When asked why they chose Tado, he replied that the main reason for customers was: “I want to save money. The second reason is that I want to make the planet a better place. If we fail to fulfill the first,” he emphasized, “the second becomes less important.”
China seems to offer many solutions. Although coal consumption is rising, it will peak in 2026 as renewable energy sources come online and MingYang Smart Energy CEO Qiying Zhang will share how floating and stationary offshore wind turbines are replacing fossil fuels. In August, the company installed the world’s largest single-capacity offshore wind turbine, MySE18.X-20MW, in Hainan, which can generate 80 million kWh annually, offsetting 66,000 tons of CO2.
Meanwhile, the electrification of road transport in the country is progressing at a rapid pace thanks to high government subsidies. “China bought 570,000 electric vehicles in August, and if you don’t drive an electric car in China, you’re considered a very boring person,” Stella Li, vice president of Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD, said in the room. The fresh Z9 GT featured “knowledgeable driving”, which meant that thanks to the flexible rear axle, the car could park itself and even slide sideways into tight spaces.
“The epicenter of the energy transition is China, which has a beautiful historical symmetry,” explained Arthur Downing, chief strategy officer at Octopus Energy. “Until the 18th century, China was the economic center of the world. This was the first energy transition of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, shifting the economic center of gravity to Europe. So we go full circle at absurd speeds.”
Ann Mettler, European vice president of Bill Gates’ sustainable energy organization Breakthrough Energy, and Sabrina Schulz, strategic expert on climate, energy and biodiversity, agreed that while Europe was making progress, it was lagging behind and needed to combine public and private finance to catch up by connecting and renewing the grid and considering decentralized or even virtual power plants. “Policy certainty and public guarantees regarding investments in, say, green heating are an absolute condition for investors,” Schulz argued.
Sana Khareghani, professor of practice in artificial intelligence at King’s College London, suggested that artificial intelligence could support manage and optimize energy networks and support develop fresh batteries to store energy when it is needed most, helping to reduce dependency from fossil fuel generators as a last resort.