Press

An informative piece about the physics behind pro-growth environmentalism. It is an article of faith for the anti-capitalist, anti-trade left that endless economic growth is impossible on a finite planet.

Sustainable Development Capital LLP (SDCL) is delighted to announce that Michael Liebreich has joined SDCL as a Senior Advisor, effective immediately.

Michael is Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates, through which he conducts speaking and advisory assignments. He is also Senior Contributor to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the world’s leading provider of information on clean energy and transportation, which he founded in 2004 and sold to Bloomberg LP in 2009. He is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College’s Energy Futures Lab. He serves on the UK Department for International Trade’s Capital Investment Advisory Board, and until recently was a board member of Transport for London.

Michael Liebreich said: “SDCL is at the forefront of some of today’s most exciting developments in energy and transport. Cheap generation of clean electricity is colliding with ubiquitous computing, communications, machine learning and financial processing to create unprecedented opportunities for companies to minimise energy costs and improve resilience while reducing their climate impact. SDCL is a world leader in bringing these solutions to market, and I very much look forward to helping them accelerate their growth.”

Jonathan Maxwell, Founder and Chief Executive of SDCL, said: “I am extremely excited to welcome Michael, a truly outstanding leader in the clean energy finance business, to our team. Michael’s expertise, vision and amazing network will help us drive our rapidly growing business, which is focused on efficient and decentralised generation and management of energy. So far we have developed and invested in hundreds of millions of pounds worth of projects; we believe we can grow by an order of magnitude.”

For more information:

Jo Jagger
Liebreich Associates
jo@liebreichassociates.com
+44 20 3051 6468

Keith Driver
SDCL
info@sdcl-ib.com
+44 20 7287 7700

SDCL Website: http://www.sdcl-ib.com/energy-efficiency-investments/

In my article this March entitled Beyond Three Thirds, The Road to Deep Decarbonization, I referred to the vast opportunities that beckon in clean energy and transportation beyond the core markets of wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles. Today I want to take a deep dive into commercial transportation, aviation, shipping and trains.

The world is facing a number of very grave threats – climate change, air and ocean pollution, organised crime, cyber-threats, antibiotic resistance, pandemics, cancer, dementia, road deaths, persistent poverty and so on – all of which demand some form of intervention and leadership by the state. What is at issue is the way in which the state should intervene.

Oil and gas companies are not the only ones facing a crucial decision between Vicar of Bray and Sunset Ride in the face of the transitions to clean energy and transport.

There are five jobs on which the scaleup CEO really needs to focus, and only five. All the rest is noise. Here I explain why, based on my experience building New Energy Finance.

In my BNEF Summit keynote in London last September, I talked about how far clean energy and transport had come over the last fifteen years. Where renewable energy used to be dismissed as “alternative”, I talked about the “new orthodoxy” of what I called the Three-Third World: by 2040 one third of global electricity will be generated from wind and solar; one third of vehicles on the road will be electric; and the world’s economy will produce one third more GDP from every unit of energy.

Ignite is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Liebreich to its advisory board to further strengthen the company's strategic growth and scale up.

Former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Yamani famously predicted that “the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

Those of you who attended this month’s Bloomberg New Energy Finance EMEA Summit in London will have witnessed “Breaking Clean”, the last of my State of the Industry keynotes.

Interview: Michael Liebreich gave Citywire his take on what the president's Warsaw trip signals ahead of G20 talks this week.

Time to get serious about cyber safety.

Talking to Tom Heap at his 'power station' in Notting Hill, Michael Liebreich thinks we should think big: renovating all our homes could mean that we don't need big new power stations like Hinkley.

Michael Liebreich talks to Simon Evans about the UK energy policy's series of failures, in a new report from the House of Lords economic affairs committee.

When Christopher Columbus and the other great explorers undertook their epic voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, they navigated a world of extraordinary risks....

A cleverly written personal piece published by BusinessGreen, Michael Liebreich reflects on the startling similarities between the arguments for and against the low carbon transition

Michael Liebreich talks to Tom Heap about New US President elect Donald Trump being a climate change denier, and so what does his rise to power mean for the environment?

Not if low-carbon transformation is at the heart of the government’s industrial strategy.

The president-elect is a political novice whose energy plan doesn’t account for the economic reality of coal and renewable energy.

An Article written by Bloomberg Journalist, Iain Wilson - Quoting Michael Liebreich's Energy Outlook from the Bloomberg New Energy Finance APAC Summit, Nov 2016.

Michael Liebreich talks about visions for the future of the British countryside after Brexit.

History will judge Theresa May harshly for not killing this train-wreck of a project when she had the chance.

Interview: Green Entrepreneur and London Conservative supporter, Michael Liebreich, analyses the situation in the UK and discusses the European Summit which opens today in Bratislana.

The success of London in 2050 will be measured by its environment. By this I don’t just mean the quality of its air, or whether it has retained its biodiversity, important though those are.

Power for All caught up with Michael Liebreich to ask his predictions for the future of decentralised renewables and energy access.

All parts of the economy will be affected by this technology by Michael Liebreich & Angus McCrone.

Assuming its unions have not succeeded in stopping it, the board of EDF is today expected to wave through a decision on Hinkley C, the first new nuclear power station in the UK for 20 years and, at £18bn, the world’s most expensive power station.

UK power of the future increasingly looks green as the renewable energy sector gains backing from businesses signing up to sustainable electricity generation.

For the makers of solar, wind and other forms of clean energy, the future looks bright, with all-time-high investments and expanding markets throughout the world.

Michael Liebreich, chairman of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance advisory board, speaks about energy technologies and markets at the BNEF "Future of Energy" Summit in New York.

Let me start with an admission. When I first heard about Abu Dhabi’s Masdar initiative, I was sceptical. Abu Dhabi, blossoming from the desert because of the bounty of its oil, was championing renewable energy? The UAE, one of the least resource-efficient countries in the world, wanted to be a clean energy leader?

As the world gathers in Paris (COP21) to hammer out measures which all hope will slow the rise in global temperatures, In the Balance is in the city to debate the role of big business and big finance in what happens.

IEA's World Energy Outlook 2015 acknowledges the increasing importance of non-hydro renewable energy, but retains unrealistically pessimistic estimates of cost reduction and future market growth.

This progress is not going to stop. Solar power is now seeing costs in the 6 to 8 cents/kWh range for good projects, before any subsidies. The cheapest we have seen is 5.84 cents/kWh on a project announced this year in Dubai. Solar electricity has moved from the era of 50 cents/kWh to 30 cents, to 20 cents, to 10 cents and now below even that.

Over the past few years, there has been a divide within the Conservative family over energy. I have described
it before as Roundheads vs Cavaliers.

Michael Liebreich was awarded the most prestigious accolade, the British Renewable Energy Judges Award 2015, an award specifically created by the judging panel to recognise outstanding contribution to renewables.

From floods to fracking. Within weeks after the General Election, David Cameron’s new Cabinet are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work on their in-boxes.

The Energy Gang talks with clean energy investment guru Michael Liebreich.

Thanks to better technology and improved efficiency, energy is becoming cleaner and more plentiful—whatever the price of oil.

4th and final part of a four-part interview.

Part 3 of a four-part interview.

Part 2 of a four-part interview.

Part 1 of a four-part interview.

“Big wind farms in breezy locations such as the Great Plains in the US are now completely competitive with new coal-fired power stations.” By 2016, “the average wind farm in the US won’t need a subsidy at all”.

If this interview seems extraordinarily frank, it’s because I thought it was a background briefing and the journo didn’t tell me he was recording. It is basically a transcript of what I said in a long telephone conversation. But I like it – it contains some gems. Make sure you read parts 1 and 2.

Can you save the planet and make money at the same time? Meet the new generation of entrepreneurs making millions – even billions – from ‘clean tech’.

Michael wrote this piece about a year ahead of Rio+20, the 2012 Summit on Sustainable Development. He argued that Rio should focus on three things: making sustainability relevant to all by focusing it on resource efficiency; accelerating the transition that is anyway happening in the energy sector; and figuring out realistic ways to unlock large climate finance at scale. He knew he was whistling into the wind, but hey, he enjoys writing.

In a new study, New Energy Finance, an energy consultancy in London, shows that biofuels do have an effect on food prices but that this effect may not be quite as significant as some people think.

A version of the “prisoner’s dilemma” may suggest ways to break through the Kyoto impasse. The Economist Magazine devotes a whole page to my white paper on game theory and climate change.