BC BUSINESS
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

“Energy needed a digital revolution – and we are it”

Greg Jackson, boss of Octopus Energy, says the sector was ripe for an Amazon or Uber-style disruptor, but that his version will also boost the UK’s green revolution

 Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, wears the unassuming combination of jeans and trainers one might expect from the founder of a wildly successful startup

There’s also a vast open-plan central London office, easy camaraderie with staff, lots of plants
He has the enthusiasm and world-changing idealism too

With all these markers of a tech unicorn – a deal last month with Tokyo Gas valued it at $2bn (£1.5bn) – it’s easy to forget that Octopus is an energy company

Jackson, 49, says the distinction is increasingly irrelevant
Octopus is a new breed of energy supplier, built on cutting-edge technology and unencumbered by the creaking billing systems and fossil-fuel plants that plague the UK’s “big six”
Set up just five years ago, it has been free to view the energy market as a tech startup would: ripe for disruption
This has made Octopus Britain’s fastest-growing energy supplier, and helped it agree that Japanese deal – under which it will supply energy to homes in Japan, while Tokyo Gas takes a near-10% stake in Octopus
“When we started the company a lot of people asked how we planned to take on the big six. They looked like big companies. But on a global scale, they’re not that big,” Jackson said in an interview shortly before the Tokyo Gas deal was announced
Octopus Energy is backed by investment firm Octopus Group and has more than a million UK energy customers

But Jackson’s vision goes well beyond Britain
A serial tech entrepreneur (and former coffee shop owner), he believes Octopus Energy could become the first home-grown energy supplier to reach 100 million homes

And he plans to reach this ambitious milestone within a few years
“If we look downhill, we’ve come a long way and can be incredibly proud,” says Jackson, whose stake in Octopus is now worth £115m
“But the global energy market is worth about $2 trillion a year and will grow to $4tn as we run more of our transport and heating on electricity. This means our global market share is about 0.2%. We’ve a long way to go”
The beating heart of this ambition is Octopus’s energy software, now known as Kraken, which helps it run a super-efficient energy operation, and has helped unlock the future benefits of low-carbon energy
“When we set out, we knew a lot about technology,” said Jackson

“We didn’t know about energy, but we could see that the sector had not yet had a digital revolution. From windfarms to household, it ran on systems that were two decades old”
Fossil fuel plants are turned on and off to meet fluctuating demand

But in a world where cheap and abundant renewable energy is charging millions of batteries in homes and cars, consumers can become active participants in the energy system
Octopus made headlines earlier this year by paying its customers to use electricity when Britain’s renewable energy reached record highs

It’s one example of a future hi-tech energy system that empowers individuals

“Electricity is becoming a tech sector,” said Jackson.
Kraken’s “elec-tech” software could facilitate a new way of using energy, and underpin Britain’s green industrial revolution
“When a customer comes home and plugs in their electric car,” he says, “Kraken will automatically charge when electricity is cheap, and sell energy back to the grid when it’s expensive. By morning you’d have a fully charged vehicle at the lowest possible cost”
In future this could be extended to entire districts: neighbourhoods full of batteries quietly acting as virtual power plants
“This could be the backbone of the green industrial revolution. But we need to empower people to make the most of ‘green electrons’ when they are available. That’s what Kraken does”

Already 17 million customers are plugged into Kraken software
British energy suppliers including E.ON and Good Energy use it to run their own businesses and there are Octopus Energy outposts in Germany and the US
Earlier this year it struck a deal with Origin, Australia’s leading energy supplier, which agreed to take a 20% stake in Octopus and license the Kraken software
It is no surprise, then, that Jackson regularly refers to the tech giants that have used digital tools to build a global business

Amazon and Uber used technology to trigger a fundamental global shift in sectors which are arguably far more local and personal than energy supply
“A big cab company used to be one with more than one office. Today, Uber operates in thousands of cities across the world. So why hasn’t anyone taken a global view of energy?” he asks
“I realised I needed to be honest with myself and the team about what we can achieve if we set our minds to it. I didn’t dare say it before, but I realised that if I’m not honest, we’ll definitely fail. So now we’re wearing our ambition as a T-shirt”
Would the T-shirt in question read “world domination” ?

It would be a good fit with jeans and trainers either way

More from JPR007

JPR007
JPR007
@jpr007
South Korean carmaker Hyundai on Wednesday presented the first 7 hydrogen-powered trucks to customers in Switzerland, out of 50 such vehicles scheduled this year to bring zero-emission commercial vehicles to European roads


For long haul, proponents say hydrogen-powered trucks have an advantage over electric rivals as they have a greater range and require less charging times but their uptake and mass production has been slow because they are expensive

However, a McKinsey study in January said that once relative efficiencies of the power sources and lifetime costs of a truck are factored in, green hydrogen could reach cost parity with diesel by 2030

PARITY WITH DIESEL ???

Hyundai has been partnering with Swiss companies to build a value chain covering the production of green hydrogen from hydropower, hydrogen charging stations and the service and maintenance of the trucks

The customers, which include supermarket chain Migros, will be leasing the trucks from Hyundai Hydrogen Mobility HHM to transport goods around the country, backed by the new hydrogen infrastructure
TECH
JPR007
JPR007
@jpr007
VW LOOKS INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH

The disruptive threats Herbert Diess saw coming for big, incumbent automakers soon after he took over the top job at Volkswagen Group are playing out as predicted -- only faster and in more dramatic fashion


In an interview, Diess said additional cost reductions and a speedier overhaul of the German industrial giant are vital to withstand new rivals with superior financial firepower

He has been reflecting not only on trying to keep pace with Tesla but on the risk that Apple adds another mighty competitor with almost unlimited resources to the automotive arena

“Despite all efforts, we are currently in a rather more difficult situation than in 2018 when I took office," Diess said

"What really has changed -- and what I had not expected to this extent -- is the view of capital markets on our industry”

In the almost 2 1/2 years since Diess told investors VW needed to aim for valuation levels more in line with Apple, Amazon and Google to still be around for another two decades, the gap has only grown
FINANCE
Advertisement
JPR007
JPR007
@jpr007
@bburnworth Here’s some background

1. Global Vehicle Fleet


2. Natural Demand for new vehicles to support the evolution of the Global Vehicle Fleet


3. BEV Penetration S-Curve that you already alluded to


4. Evolution of BEV supply based on combining Natural Demand and the BEV Penetration S-Curve


5. Evolution of Tesla volume based on 20% Global Market Share of BEVs
BUSINESS
JPR007
JPR007
@jpr007
LEGACY AUTOMAKERS - 2020 NOVEMBER YTD

As we approach the close of the year, how do the legacy automakers see themselves in 2020 ?

Total global industry volume is down -16% so far, and the two largest players reflect that same reality


Renault is down -22%

Nissan is down nearly -30%

And Mitsubishi is down nearly -39%

Which has brought this unstable alliance down by -28.1% overall

Of course, these numbers only reflect the way the industry likes to present itself to you

And many things about them are not quite as robust as they would have you believe

Let’s touch upon a few :

1. A lot of the volume that VW likes to report does not actually belong to them


2. Instead it belongs to Chinese companies that they only have partial ownership stakes in

3. So when VW actually files its own financial statements, a large part of this volume does not get included

4. On this particular scorecard they are reporting production and not sales

5. This is important for investors to understand because you only earn profits on sales and not on production

6. Any reports of sales numbers from legacy automakers have proven to be unreliable, and are prone to “sales reporting abuses”
BUSINESS
JPR007
JPR007
@jpr007
GLOBAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION - A PRIMER

We have hopefully all seen this wonderful diagram from LLNL showing the Flow Diagram of the world’s Energy Consumption in a very useful form full of diagnostic power

So how did we get to here ?

And where are we going from here ?


1. The recent history of Global Energy Consumption

Back in the 1800s the primary use of energy was to generate heat by cutting down trees and vegetation and burning them as fuel - referred to here as “Traditional Biomass”

- this was a defining feature of our World 2.0


2. And then with the advent of the Industrial Revolution fossil fuels like Coal, Oil and Gas became increasingly important

- and they started to define many of the characteristics of our World 3.0


3. Wood-burning Biomass has remained as a significant source of Energy even though its proportion has declined

4. Coal reached as high as 50% of our Energy supply and has continued to grow in absolute terms even though its proportion has shrunk to around 25%


5. Oil took over 40% of the Energy market until the Oil Shock of 1973 started changing our attitudes about the efficiency of its consumption

6. And Gas has been steadily growing its share of the market
WORLD

More from Business

Kostas on FIRE \U0001f525
Kostas on FIRE 🔥...
@itsKostasOnFIRE
The Mother of All Squeezes

How Volkswagen went from being on the brink of bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world in two days

/THREAD/


1/ At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, Volkswagen was considered a very likely candidate for bankruptcy.

Heavily indebted and already financially struggling before 2008, with car sales expected to plummet due to the ongoing global crisis.


2/ With GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy in 2009, shorting the VW stock would seem a safe bet.

If you are not familiar with stock shorts and short squeezes check my thread


3/ On October 26, 2008, Porsche announced it had increased its stake at VW from 30% to 74%.

This was a surprise to many who were led to believe that Porsche wasn't planning a takeover of VW, based on the company's announcements.


4/ Before the announcement, the short interest was approximately 13% of the outstanding shares, a number considered relatively low.

Porsche had a 30% stake, the Lower Saxony government fund held 20% of the shares, and another 5% was held by index funds.
BUSINESS
\u029c\u1d00\u1d20\u1d07\u0280\ua731 \U0001f30d
ʜᴀᴠᴇʀꜱ 🌍...
@haversfleeted
A thread of Popular brand names you've been mispronouncing all this time
BUSINESS
Advertisement
PePe Le Q
PePe Le Q
@Pe_Pe_Le_Q
So while America was forced into a high percentage of unemployment, billionaires in America made 406 billion from their “essential” businesses.

I wonder how much came from the

Funny, this transfer of wealth from the poor citizens to the rich billionaires aided by lockdowns and tyrannical governors wasnt just isolated to America. Australia billionaires seemed to amass much wealth during a time record number of businesses
BUSINESS
Peter Apps
Peter Apps
@PeteApps
Lunchtime update from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry:

President of Arconic's French arm accepts customers were 'deliberately and dishonestly misled' over fire classification of cladding panels, as he is asked about email saying failed fire test must be kept 'VERY CONFIDENTIAL'


The most interesting point of this morning's evidence came right at the end of the session when Claude Schmidt was grilled about an email his colleague Claude Wehrle sent regarding the serious failure of polyethylene-cored ACM panels when bent into a cassette form in March 2010

Remember: Arconic in 2004/5 tested its ACM PE panel when bent into cassette and when bolted to a wall with rivets. The cassette version failed spectacularly, burning 10 times as fast. But Arconic dismissed this as a 'rogue result' and drew no distinction in its marketing...

... simply presenting the panel as a 'Class B' (the rating for the rivetted panel, and the required standard for many European countries). Skip forward to 2010, and this email chain.

Mr Wehrle, the firm's senior technical member of staff is told about a trend in Spain and Portugal where clients are demanding more fire resistant panels, and warned that with this type of panel "our prices are no longer in the market"
BUSINESS
Sumit Grrg
Sumit Grrg
@sumitgrrg
I just read all of Jeff Bezos's 23 letters to Amazon shareholders. And here's a thread with just one key-takeaway from each of these letters.

So if you're an artist or an entrepreneur looking to get some insight into the mind of this genius, read this right now.


1997: Focus relentlessly on your customers and long-term growth.

1998: Here are the 3 criteria Bezos wants managers to consider when hiring (to set the bar high):

1. Will you admire this person?

2. Will they raise the average level of effectiveness of the group?

3. Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?

1999: How to think long-term? Think: it's good enough today, but it will get so much better.

2000: "In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” - Benjamin Graham

We aren’t 10% smarter when the share goes 10% up, nor 10% dumber when it goes down. We want to be weighed, & we're always working to build a heavier company.
BUSINESS

You May Also Like

Panic! in the Discord
Panic! in the Discord
@discord__panic
Neo-nazi group #PatriotFront held a photo op in #Chicago last weekend & is currently marching around #DC so it's as good time as any to compile a list of their identified members for folks to watch for

Who are these chuds?

Patriot Front broke away from white nationalist org Vanguard America following #unitetheright in #charlottesville after James Alex Fields was seen with a VA shield before driving his car into a crowd, murdering Heather Heyer & injuring dozens of others

Syed Robbie Javid a.k.a. Sayed Robbie Javid or Robbie Javid of Alexandria,


Antoine Bernard Renard (a.k.a. “Charlemagne MD” on Discord) from Rockville, MD.

https://t.co/ykEjdZFDi6


Brandon Troy Higgs, 25, from Reisterstown,
EXTREMISM
ArmaniTalks \U0001f399\U0001f525
ArmaniTalks 🎙🔥...
@ArmaniTalks
Make them irrelevant > Hold a grudge

Holding a grudge is the easy thing to do.

But holding a grudge is not the right thing to do.

A grudge puts poison in your body & rewires your subconscious mind.

You consume the poison & destroy your reality while your attacker sleeps like a baby.
LIFE
Advertisement
Anshul Pandey
Anshul Pandey
@Anshulspiritual
RISHI ASHTAVAKRA(DEVAL)

Those who are well versed in our ancient scriptures must definitely have come across the name of Ashtavakra Muni. Who was he and what is the story behind his body getting crooked from all sides.

Muni Asit was the son of Pracheta Rishi.


He was childless and this caused a lot of worry to him. But an Akashvani assured him that he should go to Shivji to get all his
worries nullified.

So he along with his wife go to Shivji and after paying him obeisance start singing Shivji's praises.

He describes Shiv as the one who is beyond any other thing, whose glory has no words to describe. After this the couple stands with folded hands in front of Rudradev. The strotras sung in praise of Shiv possess magical qualities even today.

Shiv gets satisfied by them soon and is ready to grant a boon.

Shiva told him that, he very well knew what the Muni desired. He then gives him the "Sansaar Vijay' mantra and asks him to keep reciting it. The Isht devi would come at an appropriate time and fulfill his wish.

Asit Muni kept reciting this mantra for hundred years. The Devi appeared and granted him the boon of a son as a Shivansh. A son was born and was named as Deval. He grew upto be a great scholar well versed and a handsome young man. Asit Muni got him married to Ratnamalavati.
RELIGION
sriram \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
sriram 🇮🇳...
@SriramKannan77
Saptapadi

The most essential rite (Sanskrit: rītī) of a Hindu marriage ceremony is Saptapadi (English: seven steps, saptapadī). Saptapadi is a Sanskrit term that means "seven steps." The wedded couple walks seven steps after tying the Mangalsutra, which is known as Saptapadi.


The couple legally becomes husband and wife after the seventh step.
Hindu wedding rituals: During Saath Phere, the bride and groom exchange their marital vows while circumambulating (walking around) the sacred fire seven times.


This is because the bride and groom exchange marriage vows and hope for a happy married life together.

1. The first marriage vow, out of seven, is a petition to the Lord for nutrition and nourishment for the Hindu bride and groom.


2. Hindu Bride and Groom: The second marriage promise is for strength in sickness, health, good times, and terrible times.

3. For the Hindu Bride and Groom - The third marriage promise is for the Hindu bride and groom's prosperity.

4. For Hindu Bride and Groom - The fourth pledge is to stand by their families in good times and bad.
ALL
Tashny Sukumaran
Tashny Sukumaran
@tashny
Surendra Ananth @surendraananth, you violated my conditional consent. I assented to unprotected intimate relations with you on the STRICT condition that you tell me if you have relations with anyone else. You failed to do so, and I became ill as a direct consequence.

You refused to reveal your own STI results to me, but claimed to others they were negative and alleged I had multiple other partners, slut-shaming me. You gaslit me saying you had told me about your other partners.

You called up @justice_sisters and @SistersinIslam to tell them I was crazy, jilted. You rebuffed attempts to organise a community mediation so we could address matters. You said I was crazy for speaking to your boss and father in an attempt to keep other women safe.

You have a PATTERN OF BEHAVIOUR of misogyny, harassment and sheer disrespect for women. This was sent to a friend of mine who has never expressed interest in you and has a partner.


You think women are playthings, notches on the bedpost. You, @surendraananth, are no human rights advocate.
LAW