Bret Forster

Grid, schmid, indeed! Much rightful rage directed at Centerpoint here in Houston over the past week, and I wonder if its CEO may last the week? But after the big Texas grid freeze failure of 2021, I decided to put in my own solar+battery system so that it never happened again. It sailed through the blackout with ease - wouldn't have even known we lost power except for the notification sent to my phone by my SPAN smart panel. My desktop computer didn't see the slightest hiccup. Now our own outage only lasted ~12 hours, so wasn't able to give every aspect the full stress test, but approach sunset on the first day w 94% in my battery when the power came back on, and am confident based on prior experience in managing these 2x Tesla Energy batteries, that we would have been fine. Wouldn't have cranked the 2 A/C's as hard as usual during the night, but am confident would have made it to sunrise (and next recharge cycle) just fine. In an island of darkness, our home also became refuge for family, and for that I am doubly grateful. The future of energy is not only electric, but more decentralized. The rapidly declining cost of batteries, and a bit more improvement in software, will make such options accessible for many more people. And then, they too, will never have to go through the pain of an extended outage again! https://lnkd.in/d2ssrphd

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Powering the future…

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It’s so obvious what’s happening. Lines companies and regulators need to get out of the way (and react much faster than they are) to let the flow accelerate. https://lnkd.in/g9k-z-v7

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Excited to announce our investment in Alta Resource Technologies alongside Leonardo Banchik (Voyager Ventures) with participation from Orion Resource Partners, Overture Ventures, and WovenEarth Ventures. Rare earths are critical in products from magnets to ceramics and it's important for the US to develop its own supply chain. While the US has some of the best rare earth resources, separating them has historically proven expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Alta through it's computationally designed and optimized proteins allows the US to bring back rare earth production with a cleaner, lower capex, and lower opex solution - and that's just the beginning. Congrats to Nathan Ratledge and the entire Alta team. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gbGnAJn3

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An incredible deep dive from Nathan M. into the cultural and structural issues that are plaguing Boeing and how they got to where they are today. This article should be turned into a business school case study it's that good. And many of these issues aren't unique to Boeing. The focus on financial engineering over actual engineering is an issue at play in many scaled aerospace and defense companies. A definite must-read! https://lnkd.in/gkdpF2tM

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As we enter the fourth day of power outages in Texas combined with sweltering heat, the impact of hurricane Beryl illustrates both the impacts of climate change and the critical need to accelerate deployment of climate-tech solutions for a more resilient grid. Hurricane Beryl is yet another warning that climate change is upon us and accelerating. Warmer sea temperatures are driving more brutal and destructive hurricane seasons, with more powerful storms starting earlier in the year and occurring more frequently. While rising global temperatures ensure more frequent and deadly heatwaves - for over a year, every single month has been the hottest in recorded history, making extreme heat the new normal. From India to the middle east to the US, thousands have already died this year due to extreme heat. The combination of increasingly frequent and violent weather events, extreme heat and an antiquated, fragile grid are starkly illustrated by the 1.3 million homes in Texas still without power in the peak of summer heat. But it doesn't have to be this way. Climate-tech solutions, in particular distributed energy resources like solar and storage, are cheap, mature, and infinitely deployable technologies that can massively increase grid resilience and mitigate the compounding risks of heat and power outages during extreme weather events. In a world where roof-top solar and in-home battery storage compete on even playing field with centralized generation and distribution the grid is more resilient and power outages, when they inevitably occur, less deadly. DERs increase grid resilience by shifting generation, storage and distribution to the ultimate load (your home or local area). This takes pressure off the grid by reducing the need for antiquated, energetically inefficient T&D infrastructure that otherwise needed to link generation assets to load, through miles of expensive powerlines, transformers, etc., all susceptible to downed lines and overload. DERs also allow for demand response, load shifting, efficiency-as-a-service and other grid services that can stabilize the grid when power demand and generation capacity are dangerously unmatched. Simultaneously, DERs and microgrids mitigate the worst risks of inevitable grid failures. In home battery storage can keep your fridge running at a time when food and perishable items can't be reached. Rooftop solar can keep your air-conditioning running at the hottest parts of the day, and your cell phone charged, even if it takes days for your local utility to restore power. And these same assets can keep critical communication infrastructure up when emergency services need them most. And that's before even considering the fact that these technologies are already cheaper than conventional energy systems, faster and easier to deploy, and essential in reducing the carbon emissions driving this crisis in the first place. https://lnkd.in/g8bebhA8

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What if distributed energy resources could communicate and cooperate at the speed of thought? Imagine the possibilities. Locally-generated and shared power. Self-forming grids. Simple, scalable energy solutions. At SYNCRIS, our technical team is already delivering microgrid hardware with response times that are 10,000 times faster than industry, and we know that we can go even faster. Perhaps as fast as the neurons in your brain. And if that doesn't get you thinking... #grid_of_tomorrow #clean_energy_transition #we_got_this

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I'm happy to announce our investment in OnSight Technology! OnSight’s robotics platform helps solar operators scale without additional headcount; improves operations, maintenance and safety; and stops fires before they happen! Feedback from their customers is among the best I’ve ever heard 🤖☀️ Some of the macro tailwinds that make this timely:  🔋 Utility-Scale Solar: Large-scale projects, often spanning hundreds of acres, are becoming a cornerstone of renewable energy strategies worldwide. In the US, utility-scale solar grew by over 20% in 2023, and there is a massive backlog of new projects planned or waiting for grid connection. 🏠 Commercial/Rooftop Solar: On the smaller scale, businesses are increasingly adopting solar panels. This reduces energy bills and contributes to a greener planet. The dirty secret is that many business turn off their rooftop solar because of the threat of fire and business interruption. OnSight’s OWL fixes this. ⚠️ Growth in Thermal Events: With the rapid expansion of solar farms, there has also been an uptick in "thermal events," or fires. These incidents destroy infrastructure and threaten nearby communities. 👷‍♂️ Labor Challenges: Like so many other industries, the solar industry is facing labor challenges. The availability and quality of skilled workers is crucial to maintaining and expanding solar infrastructure. Additionally, workers often have to operate in extremely hot environments, which can impact productivity and safety (hi, OSHA). Derek Chase Doug Matlack John Shepard, PhD Graham Ryland Jeff Struhm Jeff Olyniec Rick Spencer Bill Clerico Aiden Cathcart 

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The Silver Tsunami is upon us, and it's reshaping the mergers and acquisitions landscape like never before. With an estimated $10 trillion in assets set to change hands over the next decade, driven by baby boomers retiring, the opportunity for savvy investors and entrepreneurs is immense. Currently, around 30,000 businesses sell annually, but with more than 8 million baby boomer-owned businesses expected to transition, the volume of transactions could increase tenfold. This is a monumental shift that smart buyers are already preparing for. You don't need to be a Wall Street titan to benefit from this trend; many of these businesses will transition to local entrepreneurs and small business owners. Are you ready to seize a piece of this $10 trillion wealth transfer? Position yourself strategically to take advantage of this unprecedented wave of opportunities. Engage with fellow professionals and explore how you can be part of this transformation. Not sure how? Let's talk about it! #SilverTsunami #MergersAndAcquisitions #BusinessOpportunities

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🚀 While the world grapples with access to baseload energy for compute, we've been proud to watch 8090 Industries portfolio founders Hannan P. and Jack Abraham of Exowatt quietly build. 🤯 Today, Exowatt unleashes a new dawn for the energy industry with unveiling P3s - with the ability to generate electricity at scale at just a $0.04 LCOE and with entirely baseload renewable tech. That’s lower than the cost of most fossil fuels and doesn’t account for subsidies. The company has already amassed a 1.2 GW backlog, worth $Billions from mega tech hyperscalers, energy giants and data center companies. Renewable energy can power the data centers of the AI era, and Exowatt founders Jack Abraham and Hannan P. are building that future. We're honored to be backing Exowatt alongside Sam Altman, Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis, Atomic, Overmatch Ventures and Climate Capital. Read more about their launch today here: https://lnkd.in/gZDKZdk8 cc Kerem Ozmen Wes Mendenhall Filip Vurdelja Haluk Sabanci Dincer Grant Brown Ishan Meswani Garuth A. Andrew Irwin Shilpa Patel

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In other news, foxes think the henhouse doesn't need any guarding. The author's argument basically boils down to: 1) trust us and 2) merchant transmission development usually runs over budget or gets abandoned, resulting in higher costs to the customers. The first argument is categorically weak and problematic, but the second has some validity. There are a number of solutions to the second problem beyond right-of-first refusal, however, including higher security deposits (to prevent walking away) and various provisions that disallow cost escalation after bidding (or defined indexing provisions). I don't know how anyone can plausibly argue with a straight face that preventing competition is good for customers. https://lnkd.in/dZYExb26

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Vitesse Energy, LLC to Buy Bakken Pureplay Lucero in $220MM Deal Vitesse Energy will acquire Lucero Energy Corp.’s Bakken/Three Forks assets, including 25 net remaining locations, 1.9 net DUCs and 20 wells that are candidates for recompletions. Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/gpvguvxb

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My friend Raj Mistry of Sunya produces straight fire in all things energy transition news. Not surprised that practically every major energy company C-suite reads the Sunya Scoop every week. Was excited to provide our quick thoughts at 8090 Industries on our latest investment in Exowatt - a company making energy for $0.01 per kWh, and available 24 hours a day for commercial and industrial customers. "At 8090 Industries, we have long been active in standing up and fortifying new, paradigm shifting forms of baseload renewable power. However, the boom in generative AI has catapulted the energy demand needed to power our data centers. In response, we are thrilled to be an investor in Exowatt led by Hannan P. as it pioneers a new reality towards energy that costs $0.01 per kWh, and is available 24 hours a day. Exowatt’s 3-in-one modular system delivers baseload renewable power, industrial-grade heat and energy storage that can be dispatched and deployed to a wide range of commercial, industrial applications and sites. The company already has a backlog of demand for over 500 MW to power data centers across the U.S. and plans to begin deployments later this year."

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Fun session with Silas Mähner 🔍🌎 Hopefully non controversial takes on how we think about adaptation and resilience Third Sphere. Also weighed in on thinking about engagement with Big Oil. Absolutely not possible to generalize here. TLDR on one end of the spectrum is Norway, generating substantial GDP from oil, but leading the way across multiple climate efforts, like EVs and heatpumps. On the other end are some state actors that have worked to undermine organizations like COP and sew broader chaos, very, very likely as a way to shift resources away from energy transition (likely very, very hard to spend on defense and green transition at the same time in the US and EU, for example).

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"Simply put, there is too much capital seeking too few opportunities, particularly at the seed stage. Multi-stage firms have eliminated pricing discipline at seed stage and the proliferation of seed firms has made the task of investing at this stage as competitive as it’s ever been, leading me to believe that indexed seed investing in today’s environment will produce poor returns. What does this mean for today’s environment? It’s never been more important to break away from median performance. While there is risk in breaking away from the pack, the risk (at least performance wise) of staying part of the herd is simply far worse. Median returns for the recent vintages are simply terrible. One could argue that funds are still in their j-curve phases, but I suspect this doesn’t explain the divergence we’re seeing between GOOD performers and GREAT performers. More than ever before, it’s clear to me that playing the same game as everyone else will not work, so fund managers should question whether they are really capable of being in the top 5% of whatever strategy they are employing. From a LP perspective, allocators should likely ask the same of their managers and consider whether allocating to indexed mega funds or indexing across too broad of a portfolio of managers is tenable in achieving their return targets." https://lnkd.in/g8GqHY-P

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We've just invested a significant Series B check into AIR COMPANY, who we believe have made a breakthrough with their 100% drop-in substitute for jet fuel that effortlessly cuts down emissions. AirCo has offtake agreements in place to sell 1B gallons of sustainable aviation fuel to airlines like Virgin Atlantic and government buyers like the United States Department of Defense. A billion gallons is a drop in the bucket for an industry that's on track to consume nearly 100B gallons of jet fuel just this year. Solving this problem will make this company a massive business. Alongside our co-investors Avfuel (one of the largest jet fuel distributors in the world), Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and Toyota Ventures - we've just injected $69M to help them scale. AirCo's team is also in the best of hands with my partner Christina Chang, our resident industrial decarbonization expert here at Lowercarbon Capital. LFG. #tech #climate #SAF #aviation #fuel #airlines #entrepreneurship

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Grid Reliability Impacts of EV Charging-Two Important Initiatives-Call for Engagement Several years ago, with the support of EnerTech Capital, the California Mobility Center, North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), WECC and other organizations, I was fortunate to be involved in helping to form and manage a working group focused on increasing cross sector collaboration to better understand and mitigate potential adverse impacts of EV charging. In April 2022, a CMC working group published a paper including a number of grid friendly charging recommendations, as well as highlighted the need for more robust technical collaboration between the electric industry and EV OEMs and real-world data to both support and build on recommendations regarding grid friendly charging behaviors. I'm highlighting two recent initiatives and encouraging ongoing technical engagement and support from experts in utility, automotive, communications, software, consulting, and related fields. NERC is proposing to stand up an electric vehicle task force under its industry led Reliability Security Technical Committee. The task force deliverables over 2 years include reports regarding bulk power system reliability risks, a technical report on EV charging states and type tests, improvements in EV charging load modeling, and recommendations regarding interconnection requirements. For more information contact [email protected] or [email protected] In addition, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute recently made available a paper entitled “Exploratory Pilot: Analyzing Grid and EV Interactions Through Measuring Driving Behavior, Charging Behavior and Electricity.”  James Sayer and Eric Wingfield led the work for UMTRI, together with Taylor Spalt from Utilidata. The pilot monitored ten vehicles for operational data over 86 days at 8 public charging locations outfitted with Utilidata’s meter adapters. Among the observations was that during specific charging events, EVs generated increased power loss, contributed to voltage loss, and created unfriendly grid responses among other effects. Further research is recommended to support the assessment of potential broader grid impacts, as well as improve modeling. These observations are consistent with the findings contained in the CMC working group report. The paper also included observations regarding charging behaviors and impacts. Continued stakeholder supported research by UMTRI is critical and can help inform the NERC EV Task Force initiative. Please reach out to Eric Wingfiled at UMTRI for a copy of the paper. He may be reached at [email protected] Fostering electric system reliability is critical to the success and reputation of the automotive and utility industries.  Getting this type of collaboration off the ground and maintaining momentum is not easy, especially given the pressing challenges facing both industries. Please lean in. Your support is critical.

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I really enjoyed recording this episode of The Digital Industrial Podcast with Ty Findley. We talked about common misconceptions for deep tech, the "Why Now" for the category, and differences between investor diligence for deep tech and traditional tech. https://lnkd.in/eKtwjauu

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Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) illustrates the current "readiness" of #ClimateTechs + their potential impact on carbon reduction. As shown, many techs are at an early stage of being able to have a material impact. Concerningly, some tech funds recently returned capital back to investors recently + closed their funds - citing inability to fund capital intensive techs, found in areas like ClimateTech. This in part may be contributing to the $2 trillion shortfall in ClimateTech, that Deloitte estimates. What this may mean for the future? - The migration of LPs to global, super VC funds within ClimateTech, given the large capital pools needed to fund tech development - Greater specialization from smaller funds, energizing more niche elements of the ClimateTech market - but also altering their / LP's risk profile - A greater role to be played by debt financing in funding growth entities at an earlier stage - impacting cashflow dynamics Will be an interesting space to watch moving forward. We at The Proptech Connection are constantly working with all parts of the Proptech ecosystem. From the leading LPs, funds, techs and adopters in market, providing an independent view. Reach out to us today to find out how we can help. #InvestorTrends #Strategy #Global Ivo van Breukelen Stuart Daun Kiki C. Ethan Ward

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