Neha Palmer, CEO at TeraWatt Infrastructure: on Fleet Electrification, Utility-Grade Thinking & Building the Backbone of AV Charging | Season Ten, Episode Two

Welcome to Season Ten of Conversations in Cleantech!

 

This season, we’re deconstructing digital infrastructure - one of the fastest-growing and most influential parts of the energy transition. From hyperscalers and AI demand to talent, capital, software and sustainability, we’ll explore how data infrastructure gets built, powered, financed, staffed and scaled.

In this episode, our hosts Jenny Gladman and Joe Riley are joined by Neha Palmer, the visionary CEO behind TeraWatt Infrastructure - and one of the rare leaders shaping the future of electrification by blending deep energy expertise with Silicon Valley scale.

From utility engineer to data centre strategist at Google, Neha’s story isn’t your typical founder’s arc - and neither is her company. With TeraWatt, she’s reimagining EV charging infrastructure not as hardware, but as high-uptime, capital-intensive platforms built to power fleets and autonomous vehicles at pace.

This conversation unpacks how to build something bankable before the market is ready for it, why uptime is non-negotiable, and how lessons from data centres can fast-track the future of electric mobility. Neha also shares a grounded and empowering take on leadership - as a woman, a founder, and a force in an industry that’s still finding its footing.

For anyone curious about the intersection of infrastructure, capital, innovation, and conviction - this one’s not to be missed.

01:01 - Introduction to Neha
02:55 - Can you share a bit about your background and the journey that led you to founding TeraWatt?
05:28 - How did your time at Google, particularly working on data centres, shape how you think about infrastructure?
07:55 - How would you explain the TeraWatt business model to someone outside the energy sector?
11:29 - What’s driving the pace of your charging hub expansion?
12:43 - What’s changing in AV deployment that’s driving greater demand for charging and fleet infrastructure like this?
15:13 - Why was it important for TeraWatt to be hardware-agnostic yet selective while building your own software stack?
16:23 - How do you future-proof both existing and new sites as the technology continues to evolve?
17:52 - Raising a billion dollars was a major milestone - how did you think about capital structure from day one in a still-maturing sector?
19:25 - How did you balance vision with building something investors could back from day one?
20:55 - What are the biggest challenges ahead for the sector and for TeraWatt?
23:25 - How do innovation speed and talent bottlenecks in the data centre sector show up for you - and do they affect TeraWatt in the same way?
24:50 - As a woman founder in a male-dominated industry, how do you think about your leadership role and the responsibility it carries for others coming through?
26:15 - What advice would you give to women considering leadership roles or founding businesses in the energy sector?
27:56 - Looking back on your career, is there anything you would have done differently?

Connect with your hosts, Jenny Gladman and Joe Riley, on LinkedIn.

Find your guest, Neha Palmer, on LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening to Conversations in Cleantech brought to you by Brightsmith.

This is a Loaded Hype production.