Watt It Takes

There are 46,000 public EV charging stations across the United States. But with 32% of charging stations down at any given time, maintaining them is a big challenge for the industry.Minimizing charger downtime isn’t easy – differences in manufacturers, network providers, and utilities can mean wide variation in hardware or software between stations. That complexity can make fixing technical problems a challenge.And that's exactly what our guest, ChargerHelp! Co-founder and CEO Kameale Terry, is working to solve.ChargerHelp's purpose is to give EV drivers the best experience possible. It analyzes operational data about chargers across the US – and then sends skilled personnel to fix them when they're down.Since the company's founding in 2020, ChargerHelp! has raised $2.75 million and racked up a powerful list of customers. But the mission isn't just technical – it's also human. ChargerHelp! hires local technicians, pays them a living wage, and works with partner groups to train new talent from underserved communities.Emily sat down with Kameale to hear about how ChargerHelp! is building equity into an industry from the ground up, about Kameale’s unexpected detour into electric vehicles from nonprofits and banking, and how she and her co-founder Evette Ellis built ChargerHelp! into what it is today. Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with leading global corporations to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate. Powerhouse Ventures backs seed-stage startups building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Baker Botts. Founders and leaders of clean energy companies around the world turn to Baker Botts for legal advice at every stage of their journey, from incorporation to exit. To scale your clean energy business faster, visit bakerbotts.com.

Electrifying cars and trucks is an essential part of decarbonizing mobility. But there's another vital piece in the race to zero-emissions transportation: public transit. Transit tech is emerging as one of the most exciting areas in the climate space. It's made up of companies using technology to get people out of their cars and onto shared vehicles like vans, buses, and trains. And the need has never been greater.When the pandemic threw public transportation systems around the world into turmoil, transit tech companies stepped in – reshaping routes overnight, enabling essential workers to get to their jobs. These same technologies can also be used to decarbonize transportation. That's where our guest, Remix co-founder Tiffany Chu, focuses her energy. Tiffany co-founded Remix, starting as COO before becoming CEO in 2019. She stayed in that role until March of 2021, when Remix was acquired by Via, a public transit networking company, for $100 million. Today she's the senior vice president of Remix at Via.So what made Remix an acquisition target worth $100 million? Emily sat down with Tiffany to talk about her early struggles as an architecture graduate who couldn't find a job, and how a viral tweet set her and her company on a path to change public transportation. We also talked about why transit tech is getting so much attention right now – and its role in our zero-carbon future.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 — so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with leading global corporations to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate. Powerhouse Ventures backs seed-stage startups building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

Starting in the 1960s, the United States became a world leader in building large-scale geothermal power plants.That changed in the mid-2000s with the fracking boom. Drillers turned their attention to oil and gas. And as wind, solar and batteries got cheaper, bankers and developers put their money into those resources.Today, geothermal development around the world has flatlined.But a small legion of clean energy entrepreneurs is working quietly in the background on innovations that could catalyze the geothermal industry once again.One of those entrepreneurs is Tim Latimer, Co-Founder and CEO of Fervo Energy.Fervo Energy is a geothermal developer using advanced drilling techniques from fracking in the oil and gas industry to make it easier to find and harness heat underground. Tim calls the 2020s "the geothermal decade." We can't transition to a zero-carbon grid without round-the-clock clean energy resources to supplement wind and solar - and geothermal offers that always-on feature.Tim believes a combination of technology innovation and public attention are setting up a new phase of growth.Emily spoke with Tim about how he's combining his expertise in oil & gas drilling with a dedication to solving the climate crisis -- and using his experience to break open an overlooked renewable resource.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 — so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with leading global corporations to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate. Powerhouse Ventures backs seed-stage startups building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

There are a lot of nuances to the way people perceive our warming planet. But media coverage of the issue is often catastrophic, scientifically dense, or framed exclusively around politics.So how do we talk about climate in a way that resonates across diverse groups of people?That's what our guest, Alex Blumberg, kept asking himself.Alex is an acclaimed audio journalist. He’s the co-founder of Gimlet Media and host of the Spotify climate solutions podcast How to Save a Planet.Alex has pushed the boundaries of audio storytelling. His startup-turned-podcast-empire, Gimlet Media, was one of the first breakthrough podcast companies, focusing on ambitious explanatory journalism and rich narratives. In 2019, Gimlet was acquired by Spotify for $230 million.Alex is known for a very specific brand of storytelling -- blending rigorous reporting with a casual, conversational delivery. He does it with a very deliberate purpose: to make complex topics accessible. So what does Alex think the future of climate storytelling looks like? From co-creating Planet Money to Startup to How to Save a Planet, Alex has been a major source of information and inspiration for host Emily Kirsch. Alex sat down with Emily to talk about his entrepreneurial story, how it led him to climate change, and how he thinks we can save the planet.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 — so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with leading global corporations to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate. Powerhouse Ventures backs seed-stage startups building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

The United States recently surpassed 100 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, enough to power nearly 20 million homes. But to decarbonize the power grid by 2035 and meet growing demand, the Department of Energy estimates that we'll need 1,000 gigawatts of solar capacity, providing 40% of the nation's electricity in just 15 years. That means, on average, we'll need to install solar at quadruple the rate we did in 2020.We can't achieve that growth without creative new ways to install solar in as many places as possible. That’s where our guest, Aurora Solar Co-Founder & CRO Samuel Adeyemo, comes in.Aurora is tackling one of the biggest problems in the rooftop solar industry: "soft costs."The cost of solar panels has fallen 99 percent since 1980. But the cost of everything else involved in installing those panels — the paperwork, the design, the sales process — is now higher than the hardware itself. Aurora makes software designed to tackle them all together.Over the last decade, Aurora has raised $321 million to help digitize the solar design and installation process. We talked with Sam about how he turned a challenging experience with a solar installation in Kenya into a company valued at $2 billion.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 — so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with leading global corporations to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate. Powerhouse Ventures backs seed-stage startups building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

Ninety percent of Americans want to see more renewable energy on the grid. But two-thirds of them can't directly access wind and solar — because they don't own their rooftop, can't afford the upfront cost, or can't get it from their monopoly utility.That’s where our guest, Arcadia Founder & CEO Kiran Bhatraju, comes in.“We started Arcadia to give everyone access to clean energy. It was as simple as that,” says Bhatraju. “This is a very closed, balkanized industry. And so the core idea was to build technology to make it incredibly simple for anyone that pays a power bill to access clean energy.”Arcadia is a service that connects people across the country to solar and other renewable energy projects. Virtually anywhere in the country, customers can sign onto the platform and subscribe to community solar, or buy zero-carbon power. The company's mission is to make these subscriptions as simple, transparent, and equitable as possible. And to decarbonize grids as quickly as possible.Today, Arcadia has hundreds of thousands of customers in every corner of the country. And in mid-September, the company closed a $100 million Series D funding round. It will use that capital to expand community solar options, and help people save money while buying clean energy.Emily spoke with Kiran about his upbringing in Kentucky coal country, his early career in politics and as an author, and the anxieties and exhilaration of raising over $180 million for his entrepreneurial vision.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 — so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse partners with leading corporations to help them lead the next century of clean technology innovation. Powerhouse Ventures backs founding teams building innovative software to rapidly transform our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more about Powerhouse at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

When it comes to climate tech companies, there's only one name that's known around the world: Tesla.Tesla has arguably been the defining climate tech success story of the 21st century, driving demand for electric vehicles and becoming one of the world's most valuable companies.When people think of the person behind Tesla, they think of Elon Musk. But Musk wasn't there from the very beginning — he was an early investor in the company, and didn't become CEO until five years after its founding. Martin Eberhard was there from the start. And as co-founder and founding CEO, he'd already spent years building a new kind of electric car that people would actually want to drive.Martin started Tesla with his co-founder Marc Tarpenning in 2003 during the dark ages of electric cars. Automakers had lobbied against policies promoting EVs in the 90s, and then killed their own battery-powered models. It took years of trial and error before Tesla hit the scene with the first Roadster.Martin’s time as CEO came to an end in 2007, when he was unceremoniously kicked out of the position by Tesla’s board. But he left his mark on the EV world.Emily Kirsch spoke with Martin about his long history as an entrepreneur, the origins of Tesla, cobbling together the parts for Tesla’s first EV prototype, and blowing up batteries in his yard.Watt It Takes is brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 — so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse partners with leading corporations to help them lead the next century of clean technology innovation. Powerhouse Ventures backs founding teams building innovative software to rapidly transform our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more about Powerhouse at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

There's a race going on to build the next generation of energy storage technologies using gravity, chemicals, or heat to store clean electricity for long periods of time.And that's where our guest, Ramya Swaminathan, comes in.Ramya is the CEO of a company called Malta. Malta is building an electro-chemical battery that converts renewable electricity into heat. It's like a giant version of the heat pump in your air conditioner, using commercially-available, off-the-shelf parts.Malta's heat-pump battery could provide energy to the grid for half a day -- and potentially, multiple days.In 2018, Malta was spun out of X, the moonshot factory established by Google's parent company. Since then, Malta has raised more than $76 million to commercialize its storage system. Investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a firm started by Bill Gates; Dustin Moskowitz, a Facebook founder; and Alfa Laval, a Swedish company that makes heating and cooling equipment for heavy industry.Malta aims to have power-plant sized facilities serving the grid by 2024. Emily Kirsch talked with Ramya about how her background in investment banking and hydropower development prepared her for scaling an energy storage business.Watt It Takes isbrought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 -- so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.Watt It Takes is also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse partners with leading corporations to help them lead the next century of clean technology innovation. Powerhouse Ventures backs founding teams building innovative software to rapidly transform our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more about Powerhouse at powerhouse.fund.To hear more stories of founders building our carbon-free future, hit the “subscribe” button and leave us a review.

Over the past four years, we’ve interviewed 40 incredible founders and CEOs on Watt It Takes.Our guests have inspired emerging and established leaders across the industry. And each one of these conversations has helped Emily on her own founder journey.With that in mind, in this episode of Watt It Takes, we’re turning the mic around to tell Emily’s story and the story of Powerhouse.Today, Powerhouse is an innovation firm and venture fund — working with the world’s leading companies to help connect them to hundreds of climate tech startups every year, and investing directly in software-focused clean energy and mobility startups through Powerhouse Ventures. Emily’s path to start Powerhouse was anything but conventional.We’re brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 -- so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.We’re also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.

Andy Karsner is a highly influential entrepreneur, investor, diplomat, and strategist working to transform the world’s energy systems.In June, he was voted onto ExxonMobil’s board by activist shareholders as a way to hold the oil giant accountable on climate change.Back in the 90s, Andy was developing large gas and diesel power plants. But then he found the wind business. Andy started a company called Enercorp, which developed some of the earliest large-scale wind farms around the world.In 2005, Andy was chosen by President George W. Bush to lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. That meant directing R&D and deployment efforts across wind solar, fuel cells, biofuels and other up-and-coming technologies. Today, he’s a Senior Strategist and Space Cowboy X, the innovation lab run by Google's parent company Alphabet. He also co-founded a non-profit investment group called Elemental Excelerator, which has invested $43 million into climate tech startups.Emily sat down with Andy at the 2021 MIT Energy Conference earlier this year, just after the Texas blackouts. They talked about his early days in renewables, the massive tech and market changes he oversaw in government, and the new challenges for entrepreneurs in today's maturing industry. We’re brought to you by Google. Google is pioneering the electricity systems of the future with its effort to source 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 -- so that everyone can have round-the-clock, carbon-free energy everywhere they operate, in every hour of the day. Learn more.We’re also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is advancing the connected power plant of the future across five continents.Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and investors to help them lead the next century of clean technology innovation. Our fund, Powerhouse Ventures, invests in founding teams building innovative software to rapidly transform our global energy and mobility systems. You can learn more about Powerhouse at powerhouse.fund