The end-purpose as driving force - Xavier Jaspar, Laborelec

What prompted you to choose the energy sector? 

I completed a specialisation in digital telecom, but then chose to leave the field. I didn't want to work on technologies that would one day enable people to watch videos on their smartphone. It wasn't an inspiring end-purpose to me, and the idea that everyone would be logged in round the clock by phone, to the point of no longer talking to the person right next to them struck me as absurd!
Around that time, I chanced upon a bit of an interview, one part of which stuck with me: “What put an end to slavery was not so much that man suddenly became good, but rather that it became cheaper to run machines on (fossil) energy than to feed slaves.” The person speaking was Jean-Marc Jancovici, but I didn’t know that at the time.
It is admittedly a deeply disturbing thought, but it had the merit of bringing home to me the strategic importance of energy. Energy is a common good, and access to energy has become even a right and a public service. It is also strategic to countries, as the Ukrainian crisis reveals most particularly. It lies at the heart of the ecological transition, and that is an end-purpose that inspires me.
I came to Laborelec in 2008 as an expert. I then became manager to a team made up of mathematicians, technical software developers and embedded software developers. 

What are your responsibilities today?

In 14 years, while the title of my position has remained more or less the same, the content behind it has definitely shifted!
At the beginning, my top priority was people management, in other words, turning group of co-workers into a team. It’s not always easy at age 30 to manage people who in many cases are twice your age! And yet, within a few years, a sense of team and real dynamism had set in, facilitated among other things by the arrival of new hires. Alongside that, I got involved in the project management process: how to do industrial IT, the right way, guaranteeing quality and working together.
The rest of the story that follows is a team effort. 
At the outset, we had barely any involvement in R&D. Before the energy transition gained resonance, we were more involved in Laborelec’s historical focuses, around thermal power plants.
From 2012-2014 on, we gradually worked to speed up product development, and at the same time, the energy transition gained pace, with increased digital needs in the research programmes. My role as manager involved managing a team that combined both R&D and product development. 
Today, we do a lot of R&D around the energy transition. We have to manage both the long-term horizon of R&D and the very short-term of digital products. This remains a challenge, both in identifying the right priorities (short-term versus long-term) and organising the teams (R&D versus industry). A number of topics have come to light gradually, in particular energy management systems (EMS), a topic I have been pushing for since 2012. In 2021, this EMS theme, which became a priority programme for ENGIE R&I, is now being addressed by other colleagues, and I contribute to this programme as CTO.
Concurrently, I have been CIO of Laborelec since 2015. 

What do you find most exciting about your work? 

First of all, the people! I love the contact, I love that people work together, collaborate and create a positive dynamic towards a positive end-purpose. 
My other motivating force is the desire to put technology directly to work for the company. I wouldn’t be able to work solely for the beauty of technology, with no concrete value in the short-term. Working on a project that is technologically less advanced may seem less stimulating to the engineer in me, but it’s very satisfying to see the value that is created, especially when it is still going strong five years down the road. 
My passions include purpose, developing products, working with people and collaborating.
What I love about products is their replicability: you develop something once, and it gets used many times, providing a benefit for a long time. The end-purpose in our work is being useful: this can be measured for instance by an increase in the company’s revenue (with a product or service that sells), or an improvement in the company’s operating efficiency. 
The ultimate purpose is to contribute to making the world a better place in the future. On that score, I’m lucky enough to be part of an environment where everything is starting to converge quite nicely: being at the heart of the energy transition and creating products that will contribute to it.

Do you have other passions, outside work? 

Yes, as an extrovert, I like to meet new people and converse. You wouldn’t necessarily think so seeing me at work, because I'm always on the ball, and every minute is accounted for. In my personal life, though, I can be more laid back and enjoy spending time with my family, my friends and meeting new people.
I love listening to music, especially at home, all over the house. What I enjoy is turning any task into an opportunity to listen to music, although the best way is to sit back and just listen. 
What kind of music? I would say pop rock, alternative, or classical music. To give you an idea: Oscar and the Wolf, Archive, AaRON, Ozark Henry, Imagine Dragons, Radiohead, dEUS and Led Zeppelin, but also Bach, Rachmaninov and Mozart.
How would you say that research and innovation are important to the Group? 
They are important in positioning ENGIE early enough on the right market niches, or in making ENGIE more efficient, with the right first versions of products, whether these are developed in-house or sourced by integrating properly evaluated market technologies. So many of my colleagues are working on sourcing for start-ups or testing technologies. 
Let me give you an example: the innovation on solar farms is such that gaining a few fractions of a percent on farms of hundreds of megawatts can determine whether a project is won or lost. 

How do you see the future of energy? 

There is the realistic (or pessimistic?) vision with a world where our resources will not be sufficient to sustain our current lifestyle. This will require huge efforts from the population (to adapt their way of life) and they might end up blaming the three-fold crisis (energy & resources, economy and climate) on politics, rather than becoming informed and thoughtful players. I am afraid that the future will not be rosy in that respect — to put it mildly — and there will be a duty to communicate and educate for politicians and companies working on resources. Even if this version of the future is difficult, it remains fascinating and demanding for those who work in the field: the duty to do the best possible with the resources available to us. 
In the optimistic version, new technologies, such as nuclear fusion or truly phenomenal storage technologies, would be identified or fast tracked, while restraint would be developed with respect to our resources. In passing, some of these technologies would force ENGIE to pivot sharply. Just imagine, for instance, that seasonal storage capacities become such that it is no longer relevant to have a power grid in certain regions, and that each house or group of houses is autonomous via other means.

How do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

I have trouble picturing myself individually, and instead I think about the company: in 10 years’ time, I would like today’s products to be great successes, and for the seeds sown in R&D to have borne fruit and become products that help with the energy transition. Once again, what interests me is the end-purpose!

Is there a quote or a phrase that really speaks to you?

Let’s go further together.