The Nexus Podcast

"You can't just sell the data. It's got enormous value, but it needs to be manifested and taught in such a way that people can react to it."

—Mike Moran

• Mike's background (1:17)
• Bayron's background (3:00)
• Kilroy's assets and real estate strategy (4:03)
• How the business case is made for smart buildings (7:36)
• Communicating the ROI (12:17)
• Budgets for technology (17:36)
• Occupancy data as a foundational capability for smart buildings (20:50)
• Many different sources of occupancy data (30:14)
• How data is integrated into workflows (33:13)
• Leak detection (42:16)
• The marketplace for this use case (50:24)
• Toilets leaking everywhere - solutions (55:09)
• Carveouts (59:06)

You can find Mike and Bayron on LinkedIn.
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"Even with heat pumps and electrification, demand flexibility is a really big issue. You need controls to be able to use or roll back energy at the right times and that becomes increasingly important as you have more variability in terms of the generation of energy on the grid."

—Joe Aamidor

• Jeanne's introduction (1:05)
• Joe's introduction (1:52)
• The economic environment that startups are in today (2:23)
• What investors are actually looking for in a startup (8:55)
• 2023 predictions and hot takes (20:55)
• M&A trends in smart buildings (31:30)
• Daikin x Venstar (40:38)
• Legence (Blackstone) x LORD Green Solutions(46:41)
• GRESB x Asset Resolution (51:38)
• Infogrid x Aquicore (53:31)
• Carveouts (1:05:44)

You can find Joe and Jeanne on LinkedIn.
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"Building owners need a lot more than what siloed systems are capable of. Smart building solutions need to solve that problem by integrating with those systems, and in the next phases, adopting more of a horizontal architecture where building owners are not buying all of these redundant layers anymore from a bunch of different vendors. But if we're all speaking from different sheets of music, we're never going have that infrastructure and we're never going to be able to do these more sophisticated things with our buildings."

—James Dice

• Rosy's introduction (3:30)
• Rosy on Shark Tank! (4:40)
• Rosy getting hooked on smart buildings (7:42)
• Nexus' Partner Program and why it's innovative (12:27)
• Rosy's fun rapid-fire for James (20:58)
• James' rapid-fire questions for Rosy (26:30)
• What led James into the smart buildings industry (31:12)
• How James came up with the idea of Nexus (43:12)
• Early days of Nexus vs now (46:04)
• Why Nexus is special (53:45)
• The Nexus perspective on the state of the industry (1:00:55)
• Conference critiques (1:08:25)
• The Nexus' Creator Program (1:14:00)
• Nexus in 2023 (1:20:51)
• Carveouts (1:24:55)

You can find Rosy and James on LinkedIn.
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👋 That's all for this week. See you next Thursday!

Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways Nexus Labs can help you:

1. Take our shortcut to learning the Smart Buildings industry here (300 students and counting)

2. Join our community of smart buildings nerds and gamechangers here (nearly 500 members and counting)

3. (NEW) Join the Nexus Labs Syndicate on Angellist for opportunities to invest in the best smart buildings startups that cross my desk each month.

4. (NEW) Our Partner Hub is launching soon. This is an opportunity to be featured on our website, get original content, and tap into the Nexus community. Visit our partner page. Email us at [email protected]

"We pay $10 billion per year for balancing the grid using natural gas, peaker plants, etc. when we could be paying that to households for those services instead."

-Jigar Shah

• How smart and decarbonized is Jigar's home? (2:30)
• Business model innovation and unlocking decarbonization at scale (4:20)
• Deployment-led innovation (5:50)
• Moving from the 'what' to the 'how' (7:02)
• An overview of the Loan Programs Office (8:52)
• Where loans are targeted in the technology adoption lifecycle (14:30)
• Getting real estate owners to use loans to decarbonize their buildings (16:07)
• Virtual Power Plants (25:55)
• Connecting buildings to data communication streams (35:10)
• The scope of these incentives (44:35)
• Carveouts (46:18)

You can find Jigar on LinkedIn.
Watch on YouTube or read on the web.
Get full access to Nexus.

"Data transparency is a key part of unlocking stronger two-way communication. If you think about the utility side, usually the amount of data they have about where and when energy is being used stops at the substation level. So you might have a really connected smart building but the utility side doesn't have the data to make smarter decisions about reliability, planning, targeting customers for specific programs, etc. If we're able to pull the curtain back with that data, a lot better planning can be done."

—Cindy Zhu

• How smart is Cindy's home? (1:57)
• Cindy's background (4:09)
• DOE's role in the smart buildings industry (19:13)
• Grid-interactive efficient buildings (25:28)
• The practical side of GEB (40:25)
• Utility innovation (45:44)
• Open ADR (52:25)
• Carveouts (57:19)

You can find Cindy on LinkedIn.
Watch on YouTube or read on the web.
Get full access to Nexus.

"Investors are thinking about the long-term value and risk of buildings and recognizing that high-performing buildings are lower-risk, which means higher value. All investment is going to be centered on the risks inherent with buildings and making sure that those buildings are future-proof and able to prosper in a decarbonizing economy."

—Cliff Majersik

• Cliff’s background (2:46)
• Market transformation and how it works (6:08)
• How often building performance is being accounted for today (8:03)
• Policy - Utilities - Startups - Ecosystem - Owners - The roles of every player (11:02)
• Response to regulation as being our only hope (16:51)
• Policy tools for decarbonization in the US (20:07)
• Energy codes (21:00)
• Electrification (27:02)
• Benchmarking (29:07)
• Data access (37:13)
• Green leasing (40:37)
• How people can get involved (52:25)
• Carveouts (55:15)

You can find Cliff on LinkedIn.
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Get full access to Nexus.

“Tenants are struggling to achieve something that landlords have direct control over and that aligns with what landlords are struggling to do. Tenant submetering needs to be looked at and rethought."

—Comly Wilson

• Comly’s background (2:50)
• About Enertiv (6:35)
• 2022 was about TenX and 2023 is all about OpX (18:21)
• How we create a concept of carbon on-site with our operational teams (28:31)
• How landlords align with tenants (31:08)
• ESG 2.0 playbook and what is needed moving forward (34:45)
• Carveouts (43:12)

You can find Comly on LinkedIn.
Watch on YouTube or read on the web.
Get full access to Nexus.

"We're still stuck dragging the anchor of the old proprietary software. Manufacturers need to listen to what the end-use customers are saying. They want open systems, product flexibility, and access to the data."

—Leroy Walden

• Leroy’s background (2:11)
• Conversation Context (5:05)
• Evolutionary phases of smart buildings from a BAS perspective (9:48)
• About the ecosystem: product manufacturers, distributors, system integrators (15:26)
• The nature of system integrators (34:35)
• Getting out of the virtuous cycle world (1:04:11)
• From the old ecosystem to a more accessible and scaleable one  (1:08:56)

You can find Leroy on LinkedIn.
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Get full access to Nexus.

“You can electrify your way out of natural gas usage and move to renewable energy to get yourself out of scope two emissions but refrigerants are going to be the main solution for electrifying both water and space heating, which means a significant increase in refrigerant usage."

—Tristam Coffin

• Tristam’s background (2:09)
• Keys to sustainability in the grocery vertical (5:57)
• Important smart building tech in this vertical and status of deployment (8:23)
• About Effecterra (13:41)
• Why are refrigerants important? (19:39)
• The Montreal Protocol? (22:01)
• US AIM Act (27:31)
• Companies including refrigerants in their inventory today (29:35)
• What are low-GWP refrigerants? (34:34)
• Challenges with incumbent HVAC OEMs (42:56)
• High-level solutions for existing and new buildings (49:34)
• The state of technology for using analytics to find leaks (56:04)
• Industry training and upskilling (1:02:48)
• Carveouts (1:06:55)

You can find Tristam on LinkedIn.
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Get full access to Nexus.

“To really operate a building at scale, you need to be able to know what's happening across everything in that building at any one time and manage it in the same way you would a smartphone. Everything end to end in the building needs to be managed in a way that's much more IT-focused as opposed to OT. And so coming up with complete management of that is really important and that's where it leads onto software-defined buildings."

—Kathy Farrington

• Kathy’s background (3:00)
• Technology stacks (5:55)
• Review and status of Google’s smart buildings program (8:06)
• Overview of the portfolio (12:46)
• SBC conference keynote - Kathy's main message to the industry (14:51)
• History of the BOS concept (17:52)
• Status of implementation (25:31)
• Lessons learned in recent new buildings projects (26:56)
• The device fleet management concept and software-defined buildings (30:23)
• Update on the application layer (38:10)
• Update on the ontology effort (44:09)
• Carveouts (45:06)

You can find Kathy on LinkedIn.
Watch on YouTube or read on the web.
Get full access to Nexus.