Watt It Takes

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 performance. This conversation was recorded in 2019 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CAThis podcast is brought to you by DLA Piper, a full-service global law firm that works with leading technology companies and their investors to meet all their legal needs. It’s also brought to you by AES, a fortune-500 company helping organizations transition to new, smarter and cleaner solutions. AES is working toward a world that is 100% carbon-free.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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 2019 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CAThis podcast is brought to you by DLA Piper, a full-service global law firm that works with leading technology companies and their investors to meet all their legal needs. It’s also brought to you by AES, a fortune-500 company helping organizations transition to new, smarter and cleaner solutions. AES is working toward a world that is 100% carbon-free.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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

This episode was originally published on August 2, 2019In 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 Powerhouse’s headquarters in 2019. 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, every hour of the day. Learn more.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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 in 2019 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA.This podcast is brought to you by DLA Piper, a full-service global law firm that works with leading technology companies and their investors to meet all their legal needs. It’s also brought to you by AES, a fortune-500 company helping organizations transition to new, smarter and cleaner solutions. AES is working toward a world that is 100% carbon-free.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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 recorded in 2019 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA.This podcast is brought to you by DLA Piper, a full-service global law firm that works with leading technology companies and their investors to meet all their legal needs. It’s also brought to you by AES, a fortune-500 company helping organizations transition to new, smarter and cleaner solutions. AES is working toward a world that is 100% carbon-free.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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 conversation was recorded in 2019 in front of a live audience at the Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy forum in Denver, CO.This podcast is brought to you by DLA Piper, a full-service global law firm that works with leading technology companies and their investors to meet all their legal needs. It’s also brought to you by AES, a fortune-500 company helping organizations transition to new, smarter and cleaner solutions. AES is working toward a world that is 100% carbon-free.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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

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 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 https://www.powerhouse.fund/

John Berger, Founder and CEO of Sunnova, discusses Sunnova's hybrid solar-battery systems, the company's backing by oil & gas investors, his experience at Enron, the significance of storage in the solar industry, the role of solar and storage energy in US territories, the early days of Sunnova, and the importance of honesty and passion in starting a clean energy company.