Solar Slice Founder Nathan Childress says his new venture offers a fulfilling way to encourage and promote solar energy and a greener planet. Photo by Pixabay

A Houston nuclear engineer and entrepreneur wants consumers to capture their own ray of sunlight to brighten the prospect of making clean energy a bigger part of the power grid.

Solar Slice Founder Nathan Childress says his new venture offers a fulfilling way to encourage and promote solar energy and a greener planet. An experienced entrepreneur, Childress also serves as founder and CEO of technology software company Macorva.

Although trained in nuclear power plant design, solar power drew his interest as a cheaper and more accessible alternative, and Childress tells InnovationMap that he thinks that the transition to cleaner energy, in Texas especially, needs to step up.

With energy demand skyrocketing, and the push toward renewable solutions, solar seems like a safe bet for Childress, a former competitive high-stakes poker player. Childress cites a recent Yale University study that says 63 percent of Americans “feel a personal responsibility to help reduce global warming.”

But some studies show that 80 to 90 percent of the money invested into fighting climate change “aren’t going to things that people actually consider helpful,” he says.

“They’re more just projects that sound good, that are not actually taking any action,” says Childress, who has called Houston home for 25 years. He received his doctorate in medical physics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he worked on software that provided radiation therapy for patients.

The initial Kickstarter fundraising round, which will be launched soon, will finance the construction of one utility-scale solar farm, on about five to 10 acres, which would produce about 1 megawatt, or 1,000 kilowatts, of clean energy. The plant would make enough energy to power about 200 average homes.

Childress says interest has been strong, with several thousand signed up on the Kickstarter launch list. Some who are signed up expressed interest in a subscription, he said, and that may be offered later. Initially, though, for a one-time purchase of $95, a Solar Slice client can purchase one virtual 50W slice of solar power, produced by the farm. Over its lifetime, Childress says, that one purchase can offset three tons of carbon dioxide.

The app tracks carbon offsetting, and energy production for the slice, showing a client “exactly how much I have helped the climate, here’s exactly how (many) emissions I have prevented from putting in the atmosphere,” he says.

The energy produced by five slices can offset the average American’s carbon footprint for a year, and the power generated by the solar farm will be sold to the electric grid. As clients purchase more slices, they can earn eco-credits to donate to other climate-friendly partners, to plant trees or create pollinator habitats.

While Solar Slice is a for-profit venture, contributors won’t get rich or even make money from their purchase. Rather, it provides validation.

“Our focus is maximizing the real world impact, not for financial gain. This is not something people sign up (for) to make money. We’re really clear about that,” Childress says. “I want to show that it’s possible to have a for-profit company that is sustainable, that does good work.

“And hopefully, we can be part of the spirit…for a bigger movement, and for consumers and business, especially, to do things that matter.”

Solar Slice Founder Nathan Childress says his new venture offers a fulfilling way to encourage and promote solar energy and a greener planet. Photo courtesy

The largest U.S. solar plants are in Nevada and California, and those states are sites under consideration, but Childress says Texas is the most likely home for the initial project. The ten largest utility-scale solar plants in Texas by capacity are all in far west or central parts of the state, according to the state comptroller’s office.

Childress has a team of four, who are handling the marketing, plant design and site scouting, and hopes to hire five to 10 more, depending on response and growth. He says the Solar Slice consumer can directly connect in real time to the contribution that their purchase will make toward a green energy future.

“That was our inspiration..let’s start something that is really making a difference..and making really clear to the individuals what’s being done,” he says.

Solar energy has become a growing source of power for Texas, comprising about 6 percent of the state’s energy generation, as of 2022, the comptroller’s office says.

The state ranks first in projected growth of solar energy over the next five years, with more than 9,500 operating solar plants, and many thousands more announced, according to the state Public Utility Commission.

“We would absolutely love to make this into something where we are building plants around the nation, around the world,” Childress he says.

However, resistance to alternative energy projects like solar and wind, especially on a large scale, remains in some quarters.

Obtaining site permits for swaths of land can be also a challenge. For example, a recent survey by Berkeley Lab of 123 professionals from 62 unique, large-scale wind and solar energy facilities showed that about one-third of wind and solar siting applications in the past five years were canceled.

Half of the projects experienced delays of six months or longer. And according to the survey, developers expect the trend to continue, and become more expensive to address.

However, another Berkeley Lab survey of residents who live within three miles of a solar power plant showed that most view the plant positively. The larger the plant, the more negative the response in the survey. The smaller the farm, the more positive the reactions.

Childress says many of the common objections to utility-scale solar farms are misguided, and incorrect. For example, the concern that they would take over available farmland or take up too much space.

He says that even if the entire U.S. power grid relied solely on solar power, the plants would occupy not even a half percent of available land, which is about one percent farmland.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Texas House Democrats urge Trump administration to restore $250M solar grant

solar grants

Eight Democratic members of the U.S. House from Texas, including two from Houston, are calling on the Trump administration to restore a nearly $250 million solar energy grant for Texas that’s being slashed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a letter to Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, and Russell Vought, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the House members urged the two officials to reinstate the nearly $250 million grant, which was awarded to Texas under the $7 billion Biden-era Solar for All program. The Texas grant was designed to assist 28,000 low-income households in installing solar panels, aiming to reduce their energy bills.

“This administration has improperly withheld billions in congressionally appropriated funding that was intended to benefit everyday Americans,” the letter stated.

The letter claimed that numerous court rulings have determined the EPA cannot repeal already allocated funding.

“Congress made a commitment to families, small businesses, and communities across this country to lower their utility bills and reduce harmful pollution through investments in clean energy. The Solar for All program was part of that commitment, and the EPA’s actions to rescind this funding effectively undermine that congressional intent,” the House members wrote.

The six House members who signed the letter are:

  • U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Houston
  • U.S. Rep. Al Green of Houston
  • U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin
  • U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas
  • U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin
  • U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson of Dallas
  • U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth

The nearly $250 million grant was awarded last year to the Harris County-led Texas Solar for All Coalition.

In a post on the X social media platform, Zeldin said the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” killed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which would have financed the $7 billion Solar for All program.

“The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” Zeldin said.

Energy Tech Nexus announces international startups to pitch at Pilotathon

Ready, Set, Pitch

Energy Tech Nexus will host its Pilotathon and Showcase as part of Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week next Tuesday, Sept. 16, featuring insightful talks from industry leaders and pitches from an international group of companies in the clean energy space.

This year's event will center around the theme "Energy Access and Resilience." Attendees will hear pitches from nine Pilotathon pitch companies, as well as the 14 companies that were named to Energy Tech Nexus' COPILOT accelerator earlier this year.

COPILOT partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatetech sectors. The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory backs the COPILOT accelerator, where companies are tasked with developing pilot projects for their innovations.

The nine Pilotathon pitch companies include:

  • Ontario-based AlumaPower, which has developed a breakthrough technology that converts the aluminum-air battery into a "galvanic generator," a long-duration energy source that runs on aluminum as a fuel
  • Calgary-based BioOilSolv, a chemical manufacturing company that has developed cutting-edge biomass-derived solvents
  • Atlanta-based Cultiv8 Fuels, which creates high-quality renewable fuel products derived from hemp
  • Newfoundland-based eDNAtec Inc., a leader in environmental genomics that analyzes biodiversity and ecological health
  • Oregon-based Espiku Inc., which designs and develops water treatment and mineral extraction technologies that rely on low-pressure evaporative cycles
  • New York-based Fast Metals Inc., which has developed a chemical process to extract valuable metals from complex toxic mine tailings that is capable of producing iron, aluminum, scandium, titanium and other rare earth elements using industrial waste and waste CO2 as inputs
  • New Jersey-based Metal Light Inc., which is building a circular, solid metal fuel that will serve as a replacement for diesel fuel
  • Glasgow-based Novosound, which designs and manufactures innovative ultrasound sensors using a thin-film technique to address the limitations of traditional ultrasound with applications in industrial, medical and wearable markets
  • Calgary-based Serenity Power, which has developed a cutting-edge solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology

The COPILOT accelerator companies include:

  • Accelerate Wind
  • Aquora Biosystems Inc.
  • EarthEn
  • Electromaim
  • EnKoat
  • GeoFuels
  • Harber Coatings Inc.
  • Janta Power
  • NanoSieve
  • PolyQor Inc.
  • Popper Power
  • Siva Powers America
  • ThermoShade
  • V-Glass Inc.

Read more about them here.

The Pilotathon will also include a keynote from Taylor Chapman, investment manager at New Climate Ventures; Deanna Zhang, CEO at V1 Climate Solutions; and Jolene Gurevich, director of fellowship experience at Breakthrough Energy. The Texas Climate Tech Collective will present its latest study on the Houston climate tech and innovation ecosystem.

CEOs Moji Karimi of Cemvita, Laureen Meroueh of Hertha Metals and others will also participate in a panel on successful pilots. Investors from NetZero Ventures, Halliburton Labs, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, Prithvi VC and other organizations will also be on-site. Find registration information here.