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Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week announces 2025 dates, key events

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Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week is coming back for a second year. Photo via GHP

Six local organizations focused on the energy transition have teamed up to bring back Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week.

The second annual event will take place Sept. 15-19, according to an announcement. The Ion District will host many of the week's events.

Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week was founded in 2024 by Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, Halliburton Labs, Greentown Labs, Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI), Digital Wildcatters and Activate.

“Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week was created to answer a fundamental question: Can we achieve more by working together than we can alone?” Jane Stricker, senior vice president at the Greater Houston Partnership and executive director of HETI, said in the release.

So far, events for the 2025 Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week include an introduction to climatetech accelerator Activate's latest cohort, the Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum, a showcase from Greentown Labs' ACCEL cohort, and Halliburton Labs Pitch Day.

Houston organizations New Climate Ventures and Digital Wildcatters, along with Global Corporate Venturing, are slated to offer programming again in 2025. And new partners, Avatar Innovations and Decarbonization Partners, are slated to introduce events. Find a full schedule here. 

Other organizations can begin entering calendar submissions starting in May, according to the release.

Last year, Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week welcomed more than 2,000 attendees, investors and industry leaders to more than 30 events. It featured more than 100 speakers and showcased more than 125 startups.

"In 2024, we set out to build something with lasting impact—rooted in the ingenuity of Houston’s technologists and founders. Thanks to a collaborative effort across industry, academia, and startups, we’ve only just begun to showcase Houston’s strengths and invite others to be part of this movement," Stricker added in the release. "We can’t wait to see the city rise to the occasion again in 2025.”

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Through Dsider’s techno-economic analysis platform, Sujatha Kumar is helping startups bridge the critical gap between vision and execution, ensuring they can navigate complex markets with confidence. Photo via LinkedIn

Podcast: How this Houston energy tech startup transforms innovation into scalable success

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What if the future of clean energy wasn’t just about invention, but execution? For Sujatha Kumar, CEO of Dsider, success in clean tech hinges on more than groundbreaking technology—it’s about empowering founders with the tools to make their innovations viable, scalable, and economically sound.

Through Dsider’s techno-economic analysis (TEA) platform, Kumar is helping startups bridge the critical gap between vision and execution, ensuring they can navigate complex markets with confidence.

In a recent episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast, Kumar shared her insights on the growing importance of TEA in the hard tech space. While clean energy innovation promises transformative solutions, the challenge lies in proving both technical feasibility and economic sustainability. Kumar argues that many early-stage founders, especially in fields like carbon capture, microgrids, and renewable energy, lack the necessary financial tools to assess market fit and long-term profitability—a gap Dsider aims to fill.

What Makes Dsider Unique?

Dsider offers more than just financial modeling—it creates actionable insights, tailored to the demands of the clean energy sector. At its core, the platform integrates TEA with operational planning, equipping founders with the ability to run scenario analyses, optimize pricing strategies, and anticipate market challenges. “It’s not just about building a product—it’s about understanding how to make that product thrive in a dynamic, ever-evolving market,” Kumar explained.

In industries where data is limited and stakes are high, startups often struggle to translate early pilots into scalable solutions. Kumar emphasized how Dsider’s approach helps founders forecast regulatory shifts, project downtime risks, and identify key economic drivers—turning complex calculations into a clear strategic roadmap. This foresight enables startups to align with customer expectations and investor requirements from the outset, a step that is often overlooked in early development stages.

Why TEA is Critical for Founders

“Clean tech innovation is hard,” Kumar emphasized, “because there is no historical data to guide decisions.” Startups often operate in unfamiliar territory, where understanding market fit and pricing models is essential. Through TEA, founders can build a financial narrative, simulate real-world conditions, and show investors or customers how their solutions will perform.

Jason, an experienced founder, echoed this sentiment, reflecting on his own mistakes:

"I wish I’d done a TEA earlier—during my first pilot, we didn’t budget for enough support, and it cost us a key customer."

The takeaway? Even at the pilot stage, TEA is invaluable. As Kumar noted, failing early pilots can prevent startups from scaling—making upfront analysis essential for success.

Beyond Technology: Bridging Gaps Between Founders, Investors, and Customers

Kumar highlighted the need to align founders, investors, and customers through a shared understanding of value. TEA enables this by allowing founders to communicate in the same language as their stakeholders—from efficiency gains to regulatory compliance. Dsider's platform provides tools for scenario modeling, allowing startups to optimize for both technology performance and economic outcomes.

One challenge, she noted, is that many founders are scientists without financial backgrounds. “Our goal is to simplify that complexity, so founders can focus on their technology while we take care of the analysis,” Kumar explained. Dsider helps startups anticipate questions from investors, simulate risks, and optimize business models from the start.

A New Way to Sell: Using TEA as a Business Development Tool

Kumar described how TEA can be more than a financial tool—it can become a business development asset. Founders can use Dsider to create customized reports for potential customers, demonstrating the specific value their technology brings. With interactive models and scenario analysis, startups can quickly respond to customer needs and build trust through transparency.

Future Growth

Looking ahead, Dsider aims to scale its operations and expand its impact by continuing to support early-stage founders with affordable, high-impact tools. With growing regulatory support for clean tech and an increasing demand for sustainable solutions, Dsider is positioned to become a key player in the energy tech startup ecosystem.

By bridging the gap between innovation and economics, Dsider is helping founders navigate complex challenges and build businesses that are both profitable and impactful—setting a strong foundation for future growth in the climate tech space.

Listen to the full episode with Sujatha Kumar on the Energy Tech Startups Podcast here.

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 Energy Tech Startups Podcast is hosted by Jason Ethier and Nada Ahmed. It delves into Houston's pivotal role in the energy transition, spotlighting entrepreneurs and industry leaders shaping a low-carbon future.
If we can channel the same sense of urgency and public commitment toward climate change as we did for health crises in the past, climate tech could overcome its current obstacles. Photo via Getty Images

Unlocking climate tech’s potential in Houston: What health innovation's rise can teach us

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Over the past several decades, climate tech has faced numerous challenges, ranging from inconsistent public support to a lack of funding from cautious investors. While grassroots organizations and climate innovators have made notable efforts to address urgent environmental issues, we have yet to see large-scale, lasting impact.

A common tendency is to compare climate tech to the rapid advancements made in digital and software technology, but perhaps a more appropriate parallel is the health tech sector, which encountered many of the same struggles in its early days.

Observing the rise of health tech and the economic and political support it received, we can uncover strategies that could stabilize and propel climate tech forward.

Health tech's slow but steady rise

Health tech’s slow upward trajectory began in the mid-20th century, with World War II serving as a critical turning point for medical research and development. Scientists working on wartime projects recognized the broader benefits of increased research funding for the general public, and soon after, the Public Health Service Act of 1944 was passed. This landmark legislation directed resources toward eradicating widespread diseases, viewing them as a national economic threat. By acknowledging diseases as a danger to both public health and the economy, the government laid the groundwork for significant policy changes.

This serves as an essential lesson for climate tech: if the federal government were to officially recognize climate change as a direct threat to the nation’s economy and security, it could lead to similar shifts in policy and resource allocation.

The role of public advocacy and federal support

The growth of health tech wasn’t solely reliant on government intervention. Public advocacy played a key role in securing ongoing support. Voluntary health agencies, such as the American Cancer Society, lobbied for increased funding and spread awareness, helping to attract public interest and investment. But even with this advocacy, early health tech startups struggled to secure venture capital. VCs were hesitant to invest in areas they didn’t fully understand, and without sustained government funding and public backing, it’s unlikely that health tech would have grown as quickly as it has.

The lesson here for climate tech is clear: strong public advocacy and education are crucial. However, unlike health tech, climate tech faces a unique obstacle — there is still a significant portion of the population that either denies the existence of climate change or doesn’t view it as an immediate concern. This lack of urgency makes it difficult to galvanize the public and attract the necessary long-term investment.

Government support: A mixed bag

There have been legislative efforts to support climate tech, though they haven’t yet led to the explosive growth seen in health tech. For example, the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 and the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 gave universities and small businesses the rights to profit from their innovations, including climate-related research. More recently, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 has been instrumental in advancing climate tech by creating opportunities to build projects, lower household energy costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite this federal support, many climate tech companies are still struggling to scale. A primary concern for investors is the longer time horizon required for climate startups to yield returns. Scalability is crucial — companies must demonstrate how they will grow profitably over time, but many climate tech startups lack practical long-term business models.

As climate investor Yao Huang put it, “At the end of the day, a climate tech company needs to demonstrate how it will make money. We can apply political pressure and implement governmental policies, but if it is not profitable, it won’t scale or create meaningful impact.”

The public’s role in scaling climate tech

Health tech’s success can largely be attributed to a combination of federal funding, public advocacy, and long-term investment from knowledgeable VCs. Climate tech has federal support in place, thanks to the IRA, but is still lacking the same level of public backing. Health tech overcame its hurdles when public awareness about the importance of medical advancements grew, and voluntary health agencies helped channel donations toward research and innovation.

In contrast, climate nonprofits like Cool Earth, Environmental Defense Fund, and Clean Air Task Force face a severe funding shortfall. A 2020 study revealed that climate nonprofits aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions only received $2 billion in donations, representing just 0.4% of all philanthropic funding. Without greater public awareness/sense of urgency and financial support, these groups cannot effectively advocate for climate tech startups or lobby for necessary policy changes. This type of philanthropic funding is also known as ‘catalytic capital’ or ‘impact-first-capital’. Prime Impact Fund is one such fund that does not ‘view investments as concessionary on return’. Rather their patient and flexible capital allows support of high risk, high-reward ventures.

A path forward for climate tech

The most valuable insight from health tech’s growth is that government intervention, while critical, is not enough to guarantee the success of an emerging sector. Climate tech needs a stronger support system, including informed investors, widespread public backing, and nonprofits with the financial resources to advocate for industry-wide growth.

If we can channel the same sense of urgency and public commitment toward climate change as we did for health crises in the past, climate tech could overcome its current obstacles.The future of climate tech depends not just on government policies, but on educating the public, rallying financial support, and building a robust infrastructure for long-term growth.

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Nada Ahmed is the founding partner at Houston-based Energy Tech Nexus, a startup hub for the energy transition.

A Houston energy professional shares his advice for those looking for a job in climate tech. Photo via Getty Images

Houston expert shares 5 tips for people looking to expand their career into climate tech

GUEST COLUMN

If hard times build strong people, then extreme weather events build strong climate tech ecosystems. Nobody knows this conventional wisdom better than Houston.

The past six years alone have seen the second costliest natural disaster in United States history (Hurricane Harvey), the longest power outage in Texas history (Winter Storm Uri), and this June, a heat wave that pushed the ERCOT power grid to record levels.

Combine our ever more volatile climate with a post-COVID-19 reckoning of what it means to work for what you believe in, and you get a recipe for the most significant workforce shift the world has ever seen. This workforce shift rules in favor of climate tech, and it will largely target those who’ve grown up, come of age and started their careers in the midst of this increasing volatility. Climate tech will no longer be considered a standalone industry; it will be baked into all existing industries, and those that don’t accept it will die.

I’m proud to be a climate optimist, but I’m also a realist. The truth is no matter what we do, our volatile climate is going to get worse before it gets better. But if extreme weather events build strong climate tech ecosystems, I can live with that.

To students and young professionals considering a jump into climate tech: There is no better place to be right now. Here are five things to keep in mind as you make that jump.

1. Meet as many people from diverse backgrounds working on as many different things as you can. You will likely feel awkward at first, especially if you don’t naturally gravitate toward conferences and happy hours. At the risk of sounding trite, just treat every stranger like a friend you haven’t met yet. Some of us could probably use more friends anyway.

2. The advice in the self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People, originally published in 1936, is timeless. Possibly the most useful (and most obvious) point is this: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Whenever possible, repeat your new friends’ names when you meet them. Especially if you’re seeking a business development, sales or other external-facing role, perfecting this point should be your Holy Grail.

3. Depending on how new you are to energy and climate tech, you’ll hear lots of unfamiliar lingo. Ask questions, take note of what you still don’t get, and do your best to fill in the gaps on the side. Eventually, acronyms will become your best friend. For example: Have you seen what the ITC and the PTC from the IRA will do to the LCOE of PV according to NREL? IYKYK.

4. Coachability is key. You may feel like you’re getting rejected 99 percent of the time, but the way you respond to and learn from those experiences will ensure the other one percent makes all the difference. At the end of the day, climate tech is so vast that it’s impossible to become an expert in everything, and that’s okay. We may not know what’s going on 70 percent of the time, but I’ll take a .300 batting average any day.

5. It may be impossible to become an expert in everything, but you should proactively learn as much as you can, especially given how quickly the ecosystem is expanding. If you’re not embarrassed by how little you knewone year ago, two years ago or even five years ago, then you’re probably not trying hard enough.

These are only five of my takeaways over the past few years and I’ll be the first to admit that I have a long way to go in implementing them. In a way, that’s what makes this journey what it is. I just can’t wait to see what we build.

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Ryan Davidson is business development lead for CalWave Power Technologies, a California-based company and Greentown Houston member that's focused on converting ocean waves’ hydrokinetic energy into reliable electricity.

Kanin Energy set up shop in Greentown Labs last year to grow its impact on the energy transition. Photo via Getty Images

This energy transition startup taps Houston to grow, build its waste-heat-to-power tech

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Waste heat is everywhere, but in Houston, the Energy Capital of the World, it is becoming a hot commodity. What is it? Janice Tran, CEO of Kanin Energy, uses the example of turning ore into steel.

“There’s a lot of heat involved in that chemical process,” she says. “It’s a waste of energy.”

But Kanin Energy can do something about that. Its waste-heat-to-power, or WHP, concept uses a technology called organic rankine cycle. Tran explains that heat drives a turbine that generates electricity.

“It’s a very similar concept to a steam engine,” she says. Tran adds that the best term for what Kanin Energy does is “waste heat recovery.”

Emission-free power should be its own virtuous goal, but for companies creating waste heat, it can be an expensive endeavor both in terms of capital and human resources to work on energy transition solutions. But Kanin Energy helps companies to decarbonize with no cost to them.

“We can pay for the projects, then we pay the customers for that heat. We turn a waste product into a revenue stream for our customer,” Tran explains. Kanin Energy then sells the clean power back to the facility or to the grid, hence decarbonizing the facility gratis. Financing, construction, and operations are all part of the package.

Kanin Energy began at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the spring of 2020.

“We started like a lotus. A lotus grows in mud — you start in the worst conditions and everything is better and easier from there,” says Tran.

That tough birth has helped provide the team with a discipline and thoughtfulness that’s been key to the company’s culture. Remote work has forced the team to get procedures clearly in place and react efficiently.

Back in May of 2020, its inception took place in Calgary. But the team, which also includes CDO Dan Fipke and CTO Jake Bainbridge, began to notice that many of their customers were either based in Houston or had Houston ties.

A year ago, the Kanin team visited Houston to see if the city could be a fit for an office. In July of 2022, Tran opened Kanin Energy offices in Greentown Labs.

“We’re hiring and building our team office out of Greentown. It’s been really great for us,” she says.

With the company now in its commercialization stage, Tran says that becoming part of the Houston energy ecosystem has been invaluable for Kanin.

The investments being made in climate tech and in energy transition make Space City the right place for the company. For Canadian-born Kanin Energy, Houston is now home. Investors across the nation, including Texas, are now helping Kanin to blossom, much like the lotus.

Janice Tran is the CEO and co-founder of Kanin Energy. Photo via LinkedIn

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

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Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. He also recently served as managing partner at Houston-based investment and advisory firm Helium Capital. Gow is the son of David Gow, founder of Energy Capital's parent company, Gow Media.

According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join Greentown at this critical moment for the energy transition,” Gow said in a news release. “Greentown has a fantastic track record of supporting entrepreneurs in Houston, Boston, and beyond, and I am eager to keep advancing our mission in the energy transition capital of the world.”

Gow has also held analyst, strategy and advising roles since graduating from Rice University.

“We are thrilled to welcome Lawson to our leadership team,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown Labs, added in the release. “Lawson has spent his career building community and championing entrepreneurs, and we look forward to him deepening Greentown’s support of climate and energy startups as our Head of Houston.”

Gow is the latest addition to a series of new hires at Greentown Labs following a leadership shakeup.

Flatter was named as the organization's new CEO in February, replacing Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, who replaced Kevin Knobloch after he announced that he would step down in July 2024 after less than a year in the role.

Greentown also named Naheed Malik its new CFO in January.

Timmeko Moore Love was named the first Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. According to LinkedIn, she left the role in January.

Key takeaways from HETI's Resilient Power Fueling Houston's Economy event

The View From HETI

Recently, the Resilient Power Fueling Houston’s Growing Economy workshop hosted by The Greater Houston Partnership’s Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI) brought together more than 80 industry, civic and innovation leaders in Houston to examine the region’s ability to meet rising demand with resilient power leadership.

The overarching message was clear: Houston is the epicenter of energy and power resilience and the “all of the above” strategy continues to position Houston well for the mission of continued economic growth for the region.

Morning highlights

Keynote speakers and panelists throughout the morning sessions highlighted that Houston’s ability to collaborate is creating real opportunities in a time of significant complexity and uncertainty in the power landscape. Discussions also focused on strategic approaches to resilience in both generation and transmission to serve growing power demand and drive economic growth over the near-term and long-term.

A successful near-term strategy highlighted in the workshop is the innovative business partnership to provide resilience for H-E-B’s retail operations with Enchanted Rock’s bridge-to-grid power solutions. The impact of growing sources of power demand was explored, including the decarbonization of industry and increasing digitization, and the essential collaborations between the energy and tech sectors to drive effective long-term power resilience and economic growth were discussed.

Notable quotes

“Public-private collaborations are the key to solve long-term power resilience problems with the technical expertise and investment capital of corporations and a right-sized local government approach” – Angela Blanchard, Chief Resilience Officer, City of Houston

"The risks and challenges in terms of our net zero power goals require both urgency and long-term focus to drive standardization across the system with speed.” – Sverre Brandsberg-Dahl, General Manager & Head of Product, Microsoft Cloud for Energy

Afternoon highlights

Afternoon sessions focused on complexities and challenges in the current power landscape, as well as policy enablers, investment trends, and innovations driving growth in Houston’s power sector. Stakeholder engagement, supply chain, permitting, and policy emerged from these discussions as key enablers for power and infrastructure investment, innovation, and project advancement.

Advancing and accelerating power and infrastructure projects will require focusing on the critical needs of land, power, and permits. Public-private investment partnerships, along with redesigned regulatory architecture and redirected government incentives, can enable and accelerate innovation and emerging technologies within the power sector.

Notable quotes

“Broad based stakeholder engagement on the ground – early and often – is necessary for the build-out of large-scale power infrastructure.” – Al Vickers, Chief Operating Officer, Grid United

“Learning curves are essential to cost curves, iterative improvement is paramount to project execution.” – Mary Dhillon, Strategy Lead, Fervo Energy

“Show us good unit economics, and we will find the capital for those power and infrastructure projects.” – Michael Johnson, Vice Chairman, Energy Transition Investment Banking, J.P. Morgan

Houston’s resilient power leadership demonstrated through a unique “all of the above” approach with a broad range of investments and collaborations across sectors is creating sustained value for businesses and development opportunities for communities. The insights shared in this workshop reinforce the critical need for resilience of the power sector to meet growing demand for continued economic prosperity in the Houston region.

As the world moves toward a future of significant power demand growth, the power sector should prioritize integrated strategies, stakeholder engagement, supply chain, permitting, and policy as key enablers for innovation, investment, and collaboration.

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This article originally ran on the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston Energy Transition Initiative blog. HETI exists to support Houston's future as an energy leader. Power resilience is a strategic imperative for the Greater Houston Partnership, and power management continues to be a key workstream for HETI. To learn more about HETI's work in power management and resilience, connect with us at contactheti@houston.org. And for more information about HETI, EnergyCapitalHTX's presenting sponsor, visit htxenergytransition.org.

Oxy's Vicki Hollub becomes first woman to win prestigious energy award

Winning Big

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Houston-based Occidental (Oxy), has become the first woman to win WPC Energy’s prestigious Dewhurst Award.

Hollub is the thirteenth recipient of the award, which is considered the highest honor from WPC Energy, a global, non-advocacy, non-political nonprofit organization that promotes the sustainable management of energy and energy products. She is just the fourth U.S. winner since the award launched in 1991. Other U.S. winners include former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson; Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global and chairman of CERAWeek; and former chairman and CEO of Chevron Kenneth Derr.

According to WPC Energy, the Dewhurst Award is given to “exceptional individuals whose leadership and contributions have had a lasting impact on the global energy industry.” It is named after Thomas Dewhurst, who organised the first WPC Energy Congress, formerly the World Petroleum Congress, in 1933.

Oxy works to advance low-carbon technologies, reduce emissions and is leading a number of energy transition projects. Its Oxy Innovation Center is housed in Houston’s The Ion.

Hollub has held a variety of roles in her 40-year career with Occidental, including chief operating officer and senior executive vice president. She also led strategic acquisitions for Occidental of Anadarko Petroleum in 2019 and CrownRock in 2024, and serves on the boards of Lockheed Martin and the American Petroleum Institute. She is one of the first women to lead a major U.S. oil and gas company.

“Vicki Hollub’s visionary leadership and unwavering dedication to innovation and sustainability have set a benchmark for excellence in our industry,” Pedro Miras, WPC Energy President, said in a news release. “She embodies the spirit of the Dewhurst Award—forward-looking, courageous and deeply committed to advancing the global energy dialogue. Her contributions continue to inspire the next generation of energy leaders.”

Hollub will receive the award in April 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the 25th WPC Energy Congress, where she will also present the Dewhurst Lecture.

“I am honored to be selected for the Dewhurst Award and appreciate WPC Energy recognizing our company’s achievements,” Hollub added in the release. “The Dewhurst Award reflects the collective efforts of the talented and dedicated team at Oxy, whose commitment to innovation, operational and technical excellence, and sustainability drives our success.”

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