Supercool

Is clean energy dead, or is the revolution unstoppable? Bloomberg reported this week: “Clean Energy Is Dead for Now.” The Wall Street Journal counters: “The Clean Energy Revolution is Unstoppable.” So, which is it? 2024 global clean energy investment hit $2.1 trillion—double fossil fuel spending. The U.S. share? An impressive $338 billion, but still just 16%. China and Europe are surging ahead. While U.S. politics and policies may shift, the clean energy future isn’t waiting for America’s permission. Meanwhile, U.S. banks and institutions are still betting big on industries like residential solar-plus-storage in 2025, pouring capital into the top players to finance the future: ? Palmetto: $1.2B ? Sunrun: $629M ? GoodLeap: $386M Supercool has been tracking the solar-plus-storage boom—there’s no pullback, only acceleration. This week’s newsletter breaks down what’s underway and what’s ahead. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/egXPqRvW Links to news articles in the comments. Chart from Canary Media Inc.

Fusion is the holy grail: unlimited, carbon-free energy that could make fossil fuels obsolete. It could power heavy industry, solve desalination, and provide cheap green hydrogen at scale. Every sci-fi future assumes fusion is solved—and now, we’re on the verge of making it real. I had a chance to talk about the possibilities with Molly Wood. Her distinctive voice and insights are recognizable from her time at NPR's Marketplace, where, for many years, she was the host of Marketplace Tech. Molly has covered the biggest trends in business and technology since the dotcom days at other national media outlets, including?Wired, CNET, and The New York Times. Now, she has her own climate solutions platform with Everybody in the Pool, a podcast and newsletter—and also invests and advises the next generation of climate tech startups. She joins the Supercool podcast this week to discuss a big slice of the low-carbon future. ??Nuclear fusion—not here yet, but closer than you think. ???Batteries—the backbone of the clean energy future. ???Homes as mini power plants—the next big shift. ???The future of the grid—what’s working, what’s missing. ???How many people need to be on board to solve climate change?(Answer: 20%.) ???Why CNN was right to kick me out of their building 15 years ago. ???Virtual Plants (VPPs)—and the missing fintech layer. ???Economics—renewable electrons are the cheapest electrons on the planet. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/eNappg5S

At Supercool, we often speak with innovators operating at the intersection of business, technology, and climate. - AI giving buildings brains with BrainBox AI. - Trash removed below city streets in pneumatic tubes with Envac. - School buses electrified and routes optimized with Zūm. - Rural households leapfrogging fossil fuels with solar in Africa with d.light Proven climate solutions are now rapidly scaling across the U.S. and around the globe that cut carbon, improve profitability, and enhance modern life. It brings to mind sci-fi author William Gibson's famous line: "The future is already here—it's just not even distributed." This week on the Supercool podcast, we speak with Molly Wood, award-winning technology and business journalist turned climate tech reporter, investor, and advisor (NPR’s Marketplace, The New York Times, Wired, CNET). Molly hosts the popular climate solutions podcast—Everybody in the Pool. She is also the only person I know who actually interviewed William Gibson about his profound one-liner. That's the launch point for our conversation. We discuss what's working in climate tech, what's still missing to speed things up, where the biggest opportunities lie, and the importance of creating powerful narratives that drive investment, innovation, and action. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/guCEZwky

Policy shifts and home solar market shake-ups are nothing new. They've been happening for decades. What is new? Affordable, advanced home batteries that store and send energy to the grid. They align the financial interests of homeowners, solar-plus-storage installers, and utilities like nothing that's come before. The more battery adoption, the more everyone wins—including the planet. Bad news for fossil fuel fans. Great news for ratepayers. Batteries enable homes to become mini power plants. Weave them together, and you get scaled-up "Virtual Power Plants," a name that gives branding experts night sweats, but a concept that has begun transforming the power grid. In California, GoodLeap recently launched GoodGrid, its Virtual Power Plant, an opening salvo in its objective to enroll its one million-plus customers nationwide in Virtual Power Plants and provide them with additional smart energy technology. Daniel Lotano, GoodLeap’s COO, spent 15 years at NextEra Energy, the nation's largest utility and provider of renewable energy, where he rose to VP of Data Centers, Mobility, and Distributed-Generation. Now Dan and his team are building the technology layer to unlock the future energy grid. He joined the Supercool podcast to talk about it. ?? Listen here: https://lnkd.in/ejRYVBkQ

Can old buildings become cutting-edge, net-zero energy? Sometimes, building better means not building at all. Take Building 48 in Denver—originally built during WWII to manufacture weapons and ammunition. Today, thanks to CannonDesign, it’s been transformed into a modern, net-zero energy, healthy office space—while avoiding two-thirds of the carbon emissions a new build would have required. Eric Corey Freed, RA, LEED Fellow, and Director of Sustainability at CannonDesign, joined the Supercool podcast to discuss how the firm makes sustainable design the norm, including turning aging structures into 21st-century spaces that enhance modern life while radically cutting carbon. ?? Listen to the conversation: https://lnkd.in/guCEZwky ?? Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g-Z6Skfn

"Virtual Power Plant" isn’t exactly a consumer-friendly term. Most people have no clue what it means—let alone why they should care. But as homeowners ramp up their purchases of electric cars, smart thermostats, heat pumps, solar, geothermal, and batteries—including sleek induction stoves with built-in battery backup power for when extreme weather hits, they're setting the stage for the next era of the clean energy transition. That's because all of it ties into electrification, and all of it can tie into the power grid. That’s a goldmine for climate tech startups and legacy utilities alike. Homes will store energy, dial down usage, and send power back to the grid—not randomly, but together, in sync. That’s a Virtual Power Plant. - Homeowners will get paid to participate. - Utilities will burn fewer fossil fuels. - Companies in the middle are going to make a mint. 500 Virtual Power Plants are already operating across the U.S. Read about it in this week’s Supercool newsletter: https://lnkd.in/e2TWzU3x Image below: Meet "Charlie," the induction stove with built-in battery storage from Copper.

The solar industry has been on a tear over the last decade, with the number of U.S. homes with rooftop solar panels tripling from 1.6 million in 2017 to 5 million by 2024. At the center of that growth story is GoodLeap, the tech and financing juggernaut that has originated over $30 billion of sustainable solutions financing and now counts over 1 million customers. While financing the clean energy transition for homeowners remains core to GoodLeap, the company increasingly sees itself in the energy management business. Daniel Lotano, GoodLeap's COO, has led the charge over the past 12-18 months to drive this new phase of the company's growth—making Virtual Power Plants and smart energy tech more accessible, affordable, and rewarding for homeowners. He joins the Supercool podcast this week to discuss GoodLeap's energy management business. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/guCEZwky

This week's Supercool podcast explores the rise of GoodLeap, a climate tech unicorn valued at $12 billion, now driving the transformation in home solar, battery storage, and electrification—and its strategy to make every home a key two-way participant in the nation's energy grid. The link to listen is below.

Our latest newsletter is out with a deep dive into the mindset shifts that make every new and repurposed building CannonDesign works on an opportunity to cut carbon and enhance quality of life. The link to read it is below.

This week on the Supercool pod, we explore the mindset shifts that enable CannonDesign, one of the world's largest architecture firms, to get clients excited about sustainable design, turning no/maybe into yes/definitely. Link to listen below.