Everybody in the Pool

What if solar panels on your roof, a home battery in your garage, and the EV in your driveway could together make you money — while simultaneously solving the grid capacity crisis?This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Marco Krapels, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Enphase Energy, to discuss what surging data center energy demand means for the future of residential clean energy — and why Enphase thinks the answer is turning millions of American homes into a distributed, AI-optimized virtual power plant.We talk about:Why the AI energy crisis might be the thing that finally scales residential solar and batteriesHow Enphase's software turns rooftop solar, home batteries, and EV chargers into smart, dispatchable grid assetsThe virtual power plant model, and why utilities are finally on boardHow Green Mountain Power in Vermont and Octopus Energy in the UK have already proven this works at scaleWhy adding solar and a 10 kWh battery to less than 10 million homes could solve the U.S. capacity crunchThe bi-directional EV charger that's coming later this year and why it's a 7x multiplier on home battery capacityWhat a future where homeowners get paid by hyperscalers and utilities — instead of paying for their electricity — could actually look likeWhy clean, distributed energy is the fastest path to winning the AI raceLinks:Enphase: https://enphase.com/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

American businesses waste 25-35% of the energy they use. So why aren’t more business owners doing something about it? For most, the problem is too complex and too expensive — there’s no single fix, there are 30 or 40, and calculating the ROI on all of them is no easy task.That’s where Budderfly comes in. Budderfly is an energy-as-a-service company with a beautifully simple premise: they take over a business’s energy bill entirely — funding all the upgrades at their own risk, and pocketing a margin on the savings. It’s a win-win-win situation for the company, the grid, and the planet.On this episode of Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Budderfly’s founder and CEO Al Subbloie to get a behind-the-scenes look into this unique business model.We talk about:Why Budderfly targets franchise businesses, and how their "copy-paste" model unlocks financing and scaleThe four pillars of commercial energy waste: HVAC, lighting, refrigeration, and intelligent energy managementHow Budderfly can lower a companies’ utility bill and upgrade their equipment with zero upfront cost to the customerWhy Al intentionally aligned cost savings with carbon reduction — so customers get climate impact whether it's their priority or notWhat a virtual power plant actually is, and why focusing on small “behind-the-meter” energy adjustments actually matters for the gridHow Budderfly is building one of the largest distributed demand-response networks in the US — and why that's increasingly valuable in an era of AI data center demandTheir vision for working directly with hyperscalers and utilities as grid pressure intensifiesLinks:Budderfly: https://www.budderfly.com/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

99% of registered fleets belong to small and mid-size businesses — but the EV industry wasn't built for them. High upfront costs, years-long waits for grid access, and charging solutions designed for large operators have left the backbone of the American economy behind.This week on Everybody in the Pool, we meet a founder who’s changing that. Galina Russell, co-founder of Mitra EV, built a turnkey solution that bundles electric trucks and vans with charging infrastructure, so plumbers, electricians, and delivery companies can electrify their fleets without the logistical headache.We talk about:Why small commercial fleets are the most overlooked (and impactful) EV opportunityThe barriers to EV adoption for small and mid-size business ownersMitra’s "laptop and charger" model: leasing vehicles and installing charging together, from day oneHow Mitra works within existing grid capacity instead of waiting years for new powerBattery storage, peak shaving, and the vision for 50 megawatts of distributed backup powerWhy cost savings — not climate ideology — is the killer pitch to small business ownersLinks:Mitra EV: https://www.mitra-ev.com/Galina’s book recommendation, The Grid by Gretchen Bakke: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/grid-9781632865687/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three million homes are damaged by natural disasters in the US every year — and with a billion-dollar storm hitting roughly every ten days, that number is only growing. But the system for repairing affected homes is stuck in the past, with mountains of paperwork, fragmented funding, and rampant fraud leaving vulnerable homeowners stranded.This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Susan Hunt Stevens, the founder and CEO of Tessi, a platform working to fix what she calls the “broken post-disaster home repair system.” Tessi brings homeowners, vetted contractors, insurers, government programs, and other funders onto a single platform that uses AI-driven damage assessments to quickly evaluate a home in the wake of a disaster.We talk about:How Tessi uses AI and aerial imagery to generate damage assessments within 24 hoursHow the surge in natural disasters has made homeowners increasingly vulnerable to contractor fraudWhy only 4% of homeowners affected by flooding and hurricanes are actually covered by insuranceHow homeowners can use disaster repair as an opportunity to implement climate-adaptive upgradesTessi’s role in a complicated ecosystem where any repair might be funded by a patchwork of insurance, personal savings, home equity loans, government aid, and even GoFundMeHow Tessi is partnering with volunteer disaster relief organizations to serve socially vulnerable homeowners who fall outside the paid systemTessi’s goal of serving 1 million homes within 5 yearsLinks:Tessi: https://tessi.ai/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The impacts of climate change are hitting the world everywhere, all at once — making climate adaptation more urgent than ever before.This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re flipping the script on climate adaption; no longer viewing it as a funding gap, but as an investment opportunity that could bring lots of types of finance to the table for returns and impact. Niall Murphy, co-founder and managing partner of Morphosis, sits down with Molly to discuss how the world can scale solutions for an already-changing climate, and why the private sector needs to get involved in the new “adaptation economy.”We talk about:What living beyond 1.5 degrees means for adaptationHow 90% of adaptation funding is currently public money, and why that can’t scale to meet the demandThe case for viewing climate impacts as emerging markets and investment opportunitiesWhy insurers’ panic is actually the tipping point we’ve been waiting forReal examples of commercially viable adaptation solutions, from solar-filtering polymers to micro-scale desalinationThe policy gaps that are holding back deploymentHow Morphosis aggregates capital to deploy solutions where they're needed mostLinks:Morphosis: https://www.morphosis.solutions/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.