Why Solar Deployment Speed Is the Real Climate Bottleneck with Deise Yumi Asami

Utility-scale solar is racing to meet surging power demand, yet installation bottlenecks, including labour shortages, heavier panels, and inconsistent daily output, are slowing progress. Deise Yumi Asami and the team at AES Corporation are tackling this with Maximo, an AI-powered field robot that automates panel installation, thereby cutting build times while improving safety and deployment certainty.

In this episode of Hardware to Save a Planet, host Dylan Garrett speaks with Deise about engineering autonomous robotics for unpredictable outdoor environments. She explains how computer vision replaces fixed programming, how simulation and digital twins accelerated development, and why EPCs value certainty over simple cost savings. The conversation explores scaling hardware inside a Fortune 500 company and reflects on how aligning technical skill with climate impact can accelerate clean energy adoption.

Deise Yumi Asami is the creator of Maximo, an AI-enabled robotic system designed to revolutionize solar panel installation. With an electrical engineering background and over a decade of experience at AES Corporation as Head of Growth, she developed Maximo within AES Next, the corporation's innovation and investment arm, officially founding the company in 2023. Her work combines expertise in automation, field robotics, and renewable energy to address critical bottlenecks of reducing installation time and increasing certainty of delivery in solar deployment, for engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) companies.

Hardware to Save a Planet is brought to you by Synapse. We are a global product development and engineering firm that partners with visionary companies to design, develop, and realize breakthrough hardware and AI-powered innovations that advance climate technologies.

To learn more about Synapse and potential business partnerships we offer outside of the podcast, please visit: https://www.synapse.com/contact/ to get in touch!

Hardware to Save a Planet is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

If you are interested in sponsoring Hardware to Save a Planet, please see our sponsorship offer here.

Previous guests include: Peter Reinhardt of Charm Industrial, Carlos Araque of Quaise, Noah McQueen of Heirloom, Areeb Malik of Glacier, Jeff Satwicz of Bigbelly, Abe Schneider of Natel Energy, Insiya Jafferjee of Shellworks, Paul Gross of Remora, Erika Boeing of Accelerate Wind and Daniel Betts of Blue Frontier.

Check out our three most downloaded episodes:

If you have an interesting hardware solution to the climate crisis and would like the opportunity to share this with our audience, please complete this Guest Application form: https://fame.so/syn