Insights from the Physical World

Analysis, investment perspectives, and fund news across energy transition and resilient infrastructure systems.

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EPDs: as easy as 1, 2, 3?

EPDs: as easy as 1, 2, 3?

Construction data is hard, and not as simple as do-re-mi (last Jackson 5 reference I promise). Sites and projects are complex, prone to going over budget and creeping out of scope. This makes it hard to understand which materials have gone into a building and where they came from. But why does this matter?

March 21, 2024
The European Built World Funding Report

The European Built World Funding Report

We see a lot of deals at PT1, across different sectors, stages, and countries. Often, we’d sit and go through our data, trying to find trends and stories to tell. Occasionally, we’d go through other databases as well, and see how the market was doing. These were always internal exercises, designed to help us reflect and take stock of what was going on. This time, we’re doing something differently. We’ve analysed every single transaction that took place in Europe from September 23 and February 24 (data from Crunchbase). Here, in our first public report, we can share the results.

March 15, 2024
The Plattenbauten Legacy: Decarbonising Multi-family Buildings

The Plattenbauten Legacy: Decarbonising Multi-family Buildings

Real estate is carbon-intensive. Operating and constructing buildings makes up 40% of the EU’s energy consumption – and the majority is from operations. All realistic net-zero pathways have decarbonising buildings as a central part. But we’re behind target. The residential retrofit rate in Germany has hovered at 1% of housing stock for the last few years. At this rate it will take over a century to decarbonise residential buildings alone (way beyond our targets).

February 27, 2024
Transforming Real Estate Assets Into Energy Assets – Part 2

Transforming Real Estate Assets Into Energy Assets – Part 2

Across the world real estate developers and cities are planning, building and retrofitting buildings and urban districts with the aim of reducing the environmental impact of the built environment. The path to net-zero requires the development and implementation of a renewable energy strategy. In this article, we will discuss the challenges associated with integrating green energy production on-site, and how innovative technologies can address those challenges while opening new opportunities.

December 13, 2023
Sodium-ion batteries: Europe’s green power boost

Sodium-ion batteries: Europe’s green power boost

The United Nations predicts that European renewable energy usage will double by 2027. Germany set a new record by generating 57.7% of its net power from renewables in the first half of 2023. One of the biggest barriers to a 100% renewable grid however, is the variability of renewables. Wind and the sun are not constant, and the windiest and sunniest areas are often far from many cities.

November 27, 2023
Powering the Future: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Large Language Models (LLM) in Real Estate

Powering the Future: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Large Language Models (LLM) in Real Estate

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being increasingly utilised in the real estate industry to improve efficiency, enhance decision-making processes and offer personalised experiences to buyers and sellers. More and more startups and corporates are developing new value propositions along this value chain. We at PT1 believe that AI in real estate is revolutionary! PT1 is investing into more transformative real estate technologies, and we stand ready to support founders who are building in this space.

August 15, 2023
Transforming real estate assets into energy assets: A paradigm shift towards an iterated asset class

Transforming real estate assets into energy assets: A paradigm shift towards an iterated asset class

The housing industry is in a tough spot right now because of several problems. Some of the main issues are broken supply chains, rising costs and a shortage of labour. Factors such as global climate change, worldwide conflicts and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic are exacerbating the situation.

June 27, 2023
The time value of carbon on our investment decision making

The time value of carbon on our investment decision making

The transition to net zero is underway. We need to minimise our emissions to have any hopes of maintaining our 1.5°C targets. Doing so requires

May 30, 2023
What would a perfect energy storage system in the UK look like?

What would a perfect energy storage system in the UK look like?

The UK’s energy grid needs help. Sometimes we generate too much renewable energy, and we have nowhere to put it, or we can’t move it to somewhere where it needs to go. This doesn’t sound like a problem, except having “extra electricity” flowing around the grid is bad.

February 1, 2023