Low Carbon: ‘to make a lasting impact on climate change’

Low Carbon is a purpose-driven company creating large-scale renewable energy projects. It is a major investor in solar, wind, and energy-storage projects across the UK, Europe, and North America. Indeed, it is now the UK’s largest developer of solar power and is increasingly well-positioned in battery storage as was underlined by the recent massive 6GW development announced in the Netherlands.

Renewables pioneer Roy Bedlow founded the company in 2011. He is clear on the company’s mission. “The reason I started Low Carbon was to make a lasting impact on climate change. As energy is 70 or 75% of the climate problem, that’s where I decided to put my efforts. I put a stake in the ground saying I wanted to deliver 20GW.” 

A year ago, Bedlow recruited industry veteran Neil Brown to lead the charge in capital formation. “We’ve developed just over 8GW so far,” says Bedlow. “To deliver more, we need to bring large-scale capital to bear, which is why I brought Neil in.”

Energy transition challenges

Despite the best efforts of so many smart investors, climate change seems to be accelerating, not slowing down. Which begs the question – why?

“We have to look at the energy demand curve as well,” warns Bedlow. “That demand curve is rising dramatically. One question in ChatGPT is seven fully charged iPhones in terms of power demand.”

The issue that keeps Brown up at night is that “everyone’s not running in the same direction. While I’m doing my very best to build renewables, I know that somewhere else in Asia, someone else is polluting. I will still suffer the consequences because the air above them doesn’t just stay above them. It’s a complex problem, and it’s easy to get distracted. Low Carbon’s mission is not to be distracted”.

He explains: “I think if you take a step back, this is the largest industrial transformation ever in the history of the world. Basically, changing power systems from what is essentially oil and gas-based to renewables. It’s a complex problem with many elements. Our job is not to solve the problem for the entire world. Our job is to contribute to the solution and get focused on adding new capacity because that’s what will contribute to the world solution. We mustn’t get detracted.”

Bedlow concurs: “For an organisation such as ours, we just have got to keep our head down and implement. We need to bring more capital in, we need to develop more, and we need to deliver more. We have to run a lot faster.” 

Optimism prevails

Despite the challenges, they are both optimistic. Brown confesses that there are issues with energy transition “around how you integrate storage and batteries”, but he believes that “people fail to take into account technological change”. 

He notes that the cost of a battery five years ago was “astronomical” compared with what it is today. “There’s no reason to believe that there won’t be continued reduction in unit cost in batteries. That fills me with optimism.”

The overwhelming argument, as Brown sees it, is that “the cost of renewables is now… cheaper per unit of power than any other source of power. So I think the argument that I often hear that renewables are going to make things more expensive is no longer a credible argument”. 

Low Carbon is certainly playing its part in fighting climate change, with some 180 projects on the balance sheet. When pushed for the ones he is most proud of, Bedlow is adamant “it’s the whole company”, adding: “The biggest success I’ve had is putting my own personal money into an organisation and building a platform of 200 like-minded people that can be a catalyst for change.” 

He adds: “We’ve done some tremendous projects. Each and every one of the projects that we deliver is superb. From the delivery of a wind site in Ukraine, to a wind site in Romania, to a wind project in Finland, to one of the UK’s largest solar projects right now, with 600MW of solar with 250MW of battery.” He also stresses the successful biodiversity of many projects, with a strong commitment to pollination.

Challenges and the future

The challenge of raising sufficient capital was, of course, behind Brown’s hire. Otherwise Bedlow worries about UK grid reform. “That’s certainly a challenge for us,” he says. “We need to connect our assets to the grid and that’s a challenge. We obviously embrace the UK government’s efforts to understand what are ‘real projects’ in the grid queue, and what are not real projects. We’re lucky as an organisation that we do have real projects, and we’ll continue to connect them. Grid access will remain a challenge in the UK and in other markets as well.”

The pair are more relaxed about the election of Donald Trump as the new US president. “Economics will drive things, as it always does,” Bedlow observes.

Brown agrees. “The US government matters. But what matters more is being able to make money. One of the things about renewables is that economics drives behaviour. Texas is a classic example. You’d think the well-known wildcat oil-and-gas state would be the last place to build renewables. Yet Texas, as a standalone geography, is about the number six implementer of renewables in the world. They’ve outstripped California by almost an order of magnitude in terms of installation of renewables. Why? Because renewables are cheap relative to other sources of power.”

He also thinks the new-look Department of Energy “won’t necessarily be anti-renewables. It’ll just be pro-oil and gas”. 

Looking to the future, Brown again underscores the importance of technology. “Technology has a very strong impact on outcomes, and you don’t see that any more than you see it in renewables.”