Prince William meets Estonia's renewable energy startups

Royal Family Channel

Prince William has attended a workshop showcasing a range of energy startups that are part of the Cleantech Association in Estonia. The Prince of Wales learnt about how they are developing renewable energy and how the country is growing its energy security. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00I think this is also a good spot for the world's fastest

00:04seamstress.

00:05Because that beige building over there,

00:08if you follow, that is this building

00:10in front of number 10.

00:11That is our government building.

00:13It's called the Stenbrock House.

00:14So that is where our government is at.

00:17The big cone-shaped church over there

00:20is a Russian Orthodox church.

00:22And funnily enough, our parlor is across the street

00:24from that.

00:27And the tall tower with the flag,

00:29that we say is like a must-have.

00:31It's hardly ascending.

00:33Firstly, when you gain free independence,

00:35that is the first place where in Estonia

00:37you flag them up after a decade.

00:40And why it has a sweet spot in everybody's hearts

00:43is that every sunrise and the sunset,

00:46they raise or lower the flag while hanging down there.

00:49You walk around this town, and you hear them,

00:52and you're like, ooh, the sun is going down.

00:55For example, our embassy is that close to the tower.

00:58And then you think around it, and there's a sunset

01:01still out there, and you're also like,

01:03ah, the sun is setting, because we can hear it

01:05getting up, you know?

01:08Yeah, but that's the short tour.

01:10But I would like to take you to the main part

01:13that we are here today.

01:14So the first, I want to introduce you to Sunli.

01:17They're our hosts.

01:19And I have two representatives here

01:21who know a lot better what they do.

01:23What do you do?

01:27Look at this. So what are we looking at here?

01:29You're looking at a project that's located

01:31in the western part of Estonia.

01:34So this is a project that we are already building,

01:36and it's already financed.

01:38So at the moment, the works are ongoing on the site.

01:40But this project is a hybrid project.

01:43What does it mean?

01:45Like, it's not only a PV or wind or battery storage.

01:50It's also everything together.

01:52So we are utilizing the substation here.

01:55So what it means is that, basically,

01:57we can use the grid more efficiently.

01:59So this is the main goal of it,

02:01because if you put only the PV into the grid,

02:04these kind of projects are the projects that are needed,

02:07because we are basically utilizing

02:09the same grid connection point.

02:11It was some technology that emerged from the,

02:13let's say, from the couloirs, in that sense.

02:16The technology moved on so rapidly, innovation-wise.

02:20And, yeah, the technology has crazily speeded up,

02:23because if you look at the size...

02:25Big problem, if the big concentrated power systems

02:31are under whatever...

02:33One soup, essentially.

02:35And anything else, that's life-saving.

02:38And sort of helping with energy security and...

02:41That's five liters.

02:43That's roughly four-something kilowatt-hours in the tank.

02:47The one we have now, that we put together,

02:50is seven-plus kilowatt-hours,

02:52to really extend the endurance.

02:54Plus, because it's pre-stored, actually, right?

02:56They store it in batteries.

02:57They also store it in batteries.

02:59We put that in anything first-response-related.

03:02So we're looking at maritime use cases, actually, as well.

03:06Battery drones with 20 minutes,

03:07like you don't have somewhere to land.

03:10So we have a two-hour flight range, right?

03:13So we can go there, come back, as well.

03:16And, of course, there's different ones,

03:17like detecting oil spills.

03:19So this year, we will start going through...

03:21Can we head right to the next one?

03:23So here, we have a company called Alcatelist.

03:28This is a better climate,

03:29because we are basically putting the CO2 into the storm.

03:33They're not climate-neutral, they're climate-positive,

03:36because they're taking CO2 out of the air.

03:38It used to be CO2, invisible gas,

03:40and then we have technology to turn this into solid rock.

03:45How much CO2 is in the air?

03:47So the ratio is, we consumed 3.7 units,

03:513.7 times of this.

03:53Is this the equivalent of one car running for a day?

03:56I mean, how much carbon dioxide?

03:58Yeah, that's a good calculation to make.

04:02But to build one car,

04:04it's about 100 kilos of this material.

04:10How do you get it to solidify?

04:12What's the process you go through?

04:13450 electric cars.

04:15But if we go according to our scale-up plan,

04:17then by 2030, we will utilize around a quarter of a million tons of CO2,

04:22which already provides better-grade graphite

04:26for around one million electric cars.

04:28Fantastic.

04:29But the processing here and voltage difference

04:32is applied into the molten salt,

04:35and CO2 is bubbled into the molten salt.

04:38And after...

04:39Well, thank you, first of all, for having me here today.

04:43Seeing all the fantastic innovation that's going on there

04:47reminds me of some of the stuff we're trying to do

04:49in the Earthshot Prize,

04:50which is trying to tackle some of the world's greatest environmental challenges.

04:54And it starts with solutions.

04:56It starts with innovation.

04:58It starts with scaling and spotlighting those who are doing brilliant things

05:02and giving them a bigger platform.

05:04As we heard from the solar guys talking about

05:06being on Grand Designs has suddenly increased their order book,

05:09and they're now being ordered and seen around the world.

05:12For me, innovation is a huge part of everything we're going to have to do

05:16for the energy transition.

05:18And I get...

05:20I'm very lucky I get to meet and see lots of amazing examples

05:24and amazing people doing incredible things with their new solutions.

05:28And so the Earthshot Prize came to me

05:31as a way of being able to highlight and showcase

05:33some of the people out there

05:35and give them the Grand Design platform, if you like,

05:39that showcases what they can do.

05:42But I think with all these things,

05:44it's a jigsaw.

05:46No one thing at the moment is going to fix all our problems,

05:49from pollution, plastics, ocean acidification,

05:52climate change, whatever it is.

05:54There's going to have to be lots of different things happening.

05:57And I liken the Earthshot Prize to

06:00not necessarily finding the silver bullet that we all want,

06:03but it might find lots of bronze bullets.

06:05And if we get lots of bronze bullets going,

06:07then the energy transition can really start happening.

06:09And we can target it in multiple ways and on multiple fronts.

06:13And for me, it's exciting seeing what we can innovate,

06:16because I think humans are the best when we innovate.

06:18I think it brings the best out of countries working together,

06:21it brings the best out of each other when we work together

06:24and come up with a challenge to beat.

06:26So these companies here are doing a fantastic job.

06:29And I was reading about how many white unicorns

06:32in the tech sector there are in Estonia.

06:34So I think there's a lot of UK-Estonian ideas brewing.

06:39And like you said, you finish off talking about scale.

06:42I think everything comes down to that,

06:44particularly the energy transition.

06:46We're up against it with time,

06:48and we need scale to be our biggest target.

06:50That's great.

06:52Both His Majesty the King and you,

06:54through the Earthshot Prize,

06:56have done so much already

06:58to try to generate a sense of urgency

07:01around repairing the planet.

07:03What's your message to people in Estonia on this?

07:06I think you're doing quite a lot as it is already.

07:09I think my message is keep doing more of the same.

07:12Like I said, there's clearly a lot of innovation,

07:14a lot of excitement and a lot of good brains here

07:17trying to tackle these problems.

07:19I think sometimes we can feel quite let down

07:22when things aren't going fast enough.

07:24It feels like two steps forward,

07:26one step back all the time in energy transition.

07:28But I think maintaining that momentum,

07:30maintaining that positivity,

07:32working together,

07:35and keep innovating.

07:37I think all these things which you're doing anyway,

07:39working with friends and partners like the UK and others,

07:43I think we can get there better and quicker

07:46than we can do by ourselves.

07:48For me, collaboration is the key.

07:50I think it's going to be the way

07:52we tackle these things much faster

07:54because we don't have the time.

Category

Transcript

Recommended