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Joe McDonald says close to 30% of a business power bill can go to trading desks, balancing costs and wholesale market fees most customers never see. Behind suppliers can sit five or six more intermediaries, each taking a cut before the energy ever arrives. Is that a market working as designed, or one taking more than it should?Joe is Founder & CEO of Tem Energy, and has spent over a decade inside the middle of the energy market, watching where the money actually goes on its way to the meter. He's now building the AI infrastructure to strip those middlemen out of the chain, with Tem already transacting over £1 billion a year across thousands of UK businesses, backed by a fresh Series B to fund expansion into Texas and Australia.They cover:
- Why up to 30% of a business energy bill can go to trading desks, balancing costs and wholesale fees layered behind the supplier.
- How forward market contracts fix energy prices for months or years and why "shape matching" between generators and buyers creates a shadow market worth billions.
- The P442 grid charging exemption, and why a change this small took two years to push through.
- Why Joe believes Tem's AI agents could remove around 90% of labor costs in energy transactions, and why he sees that trade-off as necessary.
- Tem Energy's plan after its Series B - expanding into Texas and Australia before Europe and the case for energy AI becoming the UK's next trillion-dollar industry.
Want to dig deeper into where that 30% actually goes, or how forward contracts are priced? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, for free sign up also gets you trial access to Modo Energy's research.You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.Chapters:0:00 Introduction1:24 The Real Cost Layers Behind A Business Energy Bill3:17 The Mechanics Of Forward Energy Contracts5:25 Shape Matching Explained6:35 The Shadow Market Behind The Grid11:12 Pricing And Settling Energy Trades With AI26:46 The P442 Grid Charging Exemption36:29 The Slow Pace Of Energy Market Regulation37:37 The Same Problem Across Global Energy Markets38:36 Cutting Utility Operating Costs With AI39:22 Comparing This Model To Octopus And Kraken40:40 Joe McDonald's Contrarian View On Energy Markets41:34 Cutting 90% Of Energy Labor Costs With AI
