Ford Comes Home

Ford Motor Company announced it will build a new $3.5 billion factory in Michigan to manufacture lower-cost electric vehicle batteries. The factory is expected to start rolling out batteries by 2026, supplying enough batteries for 400,000 vehicles per year.

The announcement is another sign that the political deal-making that led to the Inflation Reduction Act is paying near-term dividends.

Ford initially considered building the plant in Canada or Mexico before incentives in the IRA lured them back stateside. Pulling emerging EV supply chains into the US was a sticking point for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin in exchange for aggressive renewable energy targets.

Two incentives in the IRA were decisive for Ford:

• Tax credits for battery cell production worth up to $35 per kilowatt hour of capacity and an additional $10 per kilowatt hour of capacity for the module.
• Incentives to locate battery plants near assembly facilities due to the sheer weight of vehicle batteries, which adds cost and emissions to the total lifecycle of the battery.

The Marshall factory will produce lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which are cheaper than the current nickel-cobalt-manganese chemistry used in many electric vehicle batteries and reduces exposure to complex supply chain disruptions and emissions that we covered here a couple weeks ago.

It also means that the buying car in the EV era will be different than previous generations. Consumers will be able to choose between a battery with lower range and cost or pay more for higher range and power.

The aim is to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible to customers, but there’s still uncertainty about how consumers will react to having to make new choices that they never asked for. Internal combustion vehicles also offer upgrade packages, but they typically upsell for speed and towing capacity, not how far the car can take you.

Road Rules for Charging

Keeping those concerns in mind, the Department of Transportation also issued the first comprehensive guidelines for the installation, operation and maintenance of EV charging stations, which will apply to all federally funded projects.

The guidelines are part of the Biden administration's plan to build a national network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030, and address payment methods, plug types, price transparency, station reliability, and charging speeds.

In addition to charging capacity, the new rules also include consumer protections to eliminate some frustrations that current EV drivers have faced already. Charging companies will be prohibited from requiring memberships and will have to include contactless payment options. Federally funded chargers will also have to demonstrate an average annual uptime greater than 97 percent.

Charger availability problems have already arisen for drivers in developed EV markets such as the San Francisco Bay Area. A survey from last year showed that roughly 73 percent of Bay Area chargers were operational despite promises from providers of an average 95-98 percent uptime.

The Biden administration plans to direct $7.5 billion toward the expansion of EV infrastructure, while S&P Global Mobility estimates the United States will need more than two million public chargers within seven years to support the 28 million EVs it expects to see on the road by then.

Just Transition in Coal Country

The US Treasury Department, Department of Energy and IRS issued guidance on $10 billion in tax credits for clean energy projects in the IRA. At least $4 billion from the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit will go towards projects at closed coal mines and retired coal-fired power plants for fuel cells, carbon capture and retaining critical minerals.

Meanwhile, the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit program will increase the investment tax credit for wind and solar projects in low-income communities by 20 percent over current levels. The credits will translate to 1.8 GW of projects, with 700 MW of that in economically disadvantaged parts of the country.

One hitch is that those municipalities will have to apply for the funds, and federal agencies still haven’t made public exactly which geographic areas will qualify.

“Energy communities” are regions where a local economy previously depended on fossil fuel extraction, and they are the intended target of the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit. It’s still unclear if the funds will prioritize regions with the highest employment needs, brownfield sites, closed mines and generators, or a combination of the three (S&P produced a useful map of all three).

The same goes for defining “low-income communities”, although they are likely to overlap with areas that previously qualified for federal incentives like the New Markets Tax Credit.

🌎 Climate Jobs

Check out some of the latest featured jobs below. If you don't see anything that speaks to you, you can always go to Climatebase to explore thousands of other opportunities.

Synapse Energy Economics, Inc

"Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. is a research and consulting firm specializing in economic and policy research, modeling, and analysis to provide energy sector and climate solutions.  ..."

• Senior Associate, Resource Planning (Remote (Cambridge, MA, USA))

Working Trees

"Working Trees is an agroforestry carbon project developer whose mission is to grow trees where the interest of farmers and the climate overlap. In practice, we pay farmers to grow trees, via carbon revenue, to plant and grow trees on their land.  ..."

• Full Stack Engineer (Remote)

Floodbase

"Floodbase was founded by Bessie Schwarz and Dr. Beth Tellman while studying as Masters students at Yale University. Both had experience working with climate vulnerable communities and saw firsthand how a lack of data directly contributed to inequity and financial ruin in the face of climate change. At Yale, they built the first iteration of Floodbase as a side project ..."

• Strategy & Operations Associate (Brooklyn, NY)
• Software Engineer (Platform/DevOps) (Brooklyn, NY)
• Senior Account Executive (Brooklyn, NY)
• Product Marketer (Brooklyn, NY)
• Market Development Representative (Brooklyn, NY)
• Climate Data Scientist (Brooklyn, NY)

Zero Homes

"At Zero, we are changing the paradigm of how homeowners plan and purchase energy upgrades for their homes. We are streamlining today’s time-intensive and often frustrating process with a self-serve experience that delivers actionable intelligence to homeowners so they can get their projects done without all the hassle. To make this happen, we have created a holistic software platform that ..."

• Head of Software (Denver, CO, USA)

Prometheus Materials Inc.

"Prometheus Materials delivers sustainable building materials that accelerate the world’s transition to a carbon-negative future. Inspired by biological processes found in nature, the company has developed a technology that uses naturally occurring microalgae to produce a bio-cement that offers an affordable, strong, and durable alternative to carbon-intensive portland cement. ..."

• Bioproduction Manager (Longmont, CO, USA)
• Materials Scientist (Remote)
• DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT (Longmont Colorado, Longmont, CO, USA)

Carbon Title

"Carbon Title focuses on solving the immense problem that the world needs more buildings and less carbon. Over the next decade, society needs to build more schools, hospitals, and housing, but we must figure out how to build differently to avoid adding to the climate crisis. To accomplish this task, Carbon Title will elevate and prompt low-carbon service and product ..."

• Business Development Representative (Remote (525 3rd Street, Lake Oswego, OR, USA))

Revalue Nature Ltd

"Revalue Nature develops the highest integrity nature-based projects globally at scale. We do this because we want to see a world of functioning ecosystems. This is our mission. Our projects are beautiful. They provide natural solutions to the climate and nature crisis - sequestering carbon, allowing biodiversity to flourish, enabling communities to thrive, protecting watersheds, and ensuring our ecosystems function as nature ..."

• Environmental and Social Communities Safeguards Specialist (Remote)
• Chief Investment Officer (Remote)

Pacific Biochar Benefit Corporation

"We modify biomass power plants for biochar production, thus leveraging existing infrastructure, trained staff, and hard earned utility and procurement contracts. This lets us get to significant production volume fast and with low cap ex. We’re initially focused on utilization of forest biomass from high fire hazard areas in California, thus helping mitigate catastrophic wildfire in our feedstock sourcing. The ..."

• Logistics Specialist - Bulk Materials (Remote (Northern California, CA, USA))

ChargePass

"ChargePass is a stealth-stage company building mobile solutions for electric fleets to provide their drivers with seamless, reliable, and cost-effective EV charging while growing utilization for charging owners and networks. ..."

• Full-stack Developer (Remote (San Francisco, CA, USA))
• Head of Engineering (Remote (San Francisco, CA, USA))

Multisolving Institute

Founded in 2022, Multisolving Institute provides theory, evidence, and practical tools for addressing climate change, equity, health, well-being, and biodiversity as connected issues. Our project work focuses on identifying the obstacles multisolvers face and training practicioners to help overcome those obstacles.  ..."

• Engagement Manager (Remote)

Prime Coalition

"Prime Coalition is a 501(c)(3) public charity that partners with mission-aligned investors to support extraordinary companies that combat climate change, have a high likelihood of achieving commercial success, and would otherwise have a difficult time raising adequate financial support to scale. We believe that catalytic capital* holds a critical key to unlocking commercial products and services that can help avoid catastrophic ..."

• Portfolio Manager, ECI (Remote)

Gridware

"Gridware’s mission is to create a future where suburban wildfires are a thing of the past. We provide a truly full-stack (hardware + firmware + software) solution for real-time monitoring of America's power distribution grid. The system centers around low-cost hardware platforms that are easily and permanently deployed to power poles. The platform detects and predicts faults that ignite wildfires, ..."

• Mechanical Engineer (Manufacturing & Testing) (Walnut Creek, California, United States)
• Software Engineer (Cloud Team / Backend) (Walnut Creek, California, United States)
• Data Assistant / Tech Support (In-Person) (Walnut Creek, California, United States)
• Data Analyst (Walnut Creek, California, United States)
• Senior Data Scientist (Walnut Creek, California, United States)
• Senior Embedded Software Engineer (Walnut Creek, California, United States)

SINAI Technologies

"SINAI is a San Francisco-based technology company focused on transforming the way companies price, analyze and reduce carbon emissions around the world. We are passionate about technology and the environment, and our mission is to engage companies and governments to include carbon analysis in their entire operations, transforming the way they interact with their own business, their value chain, and ..."

• Customer Success Manager - USA (United States)
• Climate Analyst - LATAM (Sao Paulo, BR, Brazil)
• Climate Analyst - Global (San Francisco, CA, United States)
• Partnership Lead - LATAM (Sao Paolo, BR, Brazil)
• Customer Success Manager - Japanese Speaking (United States)
• Implementation Manager - Brazil (Brazil)
• Product Designer (Brazil)
• Senior Account Executive (LATAM) (Sao Paulo, BR, Brazil)
• Engineering Manager, Product (San Francisco, CA, United States)

LevelTen Energy

"LevelTen Energy’s mission is to accelerate the energy transition by facilitating frictionless transactions. As the leading provider of renewable transaction infrastructure, we deliver the cloud-based software, centralized supply, automated analytics, and transaction expertise required to power the renewable energy economy.  ..."

• Transaction Specialist, Asset Marketplace (Renewable Energy) (Seattle, WA)
• Technical Program Manager (Seattle, WA)
• Renewable Energy Mentorship Program featuring LevelTen Energy, EnergyGPS, Vestas and University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
• Internship Program Coordinator, Energy Scholars (Seattle, WA)
• Software Engineering Manager (Seattle, WA )
• Full Stack Engineer (Seattle, WA)
• Senior Manager, Developer Services (Renewable Energy) (Remote)
• Lead Software Engineer (Seattle, WA )
• Senior Manager, Developer Services (Renewable Energy) (Remote)
• Senior Manager, Developer Services (Renewable Energy) (Remote (Seattle, Remote))

RMI

"RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at ..."

• Senior Associate - Hydrogen - Climate Aligned Industries (Boulder, CO)
• Finance Lead - Carbon-Free Buildings (Boulder, CO)
• Operations Lead – Third Derivative (Boulder, CO)
• Finance Planning and Analysis Analyst (Boulder, CO)
• Program Operations Lead – Third Derivative (Boulder, CO)
• Development Director, Foundations (Boulder, CO)
• Senior Associate - Carbon Free Mobility (Boulder, CO)

Center for EcoTechnology

"The Center for EcoTechnology helps people and businesses save energy and reduce waste. We make green make sense. We work with partners throughout the country to address climate change by transforming the way we live and work – for a better community, economy, and environment. For more than 40 years, our innovative non-profit organization has offered practical solutions to save money, increase the ..."

• Warehouse Receiving Specialist (Remote (Springfield, Massachusetts))
• Retail Sales Associate & Cashier (Remote (Springfield, Massachusetts))
• Energy Consultant - Commercial Focus Field Based (Remote (North Attleboro, Massachusetts))
• Energy Analyst (HERS Rater) (Remote (Springfield, Massachusetts))
• Energy Analyst (HERS Rater) (Remote (Worcester, Massachusetts))
• Marketing & Communications Coordinator - Bilingual, Hybrid (Remote (Springfield, Massachusetts))

Waterplan

"At Waterplan we work in long term water security within the context of climate change adaptation. Waterplan is a fast growing startup in the Climate Tech Space that develops a SaaS platform for companies to manage water availability in their facilities. The platform combines companies' operational data with local water satellite imagery to provide a real-time financial assessment of water ..."

• Data Engineer - Argentina (Remote (Argentina))
• Waterplan's Talent Pool (Remote)
• Demand Generation Lead (Remote (US))
• Senior Enterprise Account Executive US (Remote (US))
• Senior Fullstack Developer (Remote (Argentina))

Enode

We build APIs that connect to EVs, home batteries, solar panels and other energy hardware so our customer can build awesome green energy apps. An electricity grid powered by renewable sources needs flexible and intelligent demand. Our flexibility and demand response products are built to support this future. We're backed by some of the best investors in the world, including ...

• Director of People (Remote)
• Backend Engineer (Remote)
• Head of Marketing (Remote)
• Senior Account Executive (Remote)
• Business Development Representative (Remote)
• Data Engineer (Remote)
• Chief of Staff (Remote)
• Product Manager (Remote)
• Senior Backend Engineer (Remote)

That's it for this week! Remember, you can always view thousands of more jobs on Climatebase.org.

Final reminders...

👋 Get discovered. Complete your profile to be seen by hundreds of employers hiring on Climatebase.

🚀 Accelerate your climate career. Apply to join the Climatebase Fellowship.

🌱 Hiring? Post your jobs to reach tens-of-thousands of Climatebase users and over 30,000 weekly newsletter subscribers.

👋 New here? Subscribe!

❤️️ Share a link to this week's edition

🐦 Let's connect! Follow us on Twitter @Climatebase, and our co-founders @evandhynes and @jhardin925