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The Gist
The Gist is the monthly newsletter of The Ad Hoc Group that covers everything at the intersection of climate tech and policy. Subscribe at the link here to have The Gist mailed to your inbox each month.
The Ad Hoc Gist: It’s Getting Hot In Here
As I write this note, half the country faces a record-setting heat wave while wildfires burn north of Los Angeles. This month, I interviewed Katie MacDonald, the cofounder of Tailwind, on how to get more investors to back resilience tech.
The Ad Hoc Gist: Beware Climate Tech’s Pits of Despair
In this month’s Gist, my colleague Max Tuttman draws on his Ad Hoc and ARPA-E experience to explain how climate tech startups can avoid falling into some common traps, which he calls the “Pits of Despair.”
The Ad Hoc Gist: Geothermal, It’s So Hot Right Now
Geothermal technology is getting a lot of attention lately. There are essentially two types: geothermal power and geothermal heating and cooling. The former can deliver clean power 24/7, while the latter can heat and cool buildings super efficiently.
We enlisted two experts, Joselyn Lai, CEO of Bedrock Energy, and Michael Campos, investor at Energy Impact Partners, to help us understand the enthusiasm, challenges, and bold predictions for the future of geothermal technologies.
Blog
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People as Moat – Ad Hoc Expands into Search
In climate tech, we talk a lot about, well, technology. But talk with most CEOs and they’ll share that the hardest part of their job is figuring out how to hire and retain the right people. In my experience, a company’s ability to hire and effectively onboard the right people is what differentiates successful businesses from those that falter. Because, as a CEO, you can have a great vision, but if you don’t have the right people, you can’t execute it.
Press
The Regulator’s Dilemma, Part 3
Virtual power plants (VPPs) are poised to revolutionize the power sector by orchestrating distributed energy resources (DERs) — like smart thermostats, household appliances, solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles — into real-time networks of dispatchable capacity. The opportunity is especially significant for advanced VPPs, which aggregate multiple device types, are fully automated and optimized by price signals, provide multiple reliable grid services, are compensated on a pay-for-performance basis, and serve as a true supply-side resource.
Advanced VPPs can offer grid operators significant value by reducing stress on generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure at lower cost than conventional solutions like large-scale batteries, peaker plants, or additional poles and wires.
C&IÂ customer needs are rapidly changing. How can utilities maximize their relationship?
In the blink of an eye, large commercial and industrial customers present big challenges and opportunities.
Commercial and industrial customers have historically been boring to utilities. As long as power was reliable and reasonably priced, utilities hardly ever heard from these customers. They were so boring that, according to a 2023 J.D. Power study, only 15% of C&I customers even had a utility account rep assigned to them. The feeling has been mutual. A representative from a major C&I customer with a large trucking fleet recently said “why would I want to talk to a utility? My job is to move boxes from warehouses to stores.”
Know thyself: Advice for climate tech founders
Building a climate tech company is not for the faint-of-heart.
No part of the process is easy; the tech is difficult, customers can be decidedly old-school, and regulation is often complex, for instance. And too often, the innate challenge for founders is compounded by the weight of high valuations, enormous growth targets, and limited exit options.
We don’t have all the answers for navigating what is an increasingly complicated market, but we do have some advice.
Podcast
Hear more from our leadership on My Climate Journey and Technopolis.