The REM Podcast - Renewable Energy Movement

Tom Essex
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The REM Podcast gathers the most successful project development and delivery leaders in utility-scale renewable energy to share their stories and insights. We’re the go-to place for authentic and valuable conversations within this niche industry, covering market challenges, how leaders plan to navigate them, and what’s happening behind the scenes.

  1. 1d ago

    Abel De Voogd - The Political Scientist Who Builds Solar Farms

    Abel de Voogd is Head of Project Development at ABO Energy in the Netherlands. He didn't come from an engineering background. Instead, he studied political science before finding his way into renewable energy, where he's now spent more than 10 years developing solar projects, mainly for the Dutch farming sector. In this episode, Tom and Abel talk about the real challenges of agri-solar. They discuss why a farmer often only gets one chance to make the right decision, why agri-PV is much harder than it looks, how grid congestion has changed project development in the Netherlands, and where Abel thinks the market is heading over the next five years. A practical, honest conversation based on years of real experience in the field. Renewable Energy Movement | Powered by KIGYO

    32 min

  2. Jun 10

    Structuring For Success!

    This week on REM Rewind, Tom Essex pulls two episodes from the Season 1 archive that were recorded months apart but tell opposite sides of the same story. Laurens van Ochten is Head of BESS at R.Power, where he oversees a centralised team across six European countries. He breaks down how grid access works differently across each market, why Germany's ultra-easy access quietly flooded the system with paper projects that never got built, and how R.Power structured its BESS operation to stay ahead of the curve. Carlo Toic is COO and co-founder of SOL-R Global, a real estate investment company operating inside the renewable energy industry. He makes the case that IPPs should never own land, explains why mixing real estate and energy on the same balance sheet kills your IRR, and draws a direct parallel to what already happened in the telco sector. Two guests who never sat in the same room, solving the same fundamental problem from completely different directions. The infrastructure beneath the infrastructure is where renewable energy projects quietly succeed or fail. This episode is about exactly that. Full solo episodes for both Laurens and Carlo are in the back catalogue. Renewable Energy Movement Podcast — Powered by Kigyo.

    15 min

  3. Jun 3

    REM Rewind: The Local Conviction of Global Scaling

    I recorded these conversations months apart and genuinely didn't plan this but when I went back into the archive to pull them together, I couldn't believe how much they were saying the same thing from completely opposite ends of the industry. Mathieu Lassagne walked away from 15 years inside ENGIE and EDF to co-found ZE-Energy from scratch. Without any safety net or corporate playbook, just seven years of going deep into local grid intermittency, hybrid solar-plus-storage, and the unglamorous but genuinely critical work of asset re-powering across France, Italy and Germany. Francisco Diaz never left the big organizations but he went wide in a way that most people never do. Built a 100-person team from the ground up across six Latin American countries for Canadian Solar, then moved on to scale gigawatt-level projects in India, Germany, and the US. He went around different continents every few years. facing different market rules every time. On paper they couldn't be more different but when you pull back a layer and they're telling opposite sides of the exact same story. It's the red tape and the companies actually winning right now who've figured out how to move through brutal regulatory environments as fast as the technology scales. If you're building in this space, regulatory agility isn't a nice-to-have. What we get into: — Why the best market intelligence only comes from being in a market before anyone's written the playbook yet — Mathieu on the structural shift happening right now from centralized utility models to local flexibility and what that actually means in practice — Francisco on India: the speed, the sophistication of the auctions, and why the volume of work happening there is unlike anything else on the planet — And the conviction both of them share: throw all the capital you want at a project, without the right people on the ground, it doesn't move This episode is the highlights package. The Renewable Energy Movement is powered by Kigyo.

    56 min

  4. May 27

    The Reality of Global Mobility: Rewriting the Renewable Career Playbook

    Two careers built by saying yes when the answer should have been no. This throwback compilation brings together two of the most listened-to conversations from Season One of the Renewable Energy Movement. Ilona Nemeth-Kiss and Alexandros Kalargyros have almost nothing in common on paper. One is a Hungarian lawyer who accidentally built a career in offshore wind after moving to Germany with zero German and two small kids. The other is a Greek engineer who spent fifteen years building renewable projects across four continents and had his daughter born mid-relocation between South Africa and the United States. What they share is the willingness to step back, start over, and figure it out on arrival. In an industry that rewards exactly that quality, both ended up exactly where they belong. In this compilation: The cultural and professional shock of crossing industries and bordersWhat it actually takes to be accepted on a site in South Africa as a European engineer Stepping down in title to step up in career Greece as an emerging energy hub and why BESS is the market's next challengeAnd the best single line this podcast has produced: do no harm and take no shit Both full episodes remain in the feed. This is the best of both. The Renewable Energy Movement Podcast is Powered by Kigyo.

    43 min

  5. May 20

    Say Yes and Move: A Throwback ft. Natalia Paraskevopoulou and Filippo Ricci

    Two careers built by saying yes when most people said no. Natalia Paraskevopoulou, Head of Wind Business Development for EMEA at LightSource BP, discovered renewables in a classroom in Athens in 2004. She went on to move to Johannesburg as a 20-something woman in a field dominated by men, earn respect on construction sites by physically doing the job, and build a career that now spans Greece, South Africa and the UK. Filippo Ricci, General Manager and Country Lead for Italy at Recurrent Energy, fell into renewables through a friend asking for help in Bologna. He ended up developing markets in Chile, Egypt, Jordan and Cameroon before he was thirty. Two different paths with the same lesson at the end of both of them. In this throwback episode Tom revisits two of the most popular conversations from the REM archive and brings them together for the first time. What they cover together: Why the best careers in this industry are rarely plannedWhat working across radically different cultures actually teaches youWhy saying yes to the uncomfortable thing is the common thread in almost every success storyWhat the Italian and European renewable markets look like heading into the next phase of executionAnd why the energy transition only wins if it saves people money Leadership, people, and why community inside a team matters more than most leaders admit The Renewable Energy Movement Podcast is powered by Kigyo.

    31 min

  6. May 13

    Read the Instructions First: Maria del Puy on Spain’s Energy Future

    Maria del Puy Ayerra started her career in 2001 at GAMESA, developing wind farms in Spain when "renewable energy" was barely a household term. Over the last two decades, her career has spanned Spain, the UK, and the United States, navigating every market cycle thrown at developers, investors, and consultants. In this conversation with Tom Essex, Maria provides an insider’s view of the Spanish energy evolution; from the early feed-in tariff boom to the grid saturation crisis of today. They discuss the ground-level reality of the 2025 blackout, the necessity of storage, and what the next two years leading up to 2028 actually look like for those moving capital into the region. In this episode, we cover: The Early Days: Joining GAMESA in 2001 and the internal reality of Spain’s first wind energy boom.Resilience Through Crashes: Surviving the 2008–2013 market collapse and the five-year wait for real momentum to return.Global Perspectives: Moving across the UK and US markets, overcoming language barriers, and avoiding "cultural ego traps" when entering new territories.A Milestone Moment: What it felt like to see Spain run on 100% renewable energy for a full day after starting when it was just a dream.The Grid Crisis: An honest look at the April 2025 blackout and the reality of 83% grid node saturation.The Storage Mandate: Why storage is no longer optional and how creative PPA structures are reshaping the market.Strategic Acquisitions: Why this is an opportunistic moment for investors and how to navigate the current regulatory landscape.Future Frontiers: Maria’s current work advising on the intersection of data centers, EVs, and total energy solutions. Connect with the Movement: Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-del-puy-ayerra/Host: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomessex/ Subscribe to the Renewable Energy Movement Podcast to stay updated on the people and technology driving the global energy transition. Powered by: Kigyo

    38 min

  7. May 6

    Ksenia Balanda: Building Italy’s Floating Offshore Wind Future

    There Is No Going Back: Ksenia Balanda on Floating Offshore Wind in Italy! Ksenia has spent nearly 20 years at the absolute edge of the energy business. She started with building a 45-person team in nine months in Russia to mastering Italian in "survival mode," her career has been defined by rapid scale and frontier markets. Now, as the Head of Offshore Wind Italy for Nadara, Ksenia is leading one of the most ambitious energy projects in the Mediterranean: the development of six floating offshore wind farms across Southern Italy and Sardinia, representing a massive 5 GW of capacity. In this conversation with Tom Essex, Ksenia breaks down what floating offshore wind actually requires to succeed, why Italy’s regulatory environment is currently the biggest bottleneck, and how the country’s ports and supply chains are quietly preparing for a generational industrial shift. In this episode, we cover:The "Generalist" Advantage: How starting in economics led Ksenia to lead billion-euro energy projects.Rapid Scale: The reality of building a 45-person renewable energy team from scratch in just nine months.The Mediterranean Opportunity: Why floating wind in Italy is a global game-changer and a gateway for the region.The "Three Projects in Parallel" Strategy: Understanding the unique complexity of developing floating technology.Regulatory Bottlenecks: Navigating Italy’s policy gaps and what needs to change to unlock construction.The Talent Shift: Upskilling workers from legacy coal and naval industries for the offshore future.Frontier Leadership: The art of hiring talent and then getting out of their way.WindEurope Insights: Key takeaways from Madrid regarding the future of wind in Italy, Portugal, and Greece. Connect with the Movement:Guest: Ksenia Balanda (Head of Offshore Wind Italy, Nadara)Host: Tom Essex Subscribe to the Renewable Energy Movement Podcast to stay updated on the people and technology driving the global energy transition. Powered by: Kigyo

    40 min

  8. Apr 29

    Build the Relationship First: Stefano Girolami on Solar, Leadership and Scale

    Stefano Girolami arrived in London from Naples nearly 15 years ago planning to stay six months. He stayed for over a decade, built a career across five countries, and eventually joined a six-person startup that has since scaled to over a hundred people across Europe. He is now the Group CTO of Innovo Renewables. But this isn’t just a conversation about technology todays episode taps into a masterclass in leadership, resilience, and why your professional relationships are your most valuable currency. As Stefano sits down with Tom Essex to discuss the "scars" of the feed-in tariff crash, the reality of managing teams more senior than yourself at 25, and why he chose the chaos of a startup over the security of a global utility, they discuss the following: The Pivot: From Naples to London and finding a footing in the UK solar market.The Market Crash: Surviving the feed-in tariff collapse and being made redundant twice before age 30.The "Young Leader" Challenge: Managing peers and senior experts as a first-time manager.Scaling a Giant: Navigating the Solar Century acquisition by Statkraft and the transition to corporate life.Startup DNA: Joining Innovo at the ground floor and building a team of 100+ from scratch.Hiring Strategy: Why he prioritizes junior talent and "proceduralized" workflows.The Horizon: Future predictions for the Italian and European solar markets over the next 24 months. Connect with the Movement:Guest: Stefano Girolami (Group CTO, Innovo Renewables)Host: Tom Essex Subscribe to The Renewable Energy Movement Podcast to never miss an episode on the people and technology driving the global energy transition. Powered by: Kigyo

    43 min
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The REM Podcast gathers the most successful project development and delivery leaders in utility-scale renewable energy to share their stories and insights. We’re the go-to place for authentic and valuable conversations within this niche industry, covering market challenges, how leaders plan to navigate them, and what’s happening behind the scenes.

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