Global Problem. Local Solutions.
Global Problem. Local Solutions.
A chat with Noaa Cohn about data, product management, and local solutions to a global problem.
👋 Hi to 2,169 climate buddies 🌳
Climate is not a technology problem but a story problem.
Delphi Zero is a consultancy and newsletter about the narrative potential of climate.
Today’s interview features a fellow climate buddy - Noaa Cohn - a data and product expert who made the jump from Google into the exciting world of climate.
We discussed:
👩👧👦 How being a mother of three impacted her career decision
👩🏼💻 How product/data work is different in SaaS and in Climate Tech
🌳 Why local solutions are our best bet in fighting the climate catastrophe
Enjoy this crisp convo!
Global Problem. Local Solutions.
By Art Lapinsch
How did you get into climate tech? Was there a specific moment that made you take the jump?
I was at a natural inflection point in my life. I was less satisfied with my work after spending the majority of my career in the data space, and working my way further up the corporate ladder didn't speak to me.
I was pregnant with my 3rd child. The intensity of the COVID-19 crisis was easing up and life was resuming. At that time I had a few formative conversations with folks who were both friends and mentors in the industry - primarily Ben Eidelson (who is now leading a climate VC called Stepchange) and Ram Amar (who is leading climate company Rewind).
A specific turning point was a chat with Ben about the conversations we'd have with our own children about climate change, and what we did when faced with such an existential threat. Did we bury our heads and go about our lives as though it wasn't happening? Or did we take our skills and resources and use them to at least attempt a meaningful impact?
As this thought took hold, it deepened my dissatisfaction with my current path, and questioned the way I was spending my time. The more I thought about it, the more continuing down this path felt a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I decided that maternity leave would be the right time to take a step back and reconsider the next steps, and how I would orient myself toward a more purpose-driven life in climate tech. I was privileged to have the financial stability, family support, and "career capital" to be able to take the leap, and that it was something I had to do.
You are currently building product at InRange. How do you describe this business to friends who don’t work in climate?
You've been on a plane, and looked down to see massive industrial building rooftops. Why are those huge roofs not covered in solar panels, generating their own local, renewable energy? Why are they not so full of solar panels that they generate way more than they need, and sell the rest to their neighbors? That's the problem we aim to solve.
We are building a platform that significantly streamlines and accelerates all the friction points that lead to the 2% solar adoption in commercial buildings like warehouses and retail spaces. Today, assessing a building for solar is a months-long expensive process using consultants. Instead, we remotely collect lots of data points to assess a building and instantly estimate its potential performance, and what kind of financial result the owner and tenant of that building can get, for free and across their entire portfolio. We use technology to reduce friction at every point in the process, including getting tenants and landlords to agree on contracts, and in buying the hardware and installing the PV system.
The most important part of the platform, though, is that every building becomes part of the InRange energy network. Instead of generating only enough energy for its own needs, these buildings generate more, and sell the excess to other buildings1 in our network. Our AI models forecast and make optimized decisions about which building will sell where, primarily using the existing physical grid infrastructure (the wires and towers themselves) of the country we operate in. This way of doing business creates more revenues for landlords, more energy savings for tenants, and reduces even more emissions from fossil fuel-based energy.
What surprised you about the climate space in general? What was surprising about the specific industry vertical you are currently in? Why was it surprising?
I've actually been quite surprised how an industry like solar, despite the buzz and external perception of newness, is already quite mired in "traditional" ways of thinking and needs to be disrupted.
I came into this role thinking we're competing directly with traditional energy retailers and the challenge was to get people to adopt solar. I was wrong. Solar has been around long enough that it's generally well accepted, if complex and cumbersome to implement.
And when we talk with folks in an industry like commercial real estate, which is so much about financial risk mitigation, about adopting solar we see how traditional "wisdom" has a hold on their mindset. Educating the industry on new and more efficient and profitable ways of working has been a surprisingly large part of the job.
I write a lot of blog posts!
As someone who switched from SaaS/Cloud software into climate tech, what are the main differences from a Product Management perspective? What can be leveraged when transitioning into climate? What has to be relearned?
It depends on the type of startup you join.
It was important to me to join a startup that could point to measurable climate impact, and where my background in data platforms would be a real asset. In terms of impact, I wanted a company that had a leg in the physical world, as climate impact is often much clearer there than in purely software solutions. But I knew I couldn't join a startup that, say, innovated in solvents for DAC - I don't have the background or skillset to contribute meaningfully there.
I landed at InRange, a company that is intrinsically a tech company, but that leverages tech to disrupt a legacy, physical industry (in this case, uses tech and AI to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy in the commercial real estate sector).
Having this leg in the physical world created some distinct differences in product management: As opposed to pure SaaS, there's a huge operational component to consider: the impact of supply chain, procurement and installation processes, IoT devices, network connectivity, and even coming back to college physics concepts when it comes to PV design optimizations and loss factors. Figuring out how to integrate those aspects of the product into a scalable, AI-based tech platform, and working with a brand new domain via our Operations team, has been a transition and a learning experience.
There's also the consideration of coming into a traditional, legacy energy industry. On the one hand - a huge learning curve and a lot of up-skilling to be done. On the other, the upside of coming from the SaaS/Cloud/data world is the fresh eyes with which I see the opportunities there. It creates situations where I may see things through a different lens, or match it with a different pattern in my mind, which can lead to a new solution. The challenge is marrying that with reality, which I am often not completely aware of! But that new way of thinking is often needed to change the existing reality - and in the energy space with so many incoming players and shifts in grid technology and regulation, this new perspective and data platform-oriented thinking has been serving us well.
Let's talk about data! What's trivial to measure in the energy space? What's surprisingly difficult to measure? What is (yet) impossible to measure but would be incredibly valuable?
To be honest - almost nothing is trivial to measure.
Partially because it's a physical space, partially because it's a regulated industry, partially because of the distributed and large scale nature of energy - it's very hard to get your hands on clean, up to date data.
I've seen many companies cropping up in this space, many of them geared toward exposing very specific data sets - from grid availability data (which indicates how much energy can be exported from a specific area) to smart meter readings (to monitor the energy flow for a specific building) to grid mix (which shows how emissions intensive every part of the grid is at any given time).
Since it's so cumbersome and can be so expensive, it's important to isolate which data is critical to the success of the product, what you need to buy, what you can collect yourself, what can be automated vs. manual, and where data can be part of your IP.
In an ideal world, how would the energy data space look like in 2030? What's different/new/exciting? What are new (data) use cases that we have unlocked?
I tried my best to write an interesting answer to this, but I think the answer is the same as any other industry where data is obfuscated, varied, and disjointed - the data is available and clean and real time and all in one place.
Not sure this answer is going to move anyone :)
What is something that you have changed your mind about since working in the climate space? What is something you have doubled down on?
I've really been surprised at the variety of companies that have come up in the space.
In the year I spent at Google working with impact startups, I was already surprised at how many different angles there are in climate, from mineralization to wetlands restoration.
Now that I'm in the energy domain, I'm even more surprised at just how many companies are solving niche problems - the ones I mentioned earlier solving different kinds of energy data access, for example.
I've really doubled down on my belief in the importance of thinking locally as well as globally. This is a global problem, but it will not be solved globally, it will be solved locally.
For biodiversity efforts this is very clear - local projects designed for specific ecosystems and with local communities. But it's also true for energy. While the technology and company can scale globally, at the end of the day we are working within local communities - in industrial parks among neighbors, within cities or regions, to generate local energy to be consumed locally.
Globalization played a huge part in contributing to the climate crisis, and thinking locally is going to be a huge part of solving it.
When other parents ask you about your jump into climate, what is the most optimistic thing you can tell them? How do they usually react?
This is a really challenging point because I struggle myself with being optimistic about climate.
Being pragmatic about taking action is usually the way I deal with it - and when people ask I try to contribute a straightforward way they can make a real impact, like changing the way their pension is invested.
I find that with parents already overwhelmed by daily life, taking on the extra existential fear around climate and their children's future is counterproductive, so making it actionable and close at hand (and not requiring massive changes in their day to day) helps.
Delving into the science and projected outcomes has never worked particularly well at the barbecue!
🙏 Thanks, Noaa for taking time and sharing your perspective.
I’d love to hear from you, please get in touch and tell me whom I should interview next or which topics you’d like to see covered ✌️
Think of bilateral agreements/PPAs like in this post