Jan Rosenow is the Vice President for Global Strategy at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), a leading non-profit focused on the clean energy transition. With over two decades of experience as a policy advisor, consultant, and researcher, Jan has played a pivotal role in advancing sustainability globally, across the board. He advises governments, international organisations, and businesses, while contributing to academic research, including numerous influential peer-reviewed papers.
A strong advocate for the renewable energy transition, Jan is also an expert on the integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into the clean energy ecosystem. He drives the conversation on how EVs can support energy systems, reduce emissions, and promote sustainability. His expertise spans vehicles and home solutions, including heat pumps. With the Heat Pump Summit just around the corner, we spoke to Jan to learn more about his journey, the role of EVs in the green energy transition, and how modern technology is developing into an interconnected ecosystem of sustainability.
Can you tell us about your role in your network?
I am the Vice President for Global Strategy at the RAP, a clean energy non-profit organisation. I also hold various board positions supporting a number of organisations in the energy and climate space. Over the course of my career I advised governments, international organisations, businesses and non-profits. I am also an active researcher being affiliated with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge amongst others. My work includes peer-reviewed papers, reports, and opinion pieces.
Do you drive an EV and why?
I had an EV since 2020 and never looked back. The reason why we bought an EV was the much lower environmental impact compared to ICE vehicles and also the unbelievable performance of electric cars.
You’re a big fan of heat pumps for the home. Can you tell us why?
Quite simply, heat pumps are the most efficient heating technology ever invented. Heat pumps use clean electricity to harvest, compress and move preexisting heat from the outside to the inside of the home. Heat pumps are the key technology to deliver clean heating and reduce carbon emissions from heating peoples’ homes. With the right set up, they can also be cheap to run.
How have heat pumps in EVs made EV tech, and the EV experience better?
EVs do not generate a lot of waste heat that can be recycled for heating the interior of the car in winter. In the past, EVs used resistive heating to do this but that’s not very efficient compared to heat pumps. Because of that, heat pumps can extend the range of EVs in winter. Integrating a heat pump into an EV can substantially mitigate the adverse effects of cold weather on driving range, often reducing range loss by approximately half compared to vehicles without this technology.
As well as EVs, you’re a big champion of the renewable energy transition. How do you see EVs and that green energy side are related?
EVs are a huge resource of storage and flexibility. They can help with integrating variable renewable generation. Charging when electricity from renewables is abundant and cheap not only lowers the costs to the energy system for integrating renewables, it also reduces consumer bills if they charge on a time of use tariff.
What role do you see Vehicle to Grid playing in the EV meets renewable energy transition?
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology allows EVs also to feed into the grid when there is a lack of clean electricity available avoiding more expanse dispatchable generation capacity or storage. A few years ago I was rather sceptical of this primarily because of concerns about the battery lifetime and degradation. That has changed – experience shows that V2G does not negatively impact on batteries as rather than a rapid discharge batteries are only slowly feeding electricity into the grid which can even improve battery life.
Where do you think EVs and green energy will be in five years time in 2030?
EVs will have become the dominant technology in many countries when it comes to new cars. It will take another 10 years or so for most EVs on the road to be EVs. Electricity that fuels these vehicles will be close to zero carbon by 2030 in many places making EVs even cleaner than they are today.
Thank you to Jan for his time and insights, and to the team at the RAP for their phenomenal work in pushing the energy transition to the next level. Check out the upcoming Heat Pump Summit to find out more about how this game-changing tech is shaping the ecosystems of the future. As Jan highlights, sustainable technology has moved above and beyond simple cars. Now, they form part of a home, to travel, to grid feedback loop in which everything to make the world more aligned, streamlined, and efficient.
