Prof Andrew Crossland CEng FEI

My goal in life is to help enable decarbonisation. I believe that doing so will make energy more affordable and owned once again by the people.

I am a passionate expert and strategist in the energy transition who has delivered first of a kind low carbon energy projects on four continents. In doing so I have delivered innovative new business models, led corporate strategy and built standards that protect you from misselling. I have a deep understanding of the energy transition through my professional and academic work, foresight and am known by my peers for my thought leadership.

The content of this website only represents my own analysis and not necessarily that of any of my past or present employers.

If you want to get in touch, please direct all media, consulting and employment questions to my LinkedIn. Please use mygridapp@gmail.com for all other comments and queries.

Career History

I have spent my career developing first of a kind energy projects and advocating for a new energy system. I spent the first three years of my career (2 years, 364 days) working on a PhD which looked at over 9,000 low voltage networks run by Electricity North west in the UK. I simulated uptake of solar and storage, and worked out how much it would cost to upgrade the network with and without batteries. My PhD was published just before the Tesla Powerwall was announced, and it effectively predicted the domestic battery market. It was during my PhD that I built MyGridGB.

After a brief stint in the railway industry, I joined SolarCentury in London in 2015. Working across the business, I helped the company (at the time the largest solar company in the UK) to bring batteries into its work on residential, commericial and utility scale solar in the UK as well as on microgrids in East Africa. It was around this time that I won “Rising Star” from Energy UK for my work in the industry.

In 2018, I founded Advance Further Energy Ltd as a boutique consultancy business. The highlight of this was the UK Solar/Battery Self-Consumption Standard which was a collaboration with colleagues at BRE and Loughborough University. This groundbreaking work provides all households in the UK with a reliable estimate of the savings from solar and storage, helping protect them from misselling and allowing more rational choices. It has been used over 500,000 times.

In 2018, I also moved to New Zealand to work for Infratec, leading development of microgrid projects across the Pacific Islands. I helped develop and deliver major projects in Nauru, Tonga, Tuvalu, Palau, The Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, The Cook Islands, Micronesia and Kiribati. You can read about the projects on the Infratec website. In anticipation of Infratec being purchased by WEL Networks, I spurned the transition of Infratec to a developer of solar and battery storage. This included developing my favourite project, Rotohiko, which was the first large battery in New Zealand.

Whilst at Infratec I wrote a book, Decarbonising Electricity: Made Simple, which lays out how you roadmap a National Grid to low carbon energy. It has odd similarities to the 2024 Clean Power Plan by the UK National Grid, ad has been bought in 15 countries. I wrote the book as a tribute to my Dad, who passed away at a young age from cancer, but who had a huge interest in my career.

In 2021, I took on an advisory role at Project PARC who develop microgrids and water projects in Kenya. Co-Founded by my friend, Guy Lawrence, I find the company to be visionary in the use of energy for common good. As well as designing, delivering and managing large microgrids, we also build water and farming infrastructure with local communities. It’s fascinating work.

In 2022, I moved back to the UK (for family reasons) and worked as a developer on projects in Europe and the USA for Renewco. I really enjoyed the work but had what I felt was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work on the largest Virtual Power Plant with SolarZero from May 2023 – Nov 2024. In that time, my team transitioned the control of 15,000 SolarZero batteries onto machine learning, getting 99% of customers within $1 a month of the best energy bill we could offer them, and programmed 8,000 batteries to backup the National Grid. In Nov 2024, SolarZero entered liquidation and I am presently working on consultancy opportunities in the UK and New Zealand.

Also in 2023, I was invited to be an Associate Professor in Practice in the Durham University Energy Institute and School of Engineering. This voluntary role includes sitting on the Advisory Board of the Institute with some amazing peers, such as Barbara Vest OBE, and also working with students on research and careers. The role is the culmination of my work across the world, and has provided opportunities for me such as appearing on the BBC and providing evidence for Government on Clean Power.

I really love working in our industry, please do reach out if my skills can help you.

Professional Memberships

• I am a Fellow of the Energy Institute
• I am a Chartered Member of the IET

Qualifications

• I hold a PhD from Durham University which found that solar and batteries can reduce the costs of electricity networks by over £1bn in the UK. You can download a copy here: https://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10819/.
• I have a Masters Degree (MEng) in General Engineering with New and Renewable Energy from Durham University.
• I have an Masters Degree (MSc) from the University of Southampton in which I completed the taught elements of the university MBA.
• I have a Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) in Railway Systems Engineering from Sheffield Hallam University.

CV

You can request a full copy of my CV here.

Portfolio (Selected)

Here’s some of the highlights of my career