Africa is becoming a dynamic market for clean, distributed energy. All across the continent, solar, batteries, generators, and microgrids are giving people energy cheaply — and providing greater reliability in a region where many central grids remain unreliable. But that dynamism can come at a cost. Systems are often complex. They lack standards. And it’s often difficult for buildings and businesses to manage and integrate them in concert with an incomplete grid. And that's where our guest, Ugwe...
May 18, 2021•52 min•Ep. 39
This episode was first aired on February 25, 2021. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Stephen Lacey, the founder of Post Script Audio. Stephen has been the creative force behind many of the top podcasts about climate change and clean energy. And, he also happens to be our executive producer. He’s been making podcasts about the energy transition since 2006. This was the dawn of on-demand audio and the modern clean energy industry—and he had a front-row seat to both. The conversation was r...
Feb 26, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 30
Power plants are massive, complicated pieces of machinery. Gears. Pipes. Boilers. Generators. Instruments. But a new kind of model is taking shape: one that combines smartphones, software, and smart devices in homes. It’s called a virtual power plant. And it’s what our guest, Matt Duesterberg, is working to build every day. Matt is the co-founder of a company called Ohmconnect. It was founded in 2014 to make it easy for individuals to help clean up the grid. In December 2020, OhmConnect picked u...
Feb 25, 2021•39 min•Ep. 38
This episode was originally released on January 15, 2021. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Donnel Baird, the founder and CEO of BlocPower. BlocPower is a Brooklyn, New York startup electrifying and weatherizing buildings in underserved communities — slashing pollution and saving money. This includes housing units, churches, community centers. BlocPower was founded in 2012. It has raised venture capital from Kapor Capital and Andreesen Horowitz. But that process was not easy for a compa...
Jan 14, 2021•58 min•Ep. 34
This episode was originally published on December 2, 2020. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Cathy Zoi, the CEO of EVgo — one of the country’s largest electric vehicle charging networks. Cathy has seen it all. She’s studied and worked in oil, gas and clean energy since the Reagan Era. Now at the helm of EVgo, she’s convinced the future of mobility is coming fast. Cathy was on the team that developed the original Energy Star rating when she worked at the Environmental Protection Agency. ...
Dec 02, 2020•49 min•Ep. 29
This episode was originally released on October 23, 2020. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Steph Speirs, the CEO of Solstice. Solstice is a community-solar company with a mission to bring clean electricity to underserved communities. Steph Speirs grew up as one of three kids, a first generation immigrant, in Hawaii. She knows what poverty can feel like, or how a poor credit score can sink a human being. Steph wanted to use her seat at the table to make room for others. Solstice’s motto...
Oct 26, 2020•51 min•Ep. 32
This episode was first released on September 22, 2020. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Michael Liebreich, the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Michael had been many things, from entry-level analyst to Olympic skier to a crestfallen dot-com entrepreneur. And then in the mid-2000s, he found his home in the clean energy economy. Unemployed, he used a team of interns to begin compiling data on clean energy investment. And that turned into a 140-employee business that Bloomberg LP ...
Sep 22, 2020•57 min•Ep. 28
This episode was originally published on September 4, 2020 In this episode: Emily’s conversation with CNN host and green-jobs pioneer Van Jones. Van may be best known for “The Van Jones Show” and “The Redemption Project,” which both air on CNN. He is also the author of three best-selling books, including “The Green Collar Economy.” But long before his high-profile career, Van was a powerful voice for bringing clean energy jobs to black and brown communities. He helped spearhead the Green Jobs Ac...
Sep 03, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 35
This episode originally aired August 16, 2021. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Dan Yates, the co-founder and former CEO of Opower. Opower was based on a simple premise: send paper mailers to utility customers comparing their electricity use to their neighbors. And if people saw they were doing poorly, they’d make changes. It worked. Over time, Opower inked deals with the world’s biggest power companies and started processing vast amounts of smart meter data -- making it arguably the b...
Jul 29, 2020•53 min•Ep. 27
This episode was originally published on May 28, 2020. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Gia Schneider, the co-founder and CEO of Natel Energy. Natel is commercializing a turbine for low-head hydro applications—at locations like old dams, irrigation canals and run-of-river projects. And it’s designed to protect wildlife and drastically cut the ecological impact of hydropower. Gia has a long history in energy. She worked at Constellation Energy and in Accenture’s utility practice. She st...
May 28, 2020•53 min•Ep. 26
This episode was originally published on April 30, 2020. In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Saul Griffith, the founder and chief scientist at Otherlab. Otherlab is an R&D incubator and accelerator that helps pair startups in robotics and renewable energy with government labs and corporate investors. It has partnered with NASA, the Navy, the Department of Energy, Google, Facebook, GE and Ford to help build and fund projects in energy, automation, and robotics in service of 100% decarb...
Apr 30, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 25
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Robyn Beavers, the co-founder and CEO of Blueprint Power. Blueprint works with real estate companies to turn their buildings into power plants. It has a piece of software that helps building owners optimize their use of co-generation, fuel cells, solar or batteries. Robin has a long history in the tech, real estate, and the energy world. This conversation was recorded in January 2020 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, C...
Mar 12, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 24
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Dr. Christine Ho, the co-founder and CEO of Imprint Energy. Imprint is the company created to commercialize Christine’s invention: a tiny, zinc-based solid-state battery that can be screen printed. It’s being integrated into sensors and other tiny devices, helping power the internet-of-things. Today, Imprint is licensing its technology to multiple manufacturers, and it’s printed hundreds of thousands of batteries. This conversation was recorded in 2020 ...
Feb 08, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 23
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Dr. Etosha Cave, the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Opus 12. Opus 12 is a team of engineers, electrochemists and materials scientists working on a technology that converts carbon dioxide into usable products. If the tech works at commercial scale, it would be a vital solution for slashing CO2 from industrial sources. The company has brought in about $20 million in funding. This conversation was recorded in 2019 in front of a live audience at...
Dec 13, 2019•56 min•Ep. 22
This episode was originally released on November 15, 2018 In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Lynn Jurich, the co-founder and CEO of Sunrun. Sunrun was a pioneer in the early days of residential solar. Today, it’s the biggest installer of home solar systems in America -- and one of the industry’s biggest success stories. Sunrun also partners with utilities on using batteries and rooftop systems to create virtual power plants. Lynn talks about how she convinced homeowners and banks to inve...
Nov 15, 2019•51 min•Ep. 37
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Mateo Jaramillo, the co-founder and CEO of Form Energy. Form is working on a new kind of long-duration battery that could change the power sector. In the early 2000s, Mateo deployed some of the first battery systems in New York for demand response — seeing the grid services potential well before anyone else did. He went on to start the storage unit at Tesla, launching and building the Powerwall business. This conversation was recorded in 2019 in front o...
Nov 08, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 21
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Xavier Helgesen, the co-founder and former CEO of Zola Electric. Zola is a provider of solar and storage systems in Africa. Since its founding in 2012 as Off-Grid Electric, the company has served over a million people with clean power in five countries. Over the years, Zola has evolved from a small, scrappy startup that offered basic energy packages into a hardware software company that installs sleek, scalable power systems that rival the grid in perfo...
Oct 02, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 20
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Laura Schewel, the founder and CEO of StreetLight Data. While at UC Berkeley, Laura got interested giving EV owners more information about how they were driving their cars. She ended up uncovering a data gold mine in the process. Laura built a company that now processes over 100 billion data points and provides transportation and urban planners with a granular view of how roads, bike lanes and sidewalks are being used. This conversation was recorded in ...
Sep 05, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 19
This episode was originally published on August 2, 2019 In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Matt Rogers, the co-founder of Nest. Nest is best known for its elegant learning thermostat, the first major breakout hit in the smart home space. Google later acquired the company for $3.2 billion. Matt is a former Apple engineer who applied design principles from the iPod and the iPad to smart thermostats — jolting an industry badly in need of change. This conversation was recorded live at Powerh...
Aug 02, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 33
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Gene Berdichevsky, the co-founder and CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies. Sila is developing a new lithium-ion battery chemistry that uses silicon in place of graphite, leading to an improvement in battery density by 20 percent. Gene was the seventh employee at Tesla, where he developed the Roadster’s battery. For the last nine years, his team at Sila has been working on a drop-in replacement for today’s lithium-ion batteries. This conversation was recorded i...
Jun 24, 2019•59 min•Ep. 18
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Kathy Hannun, the co-founder and president of Dandelion. Dandelion is a company reinventing home geothermal systems. The company uses a proprietary drilling technique, simple product design, and financing to cut the cost of ground-source heating and cooling. For seven years, Kathy was on a team at Alphabet X — formerly Google X — evaluating technology moonshots. That’s where she stumbled upon the opportunity in home geothermal. This conversation was rec...
Apr 29, 2019•33 min•Ep. 17
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Terry Jester, a solar technology veteran. Terry has seen it all in her four-decade career in solar and electronics. As both an engineer and an executive, she’s learned that timing is everything in the energy business. Terry started her solar career in the late 1970s. She’s since held operations and engineering positions at Shell, Siemens, SunPower, and Solaria — witnessing the initial evolution and eventual explosion of solar firsthand. This conversatio...
Mar 07, 2019•50 min•Ep. 16
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with David Crane, the former CEO of NRG. Today, David is a clean energy investor. Back in 2015, he was CEO of NRG, one of the biggest power producers in America. And he was fired by his board for his ambitious plan to make the company a renewable energy titan. This conversation was recorded in 2019 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and investors to help them lead the next ce...
Feb 11, 2019•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 15
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Bryan Birsic, the co-founder and former CEO of Wunder Capital. Since its launch in 2014, Wunder has exploded onto the solar scene. It quickly became the top financier in commercial solar—which is a big deal, because commercial solar is extremely hard to finance. But Wunder cracked the code. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and inv...
Dec 06, 2018•58 min•Ep. 14
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Bertrand Piccard, the co-pilot of Solar Impulse, the first solar-electric plane to circumnavigate the globe. Bertrand is a Swiss aviator who spent 15 years of his life obsessed with flying a solar airplane across the world. He didn’t just see it as a novel technical feat—he wanted to prove the extraordinary capabilities of renewable energy. This conversation was recorded in 2018 at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leadi...
Sep 26, 2018•47 min•Ep. 13
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with John Berger, the Founder and CEO of Sunnova. Sunnova is a Texas-based company putting hybrid solar-battery systems on homes across the country. The company is backed by players you wouldn’t expect: oil & gas investors who are looking for the next big thing in energy. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and investors to help them ...
Sep 13, 2018•57 min•Ep. 12
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Ryan Popple, co-founder and executive director of Proterra. Proterra is one of the largest makers of electric buses and chargers in the world. Electric buses are quickly gaining market share—and Proterra has a pipeline of sales that covers 10% of the U.S. transit fleet. But it took many years to reach that stage. Proterra has faced numerous technical redesigns and lumpy consumer adoption over the years. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front of...
Aug 22, 2018•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 11
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Susan Kennedy, the founder of Advanced Microgrid Solutions. AMS created a platform for managing battery storage across buildings, turning them into virtual power plants. The company raised $34 million from a “who’s who” of strategic investors—and was eventually acquired by the battery developer Fluence. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leading corpora...
Jul 31, 2018•1 hr•Ep. 10
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Leila Madrone, the founder and chief technology officer of Sunfolding. Leila is a former NASA engineer who used her expertise to create a new kind of tracking system that eliminates expensive components and reduces the installed cost of solar. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and investors to help them lead the next century of cle...
Jun 18, 2018•46 min•Ep. 9
In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Billy Parish, the co-founder and CEO of Mosaic. Mosaic is the top underwriter of home solar loans in America. It is creating the financial tools for homeowners to easily get solar on their roofs. Billy didn’t start in finance: he actually dropped out of Yale to pursue a career in activism. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA. Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and inve...
May 09, 2018•40 min•Ep. 8
