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Peter King

Global Energy Transition and Utilities Lead Capgemini Invent, VP at Capgemini Invent

Peter King is a seasoned professional with a strong background in account management, assignment delivery, and business transformation. Currently, a VP at Capgemini Consulting, he specializes in the utilities sector focusing on power networks. Peter's expertise also includes capability development, operating model and organization design, business engagement and change, digital and technology-enabled change, as well as people and talent development. With a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from UCL and an MSc in Information Processing and Neural Networks from King's College London, Peter has a solid educational foundation to support his vast experience. Previously holding positions such as Global Energy and Utilities Lead at Capgemini Invent, VP at Capgemini Invent, Vice President at Capgemini, Principal at Capgemini, Senior Manager at Ernst & Young, Senior Managing Consultant at IBM, Principal Consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting, MC at PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting, IT Manager at Energy Management Brokers, and Analyst Programmer at Arthur Andersen & Co., Peter has a wealth of knowledge and skills across various organizations. Living near Oxford, Peter is a family man, married with two children, and enjoys pursuing part-time interests in rowing and running.

Highlights

Sep 13 · linkedin

Friday long post…

How green is the Emerald Isle…?

With an annual per capita CO2 production 50% higher than the UK, still burning coal, importing 86% of all energy used (with very limited own oil and gas reserves), and there are some places still allowed to use peat for heating, Ireland is not very green.

But Ireland’s economy should be one of the easier ones to decarbonise. It’s services-based and there isn’t much in the way of heavy industry, so no large-scale steel or concrete production to worry about. The key concerns are transport, and heating and cooling buildings.

Ireland is also ‘blessed’ by wind. The hurricanes that develop in the Caribbean eventually work their way across the Atlantic and the first land they encounter is Ireland. Already, 40% of electricity is generated by wind, with plans to increase this further.

Ireland’s politicians have pledged to Net Zero, but given the long timescales, they, like others, won’t be the ones tasked with delivery.

Ireland also has no nuclear power, not much in the way of hydro, and the difficult economics of battery storage apply here as much as anywhere. But as the whole economy electrifies, wind without sufficient storage cannot hope to provide for more than 40% of total energy use.

What should Ireland do?

Ireland should pursue a demand side energy revolution, taking advantage of their service-based economy to put control of energy in the hands of its businesses and people. Through demand reduction and flexibility, EV and battery adoption, and efficiency measures such as insulation and heat pumps, Ireland could move much faster than the rest of Europe.

Ireland can also make use of what appears to be a huge amount of inward investment from many global companies, who have chosen Ireland due to low corporation tax rates but are keen to demonstrate their green credentials.

If you got this far, and we are not already connected please connect, leave a reaction, your comments are welcome and often more interesting than my original post!

Jul 26 · linkedin

Friday long post…

Taking the case for Net Zero to the people…

Many new governments and administrations around the world are taking office, Modi in India, Starmer in the UK, and we await news in France and the US. This is an opportunity to meaningfully engage people in the Net Zero journey.

This is a difficult political message, hence one best delivered early in the life of an administration, Net Zero will cost more, it will need us to change our houses, habits, and lifestyles. It won’t only impact low lying islands in the Indian ocean. It will change our climate, it will impact global supply chains, it will result in mass migration, it will cost a lot, and it will make our lives less secure. Delaying action makes this worse and changes will be forced upon us, delaying should make people scared.

There’s a positive message to deliver too, in a clean energy world, we get to keep the glaciers, coral reefs, our cities are less polluted, and our children get to live better lives than we’ve had.

The supply side has dominated the narrative, ‘we need to build more…’, but we don’t achieve NZ without both public permission for this build and changes in people’s demand side behaviours. It’s the people that need to change, and local solutions will be essential.

Governments have proven that they can be extremely effective at communicating when needed, ‘stay at home’ ‘turn off that light’ ‘life, be in it’. A combination of punchy phrases and clear imagery has been proven to work, in doing this they can counter a lot of misinformation.

Solutions will take time to implement, governments will need cross party consensus to make commitments that will outlive their time in office. They will need to establish organisations with long term responsibility for implementing the changes – rolling out heat pumps, insulation, alongside building nuclear, wind, networks.

It has fallen on this generation of politicians to address this challenge. A balanced, reasoned case needs to be made. Future generations will put us alongside the appeasers of the 1930s if we fail to act.

If you got this far, and we are not already connected please connect, leave a reaction, your comments are welcome and often more interesting than my original post!

Peter King
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Location

Greater Oxford Area