How We Power Through: Key Takeaways from The smarter E Europe 2025

The smarter E Podcast Episode 230 | August 14, 2025 | Language: English

The final episode of Powering Through, The smarter E podcast’s special feature series, takes a look forward by looking back. It revisits the most compelling insights and recurring themes from the wide-ranging conversations that shaped the series.

The key highlights include:

  • How solar power is meeting surging electricity demand, and, when coupled with energy storage, delivering reliable, affordable energy in emerging economies
  • The challenges of scaling solar deployment in Europe, and the growing need for flexibility and storage
  • How battery energy storage can strengthen electricity networks, with lessons from the April 28 Iberian blackout
  • The future of flexibility in Europe and the market reforms needed to unlock it
  • Hurdles in battery manufacturing and increasing industry capabilities
  • The rapid growth of e-mobility, China’s expanding EV adoption and exports, and the role of electric transport in supporting renewable integration
  • The rise of China’s PV manufacturing dominance and the importance of global collaboration

The episode also takes listeners onto The smarter E Europ exhibition floor to capture fresh perspectives from attendees – what they learned, what surprised them, and which developments they see as having the greatest impact.

About The smarter E Podcast

The smarter E podcast is all about the current trends and developments in a renewable, decentralized and digital energy industry. Our host welcomes and interviews personalities who shape our industry and drive developments forward. A new episode is published bi-weekly on Thursdays.

In the order from left to right:

Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Jenny Chase is a solar analyst with BloombergNEF; Julian Jansen is the Growth and Market Development Director for the EMEA region at Fluence; Michael Schreiber is Head of Flex for the German market at Octopus Energy; Walburga Hemetsberger has been the CEO of SolarPower Europe; Josefin Berg is a Research & Analysis Manager at S&P Global Commodity Insights; Ivan Saha is the CEO of Renewable Manufacturing at Reliance Infrastructure (Rinfra); Adele Zhao is the Head of Marketing, Product & Service, Europe at Trina Solar; Thomas Raffeiner is the founder and CEO of The Mobility House; Martin Green is a Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales; Gerard Reid is a leading global expert and financier in the energy transition space

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