Matt duesterberg
VIDEO COMING SOON
Matt is co-founder and CEO of OhmConnect, a San Francisco, California based startup that pays consumers to save electricity during periods of peak usage. When electricity usage peaks, low efficiency, dirty power plants called peaker plants are fired up. OhmConnect notifies its users of an upcoming period of peak usage. The users voluntarily dial back their own usage and in return receive incentives in the form of cash and prizes. The coordinated effort of the OhmConnect customers allows the utility to keep the peaker plant powered down. OhmConnect acts as a virtual power plant.
Matt spends much of his time at OhmConnect fighting the incumbent utilities who have resisted cooperating with OhmConnect who they view as a threat to their power. Matt says, "the root of the problem is that the money does not exist in an efficient marketplace. It exits in the hands of monopolies and incumbents. And there are teams and teams of lawyers, and part of my everyday job is to unlock that money to go to a marketplace so that we can compete head on with the utilities".
Matt has recently become a father. He says, "I have a 12 month old daughter. ... Its been a lovely time to see the growth from a newborn. And it really is putting what we're doing at OhmConnect front and center. Especially with current events. With hurricanes Harvey and Irma showing significant climate weirding. And I hope that my daughter Robin will be able to survive throughout the next 40 to 80 years, and part of what we're doing at OhmConnect is to mitigate and control it.".
