Founder in Residence, Scaling grid construction and deployment

Join us to build : we’re seeking entrepreneurially-minded individuals with deep technical and commercial domain expertise, who are eager to solve urgent unmet challenges through venture building. This role offers a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of energy infrastructure, building a new company that dramatically reduces the cost of high-voltage transmission construction through novel approaches to fragmentation and modularity. The role is full-time, remote initially until venture incorporation and spin-out (circa Q4 2027), location TBD. The Problem Worth Solving Across the UK, US and Europe, electricity transmission networks face an unprecedented construction challenge. Decarbonisation targets and the electrification of heat, transport, and industry require a dramatic expansion of high-voltage overhead lines - yet the construction methods used to build transmission towers have barely changed in half a century. Lattice steel towers are fabricated in large sections, transported by heavy goods vehicles and erected using mobile cranes that can cost £300K-£750K per project mobilisation. Foundations are over-designed because site-specific geotechnical data is too expensive to gather at scale. Most cost-reduction efforts remain anchored in incremental optimisation: slightly lighter steelwork, marginally faster crane cycles. These leave the fundamental cost structure intact. Mass-dependent items - steel, concrete, transport, cranage and installation labour - still account for 35-45% of total line CAPEX. For transmission operators facing the scale of the UK's ASTI programme, or equivalent US and European grid expansion, incremental savings are not enough. The Opportunity We believe one of the most promising directions is fragmentation and modularity: decomposing transmission towers into standardised, factory-produced modules - small enough for conventional transport, light enough to assemble without heavy plant, designed for rapid field connection by semi-skilled labour. This approach has the potential to address not only the direct costs of tower erection and foundation installation, but the cascading cost drivers that inflate transmission project budgets: crane mobilisation, road upgrades for heavy transport, weather-dependent construction windows, skilled labour shortages and field operations risk premiums. The commercial space remains wide open. Existing tower manufacturers and EPC contractors are optimised for the current paradigm and face strong...

Summary and match are AI-generated; verify details on the original posting.

Listed via Himalayas. All sources