Watt It Takes: Why This Founder Dug Into Home Geothermal
Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Watt It Takes: How a product manager at Google saw promise in geothermal heat pumps — and applied the lessons of solar to an underserved market.
In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Kathy Hannun, the co-founder of Dandelion, a home geothermal company that uses a proprietary drilling technique, simple product design, and financing to cut the cost of ground-source heating and cooling.
For seven years, Kathy was on the rapid evaluation team at Alphabet X — formerly Google X — evaluating technology moonshots. That’s where she stumbled upon the opportunity in geothermal.
We’re going to hear from Kathy about what she learned trying to tackle a tough tech like home geothermal. We’ll also hear about what she learned from her time at Google, how she built her team, and why raising money as an expecting mother presented some unique challenges.
This conversation was recorded live at Powerhouse’s headquarters. Buy tickets for upcoming events.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by PG&E. |
| 0:03.0 | Did you know that 20% of EV drivers in the US are in PG&E service territory in Northern California? |
| 0:09.0 | The Electric Revolution is certainly happening, but it can't happen with single drivers alone, so PG&E is helping |
| 0:15.2 | to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. |
| 0:17.8 | Get in touch with PG&E's EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation |
| 0:22.2 | fleets electric. |
| 0:23.2 | Don't miss out. |
| 0:24.4 | Find out more at PGE.com |
| 0:26.8 | slash GTM. |
| 0:28.1 | Support also comes from Wonder Capital. |
| 0:31.1 | By now, you probably know that Wonder can finance your |
| 0:34.0 | commercial or community solar projects and they can do it at lightning speeds. |
| 0:37.4 | But did you know they now have lower rates and can finance all kinds of projects? |
| 0:41.9 | Head on over to Wonder Capital.com |
| 0:44.4 | slash GTM to experience the Wonder Difference. Wonder Capital, |
| 0:48.9 | powering the commercial solar industry. This week on what it takes, how a product manager at Google saw promise in geothermal heat pumps and applied the lessons of solar to an underserved market. |
| 1:06.5 | And I really just couldn't understand why geothermal heat pumps were so expensive and hadn't been more commercially successful because it seemed like the time was now but obviously the market was super small. |
| 1:21.0 | Welcome to What It Takes, an interview series produced by Powerhouse and Green Tech Media. |
| 1:26.0 | I'm Stephen Lacy. In this series, we hear from founders and executives at the most influential |
| 1:31.3 | clean energy companies, their backgrounds, their |
| 1:34.4 | struggles, their deals, their management philosophies, their near-death experiences. |
| 1:39.2 | In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Kathy Haneoon, the co-founder of Dandelion. |
... |
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