Transmission

Battery storage in Africa is one of the most misunderstood opportunities in global energy. Only 8% of the continent’s hydro power has been tapped. In Malawi, just 14% of the population is connected to the grid. Africa needs to add an estimated 100 GW of capacity in the next decade and the fastest way is with renewables and storage. Michael Cupit develops BESS projects in Malawi and Kenya, and he’s spent years working inside the gap between how these markets look from the outside and how they actually operate on the ground.
In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter sits down with Michael to break down the real risk picture in Sub-Saharan Africa: why mid-to-high-teen IRRs are the reality, how 20-year capacity payment contracts compare to merchant BESS in Europe, and what it actually takes to get a project from bare earth to operational - a journey that took eight years in Malawi.
They cover:
The two biggest misconceptions about doing business in Africa
How South Africa, Malawi, and Kenya's grids differ and where batteries fit in each
The role of DFIs, MIGA guarantees, and multilateral risk wrappers in making projects bankable
China's declining role in African infrastructure and what's replacing it
The O&M challenge: building operational capability from scratch in frontier markets
Why winning the argument for renewables means making the commercial case - not just the climate one
Want to track battery storage capacity and market trends across Africa and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=michael_cupit
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@modoenergy
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⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
1:08 The two biggest misconceptions about Africa
4:30 IRRs, risk and contracted vs merchant returns
8:00 Why Africa is skipping the fossil fuel grid model
9:40 South Africa: load shedding, rooftop solar and grid constraints
13:00 Battery use cases: the transmission line problem
17:00 Malawi's grid: run-of-river hydro and the diesel spread
19:00 Kenya: geothermal, 10 GW buildout and hyperscaler demand
22:30 Rare earth mining and the electrification push in Malawi
26:30 Financing: DFIs, MIGA, project finance and currency risk
31:45 How long does it really take? The 8-year development journey
33:10 China's role in African infrastructure - myth vs reality
33:45 Engineering talent, local capacity and the O&M challenge
36:55 What success looks like in 5 years
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You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.

Biomethane currently supplies just 1% of UK gas demand. Could it reach 30% by 2050? Philipp Lukas, founder and CEO of Future Biogas, makes the case.
The UK uses around 700 terawatt hours of gas every year. Even as electrification reduces that to 150–250 TWh by 2050, the gas that remains will be harder than ever to replace. Industrial heat, steel, glass, shipping, aviation.
Biomethane, produced from organic waste and agricultural byproducts through anaerobic digestion, could supply 50–60 TWh of that demand. That's roughly 10 times what the UK produces today.
In this episode of Transmission, Ed speaks with Philipp Lukas, CEO of Future Biogas. Philipp explains how the technology works, why the gas grid is the biggest battery in the country, and why turning it off would be a mistake.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.
Battery revenues, nodal spreads, trading strategies, Ko answers your most business-critical questions instantly, powered by Modo's IOSCO-aligned benchmark data. Try Ko for free now→ https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=philipp_lukas
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y1pWt2-cKi4
Chapters
0:00 Introduction — the gas grid as a clean energy asset
1:20 What everyone gets wrong about biogas
2:00 How anaerobic digestion works (the basics)
8:00 Ranking the top uses of biomethane
10:00 The price gap: natural gas vs. biomethane today
15:00 The future of the UK gas grid — 700 TWh to 200 TWh
18:00 How much could biomethane supply by 2050?
25:00 Why the gas grid won’t be switched off
29:00 Dunkelflaute and the case for backup gas
33:00 Feedstocks: sewage, food waste, animal manure, energy crops
37:00 Biogas vs. ethanol: land use and the rotation argument
40:00 How biogas plants actually work (reliability, engineering)
43:00 The subsidy journey and the obligation model
47:00 Closing

Eight in ten clean energy projects never make it through development. Not because of bad ideas, but because of how the process is run: sequential, analog, and fragmented across consultants, spreadsheets, and months of waiting.
In this episode of Transmission, Alejandro speaks with Stuart Pomeroy from Paces .Stuart breaks down exactly why the traditional development model fails, what a parallel workflow looks like in practice, and how compressing land, environmental, interconnection, and permitting work into a single ecosystem can cut development timelines by more than half.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst
Battery revenues, nodal spreads, trading strategies, Ko answers your most business-critical questions instantly, powered by Modo's IOSCO-aligned benchmark data. Try Ko for free now→ https://modoenergy.com/sign-up
For more information on Paces,
Head to their website → https://www.paces.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pacesai/
Reach Stuart at [email protected]
0:00 Introduction: the hidden cost of delay in clean energy
3:18 How clients use Paces day-to-day
4:29 The data model: land, zoning, and interconnection layers
5:25 The old sequential development model
7:30 Cutting development time by 50%+
9:02 Does Paces replace environmental consultants?
11:05 Cost savings and pipeline conversion metrics
13:47 Assessing permitting risk and policy uncertainty
15:42 The Permitting Predictor tool
17:17 Predicting landowner behaviour
18:37 Hottest US regions for development activity
27:42 Community sentiment and opposition risk
31:22 Off-grid development and on-site generation
34:10 Cost, complexity, and time: the off-grid advantage
36:40 LMP data suite and revenue signals
37:40 Getting projects bankable: track record and case studies
39:31 What Paces are building next
41:23 Contrarian takes: off-grid and permitting
44:19 Closing

Tax insurance helps clean energy projects manage the risk of the IRS challenging their tax credits - like the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), Production Tax Credit (PTC), or bonus depreciation. Instead of carrying that uncertainty, developers and investors can transfer it to insurers, adding confidence to project financing.
In this episode, Alejandro speaks with James Chenoweth Managing Director at Alliant Insurance Services, about how the market works and who’s using it. They also touch on the key areas of risk today, such as whether projects properly qualify for credits, potential recapture issues, and structuring above the project level, along with ongoing uncertainty around foreign ownership rules (FEOC), which are still awaiting clearer IRS guidance.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst
Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter: https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:48 What is tax insurance?
00:05:19 Who needs it and why?
00:06:18 Is a project insurable?
00:07:05 Insurable risk examples
00:07:51 Which technologies lead demand?
00:08:43 FEOC rules explained
00:09:56 How tax insurance is priced
00:10:57 Where it sits in the finance stack
00:13:49 Who benefits from risk transfer?
00:14:01 Impact on project returns
00:14:32 The next big insurable wedge
00:15:13 Why Texas leads the sector
00:15:57 Houston: oil & gas to renewables
00:17:14 War stories from the boom years
00:18:32 Advice for developers
00:19:07 Alliant's large-scale capabilities
00:21:00 Contrarian take: tax policy is stabilising
https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=james_chenoweth

How does a major renewable operator decide what gets built, where, and with whose capital? Lolita Carry, Director of Portfolio Strategy at Engie North America, explains how Engie manages a 20GW BESS, wind, and solar pipeline across ERCOT, PJM, MISO, and CAISO.
In this episode Alejandro de Diego speaks with Lolita Carry about how one of the US's largest battery storage operators structures its investment decisions across multiple ISO markets.
They take a look at how Engie steers a 20GW development pipeline across ERCOT, PJM, MISO, and CAISO; the capital recycling model behind Engie's 2.7GW asset sale to SES; what the Broad Reach Power acquisition brought to Engie's battery portfolio; how ancillary service saturation and energy price cannibalisation are reshaping BESS investment cases; and why Engie remains bullish on batteries despite tightening revenues.
You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Alejandro De Diego - US Market Analyst
Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage understand the market — and make the most out of their assets. Want all the latest power market news? Sign up for our free Weekly Dispatch newsletter: https://bit.ly/TheWeeklyDispatch
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction — Engie's 20GW pipeline and the portfolio challenge
4:01 Capital allocation and key technologies in focus
5:17 Priority ISO markets: ERCOT, PJM, MISO, CAISO
6:04 What makes each market unique
9:27 BESS + solar development: from site to FID
11:00 Risk assessment and project showstoppers
12:32 Network upgrades and interconnection queue dynamics
14:49 Raising and lowering the investment bar across markets
18:01 Where Engie captures the most value: development vs. construction vs. operations
18:59 The capital recycling model — Engie's 2.7GW SES deal explained
20:20 How grid-scale batteries operate day to day
21:45 BESS revenue decline: ancillary services, cannibalisation, and energy arbitrage
22:34 Investment stance
23:27 In-house energy management vs. external optimisers
24:07 Advantages of scale vs. smaller developers
29:10 Career advice for those entering the energy investment sector
30:20 The Broad Reach Power acquisition — lessons and integration
32:05 Final plug and contrarian view on the energy industry