Interview with Jesús Rubio Conde, Deloitte

The TALENT project is at its final stage and we would like to present the partners of the project. The series of interviews start with the interview of Jesús Rubio Conde.

Jesús Rubio Conde, Manager of the Energy Economic Consulting Team of Deloitte Spain. He has been working on projects related to Renewable Energies, Energy Storage, and Energy Efficiency for the last 11 years. He has collaborated on many Horizon 2020 projects, such as TALENT, F-PI, RE-EMPOWERED, NESOI, iDistributed, and DRES2Market. The participation of the Energy Economic Consulting team Deloitte Spain in the TALENT project is focused on Work Package 7: "Cost assessment and exploitation strategy". We are the leaders of this Work Package along with the Italian Partner Rina Consulting.

1. What is the role of your organisation in the TALENT project? What about your role?

Deloitte Advisory, S.L., a company of Deloitte in Spain, leads Work Package 7, and Task 7.1. "Cost benefit analysis of the proposed solutions". During the TALENT project, Deloitte has carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the integration of batteries and solar PV solutions, at home and district level.
We have implemented an extensive calculation model which uses the results from the rest of the activities of TALENT to evaluate the solutions proposed in the Project from an economic point of view. Our solution carries out a cost-benefit analysis based on the CAPEX and OPEX from the solutions and calculates the revenues obtained.
We have prepared an optimization tool that can decide, at each hour, the best option for a prosumer who has solar PV generation and energy storage. Based on the electricity market price at the future hours, the cost of the stored energy, and the expected electricity consumption and production at each hour, the tool can choose the best options between energy storage, sale of electricity surpluses to the grid, or to buy electricity to the grid to cover the electricity demand, or to charge the batteries, maximizing the economic benefits from the project, according to the price signals.
The tool also evaluates the environmental impact of such solutions, estimating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and polluting gas emissions.

2. How do you see the cooperation between the project partners?

For Deloitte, one of the biggest advantages of the European Projects is the opportunity to meet a variety of partners from all over the European Union, and from different institutions: private companies, universities, research institutions, NGOs and others.
Besides, the great collaboration which is created between people who work with a common objective develops relationships which can last after the project, helping us to continue working with them in the future. Horizon 2020 projects are a good opportunity for us to work with other countries and other kinds of organisations.

3. What challenges have you met during the work with the TALENT project and how did you overcome them?

The elaboration of the cost-benefit analysis of energy storage devices and solar PV projects has been a challenge for us, since we have had to design different tools to carry out such analyses, in different software, such as Excel; R, Python or Matlab. The design of such tool, taking into account a number of variables, has needed quite research and programming effort.

4. What do you like more about TALENT?

Mainly, as mentioned before, a European international project is an opportunity for us to meet and work with other partners from different countries and from different organizations. Personally, I have begun in the project last Spring, and I am very happy with the guidance received from the rest of the Consortium and specially the coordinator.

5. What applications and benefits are expected to be achieved at the end of the project?

For Deloitte, one of the biggest advantages of Horizon 2020 projects and other European programmes is that we are given the opportunity to be granted to develop new knowledge and new tools which we can try to commercialize, receiving a subsidy to develop this knowledge.
Regarding TALENT, Deloitte has prepared the before mentioned business model calculation tool for energy storage and self-consumption during the project. This tool, which will be refined in the future, will be commercialized and Deloitte will look for potential clients to sell it.

6. What is going to happen in the following months in your work?

As for our responsibility, Work Package 7, Deloitte, along with RINA, will prepare Deliverable 7.1. "Power electronics architecture and iSaaS cost reduction estimation".
Besides, Deloitte will receive information from the rest of partners and Work Packages, which will be applied to the business model calculation tool to obtain the final results to the TALENT project.

7. What positive impact did the project activities have in your organisation?

For Deloitte, for me, and for my team, the TALENT project has helped us to obtain a very deep knowledge about energy storage devices and self-consumption technologies. Besides, we have made deep research about the electricity markets, and price signals. We have also had the opportunity evaluate the greenhouse and polluting gas emissions derived from these technologies.
It is a pleasure to continue contributing to participating in the next energy technology projects, and to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, trying to reduce energy dependency of the European Union, and protecting the environment.