iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 26/03/2026

The @iea.org has released its Energy Technology Perspectives 2026 report today. Pleased to have contributed to it with ExoPeak. Recent developments in energy markets continue to highlight how urgent the transition is. This report provides valuable perspectives on the options ahead.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 14/10/2025

This is excellent Chris, thank you for sharing. The point you make on the State's role in promoting work and consumption through tax incentives for borrowers is spot on.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 13/10/2025

Thanks for sharing, I had no idea! I guess there's a bit of truth when they say “China is run by engineers; America is run by lawyers" then

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 13/10/2025

One thing I've noticed in China, is that many startups are founded by university professors, working with their students and labs to commercialize their research. This seems far less common in Western academia – why?

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 13/10/2025

Excellent piece by the @financialtimes.com on the formidable expansion of battery storage capacity globally. With costs continuing to drop, BESS will likely scale faster than renewables did, as their rollout is less constrained by grid stability concerns.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 30/09/2025

Honored to be featured in yet another @restofworld.org article. This one discusses the growing dominance of Chinese battery makers, at the expense of Korean firms, and how this shift came about. You can read it here: restofworld.org/2025/china-e...

restofworld.org

China charges ahead as South Korea’s battery giants lose their spark

South Korea’s top battery makers are losing ground as Chinese firms dominate with cheaper technology, factory scale, and state backing.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 03/09/2025

I had the opportunity to contribute to this article which discusses Midong - the world's largest PV installation, located in China's Gobi desert. Worth reading for anyone involved in energy. There is much to learn from how China executes those mega-scale projects. www.powermag.com/solar-by-the...

powermag.com

Solar by the Numbers: Midong Is China's Latest Mega-Marvel

A solar power project in the Gobi Desert has moved the needle on the size and scope of global photovoltaic installations, aided by innovation in equipment and construction. The numbers tell much of th...

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 22/07/2025

Congratulations - looking forward to reading you!

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 22/07/2025

I had the opportunity to weigh in for this article, which dives deep into the key drivers behind China’s EV and battery manufacturers - highly recommend giving it a read.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 11/07/2025

This is great - more penetration to come as EU ramps up its storage infrastructure, and continues to phase-out coal assets in Poland, Germany, Bulgaria and Spain.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 13/06/2025

Agreed — O&G being all-in was a clear sign that CCUS was just a distraction to delay real action on extraction. Policy makers and investors hardly learn though, as geoengineering is set to enter the same hype-and-bust cycle as CCUS.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 12/06/2025

This is great, thanks Ken! 100% with you on how sustainable solutions will only work if we keep investing to make them intrinsically better than alternatives.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 12/06/2025

Ongoing price spikes will get worse as US renewable power projects continue to be canceled due to shrinking subsidies, lost grants, and revoked permits.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 12/06/2025

This is good news on all fronts. More affordable, cleaner energy for all - especially developing countries - and less demand for oil and gas, hopefully driving prices and extraction down.

ft.com

World Bank lifts ban on funding nuclear energy in boost to industry

Lender’s president says it would support projects extending the life of existing reactors

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 10/06/2025

The current state of the UK's power market shows how fossil fuel dependency hurts industrial competitiveness and resilience. Norway shows what's possible instead: 98% renewable power mix (hydro & wind), and some of the lowest prices in Europe.

ft.com

Why are the UK’s industrial electricity prices so high?

Businesses call for measures to help shelter manufacturers

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 27/05/2025

This is sad news. It's also very ironic to see the AAI state that "EV sales mandates were never achievable" in the US when you look at where most other developed countries stand...

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 27/05/2025

Thanks for sharing. This is sad news. It's also very ironic to see the AAI state that "EV sales mandates were never achievable" in the US when you look at where most other developed countries stand...

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 27/05/2025

Many great points in this piece - both on why US/EU cooperation with China on battery production is essential, and on the safeguards needed to avoid becoming China’s assembly plant. www.ft.com/content/baed...

ft.com

Europe should abandon efforts to rival China’s battery industry, bosses say

Leaders of Eramet and Umicore call for region to seek co-operation with Asian groups

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

Thanks for sharing. As a side note, this has to be one of the worst charts I've seen in a while.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

Finally, critical minerals have become a “hot topic”, with VCs now investing in startups focused on expanding supply. Battery and waste recycling and new extraction methods attract virtually all investments. I hope we’ll see plenty of exciting innovations in the coming months/ years.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

Sodium-ion is the only battery technology that could offer the West a semblance of grip over the supply chain, thanks to its abundant and widely distributed feedstock. Yet its market presence remains limited (cf. previous chart), and China also dominates the downstream production stages.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

Emerging battery tech is gaining ground - in particular LFP. Bypassing China’s dominance was a major driver of battery tech R&D and investment, but in the case of LFP, China’s control is even stronger.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

Another point that is not new, but worth re-stating: despite rapid growth in global mining capacity, copper remains a concern. A 30% supply shortfall is projected by 2035 under current policies due to falling ore grades and long lead times.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

China’s leadership creates supply security risks for other countries – which have been very visible in the recent months. See below the impact that recent export restrictions had on prices.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

There are multiple reasons behind China’s leadership. To name a few: control over extraction, strong gov subsidies that allowed rapid supply expansion and growing vertical integration of Chinese energy technology companies. The chart below can serve as a partial illustration of that last point.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

With the (relative) exception of copper and nickel, China now leads refined production of all key critical minerals. Not new, but always worth re-stating.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

This is explained by simple supply-demand dynamics, illustrated below with the example of lithium. Global lithium demand surged nearly 30% in 2024 - three times the 2010s average - but supply grew even faster, rising by 40% and outpacing demand.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

Prices for key battery metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel declined significantly in 2024 as supply growth outpaced demand. Lithium prices fell over 80% from their 2022 peak. Interestingly, the exact opposite is happening for base metals.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/05/2025

The @iea.org just released its 2025 Global Minerals Outlook report - here are my main take-aways. I encourage everyone to take a look at the report for themselves. It is, as usual, a goldmine of insights.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 29/03/2025

Thanks for sharing, Chris. To be fair, receiving countries likely won’t miss it if the West stops. Aid was always more about influence than help, creating debt, dependence, and markets for our goods. The main downside is that China will likely fill the gap and push its own agenda (cf. map below).

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 22/03/2025

One unintended benefit of the financial struggles of China’s PV manufacturers is that it will likely drive an even faster push by the government to expand domestic solar projects as a lifeline

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 22/03/2025

Yes, that's probably a good idea to broaden the audience. The first MVP though, could fly without hardware if aimed at homes already equipped with smart meters and sensors, and running a cloud-based MPC (maybe?). Anyway, really exciting, I'm looking forward to seeing this develop further!

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 22/03/2025

Thanks Kevin, appreciate the response. For their startup, your students may want to benchmark Schneider Electric's Smart Power Manager software that was announced a month ago. It tackles the exact same issue, for the same market, but requires an extra hardware layer to work (smart panel).

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 22/03/2025

Thank you for sharing, and well done to yourself and your students – this is one of the best research papers I've read recently. How likely do you think it is that this model can be adapted to handle highly nonlinear and rapidly changing load profiles? (i.e., industrial settings)?

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/03/2025

Looking forward to reading more from you then, this concept of "ecological re-industrialization" that you introduce is spot-on.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/03/2025

This is great, thanks for sharing. It raises the question: where can EU manufacturers still win, given our comparatively higher production costs and the competition from China, who controls supply chain for many transition technologies and materials?

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 21/03/2025

This is very cool, thanks for sharing! Reminds me of all those cool Flash websites we had back in the day ☺️

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

Curious to see how things develop. China will likely try to hinder competing initiatives. They are already doing so by restricting cadmium telluride exports. First Solar is especially vulnerable to this, being a US-based company that focuses specifically cadmium telluride PVs.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

Thin-film PVs like the ones Sekisui is trying to scale still have *many* shortcomings, especially in terms of yield. Yet, these concerns may lessen if steep tariffs are placed on Chinese PVs, and generous subsidies are given to Western thin-film PV manufacturers.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

Japan is particularly interesting. They have committed to provide Sekisui with €1bn worth of subsidies to further develop perovskite PV. These can be produced with less reliance on China. Their main ingredient is iodine, of which Japan is the world's second-largest producer, after Chile.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

In parallel, other countries are accelerating their investments to bolster their domestic PV industry and reduce reliance on China. The US, Japan and India come to mind, with widely different strategies in each case.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

As a result, we're seeing a race to the bottom in terms of price/ margins. This is one of the drivers behind LONGi's recent earnings slip for instance.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

Tables seem to be turning though. State-sponsored subsidies have twisted the sector's economics, to the point where China's total PV manufacturing capacity now largely exceeds current global demand.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

Some of these profits have also been reinvested in the vertical integration and consolidation of China's top PV players. Again, this allowed for greater competitiveness vs. other countries.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

State subsidies and low domestic power prices are the two other key drivers of China's success. Both have allowed Chinese players to consistently undercut competitors, while still making healthy profits and ramping up volume that allowed for greater economies of scale.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

Control over polysilicon production is one of the main reasons behind China's success in the PV market. They produce >80% of the polysilicon in the world, which is a key component for crystalline PV production.

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Teymour Bourial @teymour.me · 07/03/2025

20 years ago, China produced ≈5% of PV panels. Today, they dominate with >80% in all manufacturing stages. Despite this growth, the outlook seems gloomy for Chinese players. A few thoughts on what sparked this growth, what's happening now and how the West is pushing back amid rising tensions.

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