Energy

Generation is being built faster than the systems around it. These are the gaps that opened as a result.

Ed. 1

EnergyProblem 0002

The constraint on the energy transition moved from manufacturing to administration, and no tooling followed it. Projects sit in interconnection queues longer than they took to design, studies are redone by hand each time the queue ahead reshuffles, and developers cannot see where they stand or what would move them. Most of the capacity that enters the queue is eventually withdrawn, often after years of waiting.

Who lives with itIndependent power producers · utility interconnection teams · the financiers whose models assume a connection date

Why nowLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's latest queue analysis counts roughly 8,200 active projects representing over two terawatts of generation and storage, a median wait from request to operation of more than five years, and about three quarters of the capacity that requested connection between 2000 and 2020 later withdrawn.

Why it matters · the JudgeA queueing and document problem wearing an engineering costume, exactly the kind that goes unsolved because no single party owns both ends of it. Faster paperwork is the cheapest capacity available anywhere on the grid.

Inspired by reporting from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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Ed. 1

EnergyProblem 0003

Training runs, batch inference and analytics are scheduled around deadlines and cluster availability, almost never around what electricity costs or emits at that hour. Much of this work is genuinely movable, a few hours either way or a different region entirely, but the information needed to move it lives in a different system from the scheduler, and in most organisations nothing joins them. So flexible load behaves like inflexible load.

Who lives with itPlatform and infrastructure teams · sustainability leads with compute in their inventory · grid operators courting flexible demand

Why nowThe IEA's April 2025 Energy and AI report puts data centre electricity use at around 415 TWh in 2024, about 1.5% of global consumption, and projects roughly a doubling by 2030 with accelerated servers accounting for almost half the increase: a load growing fast and, unusually for industrial demand, substantially time- and place-shiftable.

Why it matters · the JudgeA large and rapidly growing load is being treated as though it had no flexibility, when a meaningful share of it does. Making compute schedulable against grid signals is a software problem sitting between two industries that do not yet share a vocabulary.

Inspired by reporting from International Energy Agency

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Ed. 1

EnergyProblem 0025

The first mass-market electric cars are reaching the end of their first ownership with batteries that have years of useful service left. Battery-health reports exist, but no grade is yet trusted by buyers, insurers and second-life users alike, so buyers discount heavily to cover what they cannot see, insurers guess, and packs that would work well in a home or on a grid for another decade are recycled early or not moved at all.

Who lives with itUsed-car buyers and dealers · fleet operators disposing of vehicles · home and grid storage developers

Why nowThe first large cohort of mass-market electric vehicles is coming off its original ownership now, and the second-life market that should absorb those packs still lacks a grade it can commonly trade on.

Why it matters · the JudgeA structural gap with a clock on it: every month without a credible grade destroys value that cannot be recovered later. A battery grade anyone can verify unlocks a market that currently struggles to form.

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3 problems. Pick one.Bring a problem

Energy

Grid connection backlog Energy developers are blocked by paperwork, not engineering

Unshifted compute load Data centres can't shift work to cheaper, cleaner hours

Ungraded used batteries Buyers can't tell how much life a used EV battery has