Hardware Podcasts

Why climate tech startups get this one thing wrong

Catalyst · 31 Oct 2024 · 49m

What this episode covers

Shayle Khan, an investor at Energy Impact Partners (EIP), discusses common pitfalls in techno-economic analysis (TEA) with colleagues Dr. Greg Thiel and Dr. Melissa Ball. They argue that startups often fail by using unreasonable inputs like assuming 100% capacity factor for renewable electricity or ignoring the cost of balance-of-system components in technologies like batteries and solar. The guests emphasize that TEAs should focus on system-level economics, realistic competitor benchmarks, and identifying critical path risks rather than achieving false precision in early-stage models.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Energy Impact Partners, EnergyHub, Latitude Media, Prelude Ventures, First Solar, Cylindra, MSLA
Also
Dr. Greg Thiel, Dr. Melissa Ball, Shayle Khan, Catalyst, IEA

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