Ken Nguyen, principal technical program manager at bp, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the company's new partnership with NASA. Photo courtesy of bp

Ken Nguyen oversees the implementation of new technologies at bp, which has its United States headquarters in Houston, and that includes software and hardtech, from cybersecurity to the digitization of the industry, which is an integral part of bp's energy transition plan.

"For bp, we do feel like as we transition as an international oil and gas company into an integrated energy company and we lean into the energy transition, the adoption of new technology is a critical part of making that viable for the planet and for the company," he says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

According to Nguyen, principal technical program manager at bp, the company has invested its resources into exploring energy transition technologies like electric vehicle charging — including opening a fast-charging station at its Houston office — and renewable energy, including a solar farm about 10 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.

Another technology bp is keen on is digital twin technology, which can be crucial for enhancing safety for bp personnel and reducing emissions.

Nguyen says digital twin technology "allows us to be able to design and mirror scenarios with real-time variables, such as weather, off-take demands, and volatility."

Recently, in order to explore innovation within these technology verticals, bp and NASA entered into a Space Act Agreement with NASA.

"Houston has always been known as the Space City, and we're also known as the Energy Capital of the World, but there hasn't always been collaboration," Nguyen says. "The challenges that NASA is facing is very similar to the challenges that the oil industry faces — we operate in very harsh environments, safety is the most critical aspect of our operation, and now the economic business model for NASA has changed."

Nguyen explains that while both bp and NASA are navigating similar challenges and changes within their industry, they are going about it in different ways. That's where the opportunity to collaborate comes in.

The partnership, which is still new and not fully fleshed out, will look at collaborative innovation into a few focus areas to start out with, including hydrogen storage and development, AI and general intelligence, robotics, and remote operations

"Houston continues to excel — in energy production and in space exploration — but by coming together," Nguyen says, "and for us to be able to tap into (NASA's) knowledge is tremendous. And we, within oil and gas, have a unique set of skills to blend into that with the hopes being that the city becomes this incubator for technology. The potential is there."

In very large cities like Houston, charging stations typically contain an especially large number of plugs and cables, so thefts can be particularly damaging. Photo by Andrew Roberts/Unsplash

Thefts of charging cables in Houston, beyond pose yet another obstacle to appeal of EVs

bad news

Just before 2 a.m. on a chilly April night in Seattle, a Chevrolet Silverado pickup stopped at an electric vehicle charging station on the edge of a shopping center parking lot.

Two men, one with a light strapped to his head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt cutters. One man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck. In under 2½ minutes, they were gone.

The scene that night has become part of a troubling pattern across the country: Thieves have been targeting EV charging stations, intent on stealing the cables, which contain copper wiring. The price of copper is near a record high on global markets, which means criminals stand to collect rising sums of cash from selling the material.

The stolen cables often disable entire stations, forcing EV owners on the road to search desperately for a working charger. For the owners, the predicament can be exasperating and stressful.

Broken-down chargers have emerged as the latest obstacle for U.S. automakers in their strenuous effort to convert more Americans to EVs despite widespread public anxiety about a scarcity of charging stations. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe EVs take too long to charge or don’t know of any charging stations nearby.

If even finding a charging station doesn't necessarily mean finding functioning cables, it becomes one more reason for skeptical buyers to stick with traditional gasoline-fueled or hybrid vehicles, at least for now.

America's major automakers have made heavy financial bets that buyers will shift away from combustion engines and embrace EVs as the world faces the worsening consequences of climate change. Accordingly, the companies have poured billions into EVs.

Stellantis envisions 50% of its passenger cars being EVs by the end of 2030. Ford set a target of producing 2 million EVs per year by 2026 — about 45% of its global sales — though it has since suspended that goal. General Motors, the most ambitious of the three, has pledged to sell only EV passenger cars by the end of 2035.

Any such timetables, of course, hinge on whether the companies can convince more would-be EV buyers that a charge will always be available when they travel. The rise in cable thefts isn't likely to strengthen the automakers' case.

Two years ago, according to Electrify America, which runs the nation’s second-largest network of direct-current fast chargers, a cable might be cut perhaps every six months at one of its 968 charging stations, with 4,400 plugs nationwide. Through May this year, the figure reached 129 — four more than in all of 2023. At one Seattle station, cables were cut six times in the past year, said Anthony Lambkin, Electrify America's vice president of operations.

"We’re enabling people to get to work, to take their kids to school, get to medical appointments," Lambkin said. “So to have an entire station that’s offline is pretty impactful to our customers.”

Two other leading EV charging companies — Flo and EVgo — also have reported a rise in thefts. Charging stations in the Seattle area have been a frequent target. Sites in Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Pennsylvania have been hit, too.

Stations run by Tesla, which operates the nation's largest fast-charging network, have been struck in Seattle, Oakland and Houston. So far this year, Seattle police have reported seven cases of cable thefts from charging stations, matching the number for all of 2023. Thieves hit Tesla stations four times this year compared with just once last year, the Seattle police said.

“Vandalism of public charging infrastructure in the Seattle metro area has unfortunately been increasing in frequency," EVgo said.

The company said law enforcement officials are investigating the thefts while it tries to repair inoperable stations and considers a longer-term solution.

The problem isn't confined to urban areas. In rural Sumner, Washington, south of Seattle, thieves cut cables twice at a Puget Sound Energy charging station. The company is working with police and the property owner to protect the station.

Until a month ago, police in Houston knew of no cable thefts. Then one was stolen from a charger at a gas station. The city has now recorded eight or nine such thefts, said Sgt. Robert Carson, who leads a police metal-theft unit.

In one case, thieves swiped 18 of 19 cords at a Tesla station. That day, Carson visited the station to inspect the damage. In the first five minutes that he was there, Carson said, about 10 EVs that needed charging had to be turned away.

In very large cities like Houston, charging stations typically contain an especially large number of plugs and cables, so thefts can be particularly damaging.

“They're not just taking one," Carson said. "When they're hit, they're hit pretty hard.”

Roy Manuel, an Uber driver who normally recharges his Tesla at the Houston station hit by thieves, said he fears being unable to do so because of stolen cables.

“If my battery was really low, I’d have quite an issue with operating my vehicle,” he said. “If it was so low that I couldn’t get to another charger, I might be in trouble. Might even need a tow truck.”

The charging companies say it's become clear that the thieves are after the copper that the cables contain. In late May, copper hit a record high of nearly $5.20 a pound, a result, in part, of rising demand resulting from efforts to cut carbon emissions with EVs that use more copper wiring. The price is up about 25% from a year ago, and many analysts envision further increases.

Charging companies say there isn't actually very much copper in the cables, and what copper is there is difficult to extract. Carson estimates that criminals can get $15 to $20 per cable at a scrap yard.

"They're not making a significant amount of money,” he said. “They're not going to be sailing on a yacht anywhere.”

Still, the more cables the thieves can steal, the more they can cash in. At $20 a cable, 20 stolen cables could fetch $400.

The problem for the charging companies is that it's much costlier to replace cables. In Minneapolis, where cables have been clipped at city-owned charging stations, it costs about $1,000 to replace just one cable, said Joe Laurin, project manager in the Department of Public Works.

The charging companies are trying to fight back. Electrify America is installing more security cameras. In Houston, police are visiting recycling centers to look for stolen metal.

But it's often hard for the scrap yards to determine conclusively whether metal came from a charging cable. Thieves often burn off the insulation and just sell strands of metal.

The Recycled Materials Association, which represents 1,700 members, is issuing scrap-theft alerts from law enforcement officials so that members can be on the lookout for suspects and stolen goods.

Because charging stations are often situated in remote corners of parking lots, Carson suggested that many more security cameras are needed.

In the meantime, Electrify America said Seattle police are trying to track down the thieves in the video. And Carson said the Houston police are pursuing leads in the Tesla theft.

“We'd like to get them stopped," he said, “and then let the court system do what they're supposed to do.”

___

AP Video Journalist Lekan Oyekanmi contributed to this report from Houston.

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Energy Tech Nexus announces international startups to pitch at Pilotathon

Ready, Set, Pitch

Energy Tech Nexus will host its Pilotathon and Showcase as part of Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week next Tuesday, Sept. 16, featuring insightful talks from industry leaders and pitches from an international group of companies in the clean energy space.

This year's event will center around the theme "Energy Access and Resilience." Attendees will hear pitches from nine Pilotathon pitch companies, as well as the 14 companies that were named to Energy Tech Nexus' COPILOT accelerator earlier this year.

COPILOT partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatetech sectors. The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory backs the COPILOT accelerator, where companies are tasked with developing pilot projects for their innovations.

The nine Pilotathon pitch companies include:

  • Ontario-based AlumaPower, which has developed a breakthrough technology that converts the aluminum-air battery into a "galvanic generator," a long-duration energy source that runs on aluminum as a fuel
  • Calgary-based BioOilSolv, a chemical manufacturing company that has developed cutting-edge biomass-derived solvents
  • Atlanta-based Cultiv8 Fuels, which creates high-quality renewable fuel products derived from hemp
  • Newfoundland-based eDNAtec Inc., a leader in environmental genomics that analyzes biodiversity and ecological health
  • Oregon-based Espiku Inc., which designs and develops water treatment and mineral extraction technologies that rely on low-pressure evaporative cycles
  • New York-based Fast Metals Inc., which has developed a chemical process to extract valuable metals from complex toxic mine tailings that is capable of producing iron, aluminum, scandium, titanium and other rare earth elements using industrial waste and waste CO2 as inputs
  • New Jersey-based Metal Light Inc., which is building a circular, solid metal fuel that will serve as a replacement for diesel fuel
  • Glasgow-based Novosound, which designs and manufactures innovative ultrasound sensors using a thin-film technique to address the limitations of traditional ultrasound with applications in industrial, medical and wearable markets
  • Calgary-based Serenity Power, which has developed a cutting-edge solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology

The COPILOT accelerator companies include:

  • Accelerate Wind
  • Aquora Biosystems Inc.
  • EarthEn
  • Electromaim
  • EnKoat
  • GeoFuels
  • Harber Coatings Inc.
  • Janta Power
  • NanoSieve
  • PolyQor Inc.
  • Popper Power
  • Siva Powers America
  • ThermoShade
  • V-Glass Inc.

Read more about them here.

The Pilotathon will also include a keynote from Taylor Chapman, investment manager at New Climate Ventures; Deanna Zhang, CEO at V1 Climate Solutions; and Jolene Gurevich, director of fellowship experience at Breakthrough Energy. The Texas Climate Tech Collective will present its latest study on the Houston climate tech and innovation ecosystem.

CEOs Moji Karimi of Cemvita, Laureen Meroueh of Hertha Metals and others will also participate in a panel on successful pilots. Investors from NetZero Ventures, Halliburton Labs, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, Prithvi VC and other organizations will also be on-site. Find registration information here.

Houston energy company to invest $1B in U.S. electric grid manufacturing

grid boost

Hitachi Energy, whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, has earmarked more than $1 billion to manufacture infrastructure for the U.S. electric grid, which is coping with greater power demand from data centers and AI platforms.

Of that sum, $457 million is dedicated to building a power transformer factory in Virginia. Hitachi Energy said it’ll be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S.

“Power transformers are a linchpin technology for a robust and reliable electric grid and winning the AI race. Bringing production of large power transformers to the U.S. is critical to building a strong domestic supply chain for the U.S. economy and reducing production bottlenecks, which is essential as demand for these transformers across the economy is surging,” said Andreas Schierenbeck, CEO of Switzerland-based Hitachi Energy, which generates revenue of about $16 billion.

The Hitachi announcement aligns with various priorities of the Trump administration. The White House is promoting more U.S.-based manufacturing, more power to accommodate data centers and AI, and greater use of U.S. energy resources.

“If we are going to win the AI race, reindustrialize, and keep the lights on, America is going to need a lot more reliable energy,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

Texas still has its best solar days ahead of it, even as federal tax credit sunsets

Guest Column

If you follow energy policy, you already know that Congress repealed the 30% residential solar tax credit. This poses a significant challenge for continued growth in the market. It also provides an opportunity for the industry to grow in a smart, consumer-friendly way. That’s why in Texas, the story is what happens next: The state and the market are continuing to make going solar much simpler, better, and cheaper.

Policies are moving in the right direction. For example, starting this month, a bipartisan permitting reform takes effect that will cut red tape for home solar and batteries. It lets licensed third-party professionals review plans and perform inspections, requires agencies to post standardized rules and fees online, and allows homeowners to start work once those third-party approvals are submitted. It also shifts negligence liability to the third-party reviewer, thereby reducing municipal risk while accelerating safe, code-compliant installs. In plain English: fewer bottlenecks, faster installs, and lower “soft costs.”

As a result, Houston is already piloting the National Renewable Energy Lab’s free SolarAPP+ to auto-approve standard solar designs, which cuts roughly 12 days from typical timelines. Independent analyses estimate that these automated permitting rules could trim rooftop solar costs by thousands. In other words, even small, costless policy changes like this can save you almost as much money as the huge solar tax credit did, and these great reforms are happening all the time, and they make the process much more convenient and reliable.

While Texas is making solar simpler, it’s also helping consumers have a good experience when going solar. As of this month, Texas law now also requires solar salespeople to register with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The same bill standardizes contracts and provides for mandatory disclosures of upfront cost and financing terms. The whole solar industry benefits when customers have a good solar experience. Word of mouth is vital to keeping solar shining.

There's yet another pro-solar Texas law that's also going into effect this month: in addition to SB 1202 (streamlining solar permits) and SB 1036 (regulating solar sales tactics), the legislature is also supporting the dissemination of information about your options when going solar via SB 1697. You can read more about these three brand-new pro-solar state laws here.

The end of the solar tax credit is not the end of the solar industry. Far from it.

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Dori Wolf is Senior Texas Program Associate for Solar United Neighbors, a vendor and neutral nonprofit with more than 15 years helping people go solar. Their free Solar Help Desk walks you through the details. Also check out their Go Solar Guide and Solar Owner’s Manual.

Solar United Neighbors also helps you find the best retail electricity plan through its partnership with Texas Power Guide.