Episode 82
Solar Solutions: Why Aren't We Covering Rooftops? | Noaa Cohn from InRange
Exploring the world of rooftop solar, we dive into how we can make clean energy not just a dream but a financially viable reality.
Today I chat with Noaa Cohn, the VP of Product at InRange, where they’re shaking up the old-school solar mindset. We’ll uncover how they’re aligning the interests of landlords and tenants to roll out solar installations that not only benefit the environment but also make economic sense. If you're curious about how data-driven decisions can drive the energy transition forward, you should give this a listen!
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Takeaways from this episode:
- We dive into solar energy's untapped potential on commercial rooftops, highlighting its financial viability and environmental impact.
- Noaa Cohn from Inrange shares her journey from tech to climate impact, emphasizing the importance of data-driven decision-making in sustainability.
- We explore the unique challenges of aligning landlord-tenant incentives for rooftop solar installations while ensuring everyone benefits financially.
- The conversation highlights the role of community and individual action in combating climate anxiety, encouraging small, local initiatives for greater impact.
- The episode emphasizes the importance of building networks and connections in the climate space to share knowledge, opportunities, and support each other.
Links referenced in this episode:
- InRange
- Connect with Noaa on LinkedIn
- Climatebase
- storiesforthefuture.com
- vklavenes.substack.com
Mentioned in this episode:
Creative Space
This episode is supported by Creative Space. Find out more at getcreativespace.com
Creative Space
This episode is supported by Creative Space. Find out more at getcreativespace.com
Transcript
Hey there and welcome to Stories for the Future, a podcast where we bring people together to explore different viewpoints and move beyond simple yes or no answers.
Speaker A:I'm Weslumaj Klavnes Varga and I'll be your friendly guide on this journey.
Speaker A:Come along as we have honest conversations with experts, creative thinkers, and wonderful everyday people who are helping us build bridges and imagine exciting new possibilities.
Speaker A:All of us together.
Speaker A:Have you ever flown over endless warehouse.
Speaker B:Rooftops and thought to yourself, why isn't.
Speaker A:Any of that covered in solar panels?
Speaker A:Well, it turns out that someone did ask that and then built a company around the answer.
Speaker A:In this episode, I chat with Noah Cohn.
Speaker A:She works as a VP of product in a company called inrange.
Speaker A:They are working on making rooftop solar make actual financial sense.
Speaker A:We talk about bringing clean energy closer to where it's needed, why measuring impact matters more than ever, and how to navigate the energy transition in a way that is based on real world data.
Speaker A:If you care about building bridges between pragmatism and purpose, this one's for you.
Speaker B:Hi and welcome so much to the podcast, Noah.
Speaker C:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker B:Yes, I'm so happy to have you.
Speaker B:And after, after speaking for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I'm really, really curious to learn more about you and your work.
Speaker B:So today you work at a company called inrange, where the goal is to disrupt traditional solar wisdom by rolling out massive solar and storage installations across Europe's commercial rooftops.
Speaker B:Was that correct?
Speaker C:That is correct.
Speaker B:That's great.
Speaker B:And this isn't.
Speaker B:It's not just about scaling renewables.
Speaker B:It's about making impact measurable and financially viable, ensuring that the energy transition makes business sense.
Speaker B:And that, I think is exactly more of the conversations that we need to have more of like pragmatic, solution driven and grounded in data.
Speaker B:And I understand that is something that you, you are very passionate about as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker C:I mean, I have.
Speaker C:Most of my career has been around data in different forms and I really believe in using data and making sure that the way that we drive for impact is data driven.
Speaker C:Otherwise we can't actually make impact if we don't actually measure it.
Speaker B:Yes, and that's so.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And we will get back to that.
Speaker A:I agree with you.
Speaker B:So let's start with something very short and easy.
Speaker B:How did you end up doing what you do today?
Speaker C:Well, it was not short in reality, but we'll make it short in the answer.
Speaker C:I spent the majority of my career, about 15 years doing product management in the data Space.
Speaker C:So some, some years at Microsoft and at a startup, and then when that startup got acquired by Google, built some data services at Google Cloud.
Speaker C:And in a few years after joining Google Cloud, I kind of decided it was time for me to make a pivot into climate and energy.
Speaker C:And that's when I joined.
Speaker C:Well, I had done a year at Google supporting impact startups and that's where I really got exposed to how many startups there are that are working so hard and so diligently.
Speaker C:Diligently, but not necessarily making an impact and not even necessarily measuring whether or not they were making an impact.
Speaker C:And those were highly correlated.
Speaker C:If they weren't measured, they probably weren't making a lot of impact.
Speaker C:And so when I joined inrange, that was a big aspect for me, is joining a company where I felt like I was really going to be able to point at.
Speaker C:Here's the climate impact that we're making.
Speaker C:So that was kind of how I brought that background into my current role.
Speaker B:Yeah, so we actually, we.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You got.
Speaker B:You found your job through Climate Base, wasn't that correct?
Speaker C:Like, yeah, there was a post that kind of.
Speaker C:You have in your life these kind of moments where you're like, oh, if I had, if I just hadn't looked at that email, yeah, this happened.
Speaker C:So, yeah, that was that situation where if I had missed that post.
Speaker B:Isn't that funny to think about?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So Climate Base is.
Speaker B:What should you call it again?
Speaker B:Like, I joined it as a, like a fellowship, so learning about climate and solutions and everything.
Speaker B:And they have a great job base as well.
Speaker A:So just a small note from the editor, since I was a bit unclear in my explanation about Climate Base.
Speaker A:So the Climate Base Fellowship that we talk about here is a climate career accelerator designed to help people into careers in climate.
Speaker A:I can highly recommend it.
Speaker A:And it's really inspiring to hear that Noah actually got her job through their jobs database.
Speaker A:Now, back to the conversation.
Speaker B:So can you just walk us through, pretend we know nothing.
Speaker B:What does inrange do?
Speaker B:Why and how, so to speak?
Speaker C:Yeah, so, I mean, have you had the experience where you're flying over some area and you're seeing these huge buildings and they're all just these clean roofs?
Speaker C:Yeah, that's something that happened to our founder, John, and he, he was working for BP at the time and said, you know, why aren't these roofs being used?
Speaker C:You know, why there's all these kind of fights over where to put PV at utility scale, PV and in what areas and where the land is going to be and how that's going to affect the environment.
Speaker C:But there's all these buildings that theoretically, practically, you know, make sense that they should be used.
Speaker C:And then looking into it, understood, well, there's a reason why not they're not being used and that it doesn't make financial sense.
Speaker C:And that's because if you look at a very large building, let's say a building that's 300, excuse me, 30,000 square meters or more, the amount of energy that that building needs to run, say for doing distribution or as a retail space, is not very much compared to its actual size.
Speaker C:So when it comes to putting solar on that building, compared to the massive roof, you actually would put quite a small installation.
Speaker C:And when you think about how much that costs, you know, there's a lot of kind of built in costs to rolling out solar.
Speaker C:A lot of what's called soft costs that make a small installation not, you know, it still ends up being pretty expensive.
Speaker C:And then who pays for that?
Speaker C:The on site tenant they need to have pay a pretty high, what's called energy tariff to get that energy, but they want to save money compared to what they're paying the utility today, not pay more.
Speaker C:And so even if the landlord is really interested and wants to put solar on that building, often the tenant will say, well, I'm not willing to pay such a high tariff because just to make it financially viable for you to roll out solar and increase the value of your building, because now it's a green building like on my back, so to speak.
Speaker C:And you know, tenant landlord relationships are pretty delicate relationships to begin with.
Speaker C:You know, these are folks that have to negotiate a lot and they need to maintain trust between each other.
Speaker C:And sometimes they can be a little suspicious or be kind of precious about sharing information with each other because it could give one the leg up over the other.
Speaker C:And so these deals just don't go through.
Speaker C:They're not economically viable and there's not kind of an aligned incentive between the landlord and the tenant.
Speaker C:And so that's what inrange comes to do, is to align those incentives by making it financially viable.
Speaker C:And there's a couple of ways that we do that.
Speaker C:Generally speaking, like at a high level, what we try to do is roll out as much solar as possible onto those very large buildings.
Speaker C:And the main way we do that is that whatever is generated that that building tenant does not need, we export to a downstream buyer.
Speaker C:Most often that downstream buyer will be a data center.
Speaker C:We use the actual grid of whatever market we're operating in.
Speaker C:This isn't like a private wired type of situation.
Speaker C:And we will export and then they will be a guaranteed buyer of that exported energy for a significant amount of time, 10 years plus.
Speaker C:And when you have that anchor of someone that's willing to offtake the excess energy, which today you don't have, you'll get pennies on the dollar on the grid and if it's negative pricing, you won't even get that.
Speaker C:And so having that guaranteed buyer downstream suddenly creates a lot more revenue.
Speaker C:And having a much larger installation reduces the cost that can have the unit economics of every kilowatt that you deploy onto that building.
Speaker C:So now instead of, let's say you would have in, in today's world put let's say a hundred kilowatt installation on a building just to feed the on site tenant, but we will put a 300 kilowatt installation to also export.
Speaker C:We actually work in usually higher numbers but just to kind of simplify the scenario.
Speaker C:And then because we're installing more, we're able to reduce the cost.
Speaker C:And because we're selling the export, we're able to generate more revenue and thus the financials make more sense.
Speaker C:And from a technical standpoint, we've also built a, a pretty advanced platform that really accelerates the entire process.
Speaker C:And by accelerating the process you drive down costs even more.
Speaker C:So now by driving down the cost of the process, installing more for better unit economics and monetizing the export, it changes the game from a financial standpoint and at the end of the day that's what they care about.
Speaker C:So now the landlord is able to make more money.
Speaker C:We're able to offer the tenant of that building a much better tariff that actually saves them 25% on their energy compared to what they're paying their utility and sell the excess to data center, which is very power hungry and would love to have more clean energy.
Speaker C:So it becomes like a, a win, win, win scenario.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And you know, today in the UK, which is where we started, there's only 5% penetration in this demographic.
Speaker C:Only 5% of let's say warehouses in the UK actually have solar on them.
Speaker C:So we have a massive, massive opportunity for rolling out, you know, a lot, a lot of solar.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:So you said that you have a guaranteed buyer of the excess energy.
Speaker B:Do you have like a specific collaborations with specific data centers or how does that work?
Speaker C:Yeah, so our one public collaboration today is with Iron Mountain Data Centers.
Speaker C:They've been a really incredible partner and they really saw the value even when the idea was just on Paper, they have very ambitious decarbonization goals.
Speaker C:They're part of the 24,7 carbon free energy Compact, as are we, and they really value what's called time matching.
Speaker C:So some data centers or some folks that are trying to be more sustainable, which is very laudable, but just a different way to measure, they'll say, here's how much energy I spend in a year.
Speaker C:I'm going to buy that same amount in a year from someone else.
Speaker C:And as far as I'm concerned, I'm now balanced.
Speaker C:I'm now at kind of zero.
Speaker C:But that's not really reality because in reality, if you use energy at 12pm or at 12am, what you're actually using is going to be different.
Speaker C:And so it matters when the clean energy was generated and when you actually had demand.
Speaker C:And so aligning between those saying here's how many kilowatts were or kilowatt hours were generated at 9am here's how many kilowatt hours I consumed at 9am and making sure that my purchasing is aligned at a what at like a half hourly or hourly level, that's something that really is what the 24.
Speaker C:7 carbon free energy Compact drives folks to do is to time match their purchasing.
Speaker C:And that's what we help Iron Mountain data centers to do.
Speaker C:We deliver them energy with a particular, what's called shape and profile of how much is sold to them from what days and what hours.
Speaker C:And they match at an hourly level to their demand.
Speaker C:And that's how they're able to help.
Speaker C:We help in their sustainability goals.
Speaker C:That's part of their purchasing decision is also purchasing from us.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So how much of their, you know, a lot of them criticism towards data centers are the big energy demands.
Speaker B:So how much of their demand can you potentially cover with this solution?
Speaker C:So we are a young company and we are very ambitious and so we would love to satisfy much more of their demand.
Speaker C:I think, you know, in our original first kind of delivery to them, I think we're covering 10% of their demand for one of their data centers.
Speaker C:But that is our starting point.
Speaker C:And this is, you know, not unique to Iron Mountain.
Speaker C:These are conversations that we're having with different data center providers.
Speaker C:There's many of them and they're growing and they're growing in congested areas where it's difficult for them to get access to energy.
Speaker C:I mean, one of the issues with congestion is that the more local this is, by the way, one of our kind of vision tenants is bringing the generation as close as possible physically to the point of demand, like there's big issues today.
Speaker C:An example in the UK where there are wind farms that are in the north, in Scotland area and there's a lot of demand in the south in England, like around London and you know, those dense kind urban areas.
Speaker C:And there's issues with congestion of getting that, that energy that's produced in the north, down to the south.
Speaker C:And in fact there are many times where they are told in the wind farms to turn down their generation and stop generating.
Speaker C:They're paid to stop generating because that energy cannot be brought down to the south because there's congestion, physical congestion on the grid.
Speaker C:And so our tenant is if you bring that generation as close as possible to the demand and that's what we're doing, we're deploying on buildings that are close to where these data centers are, we're able to avoid that congestion and deliver energy to them.
Speaker C:And so I think that's a big part of when data centers are thinking about growth.
Speaker C:You'll hear now a lot of having co located nuclear facilities or co located wind farms.
Speaker C:And that's kind of our vision is having that co location and bringing that energy as close as possible.
Speaker C:And that's actually one of the things that Iron Mountain really cares about is community impact.
Speaker C:You know, they said, as you said, data centers are getting a lot of flack about their impact and as far as Iron Mountain is concerned, they're helping to drive down energy prices by encouraging more energy development locally in the communities that that data center resides within.
Speaker C:So that's helping advance that cause as well.
Speaker B:Right, so now you said you started in the uk, what about scaling expansion?
Speaker B:What areas are you looking at?
Speaker C:Well, it's funny that we started in the uk, that's where our founder is based.
Speaker C:People say to us, the UK isn't exactly known for its sunny climate.
Speaker C:What are you doing there?
Speaker C:And I think if we can make it work in the uk, you can make it work anywhere.
Speaker C:But it's also, you know, most countries in Western Europe are friendly from a regulatory standpoint.
Speaker C:To allow this to happen, you know, you need to be in a country where they allow you to sell your energy to the grid and to a downstream buyer.
Speaker C:And most of the countries in Western Europe will allow you to do that.
Speaker C:But our expansion is really driven by our customers.
Speaker C:So most of our customers, our landlords that have international holdings, they hold buildings across Europe, often internationally, also including in the US and so their demand is what's driving us.
Speaker C:They say, if I'm making a bet on you in range.
Speaker C:I don't want to make a bet on you for my UK portfolio.
Speaker C:I want to make a bet on you for my portfolio.
Speaker C:And they are bringing us to their tenants in other countries, and those other countries, very happily for us, often have much more sunlight than the uk and so that.
Speaker C:That expansion is happening right now.
Speaker C:We don't.
Speaker C:We're not public yet on our next country, but hopefully we will be in the next couple months.
Speaker B:Oh, that's very exciting.
Speaker B:Yeah, I, yeah, come to Norway.
Speaker B:We have a lot of reefs.
Speaker B:I'm not known for our sunlight either, but, you know, so I think I.
Speaker B:I would like to talk a little bit more about, like, impact and measuring impact, because I don't know about you, but I had this, like, when I started focusing my work on sustainability and got like, this climate awareness.
Speaker B:You just want to, oh, we need to do everything.
Speaker B:We need to change.
Speaker B:We need to start.
Speaker B:And why are people thinking about anything else than this?
Speaker B:Because it's burning.
Speaker B:You know, all that.
Speaker B:And then suddenly you realize that, okay, it's a point in being a bit strategic and think about and measure things.
Speaker B:So what would you say that maybe for yourself or for people that you have come across, what would you say surprise people the most when it comes to measuring environmental impact?
Speaker B:Like any aha moments that you have had yourself or you have witnessed?
Speaker C:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker C:I mean, I'll take it to the personal side first.
Speaker C:Before kind of the business side, I think, you know, when I had my kind of aha moment of like, I need to work on climate, what am I doing?
Speaker C:Kind of to your point, everything's burning.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:The way I said it is.
Speaker C:Anything else feels like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Speaker C:Yes, it's kind of.
Speaker C:Everything else felt kind of pointless to me.
Speaker C:But when you talk to folks about this, you know, there's a lot of guilt, first of all, of feeling like, oh, I don't do enough, and there's a lot of fear involved because it's a very scary situation.
Speaker C:And this feeling of, well, I can't do anything about it.
Speaker C:And like you said, this feeling of I need to do everything.
Speaker C:And I think one of the big aha moments where kind of the penny dropped for me was when you think about the relative scale of impact.
Speaker C:So, for example, every time I went to the grocery store, if I had forgotten to bring my reusable grocery bag, I had this pang of guilt.
Speaker C:I'm not doing enough.
Speaker C:How could I be?
Speaker C:Maybe I shouldn't even go.
Speaker C:And that happened on a Lot of different things, how I was shopping, how much plastic was involved in the products that I was building or buying.
Speaker C:And that can really kind of become a little bit overwhelming and paralyzing.
Speaker C:And then one of my friends said to me, you know, the way that your pension is invested is many thousands of times more impactful than whether or not you're using a plastic bag.
Speaker C:If your pension is in a fund that is funding fossil fuel companies, that is going to have much more impact than where you bought your vegetable from.
Speaker C:And moreover, I think that the discourse in general, I mean, in general, in general, not just in climate, but I'll stick to climate for now, is this kind of personal responsibility over the state of the world instead of organizational and systemic responsibility over the state of the world.
Speaker C:And I think that we need to make changes at a personal level that drive systemic change.
Speaker C:I mean, personal change is great, do what works for you.
Speaker C:But at the end of the day, by changing the way you invest your pension, it not only has an impact, but it also can drive systemic change.
Speaker C:If the pension companies see that there is demand for different kinds of investment opportunities, they will go where the money is and they will make those changes.
Speaker C:And then when the companies that stop getting invested and see that that's where people are voting with their dollars, they will start to make those changes.
Speaker C:And so it not only has a much more impactful upfront impact, it also has the ability to drive downstream systemic change.
Speaker C:And that, to me, I think, is something that's really important.
Speaker C:And there is a lot of depending on which market you're in, you can look and there's usually funds or guidance for how you can reroute your pension investment.
Speaker C:And that's something that you spend, you know, a day on upfront and, you know, and then it continues to do the work.
Speaker C:And then you can, you can take a bag or not take a bag or do what works in your kind of lifestyle.
Speaker C:But I think that to me, from a personal standpoint was a big shift, true.
Speaker B:And when it comes to companies and the business side of things.
Speaker C:I think having worked with a bunch of different startups, when I was helping startups at Google, I saw these founders.
Speaker C:They're amazing, they're impressive, they're so energetic and enthusiastic about their area.
Speaker C:But at the end of the day, when you look at the impact that their businesses are going to have on the environment in a measurable way, whether that measurable way is CO2 reduction or, you know, the way that at Google we were doing it, we were looking at the different UN SDGs and thinking, you know, how do you kind of measure like if you're a crop insurance company, how many farmers are now covered by your insurance versus before and how does that impact?
Speaker C:You know, there's a lot of different ways to measure it, but encouraging folks to measure it.
Speaker C:And one of the things that I understood is, you know, and you'll see this now with the, the changes in the different administrations and how they're deciding to administer grants or rolling back potentially like the IRA in the US you cannot expect a handout because that handout could be gone the next day.
Speaker C:And I understand that some businesses, that's just what they need, that's just how they're set up.
Speaker C:But I was going to look for a company where the environmental impact was directly correlated to the financial impact.
Speaker C:And that's very important to us at in range.
Speaker C:And you'll see, you know, in nine out of ten conversations that I have with a customer, the environmental impact of course is important to them, but that's not a decision making factor for them.
Speaker C:It is a value add.
Speaker C:Once the financial factor has lined up and aligns with their needs and they can have all of the good intentions in the world, they still need to take the financial offer to their investment committee and they need to still have their shareholder value and they still are met or you know, they're still measured by the financial impact.
Speaker C:And, and it would be misleading for us to think that we can make an environmental impact, at least in my experience in the energy transition, without it first making financial sense.
Speaker C:And even a, you know, even an iron mountain, there are no slouches.
Speaker C:They're only going to buy that clean energy if it's also economically viable.
Speaker C:They're not going to pay a green premium.
Speaker C:You know, green premium we've seen doesn't work.
Speaker C:You can see it with EVs that didn't take off until they started being financially competitive with, with the regular fossil fuel driven cars.
Speaker C:And folks are not willing to pay that green premium at scale.
Speaker C:And so that's something that I think is very key from actually making an impact.
Speaker C:Is it financially?
Speaker B:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker B:So then on that note, if you were to talk to any CEO of any company, how would you help them see sustainability as an opportunity rather than a cost and not as just this add on but as a way to grow and make money?
Speaker C:I mean, I guess CEO in which sector?
Speaker B:I would say yeah, and a sector.
Speaker B:But I was of course I was thinking about, about oil and gas, but I know that is not Your, you don't have experience directly from that, but that is a big problem.
Speaker B:It's kind of the returning issue all the time that it is not financially smart at the moment to focus more on renewable energy, for instance, because they earn so much more on fossil fuels.
Speaker C:I mean, I think like we said, there's a systemic problem and we could go into this in, in many different layers.
Speaker C:So I'll only touch on it.
Speaker C:But you know, the markets are set up for short term value generation.
Speaker C:Markets are not set up.
Speaker C:You know, folks think quarterly, what can I do in the next quarter?
Speaker C:And that deemphasizes long term investment.
Speaker C:And that's why it's so great to see companies like Iron Mountain willing to take a bet on something that's going to be long term.
Speaker C:But I think that that's also because they're in a sector where they're thinking about their long term growth and you have to invest now to be able to realize your long term growth.
Speaker C:And I think that's where companies like Google and Amazon and those big tech companies that have really driven a lot of the investment into early stage energy that has brought down the cost of energy for everyone.
Speaker C:As a result though, that kind of thinking is required.
Speaker C:And not every company has that kind of thinking, you know, because the oil companies don't necessarily think what am I going to need in 10 years, let me make those investments.
Speaker C:Now they're thinking how am I going to maximize my revenue this year?
Speaker C:And you know, and then you see companies like BP shifting $10 billion worth of investment back into oil even though they had previously made commitments in renewable energy.
Speaker C:So I think it requires long term thinking which not every company is set up or invest incentivized to do.
Speaker C:But I, I think then the onus becomes and you'll see where the growth is coming from.
Speaker C:And it's coming from the smaller companies that are able to make it financially viable and then are learning how to scale it.
Speaker C:And there's not a lot of those yet.
Speaker C:And you know, it's, it can be discouraging but that's, those are the models that are going to need to be required.
Speaker C:And, and the, you know, the BPs and the shells of the world are not really set up to do that.
Speaker C:And I can tell you in from a completely different angle that's when I left Microsoft and I joined a startup.
Speaker C:We were doing things that big companies don't do and aren't set up to do.
Speaker C:And then we were acquired by Google because we were able to do something as A small company that Google wasn't able to do as a big company and then they acquired that talent and that technology.
Speaker C:So it's, I kind of see it in the same way.
Speaker C:And you do see the big energy companies kind of gobbling up the renewable and, and the more kind of technical startups.
Speaker C:But I, I think that's where the change is from.
Speaker C:It's going to be smaller, it's going to be more grassroots.
Speaker C:But I think for us to really make a change, a long term change there, the systemic kind of incentivization of short term gains is going to be what needs to change.
Speaker C:But I don't have a silver bullet for how that's a much bigger conversation.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Oh, it's not easy.
Speaker B:So this season of my podcast has had this focus on building bridges, bursting bubbles in the energy transition and helping or helping, but maybe create an environment for better conversations and between groups of people that normally see things from very different perspectives.
Speaker B:So I guess also through your career and that you have met different people, different stakeholders and had some challenging conversations.
Speaker B:So have you had any experience in those?
Speaker B:And that is not only in climate and energy, but in so many areas in today's world, there's so much polarization.
Speaker B:So do you have any experience with making people find common ground?
Speaker C:I mean, I think as a product manager, that is, that is the job.
Speaker C:It's, you know, you don't necessarily have authority.
Speaker C:You're not the CEO.
Speaker C:You don't say do this or that.
Speaker C:It's, it's about bringing people on board and having everyone see kind of the shared understanding and getting to a shared understanding.
Speaker C:Obviously much easier said than done.
Speaker C:I had a mentor early in my career that said something that really stuck with me and he said, assume that the person that's saying something to you is a smart person and they have a reason for saying what they're saying.
Speaker C:Try to find what that reason is and only then can you try to get on the same page.
Speaker C:And that is something that I've taken through my life is, okay, this person is saying something that at first strikes me as absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker C:And in fact I might then become very judgmental of that person.
Speaker C:How could you think that?
Speaker C:What is wrong with you?
Speaker C:And I think that's a lot of the discourse that we see these days.
Speaker C:But if you stop and say, all right, hold on, let's think, where is this person coming from?
Speaker C:What is their experience?
Speaker C:What has been their life experience?
Speaker C:Let's assume that they're a smart person.
Speaker C:And I understand that not everyone is but usually the people that you do, let's give people more credit than we usually give them.
Speaker C:Usually people have a reason for thinking what they're thinking.
Speaker C:How do I understand where they're coming from?
Speaker C:And, and that's also as a side note, the root of compassion.
Speaker C:And I think that compassion is something that we're highly lacking as a society in general.
Speaker C:But once you become compassionate to them and you understand where they're coming from, it's much easier to bridge the gap between you and when you look at different like if I was to bring it into what I'm seeing now, like I said today in my day to day job I work with landlords and I work with tenants and I see that they can often be at odds with each other and they can be distrusting of each other and they can expect that the other one is trying to pull one over on them or get more out of them.
Speaker C:And we as in range often take kind of the intermediary neutral trying to make everybody win stance and sometimes we'll even say okay, if you share this data with me that we need to make a decision, I won't share that with the other side.
Speaker C:We're just going to use it to get everyone on the same page and we operate in transparency so that everyone can see that this is fair and that nothing's being hidden from, from them in the decision making.
Speaker C:And I think that is really key is if you understand what's motivating someone and why they're coming at something the way they're coming at something and you assume you try to give them benefit of the doubt in terms of like they're not just a bad person but they're motivated by whatever they're motivated by, then you can try to bridge between them and, and I, I think that's true in every case.
Speaker C:I like I don't see a world where that's not true in business or otherwise.
Speaker B:I think what you said there that what you learned from your mentor that could be a like a pull out quot whole season.
Speaker B:I think that was brilliant.
Speaker B:Like try to, to give them or see them as a smart person and try to understand why they say what they say.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:Yeah, I really like that.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:So I, I think a lot of the, the issues in the energy transition is, is, is much about like distrust perhaps and when a company tries to do something positive they can get attacked so that the risk of greenwashing all the time and where to start if you're starting from like from Zero and try to become more sustainable.
Speaker B:So how would you say that you can tell the difference between companies that are serious about changing and those that are just kind of talking the talk?
Speaker C:I think, I mean, in general we're back to the whole measurability thing, right?
Speaker C:Like, yes, if what they're doing, if first of all, if they're measuring, then they're already serious.
Speaker C:But I understand that that's difficult.
Speaker C:I think one of the big things, and again, if you assume the best, you don't assume that someone's coming out just to greenwash and they don't care and they just want the credit without actually having to do any of the work.
Speaker C:Let's put that aside and assume everyone's best intentions.
Speaker C:I think much like in my career, I saw kind of a data maturity curve.
Speaker C:Different companies had to kind of go through the steps of everyone wants to be using data, but they don't actually know how to use the data.
Speaker C:And then they have to go through all of these steps and graduating and becoming more mature until they were this like wonderfully, beautifully data driven company.
Speaker C:That was.
Speaker C:Every decision they made was based on data that there's a, there are, you can't just go from A to B.
Speaker C:There's a path.
Speaker C:And I'm seeing that similar thing around sustainability, around energy.
Speaker C:And I think that if you assume good intent, there are steps that they need to take and those steps, it will be gradual.
Speaker C:And there's a lot that I see in common between companies.
Speaker C:And the first is I want to measure things.
Speaker C:The second is, well, what are the things that are kind of the low hanging fruit?
Speaker C:It's like, let me do integrated LED lights in my building instead of my old lighting.
Speaker C:Let me.
Speaker C:And then solar is kind of a few steps down the road.
Speaker C:And I think that that's one of our goals, is to help make solar kind of the lower cost, low hanging fruit.
Speaker C:Because if we make it so much easier than they can actually walk the walk and actually do that.
Speaker C:And then there are things that are just hard to do.
Speaker C:Let me integrate heat pumps into everything.
Speaker C:You know, these things are very challenging and I'm only addressing the building sector, but I think this is true in any sector.
Speaker C:There are the low hanging fruits, the easy things, and then there are the things that require a lot more expertise, a lot more overhead, a lot more capital.
Speaker C:I think that is another thing that the organization again has to be set up in a way that they are willing to deploy capital to make this a reality.
Speaker C:And then they want to see the value of that capital in their non impact sense.
Speaker C:And so yes, I want to deploy a heat pump because electrification is going to be good for me.
Speaker C:But I have to justify the capital investment to my investment committee and I have to show how that's going to reduce my electricity costs or my gas costs in this case.
Speaker C:And if I put solar then I will even more reduce that cost and so then I can justify having that budget approved.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You go, you really quickly go back into kind of the normal P L this balance sheet decision making of a business.
Speaker C:And I think that when, I mean a lot of companies have like a sustainability person and I think the role in the company of that sustainability person is going to be a really strong indicator of whether or not that company is doing it on paper to look good or if they're actually doing it.
Speaker C:And so if that sustainability person is helping to drive balance sheet decisions, then there's much more likely they're actually making an impact than if that sustainability person, their mandate is PR and you know, writing some articles or doing some like vanity metrics and fluff.
Speaker C:You know, I don't want to point a finger, but I saw recently that Shein has hired a new VP or some very high level sustainability person and I saw this post on LinkedIn and all of the responses were what does that mean?
Speaker C:This is one of the most highly polluting, exactly wrong kind of business.
Speaker C:Like what is your mandate at this company?
Speaker C:What are you actually going to do?
Speaker C:Or is this one of those things where you hire that person?
Speaker C:That person is going to like find a couple of little things that they can just promote and write and get written about in the financial times?
Speaker C:Or is this person actually going to create a systemic change that's driven by PNL and, and their success is going to be PNL driven?
Speaker C:I think that's kind of the indicator of whether or not they mean it.
Speaker B:True.
Speaker B:So looking at the world today, what would you say that like companies like yours or other impact sustainability, climate focused companies, businesses, how are they moving forward in, in this, in this chaotic landscape?
Speaker B:And I'm really curious about this because I, I see, I haven't kind of seen a lot of talk about it.
Speaker B:Like is it just like keeping your head down and just working and trying to ignore all the first and best or how do you see that working and is it more challenging or the.
Speaker C:The climate in the economic sense is very challenging.
Speaker C:And the answer to that question in my eyes has two parts.
Speaker C:The first part is like we said, your impact needs to be financially driven.
Speaker C:You need to be setting up a company that makes financial sense from day zero.
Speaker C:So your value prop to your customers is couched in financial value from the get go.
Speaker C:Not if you do XYZ with me for 10 years, then you'll get value.
Speaker C:They need to see the value immediately because that's the economic world that we're in for the most part.
Speaker C:And again with an iron mountain, they have a long term vision and they enable this.
Speaker C:But when I talk to a landlord or a tenant, it is, here's your returns, here's what you're going to be making this year as a result of doing that or how much you're going to be saving.
Speaker C:But in terms of building a business.
Speaker C:So that's like the go to market part, the business side.
Speaker C:What I'm seeing, especially in impact, is this traditional kind of venture capital model of pour many millions of dollars into a company and they will slowly build up their annual revenue and they will do it in a scalable, kind of SaaS oriented way.
Speaker C:I'm from this world, I'm from the SaaS world.
Speaker C:Like you build the software, you can just sell it over and over and over again.
Speaker C:In the impact world where you really want to make an impact and that usually means having a leg in the physical world like actually deploying solar, that model falls apart.
Speaker C:VCs, traditional VCs don't like that model.
Speaker C:It's a very highly capital intensive model.
Speaker C:It's a model that has a lot of operational risk.
Speaker C:So to get into exactly that means is if I could put $10 million on a SaaS company, I in my mind as a VC, have an understanding of how much I would expect them to spend on operationally, on their people, on their software, on their sales, how much I would expect them to grow in terms of their amount of sales.
Speaker C:And I really understand that risk profile and I know, you know, I'll talk to the founders and I can get a really clear view.
Speaker C:Yes, I want to invest or not in the impact world.
Speaker C:That model is turned on its head.
Speaker C:If you look at a company like ours, we need to scale by going to buildings and putting solar on them.
Speaker C:And a solar deployment could cost on a very large building a million dollars.
Speaker C:And if I'm giving you $10 million, but it costs a million dollars for you to deploy on a building, how does that make sense?
Speaker C:So now there's an additional financing component.
Speaker C:Well, you need to go get some debt financing from a bank that's willing to give you that million dollars so that you can go Deploy a building and that money doesn't come from your equity, from a venture.
Speaker C:So without getting too much into the weeds on the way, but this is important in terms of how do you build the next impactful company.
Speaker C:Is that this venture capital kind of Silicon Valley traditional method, very few VCs are actually have the risk appetite for the operational risk of wait, what if there's a supply chain disruption?
Speaker C:What if you can't get your panels at the cost that you expected?
Speaker C:What if there's bad weather and you can't deploy the solar?
Speaker C:Like there's a lot of risk when you're actually working in the physical world and they don't have the appetite for the capital intensity of it and the complexity of also needing to unlock debt financing to be able to roll out.
Speaker C:So what you need to do is instead of thinking, oh, I'm gonna go raise $10 million and I'm gonna go be this massive scaling company the way that I see a SaaS company doing, you need to be a company that is driven by revenue.
Speaker C:Your growth is sustainable.
Speaker C:And I think that's again, sustainability is a multi headed beast.
Speaker C:One of it is let's reduce carbon emissions.
Speaker C:But another one is also around growth.
Speaker C:Your growth needs to be sustainable and that's what's important for us.
Speaker C:We're a small team and our growth is driven by our market traction and our actual, you know, our actual revenue.
Speaker C:So when we deploy more buildings, we hire more people and we grow in a sustainable way that is not reliant on many, many millions of upfront, you know, injection from a vc, but it's driven by actual business growth in a sustainable way.
Speaker C:And I think that a lot of companies that are thinking about, you know, folks that want to start a company and they have this old kind of SaaS model in their mind, but they want to do it in the impact space.
Speaker C:There's often, I've seen kind of a rude awakening of oh, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker C:That's a very challenging thing to actually accomplish in that old model.
Speaker B:But are you also influenced by the very recent like changes and tariffs and like all this and also the, your clients, the land owners and 10, are they influenced by this insecurity as well on top of everything else?
Speaker C:I mean when you talk to a tenant, one of the insecurity that they're influenced by is the wild fluctuations in energy tariffs.
Speaker C:You know, when the Russia and Ukraine conflict started, the gas prices spiked to such a degree that people's businesses, energy bills went through the roof and that energy market volatility is a reality that they're dealing with today.
Speaker C:And that's part of why they want to come to something like solar.
Speaker C:So they, they lower their dependency on those volatile markets and they hedge their energy strategy.
Speaker C:And so of course we as a business are exposed to a lot of different kinds of market volatility and as I mentioned, like operational risk.
Speaker C:And what if now there are, you know, there's supply chain disruptions in the Red Sea because there's particular groups that are disrupting ships and, and those types of things.
Speaker C:And yes, that is something that we're dealing with or not actively, but that's a risk that we, that we would face.
Speaker C:At the same time, we're also enjoying the technological improvements that are happening and the price reductions in panels and the improved performance of inverters and the improved both aspects of batteries.
Speaker C:And so I think one of the things in general that we're seeing in the world is that the rate of change is accelerating.
Speaker C:And so in general you need to be ready for any kind of change.
Speaker C:Regulations can change, supply chains can be disrupted, the cost of materials can go up or down, there can be improvements in technology, there can be conflicts that break out.
Speaker C:And building resilience in your company and in your business model and being resilient as a team and ready to pivot when you need to is kind of key for being successful in general.
Speaker C:And I think that's one of the things that we're also trying to offer our customers by being more self reliant on their energy needs, then they become more resilient as well.
Speaker B:Yes, I think resilience both in companies and I think that goes for individuals as well in these times.
Speaker B:And well, at least it's not boring.
Speaker B:Something new every day like changes all the time.
Speaker C:What I wouldn't give for a little bit of boring.
Speaker B:Yes, I agree.
Speaker B:I agree, Absolutely.
Speaker B:So, but I think we were wrapping up, but I would really like to end with something on the more like personal or individual level because when we kind of strip everything else away, we're all just people, you know, where there are people behind every decision, whether you're a CEO or an employee politician, anything.
Speaker B:So having gone through a career pivot and making this decision to really focus on impact yourself, what advice would you give to other people who might be struggling a bit and maybe having what I like to call like a sandpaper on your conscience in a way, like not knowing what to do or maybe pull, pull us in a more.
Speaker B:How to pull us in a more Positive direction.
Speaker B:What advice would you give?
Speaker C:I think it's a really great question.
Speaker C:I definitely think that especially with kind of the overload, the news cycle overload of the bad news, it can, it can seem really overwhelming.
Speaker C:And I think the answer, you know, there's a lot of parallels across all kinds of areas of the world by, you know, answers are usually climate solutions are usually not global, they're usually local.
Speaker C:And solutions to dealing with a problem are usually not big solutions.
Speaker C:They're usually at the, at the small point.
Speaker C:You have to start small or else it's overwhelming.
Speaker C:And I think that one of the things that's been really amazing for me to see as part of my pivot is when you go into that pivot, the, the helpers, as Brene Brown calls them, start to come out.
Speaker C:And there were a few really key folks as part of my pivot.
Speaker C:One of them was Ben Idolson who is a partner at a VC called Step Change Climate VC that he founded.
Speaker C:One of them is a friend of mine called Ido Perry who is a founder of his own climate startup, he's now based in San Francisco.
Speaker C:One of them was the former VP Engineering at the startup that I was at.
Speaker C:His name is Rama Mar.
Speaker C:He has since founded his own climate company.
Speaker C:So when I started to move into climate, I reached out to these friends that were moving into that space and they really helped me, they really helped me level up my understanding, pointed me, introduced me to people and that has really kick started my transition.
Speaker C:And it's really important to me also to give back.
Speaker C:And so when folks come to me and they're looking to also be part of that transition, I'm trying to help connect people with jobs or tell them that my story and helping them see opportunities for them to leverage their existing skill sets in a climate context.
Speaker C:And like you said, climate base is a great resource for this, work on climate is a great resource for this.
Speaker C:But at the end of the day it's going to the, it's going to people, it's connecting with people, building a network and the opportunities will come and it doesn't happen right away but the more you invest in not only connecting people but also bringing other people value, that's it starts that flywheel and eventually you will get there.
Speaker C:And I think for me I had and have, but had a lot of climate anxiety and taking action, even a little bit of action at a day to day basis has really helped me feel like, okay, that sandpapery feeling is smooth because I, I, I, I am kind of Getting some, feel like I'm getting somewhere.
Speaker C:I'm not just stuck in the bog and, like, afraid.
Speaker B:Yes, yes, I, yeah, I, I, so I agree.
Speaker B:And, and what you're saying, like the way that you're giving back by sharing your story as well, I think that is so important and that is much of the reason why I do this podcast, is to share stories about people who had made a transition so that people can relate and see that, oh, she did that.
Speaker B:Maybe I can do that or something similar.
Speaker B:So, yes, really important.
Speaker B:So where do we find out more about Inrange or your work?
Speaker B:Or if people are curious, can I contact you or.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:I mean, I would be a little bit hypocritical if after I said about giving back, I'd say, but don't talk to me.
Speaker C:Feel free to reach out to me.
Speaker C:LinkedIn is usually the best way if you're interested in learning more about Inrange.
Speaker C:Of course, Inrange IO but reaching out to us on LinkedIn is great.
Speaker C:I'm happy to help folks in guiding, but the one thing that I would say, no matter who you reach out to, if it's me or anyone else, come prepared, Think about, who is this person?
Speaker C:What do I want from them?
Speaker C:How can I help them?
Speaker C:Maybe.
Speaker C:And that's the way to really build a network.
Speaker C:There have been folks that have come to me and I totally get it, have come to me and they're like, I, I don't know, I just came across you.
Speaker C:So, like, let's tell me about you.
Speaker C:And is that the best use of not just that person's time, but are you getting the most that you could be getting out of that person?
Speaker C:And so if you're reaching out to someone, read about them, see what they've done, listen to stuff that they've put out there, come prepared with questions, and think about something that you can give back to them, and that's how that flywheel is really going to get built up.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that's really good advice.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Perfect.
Speaker B:Very good ending.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for doing this and for taking the time and I wish you so much good luck with Inrange and all that you do.
Speaker B:And I welcome you to Norway.
Speaker B:I don't know if I have any saying in that, but as I said, we have a lot of big roofs.
Speaker C:I mean, if we expand to Norway, I am looking forward to visiting some fjords along the way.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Oh, yes, you're very welcome.
Speaker A:And that's it for today's episode.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker A:Such a great reminder that the energy transition can be practical, purposeful, and grounded in real impact.
Speaker A:If something sparked in your brain now, or if you had some great aha moments, I'd love to hear it.
Speaker A:You can always reach out to me on storiesforthefuture.com or just use good old LinkedIn.
Speaker A:You can also support the podcast via the website and of course subscribe if you haven't already.
Speaker A:And if you want more behind the scenes content and writing, you can go to my substack and become a free subscriber, that is at vcloveness.substack.com thanks so much for listening.
Speaker A:Take care and I will be back.
