We are pleased to confirm that Shane Woodroffe has recently joined Turquoise in a director role. An experienced financier and investment professional, with a particular focus on clean energy, Woodroffe was previously CFO at Rezolv Energy, the clean energy platform backed by the $6 billion Actis Energy V fund.
Describe your career journey in less than 320 characters
Following the money! As an engineer, I figured I was good with numbers, whether they be Megapascals or Mega $. I started my career as a geotechnical engineer but my most recent role prior to Turquoise was as CFO of a EUR 500 million renewables platform. Combining finance and infrastructure was a lightbulb moment.
What’s been your biggest business challenge?
Keeping out of the details, as engineers like to do. However, having had a long apprenticeship in financial modelling, it is now easier to stand back and look at the results to figure out any anomalies.
What is your proudest business moment?
Having left advisory and consulting, I joined Fortis Bank and commencing my lending career with no previous experience. In my second year, I secured two debt origination and underwriting roles, something Fortis had not achieved many years prior to my joining.
Who would you like to have dinner with – and why?
The CEO of wind turbine manufacturers Vestas or Siemens-Gamesa to understand why neither of them, despite their dominant global positions, seems able to maintain their company in profit.
What have been the most significant recent developments in power generation and supply?
We all know that renewable energy is a good thing, but intermittency remains a challenge. Whilst developers plough ahead with ever more wind and PV projects, the interesting developments to enable greater penetration of renewables in our supply mix are in energy storage (in all of its guises), better and more resilient networks and more intelligent demand side management.
How has the perception of energy generation evolved in your view in recent years? What do you envisage for the future of the sector?
The biggest change I have seen in renewable energy is that it has gone from being a small slice in the energy mix pie chart, supported by subsidy, to being the dominant and cheapest source of power generation. Having said that, whilst corporate PPAs were supposed to be the route to commercialisation of ‘subsidy free’ renewables, instead governments seem to be stepping back in through Contracts For Difference tenders so that renewables projects can be financed. Probably more of the same will be needed to underwrite nuclear power as (currently) the only credible low-carbon source of baseload power generation.
From an investment point of view, what do you see as the key challenges for emerging companies in the sector? What is needed to overcome these challenges in the next five to ten years?
The energy sector, in particular the grid system, was designed around large, centrally dispatchable generators, such as coal and nuclear. This formed a high voltage spine for moving power to the demand centres but is proving more problematic as more generation assets are located further afield, away from the HV grid and connecting at lower voltage. Specifically, Scotland is the windiest nation in Europe but has a hard time getting the power down to demand further south in the UK. For new energy generation projects, the bottleneck for these days is the availability of timely grid connection, and they should consider co- location of generation with demand and/or supplying the generation through private transmission wires (keeping off the grid), which may become the easier option. Also, expect to see north-south transmission lines running off the coastline to avoid onshore nimbyism.