Michael Barnard’s TFIE Strategy Briefing

Michael Barnard’s TFIE Strategy Briefing

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Power, Grid & Storage

Compressed-Gas Storage Is Still Mostly Hot Air
Bigger plants and better engineering have not fixed the weak physics, civil-engineering cost structure or poor reference-class economics.
 • Michael Barnard
ARES Proved Rail Gravity Storage Works. The Economics Are Worse Than I Thought
Moving the mass is the easy part
 • Michael Barnard
Dense-Fluid Pumped Hydro Storage’s Duration Trap
Short durations favor batteries. Long durations favor water.
 • Michael Barnard
Energy Vault Built An Artificial Mountain To Do A Battery’s Job
Rudong is a 25 MW / 100 MWh, four-hour storage plant. In China, a BESS doing the same job is smaller, cheaper, lower-carbon and already routine…
 • Michael Barnard
Cheap Electricity Is a European Productivity Strategy
Europe needs productivity. Cheap, abundant electricity can help deliver it.
 • Michael Barnard
Africa’s Hidden Solar Layer Is Becoming Visible From Above
Official solar statistics are still lagging, but satellite evidence from South African malls and Kenyan rooftop mapping supports the import-data thesis.
 • Michael Barnard
Poland’s Coal Transition Has Become A Capacity Problem
Coal fell to 52.7% of generation in 2025, yet high-emitting plants remain eligible for capacity-market support through 2028.
 • Michael Barnard
As Geopolitics Fragments, Electricity Interconnection Gains Strategic Value
Four years after I argued for strategic energy interdependence, the HVDC pipeline shows security value joining markets, renewables and adequacy.
 • Michael Barnard
HVDC Is Becoming Standard. The Grid Around It Isn’t.
A conversation with GE Vernova CTO Cornelis Plet on 2 GW building blocks, grid-forming controls, multi-vendor interoperability, China, Europe and the…
 • Michael Barnard
Industrial Policy in Canada After Market Fundamentalism
The useful question is not whether government should intervene, but how it can set strategic direction while preserving competition, price discovery and…
 • Michael Barnard
Ontario Needs New Generation And Flexibility. Nuclear Should Compete For What Remains.
IESO sees Ontario developing an energy shortfall before a major capacity shortfall. Wind and solar can add new clean TWh quickly, while storage, hydro…
 • Michael Barnard
AI Electricity Demand Is Rising. The Hype Still Outruns The Load.
AI has driven a real data-centre electricity surge, especially in the United States. Globally, however, all data centres still use less than 2% of…
 • Michael Barnard
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