Grid Congestion Is Holding Back Business. Virtual Power Plants Could Help Artwork

Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

Climate Confident is for business leaders, climate professionals and policymakers who need to understand what is actually cutting emissions—and what it takes to make those solutions work at scale.

Each Wednesday, technology and sustainability analyst, keynote speaker and former SAP Global VP Tom Raftery speaks with the executives, engineers, scientists, founders and policymakers turning climate ambition into measurable progress. Together, they examine the technologies, business models, policies and implementation strategies reshaping energy, transport, industry, supply chains, food and finance.

These are not conversations about distant targets, vague pledges or greenwash. They are candid discussions about what is working, what is failing, where the real bottlenecks lie, and how leaders can make better decisions about decarbonisation, resilience, investment and risk.

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Analysis of the markets, technologies and policies driving the transition
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Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

Grid Congestion Is Holding Back Business. Virtual Power Plants Could Help

November 04, 2026 • Tom Raftery • Season 1 • Episode 301

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Grid congestion is no longer just a utility headache. In places such as the Netherlands, it can obstruct business expansion just as AI data centres add pressure to electricity networks.

I speak with Marco Krapels, Senior Vice President and CMO at Enphase Energy, about a counterintuitive idea: homes equipped with solar, batteries and bidirectional EV charging could help provide the grid flexibility businesses increasingly need.

We explore what would make these virtual power plants dependable enough for utilities to trust, why stored energy is not the same as guaranteed capacity, and whether more efficient data centres actually mean lower emissions. The engineering matters. So do the incentives and regulations.

Listen now to discover what could ease grid congestion, what could stop it working, and why energy flexibility belongs in business infrastructure planning.

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