Hi everyone, I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund.

And today I'm in Paris and thrilled to be joined by Catherine MacGregor, the CEO of Engie, one of Europe's energy giants.

Now Catherine's journey is incredible, working on oil rigs in Congo to running one of France's top companies.

Catherine took over Engie just when COVID struck, and they then faced Europe's biggest energy crisis in decades when Russia turned off the gas.

So, you have basically been through a lot of interesting things.

So, great to have you here, Catherine.

Thank you very much, Nikolai.

Great, great to be here.

Wonderful.

What is Engie?

Engie is a very large energy player that is super committed to the energy transition.

It has a very long history, about 150 years long.

Coming from Gaz de France Suez, also a little bit of British stuff with International Power, and also some Belgium DNA in the company.

But we are now really a very large utility, we are present across the whole value chain of energy.

And if I'm to simplify Engie, we are present in the production of electricity, we have customers at the end of the spectrum: we have resident customers, we have industrial, we have city.

And in the middle, a really important part is the infrastructure which transport, store, distribute energy.

So we are traditionally the infrastructure operator of gas in France, but we are also present in power.

And so 10 years from now, how in rough terms, how will the company look different?

So we are going to be different in the sense that we will continue to electrify our company.

So you know, when I talked about the production profile of Engie, we're producing about 100 gigawatt already of power.

Tell me, 100 gigawatt is 100 gigawatt exactly?

Good question, Nikolai, because in Engie, we always talk about megawatt and gigawatt.

So 100 gigawatt, you have to think, one gigawatt is on average a nuclear reactor.

So it's quite a lot, and 50% of that today is from renewables.

So where we want to be in 2030, say to your questions, give some perspective, we will be at 95 gigawatt on renewables and battery.

So we'll continue to develop a generation capability in renewables, and this is one of the big thing that we're doing with the energy transition.

The other thing that we would change is on that middle part which I talked about, which is the infrastructure, because we want to grow this infrastructure piece at Engie.

We will develop in power networks, as and I'm sure we'll talk about electrification as an important dynamic in the market.

We want to continue to develop our presence in infrastructure through the development of our power networks.

And hopefully we can sell them our growl, which is a 24/7 product, which is renewable power at any time.

So let's go back a few years.

So you had just become the CEO of what is this incredible company, and then bang, Russia cuts off the gas supply to Europe, or we cut them off.

Just how did you experience that?

Yeah, I have to say it was one year in the job.

So a lot going on, several aspects: security of supply.

Yeah, for Europe, for our country, and of course, as Engie, for customers, that was a big stream.

There was also a financial exposure for the group, as obviously we had commitment with customers.

We had long-term commitment backed up by long-term contract.

So when suddenly you have risk on the delivery on this long-term contract on the supply side, then you don't know if you're going to be able to honor your commitment to your customers, which translates into potentially financial exposure.

So that was a big thing.

And then, yeah, was another theme, if you like, which was all around affordability, managing the price escalation.

You know, it was time 10, in some cases, even in certain spot market, it was time 100 on the power side or the gas side.

So how do we manage the affordability for our customers and of course, working with the government to try and make sure that the measures that they wanted to take, urgent measures, you know, we are not going to have unintended consequences that would have more dramatic effect than actually trying to fix the problems they were trying.

So dimensions, this was the perfect nightmare, right?

It was the perfect nightmares.

There was the sense of trying and do the right thing.

And all this, I think, eventually paid results.

Europe was depending on Russian gas by 40% for zero.

And indeed, we had to find new suppliers and make sure we had enough gas for the next winter.

Maybe two things that I remember as a CEO.

One was really to make sure that my team could tell me at any given time the exposure we had, financial exposure, the risk on supply, and that took a lot of getting people together and a lot of teamwork.

You know, people having to go out of their swim lane, which is often when you manage crisis, people have to go beyond their normal job to make sure that we look at the interfaces and the spaces that are not necessarily attended.

That was very much necessary to understand both supply security but also financial exposure for the group.

So then we could, we were able to communicate to our investors, which were quite worried about what that meant for a group like Engie to suddenly have these big risks.

So but going on, but I mean, what do you, you got 24 million customers across 30 countries and suddenly you have no gas.

So so what?

Fortunately, it didn't happen overnight.

So we were given a bit of time.

So what we do is that you make sure you take advantage of this time to actually work with your other suppliers to actually secure more supply.

So that when eventually you don't have this Russian gas coming, you have found alternatives and you use spot, you use LNG, you use other suppliers.

Norway was actually already a supplier for ours, and you know, we managed to secure a bit more from Norway as well.

So that's really managing and working with your suppliers.

So relationship with suppliers is really important, and also very important, it's managing the time, managing the time to make sure that you anticipate, you know, when actually the delivery will stop, that you are ready for it.

I think it's important to know that at Engie, we were depending on Russian gas for 20% only of our supply.

So 20% is a lot, but it's not the same as what was the exposure for Europe.

20%, but we managed to find the other suppliers.

Are you surprised by how Europe managed to cope with that crisis?

Yeah, I mean, positively surprised.

I think in general, I think there was a sense of, you know, yeah, sense of urgency was there, and I think, you know, eventually we went by and we took a lot of actions collectively.

I think the effort on storage, you know, some countries didn't have, for example, a minimum storage requirement ahead of the winter, and you know, we realized that it was actually quite important to make sure that ahead of every winter the storage had a minimum refilling.

Maybe there was another defining moment where in France the three CEOs of the big energy companies wrote a piece to tell the citizens, the French people, that despite the fact that it was still spring and there was not really any impact on energy yet, that we needed to make sure that energy efficiency measures were taken seriously and implemented.

And I remember that this little piece with the three competitors talking with one voice, saying, guys, you know, we need to save energy, had a big impact.

And I think for me, it was a big lesson to show that, you know, business, they have a role to play to impact positively behaviors when things get serious, because we were really heard and listened to, and that eventually, you know, turned into actually a lot of the demand being tempered.

And I think contributed to the fact that indeed we went through this crisis in relatively my terms, if yes, so that was important.

Let's talk about your unique approach to the energy transition.

You talk about molecule and the electron, what what does this mean in simple terms?

In simple terms, it means that if you look at the way Europe wants to decarbonize and to get to carbon neutrality by 2050, electrification is a very important lever.

Electrification means going from since 16-18% of electricity in the final energy mix to 50%.

So that's what he means by electrification.

So that's for instance electric cars.

Exactly.

And so on.

Exactly.

What that means though is that 50% of the final energy mix by 2050 will not be electrify.

And therefore we need to find solution to decarbonize.

And a big chunk of this 50% is the molecules.

Today, a lot of that is natural gas.

It can be heat.

But it is true that we have this view at Engie that you're not going to be able to do everything through electricity.

It will be a very important level to decarbonize.

But we need to tackle the challenge of decarbonization of the molecule.

And we use the S because we say natural gas, which is CH4, you know, will be part of the solution.

So we need to find ways to replace natural gas with low carbon CH4.

So one for one.

But we also then need to work on hydrogen its derivative to make sure that we have the right green molecule for the right application.

What are tell me what are green gases?

What are green molecules?

So green molecules, they are today biomethane, which is the same molecule as CH4, but produced from waste.

And because it's existing waste, it doesn't add CO2, which is why we say the regulation recognize this gas as green.

So the very nice thing is that once you produce it, it's exactly the same usage as today.

So you can really replace it without investment.

And then you're going to have hydrogen and derivative of molecules of hydrogen.

And it can be e-ammonia, it can be ethanol, it can be also emethane.

And of course, every time you transform all these molecules, it adds cost and obviously it reduces your efficiency.

So you need to make sure that the economic of all this works.

Which is why maybe a simple statement, Nikolai, would be to say that today we think we have it to decarbonize the electron.

We know how to do that in a fairly competitive manner.

Decarbonizing the molecule is a bit more challenging, and we need to tackle this challenge to make sure that it all works out by 2050.

It's going to take a bit more time, but it's definitely a very, very important aspect of decarbonation, and we are working through it.

Why will it take more time than you thought?

It takes a bit more time because we can see hydrogen, it's a bit more expensive.

You see the regulation is not very mature.

It also means a lot for the industrials customers that they need to first invest in the transformation of their process and then pay the hydrogen, which today is a little bit more expensive when it's green or low carbon than the gray hydrogen.

So you have a bit of a double whammy when you have to have first capex and then OPEX incremental cost.

We need to accompany the industries to help them, to assist them in these, both in both of these efforts, if you like.

So we can see that it takes a bit more time.

But if you, if you were to rank, if you were to rank the challenges in this transformation, what would be, what would be the most problematic things or the most difficult things?

I would say simplification of regulation is a big thing.

Industrialization of the equipment.

So for example, in the case of hydrogen production, you're going to have electrolyers that need to work at larger scale that needs to be a bit more economical.

This for me is more of a matter of time.

It's really to me is not so much a technical challenge.

It's just it's going to take a bit more time.

And when I look at the challenges had on the decarbonation of the molecule, I think, think of 20 years ago, did we really think that we would be where we are on renewables?

When you look at the price of solar panels, it 20x decrease in panel cost.

I mean, it's totally spectacular what we have achieved.

When I look at what we need to do on the molecules, I think, you know, looking in the next 20 years, I'm quite confident we will manage to overcome these challenges.

It's just a bit more taking a bit more time than maybe what we've done on the power side.

Why, given that all the governments are keen to have this transition?

Why why are regulations difficult?

Regulations are difficult in Europe.

Because sometimes we're trying to be, we're trying to be too perfect.

We're trying to solve too many things at the same time.

I think maybe also a misunderstanding of the reality of industry.

It's very difficult to ask for a hydrogen molecule, for example, to be produced with an electrolyer, additional solar project or wind project, and everything needs to be perfect for this hydrogen to qualify to be a green molecule.

I think it's we just have to first make sure that the market emerges and therefore, in my mind, remain technology neutral.

So what that means is that we will take any low-carbon hydrogen molecule that can be produced, whether it is still from natural gas, but you capture the CO2, whether it's from nuclear power, whether it's from renewable power.

And that will make sure that we kick in the market, and then eventually, if you want to a little bit more strict on what makes up really this renewable hydrogen, you can over time, but I think initially you need to make sure that the market emerge, you the volume.

You need to be able to have the infrastructure.

So you know, there is a lot of things that need to fall into piece, and sometimes the regulation is just trying to be too strict too early, not matching the maturity of the technology.

This is a bit more expensive than other sources of energy.

Now we saw recently that ArcelorMittal is cancelling green hydrogen projects in Europe.

And so what type of setbacks are we seeing now in this transition?

I think first of all, you have a, you know, the topic of the industry health in Europe is really a critical topic.

We do not want to have energy transition at the expense of industry.

And hopefully the new commission is working through its number of omnibus and simplification initiative.

It has taken the measure of this problem, and I think, you know, as ArcelorMittal is illustrating what could happen if we don't take that topic seriously.

We want to be able to decarbonize and keep the industry with us, that's very, very important.

Now you are putting a lot of money into this, is it 25 billion for the next three years?

Yeah, for the next three years on gross capex, yeah.

Now, when you make those type of investments, how do you anchor those decisions?

Who are involved in that process?

Obviously, we have a very clear strategy on how we want to deploy our capital.

We have these 22 to 24 billion euros plans over 3 years.

We have clear priorities, renewables, so wind, solar, batteries, and we'll talk maybe a little bit the role of storage, you know, in the energy transition is really, really important.

We want to develop also in power networks.

So we have a capital allocation which is based on geographical focus.

90% of our capex is going to be spent on 10 countries, for example.

The priorities I've laid out, which by the way, makes this capex for 85% of which of it aligned with the European taxonomy.

I know it's a big word, but it's really important to make sure that we are deploying our capex indeed in true support of the energy transition, and for sure, value creation is critical.

We do not want at Engie to get to our net zero goal in 2045 and to deploy this capex and to get to our 95 gigawatt targets by destroying value.

So value creation is very, very important.

And so project by project, we make sure that we deliver enough value, and typically it's 200 bps over WACC typically on average.

So it's not, you know, crazy amounts, but we want for each project to deliver its value.

And the other aspect that I will mention, which is what's important for Engie, is value creation, it's also really important for us to make sure that the projects that we deploy bring something to the energy system.

That's why we talk about the smart electrons.

We don't want to for example, just deploy dumb solar projects if they are already in a region too many solar projects because then you add to the problem of, you know, negative price hours in the middle of the day.

When actually what you need is electrons that are produced when people need this electrons.

So we work a lot at Engie to make sure that the project that we develop on the renewable side are accretive to the system and are going to bring real value to the system.

That's also a way to make sure that it will resist the test of time because we know that CFDs are very important or contracts are very important, but you know, they are 10, 15 years.

We want to make sure that they are solid and bringing value to the market and to the customers.

That's very, very important.

So that's a little bit some of the criterias we have for this capital allocation plan that we have the 22, 24.

So focus selectivity, making sure that the project are worth it, you know, adding something to the system, that's really important.

That's some of the, and of course, alignment with our strategy, very, very important.

Now, what would it take to increase connectivity across Europe, for instance?

Uh, there is a lack of grid systems from north to south, right?

Just what, what type of challenges do we have in Europe?

Yeah, I mean, I think you're pointing to a, it's also an opportunity.

You know, one thing that Europe has is that it has a fairly integrated energy market, an interconnected grid.

Which makes it benefit from the diversity of the production types that we have in Europe.

You know, we can have a lot of wind in the north of Europe.

We can have a lot of solar in southern Europe, we can have nuclear power in the countries that have made the choice of developing nuclear power.

And through connectivity, you can make sure that indeed first you have a resilient system and second you're working to lower the overall cost of the electrons as you are taking advantage notably on the renewable side of very, very, very low cost production means.

So the interconnection is indeed a very important aspect of keeping the cost down, of the keeping the grid cost down, but it does take interconnections to be strengthened.

You don't want to do too much because that's very expensive.

You want to make sure that you do, you develop and deploy the interconnection just exactly at the right place.

You have to complement it also with storage.

So you know, battery is something that some countries in Europe are a little bit behind.

So countries need to make sure that there are the right signals to invest in batteries because batteries are often a way also to deal with grid bottlenecks by making sure that you know you can smooth the stream of electrons depending of the time to make sure that you don't necessarily over spend on your grid.

So how do you how do you ramp up these storage and flexible solutions?

Capacity remuneration mechanism.

It's a sorry, it's a tech technical term, but what that means is that there are schemes that country and regulator organize to make sure that an investor gets reminerated for having spare capacity.

That's what we mean by CRM.

They are very important because they allow for certain type of production, it can be spinning machines or it can be batteries that are reminerated for the for just for their existence and then they are called upon to bring services to the networks.

And batteries often need to have this type of remineration mechanism to be able to be invested upon, to be investable.

And as you ask us, you know, what is the rules and the what do we need to deploy a capital often on battery project, we are going to need a certain amount of capacity remuneration mechanism because it's very difficult to invest in a battery project based only on merchant remuneration.

You know, Engie, we are a utility.

Our risk appetite is not very high.

We like to be able to secure every investment with some sort of income, whether it's a PPA with the customers, whether it's a contract with a government or regulator, or whether it's through this capacity remuneration mechanism.

And they are very important part of the toolbox of the market design that Europe has decided.

So they now exist, and they are really, really important for, you know, Spain and Germany and all and France to be able to develop more battery energy storage, which are a critical part of the energy system.

Talking about risks and talking about Spain, so we had a big outage.

How could that have been prevented?

Look, I think obviously the, I mean, people claim that's because of a high proportion of renewable energy supply.

I think it's really important to objectivize all this.

There was quite a bit of renewables working in Spain at the time of the blackout, but there were a lot of renewables working in Spain in days and weeks before and there was no blackout.

Yeah.

So I'm, you know, I don't, I won't want to to preempt the full conclusion of the report.

What is really important in the systems that we are developing, which are more and more complex, is to make sure that you have enough stabilization means to be able to be mobilized in the network.

What that means is that you have certain types of production, and it can be gas plants, it can be hydro assets, it can be nuclear reactors, it can be batteries when they are well configurated, well programmed, that will provide these services to the network, which stabilizes frequency of voltage imbalance, which are very frequent in any networks.

Renewables are a little bit less able to do that, especially solar.

So the point is, you need to make sure that you have enough of these different types of production that can bring this type of services to the network, that's I think will be something that will need to be reasserted.

Basically, if I'm simplify, the role of flexibility, the role of flexibility is very, very important.

And for that, you need to make sure that indeed you have enough of these flexible assets in your production portfolio, and for that, you need to have the right regulation mechanism such as the capacity remuneration mechanism that I talked about.

So that's maybe one aspect.

Maybe the second aspect is the grid and making sure that indeed, you know, the interconnections are sufficient.

And of course, interconnection being between two countries, you have the complexity of making sure that, you know, the two country get along, agree remuneration, etc.

Now investments in the energy system is extremely expensive, right?

And we're now seeing, for instance, in the UK, you have private credit coming in to invest in the nuclear energy generation assets, right?

Or just what's the role of private investments in this system?

I mean, private investment in general is very, very obviously very, very important because you're right to say, you know, that there is a lot of capital needed to conduct this energy transition.

So very, very important.

What I'd say is that in order for this capital to be interested in investing in the energy transition, that is true for Engie, you need stability.

You need fair remuneration, and by remuneration, I mean risk-reward, you know, matching very, very obviously very important.

You need the direction to be set once for all.

You need regulations that are, you know, both stable and at the same time remain pragmatic, which I know is easy to say, maybe not so easy to implement.

But I think, I think, you know, the private capital building future-proof infrastructure for our economies, contributing to the well-being of our citizens, to the competitiveness of our industries, to the competitive advantage of a continent like Europe, you, it is a no-brainer when you think about it.

And by the way, you know, we talk a lot about Europe.

Look at what is happening in China.

China is deploying renewable powers and decarbonizing actually very fast and furious.

And I think, you know, Europe has to to keep moving on this.

Of course, I have to remind you, Catherine, that the Norwegian sovereign wealth can also make investments in renewable infrastructure projects.

And so, you know, if you got some, some really, really good ones, we would, we would love to see them.

Now, AI and the implications for energy supply and demand, what, how important is big tech when it comes to driving energy demand?

So obviously really important.

Data center, you know, AI-focused data center on average consumes as much as about a small city of 100,000 people.

So you have obviously load implication.

What I would like to emphasize is that our tech customers have been fantastic in helping moving the needle really on decarbonation, on being quite strict that, you know, they want to have green power.

They want to actually contribute to the development of additional green power capacity.

So we develop a lot of projects with tech companies as counterparty.

We are also working with some of them on our projects, which is famous 24/7, which means that they don't just want to have, you know, a renewable project and offset average volumes of production versus an average consumption.

They are really trying to match the consumption that they have on an hourly basis with actually production, which is much, much more difficult to do.

And so they've been moving the needle frankly and raising the bar in terms of their demand on decarbonation, which I commend.

And I, I think by the way, they, they should not give up.

I think that's very important that AI consumption comes with, you know, additional productions with green power.

That's really important, being mindful of the impact on, for example, their development on potentially potential affordability of power in the region where they operate, which is which is why I think this dialogue is extremely important.

Do we have enough energy to power all these new centers?

We will have as long as we continue to work hand in hand with them to make sure that their development is accompanied with additional renewable development.

And by doing so, they will themselves benefit from low carbon power, and then we will collectively protect the more, you know, residential customers or non-AI or more, you know, in traditional industrial customers from price increase and and tension on the power system.

So they have a massive role to play on the energy system.

I believe that they know that they have this awareness, and so we have to continue to work hand in hand on that.

I think that's really important.

Okay.

So let's move on to some of the the other challenges we have.

The drug report says that Europe's energy costs are killing our competitiveness, and energy in many cases are what is it like four or five times more expensive in Europe than in the US, right?

So huge disadvantage.

So how are we going to get energy prices down?

So we, we have to obviously work on all aspect of the energy system.

Again, you know, renewable project can be quite competitive if they are developed together with the other bricks that I mentioned earlier.

So, you know, if only you do renewables, but you don't work on energy storage system, you're going to have a problem.

If you don't work on your grid, you're going to have a problem.

So every of these component needs to be developed, and then eventually we will have an affordable system, and it will be low carbon.

It will be competitive from all dimensions.

When, when do you think that will be?

It's a difficult question to answer with precision.

It's going to take a little bit of time.

But if you look at for example Spanish prices, they have come down very, very, very significantly.

When Spanish power price today are very low.

They are the lowest in Europe, and so you starting to see, I think, you know, in northern countries as well, where you have obviously you're gifted with hydro, but when you have plenty of renewables in abundance, you're starting to see the impact on the power prices.

So we're starting to see France, you know, is also right now at a fairly lower prices than in other countries.

So I'm convinced that with sufficient renewables development, again, well accompanied with the right storage, with the right grease development, for those company who have nuclear that notably, you know, existing nuclear that can be extended, that also contributes to low carbon electrons, with all this, I do think that we are going to be able to provide lower cost power to our industrial customers and to our customers.

In general, I think, at the end of the day, and you didn't ask me so much about that, but there is also the notion of sovereignty.

Energy transition is a lot about sovereignty.

Yeah.

Electrons that are produced from renewables are produced locally.

Yeah.

So when will when will countries start to think about Europe overall rather than only the wrong country?

Hopefully yesterday.

What will it take?

I mean, will they ever do?

Yeah, I do, I do think on the energy side, you know, the complementarity that I mentioned earlier, the different profiles of production, the ability to import, which was tested during the energy crisis.

Remember the gas, it used to flow from east to west in Europe and suddenly we actually exported gas from west to east, which showed the importance of the connectivity of the infrastructure, the energy infrastructure.

And similarly on power, there is often, you know, import and export of power from one country to another.

You never know which technology can go through problems.

You know, sometimes a nuclear powers in France can have issues when it's super, super hot in France.

You have to curtail a little bit because you cannot cool anymore some of the plants.

So you, you need to be able to rely on each other.

Tell me, tell me about technologies.

So if you were to rank them, you know, your favorites, less favorites, you know, just how do you rank renewable energy sources in your mind?

What is your to to be honest?

This is really a, you know, I am actually advocating that you should never oppose the low-carbon technologies.

You need, you frankly need all of them.

The low carbon technologies, you need the mix because there is to to your there is no perfect one.

And and you know, I today, you know, there is everybody's super bullish on nuclear and nuclear can be great, but there is topics around the waste, there is topic around the cooling, there is also the topic of the cost of new nuclear.

So nuclear can be part of the answer, I don't think nuclear can be all of the answers.

Renewables, they are very cheap once installed, they have the intermittency, so you need to make sure that you have enough battery, you have enough energy storage solution.

Hydro is spectacular.

But what happen if you have a jot?

So you know, you really need to have a combination of technology, and I often regret that sometimes people start to fall in love with one technology and and then you have this, you know, I'm anti so I, I honestly think it is not helpful at all.

I honestly think it is not helpful at all.

Let's let's talk about one which hasn't been really installed yet.

So Norway, one of the longest coastlines in the world.

It blows a lot, you know, lots of wind, yet there is no onshore wind.

What are your reflections about that?

I think wind is an incredible resource.

In fact, I visited one of our offshore wind project yesterday in France.

You know, from the decision to invest to today, where we have already 10 wind farms spinning and injecting power already.

You know how long it took?

Less than two years.

Wow.

You see, when people think about nuclear, you imagine in less than two years, and we're going to be putting this park in service in November, November this year, that would be 61 turbines, 500 megawatt, 800,000 people.

That is wind, that is wind for you.

Now, when I say two years, obviously, I don't tell you the whole thing, in fact, it has been 10 years development.

This is because of permits, this is because of the administration, this is because of, you know, making sure that you get the fisherman happy, etc.

So those frankly, development time too long.

Absolutely.

This is offshore, which can be very expensive.

This is offshore, which is the offshore cost are reducing.

This technology is based on 8 megawatt turbines.

Today in Scotland, we are already doing 15, 16 megawatt per turbine.

So already, you know, you're doubling the capacity of each wind farms, each wind turbines.

So the cost of offshore is becoming now today much, much more competitive.

The resources are incredible.

The resources are incredible.

But any reflections on onshore wind in Norway?

I mean, the resources are incredible as well, and I think onshore wind has to be part of the solution.

The only thing of course is that you have to make sure you work with the, you know, the local constituents and making sure that the acceptability is where it should be.

That you know, in my experience, and in France, the project where that you start developing very early with a local population works best.

You also have to make sure that the people that are living around this project benefit from the project.

And it can be under the form of, you know, either, you know, certain taxes or certain benefit for their communities or even sometimes a discount on the power price.

So there needs to be something in for them.

But what I'm, you know, maybe a small remark is that we have just did a big poll in France on acceptability and the opinion of French people of renewable project, and it was amazing.

Amazing, 84, 84% of the French people have a positive opinion of renewables.

And when you read the press frankly, you don't have that feeling at all.

So what's very interesting is that when you actually ask the people, they see renewables as part of the solution.

They see that it is helping sovereignty.

They see those turbines spinning, not needing any imports of any kind once they've installed.

And people now are seeing the importance of renewables in the energy mix of the future, which is quite remarkable.

Beautiful.

Now, solar panels, 80% is now controlled by China.

Should Europe be worried about that?

Look, it's we, we've seen in the past that it's never good to be dependent on one supplier, on one country.

So diversification is important.

We're starting to supply and and and to diversify our supply chain on on on solars.

I think, you know, Europe has to look whether we can relocize some of this production.

And I think that would be fantastic.

And then find the right balance between, you know, the price of the panel and the price of the power that is produced from this project.

So you, you know, you need to find the right balance.

Mhm.

Who should pay for the green transition, consumers, taxpayers, companies?

Hopefully you, you manage to balance the extra cost and distribute it in a manner that people can't afford, pay much less.

Uh, so I think when it comes to subsidies, I think it's really important that from if you think of the citizens, measures that protect the most vulnerable in my mind are welcome.

I think there are many people that don't mind to pay a little bit more for the transition.

So here we have to be a little bit smart.

Similarly on the industries, I think, you know, the example that we talked about, which is if you're going to have to do a one-off capex investment to completely change your process to be able to electrify your process, for example, as an example, then indeed, I think the we need to be able to support and potentially give a subsidies for this one-off capex investment for the industries.

So then, you know, it's able to stay in Europe and and consume, you know, the energy and the electricity, which hopefully will be much less expensive in the future.

So I think we have to be a little bit smart and making sure that, you know, we, yeah, I mean, smartness is really, really important to make sure that there is not overweight that is not too much weight on any given constituents.

Mhm.

I think also you have to really think when we talk about the cost of the transition is the cost of inaction.

What happens when we don't do that?

You still depend on a lot of imports.

I think when you look at Europe in 2024, we imported 375 billion of euros equivalent of fossil energy all inclusive.

It's amazing.

So you know, you have to think about the energy transition as also an opportunity to develop industries, to develop better sovereignty, to create jobs.

You know, yesterday again, I was on a small island.

This island very much lives on tourism, and today we are going to, we are opening now a base to to be able to service this wind, this wind farm, the project I mentioned, and we are going to create, it's going to be less than 100 jobs.

You see, less than 100 job that didn't exist, and this is what, you know, that energy transition, when it comes with new jobs, when it's come with positive impact on people's life, then, you know, yes, maybe, you know, the transition has a bit of a cost, but it has also a lot of benefits, which, you know, are going to be good for economies.

You mentioned 100 new jobs.

Now you, you actually employ nearly 100,000 people.

Yeah.

In 30 countries.

What's the what's the key to running a company like that?

Everything is about people.

It's making sure that you have the right teams, the right engagement.

When you have 98,000 people, what's really important is to make sure that everybody knows the key priorities, the directions so that, you know, all these efforts that teams and people are making individually translate into actually impact because everybody is pulling in the same directions.

At least that was my experience when I arrived four years ago, five years ago.

Is that there was a lot of efforts, but people pulling in all kind of directions and how do you make sure that they align?

So it's clear priorities, doing not too many different things, and then you have to explain why why that that direction is the right one.

Mhm.

What we have in a group like Engie is people are super engaged on topics like energy transition.

And what was really important to us was to make sure that they understood that this purpose and what we were trying to do with energy transition was truly connected with value creation.

And if you connect your value creation, which means, you know, business models and results, results are really important, and you show that you, you are going to do the energy transition while creating value, and you're not going to do energy transition stuff if it doesn't create value, that is really important.

Because then people start to believe, they start to believe in the sustainability of what you're doing, because sustainability in people's mind sometimes it's just environment sustainability, but actually it comes also, and I would say in before that, it comes with economic sustainability.

Because, you know, the 10 billion euros all in maintenance and gross capex that we invest every year can only be invested over time if you actually generate cash flow.

And so that was for me, it was really very important at Engie that we went through this work internally to really demonstrate to our teams that we had a model that was very much, yes, we are going to do the energy transition, but we are going to do it in an economically viable manner so that it's going to withstand the test of time.

You, the French, the French government owns a quarter of your company, roughly 24.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What, what kind of issues does that raise?

Honestly, the the the state shareholder acts frankly as a, I would say, normal shareholder, very aligned with the strategy.

Well, they got more votes than we have, right?

They have, there is a certain amount of votes indeed.

So they have about 33, 34% vote, 33, I think, from so they are an important shareholder.

But very supportive of the strategy of the company, and obviously very happy with the dividend that we are paying, which has been a good dividend, particularly the past few years.

So frankly, no, nothing very specific.

Do they decide?

I mean, do they, do they tell you what to do, or do you call, do you call, do you call them and say, hi, hello, can we do this?

No, they are no.

It's, it's we are normal company, Nikolai, we are normal company.

They have obviously a position at the board.

They have three board members.

And so they, they are important, but no, they don't make decisions.

We just have a normal governance, normal board.

Yeah, and you know, they want Engie to be successful, they want Engie to be delivering on the strategy.

Does it mean that you can take a longer-term view than you could have done if you hadn't had the state as a main shareholder?

I mean, they bring that perspective, but we have a lot of investors that take a long view.

When you invest in utility, you're not here for the short term.

You're not here for, you know, was it a good quarter?

I mean, quarters are important, don't get me wrong, but you know, most of our investors, they expect Engie to do the right thing in the long term.

Freely appreciate that.

We do have, we do have integrated energy companies which have changed the speed of the green transition on the back of shareholder pressure, right?

And you have not done that.

Yeah, because maybe because we have been convincing that the way we would do our energy transition would be value creating, and you know, we've been, I mean, that's really the whole our whole equity story hinges on that.

So the fact that there is an ESG backlash now that has not led to any pressure on you to change your priorities.

No, not not at all.

Again, because, you know, we have not done ESG just to please people.

We, we, we have aligned our activity and our business model with the energy transition.

So we have not changed.

Yeah.

We're very consistent, and by the way, there is a lot of project we don't do.

We, we, you know, a lot of actions, a lot of project where we think this is not for us.

You know, if we're not making, if they're not good project, we won't do projects.

Now, you got a very cool background, born in Morocco.

I was there the other day.

Fantastic place.

Nice.

Worked on oil rigs in Congo.

Um, like what's the most hairy experience you've had during so far in your life?

Well, I have a, I have a number.

I, I maybe just top of my head that there was that that one person that I met when I was in Congo on the on the platform.

And I was, I was wearing covers obviously, PP, and that that gentleman told me that I would, I would go to hell.

And it was, he didn't mean that, you know, as an insult, he was just, but you know, mom, you're going to go to hell.

And I said, but why are you saying that?

And he said, you're wearing trousers, and and women wearing trousers, you will go to hell.

And I explained to him that as I was working on the platform, you know, I had to have covers.

And so that's that was that was a good one.

But maybe one of the the lesson that I drew from from my early early years on the on in the offshore world and then later on is is adaptability.

It really prepares you well for being a CEO after because, you know, you feel that you can cope almost with any challenges or circumstances that present your way.

That you know, you somehow going to find your footing fairly, fairly quickly after.

Tell me more, what, how has that improved your increased your resilience, you think, by experiencing this?

Well, but what kind of things did you do on the platform?

On the platform, I was working as part of the recruit.

Um, but then you like doing what, what were you doing on the platform?

What were you doing on the platform?

It was drilling rigs.

So just drilling crew, working as a drilling crew.

And then eventually I went to work as a service managers.

And so maybe, you know, when when you have to deal with customers that have for example expectation that a field service manager, you know, should be someone from because I was based in the US at some point.

I was working in Louisiana.

And so, you know, they would call me and and then they would want to talk to the person in charge, and they would expect obviously a male American person and they were talking with a French woman.

So you know, I, I didn't meet at all the, I guess the, their expectation of who they should be talking to.

And so I remember they, they used to ask me, but I want to talk to the person in charge, and I said, but I am in charge.

And so, you know, it created this every time kind of additional efforts to show that you were credible as a as a counterparty.

And I think that has helped me over time to, yeah, to to adapt and and to also every time prove that you, you, you, it was, it would be okay, you know, you would be able to do the job.

And I think that has helped me over time to, yeah, to to adapt and and to also every time prove that you, you, you, it was, it would be okay, you know, you would be able to do the job.

Do you think it's giving you more credibility with with the company, the fact that you've been at the tough end of things and not only coming straight from, you know, the gold and the ENA and straight into CEO?

I think the operational background is really, really helpful.

Mhm.

So yeah, I think, I think, I think to, you know, it's my operational background, I think gives me a, I think I'm quite grounded as a person.

And I think it's, it's helpful when I look at what some of the challenges Engie had and has to face.

I think that that that is that comes handy. Yeah.

Do you think you take less?

I think so.

I think I'm, you know, when when you when you work in a very operational word, you have this tendency to to go to cut to the chase.

And you're trying to get to what's really important.

So yeah, I, I think I have a little bit of that.

Now, um, any reflections on, given, given that you were one of the few, um, females on, you know, a platform, any reflections on being a woman CEO in today's world?

We are not enough.

They are not enough of us.

So I still have sometimes, you know, the the sentiment of loneliness.

Still finding myself in meetings where, you know, I'm the only woman around the table.

It still happens to me, which is a bit bizarre.

For me, maybe just the reflection is, I know that you have to as a CEO, whether you're a woman or man, you have to care about this topic.

Um, if not, we're not going to make any progress.

And so the reflection I have is that I do spend more time, I think, maybe than others, I don't know, but I, I do spend time on these topics, and I, I, I really try to be very intentional in making sure that our women talents get developed to their whole capability.

What you learn from being on the Microsoft board?

Incredible company, incredible board.

The pace, the pace of technology, you know, AI.

And you know, as a board members, you know, it's you, you, you reconnect deeply every quarter with with the company as a minimum, and yeah, the pace is mind-blowing.

And for me, the what's really fascinating is how, you know, as a utility company, which, you know, has a certain amount of regulated activity and has assets, change management and adoption challenges, you know, how do we cope with the the pace of change that we see on the pure technology side and how these two words can remain synchronized is something that I think a lot about.

How do you relax?

What's your private charging station?

I try and save time at the weekend.

I go to the countryside.

I try to read.

I read quite a bit, and sometimes for work, but also sometimes obviously for for pleasure.

And I try not to overload my social agenda during the weekend because, you know, as the CEO, we have dinners and during the week, so weekend I try to really be in my own space, it's very close family and and peace and quiet.

And that's been working well for me as a CEO since since I joined.

What do you read?

Oh, variety of stuff.

I can read, you know, very classic Jane Austen, Marcel Proust even, or more modern stuff.

The other day I was reading the the latest book of Reed Hoffman, you know, co-founder of LinkedIn also on Microsoft board and and so and everything in between.

Um, so, yeah, I, I read a lot.

It's it's really important in my life.

Lastly, what is your advice to young people?

You know, a lot of young people they ask me about work life balance and all all this stuff.

And I, I, you, I think what's really important is to make sure that they like what they do professionally.

So I mean, it sounds very cliche, but, you know, opposing work and life for me has always been a bit of a mystery.

I think what's really important is you make sure that you get a kick at what you do, and that would be really my advice.

The second thing is, and at least my experience has been that don't necessarily be where people expect you to be.

So stretch yourself and and and take some risk on your career.

Don't necessarily think about always doing the same thing, but bigger, you know, lateral moves and and and think of your career as as a as a combination of of bricks.

Eventually it will, it will be a great construction, but it might not be in the exact order that you expected.

So that's some of the things that I've learned along the way in my career.

And maybe the last thing is indeed, you know, go for and work for businesses that are building the future.

Yeah, we, we use this thing about, you know, future proofing.

I know it's a bit of a buzz word, but there is something true in that that, you know, if you work for companies, whatever they are, and obviously I talk for Engie, but there's a lot of companies are actually actively transitioning and decarbonizing.

Well, it's a way to future proof themselves.

People really see, well, you know, it's cost and this, but if you find value creation and the right business model and you decarbonize at the same time, I mean, that's the company I would join if I were.

Absolutely.

Well, Kath, you for sure are building the future and clearly get a kick out of what you do.

So, that sounds fantastic.

Big thanks for being here today.

Thank you very much for the invitation.