We already have many of the climate solutions we need. But scaling them is hard. The Green Blueprint is a show about the people who are architecting the clean e...
In 2018, LineVision was a young company with revolutionary technology for electric transmission lines. Its dynamic line rating sensors and software could increase the capacity of existing power lines by up to 40% without building new infrastructure — a critical solution for integrating renewables and meeting growing electricity demand.
But to prove its tech, it needed to win over notoriously cautious utilities. When a crucial project worth $750,000 went to a competitor, LineVision's leadership made a last-ditch appeal that changed the company's trajectory.
In this episode, host Lara Pierpoint talks with LineVision’s vice president of customer success, Karthik Rao, about navigating utility cybersecurity requirements, escaping “pilot hell,” and how LineVision became the partner behind the world's largest DLR project.
Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.
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29:16
Nextracker's blueprint for 100 gigawatts of solar trackers
Dan Shugar has been trying to move solar panels around since the 1980s. What started with a few experiments as a young engineer has turned into one of the biggest solar tracker companies in the world.
In 2012 he founded Nextracker with a single product. Since then, Nextracker has revolutionized tracking technology through an array of innovative products.
This week, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Nextracker CEO and founder Dan Shugar about product innovation and customer relationships, and how Nextracker made it through the pandemic.
Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.
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32:14
Electric Hydrogen’s bet on supersized electrolyzers
When Raffi Garabedian co-founded Electric Hydrogen in 2020, he saw existing electrolyzers as too small and expensive to make green hydrogen economically viable. Instead of building standard sub-megawatt units, his team aimed for 100-megawatt systems at half the industry cost.
Initial market enthusiasm brought millions in capacity reservations, fueling construction of a Massachusetts manufacturing plant. Then came the "trough of disillusionment" – a global cooling on hydrogen as projects faltered under high costs.
In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Raffi about taking big technology risks while building a factory during market volatility. He explains why startups, not incumbents, are best positioned to drive the cost reductions needed to make green hydrogen competitive with fossil alternatives.
Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.
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35:53
How supply chain chaos sank Sunfolding
Leila Madrone founded Sunfolding in 2012 with an innovative idea – build a solar tracker using pneumatic "airbags" instead of motors and torque tubes. By 2015, the company was deploying the technology in a field test in Davis, California.
Over the next six years, Sunfolding iterated on the technology’s design, built out the supply chain, and tried to prove bankability. Then, in 2021, the company found themselves faced with a major decision: take on a utility scale solar project during a global pandemic, or pass.
In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Leila about SunFolding's journey from breakthrough technology to shutdown, exploring the critical decisions that shaped the company's path and ultimately led to Sunfolding shutting down in 2023. Leila also shares the broader lessons for climate hardware startups navigating the complex intersection of innovation, manufacturing, and venture funding.
Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.
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42:41
Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
This week, we’re featuring an episode of Open Circuit, a new show from Latitude Media that reunites Jigar Shah, Katherine Hamilton, and Stephen Lacey.
Many listeners may remember them from The Energy Gang, a show they co-hosted for eight years.
They are back together, co-hosting a weekly roundtable that will cover the latest news – to explain what's really accelerating the energy transition, from technological leaps and supply chain shifts, to market upheavals and policy uncertainty.
If you like what you hear, go to your podcast app and subscribe to Open Circuit. You can also hear every episode and read transcripts at Latitudemedia.com.
We’ll be back with a normal episode of The Green Blueprint next week.
We already have many of the climate solutions we need. But scaling them is hard. The Green Blueprint is a show about the people who are architecting the clean economy. Every other week, host Lara Pierpoint profiles the founders, investors, and organizational leaders who are solving complex challenges in the quest to build climate technologies fast.
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