Sesame Solar: The All-In-One Solution to De-Carbonized Disaster Relief (Who's Saving the Planet Podcast)
Lauren Flanagan -- the CEO and Co-Founder of Sesame Solar, a company providing mobile solar-powered Nanogrid Solutions for disaster response and off-grid power needs -- was the guest in this episode of the "Who's Saving the Planet?" podcast hosted by Lex Kiefhaber.
The conversation covered Lauren's background working in tech with Steve Jobs, the genesis of Sesame Solar to provide clean energy solutions in disaster areas, the elegance and innovation of their mobile system design, learnings from early deployments in challenging environments like Dominica, the decision to use green hydrogen as a fossil fuel-free backup power source, navigating government and military customers, and how the recent Inflation Reduction Act incentives are accelerating their work.
Listen to the podcast here:
The key takeaways from the podcast were:
- After seeing the environmental damage caused by fossil fuel generators used in disaster response, Lauren was inspired to create a clean energy alternative with Sesame Solar. Their Renewable Mobile Nanogrids provide power, water, communications and more.
- Early prototypes were deployed in Dominica after Hurricane Maria in very difficult conditions, which provided invaluable learnings about real-world needs. This ‘knockout stress test’ strategy validates the robustness of these Nanogrids.
- Their elegant system design integrates solar panels, batteries, and green hydrogen generation to provide renewable power completely autonomous from the grid. The modular ‘LEGO block’ approach enables custom solutions.
- Conviction to avoid diesel and passion to help drive product innovation. As Lauren says, “We gotta decarbonize disaster response.” Government mandates and climate goals provide tailwinds.
- Advice to entrepreneurs - take big swings, learn from failures, and focus on solving big problems that help the planet, even if the tech isn’t glamorous. Lauren is taking this approach with Sesame’s next big swing coming soon!
