Solar Mecca

Industry stakeholders have completed another annual pilgrimage to Intersolar , which I call a Mecca for Solar, in Munich this week, more crowded and hotter than ever. Met a lot of suppliers, SolarPower Europe members, former colleagues (missed many of them due to back to back meetings with hall-to-hall moves back and forward, apologies for those I could not honor my commitment).

It is obvious that we will be in the prosperity period next few years until installed manufacturing capacity of solar PV modules will meet the demand of market and soon we will see a consolidation which is inevitable and the fittest ones in terms of sustainability will survive. BESS capacity seems to be next abundance

Along side with Stacy J. Ettinger of Solar Energy Industries Association, I was again privileged to participate in Solar & Sustainability: All About ESG Considerations & Transparency along the Solar Supply Chain session moderated by Guido Agostinelli and we shared our minds on How to Ensure Truly ESG-Compatible Solar Products in Europe and lessons learned from SEIA's traceability protocol which has been in force since 2021. I am sure SEIA and Solar Stewardship Initiative (SSI) can further cooperate to create a common supply chain due diligence standard with global acceptance before end of the year.

Solar Age

This week The Economist had two covers and one of them was super intersecting and insightful Dawn of the Solar Age | The exponential growth of solar power will change the world | An energy-rich future is within reach

The most striking exhibit for me was the sunlight and solar capacity clearly shows the uncaptured potential of the Sun Belt which hosts the majority of population those have no access to electricity as irony.

Mood Elevator

As the quality of our thinking rises, so do our moods and feelings.

Another way to describe this connection is that our feelings work like a barometer: just as a barometer measures atmospheric pressure to indicate the quality of the weather, our moods measure our thinking to indicate the quality of our perspective.

When a barometer rises, it usually indicates that the weather is clear; likewise, when our position on the Mood Elevator rises, it indicates our thinking is clear. We are able to see things with perspective and are less likely to take things personally or blow things out of proportion. Perhaps we are even able to find some humor in the situation, and laugh at ourselves or our circumstances. These thoughts can be trusted, and we can safely act on them with some assurance that our behavior will probably have positive results.

When the barometer drops, it indicates cloudy or stormy weather is ahead. When our moods drop, it indicates that our thinking is clouded as well. We lose sight of the big picture, and everything seems darker and more intense. We take ourselves and our situations very seriously.

These feelings let you know that you need to take some precautions before venturing out. When going out in rainy weather, we make adjustments: We dress more warmly; we drive more slowly; we try to be more focused and careful. Likewise, if you become aware that you are caught up in low-quality thinking, you should be cautious about acting on your thoughts. Delay decision-making if possible, or get input from others.

What are the feelings that signal high-quality thinking for you? Which ones signal low-quality thinking?

Book Bits

Reading List of June 2024

📚 Operational Excellence and Respect: The founding principle of Toyota Way [2020] by Levent Türk (🧠Mr.BTFA🧩) I had no chance to meet him in-person while we were both working for Toyota but our roads are crossed afterwards fortunately. His firsthand training in Toyota, Japan, senior leadership positions in Toyota over 15 years, and 12 years' experience implementing TPS into non-Toyota production environments provides this book with solid foundations. If this were the book we'd inherited in the 90s, maybe we would now be surrounded by leaders who realise a high-performance culture is more to do with their own beliefs in what good looks like and the conditions they create for human brains to survive in ... and not about training tools and tracking KPIs.

I loved to read sections Accountability, Collaboration and Speed, the book is a must read for the readers who are curios for Lean and Neuroscience and for the companies those chose to walk their talk beyond Respect in their value charter.

📚 Rethinking Supply Chain: Build a Strategy-Driven, Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chain [2024] by Bram Desmet The supply chains built pre-covid are no longer suitable in the current volatile business environment. Rethinking Supply Chain explores why and how organizations can upgrade their supply chains to level 5 maturity, enhancing them to be more sustainable, strategy-driven and resilient. This book outlines why supply chain reconfiguration is needed, how to define a business case for change and the steps needed to drive effective transformation. Rethinking Supply Chain also explores how to integrate sustainability into the heart of supply chain design and operations and examines the trade-offs organizations must navigate, depending on whether they wish to be at par, differentiate or dominate on sustainability drivers.

📚 Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War [2024] by Tom Steyer (watch his own explanation here) He shows us how to avoid “climate guilt,” how to remain optimistic, and even how to have fun while doing it. The book is about our individual choices and actions, at its heart it's more about how our choices and actions can inspire others, and how, through collective action, we can change the system and save our one and only Earth.

📚 Changing the Game: Sustainable Market Transformation Strategies to Understand and Tackle the Big and Complex Sustainability Challenges of Our Generation [2020] by Lucas Simons and Andre Nijhof The book reveals insights and strategies that enable you to tackle the biggest sustainability challenges of our generation. Sustainability problems are becoming more alarming every day. In this face of this crisis, the biggest threat is complacency. Business-as-usual is no longer an option. We must change our economies in fundamental ways so we can live within the planetary boundaries and social dimensions. For decades we have been warned about climate change, loss of biodiversity and social injustice. In response we have spent billions of dollars to ‘fix’ these problems, but they only get bigger and bigger. Why is this happening? It is happening because we are only fighting the symptoms. We are looking for easy solutions. We are not changing the underlying market forces that created these outcomes in the first place.

📚 The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower [2015] by Michael Pillsbury says China's long-term strategy is to supplant the United States as the world's dominant power. He bases his theory on his understanding of Chinese history, analysis of proposals by Chinese hawks in the Chinese government and examination of the strategies used by China's military. Pillsbury argues that China, drawing inspiration from the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, has been implementing its strategy largely unchallenged for decades and leads him to conclude that the U.S. misreading of China's "hundred-year marathon" constitutes its greatest intelligence failure of the past 50 years. He posits that China's strategy is rooted in its deep-seated sense of historical victimhood and desire to reclaim its historical preeminence in global affairs. Key elements of the strategies that Pillsbury identifies include Chinese inducements to foster US complacency which prevent it from viewing China as a competitor; manipulating America's elites into supporting its policies; concealing its advancement in military technology; exploiting America's openness to gain economic and technological advantages; and shaping international institutions and norms to favor the Chinese model of governance.

Until next time!