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Wimbledon Players Shower in Solar-Heated Water. Here's Who Built It. Heat is responsible for 40% of global emissions and more than half of all energy consumed on the planet. Most of it still comes from burning fossil fuels, and almost nobody is talking about decarbonizing it.
Christophe Williams co-founded Naked Energy t
Länge: 1:08:32
Heat is responsible for 40% of global emissions and more than half of all energy consumed on the planet. Most of it still comes from burning fossil fuels, and almost nobody is talking about decarbonizing it.
Christophe Williams co-founded Naked Energy to change that. Their solar collectors convert up to 80% of the sun's energy into hot water, compared to about 20% for traditional solar panels. The hybrid version generates both heat and electricity from the same rooftop. Payback runs four to eight years, and an industrial system can save over half a million pounds annually.
Before clean energy, Christophe spent 15 years as a film editor in advertising, cutting music videos and working on global campaigns. The pivot came from his grandfather, a physicist who worked on wave power and flywheel storage in the 1970s. He told Christophe as a child that if we put all known fossil fuels into a calendar year, we've only got minutes left.
In this conversation, Christophe talks about selling his house and pulling his kids from school to start the company, what it took to raise £30 million as a first-time founder, the independent test that came back short and the CTO who turned it into a roadmap, Barclays helping land the Wimbledon project, and the question that drove everything: could I live with myself if I don't give this a go?
(00:00) Introduction
(00:25) Why "Naked Energy"?
(03:01) The Warm Elephant in the Room
(07:26) Hotels, Hospitals, and Factories
(09:40) How the Technology Works
(12:43) Storing Summer Heat for Winter
(14:26) The Economics of Solar Thermal
(16:34) 80% Efficiency vs. 20% for Traditional Solar
(18:42) Solar Thermal Meets Heat Pumps
(22:22) From Film Editor to Clean Tech CEO
(24:46) Diana Ross, Joy Division, and Dennis Hopper
(27:11) A Grandfather Who Worked on Wave Power
(29:08) "We've Only Got Minutes Left"
(33:08) Winning the Shell Springboard Competition
(34:23) "Could I Live with Myself If I Don't Give This a Go?"
(39:27) Selling the House and Taking the Kids Out of School
(44:34) Hardest Lessons as a First-Time CEO
(46:03) Crying into a Beer in Germany
(51:20) E.ON, Barclays, and Wimbledon
(54:26) What 1% of the World's Heat Demand Looks Like
(59:46) A Physicist Daughter Joins the Business
(1:03:13) How to Work with Giant Corporations
(1:06:31) Closing Reflections
GUID: b5b4458b-d3a4-403b-aa7a-bb41d21d75ba
Erscheinungsdatum: 23.4.2026, 16:20:27
