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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: The Case for Utility Wildfire Suppression
Utilities have spent years reducing wildfire ignition risk, and much of that work has been necessary. But prevention has limits. Trees come down. Equipment fails. Lightning strikes. And when an ignition occurs, the first minutes can change the trajectory of an event.
In our latest piece, we argue that rapid suppression should be part of the utility wildfire conversation — not as a replacement for firefighters, but as part of a broader consequence-reduction strategy in the highest-risk areas. The question for regulators is no longer just: how do we prevent ignitions? But also: what is the plan for the fire that still starts?
The Ad Hoc Gist: Virginia Has a Data Center Problem
Virginia is ground zero for the country’s data center boom and affordability crunch. Coupled with a new governor and a recently announced mega merger between the state’s biggest utility, Dominion Power and NextEra, things in Virginia are getting spicy.
In this month’s Gist, my colleague Max Davidson and I look at the first 100 days of Governor Spanberger’s tenure and, specifically, how she and the legislature are responding to the Commonwealth’s energy challenges.
The Ad Hoc Gist: Inside the Octopus/Uplight Deal
The British are coming! Octopus Energy, the UK energy titan, announced it will acquire a majority stake in Uplight, which serves more than 85 utility customers in North America.
In this month’s Gist, we take you behind the scenes of the deal in a joint interview with Nick Chaset, who heads Octopus in North America, and Hannah Bascom, the GM of Uplight. What does this new partnership mean for the industry and why did it come together right now?
White Papers
The Ad Hoc Group, in partnership with other industry thought leaders, publishes white papers that take a deep dive into the complex issues facing the energy industry and our clients.
Bridging the Load Gap: A Collaborative Path for Utilities, Hyperscalers and Customers
In this white paper, published in January 2026, the Alliance to Save Energy and the Ad Hoc Group explore whether a collaborative model – one in which a large load funds incremental, utility-directed demand-side management (DSM) investments that include both demand response (DR) and energy efficiency (EE) programs – could unlock new capacity, reduce pressure on infrastructure timelines, and support improved affordability and resilience for customers.
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
C&I 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.
We need to rethink climate investing
For climate tech to scale, the collaboration between climate tech founders and capital providers will need to change. It will need to be a durable — and dare we say, sustainable? — relationship, and one designed for deep partnership.
To get a sense of what this might look like, it is worth looking backward: to the very first days of Silicon Valley venture capital and the case of Intel. The company was founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore with an innovative capital model proposed by Arthur Rock. Intel was given a $2.5 million pre-money valuation in 1968 — the equivalent of $21 million today — and Rock invested $2.5 million.
Podcast
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