Watt It Takes

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 sys...

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 Te...

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...

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 gr...

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 the...

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 bee...

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 moo...

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 S...

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 Oa...

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 audienc...

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 conversat...

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 headq...

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 rede...

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...

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. ...

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 audien...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Jigar Shah, the co-founder of Generate Capital. Jigar is one of the most well-known entrepreneurs and investors in the world of climate tech. He helped pioneer a financial model that allowed solar to scale massively in the US. He’s been responsible for financing billions of dollars in clean energy projects.  Today, he runs the loan programs office at the...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Sara Ross, the co-founder of Sungage Financial.  Sungage is a company that makes it easy for homeowners to finance solar or energy efficiency projects. In 2009, Sara turned her Massachusetts farmhouse into a net-zero home -- but it was expensive and difficult. She became obsessed with improving the process.  This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Nancy Pfund, founder and managing partner of DBL Partners.  Nancy is one of the most recognizable VCs in the clean energy space. DBL made early investments in companies like Tesla, PowerLight, and Nextracker. Nancy has been featured by Forbes and Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business. This conversation was recorded in 2018 in front o...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Scott Clavenna, the co-founder of Greentech Media. Launched in 2007, Greentech Media quickly became the premiere brand in cleantech journalism and research. The company took a forward-thinking and sometimes-edgy approach to covering the emerging world of cleantech and climatetech. This conversation was recorded in 2017 in front of a live audience at Power...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Dan Shugar, the founder and CEO of Nextracker.  Dan lives, breaths and bleeds solar. Some call him the "King Midas" of solar, because he's turned so many ventures into gold. He’s been responsible for some of the biggest and most consequential solar projects and companies ever built. This conversation was recorded in 2017 in front of a live audience at Pow...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Andrew Birch, the co-founder of Sungevity. Sungevity was an early success story in residential solar. But after 10 years in business, it went bankrupt in 2017.  In this interview, recorded five months after the company’s collapse, Birchy joined us on stage to talk about what happened. His story tells us a lot about the turbulence that defines the solar in...

In this episode: Emily’s conversation with Dick Swanson, the founder of SunPower, one of the most successful solar companies of all time.  Dick is a solar legend, who has been working to make solar cheaper and better since the 1970s. This conversation was recorded in 2017 in front of a live audience at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, CA.  Powerhouse partners with leading corporations and inv...