Insight
What we publish
Three things. The Energypreneurs Briefing — a ten-part argument about why the energy transition happens and who pays for it, published every Friday. And the Energypreneurs podcast — 340+ conversations since 2020 with the people actually delivering it. And ten pieces published under the Asian Development Bank's own masthead.
We publish for its own sake, but it also does a job for the firm. Small Asian energy markets move faster than any research subscription can track, and a standing reason to talk to the people inside them is worth more than a database.
Published every Friday
The Energypreneurs Briefing
Ten briefs, each making one argument. Not a survey of the sector — a case, stated plainly enough to disagree with. Two published, one a week until the series is complete.
- 01 Why Is the Energy Transition Inevitable? Published
- 02 Your Car is the Next Power Plant Published
- 03 Solar: The Cheapest Energy in History
- 04 The Grid is Becoming Optional
- 05 Who's Really Paying for the Energy Transition?
- 06 The ICE Age is Over
- 07 The Global South Will Leapfrog the Grid
- 08 Hydrogen Has One Job — Not Powering Your Car
- 09 Technology Doesn't Win. Policy Does.
- 10 How to Build a Business in the Fastest-Growing Sector on Earth
Brief 09 is the argument this firm is built on. Technology stopped being the constraint on the energy transition some years ago. What decides whether a project gets built in Dhaka or Manila is incentive design, tariff structure and whether a household or a cooperative can actually finance it. That is the whole reason we exist.
The full Briefing archive, with links to each brief, is being published progressively.
Published by the Asian Development Bank
Writing on the Asian Development Blog
Ten pieces published under ADB's own masthead between 2017 and 2022, written while our founder was Principal Energy Specialist. They are hosted on adb.org, not here — the institution published them, which is rather the point.
- Off-grid solar Electricity in a Box: Looking Back at Our Off-Grid Journey
- Off-grid solar How the Unelectrified Poor Can Leapfrog to Off-Grid Solar
- Storage Got Solar? Now Add Batteries
- Electric mobility Battery Swapping Can Propel India's Electric Car Revolution
- Electric mobility How the Kyrgyz Republic Can Become Central Asia's Electric Vehicle Hub
- Generation Game-Changer: Can Solar Energy be Generated in Old Gas Power Plants?
- Efficiency Watching Invisible Energy Loss – Yes It's Possible
- Outlook Clean Energy Predictions for 2018 – And Why I was Wrong About 2017
- Rural economy How the Gig Economy Can Transform Farms in the Developing World
- Technology Power Walking: Turn Each Step into Clean Energy
The through-line is worth noticing. Off-grid solar for households without a grid connection. Batteries after solar. Battery swapping for vehicles. An electric vehicle hub in the Kyrgyz Republic. These were written between 2017 and 2022 — and they are, almost exactly, the project list on our Current Work page today. We are building what we were writing about.
The podcast
340+ episodes since 2020 — founders raising their first round, financiers deciding what to underwrite, engineers running pilots, and the officials writing the rules they all work under. Target: 400 by 31 December 2026.
By market
The archive is deepest in the markets we work in. These are the country threads worth starting with.
Philippines
Jeepney and fleet electrification, distributed solar, the economics of transport transition in a dense archipelago market.
Bangladesh
Three-wheeler electrification, battery swapping, rooftop and off-grid solar, and the financing structures that fit a low-tariff market.
Central Asia
Hydropower rehabilitation, cross-border interconnection and the regional cooperation agenda across the CAREC countries.
South Asia
Grid-scale solar, transmission investment and the carbon and climate finance mechanisms being used to fund them.
Australia
Technology and capital flowing north into Asian markets, and what Australian developers learn from operating there.
Everywhere else
Conversations that do not fit a country box — technology, policy design and the business of building an energy company.
By theme
Electric mobility
Two- and three-wheelers, jeepneys, taxis, buses, boats.
Batteries and swapping
Chemistry, swap network economics, second-life and recycling.
Distributed solar
Rooftop, off-grid, mini-grid and the tariff structures around them.
Climate finance
Carbon markets, concessional windows, blended structures.
Hydropower
Rehabilitation, micro-hydro and catchment management.
Policy and regulation
Tariff reform, procurement design, market rules.
Founders
Building an energy company in a difficult market.
Development banks
How the institutions actually decide what to fund.
Speaking and workshops
Sohail speaks at industry and development sector events on electric mobility, distributed energy and the financing of both in emerging Asian markets, and runs technical workshops for government and utility audiences.