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

GUEST COLUMN

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

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.

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Houston geothermal company raises $97M Series B

fresh funding

Houston-based geothermal energy startup Sage Geosystems has closed its Series B fundraising round and plans to use the money to launch its first commercial next-generation geothermal power generation facility.

Ormat Technologies and Carbon Direct Capital co-led the $97 million round, according to a press release from Sage. Existing investors Exa, Nabors, alfa8, Arch Meredith, Abilene Partners, Cubit Capital and Ignis H2 Energy also participated, as well as new investors SiteGround Capital and The UC Berkeley Foundation’s Climate Solutions Fund.

The new geothermal power generation facility will be located at one of Ormat Technologies' existing power plants. The Nevada-based company has geothermal power projects in the U.S. and numerous other countries around the world. The facility will use Sage’s proprietary pressure geothermal technology, which extracts geothermal heat energy from hot dry rock, an abundant geothermal resource.

“Pressure geothermal is designed to be commercial, scalable and deployable almost anywhere,” Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, said in the news release. “This Series B allows us to prove that at commercial scale, reflecting strong conviction from partners who understand both the urgency of energy demand and the criticality of firm power.”

Sage reports that partnering with the Ormat facility will allow it to market and scale up its pressure geothermal technology at a faster rate.

“This investment builds on the strong foundation we’ve established through our commercial agreement and reinforces Ormat’s commitment to accelerating geothermal development,” Doron Blachar, CEO of Ormat Technologies, added in the release. “Sage’s technical expertise and innovative approach are well aligned with Ormat’s strategy to move faster from concept to commercialization. We’re pleased to take this natural next step in a partnership we believe strongly in.”

In 2024, Sage agreed to deliver up to 150 megawatts of new geothermal baseload power to Meta, the parent company of Facebook. At the time, the companies reported that the project's first phase would aim to be operating in 2027.

The company also raised a $17 million Series A, led by Chesapeake Energy Corp., in 2024.

Houston expert discusses the clean energy founder's paradox

Guest Column

Everyone tells you to move fast and break things. In clean energy, moving fast without structural integrity means breaking the only planet we’ve got. This is the founder's paradox: you are building a company in an industry where the stakes are existential, the timelines are glacial, and the capital requires patience.

The myth of the lone genius in a garage doesn’t really apply here. Clean energy startups aren’t just fighting competitors. They are fighting physics, policy, and decades of existing infrastructure. This isn’t an app. You’re building something physical that has to work in the real world. It has to be cheaper, more reliable, and clearly better than fossil fuels. Being “green” alone isn’t enough. Scale is what matters.

Your biggest risks aren’t competitors. They’re interconnection delays, permitting timelines, supply chain fragility, and whether your first customer is willing to underwrite something that hasn’t been done before.

That reality creates a brutal filter. Successful founders in this space need deep technical knowledge and the ability to execute. You need to understand engineering, navigate regulation, and think in terms of markets and risk. You’re not just selling a product. You’re selling a future where your solution becomes the obvious choice. That means connecting short-term financial returns with long-term system change.

The capital is there, but it’s smarter and more demanding. Investors today have PhDs in electrochemistry and grid dynamics. They’ve been burned by promises of miracle materials that never left the lab. They don't fund visions; they fund pathways to impact that can scale and make financial sense. Your roadmap must show not just a brilliant invention, but a clear, believable plan to drive costs down over time.

Capital in this sector isn’t impressed by ambition alone. It wants evidence that risk is being retired in the right order — even if that means slower growth early.

Here’s the upside. The difficulty of clean energy is also its strength. If you succeed, your advantage isn’t just in software or branding. It’s in hardware, supply chains, approvals, and years of hard work that others can’t easily copy. Your real competitors aren’t other startups. They’re inertia and the existing system. Winning here isn’t zero-sum. When one solution scales, it helps the entire market grow.

So, to the founder in the lab, or running field tests at a remote site: your pace will feel slow. The validation cycles are long. But you are building in the physical world. When you succeed, you don’t have an exit. You have a foundation. You don't just have customers; you have converts. And the product you ship doesn't just generate revenue; it creates a legacy.

If your timelines feel uncomfortable compared to software, that’s because you’re operating inside a system designed to resist change. And let’s not forget you are building actual physical products that interact with a complex world. Times are tough. Don’t give up. We need you.

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Nada Ahmed is the founding partner at Houston-based Energy Tech Nexus.

Houston maritime startup raises $43M to electrify cargo vessels

A Houston-based maritime technology company that is working to reduce emissions in the cargo and shipping industry has raised VC funding and opened a new Houston headquarters.

Fleetzero announced that it closed a $43 million Series A financing round this month led by Obvious Ventures with participation from Maersk Growth, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, 8090 Industries, Y Combinator, Shorewind, Benson Capital and others. The funding will go toward expanding manufacturing of its Leviathan hybrid and electric marine propulsion system, according to a news release.

The technology is optimized for high-energy and zero-emission operation of large vessels. It uses EV technology but is built for maritime environments and can be used on new or existing ships with hybrid or all-electric functions, according to Fleetzero's website. The propulsion system was retrofitted and tested on Fleetzero’s test ship, the Pacific Joule, and has been deployed globally on commercial vessels.

Fleetzero is also developing unmanned cargo vessel technology.

"Fleetzero is making robotic ships a reality today. The team is moving us from dirty, dangerous, and expensive to clean, safe, and cost-effective. It's like watching the future today," Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures, said in the news release. "We backed the team because they are mariners and engineers, know the industry deeply, and are scaling with real ships and customers, not just renderings."

Fleetzero also announced that it has opened a new manufacturing and research and development facility, which will serve as the company's new headquarters. The facility features a marine robotics and autonomy lab, a marine propulsion R&D center and a production line with a capacity of 300 megawatt-hours per year. The company reports that it plans to increase production to three gigawatt-hours per year over the next five years.

"Houston has the people who know how to build and operate big hardware–ships, rigs, refineries and power systems," Mike Carter, co-founder and COO of Fleetzero, added in the release. "We're pairing that industrial DNA with modern batteries, autonomy, and software to bring back shipbuilding to the U.S."

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