Jan Rosenow
@janrosenow.bsky.social
Professor of Energy & Climate Policy at University of Oxford Energy Programme Leader at ECI, University of Oxford Senior Research Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford Senior Associate Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge
Only 5.5% of German homes have a smart meter. France, Italy, Spain: >90%. Hard to reward demand shifting when nobody measures it. Germany pays €435m/yr to curtail renewables instead. euronews.com/2026/08/01/not-in-my-basement-why-has-germany-been-so-slow-to-adopt-smart-meters-and-whats-it-costing
Why is Germany so far behind on smart meters?
Only around five per cent of German households have a smart meter – compared to almost universal rollout in many other EU nations.
euronews.com
Energy abundance is not the same as abundant energy. Nice to see The Hill run with electrofficiency, a term I coined this year: electrify an end use and you cut the energy needed to deliver the same service. thehill.com/opinion/ener...
Energy abundance is not the same thing as abundant energy
We’re living in an energy hellscape.
thehill.com
I have known Le Porge since I was a child. Much of it is now ash. We were warned this would come. We kept burning fossil fuels anyway. Adapting to this is not a plan. Stopping the cause is.
Is clean power cheap enough to compete? The argument leaves out the environmental and social cost of fossil fuels that never end up on a bill. These are real and large costs. They are just charged to somebody else. More in new Bright Spots edition: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
The bill we never see
The hidden costs of electricity, and the good news about counting them
open.substack.com
Is clean power cheap enough to compete? The argument leaves out the environmental and social cost of fossil fuels that never end up on a bill. These are real and large costs. They are just charged to somebody else. More in new Bright Spots edition: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
The bill we never see
The hidden costs of electricity, and the good news about counting them
open.substack.com
Pornainen, Finland (pop 5,000) is now heated by a silo of crushed soapstone. I spoke to CNBC about it. 100 MWh, charged when power is cheap, emissions down ~70%. Days to weeks of storage, no critical minerals. www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/f...
Finland’s radical answer to renewable energy’s biggest headache: The world’s largest sand battery
A small Finnish town has turned to the world's largest commercial sand battery to tackle a major hurdle in the energy transition: intermittency.
cnbc.com
Renewables are overtaking coal as the world's largest source of electricity generation, after near parity in 2025. New @iea.org mid-year update: their share goes from 33% to 37% by 2027, solar and wind from 17% to 21%. EU well ahead of global average. iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/3c66a...
NEW RESEARCH: 61% of Poland's industrial heat could be electrified with technology available in the country today. Industrial heat pumps do about half the work. 17 of 24 industry branches can go fully electric. www.forum-energii.eu/en/modernisa...
Modernisation or marginalisation. How can industrial electrification ensure security, competitiveness and economic growth for Poland?
forum-energii.eu
Zero VAT on electricity in the UK from October. The real story isn’t the £45 off bills, it’s the gas-electricity price gap. We’ve loaded taxes onto electricity while gas gets off lighter, which discourages heat pumps. Cutting VAT narrows that gap.
What are the key energy challenges for the UK's new Prime Minister Andy Burnham? Here are three connected challenges the new Prime Minister will have to deal with. Thanks @orieloxford.bsky.social for the short interview!
The world is getting hotter and demand for cooling is soaring. Air conditioning now uses more electricity than the entire EU: over 2,900 TWh last year, around 10% of global demand and up 50% since 2015. By 2035 it's set to pass 4,500 TWh. @iea.org data 👇
NEW ANALYSIS: One of the most consequential discoveries of the 20th century is marked by a small blue plaque near my office. The lithium-ion cathode, Oxford, 1980. Grid batteries have since gone from one 5 MW project to 267 GW worldwide. New Bright Spots 👇 open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Batteries are quietly rewiring the grid
From a plaque in Oxford to a third of California's electricity peak: how batteries revolutionise the grid.
open.substack.com
“Every so often a technology stops being a pilot and scales rapidly. Solar did it. Onshore wind did it. Grid-scale batteries are doing it right now and most people haven’t noticed yet.”
Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 2w agoNEW ANALYSIS: One of the most consequential discoveries of the 20th century is marked by a small blue plaque near my office. The lithium-ion cathode, Oxford, 1980. Grid batteries have since gone from one 5 MW project to 267 GW worldwide. New Bright Spots 👇 open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Essential reading on one of the essential technologies for us to make it through the climate emergency. 🌞🔋
Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 2w agoNEW ANALYSIS: One of the most consequential discoveries of the 20th century is marked by a small blue plaque near my office. The lithium-ion cathode, Oxford, 1980. Grid batteries have since gone from one 5 MW project to 267 GW worldwide. New Bright Spots 👇 open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Thanks for sharing this.
Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 2w agoNEW ANALYSIS: One of the most consequential discoveries of the 20th century is marked by a small blue plaque near my office. The lithium-ion cathode, Oxford, 1980. Grid batteries have since gone from one 5 MW project to 267 GW worldwide. New Bright Spots 👇 open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
NEW ANALYSIS: One of the most consequential discoveries of the 20th century is marked by a small blue plaque near my office. The lithium-ion cathode, Oxford, 1980. Grid batteries have since gone from one 5 MW project to 267 GW worldwide. New Bright Spots 👇 open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Batteries are quietly rewiring the grid
From a plaque in Oxford to a third of California's electricity peak: how batteries revolutionise the grid.
open.substack.com
An import point that most people don’t fully grasp. Generating electricity from renewables like solar and wind eliminates this wasted energy. We can deliver more energy services with vastly lower primary energy consumption.
Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 3w agoTwo-thirds of global energy is wasted, mostly as combustion heat. Electrification gets rid of most of that waste rather than replacing it. From my keynote at the Eurelectric PowerSummit.
Two-thirds of global energy is wasted, mostly as combustion heat. Electrification gets rid of most of that waste rather than replacing it. From my keynote at the Eurelectric PowerSummit.
BREAKING: Electrification Action Plan dropped. The EU just committed to doubling electrification: 46% of final energy consumption by 2040, up from 23% today, where it has sat for a decade. My rapid response analysis of the Electrification Action Plan: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Nine times faster: the EU wants to double electrification by 2040
The Commission has launched its Electrification Action Plan. A 46% target and some serious policy measures.
open.substack.com
💪
Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 3w agoBREAKING: Electrification Action Plan dropped. The EU just committed to doubling electrification: 46% of final energy consumption by 2040, up from 23% today, where it has sat for a decade. My rapid response analysis of the Electrification Action Plan: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Are environmentalists right to warn against air conditioning? My take in The i Paper: cooling is a how-question, not a whether-question. Air-con runs hardest exactly when solar generates most. A grid ready for mass heat pump uptake can also absorb summer cooling. inews.co.uk/news/science...
Environmentalists say you shouldn’t have air-con. This is why they’re wrong
Air-con has a reputation of being bad for the climate, but its impact is negligible
inews.co.uk
BREAKING: Electrification Action Plan dropped. The EU just committed to doubling electrification: 46% of final energy consumption by 2040, up from 23% today, where it has sat for a decade. My rapid response analysis of the Electrification Action Plan: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
Nine times faster: the EU wants to double electrification by 2040
The Commission has launched its Electrification Action Plan. A 46% target and some serious policy measures.
open.substack.com
The Commission publishes its ETS and electrification proposals tomorrow. Best read as one file, not two: efficiency, electrification and a coherent ETS1+ETS2 price are one system. It's already delivered a 29% cut in EU energy use since 2000. www.janrosenow.com/uploads/4/7/...
Electrify the energy system with clean power and total energy demand roughly halves. That was the core of my Eurelectric Power Summit keynote, now on YouTube (and picked up by The Rest Is Politics). www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqoJ...
Can Electrification Save Europe’s Economy and Climate Goals? w/ Jan Rosenow, Oxford Professor
YouTube video by Eurelectric
youtube.com
The rise of batteries: California hit 33% of peak load within 22 quarters of batteries passing 1%. Australia 23% in 17, Texas 17% in 16. Great Britain took 28 quarters to reach 17%. Once the curve bends, deployment compounds. More in my next Substack - sign up here: janrosenow.substack.com
Brent above $85. European gas back over €50/MWh as Hormuz escalates again. A reminder: A fifth of global oil and LNG passes through that strait. Every heat pump, EV and electrified factory shrinks this exposure. Electrons made at home cannot be blockaded in a shipping lane.
Why don't most Europeans have air conditioning? Dumb? Woke? No - WE DID NOT NEED IT UNTIL FOSSIL FUEL BURNING CAUSED THE CLIMATE CRISIS More info 👇 www.carbonbrief.org/eight-facts-...
Eight facts about air conditioning amid an overheated global debate - Carbon Brief
Carbon Brief explains why AC rates in parts of Europe are relatively low and clarifies some of the misleading claims about the technology.
carbonbrief.org
Want to keep people cool AND generate energy? Solar panel shading systems! This is a new timber-framed office and laboratory in Basel, by Herzog de Meuron
Electrify the energy system with clean power and total energy demand roughly halves. That was the core of my Eurelectric Power Summit keynote, now on YouTube (and picked up by The Rest Is Politics). www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqoJ...
Can Electrification Save Europe’s Economy and Climate Goals? w/ Jan Rosenow, Oxford Professor
YouTube video by Eurelectric
youtube.com
My critics ran out of arguments. Latest attack: I’m bald. Guilty. Rather than hair transplant to hide my age (46), I spend the money on gym. 3 years ago I could barely pull 40kg. Here’s 180kg. Hair never helped anyone deadlift or do research. I’ll continue focusing on things that matter to me.