Today we were delighted to welcome back George Bilicic for an engaging discussion on the current power and energy landscape. George serves as Vice Chairman and Global Head of Power, Energy and Infrastructure at Lazard. In his long and distinguished career, George has over 20 years of experience at Lazard in the investment banking business with previous senior roles at Cravath, Merrill Lynch, KKR, and Sempra Energy. We last hosted George on COBT on May 2, 2023 (episode linked here) and were excited to get him back to discuss how the world has changed in the past year, especially in power. Jeff Tillery, Mike Bradley and I were thrilled to visit with George in our office in Houston.

The discussion with George today began with hitting the high points of Lazard’s recently released 2024 Levelized Cost of Energy+ (LCOE+) report (linked here). George kicked us off by providing background on the report’s history and shares this year’s key conclusions including the stabilization of renewable costs, the importance of using all forms of energy, the cost and scaling benefits associated with energy storage, and the current status of the hydrogen market. We explore the report’s comparison of generation costs, the effect of the IRA on renewable energy costs, cost of capital impacts, storage economics, and challenges and opportunities in valuing nuclear energy assets. George goes on to share his perspective on key changes from last year’s LCOE+ report to this year’s, factors driving power demand, challenges in investing in gas infrastructure, the need for new infrastructure and permitting reform, consolidation in the power industry, the need for diverse generation resources and a more organized/systemic planning approach to incorporate them into reliable grids, and the necessity for more transmission infrastructure. We also discuss how tech companies’ decisions on where to locate data centers and their energy sources can significantly impact local economies and tax revenues, global energy trends and attitudes, public investor sentiment, the influence of market dynamics on capital allocation and investment strategies, and much more. We greatly appreciate George stopping by and sharing his time and perspectives. With George’s help, we also recently had the opportunity to host Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard, this past March (episode linked here).
 
Our episode with George marks the final COBT episode recorded in our offices at the Ion. We are excited to move down the street to our new home in the Upper Kirby District. Stay tuned for our first COBT episode from the new studio!
 
Have a wonderful 4th of July!