PoolFlex

What problem are you solving?

Making energy more reliable and affordable. This comes through two sides. First, through the energy grid: right now there's so much demand after almost two decades of essentially no demand growth for energy in the U.S. Now we're projected to see a 30% rise while energy grids have in many cases 5+ year interconnection queues. Demand for electricity is rising because of electrification of everything — of vehicles, of manufacturing processes, of people using more electricity at home, and an avalanche of data centers.

On the other side are people like you and me, who pay for our own electric bills. Over the past five years, we've been paying 30-40% more for our power bills, outpacing inflation. Energy is becoming less affordable and less plentiful. We're trying to become a mediator in that and reverse that trend.

How did you get into this work? What's your origin story?

I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Growing up, hurricanes used to be a rather regular occurrence. If they hit, power would be out maybe a day or two, but it would be fixed. The kid in me would even be happy about it because it meant there was no school that day. 

Then we had Hurricane Maria in September of 2017. That was the most devastating hurricane we've had in the past 100 years in Puerto Rico. Instead of the power being out for a few hours or a few days, it was out in some places for a year. In the capital, San Juan, where I'm from, we got power back after almost three months. My grandparents, who lived in the northwest of the island, didn't have reliable grid power until almost a year after.

That really pushed me to think: how could this happen on an island that has year-round access to sunny weather? It's not as though the technologies don't exist — batteries, grid-scale solar and wind, nuclear, hydrogen, reliable infrastructure, transformers, transmission, distribution, advanced metering infrastructure, etc. All these things exist. So how could this happen? That really pushed me into the energy space, to try to solve those problems myself. We have to make energy more affordable and reliable so that we can prevent future energy disasters like these.

What is something you had to learn the hard way?

Aligning your goals and ideals to the reality happening in industry. My very first job out of college was working at the UN in New York. I did Model United Nations, a simulation debate competition for kids, all of high school and college. I went to work on an innovation team at the UN, so I thought it was a perfect alignment of working in tech, innovation, and international relations. I thought it was going to be my dream job. It was the complete opposite. 

When I got there, all of our projects were being defunded because the most financially significant UN member state was withholding funding. Outside of funding, our team also faced many challenges along the management chain. Everybody talks about bureaucracy in these quasi-governmental associations. There were also several soft barriers you face being a younger person working at the UN.

Learning how to navigate organizations has been a recurring lesson throughout my career. It really depends on what you're looking for. I learned extensively and really enjoyed working at Apple while building the world’s best technology products. However, after some time I realized I missed working directly in the energy space and felt a need to return. That's what prompted me to do graduate school in energy systems.

What assumption do you think this industry has wrong? 

A lot of people doubt the benefits of renewables at scale, financially. They make sense not only for carbon emissions, but also for getting the cheapest electricity — renewables are the cheapest form of electricity we can get. I think the biggest barrier there is reliable access to financing. Solar, battery, and innovating a power system in general, these are very capital intensive. Regular and lower-income households aren't able to invest in them because it's a big financial overhead, especially now with high interest rates.

The industry needs to think about it this way: if we really want to invest in something long-term, we have to invest in innovating these systems that will pay themselves off and just be cheaper in the long run.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Just do it. We spend a lot of time thinking: “what if I do this or that? could it work?” Just go ahead and try and find out. And if you can't immediately do the job, talk to the people who actually are and learn from their perspective. If you want to try something, or be good at something, you just have to go and do it. Keep going, forging your own path.

What does success look like? 

Success for PoolFlex is building a product that people like and use, that saves them money, and produces tangible benefit to the grid, leading to a more balanced overall system. That puts us in a position to invest in more projects that make more regular people able to afford energy — more money in their pockets, and less carbon emissions in general. Energy is the number one contributor of global emissions. If we want to prevent future hurricanes and climate disasters, which unfortunately will be more frequent and more intense, we have to innovate the energy industry towards clean generation.

For me, success is continuing to learn about this industry, building a solution that makes a difference, and getting to know people in the industry that we can build solutions with. I like the thought of becoming a serial entrepreneur as we grow PoolFlex and add new products. The long-term vision is to be the go-to home energy platform, where you can optimize not only your pool, but also batteries, EV chargers, air conditioners, and get the most customer-centric experience.