Former Google Head of Energy Strategy Neha Palmer Joins TeraWatt Infrastructure to Address Critical Gap for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
With the first actionable investment vehicle and real estate strategy of its kind, TeraWatt Infrastructure is building a new charging infrastructure asset class and enabling the transformative shift to all-electric transportation
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#CyrusCapital–TeraWatt Infrastructure, a company founded to develop, own, and finance electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the U.S., today announced the appointment of Google’s former head of energy strategy, Neha Palmer, as CEO. Palmer brings her deep expertise in building out rapidly growing fleets of large-scale, energy intensive infrastructure from the data center world to the emerging electric vehicle charging infrastructure asset class.
As automotive OEMs of all types of electric vehicles increase availability and bring the total cost of ownership down, fleet operators are beginning to prepare for the monumental shift to electric transport. Massive investment in the country’s aging electric infrastructure is required to meet the increased demand from electric vehicles. Given this, and the hyper local power demand of fleets of medium and heavy duty vehicles charging simultaneously, on-site generation, energy storage, and energy management will be required to power these vast charging depots. Building reliable, large scale charging infrastructure requires more capital and energy expertise than most organizations want to take on alone.
TeraWatt Infrastructure brings this capability to its partners to enable America’s fleets to electrify with confidence, providing a path to cost effective electric charging infrastructure. With a purpose-built platform that combines a robust property portfolio, capital, asset financing capabilities, energy management and project development expertise, TeraWatt is filling the multi-trillion dollar investment and infrastructure gap in electric vehicle charging, and providing organizations with a credible, long-term partner in the all-electric transition.
TeraWatt leverages its proprietary database to acquire properties in strategic transportation locations, such as major highway exits between metropolitan areas and logistics hubs, to be developed into energy and charging infrastructure to serve electric vehicle fleets. In addition to this, it provides fleet operators and the companies that sell to them a suite of solutions and asset financing as an enabling capability at their own sites. Keyframe and Cyrus Capital have committed more than $100 million to the platform to date, which today has a portfolio of properties covering several key U.S. logistics routes across 18 states.
“Neha tackled Google’s unparalleled data center energy consumption through a decade of massive growth, while also bending the will of the world to achieve net zero emissions,” said Ben Birnbaum, a co-founder of TeraWatt Infrastructure and Partner at Keyframe Capital, an investment firm backing TeraWatt. “It’s very difficult to find someone with the kind of infrastructure development experience that the world is going to require to make it successfully through the transition to electrified transport, given the complexities of the energy requirements and the sheer volume of watts and capital required. But Neha has this, and the TeraWatt team is incredibly humbled and grateful to have had her join.”
As Google’s first hire focused on data center energy, Palmer built out and led the team developing electric infrastructure and electricity procurement for its global fleet, covering dozens of sites over four continents. When she joined Google, they had eight data centers with under 3 TWh of annual electric consumption; by the time she left, they were operating dozens of data centers on four continents with over 13 TWh of annual electric consumption. She was instrumental in making Google the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world, and the first company of its size to achieve 100 percent renewable energy for operations, which it has done every year since 2017.
“TeraWatt was purpose built to be the crucial intermediary between capital markets, utilities, and organizations of all types looking to electrify their fleets,” said John Rapaport, co-founder of TeraWatt Infrastructure and chief investment officer at Keyframe Capital. “Leveraging over $20 billion of collective energy and transportation project development and investing experience across the founding team, we have been building the underlying infrastructure portfolio and business in stealth for years while we’ve waited for the automotive industry to fully commit to electrification. Now that they have, and customers have come calling for turn-key infrastructure solutions, it was time to put the leader in place who can deliver the permanent transportation infrastructure of tomorrow, just the way she knows how.”
“Backed by investors with extensive sector expertise, including over $1 billion invested into the automotive, transportation and energy industries over their histories, TeraWatt is creating a new infrastructure asset class as we build the permanent charging infrastructure of America and beyond,” said Neha Palmer, CEO of TeraWatt Infrastructure. “I am honored to apply my experience in transforming energy markets to meet customers’ needs to my new role as TeraWatt’s CEO, and I’m inspired by our mission to build out infrastructure to usher in a historical transformation to decarbonize transportation.”
ABOUT TERAWATT INFRASTRUCTURE
TeraWatt Infrastructure is building the permanent electric vehicle charging infrastructure of tomorrow through a robust combination of property assets, financing capabilities and infrastructure and energy management solutions. The company designs, operates and owns and finances charging solutions that take the cost and complexity out of electrifying fleets. With a business model based on well-established economics of renewable energy project development and a proven real estate strategy, TeraWatt was founded, in the absence of anything like it, to be the nation’s reliable, long-term partner in the inevitable transition to all-electric transportation. TeraWatt is backed by Keyframe and Cyrus Capital, which jointly manage portfolios of over $3 billion. The company was founded in 2018 and has been operating in stealth mode until today. For more information: Please visit www.terawattinfrastructure.com.
ABOUT KEYFRAME
Keyframe Capital Partners, L.P. is a New York based SEC registered investment advisor. The firm’s generalist, cross-asset mandate allows it to invest across a diverse range of business models and capital structures. Keyframe looks to build long term partnerships with companies, and to leverage its flexibility to help solve their most complex asset and corporate financing requirements. Please visit www.keyframecapital.com for additional information.
ABOUT CYRUS
Cyrus Capital Partners, L.P. is an SEC registered advisor with offices in New York and London. Cyrus invests on a global basis across the entire capital structure of companies, directly structures capital solutions for companies, and leads capital raises. Cyrus is an active investor that is deep value-focused and experienced in legal and process oriented opportunities. Cyrus was founded by Stephen C. Freidheim in 1999 and became independently-owned in 2005. Please visit www.cyruscapital.com for additional information.
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