Today marks exactly one year since we launched Current±, a publication we very much intended to both demystify and accelerate the clean energy transition.
In truth, Current± – at least as a concept – is a little older than that still. Having covered worldwide solar and battery storage markets for many a year, we felt the earth beginning to shift beneath our feet and, around a year before Current± was eventually launched, we began to research a new title tasked with covering an energy transition that was gathering pace.
That research effort became a more significant endeavour than most of us had realised. The more we gathered insight and spoke to people in the industry, the more the site grew, as the convergence between renewables, grids, new technologies and e-mobility truly shifted gear.
Current±, or Project Medium Toblerone as it was initially known within Solar Media Towers, quickly took shape and what we have now is perhaps the broadest publication we have ever launched.
And a year on, the numbers speak for themselves.
Since launching last May, traffic to the site has more than trebled and Current± has taken a life of its own. The industry has played a major role in that shift, with the last five months in particular being amongst the busiest I can recall in the industry.
But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from our first year with Current±, it’s that the industry is nowhere near its max speed or scale. Reaction to the Committee on Climate Change’s net zero report showed not only that there is much, much more left to do, but that the green economy stands waiting to accept that mantle. With the flash of a pen Theresa May could unleash an economic, industrial and societal transformation unlike anything that’s preceded it, and we’ll be ready to report on that transition with renewed vigour.
We’re not standing still either. With a year under our belt, we felt now was the right time to make some slight tweaks and build on the concept that we feel has proven its worth in the industry.
Last month saw both the launch of the Current± Hub, our smart directory for companies navigating the energy transition, and our re-launched electric vehicle conference, Everything EV. Given the overriding success of the EV event, we’ve subsequently taken the decision to expand Everything EV into a series, the next instalment of which is taking place in Scotland this September.
We’re also particularly excited by the launch of our EnTech± series of events. Designed specifically to accelerate the technology and innovation aspects of the energy revolution, our inaugural EnTech± Summit takes place in London this October, and we’ve plenty of exciting news to break regarding the event in due course.
To cater for those two specific elements, we’ve taken the decision to rebrand the ‘Tech’ and E-Mobility’ sections of Current± as ‘EnTech’ and ‘Everything EV’ respectively. Not only will that fully align our news coverage with the event content, but focus our regular news and features an extra dose of relevance.
In addition, today we are also launching two new newsletters to complement the Daily Snapshots nearly 15,000 of you receive each morning. We’re aware that for some those Daily Snapshots are a little too frequent, so we’ve added the functionality to subscribe to fortnightly re-cap emails – starting with the EnTech and Everything EV sections of the site – which will be delivered on Thursday afternoons, recapping the most recent news from just those specific sections.
And you can only expect our coverage to increase exponentially from here. New regular features such as our Current± Disruptor series will continue, as will video interviews under the Current± Chats moniker. We’ve also a few additions to the roster in the coming months, so watch and/or listen this space.
But really, you can just expect more of the same. More news, more in-depth insight, more expert interviews and more guidance as the energy transition accelerates further.
Here’s to another 12 months of Current±.
