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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: 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?
On last week’s Open Circuit podcast, my partner Julia Hamm joined hosts Stephen Lacey, Katherine Hamilton and Jigar Shah to cut through the noise and explain what’s happening behind the scenes. Julia and Jigar also went at it a bit, which I always find entertaining! Read this month’s Gist for the key takeaways.
The Ad Hoc Gist: How Urbint’s $325M Exit Proved Many VCs Wrong
Itron recently announced its $325 million acquisition of Urbint, marking a significant exit in the climate resilience software space. The deal comes at an interesting time. Climate tech M&A exits are down 25% year over year, yet acquisitions now represent 92% of all exits in the sector.
We sat down with Urbint founder and CEO, Corey Capasso, one of AHG’s first clients, to discuss what this exit signals for founders selling to utilities and how the utility market has transformed from a graveyard for startups into fertile ground.
The Ad Hoc Gist: AI is Transforming Weather Forecasting
Weather forecasting is undergoing a period of rapid transformation driven by AI and surging demand for more precise, local, and actionable information. In an age of increasingly destructive extreme weather, the right weather intelligence can be the difference between safety and calamity.
In this month’s Gist, we spoke with meteorologist Sunny Wescott and Matt Stein, CEO of Salient Predictions, about why utilities still get caught off-guard by predictable storms, how AI is reshaping risk assessment and complementing physics-based models, and what it really takes to embed weather intelligence into daily operations.
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
Unbound Wildfire Liability is a Cost the US Can’t Afford
Utility wildfire mitigation plans aren’t enough.
“We are all one spark away from bankruptcy,” said one utility CEO at the recent Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners meeting.
He was speaking about wildfires: a topic under regular conversation at energy industry events and in utility board rooms. The business of providing electricity is being turned on its head, and all of us are paying a price....
USEA Power Sector Podcast Episode 27: The Ad Hoc Group Principal Brian Kooiman
In Part 3 of a series on distribution system resources and reliability, The Ad Hoc Group Principal Brian Kooiman answered questions by journalist Herman K. Trabish about the role of demand side flexibility in the U.S. power sector resource mix and reforms are urgently needed from federal and state regulators to allow customer-owned resources to realize their potential to improve electricity delivery reliability, reduce customer bills, and achieve decarbonization goals.
Climate investors are already bracing for Trump
Donald Trump’s victory in yesterday’s New Hampshire Republican presidential primary makes clear the stark choice coming into view for voters: On one side, an incumbent president whose signature climate achievement — the Inflation Reduction Act — is doing more to accelerate the energy transition than any other U.S. policy against an opponent who continues to deny basic climate science and for whom “drill, baby, drill” is the cornerstone of his energy platform.
Clean energy investors may be hoping for the former, but are already preparing for the latter.
Podcast
Hear more from our leadership on My Climate Journey and Technopolis.