CCEBA’s Suzanne Sabin spoke with Randy Siegel, Co-founder and President of Heatmap News, about his organization’s purpose and innovative approach to advancing the energy transition. 

Q: Why did you and your colleagues start Heatmap?

We started Heatmap two years ago to offer clean energy professionals intelligent, fact-based journalism about the energy transition. We now have 14 full-time journalists, another 50 contributors and a terrific data science team focused on Heatmap Pro, our new data platform that measures local support and opposition for every current and proposed clean energy project in the US.

Q: Can you tell us about your team?

Our talented team is committed to covering clean energy, climate and sustainability solutions and doing whatever we can to support the energy transition. We’ve hired top talent, including stars from The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CNBC, The Week and others.

Q: How is your siting tool different from those of competitors? What can it do that developers can’t easily do themselves? 

Although our proprietary data platform Heatmap Pro is a critical tool for siting analysis, its unique value proposition is that it can predict local support and opposition for any clean project in the US, based on our constantly updated database of local ordinances and moratoriums, exclusive polling and modeling, and machine learning from our data team that isolates the most critical risk factors when looking at any project or geographic area.  We’re quickly becoming an indispensable partner for the leading clean energy companies.