Episode 122: Better cooking (and grids) with Copper

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Welcome to Everybody in the Pool. The podcast where we dive deep into the innovative solutions and the brilliant minds who are tackling the climate crisis head on. I'm Molly Wood. This week I went on a field trip. Longtime listeners to this show will know, I am always saying I'm going to go on a field trip and then life and work interfere, but this was just down the road in Berkeley. So this week we are going to continue to talk about electrification and sexy consumer appliances as grid assets that can help us meet power demand without new infrastructure with a visit to the induction range maker Copper. First step, we take a tour with Weldon Kennedy.

Weldon Kennedy: I'm one of the co-founders and the Chief Marketing Officer here at Copper. Uh, at Copper, we make it easy and obvious for everyone to use clean renewable electricity in their daily lives. Um, first way we do that is with our battery equipped induction range named Charlie.

Molly Wood: So your range has a name?

Weldon Kennedy: It has a name. Um,

Molly Wood: Okay. So, and then actually before we, but describe where we are. Like, I mean, we are in, we're in a cool spot. You can feel free to brag about it.

Weldon Kennedy: We're, it's an old, it's an old warehouse that's now our office. We have, um, you know, at different points in time, it's stored different things. Um, it was a worker owned printing press at one point, which is why there's a mural out front. Um, it was, uh, storage for, um, the Cheeseboard at one point, a kind of local hot food environment. Um, and then we, we acquired from them and now it's our office.

We have, um, engineering and research and development over there. Have our commercial and business operations up there, a bunch of meeting rooms all around. Um, and yeah, space where we can kind of do some events and greet people in the front. Um, and then of course, uh, a big kitchen. Uh, we do a lot of cooking here, uh, as you might expect.

And then a big area for lunch with our kind of long redwood tables. It's all one tree that's kind of been, uh, cut, uh, all came from, it was just one giant round into, its kind of four inch slices. Great tables.

Molly Wood: Great tables, they look great too. And just local. Yeah. Beautiful. Local story.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They came from, uh, some folks who had to do it storm clearance, I think it was. And so they like, yeah. So it's reclaimed wood, which is great. Which is a thing we like to do.

Molly Wood: I love it. All right, so, um, yeah, gimme the tour.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. So right up front here we have a couple of Charlie's. So Charlie, uh, a 30 inch battery encrypt induction range. And the purpose of having a battery in a range kind of solves two problems at once. So one, when you think about the clean, renewable energy future that we're moving towards, right, that is gonna require a bunch of batteries deployed at the edge of the grid. And so to do that, the cheapest way to do it is to package it up in an appliance and ship it.

And just plug it in. If you're going to attach a battery in any other way, it's gonna require a bunch of custom work. So let's think about a battery that's like a home battery backup. You're going to have electricians coming out. You're gonna have the city doing permitting. You're gonna have a bunch of conduit with wiring run, and you're gonna have an inverter to to match the grid's AC electrical signal.

If you can take all of that complexity around installation and permitting and conduit and inverters, if you take that away and you just use the battery to run the device, it actually makes it a lot cheaper, like per kilowatt hour of installed energy storage to deploy a battery and you can use, um, kind of existing distribution channels to get them out there in the world.

And then it also solves this problem of when you're getting rid of fossil fuel burning appliances, typically, if you're gonna replace it with its electrical counterpart, and if we're gonna do this right, we're gonna go to using clean renewable energy, it means we're gonna be deploying about a billion electric machines.

So we have a lot of gas appliances retire. Um, 47 million gas stoves that we have to retire. And so if you're gonna make that process as easy as possible, you need to have a bunch of power available right there where the gas stove was, 'cause it was using the gas to have a high powered cooking experience.

And the electrical outlet that's normally there, that's available, it's just a one 20 volt on a 15 amp breaker. Typically, it's not very much power. And so to get a high powered cooking experience, what we do is we just slowly pull power from that outlet. That one that's already there, store it in the battery and then use the battery as a reserve to just quickly deploy power to heat up the oven quickly, to boil water very quickly, uh, and have a really great high powered cooking experience.

Mm-hmm. And so that's what...

Molly Wood: It sounds like, and I will say it sounds like a high powered cooking experience that is also a little more efficient. Like you're just not doing epic energy draws where you're gonna blow a fuse when you also turn on your kettle at the same time.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, right. It's, uh, it is one of these things where you are persistently drawing a very small amount of energy kind of over, uh, a long period of time, rather than having a big spike of energy at the worst time of day.

So, um, you know, Charlie can avoid charging in the evening hours when you were cooking dinner because it charged up in the middle of the day when the sun's shining here in California or at night when you have base hydroelectricity in New York, for example. Um, so yeah, it makes it use the better energy at the right time of day and avoid having these giant spikes in power. So it makes it, you know, better for, you know, it makes it easier for people to electrify their homes. It makes it better for the electrical grid, um, 'cause you're cheaply deploying batteries that use energy at the right time of day. So it's kind of a, a win on both fronts for that sense.

Um, and then, you know, to do those cool things, you have to make it beautiful and you have to make it great, right? Like, you can't like just say, oh, hey, here's how we're replacing fossil fuel equipment. Oh, and here's how we're deploying batteries. If it's not a thing that no one wants to do. And so we spend a lot of time and a lot of energy in making it a beautiful device that is excellent to cook on. Um, so, you know, you can see the whole setup here. Uh, have you used induction before?

Molly Wood: No, I know, I know, I know.

Weldon Kennedy: I'm not gonna touch it then. I know this is yours position.

Molly Wood: Oh my gosh. What? No.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take the wheel. So, um, so. Think about turning up a stereo.

Molly Wood: Uhhuh.

Weldon Kennedy: If you used gas before, that always is an unscrewing motion, but an electric stove is like turning up the stereo. You're always gonna turn to the right, right?

Molly Wood: Oh, yep. It's a righty-tighty stove.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So instead of unscrewing a valve, you're screwing in, tightening a connection. So you can depress that knob and turn it and just go all the way around. Just like, let's take it that all the way up.

Molly Wood: Really?

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Wood: Taking it to 11. Okay, so push, turn.

Weldon Kennedy: I think it's actually taking it to 21 technically.

Molly Wood: Oh dear God. Okay, so there's like little red lights that are, it looks like the kit car. If you are, I've aged myself, but it does, there's some cool red lights on the side,

Weldon Kennedy: So now you have it a hundred percent, but go, go farther. Just turn it a little bit past there and hold it for a couple seconds there. So now it's in boost mode, so it's delivering maximum power to that pan. And you can just watch, you can let go of it now. It'll stay in boost.

Molly Wood: I mean, someone knew, someone did the kit car thing on purpose though, right? Like it's boost mode.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a Okay. We're, you know, we're, we're being a bit cute here, but, um, uh, so you're deploying a bunch of power in that pan and what you are seeing, you can see the water water's already dancing around there.

Molly Wood: Mm-hmm.

Weldon Kennedy: Uh, you can see that the water's already starting to move. It's starting to shake. You're getting like little wisps of steam coming off already.

Molly Wood: Um, do you mind if I take a little video?

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, go for it. Um. So it'll boil water incredibly quickly because it is incredibly powerful. Um, with all that power delivery, uh, I feel like I need you to have a third hand though, um, while you're doing that video because the third hand should be right here and you can touch underneath the surface of the pan, and it's perfectly cool, perfectly safe to touch.

The pan itself is getting hot because it has power going to the pan, but there's no power being transferred. Like it's not radiant coils, right? There's no like glowing hot coil. It is just using an electromagnet to heat the pan itself.

Molly Wood: Can you put that hand back real quick?

Weldon Kennedy: Oh yeah. Sure, sure, sure.

Molly Wood: I'll put mine there too. I'm sure I'm not Just trying to get you to, oh my God. Look at that. Your hand is just right next to the… Oh, okay. Stop. You're activating my inner mom. Okay. I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

What? It is not even warm.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, right. It's amazing, right? It's, I, I, when I first, uh, very early on, like, after having this a month, I was cooking french toast with my, at the time he was like almost three, my kid. And he's like up on the stove top flipping the french toast, uh, in the cast iron pan. And I took the picture and I was sending it to family. And then like, only as I was sending the picture, I was like, huh? I guess, uh, I'm guessed that you just very quickly get used to how safe and how comfortable it really is. That it is just, it is becomes, uh, and it changes your experience with cooking, right? Because it's like the way that I was cooking with him is just something I could not do with any other cooking technology. Um, so it, it, it, it does change your life in ways that you don't expect and you start discovering down the road. Yeah. So, you know, you had that high power really quick boil. You saw it boil really quick, but also in a way that you just don't get with, um, resistance coil electric. You turned it off and it stopped boiling immediately, right?

Molly Wood: Mm-hmm.

Weldon Kennedy: Because as soon as you turn it off, the power's gone. There's no glowing hot coil that it has residual heat in it. The only residual heat is it was heat of the pan. Um, and then you could also turn it down really low and have really precise low temperature control so you can, um, melt chocolate or make a Hollandaise sauce directly on the cooktop without a double boiler.

Molly Wood: Um, so, see that isn't because obviously, and we will get into, in, in one of these conversations, the guest stove people.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah.

Molly Wood: But that is like, not only have you described all the things that gas can do, but again, made it a little bit better.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, exactly. It does, it does all that better. Um, and then you end up with a bunch of things too on the oven side that are just like absolutely smoke anything else out there? So, uh, we can take the oven, spin this around to like, what, like 325, something like that.

Molly Wood: Oh, so look at that digital screen too. Like just telling me exactly what the, what the, instead of having to enter it 50 times with the loudest beeps ever. I'm talking to you Thermador.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. Um, yeah, we, you know, when we went out and we started doing market discovery on what do people want or need in a stove, you know, familiar touch controls. A family member comes over and says, Hey, I wanna cook you dinner. You can say, great, here you go. There's the stove. You know, there's no explanation, there's no, you don't have to show anything 'cause it's just very obvious and very easy.

Um. So the stove, uh, is obviously the cooktop and then the oven. I think because induction is a new technology that feels like magic, you know, with the whole hand touching thing, people forget how awesome electric ovens are compared to what they may have cooked on in the past. Um, because the technology doesn't feel as new. There's not a cool word like induction around it. Um, but electric ovens are great. Especially ones that have battery powdering them. So our battery, because we're using digital controls on it, we can preheat the oven to 325 in four minutes and 13 seconds. I invite you to look up what the preheat times are on the most expensive stoves you can buy. We are almost certainly faster than them. Um, uh, and so that's very nice.

Uh, and then also because we're using those digital controls and multiple temperature sensors in the oven, we have a top and a bottom with a, a convection fan that can balance the temperature in the oven cavity, um, we end up with an incredibly balanced, precise temperature and we can flick the power on and off much faster than most ovens, which allows us to maintain a more even temperature.

So like most ovens will go kind of 20 to 30 degrees above target temp, and then 20 to 30 degrees below. And it kind of cycles on, cycles off, cycles on, cycles off, you know, the saw tooth graph. Um, whereas ours, because it just turn on and off faster, we go about a degree above and a degree below. Um, and so you end up with this incredibly steady temperature. We did this update to increase our, uh, precision. We called it souffle, uh, because now just making a souffle just got really easy.

Molly Wood: I mean, I was just about to say yes. And that is what happens to my cake. The graph, like you just see the inside of the cake, right? Yep.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. We actually, there was, um, we, we have, there's a cooking school in Napa called Plate Kitchen, um, which if ever wanna take cooking classes, you should head on up there.

The only way they could get their school set up was they needed 120 volt devices like ours to be able to set up. So they have, they have, they teach all their classes on our stove, which is great. Um, and so we're, you know, very familiar with 'em and they know us and everything and, um, one of their instructor chefs, um, did a video cooking some raspberry souffles and just, you know, she's like, I don't like cooking souffles 'cause I'm a professional and it makes me look bad when I can't get 'em perfect. And she just nails it, just like straight out the gate. Easy. Just you can just nail new things with that like high precision oven.

Molly Wood: So, quick question on the 120 volt. If I were to get an electric stove that was not induction or another induction range?

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah.

Molly Wood: Would I need 220 or would I just have inefficiency at 120?

Weldon Kennedy: You'd need a 240 volt on a 50 amp breaker. So like, um, you're in a single family house in Oakland, right? Odds are the way your house is built, that you have, uh, a 120 volt on a shared 50 amp breaker behind your stove, and you have a hundred amp panel on your house, right? That's most likely the case.

So a normal electric stove, like a nice induction range, will require a 50 amp breaker within your hundred amp panel. That's, um, a lot of your panel's capacity. Um, it's more than what your central HVAC would require, typically. Um, it's more than your water heater. But the thing is, those both run for a long time, right? They, and so they're like using power throughout the day.

Your stove is only, it has that 50 amp breaker, so you can turn everything on to maximum simultaneously for however long you're gonna do that, which is like never a thing you do. And so like you are building your building's infrastructure around a use case that is very uncommon.

Um, and then really most of the time when you're cooking a meal, you're actually doing a lot of kind of long duration cooking, right? You know, like you'll heat the oven up quickly, but then like once it's 325, it doesn't take much power to keep it at temperature. So you only need a small amount of power to continue to keep your oven temperature. And so that 50 amp breaker capacity is like used quickly.

There we go… 325. That was the ding. Um. So it'll use a bunch of power really quickly, and you're utilizing that capacity you have dedicated, but then you have no need for that capacity. Mm-hmm. And so like you end up with this big spike and then a bunch of idle capacity on that 50 amp breaker. So yes.

Molly Wood: And you also have installation friction. Yeah. Like if I want to switch to another induction range, I can't just bring it home and plug it in.

Weldon Kennedy: Totally. So, yeah, that's the thing about this, like rewiring. So to get all that installed, it costs a ton of money. You're getting multiple electricians to give multiple quotes. You might be getting a panel upgrade from a utility, which you knows how that's gonna take. If your house is built before the 1970s, your kitchen wall probably has lead paint. And so if you're pulling a new wire through there, you're turning your kitchen to a lead remediation site as part of that installation.

Um, there's all sorts of just complexities and challenges that just start stacking on top of each other once you start doing that rewiring of a building, all for a use case you don't really need. And you know, furthermore, if we all do that, if we all rewire all of our houses, we will have built infrastructure that, because, you know, say everyone in your neighborhood does it, then utility has to do the transformer upgrades to service if you all were to turn on your stoves all at once, and that shows up on your electricity bill, right? That shows up on your rate bill. So it's a, it's expensive and complex and unnecessary for the homeowner or for the building owner. And then b, it adds up costing us all more, much more money because we'll have overbuilt our system.

And so like, it makes it way, way easier to, instead of having to think about how am I gonna rewire my house? It's a just plug and play solution, right? No, no rewiring, no, How am I running cable through the floor into my kitchen and up through the wall. None of that. No, no hassle.

Molly Wood: Awesome.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah.

Molly Wood: Um, let's, I feel like we should describe the actual stove and then the, the various options. 'cause I see sort of like what looked like commercial size. I see a little baby. Yeah.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah.

Molly Wood: So apartment size one is in blue.

Weldon Kennedy: These are all the 30 inch Charlie. So 30 Charlie is the 30 inch range. Um, you just see a couple of them next to each other there, those have different generations of firmware on, so we kind of use the kitchen as a testing environment for those. We had a limited edition blue option. Um, we have a sea salt white, so the asite blue is retired. Um, sea salt white, um, is our other one. It's very nice.

Molly Wood: Let's go look at that. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get a little closer. Look at sea salt white, because it has sort of, and then it has the wooden handle and dials, which almost from here look a little coppery. I see what you did there.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. So there's a copper inlay in the, in the walnut. Mm-hmm. So, um, the California black walnut is our kind of optional trim extra. Um, so the base model has, uh, a, a, a polymer set of knobs, which are a glass infused polymer that almost know…

Molly Wood: It's just you won. Get 'em right off the stove.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. They, uh, almost sounds ceramic. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, but that's 'cause it's a very high grade polymer of glass and infuses. You can feel one of those, it'll, it'll feel not just like a piece of plastic. It feels ceramic almost. Yeah. Um, so that's our base trim.

Molly Wood: Okay.

Weldon Kennedy: Um, that's what you get with a, a stainless steel handle as the, uh, the base option and then you have wood upgrade as an option. Um, and then the paint trims are also an additional option as well.

Molly Wood: And currently, so the blue is limited edition. Currently it's stainless steel and…

Weldon Kennedy: Stainless steel and white.Yeah. And so like, uh…

Molly Wood: I'm just straight up shopping here. That's what happened right now. [laughter]

Weldon Kennedy: Wait times on white are a little bit higher right now. Stainless steel, I think we're down to, um, we had, um, there was a kind of really good incentive launched in California last year, um, which is a $3,000 incentive if you're completing your home electrification project, um, for with a battery equipped induction stove, which is us. Um. And so between that and the expiration of the tax credits, we actually had a barnstormer of, uh, end of year last year. Uh, so our wait times, we're now working them down, but, so we're down to about eight weeks wait time on stainless steel right now.

Molly Wood: Okay. That's, that's not that bad. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad except, what are we looking at for the white though?

Weldon Kennedy: Uh, so the white is…

Molly Wood: For no reason.

Weldon Kennedy: Just, just out of curiosity. Um, so the, uh, the base trim mobile is, uh, six thousand… five thousand nine hundred ninety nine. Um, you pay, it's an additional $900 for the paint trim. Uh, and then the walnut knobs are additional 400.

Molly Wood: Okay. Noted.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Wood: It's cool though 'cause I have to time the rest of the home electrification so that this could be the end.

Weldon Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, the, uh, you know, in California, like it doesn't actually have to be the last thing so long as you're doing another load as well at the same time. So you're like getting your, a heat pump or a water heater, you retire those as well. And the California Energy Smart Home incentive then kicks in and it's, um, you know, for a single family home it's 4,250 for the home and the additional 3,000 for battery equipped induction. Now in multifamily housing, it ends up being $5,700 per unit.

Um, if your gas stoves are the last thing to go, and California's incentive stack has been really good about taking care of water heaters and HVAC solutions for multifamily, for affordable multifamily. And so there's a bunch of affordable multifamily out there who still have gas stoves, and this is it now. The state has functionally created an incentive that allows for retirement of those at, you know, almost no cost. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, a couple hundred bucks, um, for a very significant upgrade. And so, um, you know, this is really, uh, there's a window of opportunity between now through 2027 for multifamily building owners in California to make this swap, um, and do those building upgrades. It's exciting.

Molly Wood: Yeah.

Weldon Kennedy: We can, um, look at the 24 inch here. So, um, yes, the, the State of New York, the New York Power Authority, the NYSERDA and NYCHA, so the State Energy Resource Division. And then, um, the New York City Housing Authority, which is interestingly a, a state body. They all got together and they put out a competitive RFP to do 10,000 120 volt plugin stoves for, uh, NYCHA Housing for New York City Housing Authority Housing.

Now, the New York City Housing Authority, um, has 150,000 housing units. They are a very large entity. They have, I mean, that's about as many housing units are in the actual city proper of Miami. It's a, it's a, it's a lot of housing. New York's big. Um, a lot of them are small. A lot of housing in New York is small, and so they have a lot of 24 inches. And so, um, they, as part of that said, Hey, you know, it's great that you guys make a 30, can you develop a, a 24? So we've been working on developing the 24, um, which, uh, you know, we have a functional prototype of now. Um, and we're looking forward to piloting those, uh, later this year. So slightly different device. There'll be some changes from our flagship device, uh, as we deploy those. But yeah, we'll be deploying a bunch of thirties and 24s. Um, I think we, we do a hundred, um, in New York City Housing Authority later this year, and then start scaling deployments with them the following year.

So it's, uh, it's, you know, a really great opportunity in the, the state of New York has been very proactive in, uh, in these sorts of endeavors. It very much, you know, when we first launch a product, I think like many startups, you start with something, um, beautiful that inspires the market and everything. And the fact that we have already been selling our devices into affordable housing, prior to being commissioned to make something specific to affordable housing, just speaks to how strong this solution matches where that market's at.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Okay, so as you probably know, the conversation about induction ranges can get a little spicy because people are obsessed with their gas stoves, and there's a sense that chefs in particular will never give them up. So Copper works with a bunch of chefs. To spread the word and has one amazing one on staff who was on a mission to get the hell away from gas.

Lisa Pinckney: Hi, I am Lisa Pinckney and my job is the Culinary Experience Specialist for Copper. And we're in our warehouse here in Berkeley, uh, slash test kitchen slash offices.

Molly Wood: And then what I, what's your day-to-day job? What do you do as the Culinary Experience Director?

Lisa Pinckney: Well, day to day, I actually, um, create recipes that help our cooks, our customers feel more comfortable with their transition from gas to induction, because there, it is a, a learning curve, but a very small learning curve. And if you just keep practicing, you'll, you'll get everything perfect.

Molly Wood: And so you actually make recipes for customers? Like how does that show up for the customers themselves?

Lisa Pinckney: We actually email recipes out to our customers. Um, I do videos showing people what I'm cooking on the range. Um, any questions that come in over the website or in customer support, I'm there to help people just have a great cooking experience.

Molly Wood: And then how did you end up here?

Lisa Pinckney: So that's an interesting story. I actually had retired and was looking to transition my, my home, my personal kitchen from gas to electric.

Molly Wood: And you retired, you're a retired chef, right?

Lisa Pinckney: I'm a retired chef. 40 years in the business and decided I, I'm tired of breathing the, the toxins and I want to just go for induction. So I Googled American-made induction range and Copper popped up. Charlie popped up. And I went to the website and tried to purchase the stove, and it wouldn't even put me on the wait list. So that really aggravated me. So I went to the website, I saw, did a deep dive, you know, you know me, I'm nosy. I did a deep dive and I actually went into and saw that they had a position, a culinary position available. So I applied for that job and four months later got the, the position came to work, got my stove, and I am having the best time of my life as a chef.

Molly Wood: I mean, I can't believe you unret-, like this stove is so desirable that you unretired.

Lisa Pinckney: Well, definitely it was a beautiful stove and a sexy bean. But if you tell me I can't have something that makes me want it even more.

Molly Wood: And then you said you're having the time of your life here. Like what? What do you get to do?

Lisa Pinckney: I get to work with these brilliant young people. And on top of that, I get their kids too. So I get to play with all the, the, the children. So I call them my, I'm the auntie of the crowd and I prep, I make, uh, recipes. I prepare a meal once a week for the team. I, just simple food, whatever I feel like making, and we have a ball. But then I get to travel and do demonstrations for the stove. And locally, I have been working with a, a kindergarten, a preschool, and doing some little classes with preschool kids about just cooking and cultural, um, food. And it's just a lot of fun.

Molly Wood: What are the recipes that, like what are the things that people need to know or might need to practice a teeny bit more when they first get an induction range?

Lisa Pinckney: Yeah. Um, definitely they want to slow down how they're cooking. People normally tell me that, um, that they burn their eggs or their scrambled eggs are sticking. So that's the first recipe in our culinary guide. The, the manual that you get when you get the stove is perfectly scrambled eggs, because I want people to understand you don't have to change your habits that much. It's just a small learning curve. I mean, when I, when you get an electric car, you don't go to a shell station to charge a car, you know you gotta go to a different place to charge a car.

So with an induction stove, you're not gonna do the same things. You don't have to turn, uh, shake things around, move your pan. The pan needs to stay in place and you just cook. You can sear better, you can simmer better. And soup, stocks, everything is so much easier in with this range.

Molly Wood: Yeah. Is, are chefs coming around to this? Because that, that, I know that's been like a, a, a PR campaign almost for the induction industry at large.

Lisa Pinckney: Right. I think they are. Um, definitely. I've heard from, I've seen a lot of posts on social media and a lot of chefs that are really loving it because you're not sweating, you're not hot and you're not tired. You, you can cook your meals so much faster and spend more time with the people you love. And, and cooking is about spending time with your friends and family.

Molly Wood: Okay. Which stove did you end up with?

Lisa Pinckney: So I have Charlie. I have a stainless steel stove, but I travel with a white stove, which is my first love. It's just like, what I say, a perfect first date. It, it does. It delivers. It's super sexy and it does so much more than you expect.

Molly Wood: That's like the unicorn first date a little bit.

Lisa Pinckney: Oh, absolutely.

Molly Wood: I did do a little shopping while I was here, and I think the white one is the one for me.

Lisa Pinckney: I say go for the white one. You're never gonna regret it.

Molly Wood: Lisa, thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it.

Lisa Pinckney: Thank you.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Time for a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk with Copper's, other co-founders, Sam Calisch, about the energy implications of getting batteries into every home, whether they're in stoves or some other set of future appliances that he wouldn't tell me about.

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool. We're on a field trip to the battery-powered induction range company, Copper.

Sam Calisch: Hi, I am Sam Calisch, one of the founders and the CEO of Copper. We're here in our workshop in West Berkeley where we design our Charlie Stove.

Molly Wood: Okay, so we've taken a look at the Charlie Stove. We've talked a little bit about the battery. I wanna hone in on the battery specifically and the benefits that it presents because you have this kind of increasing conversation about grid stability and, you know, trying to harvest more power and more efficiency without new assets. And so here we are talking about a stove that is also a grid asset because of this battery. Right?

Sam Calisch: Exactly right. And there's layered benefits of having a battery out there in homes where power is being used. First and foremost, if we can keep homes from having to do major electrical upgrades in order to electrify, we help the grid use its existing infrastructure more efficiently, and that's huge. We're in the moment the first time load growth has happened in years. Uh, data centers are coming online. Um, energy affordability concerns. If we can use the existing infrastructure more efficiently, we can solve all of those problems.

And so first and foremost,  putting a battery in an appliance so it can manage its own power is one of the best ways to do that. But then layered on top of that, once you have a battery out there in the world where it has value in someone's home, it's a grid interactive asset. So at times when the grid is under stress, when otherwise, they might turn on a gas fired peaker plant. Um, instead, the grid can use power from the batteries out distributed in, in people's homes, and, uh, in doing so, deliver a lot more clean electricity.

Molly Wood: How soon in the process of developing this company did you realize how big a part of the conversation that would be? Because it, on the one hand, you just put a battery in and it makes it more efficient. You could still use it when the power goes out. There's a lot of great benefits. But was that always kind of part of the plan to involve demand response or, you know, think of yourselves as a, infrastructure.

Sam Calisch: Yeah, so we've thought of Copper as an energy company all along, and one of the best ways to deploy a lot of energy storage assets and control the flow of energy is to make great appliances. And in doing so, we can deploy battery energy, energy storage, far cheaper than its deployed to buildings today. And we do so by leveraging the existing scale distribution channels for appliances.

Molly Wood: How does this make induction range is easier to get? 'Cause it feels like the battery is also just it, I mean, the battery makes, allows you to frankly like buy it off the shelf and plug it in, right?

Sam Calisch: That's right. So we're taking something that used to be a construction project, requiring, um, you know, several contractors to come over and instead turning it into a, you just click and buy, shows up, you plug it in. And in doing so, really lowering the barriers to electrifying and, you know, giving consumers more choice and more access to clean energy.

Molly Wood: So I can use it when the power goes out.

Sam Calisch: That's right. And we had some, you know, some great feedback from customers recently during the power outages in San Francisco. You know, one of our, one of our customers, uh, noted that she counted 20 broken down autonomous vehicles on her block due to the power outage, but her soup was simmering just fine.

Molly Wood: That's like, that's a very San Francisco story. It's delight for those who did not cover that blackout. So you alluded to how you have always known this was an energy company. It sounds like the range is your first product. What other stuff you plan to put batteries in?

Sam Calisch: Yeah, so we've been developing other appliances for years. Um, and I'd say look to other places where fossil fuels like natural gas are common in homes. Things like water heating, HVAC, clothes drying.

Molly Wood: Really? That's all you're gonna give me, Sam? [Laughter]

Sam Calisch: We can try to figure out a way to a little…

Molly Wood: You just, his little nod. He's like, hmm… You don't have to. That'll, that'll be a fun moment.

Sam Calisch: You know, later this year, uh, later this year I might be, I'll say more.

Molly Wood: Okay, great. We'll come back.

Clearly you were onto this early, you know, I'm talking to entrepreneurs who under have understood this the whole time span and quilt and, and you. Do utilities at large understand this? Do policy makers understand the importance of these devices, these installations and this consumer adoption strengthening the grid and being really significant.

Sam Calisch: Yeah, I think actually 2025 was a great year for virtual power plants, VPPs to be recognized as the amazing grid resource that they are. They are fast to deploy, they are cheap. Two things that matter a lot in the era of data centers and load growth. And I think we saw that come into focus so strongly in 2025. We do need to make sure that utility programs, um, are keeping up the pace on this and are designed to adequately and correctly incentivize behavior of behind the meter storage assets like the battery that's in the Charlie Stove.

Molly Wood: How do we, how, what are the mechanisms for, like, are, are you…

Sam Calisch: Do you want me to get nerdy or…

Molly Wood: Yeah. Nerd out. Like how are we, how are we incentivizing them to do that? I mean, certainly California is its own unit. It's, you know, it sounds like California and New York are pretty far ahead, but how do we, how do we make sure that story sticks in those states and then get it out there wider.

Sam Calisch: Yeah. I think we need to make sure these programs are designed around permanent infrastructure change that handles everything in an automated way. I think too many demand response programs are focused on encouraging behavior change or encouraging people to turn their lights off when the grid is under stress.

That's nice, but that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about the potential of VPPs. The levels of power and the amounts of energy stored are such a significant resource that we need to make this sort of an automated approach and we need to make it such that, um, it's a durable incentive. It doesn't disappear, um, once you install that new piece of infrastructure.

Molly Wood: Okay. So who, who's on board? Who are the laggards? Like certainly it sounds like utilities, they're all over the map, right? There's some that are gas and electric. There are some that are gas only. There are some that are bought in and some aren't. You know who, who do we, what are the levers that need to be pulled to make sure that some of these incentives and programs exist and stay.

Sam Calisch: Yeah, so I, I put this in two buckets.

One is we need to make sure the programs we have are designed as well as possible and funded as well as possible. So, uh, there's a program in California called DSGS, Demand Side Grid Support. It's a fantastic program. It's designed very well. We need to make sure it's funded at the, at the fullest level as possible because, um, it delivers such benefits to rate payers that far outstrip its cost. I can get you an exact figure later, but it's not in my head right now.

Molly Wood: Okay, no problem.

Sam Calisch: And then the second part is we need to encourage the development of a market for behind the meter storage assets and grid interactive assets. Right now it all flows through utility programs, but there's plenty of large loads on the grid that would be happy to pay for capacity.

And we see that, uh, with data centers coming online, if we have a market for that, that'll open up all kinds of innovation.

Molly Wood: That's super interesting. Say more about that. 'cause one of my, one of my sort of thesis is that the, it's the, once you get enabling layers, like my, the metaphor I always use is Plaid.

Sam Calisch: Mm-hmm.

Molly Wood: You know, like we had digital technology, we had the ability to buy things online. We had banking, we had all these things. And then some middle layer comes along like Plaid, that's just like, yeah, connect your bank account to this thing. And then a whole bunch of things are possible. Is that sort of what you're saying, that there could be some private market mechanism for aggregating energy? Like anyway, explain.

Sam Calisch: Yeah, so this is not without challenge. We need to make sure and do the appropriate measurement and verification for, you know, if my battery over here is actually freeing up capacity over in a different place on the distribution network. Whether that actually adds up from a physics perspective, but this is very possible. We just need the the layers to support it.

Molly Wood: This is so freaking interesting. The future is so interesting. I love it. Um, okay.

I feel good. I feel like we're at a stage that people can understand, but we don't necessarily have to go too far. I guess like, maybe let me just ask you then, you know, for you with this vision in mind, you know, take us out. Take us a little sci-fi. Take us out like five or 10 years. What does this all start to look like? How does it add up?

Sam Calisch: Yeah, so Copper's building a flywheel of momentum here, and one thing you know that I'm very excited about is we're starting to show the potential of appliances with batteries inside for large scale decarbonization of, of multifamily housing.

So we have a deal with New York City Public Housing to deploy 10,000 units and there's another 300,000 units of, uh, signed intent around that. So that's about a billion dollars. And if we do that and we adequately capture the value those projects are providing to the grid, we can open up massive markets for electrification that don't exist today due to the, the high switching cost that's inherent in the market today.

And it's important that we see the whole picture there. It's not about how much does this stove cost versus that stove cost. You know, essentially these infrastructure changes can be free, can be paid for by the value of that embedded storage. And so that's where we're headed, is that we're gonna build this flywheel momentum for decarbonizing uh, housing across the country and we're gonna pay for it by the value of the batteries that are distributed there. And you know, I think zooming out, it's like, it's not about stoves. It's not about this appliance versus that appliance. It's about putting local storage on the network in the way that allows us to use it as efficiently as possible and actually increase access to clean, reliable energy for, uh, for households across the country.

Molly Wood: Sam, thanks so much for the time today. I appreciate it.

Sam Calisch: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Molly Wood Voice-Over: Okay. And that is it for this episode of Everybody in the Pool. Thank you so much for listening. I would love to hear your thoughts on Copper or Quilt or any other home electrification gadget that has caught your eye recently. Email me your thoughts and suggestions to in at everybodyinthepool.com.

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Together we can get this done. See you next week.