It was incredibly special to witness the Energy Transition ecosystem come together last week at the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London. My confidence in our collective mission to reduce carbon emissions was bolstered by seeing the depth and breadth of technology innovation, alongside the collaboration of developers, investors, strategics, and policymakers. A special thank you to Olivia Breese, Tim Latimer, Roger A. Harris, and Gabriel de Laval for joining me on our panel to discuss the challenges of building FOAK projects. Your insights on controlling technical, execution, and contractual risks were invaluable to our Start-up and Developer partners. Thanks to Danielle Baron for your help in curating this panel—we missed you on the day. It was fantastic to see our Catalyst project partners from LanzaJet (Richard Marsh), Energy Dome (Claudio Spadacini, Francesco Oppici, Ben Potter, Marcin Klopot, CFA Klopot), Infinium (Robert Schuetzle, Ayesha Choudhury, Roger Harris), and Ørsted (Olivia Breese, James Henry, Allan MacDonald) at their booths in Summit Central. The engagement with additional partners in their scale-up journeys will doubtless be impactful. Congratulations once again to the teams at Rondo Energy (Caroline Jo), BE Catalyst (James Blake), and the European Investment Bank (EIB) on the announcement of funding for three European Long Duration Energy Storage projects. These will have a fantastic Carbon Reduction impact in the generation and use of industrial heat. As always, it was great to catch up with so many friends and colleagues in the climate tech community. Too many mention, but thanks to Aditya (Adi) Maha, Thiam Giam, Michael Long, David Bishop, and Max Pietzsch for your attendance and important participation in the event. And last but not least, thanks to my amazing Catalyst team mates at Summit (Mario Fernandez, Yumarie Ortiz Lopez, Cody Evans, James Blake), and the full team back in NY who make the magic happen across all the technology, investments and myriad of other functions we deliver (Peter Badenhausen, Nisha Patel, Rachel Y., Emerson Stuart, Javier Jiménez-Blanco, and Nicholas Perez)
Benjamin Ruben Thank you for facilitating a really nice panel discussion around the challenges of building FOAK projects. Congratulations to BE and catalyst team for a fantastic event!
Max Pietzsch
5d
Thank you Benjamin Ruben & the Breakthrough & Catalyst Teams for a great event.
Thiam Giam
1w
Thank you so much Benjamin Ruben to you and team for extending the invite to allow Michael Long and I to attend the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London last week and to be part of the ecosystem. Great job moderating “The Challenges of building FOAK Projects” panel last week as well!
Anna Ekdahl
1w
Sounds like an exiting and inspiring event Ben, well done BE!
Manager, Europe - Power Sector at Breakthrough Energy | Nova 111
6dyou Catalyst team rock! Congratulations again on the announcement. Proud to be working alongside you. James Blake Mario Fernandez Yumarie Ortiz Lopez Nisha Patel Javier Jiménez-Blanco Peter Badenhausen Cody Evans Emerson Stuart Nicholas Perez Rachel Y.!