Host: Antoine Walter
Guest: Björn Otto | Founder & Managing Director | Interius Solutions
Category: 🔬 Research
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[0:33] BO: “I truly believe that the forward osmosis bubble will burst next year in 2022. And the reason why is clearly there's no proof, there's no client base, there is no real movement and this for more than 10 years.”
[3:40] AW: “The roadmap to digitization has four levels. Level one: you have a digital version of your plants or water network, the famous digital twin. Level two: that digital twin is active and you can run modeling or even artificial intelligence on it. Level three: it runs by itself and gives you some hints at operating your plant. My bet is that we will reach level four on at least one large wastewater treatment plant in 2022. The digital twin will run by itself and actually operate the plant.”
[13:51] AW: “I'm betting that 2022 will see a water sector unicorn.”
[20:04] BO: “We will have a major change in terms of the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) structure we have in Europe. We will have just four dominant players left on the market which is Grundfos, Skion Water, Veolia and the Saur Group. And if you do not belong to one of these four, it will definitely be a hard time for you.”
[24:22] AW: “For a while the trend in the water sector has been the combination of horizontal groups specializing on a certain section of the value chain, but across multiple industries, and of niche players specializing in a section and an industry. Yet my bet is that next year, we will see a new vertical giant go against these trends and go from the grassroots hardware up to the most digital layer of services through the entire value chain.”
[29:55] BO: “The water tariffs for next year will dramatically go up. […] I'm talking about 20% plus. And the reason why is simple: we actually do have a global crisis. So that means inflation at the moment. We are talking about 4 or 5% in Europe, even more in North America. […] The other reason is that the electricity will go up dramatically. We are talking about 20 to 30% right now.”
Rating: 💧💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify | YouTube
🕰️ 58 min | 🗓️ 12/13/2021
✅ Time saved: 56 min
