Here's the latest global energy company to sign onto Greentown Labs. Photo via GreentownLabs.com
Greentown Labs has named its latest partner, opening a door to Colombia and South America.
Ecopetrol has joined Greentown as its newest Terawatt Partner, the highest level partner for the incubator. The company, which the Colombian government holds a majority ownership stake in, has integrated business across the hydrocarbon value chain, as well as low emission solutions and energy transmission.
"Accelerating the energy transition and fostering climate action is only possible through innovation, entrepreneurship, and meaningful partnerships," Ecopetrol's Chief Innovation Officer Agostinho João Ramalho Almeida says in a news release. "At Grupo Ecopetrol, we believe in joint efforts, orchestration, and access to technology to push barriers and increase value for our business and sustainability agenda. Partnering with Greentown Labs and working alongside industry leaders is an amazing opportunity to tackle common goals and challenges."
The company has a presence in several other locales throughout South and North America, per the release.
With the new partnership, Ecopetrol will have access to the Greentown community and events. Laura Tobón Díaz, head of innovation ecosystems and strategic partnerships for Ecopetrol, will serve on Greentown's Industry Leadership Council.
"Greentown is excited to partner with Ecopetrol, an energy company taking meaningful action on climate in collaboration with the Colombian government," Greentown CEO and President Kevin Knobloch says in the release. "We look forward to seeing our startups' climate technologies advance Ecopetrol's decarbonization efforts, as well as Ecopetrol sharing its energy expertise, connections, and resources with our entrepreneurs."
Earlier this year, TotalEnergies joined the incubator at the Terawatt level, and before that, GE Vernova was the latest top-level partner, joining last fall.
Greentown Labs has a new Terawatt Partner. Photo courtesy of Greentown Labs
Greentown Labs, dual located in Houston and Somerville, Massachusetts, has named its latest top-level partner.
TotalEnergies has joined the incubator at the the highest level of partnership — the Terawatt level — Greentown Labsannounced on January 23. Through the partnership, TotalEnergies will have access to Greentown's membership of clean energy startups and event programming.
Lotfi Hedhli, president at TotalEnergies Research & Technology U.S., will participate on Greentown’s Industry Leadership Council, providing strategic guidance to the incubator.
“We are excited to join Greentown Labs and its ecosystem to catalyze the development of potential decarbonization technologies through collaboration with promising startups,” Hedhli says in a news release. “This partnership with Greentown Labs will focus in particular on the deployment and use of renewables and low-carbon solutions, which are critical to our ambition to achieve carbon neutrality.”
TotalEnergies is among the world's largest utility-scale solar developers with activity in over 30 states in the country, including a Houston-area solar farm that went online in October. Additionally, TotalEnergies announced in November that it signed an agreement with TexGen to acquire $635 million three gas-fired power plants with a total capacity of 1.5 GW in Texas.
“At Greentown Labs, we continue to recognize and appreciate the role energy leaders play in the clean energy transition and we’re proud to have TotalEnergies join us as a Terawatt Partner,” Greentown Labs CEO and President Kevin Knobloch says in the news release. “We applaud the meaningful steps TotalEnergies is taking to expand its renewable energy portfolio and generation, and we’re eager to have their team of experts engaging directly with our climatetech entrepreneurs.”
Greentown Labs, dually located in Houston and Somerville, Massachusetts, has announced its latest Terawatt Partner, which is the climatetech incubator's highest-level partnership.
Greentown Labs announced this week thatGE Vernova, a global energy company that focusing on moving the energy transition through "continuing to electrify the world," has joined its top tier of partners. Greentown has over 20 of these Terawatt Partners, and GE Verona joins the ranks of Chevron, Amazon, Aramco, Microsoft, Shell, and more.
“GE Vernova embodies what we’re looking for in a partner: energy transition expertise with a deep commitment and passion for innovation, collaboration, and decarbonization,” Greentown Labs CEO and President Kevin Knobloch says in a statement. “Equally important, the team at GE Vernova has a real sense of urgency to accelerate global decarbonization and is eager to engage with our community of climatetech startups—I can’t wait to see all that we’ll accomplish together.”
GE Vernova specializes in power, wind, and electrification while keeping decarbonization at the forefront of its business. The company opened itsglobal headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts just down the street from where Greentown got its start in 2011 and only a few miles from the incubator today.
“I am thrilled to join as a new partner with Greentown Labs and look to support the climatetech ecosystem in many different ways,” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik says in the news release. “Whether it’s innovating new technologies, the industrialization of products, or leveraging our relationships globally, we are eager to collaborate with this unique and important group of entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders.”
With the arrangement,Limor Spector, president of Ventures and Incubation at GE Vernova, will serve on the Industry Leadership Council.
Founded in 2022, GE Verona is expected to spin off from GE in the second quarter of next year.
Houston’s Reliant and San Francisco tech company GoodLeap are teaming up to bolster residential battery participation and accelerate the growth of NRG’s virtual power plant (VPP) network in Texas.
Through the new partnership, eligible Reliant customers can either lease a battery or enter into a power purchase agreement with GoodLeap through its GoodGrid program, which incentivises users by offering monthly performance-based rewards for contributing stored power to the grid. Through the Reliant GoodLeap VPP Battery Program, customers will start earning $40 per month in rewards from GoodLeap.
“These incentives highlight our commitment to making homeowner battery adoption more accessible, effectively offsetting the cost of the battery and making the upgrade a no-cost addition to their homes,” Dan Lotano, COO at GoodLeap, said in a news release.“We’re proud to work with NRG to unlock the next frontier in distributed energy in Texas. This marks an important step in GoodLeap reaching our nationwide goal of 1.5 GW of managed distributed energy over the next five years.”
Other features of the program include power outage plans, with battery reserves set aside for outage events. The plan also intelligently manages the battery without homeowner interaction.
The partnership comes as Reliant’s parent company, NRG, continues to scale its VPP program. Last year, NRG partnered with California-based Renew Home to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 in an effort to help households manage and lower their energy costs.
“We started building our VPP with smart thermostats across Texas, and now this partnership with GoodLeap brings home battery storage into our platform,” Mark Parsons, senior vice president and head of Texas energy at NRG, said in a the release. “Each time we add new devices, we’re enabling Texans to unlock new value from their homes, earn rewards and help build a more resilient grid for everyone. This is about giving customers the opportunity to actively participate in the energy transition and receive tangible benefits for themselves and their communities.
Corrosion is not something most people think about, but for Houston's industrial backbone pipelines, refineries, chemical plants, and water infrastructure, it is a silent and costly threat. Replacing damaged steel and overusing chemicals adds hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions every year. Despite the scale of the problem, corrosion detection has barely changed in decades.
In a recent episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast, Anwar Sadek, founder and CEO of Corrolytics, explained why the traditional approach is not working and how his team is delivering real-time visibility into one of the most overlooked challenges in the energy transition.
From Lab Insight to Industrial Breakthrough
Anwar began as a researcher studying how metals degrade and how microbes accelerate corrosion. He quickly noticed a major gap. Companies could detect the presence of microorganisms, but they could not tell whether those microbes were actually causing corrosion or how quickly the damage was happening. Most tests required shipping samples to a lab and waiting months for results, long after conditions inside the asset had changed.
That gap inspired Corrolytics' breakthrough. The company developed a portable, real-time electrochemical test that measures microbial corrosion activity directly from fluid samples. No invasive probes. No complex lab work. Just the immediate data operators can act on.
“It is like switching from film to digital photography,” Anwar says. “What used to take months now takes a couple of hours.”
Why Corrosion Matters in Houston's Energy Transition
Houston's energy transition is a blend of innovation and practicality. While the world builds new low-carbon systems, the region still depends on existing industrial infrastructure. Keeping those assets safe, efficient, and emission-conscious is essential.
This is where Corrolytics fits in. Every leak prevented, every pipeline protected, and every unnecessary gallon of biocide avoided reduces emissions and improves operational safety. The company is already seeing interest across oil and gas, petrochemicals, water and wastewater treatment, HVAC, industrial cooling, and biofuels. If fluids move through metal, microbial corrosion can occur, and Corrolytics can detect it.
Because microbes evolve quickly, slow testing methods simply cannot keep up. “By the time a company gets lab results, the environment has changed completely,” Anwar explains. “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.”
A Scientist Steps Into the CEO Role
Anwar did not plan to become a CEO. But through the National Science Foundation's ICorps program, he interviewed more than 300 industry stakeholders. Over 95 percent cited microbial corrosion as a major issue with no effective tool to address it. That validation pushed him to transform his research into a product.
Since then, Corrolytics has moved from prototype to real-world pilots in Brazil and Houston, with early partners already using the technology and some preparing to invest. Along the way, Anwar learned to lead teams, speak the language of industry, and guide the company through challenges. “When things go wrong, and they do, it is the CEO's job to steady the team,” he says.
Why Houston
Relocating to Houston accelerated everything. Customers, partners, advisors, and manufacturing talent are all here. For industrial and energy tech startups, Houston offers an ecosystem built for scale.
What's Next
Corrolytics is preparing for broader pilots, commercial partnerships, and team growth as it continues its fundraising efforts. For anyone focused on asset integrity, emissions reduction, or industrial innovation, this is a company to watch.
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.
Energy Equation Partners, a London-based investment firm focused on clean energy companies, and New York-based Stonepeak have completed the acquisition of a 65 percent interest in JET Tankstellen Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Houston oil and gas giant Phillips 66.
JET is one of the largest and most popular fuel retailers in Germany and Austria with a rapidly growing EV charging network, according to a news release. It also operates approximately 970 service stations, convenience stores and car washes.
“We are delighted to complete this acquisition and to partner with Stonepeak and Phillips 66 to take JET to the next level,” Javed Ahmed, managing partner of Energy Equation Partners, said in a news release. “This investment reflects EEP’s commitment to investing in established players in the energy sector who have the potential to make a meaningful impact on the energy transition, and we are excited to work alongside the entire JET team, including its dedicated service station operators, to realize this vision.”
The deal values JET at approximately $2.8 billion. Phillips 66 will retain a 35 percent non-operated interest in JET and received about $1.6 billion in pre-tax proceeds.
“Under Phillips 66’s ownership, JET has grown into one of the largest fuel retailers in Germany and Austria," Anthony Borreca, senior managing director and co-head of energy at Stonepeak, added in a news release. "We are excited to join forces with them, as well as Javed and the EEP team, who have long-standing experience investing in and operating retail fuel distribution and logistics globally, to support the next phase of JET’s growth.”
