How insurance can narrow the valley of death [partner content]

Jamie Daggett started his career as a mechanical engineer working for cleantech startups in Silicon Valley. But after five startups and three buyouts, Daggett saw the same story repeat itself: good technologies that worked in the lab often died before reaching commercial scale. 

And often they didn’t fail because the science was wrong; they failed because investors couldn’t trust that the performance would hold up over time.

That realization eventually led him to an unexpected place: insurance. 

Today, Daggett is the energy storage and fuel cell lead at Ariel Green, a Lloyd’s of London syndicate that provides a wide range of insurance for clean-energy projects. 

“Insurance is another tool that we can use to help grow the clean-energy market,” says Daggett. “I do feel like it plays an unsung role behind the scenes.”

In this episode, produced in collaboration with Ariel Green, Daggett talks with Stephen Lacey about how insurance is helping the energy storage sector mature. 

They discuss how the bankruptcy of Powin Energy exposed the fragility of supplier warranties, what the Moss Landing fire revealed about chemistry and safety risk, and how new markets for long-duration and non-lithium storage are testing the boundaries of what can be insured. 

Daggett explains how technology performance insurance now allows lenders, developers, and manufacturers to move faster by transferring risk from young suppliers to a creditworthy insurer.

This is a partner episode, produced in collaboration with Ariel Green. Ariel Green helps clients reduce uncertainty by providing investment-grade insurance for clean-energy projects — protecting the technologies that protect the environment. To learn more, visit arielgreen.com.