Turning AI into a Climate Breakthrough: Inside Google’s AI for Energy Accelerator

​AI is emerging as a pivotal force in accelerating the global energy transition — and the startups in Google's AI  for Energy Accelerator are developing transformative solutions.

​In this session, Savannah Goodman, Head of Advanced Energy Labs at Google, will spotlight strategies, real-world insights, and business models that enable startups to scale clean-energy technologies. Hear from Julia Wu and Dhruv Suri, founders in the accelerator, as they discuss how they’re harnessing AI to build climate solutions that align with growing power needs, and best practices emerging across the cohort.

​While AI’s explosive growth is driving one of the largest surges in electricity demand in decades, this challenge — if met wisely — can become a powerful catalyst for deploying new climate technologies. Learn how Google is helping founders turn demand into deployment, and why now is the moment to act.

​Join us as we explore how both breakthroughs in AI — and the energy demand they create — can be harnessed as dual engines in the clean-energy transition.

​Featured Founders

​Julia Wu

​Julia is Co-Founder and CEO of Spark, an AI-powered planning and workflow platform for large-scale clean-energy developers. With Spark, developers can rapidly screen sites, analyze permitting and interconnection requirements across jurisdictions, and accelerate the path from project conception to ground-breaking.

​Julia’s background includes engineering and product leadership roles at major technology companies including Brex, Apple AI/ML, and Microsoft. She studied computer science & economics at Brown  University, grew up in Brazil and China, and speaks three languages.

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​Dhruv Suri

​Dhruv is the Co-Founder of Pravāh, an AI-native decision-engine platform for electric utilities and grid operators. As the grid grows more variable and distributed, Pravāh replaces traditional deterministic physics-based models with adaptive intelligence — providing real-time insights into system loads, grid dynamics, and operational decision-making for a decarbonizing energy future.

​Dhruv is a Knight Hennessy Scholar and PhD candidate in Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University, where his research spans machine learning, energy science, and grid decarbonization. He earned an undergraduate aeronautical engineering degree from the Manipal Institute of Technology in India, and has done research and field work in multiple countries.

​About Savannah Goodman

​Savannah leads the team that tackles Google’s most critical energy challenges, driving internal and external data and software solutions from 0 to 1 to accelerate grid decarbonization. Her work spans new product incubation, ecosystem development, and strategic direction across Google’s energy initiatives.

​Before joining Google, Savannah led the product management and modeling teams at a startup developing virtual power plants and was a product manager focused on commercial energy storage at Tesla.

​About the Google AI for Energy Accelerator

​The Google AI for Energy Accelerator supports a cohort of 10–15 startups over 10 weeks, focused on grid optimization, demand flexibility, and customer energy solutions for utilities and large-scale users. By supporting innovation in areas such as interconnection queues, carbon-aware infrastructure, and demand-side management, the program helps founders develop scalable technologies that enhance sustainability and reliability across the global energy system.

​We look forward to hearing from Savannah, Julia, and Dhruv as they offer lessons for scaling clean-energy innovations in this pivotal moment.