Offshore Wind and Energy Storage Co-Location Key to Grid Stability

Bridgit (00:02)
I’ve been around for a long time, I’ve seen it all, it’s so exciting. There’s so much change and transition. You can be what you want. If you want to be a data scientist and find ways to use more renewable energy, or if you want to work offshore on construction, massive infrastructure, construction projects in the middle of the sea, there’s something for everybody. It’s such a cool industry.

Adam Sroka (00:46)
Hello and welcome back to the Hypercube podcast. I’m delighted today to be joined by Bridgit Hartland-Johnson. Bridgit, would you like to introduce yourself for the audience?

Bridgit (00:58)
Hello, my name is Bridgit Hartland-Johnson and I work for Ørsted in offshore wind project development, and I’m a Chief Specialist for energy system integration.

Adam Sroka (01:10)
So what a job title. How do you get there? What led you down that road? Why Ørsted? Why offshore wind? Co-locating? I’d love to hear some of the story.

Bridgit (01:22)
Yeah, so I’ve been in the industry for a long time, more than 30 years now. I say the industry, I mean in the power sector. And I worked for, I mainly worked for OEMs. So I worked for Schneider Electric, Alstom, which is now GE, and I worked for Siemens. And I’d always been interested in, you know, the cutting edge side of the technology system operation, things like this.

Adam Sroka (01:29)
Mm-hmm.

Bridgit (01:45)
And I actually got into energy storage before offshore wind. So back in 2012, I worked as a project evaluator for the European Commission as part of their Horizon 2020 program, when we were really just looking at energy storage and is there something here that can help us to integrate more renewables in the future? You know, already we’d set the targets about renewables and their role in the energy system in the future.

So that was it. And then when I started working for Siemens, I joined a really small team. We were about nine people. We were in startup mode, developing this energy storage technology as an OEM. And then from Siemens, I actually joined Ørsted. I really wanted to work for Ørsted. It was DONG Energy at the time.

I’d been following them and I’d seen that their transition from conventional oil and gas industry and divesting all of those assets and moving fully committed into renewable energy. And then I saw that they had this energy storage, this new energy storage set up. And I was kind of really cheeky. I had a friend on the inside and I knew what was going on a little bit and the way they were setting up the team. And I phoned up who would be my eventual boss and said,

I hear you’re doing energy storage and I think you need me because I knew they were a bit more commercial and I could bring some technicals and that’s how it started and I ended up working for Ørsted and I’d say my expertise is bolting stuff together. So working out how, if you want to put energy storage with an offshore wind farm, how does it need to work technically, commercially, is the regulatory environment right? If you want to do some behind the meter stuff, how does it work? If you want to do an interconnect to an interconnect offshore.

I know it doesn’t sound very glamorous, but I think that’s my niche is being able to understand how to bolt stuff together. Hence the system integration.

Adam Sroka (03:34)
What a nice.

Yeah, but what a niche. mean, that is non-trivial because you’ve listed about 7 or eight different deep specialist careers that you need to kind of navigate to make something like that happen, right? I guess your superpower is understanding who to go to, where and building the team that can facilitate what is a very technically complicated and sort of shifting project landscape. That’s good.

Bridgit (03:59)
Yeah,

I’ve been very fortunate in that aspect in this job. Ørsted have been really kind to me and I’d say I’ve pretty much had free rein to do this stuff. And because it’s cool and it’s interesting, I always, I don’t have any direct reports. I work in kind of sprint modes, projects, mini project modes, set along the side of the main projects and always try and test how to make things work.

But I get loads of people that work for me on stretch assignments or on temporary assignments and they really want to work on this stuff. So we end up having really nice teams that are really keen to try and solve some of these challenges. So I’ve been so fortunate being able to just work in that way really as probably my last job, too.

Adam Sroka (04:48)
And so, yeah, like you mentioned, 3 decades in the energy sector. I’d ask you how have you seen it evolve? But significantly must be the answer, right?

Bridgit (04:58)
It’s incredible and I pinch myself sometimes. I’m old enough to remember the very first market reform when we unbundled generation and supply business. And then it was, I think back in, I guess it was around 1990 and we were running pretty much on a thermal power generation. I think we had some nuclear then of course and some hydro, but it was basically breaking up the old central electricity generating board

and bringing privatisation in and having the first market design to be able to do that. I was around when the first offshore wind farm came to the UK. I was working, yeah. I’ve been working for all that time now. Then I was around the first time, I think was it back in 2020, when we had the first year where we’d run the grid on more, zero carbon generation than on conventional.

And now we’re going to Clean Power 2030 where we’re expecting to run on 95% low carbon generation and that’s so exciting.

Adam Sroka (06:08)
And

I’m like a comparative youngster. I think I’ve done energy for about 7 years now. And when I started, we’d be looking at, you know, BESS and dynamic containment. And even that has changed so significantly since like 3, four years ago to what the BESS markets are looking like now.

Bridgit (06:23)
Yeah.

I know.

Yeah, I worked for Siemens when the original EFR tender came out. I think it was 2014 maybe? And it was only for 200 megawatts and it was this for new service, National Grid, we’re technology neutral. And we felt it was a bit of a bloodbath for us at Siemens because it was 10 times oversubscribed I think.

I think we might have bid for about 600 megawatts of projects. And that was it. I don’t think anybody expected that there would be that flood of interest into a new service like that. And that really launched battery storage in the UK. It catapulted it into where are we now? Nearly five gigawatts. It’s, yeah.

It’s brilliant. It’s wonderful. If we think of the cost savings, in the past, all the services that battery storage is providing now would have been provided by thermal generation. Battery storage has completely displaced all that generation. And I think the prices back in 2016, I think we were about £20 of megawatt an hour for ancillary services for frequency response. And now we’re, what, down less than £5?

Yeah, so it’s been good for consumers and good for the environment.

Adam Sroka (07:38)
Yeah, I remember when we were onboarding like a 100 megawatt battery thinking it was enormous. And now we have customers talking about gigawatt size batteries. You just think what is going on in this sector? But it’s a good, fun, exciting place to play. Everyone now though, because of the grid connection headache, everyone is talking about co-location. How have you seen that mature and what horror stories or kind of hot takes have you got for co-location and people with that ambition?

Bridgit (07:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it’s an absolute no brainer and I completely support the connections reform, the queue reform. We had to do something. It was just so oversubscribed. And I’ve always thought that why are we not doing co-location? Because you’re just getting more use out of the infrastructure anyway. And I think in the past, people

were concerned that it didn’t deliver the right returns and everything like that. But now, I think there is this issue with queue, there’s almost no choice and we’re going to deliver a much more efficient use of the grid by having more co-location. I mean, we have quite a special set up with offshore wind in that our generator is very far offshore. Sometimes now, if you look at Hornsey 3, it’s more than 100 kilometres offshore.

And to situate or to co-locate, can’t do it. We can’t put energy storage offshore. It’s too big, too heavy, hard to maintain. And then whilst we have this, we build the transmission system that brings that power back to shore and connects to the onshore transmission system. We don’t ever own and operate it, so it’s just…

you know, with offshore transmission, you can have the generator can build it or transmission operator can build it. But we always choose to build it because it helps you to mitigate some risk in terms of stranded asset transmission system not being available, things like that. But then as soon as it’s built and tested and it’s fully operational, then there’s a regulated process that happens where Ofgem manages a divestment of that transmission system through a licensed transmission operator. So again,

we’ve got this strange setup where if we do put energy storage at the onshore substation, it’s not really co-located because you’ve got a big lump of transmission system between the two assets. But what we still do is that’s a radial connection for that generator’s transmission system. You can see wherever there’s large clusters of offshore wind connecting to the grid in the same place, we’re facing a lot of constraints. So it makes

a huge amount of sense to have energy storage at that onshore substation because you’re both then downstream of the nets or downstream of the constraints. we’re getting a lot of construction synergy, so we’re on site at the same time, building at the same time. There’s a lot of synergy with the planning. You know, we’re not disturbing local stakeholders by having construction projects happening at the same time at different times.

Adam Sroka (10:40)
Yeah.

Bridgit (10:47)
And then also sitting downstream of a constraint, there’s a lot of value in that, especially if energy storage technologies, you’re having synchronised long duration energy storage, or if you’re having grid forming inverters with battery storage, there’s a lot you can deliver at that point of common coupling to support grid and better access to the grid in that area.

Adam Sroka (11:12)
So, do you think that will become more common? Is that your prediction for how offshore wind will change in the next decade?

Bridgit (11:19)
Yeah, I think so. I think if you look at some of the Leasing Round 4 projects, you can see from planning applications that there is a lot of intention to include technologies with the onshore substation. It makes so much sense. We have grid access for offshore winds. These huge clusters, you know, Hornsey Zone in itself is probably going to be around 7 gigawatts. And then you’ve got East Anglia, Dogger Bank,

and they’re all connecting to pretty similar parts of an already constrained eastern super transmission highway.

Adam Sroka (11:55)
That’s bonkers to think about that scale.

Bridgit (11:56)
Yeah, it’s fascinating.

Adam Sroka (11:58)
So like for me, obviously, always very keen on how data and AI is making a difference in the space and does it move the needle? Does it accelerate? In that world, do you see efficiency starting to pop up or opportunities for data and AI to really make a big difference?

Bridgit (12:16)
Yeah, I think, you know, if I talk to my colleagues in trading, they will say that the big bulk of machine learning and things like it has to be in forecasting and forecasting accuracy, because this is where our risk is in terms of trading. You know, we’re trading at a portfolio level, so all of the Ørsted offshore wind assets have been traded by one entity.

Adam Sroka (12:29)
Hmm.

Bridgit (12:41)
So there’s a lot of risk when your whole portfolio is based on renewable generation. Forecasting accuracy and being able to nominate and dispatch according to a more accurate forecast is really critical to us. I also think, you know, anything that’s happening on the demand side as well with customers, enabling them to make more decisions based on

choice of whether you just would prefer to use more renewable energy or if there’s a price differentiation. And I think we saw the early stages of that last winter when we had the energy crisis and the prices were so high. We saw for the first time really that customers were prepared to change their behaviour. And that was so exciting because, you know, why wouldn’t you try and use more electricity when it’s cheaper, which is when more renewables are on the system. So if we can join the dots

there with better communications of real-time situations to customers enabling us to make decisions about how we use electricity. I think that’s really important. Obviously the control rooms going through a whole IT overhaul so that it can manage all the changes on both sides, generation and supply.

Yeah, it’s already starting to play a big role and I can only see it getting bigger, especially with consumer behaviour and dynamic response to price signals.

Adam Sroka (14:12)
So we do work with a startup who are building a virtual power plant using domestic assets. And it’s such an interesting problem because they’ve done all the market research and yeah, people, there’s like this psychological need for the control, to control your own home and all that. And it’s such a barrier to seeing that happen. But these automated systems are now becoming possible, especially with domestic scale sort of storage assets

Bridgit (14:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Sroka (14:41)
and EVs and things, we’re almost over the precipice of this becoming a significant part of our energy system.

Bridgit (14:49)
Definitely,

definitely. And I know the energy crisis or that winter of 23 was absolutely awful for so many people, most people. But I think it was a tipping point because for the first time everybody knew where their electricity was coming from, how much they were paying for it. And I work in this industry and I know how everything works.

I was surprised at how many of my colleagues never ever looked at the back of their electricity bill to know what they were paying for what where. So I think even my mum knows, she’s with a certain energy supplier and she knows when is the best time to be using electricity.

Adam Sroka (15:33)
And I think it’s funny, I’ve worked in energy for years now and it’s almost un-understandable, the size and the scale of it and the different moving parts, like how the markets work, what they’re for and having conversations around regulation and regulatory changes, trying to even comprehend what they affect and the knock-on effect. I guess in the regulatory space, are there things that you’re excited by or interested to see how they play out?

Bridgit (16:00)
Yeah, I I can honestly say that I’m one of the people, my projects are projects that have really benefitted from regulatory change of late. So one of my proudest achievements at Ørsted was I put our first battery storage project into the balancing mechanism. Unfortunately, we were the second project after Arenko went, Arenko did their Walsall project first, you know, so we did the second one and

So a distribution connected small 20 megawatt battery storage project. This was in the start of the wider access to the balancing mechanism. And, you know, we work so closely with National Grid to enable that to happen. So that was really on the start of that. On our 300 megawatt battery storage project that we’re building at Hornsey 3 now,

we really benefitted from the offshore transmission network review. So not everybody will know what that is, but it was basically a review by government to see if our transmission system is fit for purpose to be able to deliver net zero. And that was mainly for us around 50 gigawatts of offshore wind. And I think the answer was we probably need to change a few things.

And we responded to an open letter from Ofgem that asked developers for solutions. And we said, look, we think there’s an opportunity here for better use of offshore transmission. You’ve been able to co-locate assets strategically to deal with some of the constraint bottlenecks. Yeah, and we worked through that with the NESO, with, well, it was BEIS at the time with DESNZ now, and Ofgem

national grids just to come up with that solution. And I think that that will become more of a normal. I think you even saw it now in the Clean Power 30 you know, like we’ve already talked about, more co-location, better utilisation of connections. And then of course, there’s always REMA that’s rumbling along in the background. I mean, for me, if it’s there to prioritise renewables, reward flexibility and incentivise demand, what’s

not to like about it? But I think we’re struggling a little bit with the whole implementation, I think the industry is very divided. So I really couldn’t call it to know where we’ll end up with it. I look quite a lot into locational stuff because it’s relevant to my projects so I can see it from both sides so that’s the next big change I guess that we’ll see.

Adam Sroka (18:30)
You mentioned how you’d benefitted from some of these regulatory changes through the lifetime of the projects. Was that part of the plan or was that a happy accident? Where on that scale is it? Because I know some of these things are so well planned that you need that regulatory change to make it viable, whereas at other times you don’t know which way it’s going to land. Anything to share on that?

Bridgit (18:57)
Yeah, so when I mentioned that I work in these mini teams and when we look at our projects, for example, say, one of our offshore wind farms, and we’ll look at it in terms of business case, complexity to connect to the grid, and we’ll really identify some of the big challenges. then it could be exposure to negative wholesale prices or price volatility. It could be…

we’re connecting to an extremely weak part of the grid, so we need a lot more sophisticated technology to be able to be compliant when we connect to the grid. So we’ll look at it and… so I’m supposed to be technology agnostic in the projects that I work, and then we’ll look at it and we’ll say, okay, so these are the challenges, where are the opportunities on this side? So when we did the battery storage at Hornsey 3, there was quite a few things that were going on that on the opportunity side really

enabled that to happen. So, one was… this was part of the, auction round, allocation round for CfD contracts. It was the first one to remove protections from market price volatility. The right thing to do, there was a distortion in the market because of that protection.

There used to be, you may remember, there used to be this threshold of 50 megawatts where you triggered a project needing to go into the national planning regime rather than a local one. So, you know, rather than having costs of perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds, you were triggering the cost of millions of pounds to go through the planning system. So that happened, they removed the 50 megawatt threshold. then the offshore transmission network review was launched and this open letter came out to say, you know, we can provide

this almost pathfinder status for you to be able to resolve some of the regulatory challenges to the project you’re doing. So it’s almost like the planets aligning at the same time. It doesn’t always happen, but I think you have to look at it. What is happening now that can enable this project to happen? And we’re quite lucky in some ways with offshore wind that our development period is so long that if you can see that there’s some rumblings of a regulatory change now,

you can decide whether you think that will really be implemented by the time you need to make any decisions. And that’s what we did on the battery storage project at Hornsey 3. All the planets aligned.

Adam Sroka (21:21)
That’s interesting to hear because yeah, I think some of these projects come so close to the feasibility that make a significant difference if there’s a big change. Are you able to expand on Ørsted’s Pathfinder stuff and how that’s played out?

Bridgit (21:37)
Yeah, so this was it. So it was the offshore transmission network review. And it was, you know, is the transmission system fit for purpose to integrate on our case 50 gigawatts of wind? And they split it into, say, four buckets of what would be looked at. So there was the early opportunity developer led solutions, which is what we responded to. Then you would have heard about the holistic network design, multipurpose interconnectors and the enduring regime.

So all of these have been replaced now by the strategic spatial energy plan and Clean Power 30. But the learnings of those, what happened with HND and early opportunity pathfinders is definitely filtered through to those policy actions now. So the Ofgem sent an open letter to industry saying, you got any ideas? We responded, we said yes. We were then approved. So there was then a…

a review by National Grid, the ESO and ENGA at the time, to say, do you think that this project could deliver value for consumers? They both said yes, because of all the things we’ve discussed previously. And then we had this period of time whereby we worked together closely, I guess you would call it a regulatory sandbox, but it was never really named that. It was named a Pathfinder, but

there was a few things from an administration perspective that weren’t really strong enough. So it was classed as a pathfinder, an OTNR pathfinder. I mean, it took us 3 years to sign a grid connection agreement, but we tried to do it in the least path of resistance and without requiring any primary legislation change, trying to find something in codes that already exists where there was a precedent that we could do this.

And that’s kind of why it took so long, but then all the queue positioning was rumbling on that kept muddying the waters a little bit. But we got there in the end. It’s not finished yet because we still, as I mentioned, we have to divest the transmission system and now we have to work really closely with Ofgem to come up with a solution for divesting the transmission system assets that are associated with that battery storage project.

So yeah, watch this space. We’ve still got a little bit of work to do on that side. So it’s not fully finished, but then by the end of this, we should have an end to end process that will enable assets like this to be connected to all offshore wind projects in the future.

Adam Sroka (24:04)
And that’s amazing because you need an organisation of the size and scale of Ørsted to be able to tread the path and figure out how this is done. But you then open the way for much smaller organisations to come in and quickly capitalise on that hard work that you’ve done. So amazing work, really cool to see.

Bridgit (24:20)
Yeah, yeah,

Yeah, and like I said, we have the time as well. So not many people would have the time to spend 3 years negotiating a grid connection agreement.

Adam Sroka (24:34)
That’s really cool. I guess to change the gear a little bit, recently at Energy Storage Summit, really, really good event. I attended a really interesting panel from the WiNES organisation, the Women in Energy Storage, which is for anyone listening, a really fabulous communities spun out by the guys at CMS.

And just at the top of the conversation we’ve had today, you mentioned how you were quite cheeky and kind of almost forced your way into a role. And actually that aligns with something I think Cathy on the panel there had said about being a bit more forceful and kind of betting on yourself. And I guess I’d just love to hear, you’ve been in the energy industry a long time, you’ve mentioned the importance of having female mentors and leaders throughout your career. Could you expand on how that’s changed and

Bridgit (25:26)
Yep.

Adam Sroka (25:26)
what that

means to you and for people that coming into the industry today?

Bridgit (25:30)
Yeah, I’ve mentioned that I’m in my last few weeks of working now and I’ve thought quite a lot and I thought, well, you know, preparing for this podcast about the last few decades and it’s I’ve never had a woman boss. I’ve had women leaders in my organisation, but I’ve never had a woman boss. I mean, I think…

my industry is quite blokey anyway, always has been more engineering OEM side of things. But yeah, so that’s a bit of a worry. I think hopefully it’s better now. It seems to be better. I’ve got, because I’ve worked so long, I’ve got a massive network and I rely on that network a huge amount. And I think that’s probably one of the best

things I could ever recommend to anybody is you just need to build your network and constantly build it because I rely on them so much. If I think about now, you need role models, you need allies, mentors if you want a mentor. And now I’m thinking about the next stage in my life. I noticed it’s been all of the women in my network that have been the ones that have been reaching out to me and…

like really checking on me and seeing what I want to do, how I feel about everything. Is there anything they can do to help if I want to change direction or perhaps like you mentioned, we mentioned earlier doing some more part-time advisory stuff or anything like that. And they’re the ones that have really been supporting me now. So I can see for everybody, you need that network. You really need that network.

Adam Sroka (27:16)
I completely agree, I think it’s vital in this space because it is actually a small world, it’s not millions of people in this industry and people, I find that the people that love it stay forever. There’s a lot of people that like can stay 12, 20, 30 years. So no, I completely agree on that. I guess generally, yes, very blokey industry. Are attitudes changing, do you think, in recent years?

Bridgit (27:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

If I wasn’t being asked this question now and it had been a few months ago, I’d give a completely different answer. But I’m so disheartened by all of these big organisations turning on their back on what they had always been saying that was needed for their companies to be better companies. It really is such a sad state of affairs. I feel…

You know, like I work so much with National Grid, they’re really leaning into this. You know, they need the value of diversity. It makes their organisation work. But I just, we’ve just got to lean in and I think we’ve just got to work a bit harder at this because I 100% believe that diversity is critical to solving the challenges we need to,

to for example, run our electricity system on clean power. You know, we need new thinking and you don’t get that from the old way of doing things.

Adam Sroka (28:45)
There’s a startup in the space that are doing really well for themselves. And their founder said they had a point of hiring like 60% of all their staff with no energy experience whatsoever for that very reason. Like you want the diversity of thought, background and things like that. And you can see it working. Do you have any concerns about the global geopolitical shift to the right and how that might impact

Bridgit (28:58)
Yep. Yep.

Adam Sroka (29:11)
trajectory of renewables and like the Paris Agreement getting thrown out by people in the States, for example?

Bridgit (29:18)
I’m part of an international organisation, I only really work in the UK and I feel very, very proud that our government is leaning in hugely and supporting Clean Power 2030. You we’ve got things like long duration energy storage cap and floor, they’re really leaning into this. And you know, arguing against homegrown energy coming from thermal

fossil fuels and things like that. I really really am proud that’s our position that we’re taking, but it’s not the same in other countries and what’s happened in Ireland, what’s happening in the US, it is a really big concern but then I do think and hope that our industry has become really good business now so

You know, we create a lot of jobs, you know, if you look at where we set up hubs, they’re always in areas that benefit from huge regeneration. We’ve got young people that really care about climate, regardless of everything else that’s going on. So I’m just hoping that we’ve set such a pace of change now that you know, we’ve got enough momentum now that it’s not going to fall and crumble

as some would like to see. I’m super hopeful and super confident that that’s what will happen. I mean look at China. I know China, like they still do new coal power plants, but they’ve built more offshore wind in the past two years than the whole world put together. Yeah, yeah.

Adam Sroka (30:46)
It’s like BYD, now the largest electric vehicle

manufacturer, they talked about grid scale sodium asset. And yeah, it’s interesting to see the direction of travel. I think you’re right. The people I talk to and the people that we hire, they’re coming into the workforce,

Bridgit (30:53)
Yeah.

Adam Sroka (31:05)
I think we’ve hit a tipping point where it’s kind of sexy, like energy’s become a bit sexy. I think the technology is getting more complicated, so that’s always fun. It’s like actual engineering, like chunky things that have like power supplies and then the data, yeah, and then the data stuff is getting more interesting as assets and the energy mix gets more complicated. Fingers crossed it starts to sort of attract the talent. And I do agree. And you do get people that are like,

Bridgit (31:17)
Bit more geeky, yeah.

Adam Sroka (31:34)
I’ll say to everyone, I think you can capture super capable people for a lot less than what they could go if they went to a bank or something because they just want to move the needle a little bit. That’s what they want to dedicate their life to and I love that.

Bridgit (31:46)
When I joined Ørsted, one of the things that I really felt compared to places I’d worked before, because there’s a lot of young people there as well, and I really felt that a lot of people chose to work there because they were in it for the cause, and that’s really encouraging as well. Yeah, I’m an eternal optimist, so I think it’ll be good. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

Adam Sroka (32:07)
I’m like an infinite pessimist, so we’ll balance each other out, I think. No, even I’m hopeful.

So yeah, we’ve mentioned it, retiring at the end of March. Congratulations. Do you have some highlights or big achievements you’d like to boast about?

Bridgit (32:14)
Yeah.

I mean, there’s so many, I’ve been so lucky. I’m just a girl from the hood, right? I grew up in a council estate, single parent family. I don’t have a university degree and I’ve had an awesome career. I’ve worked in Paris, I’ve worked in New Delhi, Mumbai, I’ve worked in Germany, I’m back working in London still and I’m working on the cool stuff, I think. I think I probably have one of the best jobs and I…

I’ve had so much fun as well. When I lived in India, I ran my own consulting business. And I went everywhere and did everything. I never said no to anything. Anybody gave me an opportunity for work, even if it was in the coal belt or the steel belt or somewhere, I’d just go off and do it. And as a result, I’ve just had such a great career. And anybody that’s working in our industry now, it’s…

I’ve been around for a long time, I’ve seen it all, it’s so exciting. There’s so much change and transition. You can be what you want. If you want to be a data scientist and you know, find ways to use more renewable energy, or if you want to work offshore on construction, massive infrastructure, construction projects in the middle of the sea, there’s something for everybody. It’s such a cool industry.

So I would always say to people, don’t get stuck. I’ve never had a plan. I just did what I want, kind of did what I wanted to do and went for the jobs that I thought that I would like to do. That might sound a bit rubbish now because I’m looking back in hindsight, but I don’t think there’s ever been a time that I’ve done a job that I didn’t really want to do.

Adam Sroka (34:05)
Yeah, but I think people say you’ve got to get lucky sometimes with these things, but I always talk about like your luck surface area and by being more active, having a wider community and opening your mind up to things that are maybe outside the box, that surface area increases and you get luckier as a response to that.

Bridgit (34:11)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

When I first went to live in India, I wasn’t working and I couldn’t get a job working for an OEM, quite rightly, because they need to give jobs to people that live there, or are from there, rather than foreigners. And was going to quit, I was going to go travelling, I couldn’t get a job. I thought I’ll just go travelling, do yoga every day. And then I met this, I call him my crazy lawyer, and he just helped me set up my own company.

And to start with, I didn’t know how to get any work. So I met someone at a conference and they said, right, with your experience, come and open my next conference. And it was just that chance meeting. And I went and opened the next conference, did the opening speech for the conference. And I’d never seen a conference like this, you know, in the UK, like, I don’t know, conference attendees for energy storage and things. What do we get?

Maybe 100 people, I don’t know. But this was like 400 people, the very first conference, all sat there listening to me. So imagine the opportunity to build a network. It was just like that, yeah. And that, again, that was a big catapult into me getting work in India. And I worked for five years, had a really profitable little business. Yeah, it was great.

Adam Sroka (35:19)
Yeah.

I’ll have to get some tips, definitely. Sorry, we’ve got to write all these things down. Is there advice or wisdom you’d love to share with some of the listeners that are starting to navigate their career in this space?

Bridgit (35:48)
Yeah, that is it. I would just try to go with your heart because you’re a long time working and you need to enjoy it. I think that would be it really. And I’m around, I’m not moving anywhere. So if anybody wants to chat to me, I’m on LinkedIn.

Adam Sroka (35:58)
Amazing.

What’s your bet? you one of these, everyone tells me that like I would never retire because I’m wired that way and I’ll always have to do something. Are you more like that or do you think actually it’ll be yoga every day and chilling out and dipping and out?

Bridgit (36:16)
I’m not making any plans. I love this industry and I love my job and I’ve got serious FOMO that I’m not part of the future of this huge transition. So I just don’t know. I have no idea. I’m making no plans and I’ll see what happens.

Adam Sroka (36:24)
Hmm.

Very cool. Well, before I let anyone go, I always like to just ask if there’s anything you’d like to promote or plug or if people want to find out more about you or Ørsted or what you’re up to, where should we direct them?

Bridgit (36:47)
Yeah, think at Ørsted UK they only really communicate on X. The LinkedIn site is coming from groups, so if you’re interested in more of the group stuff, then that’s all on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn, yeah. I’m too old for other social media.

Adam Sroka (37:06)
Same actually. Okay

What an amazing conversation, best of luck to you in the next few weeks and years to come and yeah all the best, thank you.

Bridgit (37:14)
Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Adam Sroka (37:24)
What a conversation that was. Really, really fascinating career. Some good discussion around the changes over the last three decades in the energy sector. How the complexity of knitting together offshore wind, flexibility in storage, like really complicated chunky projects.

Interesting stuff around how Ørsted has kind of acted as pathfinder for regulatory change and defining processes to do new things that actually you just probably couldn’t do if you weren’t an Ørsted sized organisation. So hats off to them. Yeah, just well worth a listen.

Transitioned into talking about where the sector is going as well and how there is this critical mass of people now within the industry that do really care about like clean energy and climate change and it hopefully, fingers crossed we are immunised somewhat to some of the stuff that’s happening across the globe, so overall just a really great episode and

thanks again to Bridgit for coming on and sharing your expertise with us.