The future grid: intelligent or insufficient?

Adam Sroka (00:20)
Hello and welcome back to the HyperCube podcast. I’m joined today by Sam Matthew, who is director and industry lead for energy and utilities at Microsoft. Sam, would you like to introduce yourself for the audience and let us know what it is you’re getting up to these days.

Sam Mathew (00:35)
Sure, thank you. First of all, thanks for having me on here. I think really looking forward to the conversation. think if our prior catch up is anything to go by, think there’s lots of interesting stuff we’ll be discussing here. So thanks for having me. You asked me about an introduction. I think the best way I sort of describe myself is like an industry person working at a technology company.

What I mean by that is I started life as a commissioning engineer. I’m a chemical engineer by trade. I was sort of commissioning offshore oil and gas platforms for the first six, seven years of my life. So very much come from the industry, lived and breathed through big large capital projects, engineering them and sort of commissioning these assets. And then moved over into consulting, all in the energy space, but sort of advising.

organizations on how they can make the best use, in my case, through the use of technology. And over the last four years, living that with Microsoft at a time when data AI is firmly in the crosshairs for every organisation looking to transform. I think my focus now is all on UK energy. So that includes the generation side of things, but increasingly the grid operators

in the UK way we define energy in Microsoft at least, it’s the whole spectrum. So it includes the oil and gas side of the world as well.

Adam Sroka (02:05)
Like my favorite kinds of conversations always end up being with people that have been consultants and having to deal with the kind of messy, often challenging real life of tech. I think often you read textbooks or the latest and greatest tech startup out of Silicon Valley and there’s this golden template of here’s the way of doing things and you try and apply it to

like a real system, especially energy, and it just doesn’t work. There was a story someone told me about a very famous research lab that did very, very clever things, built this whole super clever model of the grid. And I just went, well, it doesn’t work. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. And it just falls apart at the seams when you get to the ability. I guess, like, how do you feel your your career in the weeds in highly regulated mission critical life of an energy?

company, how do you feel that influences the advisory work you’re doing today from that kind technology perspective?

Sam Mathew (03:03)
Yeah,

I think, I mean, it gives me a level of pragmatism and a perspective, I think, which is quite real world. I’ve been there. I like I said, I started my life as a commissioning engineer. So one of the things I used to do when I was a commissioning engineer was go out to these platforms even before they were live. So it’s just steel in the middle of the sea and then starting them up. And at such points, you know,

living life there, you really understand that you can have the best design solution. But if it doesn’t help you in the real world at a time when

Adam Sroka (03:38)
Thank

Sam Mathew (03:40)
probably pressure is the highest, it’s no good. So I think what it helps me do is bring that pragmatism into the way I sort of go about problem solving. Consulting at the end of the day for me is just problem solving. It’s just sitting together, solving these big gnarly problems together.

For me, like I said, it’s that level of pragmatism, making sure that what we’re building and what we’re solving is implementable, is scalable, is something that we can take out to the real world. That’s the sort of perspective I think it brings. I think it always helps to have that real world experience, whether you’ve lived it firsthand or you kind of make sure that you get enough experience from…

from people who have lived that journey. I think that’s where it really helps in my advisory or consulting journey.

Adam Sroka (04:32)
No, 100 % agree. And I think nothing beats years of experience in the domain. It’s all in good going and learning everything there is about technology. But when you understand like, who are the users? What does that job title mean? What do they care about? Like how do these things interface? It just makes a massive difference. And it means you can kind of go into your bag of technology tricks and pull out all the best things that are right for the situation, not just because the latest, the greatest kind of best funded company in the world thinks so at the time.

Sam Mathew (05:02)
Exactly. I would say it’s that empathy that you develop from having been there or having really been close to people who’ve been there. I think it’s that empathy that really drives a different conversation and a different perspective. Absolutely.

Adam Sroka (05:21)
And I get to saying this for almost every podcast, but the tech is the easy bit, right? It’s the human stuff that’s the hard part and trying to bring the right technology to bear on the human problems. That’s what I think that kind of gives you.

Sam Mathew (05:35)
Absolutely. I always say this. think we probably have enough technology out there to solve most, not all, of our problems. We’ve got enough and more tech. I don’t think tech’s a problem. Tech’s the easy bit, absolutely. And I don’t mean this in a wrong way, but it’s often the people and culture bit that is the difficult bit. At the end of the day, it’s people you’re working with, it’s people you’re working for, it’s people.

who

have got to adopt that change, technology, that transformation, and go on the transformation journey. So yeah, that’s where the focus should be. And I think we’ve got enough tech. Tech will never be the problem.

Adam Sroka (06:10)
brilliant. So I mean you sit in really interesting position now what are the latest and greatest challenges that you’re facing what is coming like to loggerheads in the energy industry that you’re getting going to look at?

Sam Mathew (06:24)
Yeah, think the bigger context that the industry operates in is obviously the energy trilemma, making sure we have secured energy at a cost that’s affordable, but also making sure that we’re getting it in the right way, i.e. we’re not harming the planet and making sure that there’s a better planet for the generations to come. I just feel that if that’s the bigger context that

be as a sector and an industry operating. I think with what’s happened with AI and technology and demand in general is just put that whole thing on steroids. Again, even geopolitical tensions for that matter. think all of these things just add that extra layer, if you may, on what was already a tough operating environment with the trilemma. I think every organisation

in the sector is trying to understand how they can effectively navigate that trilemma. Every organisation operating in the sector has a contribution to one or more parts of the trilemma. So how do they kind of set up their organizations and deliver effectively in that context? And like I said, now that’s been put on steroids, doing that faster, doing that in a more cost-effective manner and doing that in a way that you’ve got a sustainable organisation.

it’s an immense challenge. No matter which part of that value chain you operate in, whether you’re a generation entity or you’re a grid operating entity, transmission distribution, or you are one that faces out to customers through the retail market, I think every single one of these organizations is on that journey. And my work or sort of my focus sort of puts me in that privileged position where I can work with these organizations to understand

their vision, their ambitions, and how is it that we can bring advanced technologies or data and AI technologies to bear in helping them achieve that sort of journey and their goals that they’re trying to get to.

Adam Sroka (08:21)
think that’s a really interesting take because often energy feels like an industry that can’t be agile, even though people want it to be and be more agile is often like an ambition of a lot of companies. But the reality of it is like a lot of this stuff is just slow moving and it’s hard, it’s highly regulated. There’s so many stakeholders, it’s so complicated. That being said, so I think it’s fair.

for like energy companies to be a bit slower. That being said, is there anywhere you think actually on the digital side that companies are behind and actually a slight change in attitude or different approaches and they could accelerate quite quickly when they’re not making the best use of what’s available?

Sam Mathew (09:03)
So I think that’s a great perspective. There is a dichotomy there in that, like you said, this is an industry or this is a sector that’s heavily regulated in parts. But the other thing I’d also draw out is health and safety. This is an industry that has got massive assets, a lot of workforce that’s out there operating those assets. So the field force is life.

And you need to make sure that you keep your people, plant, and equipment safe as you operate. So HSC has been top of mind for all parts or all actors in the industry. And what that means is there is this risk averse part of the industry or part of our mentality that’s in our DNA almost. And that means that often we tend to be risk averse to absolutely everything.

And we apply the same level of risk averseness to the entire gamut of our operations. And that has meant, and probably in the past five, 10, 15 years, that was okay. That was acceptable. But we now reached a stage where we probably need to question some of that. And this sort of brings me to the second point, which was probably what you touched upon, which is around the digital, technology, the sort of investments and the pace at which you move there. I think

we’ve probably approached transformation with the same risk-averse nature that we take to operating our assets and our business operations. We’ve taken that same approach into that space. And I think we’re fast running out of time. I think it was OK for the last, like I said, 10, 15, 20 years where things were still quite static, where the complexity of the industry and the sector wasn’t coming.

at us at great next speed. But I think now we are at a stage where, yeah, we’re running out of time. The runway to sort of get this right is short, which is where I think we just need to be a little bit more ambitious and aggressive in the way we as a sector adopt this technology and embed this into our daily work. And look, I’m not saying we

We

dial down our appetite for safety. Absolutely not. We still operate with the same level, or if not more, from a safety perspective. But we just become a little bit more adopting of change and try and change that culture a little bit to really open up. And again, there are other sectors that have done this. We don’t need to be guessing things here.

There are other sectors that have done it, whether we look at retail, whether we look at banking, and what’s happened in

Adam Sroka (11:43)
Thank

Sam Mathew (11:45)
financial services. I think we just need to be a little bit more outward looking, understand that this has been done elsewhere, and embed some of those learnings as well so we don’t make the same mistakes. So I think we are in a great position. There are a few as.

As with everything, there are a few leaders or leading sectors that have adopted it. Let’s look to them, get the best from them. But at the same time, I’d say be what I’d say fast followers, getting the best from what the leaders have done, but at the same time, really catching up. I think we’ve got the opportunity to do that. So I’m quite optimistic, I’d say.

Adam Sroka (12:24)
Good to hear. Do you think, I don’t know why I answered this question, but do you think disruption is coming? Do you think some young start-ups are to come along and totally radicalise some part of the industry, change things? Do you think that’s going to happen? Because that bleeds into, the reason I ask, is the step change in AI, right? And all the tools are moving faster than they ever have. Do you think true disruption to the way things are done is coming?

Sam Mathew (12:53)
And that’s a fascinating question. And rather than naming one organisation or one of as such, what I sort of believe is the disruption will come from the workforce.

Adam Sroka (13:07)
Okay.

Sam Mathew (13:08)
I think, just as an example, I mean, We’ve all heard this lots that the energy sector is one where we’ve got an aging and a retiring workforce, right? And we’ve got a shift happening in the workforce.

What that means is we’ve got young talent that is coming in. And this is not just digitally native. These are AI native folks coming into our workforce. So just imagine you’re in your home setting. You’ve got the best of AI to use in your personal use and then you’re coming into work and you are taken like 20 years back or 30 years back.

Would you accept that? No, you just walk out the door and go to another sector, go to another organisation that gives you the tools and technology to use. That’s just the reality of things. So I think, yeah, if we don’t change fast and change quick, we won’t attract the talent we need. And we’d just be in a very, very difficult position. And for me, hence,

The

disruption is the fact that you’ve got a skills or you’ve got a generation coming in that’s going to be demanding very, very different sort of capabilities from organizations and very, very different sort of empowerment when it comes from their organisation to do work.

Adam Sroka (14:29)
We it all the time. We started talking about shadow AI and this idea that you go to most large organizations and they can’t use anything, but they maybe have copilot, right? They don’t have anything else, but they maybe don’t have copilot. They’re not allowed to use anything at all. And what we’re finding is that people are just taking photos of their screen or copy pasting stuff into Claude on their personal accounts. And it’s like you’re in the worst of all worlds now because the

The data isn’t being captured by some enterprise agreement, whether they’re going train it and you’ve got no control and you’ve totally broken out the boundaries of any IT security you could have had because that fear is there around AI and what it’s doing to people. And it just comes from a lack of understanding of how it works.

Sam Mathew (15:15)
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that, like you said, it’s the worst of both worlds. know, you don’t, as an organisation, don’t want to be in that position because your data is exposed. And the biggest problem, which is around, know, cybersecurity, you’re leaving yourself open to such threats at that point. So I, yeah, I think it’s now or never, if you don’t get this right.

You know, yeah, we’re just going to be in all sorts of problems, not having the right skills. If you have the right skills, you know, being open to, you know, the kind of things that you mentioned. But at the same time, I mean, maybe it’s just the eternal optimist. think we’ve got the opportunity. And I think from the early shoots of what I see, at least from my work, I think we’re trying. We’re not there, but we’re definitely making the right

right steps in the right direction.

Adam Sroka (16:13)
So I think that leads us nicely to whatever like energy and AI come up. We often leap straight into data centers and it’s a really interesting part of like the trial and error and what’s going on in the next decade, rising demand. Like why has that become so dominant, do think?

Sam Mathew (16:34)
Yeah, think, I mean, for one, there is some level of reality in that, of course, right? mean, data centers are a massive demand on energy. So there is some reality in that. But I think there’s also a level of sensationalism in that. So a data center consuming.

or

data centers will consume X percent of the grid going forward, and they’ll lead to so much in growth in energy demand over the next few years and all of that. That catches eyes, right? That’s quite an eye catching sort of headline. So I think that’s partially the reason as well, according to me, is it’s just that sensationalism that it drives and it catches attention and it just gets you up and reading, right? you’re reading.

But I think for me, that’s exactly what the problem is. That’s only half the equation, or that’s half of the story. AI or AI technology, which is run from data centers, has a massive impact on the supply side of things as well. It has a massive impact on how you run the grid, how you operate the grid, how you get the best out of all the clean energy that your region or your country produces. And it makes…

life so much better for grid operators because it helps you sweat your existing assets to the max. So while you’re building these new assets, how do you of sweat everything that you already have to the max? Those are areas that AI can really help in. whether, mean, a couple of examples maybe, know, when you’re thinking about things like dynamic line rating, which sort of in some cases probably frees up nearly a third of capacity on existing transmission assets. That is massive. I mean,

Adam Sroka (18:21)
Thank you.

Sam Mathew (18:22)
a third more without building anything else, right? It’s just massive. But I don’t think it’s got the same level of sensationalism. And I don’t quite understand why, because for me, and maybe it’s more to do with the fact that I’m an energy nerd. I mean, for me, when someone says that, you know, you can free up a third of capacity on existing transmission assets without building another thing, I I just fall off my chair. But that’s an impact of

advanced data and AI technologies. So I think, yeah, I think that is is a bit of pragmatism that needs to come in while we should definitely have the conversation around AI and demand. Absolutely. Let’s not shy away from that. But at the same time, let’s also try to see why is it that AI demand is coming onto the grid.

the AI demand landing on the grid is not the end, right? That’s a means to us using that AI technology and putting that AI technology to good use, whether that be in, yeah, sweating out existing assets, building new assets at a much faster pace than what we’ve ever done before. You know, we’ve got to deliver, I don’t know, five times, seven times more assets in the next five, 10 years than we’ve done in the last 30 years, right?

So,

Adam Sroka (19:33)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Mathew (19:34)
I mean, it’s the…

at which we’ve got to build and the scale at which we’ve got to build is unprecedented. We cannot do it the way we were doing it in the years gone by. We need a fundamentally different approach. I mean, being able to use the power of data and the technologies to build in the virtual world before you actually build in the physical world. what’s…

what would otherwise be known as digital twins, even though I don’t really like the term digital twins, but I mean, build in the virtual world, test it out, test all your scenarios out in the virtual world, and then build once in the physical world and get it right the first time. Just the pace at which you build and the cost at which you build is going to be different. So that’s again, another example of how AI technology is when put to use or when put to good scale use can drive

great outcomes for us on the supplies. So at the end of the day, as long as we bring both halves together into the conversation, I’m fine with it. If you over index on the demand side of it, I just get massively irritated.

Adam Sroka (20:44)
like if it’s any sort of consolation I’ve had plenty of awkward family dinners where no one’s got as excited about energy stuff as I have but yeah maybe we you and I should go and chat about energy

Sam Mathew (21:00)
Yeah,

you and I both. I was just about to say, yeah, exactly that.

Adam Sroka (21:03)
Yeah, I think it baffles me the asymmetry of investment in the digital side versus the physical side for the very reason you’ve just pointed out. Measure 60 times, cut once. Okay, yeah, simulators and long-term forecasters and optimization engines, they’re expensive technologies to build. They’re expensive, complicated software solutions. compared to what you might…

spend on a new transmission asset or a new wind farm or something is pitted. It’s like rounding errors in a spreadsheet that probably doesn’t show up. So why not do it? And then exactly that, you’ll start to see a step change. But also more importantly, it invites more diverse skill sets into the industry. If you create a load

Sam Mathew (21:48)
Absolutely.

Adam Sroka (21:48)
of demand for this stuff, you would find that there’s loads of graduates that are really eager, that trained in mathematics and physics and maybe don’t know energy as well, that

will be drawn in because they can contribute meaningfully without having to be guided by the people with the domain expertise. And I think that is a way in which, yeah, all of us, if there is a hypercube exists, can make green energy cheaper, more profitable for big investments. So more of it comes, accelerate the transition, like deliver it quicker. And I think that, yeah, it just baffles me that the level of spend on the digital side is so small.

compared to what gets considered a bankable asset because it’s physical things that go untouched.

Sam Mathew (22:34)
I think I fully concur with what you said there. There is a mismatch or the balance is skewed. I think, especially from having worked in the sector, and I’m sure you’ve seen this as well, which is I think we’ve not done a great job at explaining or really describing the value story for digital tech investments.

over the last few years, I think we’ve probably started to change. if you look back, I don’t know, maybe 10, 15 years when digital was the of flavor of the day and every organisation was on digital transformation, I think there was a lot of tech for tech’s sake or running after shiny objects, what I call, that’s what happened. And a consequence of that was that organizations and people who are in decision-making positions.

sort of burned their fingers because you went and invested in this thing called digital transformation, but didn’t necessarily see the value back for your organisation. And the ROI thing was something we put on the side. So I think the consequence of that is that over time, interest or investment in the technology side has waned. And I think it’s upon each and every one of us to kind of make sure that we are obsessing

on the value part, very, very clear on what the ROI is. Because I think once you have that ROI written down, it’s a no-brainer. It’s the digital and the technology aspects of your investments that actually help you drive more ROI from your physical assets. So it’s the technology that enables your physical assets. And you can start to then thread that value chain all the way up.

that value story all the way through from your technology investments to your physical investments or your physical assets. And the ROI story then is a complete no-brainer. So for me, think that’s probably one change that we all need to do. We all need to get on. We all are, I think, equally culpable of having run after digital for digital sake or tech for tech sake. I think it’s time we kind of change that.

In many organizations, I see that change already, partly driven by cost pressures and partly driven by leadership mandates and so on. But I think if we are really obsessing on value and making sure that we’ve got that story really well written down, and not just written down, but also going back and measuring it once we’re delivering stuff, I think then that will drive

That’ll drive a big change, I guess, in this imbalance that we see between investments in the physical world and investment in the digital world. And that apart, think the only other thing is we just need to keep reminding ourselves. When we last did the grid upgrade or the real big grid upgrade, we lived in an industrial world. We lived in an analog world, I guess. We’re now living in a digital world. So to build the same things,

when you’ve had at least two or three platform shifts in technology, to build things the same way, think is a, yeah, I think it just is a little bit silly. We shouldn’t be doing that.

Adam Sroka (25:50)
Well, and so you’ve said before that the future of grid will either be intelligent or insufficient, which I think such a brilliant sound by it. Do you want to explain what you mean by that and why intelligence is like really critical for the future of the system?

Sam Mathew (26:03)
Yeah, I for one, I mean, there’s two or three reasons for me saying that. But I think the first sort of reason is the sheer complexity that’s coming our way with distributed energy as an example or with extreme weather events as another example from a grid controls and grid operations perspective. Just The sheer complexity that is coming our way. We cannot manage these complexities

if we operate the way we operate today. So just human, I mean, the limitations of operating as human beings means that we can’t churn exabytes of data, right? We can’t churn and digest and analyze gigabytes, even gigabytes of data. I mean, even that’ll take us days or months, right? So how do we do it? There is no other option.

We need to have technology embedded. We need to have intelligence embedded. and helping it or empowering people. The technology is, in my view, the technology is not there to replace people. It’s there to empower people. We are the ones who take the actions. Technology is the one that gives us the insights. Until a few years back, we talked about data democratization. That was the.

That was the key sort of mantra that everyone will work, but that all organizations were working on. To be fair, no one really cares about data. I mean, I don’t care about data. I care about insights from the data, right? With where we are today, we are now at a stage where we can have insights democratization through the use of, mean, Gen.AI is just one of them and that’s probably more new edge, but by putting AI to scale the use across your organisation, you probably have insights.

democratized across your organisation. And what that does, it helps people take actions much faster, much quicker, much more informed. And that then just means that we are in a much better place when it comes to operating the grid, controlling what we need to control and so on. Control rooms actually become all about control rather than trying to understand what’s happening in the operations where they are today.

Suffice to say that being sort of empowered with this technology helps us to control the grid, manage the grid, and operate the grid in a much better fashion. And that just means we are optimal. Not having that means we’re going to be suboptimal, whether that be in sweating our existing assets to the max. We’re going to be suboptimal in that. Whether that be in the way we build new assets and construct whatever generation or grid assets, we’re going to be suboptimal in that.

or whether that be in the way we serve our customers and the consumers at large, we’re going to be suboptimal in that if we don’t put this technology to use. mean, so for me, it’s quite clear that If we don’t have intelligence embedded throughout the grid, it’s just going to be suboptimal and hence it’s going to be insufficient. We risk building a much larger grid than probably what we need or we risk building

a much smaller grid than what we actually need and even where we’ve got the construction or the assets fine, I think we’ll operate them suboptimally. So an intelligent grid is the best grid. If it’s not intelligent, it’s insufficient.

Adam Sroka (29:31)
I love it. I think like, you can see why. There’s a few points like the control room, National Grid Leader, they do an incredible job. It’s incredibly difficult, like unfathomably difficult unless you’ve been in there. But they’re working with a system that was architected and designed.

before anyone even dreamed up like IoT, right? It wasn’t even like a twinkling in the eye of the engineers that come up with it. They never fathomed that there would be millions of sensors that you could just query all of them, connect to the lot. that was, if you just said that in nineties, people would have thought you were mental. And I often think there’s a thing in like software technology where in a startup, like,

You just re platform eventually you go right tech that’s too high. Let’s re platform and this is a very painful process, but we can modernize all these systems, throw away all this old stuff. I think it’s something Microsoft really good actually just like moving like that. Continual sort of evolution of the tools and technologies.

But you can’t do that with grid. You can’t re-platform the national grid or the energy system. So it would be nuts to have people with mainframes running on COBOL. It’s still a thing, right? And everyone laughs, and we all think it’s blur. But it’s like the energy system is

Sam Mathew (30:49)
It’s a reality,

Adam Sroka (30:51)
the same.

Sam Mathew (30:52)
No, it’s the absolute reality.

there are some organizations which are in that privileged position where they can be platformed. can start with a clean or a semi-clean slate. But most organizations are not in that position. And I think that’s fine, because I think you can find areas within your organisation or within your

Adam Sroka (31:13)
Hmm.

Sam Mathew (31:14)
overall process that you do as an organisation or a business. You can find pockets where you can make a start and

then over time proliferate that across your organisation. So even if that’s finding pockets of data which are really critical for your operations, find out where those pockets of data exist within your organisation. Try and bring them up a level from a quality perspective. Try and integrate them. The more the data is integrated, the more you can drive scaled insights from it. And then

Try and use those insights or enable empower your workforce with those insights. So an example, if you are out there operating grid networks, try and get your hand on your OT data as an example. That’s a massive wealth

Adam Sroka (32:05)
Thank

Sam Mathew (32:07)
of information you’ve got right there and you’ve been collecting that data for years. One good thing we’ve done as a sector is collect all of that data. The lack of data is not the problem.

So you’ve got all of that data. Try and drive quality in that data and try and integrate that with other data sort of pockets across your organisation. Integrate that. And then you’re driving insights across that. So you’re not only just predicting, say, the failure of an equipment, you’re predicting failure of an equipment and also checking whether you’ve got the parts to sort of replace or you’ve got the parts to go out and do the job.

and you’re checking whether you need your vendor or you need someone else to come in and do that for you. And you’re creating a work order. Now that’s only possible if you, like I said, bring data up a level and integrate it across your organisation. So that’s sort of my example of keep your existing systems, keep your existing sort of platforms in place, but try and liberate your data.

so that you can start to use that data across your organisation and drive insights. Insights, mean, AI is great, but it’s nothing without data, right? Or nothing without quality data. So if you’re trying to get to this outcome of insights and intelligence, data is your starting point. And I’m 100 % sure you can find pockets of data within your organisation for you to make a start. So don’t think replatforming or a clean slate is your only chance.

no matter where you are as an organisation. Again, this is probably the eternal optimist in me that is coming out. But no matter which organisation, where you sit, what you do, there are ways in which you can get intelligence and insights out your organisation. And you can make a start today.

Adam Sroka (34:04)
Well, I’ll say like I’m famous for my pessimism, right? And how like, I think everything will be harder and it will be worse than we expect. But I wholly agree with you, right? And something I say a lot to the team is the strangler vine pattern. Like one of my favorite books on…

Organizational change, better value sooner, safer, happier is all about that. Find early adopters, make them a success, find pockets where you can innovate and change and look, all of a sudden people get enthusiastic and more change comes and so on and so forth. So I wholly agree that a lot of energy companies and people in this space do think it’s all or nothing. And it really, really isn’t like you can innovate in tiny little slivers and you’ll get the flywheel going. Yeah.

Sam Mathew (34:48)
Flywheel. Absolutely.

Adam Sroka (34:49)
of, of change and adoption and things. it’s usually my, like, my only focus when I do strategy consulting is to find out where’s the easiest flight to start and drive all my attention and resources to making that a success. Because then I can step away knowing that the customer is going to be a success.

Sam Mathew (35:08)
Correct. Correct.

Adam Sroka (35:11)
You’ve, you’ve touched on some really interesting points here. And I think something you said previously that I wanted to,

sort bring up was the idea of digital substations and the modular infrastructure and how it kind of bridges those worlds from the old to the new and maybe helps us accelerate some of that physical like sort of requirement to modernize the system. you explain digital substations and modular architecture to us?

Sam Mathew (35:39)
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, like I mentioned a little earlier, right? And I think we all know that. We’ve got to build five times, seven times. mean, different, different sort of facts and numbers there. But we’ve got to build multiple times the number of assets in the next five, 10 years than we’ve done in the last 20, 30 years. So unprecedented scale, unprecedented pace.

And hence, we can’t build things the way we were building them in the years gone by. That’s kind of the context of why we even go into things like digital or modular build-up substations. Now, if you think about it, we are probably not the only country that is on this massive grid upgrade. Every single country is on its own journey from a grid upgrade perspective.

And that just means that there is only so much finite capacity out there, especially for critical parts, even for things like cables. There’s only finite manufacturing out there that everyone’s going after. So one of the things that you need to be mindful of as you go on this grid upgrade or as every country goes on its grid upgrade journey is to make sure that you’ve got modularity in your build. That’s the whole setup.

reason for modularity because then, one, you can order in a much more informed manner or in a much more bulk rather than ordering every single entity separately. you’re better placed from an ordering perspective. But second, it’s also from a build perspective. Once it’s modular, being able to build and deliver that is a much faster proposition.

rather than building bespoke to need every single time, every single place. So that’s the modularity aspect here. From a technology perspective, what this also means is moving away from what would otherwise have been hardware defined controls to a place where you probably got software defined controls that you deploy on commodity hardware.

You are no longer purchasing to really niche requirements. But again, you’re just buying in bulk, going out in this huge industrialized manner, constructing, and then enabling all of those things with things like software defined controls. So at the end of the day, what you’ve done is you’ve probably disconnected

the controls and the technology aspect from the hardware aspect, which has enabled you to sort of move at pace, both in ordering, both in getting after sort of the critical parts and the items that you need, but also when it comes to deploying them. And there’s active work. This is not something that is a moonshot. There are organizations which are actively working.

some of which I’m involved with in delivering this. And at the end of the day for me, think this is about this adopting an industrialized way of thinking and a systems level of thinking to the way we go about our grid upgrade.

Adam Sroka (38:56)
I mean, it sounds like a trillion dollar industry. it makes me think like, why has it not been done? And the answer is, it’s really, hard.

Sam Mathew (39:03)
I mean, yeah, I mean, it is hard. But I mean, from my perspective, there is no other way. I mean,

Adam Sroka (39:10)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Mathew (39:10)
we can’t do it another way. I don’t think there’s an option. We won’t be able to do it the other way. If you’re building to custom niche requirements every single place, I mean, it’ll be insufficient. We won’t get there. So I think this is the only way.

And let’s just get after it. Let’s throw all that weight behind it and just get after it.

Adam Sroka (39:33)
Yeah, it does remind me of the Crosslinks project where, are you familiar with it? The Morocco solar farm and I always think it feels

Sam Mathew (39:43)
Yeah, yeah, no.

Adam Sroka (39:44)
like some daft idea in a pub, why don’t we stick a solar farm in the desert across the country that’s just gone too far, someone’s gone gone and they have 25 billion quid and let’s go.

But that’s the kind of scale of solution I think that you were talking about here. And it’s like, well, let’s just get it done and do it. And if we put the resources in, it will happen. And then all of a sudden it will become self-perpetuating and the new industry standard.

Sam Mathew (40:11)
Exactly that. Exactly that. And I mean, I think this is probably another area where we probably need to look outside and look what’s happening in other countries and look what’s happening in other parts of the world. mean, having grown up in India, I’m quite close to the Indian grid and what’s happening there. And I think there’s a lot to learn there. In the case of India, just the sheer

geographical expands and the complexity that that brings and the sort of energy demand spike and growth that’s been happening over the last few years just means that India’s had to define things and go about things in a completely different manner, even enabling things like peer-to-peer trading when it comes to solar.

These are things that are already life in the Indian grid. I think just like you mentioned, there’s probably areas across the globe which have got maybe one or two steps ahead of us in solving some of these problems in their cases defined by the needs of the regions. You’ve got rooftop solar that took off in Australia and the complexity that that brought to the grid.

and how the grid operations had to then get over that of complexity. we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We don’t need to do all of these things on our own. Let’s look out extreme weather events in the US and some of what they’ve done around wildfire predictions and storms and so on. There’s lots. think we just need to look at what

other countries have done moon shots that have been tried in other places and where they’ve reached, maybe they’ve reached the top roof while aiming for the moon and you know let’s just take that as our bases and build from there on.

Adam Sroka (42:02)
Yeah, I think that’s a great suggestion and like.

We are, I think in the UK, quite guilty of being very inwardly focused and forgetting that other markets are stuff differently and better than us in some places. And there’s a lot of lessons to learn and there’s different approaches to everything. And it’s to the global benefit. It’s not just to like any one market. The thing I love

Sam Mathew (42:25)
Suck you.

Adam Sroka (42:26)
about energy is it’s so collaborative. People are open and willing to share their ideas and thoughts. people like energy nerds like to get excited about the problem space and try to solve it.

Sam Mathew (42:35)
Yeah,

exactly that. I mean, at the end of the day, everyone in the sector is at least, this is my view, might sound very pureist, but everyone working in the sector has got a higher purpose. We

Adam Sroka (42:49)
Hmm.

Sam Mathew (42:50)
need to get this right for future generations. There is no Plan B. There is no Planet B. So we need to get this right. And the only way to get that right is collaboration, learning from what others have done.

on different journeys. don’t compete with each other. Let’s just collaborate and get it right the first time because there is no second chance.

Adam Sroka (43:12)
I totally agree Starship Earth and all that good fun. Before we go, I’d to ask everyone a couple of things. First of all, have you got any controversial opinions, hot takes, heard it here first so that we could share with the audience?

Sam Mathew (43:27)
I

mean, for me, it’s the people side. I think my hot take is the fact that we’re not focusing enough on people, skills, talent, and bringing people into the fold. We are all running after tech. We’re running after the physical assets, the digital assets. We talk a lot about getting the best out of all of these things. probably our conversation today is centered on

a lot about that. I think we should talk a lot more about the people because you might have the best of physical and digital assets, but if you lost your organisation or your people along the way, you really haven’t, or you’re not going to achieve much. think that’s the first aspect of the people is your own people, your own employees for every organisation working in the sector, the new skills coming in.

How do you make sure that we are attracting talent and we’re still a good carrier proposition for people who are coming out of schools and universities and all of that. The other bit is the people side, but from a customer perspective. All we do as a sector is in service and for consumers all across the country. I think keeping that as the center of all we do or keeping that focus.

in all we do. I think we’re quite guilty of probably going and doing things which we believe are the best of things from a technology perspective. does that really matter to the consumer? Does that really make a difference to the end consumer’s life? Is every single thing that we’re doing making life better for the end consumer, either through cheaper bills or through better use of clean energy? And there’s various ways to measure that.

If it’s not in service of the end consumer, why are we doing it? I think those are sort of two aspects to the people conversation, which I think we need to dial up. And that’s probably an area I think we can do more, definitely do lots more.

Adam Sroka (45:29)
100 % agree. I love it. And talent and attracting the right people is something that I think about a hell of a lot. And yeah, we have to make it an attractive space and make it open and not be that like holy and now nerd, like I know better than you kind of attitude posture that’s been around in technology and in energy for quite a while. So it is starting to change, I think. I’m glad to hear.

Sam Mathew (45:51)
Yes, yes.

Adam Sroka (45:52)
So before I let you go, I just want to ask if there’s anything you want to plug or promote or if people want to find out more about you or what you’re up to, where should we point them?

Sam Mathew (45:59)
just reach out on LinkedIn in part because it’s owned by Microsoft. So use LinkedIn. But I mean, apart, I think I’m happy for anyone reaching out directly, having a conversation. I think I’d begin to learn as well what people feel and what they agree with, what they don’t agree with. I always love a great argument. So please do reach out if you don’t agree with something I’ve said.

And the only other thing I’d probably mention is quickly is look at something called the work trends index report. It’s a report that Microsoft puts out, which basically talks about how we see this technology diffusing and not just AI, but how we see technology diffusing across the work environment that we are all in and what that means for the future of work. just think it’s a very sort of it’s one.

report that’s got a lot of answers but poses a lot of questions as well. And it’s one that I think every organization or every individual should reflect on. So if you’re interested in something like that, please do look at the Work Trend Index report.

Adam Sroka (47:03)
Well, I’ve not read that, so it’s my lunchtime reading sorted. Thanks very much.

Sam Mathew (47:06)
There you go.

Adam Sroka (47:08)
Well, look, it’s been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much. And I look forward to maybe an awkward energy nerd data chat at some point in the future.

Sam Mathew (47:16)
Same here, I’ve loved this. Thanks so much, Adam. And I think I’ll take you up on the offer. Maybe we should organize like an energy nerd meet in London or something of that sort. So maybe you can think along those lines. I’d love it. I’d love it. Appoint and energy conversations. That’s my happy place.

Adam Sroka (47:36)
Thank you once again for listening to the Hypercube Energy podcast. As always, if you have any feedback or comments or you want to get involved, please get in touch. And if you want to find out more about what’s happening in data and AI across the energy sector, please join the Beyond Energy community and I look forward to speaking to you soon.