John O’Donnell co-founded and ran two solar thermal companies. He watched as the technology shifted from being the most promising utility-scale solar technology, to getting out-competed by photovoltaics everywhere.

But he stayed passionate about heat. Today, he’s CEO of Rondo Energy, which makes a “heat battery” for industrial applications using bricks, heating coils, and cheap, intermittent renewables.

And that cheap PV that made solar thermal so difficult is now a critical input for decarbonizing factories and processing plants.

John distills his decade and a half in the solar thermal business to a simple lesson: don't be too innovative.

In this episode, we talk with John O’Donnell about the different methods for decarbonizing industrial heat, the use cases for heat batteries, and lessons learned from his days in solar thermal. 

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