The Energy Gang

Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcastThis week on Watt It Takes: how a computer nerd who loved assembling electronics became obsessed with designing a solar-storage system to light up Africa.In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Xavier Helgesen, the co-founder and chief technology officer at ZOLA Electric.Zola is a provider of solar and storage systems in Africa. Since its founding in 2012, the company has served over a million people with clean power in five countries.Over the years, Zola has evolved from a small, scrappy startup that offered very basic energy packages into a hardware company that installs sleek, scalable power systems that function better than the grid. “[Our goal] was not to be worse than the grid, but available anywhere — but to just be better than the grid. For solar and batteries to fundamentally be cheaper and more reliable than the grid. And if we succeed in that in the developing world,