On Friday, November 1st, we welcomed over 300 people for our 17th annual conference! Our theme this year, “de-risk to deploy”, focused conversations on the innovative approaches accelerating climatetech deployment. The following themes emerged: 🦸♀️No Workforce, No Deployment: To meet scale-up timelines, companies are taking proactive approaches to developing skilled, diverse talent pipelines - launching geothermal apprenticeships, coal-to-nuclear reskilling programs with unions, and cleantech-focused university scholarships. 🏗️Design for Standardization & Modularity: Replicability was repeatedly cited as a foremost driver in achieving scale. Companies are targeting “project as a product” - building modularized systems that are faster and cheaper to deploy. This remains critical in sectors such as heavy industry with large, complex facilities and high variability between processes. 💵Investment Landscape Still Maturing: Capital providers are testing new approaches to mitigate or share risk (offtake agreements, novel insurance types, liability limits, gov’t loans/cost sharing) before climatetech projects become safe enough for mature lenders. On the other side, emerging companies are emphasizing “all of the above” blended capital while decoupling corporate and product risk. 🤝Strategic Partnerships = Non-Negotiable: New and established companies emphasized how alliances multiply their impact. Public-private partnerships (PPP’s) are driving large-scale decarbonization projects in heavy industry, built environment, and other sectors by reducing upfront costs. In mobility, partnerships between EV charging infrastructure developers and fleets are enabling companies to capture consistent revenue streams. In the power sector, large consumers are partnering directly with producers (nuclear, geothermal) to expedite timelines and secure stable long-term energy prices. 🏛️Policy Catch-up: Coordinated policy updates are needed to get innovative tech off the shelf and into the field. In the power sector, federal and state agencies, ISOs, and regulatory bodies must align to ease interconnection bottlenecks, incentivize clean firm power, and design markets that ensure grid stability. In the built environment, fragmented and confusing incentives, permitting delays, and limited customer awareness are slowing sustainable upgrades. We heard from four keynote speakers: Luis A. and Jim McNiel highlighted the strategic role of corporate venture capital and advancements in commercial fusion. Dr. Jennifer Wilcox emphasized scaling carbon capture by showcasing a ladder of deployment criteria based on feasibility, GHG reduction potential, alternatives' carbon intensity, and readiness. Aseem Kapur shared his vision for EVs and bi-directional tech to bolster grid resilience and cut emissions. Finally, we hosted our first-ever Innovation Showcase, featuring Hydropore, Ardent, Demia, Revise Robotics, NearStar Fusion, Henning Larsen, Metal Light Inc., and more.
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MN8 Energy
1mo
It was our honor to join you! What a fabulous opportunity to engage with some of the brightest minds on the future of energy and climate.
And a huge thank you to our speakers! 💡🎤 Luis A., Jim McNiel, Jennifer Wilcox, Aseem Kapur, Gilbert Campbell, Julian Torres, CFA, Annie Gilleo, Jeff Weiss, Jonah Wagner, Mary Dhillon, Taiil Kim, Kelli Joseph, Jon Yoder, Lauren Salz, Supratim Das, Jim Robb, Frank Sturniolo, Lex Wolf, Dave Bend, Alexandra Frugone, Adam Keech, Melissa Chan, Andrew Linowes, CEM, Joshua Speros, John Rapaport, Theresa Christian, David Bromberg, Ram Ramprasad, Manasi Desai, Matthew Phelan, Sid Radhakrishna, Margaret Peloso, Russell S., Sam Hill-Cristol, Somil Aggarwal, Nicolaj Siggelkow, Rishika Ghosh, Enrique Glotzer, Christine Knapp
A huge thank you to our sponsors! 🎉👏 Chevron, NextEra Energy, Inc., Distributed Sun, Ramboll, MN8 Energy, Burnham RNG, FTI Consulting, BWX Technologies, Inc., Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, Mack Institute for Innovation Management, and The ESG Initiative at the Wharton School!
We're proud to sponsor this important event!
Thanks for inviting me to be a panelist! We just scratched the surface on #microgrids and #electricvehicles in the short time we had. Loved the enthusiasm in the audience!
Joshua Speros
1mo
Excellent event!
Finally, a special shout-out to our conference planning team! Chairs: Olga Belyanina, Brian Ramsey, Siddharth Challani Keynote/Panel Managers: Ruidi Lu, Chad Schwam, Tiffany Yuan, Saloni Gopani, Alex Price, Mohammed Rhazy, Will Tabor, Austin Little, Erin Brousseau Innovation Showcase Managers: Lilly Chadwick, Aurian Capart Marketing Managers: Artur B., Rakan Aboneaaj Recruitment Managers: Ayodeji Oyemakinde, ACA, Kelly Cheng And our many day-of volunteers! Apoorva Gupta, Atessa Farzami, Christian Butts, Elaine Zhang, Ezra Schwarzbaum, Jacob Cutler, Shrey Mehta, Shreya Agarwal, Talya Yoshpe, Yashodhana Raj, Jingyi Zhang, Emma Dunlap, Mack Radin, Stefanie Lee