Michael Liebreich

Michael Liebreich is Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates, through which he provides advisory and speaking services.

He is Senior Contributor to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the world’s leading provider of research on clean energy and transport, which he founded in 2004. He led it up to its sale to Bloomberg in 2009 and beyond, acting as Chairman of the Advisory Board until 2017.

Michael serves on the UK Department of International Trade's Advisory Board on Overseas Investment in Infrastructure. He is Chairman of the Advisory Board of Ecovillages, a Swiss charity he founded to focus on sustainability of mountain communities and is Visiting Professor at Imperial College Energy Futures Lab. He also chairs smart mobility startup Zeelo and is a technology investor.

Between 2012 and 2018 Michael served as a Board Member of Transport for London. He was a member of the high-level Advisory Group for the UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative and Founder of Finance for Resilience (FiRe). He was the Chairman for ten years of St. Mark’s Hospital Foundation, a charity supporting research in colorectal medicine. 

Michael is a three-time finalist in the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, and winner of Lifetime Achievement Award from the Renewable Energy Association and GreenBusiness.

Earlier in his career, Michael acted as Deputy Managing Director of Associated Press Television and Founding Director of Sports News Television and was UK Managing Director of Groupe Arnault’s technology investment arm. Before that, he was an associate and manager at McKinsey & Co.

Michael graduated in Engineering from the University of Cambridge with 1st class honours, winning the Ricardo Prize for Thermodynamics and Christ’s College Wyatt Prize. He has an MBA from Harvard, where he was a Harkness Fellow and Baker Scholar. He was a member of the British Olympic Ski Team in 1992.

To book Michael as a speaker, please contact jo@liebreichassociates.com.

Co-Founder

Congrats to all at Octopus. Great deal - a tribute to Greg's vision and everyone's hard work.

https://lnkd.in/gEhdvvP6

Speaker, analyst, advisor, investor in the future economy. Host of Cleaning Up, podcast on leadership in an age of climate change. Managing partner, Ecopragma Capital.

Big news: $1bn backing for Kraken!

This round was led by D1 Capital Partners L.P., with Ontario Teachers'​ Pension Plan Board, Fidelity International, Durable Capital Partners LP, General Catalyst, BDT & MSD Partners, and Valiant Peregrine joining as new investors.

⚡The backing supports what we already deliver today: the world’s most advanced, AI-powered operating system for utilities, designed to modernise operations, improve customer outcomes, and build a smarter, more resilient energy system.

💡This also marks Kraken’s next chapter as a fully independent global technology platform. Independence gives us the focus and freedom to scale faster, deepen partnerships worldwide, and support utilities as they navigate a rapidly evolving energy landscape - with Octopus Energy remaining a key innovation partner.

🌱We’ve come a long way in a short time:
- 70+ million accounts globally
- 6GWs daily optimised power
- 4x growth in three years
- $500m+ in contracted annual revenue 

None of this would be possible without our incredible customers and brilliant team.

🚀 We're excited by this vote of confidence, and how it helps us accelerate our ambitious mission to modernize energy systems globally, and positively impact one billion lives within a decade.

The press release: https://lnkd.in/epmWv9_S


#EnergyInnovation #UtilityTech #KrakenPlatform #ClimateTech #GridModernization #investment

Happy new year to everyone already in 2026!

A good summary of my Cleaning Up chat with Rob Dunn of Startcampus, who's building a 1.2GW data centre in Sines, Portugal. Thanks Skander!

My fav takeaways from Michael Liebreich's interview with Rob Dunn, CEO of Start Campus, on building Europe's largest AI data center:

1. The thesis proved right before ChatGPT existed. In 2021, the idea that data centers would move out of Frankfurt/London/Paris to massive out-of-town locations seemed crazy. People thought latency required urban proximity. Now it's obvious. Sometimes the bet just takes time.

2. Customer priorities right now: 50% speed, 25% cost, 25% future-proofing. The AI race has created a moment where getting GPUs operational matters more than anything. Billions in equipment sitting on shelves while waiting for a building is the nightmare scenario.

3. Sea water cooling delivers 20-30% power cost reduction. PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.1 (For every 1MW of IT load, only 100kW goes to cooling/overhead) vs 1.3 for traditional air cooling. Over a 20-year facility lifespan where power costs can equal rent, this is the difference between winning and losing on unit economics.

4. Repurpose existing infrastructure. Start Campus is built on a decommissioned 3GW coal plant. They inherited the grid connection, the sea water cooling permits, the transmission cabling. Years of permitting work already done.

5. Build flexibility into the structure, not the plan. Their first building was designed for 14MW, now it's 29MW and growing. In 10 years, racks will go from 100kW to 1MW. The physical space for IT shrinks; the space for electrical infrastructure grows. 

6. Speed and quality are in tension, but only one builds lasting value. Elon built a gigawatt data center in under a year. Rob's building for 20+ years. Once a data center is operational, it's nearly impossible to fix mistakes. 

7. The diaspora effect is real. Portuguese engineers building data centers in Finland and South America heard about the project and came home. Building something big enough creates its own talent gravity.

-> This is something Andreas Klinger and I looked at in our latest Youtube video (link in the comments)

8. "If you're wondering whether you have product-market fit, you don't" applies to industries too. 

9. Grid symbiosis, not grid parasitism. The goal isn't just 100% renewable on paper. Making sure every gigawatt of load is matched by new renewable capacity they helped finance. PPAs that actually add generation, not just shift allocation.

10. The hype might be real this time. Yes, there's froth. Yes, some projects are overpromising. But the underlying demand for compute isn't going anywhere. Even if AI efficiency improves dramatically, the campus runs cloud, inference, and training.

Reminds me of Benedict Evans quoting Zuck: “The very worst case would be that we have just pre-built for a couple of years” 

#DataCenters #AIInfrastructure #ClimateTech #RenewableEnergy #EnergyTransition #Sustainability #CleanEnergy #NetZero #CloudComputing

taplio

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