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2022 was a momentous year for Wenbo Shi, the founder and CEO of Singularity Energy.
His three-year-old startup — a Software-as-a-Service platform that reports on carbon emissions for the electricity grid — grew from three people in two cities to a team of nine on both coasts. He hired two engineers, three data scientists, a product lead, a marketing & PR advisor, and board members — including MIT graduates and industry veterans.
Singularity also closed its $4.5 million seed round led by Spero Ventures and Energy Impact Partners and received a $1 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation.
Wenbo said the industry is making great progress towards a clean energy future. However, many big questions remain unanswered. The good news, he stressed, is that Singularity is better positioned today than ever before to solve many of these challenges.
.Wenbo honed his interest in solar and decarbonization during an intensive academic journey stretching from undergraduate studies at Xi'an Jiaotong University in Xi'an to a Ph.D. from UCLA and post-doctoral work at Harvard.
At Harvard, he researched smart grid technology and management and published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers, which received more than 1,000 citations.
Two of those papers ranked among the most popular articles ever published in IEEE, the world's largest technical professional organization.In addition to running his company, Wenbo is also an associate editor for the Technical Committee on Carbon Neutrality at IEEE.
Wenbo embarked on an entrepreneurial path after completing his Harvard fellowship. Somerville, Massachusetts-based Singularity uses advanced machine learning to help grid operators quantify their carbon footprints. It analyzes and predicts carbon emissions changes and the impacts of decarbonization measures so customers can time their energy use and trim their carbon footprints.
Initially, he planned to commercialize some of the energy management research he did while working on his Ph.D. But he changed Singularity's mission when he realized people who care about the environment care about lowering their carbon emissions.
"People generally have some understanding going electric is beneficial for the environment because it will reduce emissions. But how do you quantify it? How do you understand the emission impact of decisions?" Webo asked.
In today's podcast, Wenbo explains how Singularity evolved to solve this carbon data problem and how leveraging that data to inform better decisions is the most direct path to decarbonization. This insightful episode is full of memorable takeaways that will act as connective tissue for problems you're solving.
NOTEWORTHY QUOTEs:
“So those are the two types of people that you need in startup, basically, the people who can sell and then people who can build”
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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 16-year veteran of the solar industry, having led development in the US and Latin America for global companies like Trina Solar and Conergy.
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