EnergyLab

EnergyLab's pre-accelerator is an eight-week climate tech program, and I spent it looking for a problem in an industry I knew almost nothing about. I joined a cohort of ten as the youngest participant they have ever accepted, straight after two months of AI research.

How I got in

I applied without a climate idea.

Most people arrive at a pre-accelerator with a company, or at least a strong view on an industry. What I had instead was a habit of walking into other people's industries and building something: quoting software for tradies, a database of modern construction companies, evaluation harnesses for language models. They took me anyway, even though I was so young I had to sit out the first week until I turned 18.

What I did

Most of the people around me had more years of experience in their fields than I had on the planet, and in the first few sessions I understood very little of what they were talking about. So I went back to basics and taught myself how each corner of decarbonisation works, from the grid to transport to heavy industry, until I could follow what the cohort was building and pick out the few problems I actually cared about.

The first one that stuck was where to build solar and wind farms. A developer often cannot tell whether a site will be able to connect to the grid until after they have bought it, and by then the money is spent.

To test it, I went to the people who actually build these projects. I interviewed the head of development at one of Australia's largest energy infrastructure companies, who had previously run the Australian arm of the developer behind what was then the world's largest off-grid solar and diesel hybrid. I also interviewed a director who develops and finances large-scale battery projects for an investment firm, and the founder of a site feasibility firm for solar and battery developers, and along the way met the founder of a national battery transparency standard.

The more of them I spoke to, the less convinced I was that site selection was where the pain really sat. They kept pointing further along, at the struggle to get projects built at all, and that led me to data centres. Their electricity use in Australia is set to grow several times over, energy ministers have agreed to work towards making them match it with new renewable generation, and a record amount of solar and wind output was switched off in 2025. I spent the rest of the program on whether that demand could pull more clean energy onto the grid instead of slowing the transition down.

How it ended

By graduation, I had pitched multiple student and climate VCs and come away with significant interest and support, including from Startmate, who offered me a spot in their student fellowship as the only high schooler. I left with a real problem I want to pursue, a place in an energy industry notorious for dismissing young people like me, and proof that I can break into these rooms and hold my own. From here, I expect to keep pursuing startup opportunities in energy. The program also ended up sparking my interest in physical and embedded AI.