Energy Gang

The conflict in the Middle East has made energy security the dominant issue at this year’s ADIPEC, the huge global energy conference in Abu Dhabi. In this special episode, recorded live in front of an audience at the event, host Ed Crooks asks what resilience means for a range of countries and sectors around the world, and discusses what companies and governments are doing to secure vital energy supplies. Energy systems were already under strain even before the disruption to exports from the Gulf region, following a series of shocks including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Ed is joined by guests with a diverse set of perspectives. Dannif Danusaputro is director of investment and business development at Pertamina Hulu Energy, the upstream arm of Indonesia’s national oil and gas company Pertamina. Aman Ahmad is a senior vice president and head of business development for Sustainable Technology Solutions at KBR, the engineering group that works on projects from solar plants to nuclear reactors. And Alex Tancock is Chief Executive of InterContinental Energy, which is developing large-scale renewable energy projects to produce green hydrogen and ammonia, and to supply data centres.
Dannif explains the challenge facing Indonesia, which uses about 1.6 million barrels of oil every day, and produces only about 600,000 barrels a day. Securing physical supplies has become a national priority, and his company is focused on diversification and partnerships to develop new resources. Indonesia is also working on the demand side to reduce its reliance on imported oil, including through the electrification of transport. But it can’t rely only on the rise of EVs to keep its economy and society function: it needs to work on the supply as well as the demand for oil.
Aman describes how KBR has had to adapt quickly to help customers in the Middle East keep plants running safely through the crisis. That has meant rethinking spare parts, local supply chains and capacity to repair damaged facilities. It also means reassessing how resilience can be built into plant design right from the start.
Aman highlights one of the most worrying implications of rising natural gas prices: the impact on food supplies. Energy and food security are linked, because ammonia produced from natural gas is essential to fertiliser production. Natural gas remains the first choice while it is cheaper, but Aman is seeing interest in adding green hydrogen units to existing ammonia plants, to diversify their supply sources.
Alex sets out InterContinental’s model of large renewable energy hubs in deserts with strong wind at night and sun by day, giving a capacity factor of 74% before any storage. That allows the company to offer highly reliable power for data centres, round-the-clock power and hydrogen at below $3 per kilogram. The peak of the hydrogen hype cycle is long past, he says. Data centres have killed many hydrogen projects that relied on grid power, because they can pay far more for the same electrons. But despite that, real hydrogen projects are still being delivered at a faster pace than for wind and solar power in the early years of those industries.
The stakes are high. Alex argues the world has underinvested in energy supply and mismanaged policy for at least a decade, and the conflict in the Gulf simply brought forward a crisis that was coming anyway. His expectation, shared by Dannif, is that we may be heading for a decade of higher energy prices driven by supply disruption. That may spur the investment needed to bring prices down again. Ed concludes that we may be only at the beginning of a crisis where the full implications will take a long time to emerge.


This episode of the Energy Gang is brought to you by ADIPEC, the world's largest energy event, which took place in Abu Dhabi from 2-5 November.
As demand rises and global energy markets evolve, ADIPEC 2026 brings together governments, industry, investors and technology leaders to accelerate investment, advance technology and build the partnerships needed to meet today's energy needs while building a more resilient system for tomorrow.
Discover more at adipec.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As the ADIPEC 2026 conference gets under way, energy security and resilience are the central themes. Technological advances and international conflicts are creating new physical and cyber threats to energy supplies and infrastructure. The energy industry is being called on to provide resilience and supply security, which means seeing the risk of disruption early and adapting before it can spread.
Host Ed Crooks is joined by Caspar Herzberg, CEO of AVEVA, a UK-based industrial software company owned by Schneider Electric, to examine how data and software can strengthen the resilience of grids and other energy systems in the face of these emerging threats.
Caspar argues that energy security depends on visibility across the whole system: operating assets, logistics, inventories and suppliers. AVEVA’s “living digital twin” brings operational data together across assets and supply chains, helping decision-makers spot emerging constraints and act faster. The challenge is not just collecting more data, but using it to make decisions under pressure.
Digital infrastructure is increasingly part of the security question. Data centers and subsea cables can become targets. That is prompting a rethink of where critical data lives, from global cloud services to regional and on-premises systems, alongside demand for more redundancy and regulation.
That means investing both in distributed micro grids and in large-scale macro grids that can be “bigger than the weather”. Distributed systems and renewable generation can make power supplies harder to disrupt, while larger grids can balance weather-driven output across regions. For Caspar, a more resilient energy system means a mix of generation sources, stronger connections between grids, more local resilience and investment in digital distribution networks. Making that happen takes political will, long-term investment and stable policy.
The AI boom creates opportunities as well as threats. Caspar says data centers should be planned as industrial sites, with better workload visibility, optimized cooling and flexibility that does not compromise reliability. Increasingly, large data centers are going to have to be net contributors to the stability of the grid, he thinks. AI-driven power demand can cut both ways: it can strain reliability and drive up costs for households, or it can support the grid and help hold costs down by providing additional flexibility. The impact of new large data centers will depend critically on how they are designed and operated.

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America needs more electricity, but building new power lines takes time. Some transmission projects in the US have taken more than 20 years to complete. Many others have been blocked completely. With power demand rising rapidly, driven by AI data centres, electrification and industrial growth, the pressure is on to find ways to make better use of the grid we already have. Could smarter technology unlock the capacity needed to keep the lights on and energy bills under control?
In the second of two special episodes of the Energy Gang recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington, DC, host Ed Crooks explores the technologies that could help America's electricity system meet growing demand without waiting years for new infrastructure to be built.
Ed is joined first by Georg Rute, chief executive of Gridraven, a company developing grid-enhancing technologies that use advanced weather forecasting to increase the amount of electricity that existing transmission lines can carry. Georg explains how dynamic line ratings can unlock additional capacity by accounting for changing weather conditions, allowing utilities to move more power through their networks without adding new infrastructure. He discusses why adoption may have seemed slow so far, and argues that the technology is just beginning to take off.
Next Jeff Bladen, head of energy at data centre developer Verrus, explores how the sites that are a big part of the growing strain on the grid can also be part of the solution. He explains how integrating large-scale battery storage into data centres can allow them to reduce their demand on the grid during periods of peak stress, without interrupting computing operations. The conversation examines whether flexible data centres could connect to the grid more quickly, and why “islanded” off-grid power systems represent a missed opportunity.
Then Ed speaks to Carla Pinzón, founder and chief executive of Expand Power Technologies, about the potential of solid-state transformers to modernise the electricity system. Traditional transformers have changed little in more than a century, and growing demand has pushed equipment lead times to several years. Carla explains how new semiconductor-based technology could provide a smaller, more flexible alternative, capable of managing both AC and DC electricity and supporting solar power, batteries and data centres.
Finally, Ed is joined by Ray Long, president and chief executive of ACORE, to reflect on the key themes emerging from the Grid Forum and the policy decisions that could shape the future of American energy. Ray discusses the prospects for bipartisan permitting reform, which could significantly reduce the time needed to approve new transmission and generation projects. He also explores how political uncertainty has affected investment in renewable energy, why long-term policy stability matters to developers and investors, and what the industry needs to do to rebuild public confidence in the affordability and reliability of clean energy.
Across the conversations, a common message emerges: America cannot rely on building new infrastructure alone to meet its electricity needs. Making better use of existing grid capacity, introducing more flexibility into electricity demand and accelerating the adoption of new technologies will all be essential.
This is the second of two special episodes of The Energy Gang recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum (2026) in Washington, DC, exploring the strategies, policies and technologies shaping the future of America's electricity grid.
This episode is brought to you by ACORE, the leading nonprofit organization uniquely operating at the intersection of energy affordability, reliability, and clean energy deployment. ACORE is focused on stabilizing energy prices, strengthening the electric grid, and driving investment in cost-effective technologies to ensure that clean energy delivers for people, businesses, and the U.S. economy.
Visit www.acore.org to learn more about ACORE's work and upcoming events, like the ACORE Policy Forum on February 24-25 in Washington, D.C.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Americas needs more electricity, and fast. Data centres for AI, and new factories for computer chips and batteries, are driving up demand for electricity, putting mounting pressure on a power grid that has already been struggling. Across different industrial sectors, and different parts of the political spectrum, there is a broad agreement that new transmission infrastructure is urgently needed. But despite that support, getting new power lines built remains a major challenge. In the first of two special episodes of The Energy Gang recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington, DC, host Ed Crooks asks what is holding back investment in the grid, and what can be done to speed it up.
The Grid Forum brings together industry leaders, politicians and policy experts to discuss the future of the American electricity system. This year the hot topics were lengthy permitting processes, uncertain project costs, and market rules that are no longer fit for purpose at a time when there is a demand for new generation to be connected to the grid as rapidly as possible.
Ed is joined first by Madeline Gould Laughlin, director of regulatory affairs at Grid United, which is developing long-distance transmission projects to connect different regions of the US. Madeline explains why she thinks grid operators need to do more to recognize the reliability benefits of inter-regional transmission, giving utilities stronger incentives to invest in new connections.
Next Jenny Chen, a principal at the Regulatory Assistance Project, explores how changes to financing and regulation could encourage investment. She discusses the cap-and-floor model for funding transmission that is used in Great Britain: it combines revenue certainty for developers with incentives to make transmission projects commercially successful. Could a similar approach work in the US, where different states, regulators and grid operators often struggle to agree on who should pay for new infrastructure?
The conversation also turns to the growing backlog of energy projects waiting to connect to the grid. Adam Stern, director of market policy at independent power producer Clearway Energy, explains how uncertain connection costs and lengthy interconnection queues are preventing new electricity supply from coming online. He highlights reforms being introduced by Southwest Power Pool that could provide developers with greater cost certainty, and could provide a model for other grid operators to follow.
Finally, Ed speaks to Colin Meehan, vice president for grid campaigns at ACORE, about the policy changes needed to accelerate grid expansion. Colin argues that stronger connections between regional electricity systems could improve reliability, unlock access to lower-cost power and help keep consumer bills down. The discussion examines the potential impact of bipartisan permitting reform in Washington, and why work at the state and regional levels will remain essential regardless of what happens at the federal level.
Across the conversations, a common challenge emerges: the investment opportunities to expand grid capacity are real, but regulatory barriers, financing challenges and slow development processes continue to hold projects back. For the energy industry, the question is how to turn the general agreement on the need for a stronger grid into the action required to build one.
This is the first of two special episodes of The Energy Gang recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum (2026) in Washington, DC, exploring the strategies, policies and technologies shaping the future of America's electricity grid.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Energy companies use sensors and AI to anticipate equipment failure. Can the same predictive approach protect the people operating that equipment, without turning safety systems into a new form of workplace surveillance? As AI moves from screens into robots, control rooms and industrial sites, that question is becoming practical, not theoretical.
Host Ed Crooks is joined by Olivier Oullier, a neuroscientist, investor and AI entrepreneur whose work focuses on how people and machines interact. Olivier argues that AI can improve operator safety and productivity at once through neuroadaptive systems that use signals such as brainwaves, facial expression, eye movement and voice to detect fatigue, stress, distraction or cognitive overload.
In energy operations, those systems could adapt control-room dashboards to foreground the information that matters, or help collaborative robots respond when an operator is tired or distracted. Olivier says pilots are already underway in energy operations in Mexico, Australia and the UAE. Drawing on lessons from surgery and transport, he describes this as an extension of predictive maintenance: moving from monitoring equipment to anticipating human needs, or what he calls predictive care.
That promise rests on a sensitive trade-off. Continuous physiological monitoring could support safer work, but it also raises concerns about consent, autonomy and employee surveillance. Olivier says programs should be voluntary, transparent and compliant with regulation; the discussion tests what responsible deployment needs to look like and whether better outcomes can justify collecting such intimate data.
The conversation also ranges from the risks of poorly supervised AI agents and the skills needed to use AI well to the next phase of physical AI. Olivier points to world models, which aim to help robots understand and act in physical environments, while cautioning against precise long-range predictions about jobs. For energy companies, the near-term challenge is to deploy systems that improve safety and performance without losing sight of the people they are meant to serve.

This episode of the Energy Gang is brought to you by ADIPEC, the world's largest energy event, taking place in Abu Dhabi from 2-5 November.
As demand rises and global energy markets evolve, ADIPEC 2026 brings together governments, industry, investors and technology leaders to accelerate investment, advance technology and build the partnerships needed to meet today's energy needs while building a more resilient system for tomorrow.
Discover more at adipec.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.