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The Roads to Carbon Neutral - Season 4 - Episode 2 - NASH Renewables: Harnessing Algorithms to Drive Renewable Energy Projects

The Roads to Carbon Neutral - Season 4 - Episode 2

NASH Renewables: Harnessing Algorithms to Drive Renewable Energy Projects

The Roads to Carbon Neutral

The fourth season of our program entitled "The Roads to Carbon Neutral", in partnership with CNBC Catalyst, provides an insight into the solutions and innovations making the transition to low-carbon energy a reality and helping us achieve a carbon-neutral future. These powerful on-the-ground stories are led by TotalEnergies' employees.

For this second episode, we are heading to Hamburg, Germany, after swinging by the STATION F startup campus in Paris and the Beauce Oratorienne windfarm in France's Loir-et-Cher region. Christoph Lauenstein and Daniel Luecht, co-founders of the NASH Renewables startup, present their solution for the intelligent design and management of renewable assets and talk about the support that they received through the TotalEnergies On acceleration program.

Christoph Lauenstein : Running is really a special time that I only have for me. Sometimes I just like to not think of anything at all. Then it’s also the opportunity to think about something that is quite complicated and needs a lot of thought.

Hamburg is actually my home town. You really feel the spirit of renewables there. Wind turbines, those majestic things… They are a massive sign of progress for me. Therefore looking at them in the morning, when I go for a run, gives me a lot of confidence in us, as a society, turning the page.

There are more options to design one particular wind farm than there are atoms in the universe. So, with Nash, it’s trying to figure out, through algorithms, the optimal way to build a wind or solar farm. So you place something, let’s say set a location, then you can say what the shape of the location is. You can then start to place wind turbines, make sure that distance is big enough. And then the software basically calculates everything else: energy production of the turbines, how much that energy is worth in the power markets, and gives you a full economic calculation of the wind farm.

And if we can make renewables a more profitable investment, and that’s what we aim to do, then more renewable power plants will be built, accelerating our decarbonization journey, helping us achieve net zero. Getting the stamp of TotalEnergies for this new way of thinking of course brought our company massively forward. TotalEnergies On is an electricity start-up accelerator. It purely focuses on helping you engage with the TotalEnergies organization, with all the stakeholders, with all the teams that are hard to access otherwise. They’re trying to help you understand the strategy of the Company. And that’s of huge value. Unheard-of value, so to say.

Daniel Luecht : We’re actually here at Station F, the world’s biggest accelerator and start-up community. TotalEnergies has an office here, which is great. Christoph Lauenstein : We started the process of applying and then got invited to the pitch, which was a massive deal for us.

Daniel Luecht : So if you apply first for the program, you’re among 200 start-ups, and then it boils down to 30 pitching directly to the jury.

Christoph Lauenstein : And then you have eight minutes to make a dent in people’s imagination, at the end of the day.

Daniel Luecht : Ten will be selected to join batch 4, batch 5 and to actually be invited to cooperate with TotalEnergies.

Christoph Lauenstein : The single most critical success factor for start-ups is timing, not idea, not execution: timing. And with a program like TotalEnergies On, you can basically force timing. We went into the program as an early-stage start-up and came out as a fully integrated part of a massive company like TotalEnergies.

Daniel Luecht : We got invited to the next jury session, and so we are sitting in the jury, judging, understanding, and trying to get the value out of the start-ups pitching to us. That was quite an honor.

Christoph Lauenstein : Of course, it’s a big thing if you are able to combine your professional life with something that has meaning. If you can also combine that with building up a company, creating employment, building up a team, you know you’re doing something that has the potential, at least, to create or contribute to a better world. That’s big.

NASH Renewables: algorithms for improving renewable asset production

Founded in 2022 in Hamburg, NASH Renewables is focused on its mission of revolutionizing how renewable projects are designed and operated. The startup's solutions promise to boost the economic value of renewable assets, while factoring in the impact of the sites' specific geographical features on captured market prices, whether windfarms or solar power plants. NASH's algorithm-powered SaaS solution can be used to:

  • compare future installation sites in terms of their appeal by generating economic models;

  • design a solar, wind or hybrid power plant to improve production and profitability; and

  • manage plant activity levels in real time to optimize production and anticipate maintenance requirements.

NASH Renewables strengthens TotalEnergies' ambitions

After benefiting from support under the TotalEnergies On acceleration program, NASH Renewables was acquired by the Company in December 2023 and is now an integral part of the Group. Consequently, NASH Renewables is contributing to TotalEnergies' objective of ramping up the profitability of its renewable assets and achieving its ambition of being a world-class player in leading the energy transition and reaching net zero by 2050, together with society.

    If we manage to transform renewable energies into a more profitable investment, more renewable power plants will be built, which in turn will accelerate our decarbonization process and help us achieve our net zero objective.
    Christoph Lauenstein co-fondateur of NASH Renewables

    TotalEnergies On, an accelerator of innovative solutions for electricity and renewable energies

    Launched in 2022, TotalEnergies On is our startup acceleration program specifically aimed at the electricity and renewable energies sector. The startups selected by this program benefit from direct access to all the Company's specialists and expertise, as well as a space for trialing their projects within TotalEnergies' businesses. The aim is to identify the most promising startups, accelerate their development and scale up their solutions. The TotalEnergies On program is hosted within STATION F in Paris, the world's largest startup campus, and brings together entrepreneurs from all across the globe as part of their determination to build the energy world of tomorrow.

    From pitch to Demo Days: TotalEnergies On, a showcase for innovators

    The entrepreneurs short-listed after the application phase are invited to pitch their project to a panel of industry experts. Those who convince the jury spend several months working on their projects with support from TotalEnergies, all of which mentored by the HEC business school. The program ends with the Demo Days event, which gives the startups an opportunity to present the progress of their experiments to investors, partners and TotalEnergies employees. This event also provides startups with chance to discuss opportunities for collaboration and partnerships, and the prospect of integrating innovations into TotalEnergies' business lines, as was the case with NASH Renewables.

      The Roads to Carbon Neutral

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