Graham Weale

Why organisations work with Graham Weale

• Nine years as Chief Economist of RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, through the sharpest phase of the Energiewende. Few speakers have read the transition from inside a utility of that scale.
• An active voice in the current European energy debate, with recent commentary in Tagesspiegel Background, Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Euractiv on the hydrogen ramp-up, industrial decarbonisation, and the realism of German power demand forecasts.
• Cross-border fluency in European energy policy through the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine, the German-French Office for Energy Transition, and advisory work for the Energy Transitions Commission.
• Expert witness in gas and power contract disputes, price-review arbitrations, PPA disagreements, and capacity-market and state-aid matters, giving testimony in English or German.
• Comfortable translating between the energy-intensive industry lens (through VIK) and the utility and investor lens. Useful when a room contains both sides of the decarbonisation cost argument.
• A contrarian read grounded in economics. Weale argues in Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Tagesspiegel that policy underestimates the gap between renewable supply and industrial demand, and that the cost burden risks the industrial base the transition is meant to protect. His 2021 FT essay made the same case for the EU Green Deal.

Biography highlights

• Honorary Professor of Energy Economics, Ruhr University Bochum.
• Chief Economist, RWE AG, 2007 to 2016.
• Consultant on power market design, PwC Deutschland, developing a new electricity market model to lower the consumer cost base (2016 to 2018).
• Senior Advisor, Energy Transitions Commission, 2017 to 2018.
• Former Director of European Energy Services, Global Insight (now S&P Global), 2000 to 2007.
• Steering Committee member, Chaire European Electricity Markets, Universite Paris-Dauphine.
• Published in Energy Policy, Intereconomics, Oxford Energy Forum, EnWZ, and the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law.

Biography

European heavy industry is being asked to decarbonise and stay competitive at the same time, and the two goals are pulling apart. Renewable supply is not scaling fast enough to meet industrial demand at a price that keeps production in Europe. Graham Weale argues, in Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Tagesspiegel, that policy underestimates this gap, and that the cost burden threatens the industrial base the transition is meant to protect. He has worked the economics of European energy for four decades, first as a practitioner and now as an academic.

The operator vantage point is specific. Weale spent nine years as Chief Economist at RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, from 2007 to 2016, the years the Energiewende reshaped the economics of thermal generation. Before that he ran European energy services at Global Insight, now S&P Global Commodity Insights, where he testified as an expert witness in gas price-review arbitrations. He began his career at ExxonMobil in supply and refining, and trained in physics at Oxford, with an MSc in Systems Engineering and an MBA.

The academic record runs in parallel. As Honorary Professor of Energy Economics at Ruhr University Bochum, Weale publishes on power market remuneration in Energy Policy, on hydrogen contract design in EnWZ, and on European market reform in Intereconomics. He advised the Energy Transitions Commission under Adair Turner, and has since advised the European Commission and European governments on energy policy. He sits on the Steering Committee of the CEEM chair at Université Paris-Dauphine.

Today Weale runs an independent energy economics practice, advising law firms, industrial associations, and policy institutions, and acting as an expert witness in gas and power contract disputes. That work keeps him close to the live questions boards face: whether to sign a long-term hydrogen offtake, how to price capacity market risk, and where the next iteration of European electricity market design will land. He gives testimony, and delivers keynotes, in English and German.

Key speaking topics

• Power market design and capacity remuneration
• Industrial decarbonisation and the economics of electrification
• Hydrogen contracts, supply chains, and the European hydrogen ramp-up
• German Energiewende and EU Green Deal implementation
• Natural gas markets and price review arbitration
• Energy geopolitics after the Ukraine invasion
• Nuclear, renewables, and the zero-carbon generation mix

Ideal for

• Utility, grid, and generation boards setting capital allocation under decarbonisation targets.
• Infrastructure funds and institutional investors pricing European power and hydrogen assets.
• Energy-intensive industrial leaders (steel, chemicals, cement) planning decarbonisation roadmaps.
• Policymakers and regulators working on market design, capacity mechanisms, and hydrogen frameworks.

Audience outcomes

• A clear view of where European power market design is heading and what that means for long-term generation investment.
• A realistic read on hydrogen: which use cases will scale, which contracts are bankable, and what the European ramp-up actually requires.
• Sharper framing of the political-economic risk attached to Energiewende-style transitions, drawn from inside a major utility.
• Specific vocabulary for talking to boards and investors about carbon pricing, capacity mechanisms, and industrial decarbonisation.
• A defensible basis for stress-testing internal energy transition plans against the economics, not only the targets.