If you’ve been around the solar industry for long, you might recognize the name, Raffi Garabedian. If you don’t, however, it’s probably because you haven’t studied the rise of one of the largest solar manufacturing brands in the world, First Solar, or perhaps you didn’t sell against First Solar for years like Nico did in his past life! Raffi was the Chief Technology Officer at First Solar for the better part of the last decade, and recently retired to pursue “other interests”. When he came out if stealth this year, we were surprised, and pleased, that it was in pursuit of another cutting edge technology scale-up endeavor - productizing an electrolyzer stack that can scale effectively for developers as many, like Intersect Power, scour the market for a partner to help convert those clean green electrons from massive solar and wind parks into Green Hydrogen.
Founded by experienced renewable energy technologists, Electric Hydrogen aims to cost-effectively decarbonize the massive industrial sectors that we all rely on. Raffi and team are thinking big and with urgency to decarbonize the physical world, and in today’s part four of our Green Hydrogen series, he speaks to exactly where the market is going and what technological limitations have thus far limited scale thus far.
If you’re new to the Hydrogen discussion, you’ll also appreciate Raffi’s solar-specific perspective, detailed insight into the role of solar project developers, and critical thought around the barriers to scale presently for Green Hydrogen technology. It gets technical, but it’s eye-opening, and it’s a ton of value packed into an hour - fair warning, you may need to listen twice!
As in the last 3 episodes, Intersect Power’s CEO, Sheldon Kimber, joins me for a “takeaways” session at the end of the episode so you can hear from a major clean infrastructure developer (Intersect has raised >$2.5B in financing) on where all this fits in a real-world application.
This is part four of our Green Hydrogen Mini-Series. You can follow along and learn more about our experts at www.mysuncast.com/hydrogen
Episode 1 - Nexus of Deep Decarbonization & “The Inevitability of Hydrogen” with Sheldon Kimber, CEO Intersect Power
Episode 2 - The Green Hydrogen Opportunity with DNVs Global Energy Storage leader and Hydrogen Industry Veteran, Jason Goodhand
Episode 3 - The Role of the Large Energy Companies, partnership opportunities, existing infrastructure, and more from a top 10 Oil & Gas analyst, RBC’s Biraj Borkhataria
Episode 4 - Role of New Technologies - with Raffi Garbedin, Co-founder of Electric Hydrogen (formerly CTO of First Solar)
Episode 5 - Decarbonizing Hard-to-abate Sectors Like Steel with Joachim Von Sheele, Global Director of Commercialization at the world’s largest industrial gas company, Linde, who is also building the world’s largest Electrolyzer. (*coming December 21st)
ABOUT RAFFI GARABEDIAN:
Raffi Garabedian is co-founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen Co.
Raffi served as chief technology officer of First Solar, Inc. since May 2012. Raffi joined First Solar in June 2008 as director of disruptive technologies. Before First Solar, Raffi spent over 15 years in the MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) industry, developing new products ranging from automotive sensors to telecommunications switching systems. He was the founding CEO of Touchdown Technologies, Inc., which was acquired by Verigy, as well as Micromachines Inc., which was acquired by Kavlico. Raffi serves or has served on the boards of a number of companies including ESS Inc., Natron, and Covalent Metrologies.
He’s also named on approximately 28 issued U.S. patents.
RESOURCES:
Find Raffi on LinkedIn.
Follow Electric Hydrogen Co. on LinkedIn and their website.
Article: Electric Hydrogen Partnership Hopes To Repeat Success With Renewable Hydrogen Technology
NOTEWORTHY QUOTE:
“Our goal is to build industrial-scale electrolysis so that carbon-heavy industries can adapt”
CHECK OUT THE ENTIRE GREEN HYDROGEN SERIES:
ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:
Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.
Nico is an Investor, Executive Coach, and 15-year veteran of the solar industry, having led development in the US and Latin America for global companies like Trina Solar and Conergy.
You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.
If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.