Watt It Takes: Why This Founder Dug Into Home Geothermal

This week on Watt It Takes: How a product manager at Google saw promise in geothermal heat pumps — and applied the lessons of solar to an underserved market. In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Kathy Hannun, the co-founder of Dandelion, a home geothermal company that uses a proprietary drilling technique, simple product design, and financing to cut the cost of ground-source heating and cooling. For seven years, Kathy was on the rapid evaluation team at Alphabet X — formerly Google X — evaluating technology moonshots. That’s where she stumbled upon the opportunity in geothermal. We’re going to hear from Kathy about what she learned trying to tackle a tough tech like home geothermal. We’ll also hear about what she learned from her time at Google, how she built her team, and why raising money as an expecting mother presented some unique challenges.  This conversation was recorded live at Powerhouse’s headquarters. Buy tickets for upcoming events. Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric. We're also sponsored by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project. Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.