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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: Our 2026 Grid PredictionsÂ
We’re barely into 2026, and already it’s full of surprises. This month, Julia and I, along with two of our senior advisors, share our predictions for the year in energy.
We’re also proud to share a new Alliance to Save Energy report co-authored by our own Matt Anderson on how hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft can leverage investments in distributed resources and energy efficiency to create more capacity on the grid.
The Ad Hoc Gist: Four Things Our Team Thinks You Missed in 2025Â
As 2025 wraps up, we asked our team a simple question: What’s one development that flew under the radar this year—something overlooked in the usual energy market coverage—that you believe will have a significant impact in 2026 and beyond?
The answers surprised us. From the politics of electricity bills to a quiet federal tax provision that could reshape residential heating and cooling, this month’s Gist highlights four trends worth watching as we head into the new year.
The Ad Hoc Gist: Who Pays For a Resilient Grid?
The grid is reaching a breaking point. Utilities say they need a trillion dollars for upgrades by 2030. Regulators say: prove it. Somewhere between California’s wildfire zones and Florida’s hurricane corridors, we’re entering a period where every investment decision carries real political and economic consequences.
The core question is no longer whether we need a more resilient grid. It’s how much resilience is enough and who pays?
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Press
What Utilities Learned from Winter Storm Fern
When Winter Storm Fern swept across the United States last month, it served as a stress test for the grid hardening measures that utilities have employed in the last few years. As a large swath of the U.S. froze, there was intense scrutiny of how the grid would hold up.
In Texas, a combination of infrastructure winterization and a diversified grid — including new batteries — allowed ERCOT to hold the line. It was the Southeast that ultimately saw the most outages, due to frozen equipment and iced-over lines.
But the debate over why the grid mostly held continues, with stakeholders tending to view the conversation through the lens of their own resource of choice. Even the U.S. Department of Energy has entered the fray, emphasizing the minimal role of coal in keeping the lights on.
Ad Hoc Group founder and CEO Jim Kapsis joined Latitude Media editor Lisa Martine Jenkins on Latitude Dispatch to dissect the impact of the storm.
Where the Smart Climate Tech Venture Money Is Going in 2025
This year is shaping up to be a dramatic one for climate tech investors.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is set to shift the US landscape, with the possible rollback of key provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, Energy Department loans drying up and weaker regulations. Beyond the US, the prospect of more trade wars is scrambling the economy in ways that will determine which climate tech sectors to bet on.
Meanwhile, headwinds for hydrogen are throwing doubt on its viability, and artificial intelligence is now fully on investors’ radars.
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.
Podcast
Hear more from our leadership on My Climate Journey and Technopolis.