition, right? Like keep it the same pace or even accelerate it by giving people the means of buying heat pumps, EVs, right? Like the assets we need, because they're, like, based on electricity.

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And at the same time, give a tool to the network operators, the DSOs, to keep the grid stable, right?

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Like, really, these two things: Energy transition, while stabilizing, or keeping the grid stable, right? That's the two big objectives, I would say.

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Georgia:

If you could travel back in time to when Germany's energy market regulations were first being drafted, which, as you said, could be, like, the 1920s, 1930s, what piece of modern technology or knowledge would you bring to convince policy makers to prepare for something like 14a, even earlier?

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Nicolai:

Okay, so not if I go back four years, but if I go, like, a very long time.

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Georgia:

Although I guess then they weren't really using renewable energy so much, so maybe we can bump it up a few more decades.

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Nicolai:

Yeah, if I would travel back in the, I don't know, 50s or so, I could give them a hint, right? But maybe they were not really convinced.

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Why would they do it? Right? Climate change maybe was not, I mean, they knew about it, but I guess nobody cared that much.

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If I would travel back a few years. So I maybe I just said part of a piece of technology, I don't know, I could tell them, hey, are you really sure you need to, like, do it so detailed and complex?

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But at the same time, I mean, I guess it's very hard to draw legislation in such a complex topic like energy, right, production and transmission. I'm not really sure that any piece of advice would help.

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My hope is that they had the intention to do it like in a pragmatic way, right? Just, I would say, start somewhere and then improve. Because it's really, it's always easy. Later to say, why didn't you do it a different way, right?

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And obviously, I was never part of one of these sessions or in the Bundestag or whatever. I assume it's very hard to do this.

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And what I know is that they, like, how it works in general, my understanding is that the politicians, they really talk a lot to all the associations we have in Germany, right?

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They try to like draw something and say, okay, this is a way we could do it. And then they ask them, they consult them and say, okay, can you give feedback to that? Right?

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So I have the hope that this is a good connection and exchange of information between all these players you need. And I'm pretty sure they already have the feedback.

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And however, you still, if you do this such a legislation, there's always some edge cases you just didn't cover or it takes a little bit longer. I guess it's somehow normal.

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Georgia:

In your opinion, how does Paragraph 14a differ from previous regulations in terms of its approach to managing the energy market?

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Nicolai:

Yeah. So three points, I would say, like one is really the focus on the demand side of management. So like how, I mean, now the end customer is really like a part of it, right?

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They have a big responsibility. I mean, they also have it in other legislations before, right?

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But now really, actually, they have a big job in stabilizing the grid by, you know, like when they let an installer bring a heat pump or whatever in the house, right? It's actually their job to make sure everything is correct.

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Now you could say, okay, how should they know that, right? Yeah. Because they're not an expert on the topic. So, which is maybe something you could also criticize.

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But at the same time, you could also say, well, I mean, people need to be part of this big project, right? This also gives them a little bit of, it's maybe a nudge, right? So, hey, take your time and, right? Invest some time in understanding that. But at the same time, you can also say, it's not really pragmatic because people are just, I mean, they're busy with other things, right? They buy a PV or whatever, a battery, and then just let someone install it.

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Yeah, and then having this responsibility on yourself is maybe a big burden, and I'm pretty sure most people don't even know, right?

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So, what is written in the law is maybe something, but how it's been handled in the real world, I guess there is still a gap between it.

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But yeah, so that's one point, like really looking at the demand side. And then also that people, I mean, they have an incentive, right?

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So, they really have like this reduced grid fees, and it's a lot of money, as I said, €150 or even more, depending on some details, but it could easily be like 300. And that is something, like that's also a positive nudge, right? Telling people, hey, I mean, if you do this and that, right?

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Which is not really like a big disadvantage to you, you get something back, which is also, I think, a good thing, and maybe a little bit different than laws, other legislation.

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And also, I believe that this law is an enabler or accelerator for the digitalization of Germany in a certain area, right? Because to make 14a happen, you need special technology.

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And in simple terms, it's a smart meter, right? With some extra fancy stuff. But you need that.

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And Germany is very well known, I would say, in Europe, or maybe even outside of Europe, that our smart meter coverage is quite low, right?

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Georgia:

Yeah.

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Nicolai:

And so this...

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Georgia:

It's the lowest in Europe, right?

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Nicolai:

That might be, yeah. Maybe it's not the lowest, lowest, but it's really at the bottom.

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So without advocating too much for it, I just want to say, my understanding is the smart meters we are using or rolling out are different than, or at least in some cases, different to other countries.

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So they have some, let's say, enhanced capabilities, making them very, very secure, and giving them also like this steering, this 14a steering is also capability, not all smart meters, to my knowledge, have in other countries.

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So what I want to say is maybe it's sometimes comparing a little bit apples and bananas.

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But however, a smart meter is still a smart meter, and yes, Germany is lagging behind a little bit, which is why I said this is hopefully a really accelerator to push that forward, which is a great thing, I would say.

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Georgia:

Because you need to have a smart meter in order to participate in 14a?

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Nicolai:

So now it gets tricky. So let's say it, your job as a homeowner has nothing to do with the...If you participate in 14a, all of this smart meter part is not your job. You don't have to worry about it.

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If you participate and you want to reduce grid fees, you just have to, let's say, you or your installer, you just have to call a DSO and say, okay, I managed everything in my house so that you can do the steering.

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There's different ways of doing that. We can come to that later. One way is obviously using an EMS, like gridX, but that's it.

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So you're good, you get the reduced grid fees, even if it takes a little bit of time.

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But to make the whole system work, so really to send signals, you need a smart meter. But bringing the smart meter to your home is not your job. That is someone else doing it, right? It's a metering operator, another role.

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So they will come most probably later, maybe, I don't know, next year or so, some even have it already. They would install that, and then you can send these signals, right?

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But as I said, that's not the job of the homeowner, of the end customer.

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Georgia:

And I guess actually that might take us into, because you've explained a lot about like what 14a is, how it works, which is gonna make my next question a little bit weird, but how does it work?

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Like, how exactly is the signal sent to a home, and then the dimming happens?

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Because you're right, that in my mind, I imagined an actual, like physically, the lights dim around you in your house, and then you're like, oh, 14a is happening, and you go somewhere and like turn a dial. I'm very technologically literate, as you can tell.

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Nicolai:

Yeah. No, it's a good question.

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I mean, yeah, so maybe let me try to explain it in the process way, right? So the DSO responsible for the grid stability, right?

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They will, they use tools. They create, they call it digital twins of their grids, right?

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They have a physical grid, and now they want to understand, okay, where in this grid, like how much energy is produced and consumed and details.

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So they create a digital twin of that network, and then they can in real time, you know, see what is happening where.

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And if they are then, let's say, if they have reason to believe there will be a good congestion or it will break down or whatever, right? Then they are allowed, then they are allowed to send one of these stimming signals, right? These 14a signals.

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And what they do is, I mean, it's like super technical and back-end and they're really the details there. I'm not an expert on that.

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But basically, they just send these signals, and they send it via the smart meter infrastructure, right? So from, let's just say, the DSO is somewhere here, right?

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So the listeners can't see it, but I'm just saying they have their operations, right? And they say, okay, here, there's a good congestion.

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We send the signal, and they use the smart meter infrastructure to send it into the homeowner's house, right? So it goes via the smart meter, and then into the house. And what is not influencing, as I said before, is the lights, or the…

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Georgia:

You said the white appliances.

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Nicolai:

The white appliances, yeah, like the washing machine or whatever. So that's just not, it's not part of it, right? So let's just say, from a technical point of view, you can separate it, and that's done. So you don't have to worry about it.

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And then what happens is, you somehow have to connect, like, the smart meter infrastructure with your assets, right? So somehow the signal has to come from the smart meter to your whatever, heat pump or so. And there's different ways of doing it.

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One way is you just connect them directly, right? Let's just say there is a, like, a wire between them.

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And then a signal reaches the heat pump, and it just tells them, I don't know, you can only consume so much power now, so many kilowatts.

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Again, that's, it can be easily super complicated, so let's just say it will reduce a little bit. It's not going to switch off, but it will reduce it.

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Or it would just, an easier example is the wallbox for the car. It will still charge, but maybe it just takes longer.

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So, and that's, I would say from an end customer perspective, maybe a little bit inconvenient, right? So let's just say you wanted to go somewhere, and you don't know that a dimming will happen.

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Georgia:

Yeah.

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Nicolai:

And then it happens, and, okay. So that brings me to another way of how you can solve it, right? And that is making use of the energy management system, right? So something, gridX is doing.

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That means now you don't connect the smart meter infrastructure to the asset directly, but there is the EMS in the middle, right? And that brings several advantages.

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So the first one is, for example, that the end customer gets a notification about what's happening, right? Because if not, they might not even realize that the car is charging more slowly, but now they get a notification, right?

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That can have different ways to do it, but you will just say maybe, okay, there is a dimming happening now, right? Impact, whatever that means.

‍

So they have the transparency. And at the same time, the energy management system, as there has inherent intelligence, it can also, for example, if you have PV production at that time, or if you have a battery, you can discharge, you can just make smart use of the energy production or capacity you have, and just maybe then push from the battery into the car, something like that, right?

‍

And that's another, I would say, big advantage, which is, like, with the other way, not really possible.

‍

Yeah, and maybe just adding one point to that. What I said before, the smart meter infrastructure in Germany is really, really secure, right? And that's on purpose.

‍

So there is, I mean, the grid stability is very important, right? And we know that there are, let's just say, entities that are trying to destabilize the grid on purpose.

‍

So it makes a lot of sense from a security perspective for the whole society to keep, like, all these, imagine there's, like, millions of smart meters in every house, right? Imagine someone would hack that infrastructure.

‍

That could potentially be a very, very big problem, right?

‍

So they make it very secure, and now it is obviously in our interest that when the information then goes from this smart meter infrastructure to these assets, that what comes after, like, for example, that an EMS is also very secure.

‍

And that is something that is, for good, it's very important, right? So really stress that, that we are very much looking at security, especially as, you know, like, more and more assets get connected.

‍

So the potential, like, let's say, points, like, where you can enter, like, the system and destabilize it, they get more.

‍

Georgia:

And how often would you expect this dimming to happen?

‍

Nicolai:

It's a very good question. So there is, if you talk to people, right, I guess there is different, there's different opinions, points of views. In the end, nobody really can say for sure, right?

‍

But looking at where we are today, looking at the grid and the rollout of these assets, I think it's fair to say it's harder and it takes longer to build grid extensions, right?

‍

While at the same time, the rollout of EVCS and all of that is just ramping up and going very fast. So assets drawing energy from the grid and the grid itself right there, like this one is going very, like the one is very going faster than the other one, making it more probable that you will have just situations where you need to intervene, right?

‍

So I visited last week the Metering Days, which is like a trade fair or congress of the experts of the metering hemisphere. So there is like the DSOs, the metering operators, so the companies rolling out smart meters, the hardware producers and all of them, and also the Bundesnetzagentur, I don't know in English what the name is, so but government bodies, which are like really important for that topic.

‍

And the message I got from the different presentations and expert talks really is that the pressure on the grid is, it's increasing, right? Which is why we need or needed this legislation and other legislation which is coming up.

‍

And yeah, so I would say, let's hope we won't use 14a, right? It's also called Ultima Ratio. So meaning it's like really the worst, it only happens in the worst case. But I would not like not poker on it, right?

‍

So we should really prepare for it happening. Just how often, it's really hard to say.

‍

Georgia:

And I think now this is kind of leading us into what our next episode will be. So I want to end this how I always do with something a little bit fun.

‍

Normally, I ask people just one fun question, but I want to change it up yet again. So for you, I've got a series of rapid fire questions. Largely energy based.

‍

So just say, what comes to your mind? You ready?

‍

Nicolai:

Yeah, I'm not sure. But let's go.

‍

Georgia:

If you were a type of renewable energy or energy asset, which would you be?

‍

Nicolai:

I want to be this energizer rabbit bunny. So it's a battery.

‍

It's a battery. Battery, the energizer bunny.

‍

Georgia:

What's the most overrated energy buzzword?

‍

Nicolai:

Smart meter rollout.

‍

Georgia:

Which city is the most prepared for the energy transition?

‍

Nicolai:

I live in Munich. Munich.

‍

Georgia:

What's your favorite German word related to energy or sustainability?

‍

Nicolai:

I have to say Energiewirtschaftsgesetz.

‍

Georgia:

Love it.

‍

What's the most renewable thing you've done this year?

‍

Nicolai:

Oh, it's bad, man.

‍

I mean, I, you know, I don't have a car, I go everywhere by bike or train, so I would say that counts, right?

‍

Georgia:

Yeah, oh, that totally, that totally counts.

‍

What's an energy tech innovation that you are looking forward to? Either one that is created or has not been created.

‍

Nicolai:

Energy tech.

‍

You know, there is, there is a company in this house, they're doing, they're working on nuclear fusion. And, you know, it's a big topic, it's controversial.

‍

I have my opinion on it, but it, I really want to see, you know, I want to see it working, and I need to talk to that guy, so.

‍

Georgia:

Nice, okay. You mean, like, in this building?

‍

Nicolai:

Yeah, they're in this building, yeah.

‍

Georgia:

Interesting.

‍

What's the first thing you think of when you hear paragraph 14a?

‍

Nicolai:

It's, you know, like, it's becoming part of me, but I'm also looking for a paragraph 14c, so.

‍

Georgia:

No b?

‍

Nicolai:

I don't know, I skipped that. I didn't read it.

‍

Georgia:

Straight to C.

‍

What's the most German thing about 14a?

‍

Nicolai:

The most German thing about it?

‍

I think if you read, like, the translation itself and also the documents around it, I don't know how to, like, summarize. It's just, you know, like, how they detail these things, I would say that's just, like, a very German way of doing it, right?

‍

Georgia:

Wordy?

‍

Nicolai:

Wordy is good, yeah.

‍

Georgia:

In English, we can say wordy.

‍

Nicolai:

Wordy is good, yeah.

‍

Georgia:

All right, and then this is the last one, except this one, I'm just going to say a word.

‍

You just say the first thing that pops into your mind.

‍

Nicolai:

Okay.

‍

Georgia:

Net zero.

‍

Nicolai:

We can do it.

‍

Georgia:

Optimization.

‍

Nicolai:

Always good, I don't know.

‍

Georgia:

Clean tech.

‍

Nicolai:

Best place to work.

‍

Georgia:

Kaffee und Kuchen.

‍

Nicolai:

I love it. Sunday.

‍

That's what I do on Sundays.

‍

Georgia:

EMS.

‍

Nicolai:

gridX.

‍

Georgia:

Beer.

‍

Nicolai:

More.

‍

Georgia:

And Energy Industry Act.

‍

Nicolai:

Energiewirtschaftsgesetz.

‍

14a.

‍

Georgia:

Awesome. Well, thank you, and I will see you for our next episode.

‍

Nicolai:

Looking forward to it. A lot of fun. Bye.

‍

Georgia:

If you'd like to learn more about the world of renewable energy or energy management systems, be sure to check out our website, gridx.ai, where we produce regular blogs and glossaries about the subject.

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