Sustainable futures by synchronizing with the rhythm of nature

Few topics are as relevant to all of us as the energy transition towards a more sustainable future. A transition with many challenges to overcome in the years ahead of us. To better understand the energy landscape and its visions of the future, we sat down with Jean-Jacques Delmée, former CEO of Eneco Belgium.

We knew he is a part-time spinning instructor, so we befittingly sat down in a Cycling Café to do the interview. “Cycling helps me structure my thoughts, clear my head, and relax” he explains. Even working in Belgium didn’t stop him from taking a long drive to the Netherlands every week to instruct the same group – for 20 consecutive years already.

Jean-Jacques describes his career path jokingly as “one that only made sense looking backwards”. He started selling email addresses – which used acoustic couplers (yes, we had to google that too) at the time – and helped in setting up the production line of a crispy Mussel called ‘McMussels’. Both adventures were short-lived. Later he worked at Coca-Cola and for the animal nutrition industry in both sales and manufacturing positions.

Having seen and done a lot, he developed what he describes as ‘Transferable Skills’, skills he brought with him to Eneco Belgium. Jean-Jacques: “The fact that I have seen both sales and manufacturing makes me a more complete leader. Every expertise attracts its human archetype who talks in their distinct lingo. Being able to adapt to that helps me greatly. Another skill I’ve developed is simplifying complex situations. Zooming out, setting the big picture. Though I’m not much into the details, it enables me to find a path or next step forward. A third skill is that, once I see the next step, I am not afraid to make a decision. Of all the decisions you make, 70% will be right and 30% will be – in hindsight – very stupid. But the consequences of these decisions are mitigated by the good decisions” he says.

Armed with these skills, and with no prior knowledge of the energy sector, he joined Eneco Belgium in 2019 as its CEO. “The energy sector is extremely complicated in every aspect: technologically, politically, societally, etc…” he says, “Even after 3 years I must admit that I am not sure if I truly understand it. Things change so rapidly, you simply need to constantly read a lot to stay fully on top.”

When Jean-Jacques joined Eneco Belgium as CEO, the company was just finishing the acquisition process by a Japanese consortium, after which the world around it went from crisis to crisis. We had the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the subsequent gas and energy price explosion. The latter was the most intense experience for Jean-Jacques: “A common misconception is that energy companies were taking advantage of the situation to raise profits and exploit our customers, but nothing could not be further from the truth”, he explains. “We have paper-thin margins, and everyone was doing their best. I often saw my colleagues at the brink of tears, hearing all the stories about people in trouble with their energy bills.”

Though this crisis was a dark and tough period, there was a bright side as well, Jean-Jacques mentioned. “It showed how solitary we as a society are – as neighbours started to share their heat and bill and we took care of each other. And secondly, there suddenly was an incentive, or rather a necessity, to think more carefully about energy. People started to isolate their homes, invest in renewable energy systems such as solar panels or simply consume less. In other words, it caused a massive shift towards a more sustainable world.

This shift towards a more sustainable world is a massively complex transition of the energy landscape. Being a leader at one of the key players in this energy transition, we were eager to hear Jean-Jacques’ point of view on the future of the energy landscape. His vision? “We should harmonize with the rhythm of nature”, he said.

“Let’s compare the energy sector with the supermarket. A lot of produce in the supermarket is local and seasonal and there is a growing trend of bringing back seasonality in products and producing them locally. I think it’s only natural that you can’t buy asparagus all year long. As consumers, we should buy what’s seasonally and locally available to us.”

He continues; “I envision the same with our renewable future. We should harmonize ourselves in the rhythm of nature that oscillates between periods of peak energy, strong winds and lots of sun, and periods of low energy with little to no wind or sun. We should lower our energy consumption during lows and utilize or capture supply during the peaks. It would require a massive mindset shift for this vision to become true, but I truly believe that we need to further explore it.”

From a consumer perspective, this vision would be a massive shift, as it implies that consumers no longer can decide for themselves when to use the dishwasher, washing machine, charge the electric vehicle, etc. And for businesses too, this would be an enormous transformation. “It would require energy companies to analyse and advise every business – whether it’s a small business owner or a large manufacturer – on their specific energy-consuming patterns”, Jean-Jacques says. “It would require in-depth industry-specific knowledge about the exact machines used by the company, and production schedules it has, to offer comprehensive guidance.” For some companies, this could be an opportunity, according to Jean-Jacques. “When we experience energy peaks, we will need to invent new production processes that can capitalize on those peaks and rapidly scale up production, for instance”.

But what about the lows? What if the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine? Of course, we could harmonize our consumption with the rhythm of nature as mentioned above, but for sure we need a solid base of energy supply.

Jean-Jacques believes in a mix of fluctuating renewable energy and a solid base of nuclear power. “Initially, I thought that we should get rid of nuclear energy, as I believed that getting rid of nuclear energy provides the space for renewable energy to grow,” he says. He points out that in Belgium, nuclear energy has priority over renewable energy. “As nuclear plants are not easily turned off or on, it was renewable sources that were turned off in supply peaks. Ever seen a windmill not turning on a windy day? That’s not because it’s broken, but because of the surplus of energy in the system.”

“But now, I do believe that we need a solid base load of nuclear energy. Preferably generated by modern plants, which are highly advanced and modular, can reuse old nuclear fuel that is now wasted or stored away, and that can be turned on and off more easily. On top of this base supply, there will be a supply of renewable energy sources (sun, wind, on- and offshore) that will move along the rhythm of nature. That can either be produced by suppliers, or produced and stored locally right at the consumer’s home.”

With the adoption of solar panels by consumers, enabling them to produce their electricity at home, Jean-Jacques predicts that energy will become a shareable asset. Whether using a balance on a card or leveraging a platform, energy will become a form of currency.
“Whatever energy you produce and put into the energy system has a certain value. This could be expressed in monetary value, in which case I see a future in which you can buy your IKEA closet with 10% energy tokens and the other 90% with money,” he says. “We need systems as such in place to incentivize consumers to invest in renewable energy.”

Energy-as-a-currency certainly sounds like an exciting vision of what the energy transition could mean for consumers. Yet, it requires people to have the means to invest in the first place. What about the people who do not have the financial means to invest? Or those who do not own the house they live in?

Jean-Jacques: “The energy-as-a-currency system certainly has its flaws. If you don’t have the means to invest in it, you certainly won’t profit from it. The paradox is that it is generally people who don’t have the financial means, are the ones who live in older and less isolated houses that require more energy. It’s like a double whammy – and a complex challenge for sure,” he says. “I think energy companies could play a role here in offering leasing models for solar panels. I can also imagine a democratic model where energy is being shared amongst neighbours or, as energy becomes a currency, it could be taxed to make the system fair.”

With this huge energy transition in mind, we wondered what the role of energy suppliers will be. “There is a transition going on in which energy companies move away from purely delivering energy (from power plant to the consumer/business) and move towards managing decentralized energy sources. The question is, who should have this management role? Is it network operators, who already have real-time consumption insights, or the energy suppliers, who only receive information at the end of the chain? Or somebody else, even new players? Managing complexities in the energy distribution using big data becomes the realm where others might excel.”

There are so many moving parts, ideas and visions of the future regarding the energy system that we wondered: What is a key ingredient for ‘the transition’ to succeed? “A steady long-term vision,” he says. “Governments need to detach their climate policy from the seasonal political arena and create a roadmap of 25 to 30 years. Such a roadmap would provide potential investors with the necessary assurance of returns on their investments, thereby stimulating investments in the energy sector. If we keep changing our policy every 4 years, investors are not going to invest. We will only succeed if we have a long-term plan and stick with it.”

As always, nearing the end of our conversation, we ask our guests to share their great tips on how to develop yourself. For Jean-Jacques, it’s all about developing your soft skills.

“What I think is lacking at school is the emphasis on developing soft skills. We don’t teach people enough common sense, associative thinking, presenting skills, how to communicate, how to engage in friendships or how to deal with difficult situations in life,” he says. “Rather, at high school we are stuffed with knowledge. Then follows a few years of being drunk all the time under the false pretences of studying – let’s be honest -, and then you’re launched into society. And in all of this, you probably learned most from being drunk”, he jokes. “I had the opportunity to study in America and I simply cannot recall the subject matters that we were taught there, but I did learn things about myself, and it’s these things that I will never forget.”

We’ve talked with Jean-Jacques at length about his personal experience and vision of the energy sector. But what does Jean-Jacques personally think about the future? What is his personal view on what’s next?

“I would love to see the world move with the rhythm of nature. Living in balance. A world in which we simply cannot do anything anytime any more, but that we deal with what’s available to us.” he says. “I’m well aware that it’s my generation and that of my parents that pretty much caused the climate crisis of today. We consumed things like fossil fuels, bad food (lots of fat, carbs and sugars), asbestos and more, even though we already kind of knew at the time that they were bad. I would love to see us live differently, recover from the bad decisions made, and experience the moment when we bring climate change to a halt. How great would that be?”