The Energy Wave
This week a good friend of mine decided to shut down his factory and close the business. After 27 years. It was a great factory manufacturing super nice glassware for tier-1 customers and also providing employment for many workers in the town. What killed it were the high energy proces, in particular the natural gas which skyrocketed in Europe, especially after the Russian invasion on Ukraine. Glassworks are super dependent on energy, as it takes a lot of it to melt glass. So this is not unexpected they struggle to survive where energy proces are high and thrive where energy is cheap. It probably makes much more sense to craft a glass bowl somewhere in, say, Kazakhstan, and ship it over to Europe, than pay Kazakhstan (or Russia) for the energy to manufacture the same bowl in Europe. At the same time the lighting control software business has accelerated significantly during the same period of time, with energy savings being the key feature driving sales. It turns out that adding a smal...