Energypreneurs is a podcast that brings solar power, electric vehicles and battery technologies to young entrepreneurs. Sohail Hasnie, our host, is a firm believer that the solution to climate change lies in these technologies, which will also fundamentally change the way we think about electricity and transportation—on road, on water and even on air.
Over the last 35 years, Sohail has applied technology and innovation in many large infrastructure projects across Australasia. As a staff of the Asian Development Bank since 2001, he has developed large investment projects with solar power, battery, and electric vehicles across Asia.
Why Were the Clean-Up Boats Polluting the River? |Ep 277| Sanyuktha, Clearbot [Re-edited]
Clearbot started because its founders watched people on big diesel boats trying to fish rubbish out of rivers with pool nets — polluting more than they were collecting, with a man half over the side reaching for the trash. So they built the electric version: remote-controlled, solar-charged boats that hold up to three tonnes of rubbish and water hyacinth, with no fuel, no engine noise and nobody leaning over the edge.
I recorded this in Manila with Sanyuktha, Clearbot's head of business development and marketing, the day after we had been out to waste sites along the Pasig together. We talk about how the boats actually run (a set of batteries lasts four hours, you swap it and keep going), why a pilot pulling 500 kg a day out of a river in Northeast India turned into a year-long contract, why a solar panel on the bank means a boat can work with no fuel bill at all, and the families living beside water they didn't pollute. Recorded in 2025, re-edited and shared again because the problem hasn't gone anywhere.
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5 Oct 2026
E360: Nobody Can Dispatch 500,000 Batteries
Australia now has around half a million home batteries, thanks to the federal Cheaper Home Batteries program. Almost none of them can be dispatched. Glenn Dahlenburg puts it at 90 to 95% that no retailer can control, because customers don't want anyone else touching their battery.
Glenn spent twenty years at the edge of Queensland's grid, and most recently built Energy Queensland's ~$300 million battery programme, including one-tonne batteries mounted on power poles. We talk about why community batteries will probably stay niche in Australia, why a network might one day deliver 22 hours a day and leave the rest to your battery, the swamp line that made the first case for standalone power, and his surprisingly good argument for an air conditioner on the balcony.
And his call-out at the end, the one I keep thinking about: everyone is working out how to get batteries into the market, but almost nobody is thinking about how to get them out.
Glenn Dahlenburg — Managing Director, GCD Advisory. Brisbane.
Connect with Sohail Hasnie:
Facebook @sohailhasnie (https://www.facebook.com/sohailhasnie/)
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LinkedIn @shasnie (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shasnie/)
ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie (https://blogs.adb.org/author/sohail-hasnie)
YouTube @energypreneurs (https://www.youtube.com/@energypreneurs)
30 Sept 2026
Bigger Than Snowy 2.0, Parked in Our Driveways | Ep 338 | Portia Rooney [Re-edited]
By the early 2030s, the aggregated battery capacity of Australia's EV fleet is expected to exceed Snowy Hydro 2.0. Not approach it — exceed it. And unlike Snowy, it's already being paid for, by people buying cars.
Portia Rooney has spent three years working on bidirectional charging in Australia, and went to Europe and China on a Churchill Fellowship to see what everyone else is doing. Her focus is AC vehicle-to-grid, which uses the car's own onboard inverter rather than expensive external hardware — Lego blocks rather than one big dam.
We get into why interoperability is the bottleneck rather than the technology, what's actually launched commercially in the Netherlands, what China is running across 30 pilots in nine cities, and why this matters more in the Pacific than anywhere else — where a typhoon takes out one large power station, but not 2,000 cars.
One warning worth the whole episode: there are products on the market that will trick a vehicle into discharging without the manufacturer's approval. Don't use them.
Portia Rooney is Founder and Director of Batteries in Wheels.
Re-edited from Ep 338, first published July 2026.
Connect with Sohail Hasnie:
Facebook @sohailhasnie (https://www.facebook.com/sohailhasnie/)
X (Twitter) @shasnie (https://twitter.com/shasnie)
LinkedIn @shasnie (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shasnie/)
ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie (https://blogs.adb.org/author/sohail-hasnie)
YouTube @energypreneurs (https://www.youtube.com/@energypreneurs)
Who has been a guest on Energypreneurs
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Neal Moore
Frank Haugwitz
Robert Stewart
Bruce Mountain
Karl Nolles
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
62,977
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 76 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
87
Social presence
0
YouTube
85
Engagement
81
Contact Energypreneurs
Guest appearances
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