Offshore wind market: the tsunami that ran out of steam

When I started in the wind sector back in 2004, the imminent offshore wind boom was already announced. All market forecasts agreed that offshore would be comparable to onshore in a few years. But years passed and that moment was always delayed. Pioneer countries grew little and new markets did not arrive. The EWEA established in 2005 a minimum target of 70GW installed in Europe by 2020 but the reality is that we will reach barely 20GW. Today the offshore market is limited to 4-5 markets in Europe and China and does not even account for 10% of annual global installations. What has happened not to meet expectations? Last week WindEurope published a very complete report on the situation of the offshore sector in Europe that can help us to analyze the evolution and prospects of the offshore business.

Main keys to wind and solar production in 2018 in Spain

On January 22nd, the record for wind power production in Spain was broken with 373 GWh in 24 hours and today we still have days with a lot of wind, which means that a very important part of the electricity demand is covered with wind power. It is in these days of records when the media echoes the important contribution that renewables already have in the national electricity system. It is also a good time to make a brief review of what has been 2018 in terms of wind and solar production in Spain.

The 4 most common mistakes when launching a new product

Who hasn't ever considered using Apple as an example of how to launch a product onto the market, but so much has been written about the subject that I've preferred to deal with it from the opposite perspective: what mistakes to avoid when launching a product. And what better example to illustrate these errors than one of my favorite products of all times, a product ahead of its time, a novel product, quality, technological but that failed miserably: the Segway PT.

Wind vs Solar: duel in the sun

Mixed solar/eolica auctions are a current topic and news as the last mixed auction in Germany where the solar PV took all the projects in front of the wind make that more and more voices are heard advocating multitechnology auctions where, as is predictable, the solar offers unattainable prices for other technologies. But is this the right approach? should the price be the only driver? will the solar PV really be unbeatable in mixed auctions? for those who are short of time, here are the quick answers: Depends, No and Yes. For those who have a few minutes to delve deeper into these questions, here are some arguments ...

Renewables vs Conventional: the point of no return?

Last week, the financial advisory and asset management company Lazard launched the 12th edition of its Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis where it makes a comparative analysis of the average cost of producing a MWh with different generation technologies. Since 2008, when the first edition was launched, it has been a reference in the sector to see how renewables were reducing the cost of generation and approaching what seemed like a chimera a few years ago: the grid parity. But the news is that this is no longer news: that renewables (wind and solar) are now clearly more competitive in new installation than conventional is something that almost no one discusses. Now the goal is what I would call the point of no return of renewables: that new wind or solar installations are cheaper than keeping conventional already amortized.

Net Promoter Score™ (NPS): 3 keys to breaking the myth

Net Promoter Score or NPS has become a well-known customer loyalty metric used by both financial analysts to value companies and the companies themselves to reward their employees. It has become the Holy Grail of analysts, the Swiss Army knife of customer loyalty managers, the bible of marketing gurus... but is all that glitters gold? what are its limitations? does it really apply to all companies?

Limited-risk products in high volatile sectors

A few months ago I was reading the book Welcome to Hard Times from one of my favourite writers, the great E.L.Doctorow, which narrates the hard life of the first villages in the Wild West to be created in the midst of a gold rush. Many people came called by the possibility of finding gold, but really the chances of that case were very low and the risks were very high. At the same time, the book describes the lives of some of the "service providers" of these mining settlements: the supply depot, the saloon, the blacksmith, and so on. In a passage from the book, one of the miners complains that all the money he earns from extracting the gold is spent on supplies and “entertainment” ... These service providers manage to square the circle: to have a recurring income and limited risk (not counting those of operating in the wild west, of course) in a sector with very high risk as was the gold seekers. Is this example extrapolable to our days? Can a product or service be designed for a high-risk sector and limit at the same time the exposure to that risk? Is it possible to enter a volatile sector and achieve a stable income?

The real threat of the electric car

All of us who believe that the electric car (EV) is the future of transport focus our hopes on the rapid reduction of battery costs that will make the average price of an EV in a few years is lower than the traditional internal combustion (ICE). But this scenario has a small problem: it assumes that the ICEs do not improve (or do so at the rate we know). And what is clear is that a much improved ICE in consumption, noise and price would be the real competitor of EVs. Something similar already happened in the late 90's with cable and ADSL...

Best free tools to build your own CI system

What does it take to set up a Competitive Intelligence (CI) system? Is there specific software? is it very complicated? is it expensive? ...these are some of the most frequently asked questions that arise when someone is considering launching a CI project. One thing is clear: tools must be at the service of the process and never the other way around.

Are Energy Storage the new data centers?

A few weeks ago I was attending the most important solar fair in Europe, Intersolar, in Munich. In addition to solar energy, this fair is a reference in e-mobility and energy storage. And the feeling I was left with is that batteries and their applications for energy storage are the new market boom. And many of the things I saw reminded me of the dot-com boom 20 years ago when, among other things, datacenters emerged as a large-scale business model. And that flashback, in addition to making me aware of the unrelenting pace of time, gave me the opportunity to analyze this analogy a little more in depth.