Astro

Astro uses AI to find and buy land for new renewable energy projects, secure agreements to connect them to the power grid at minimal costs, and then sell these development-ready projects to larger energy companies.

The Problem
The renewable energy transition faces a critical bottleneck: the US needs to add 2,000 gigawatts of new power generation by 2035 to support growing electricity demand from AI data centers and electrification.  Building these new power plants requires finding suitable land and connecting them to the grid - but this is where projects fail. Most potential locations are unprofitable because developers discover too late that they need to spend millions upgrading power lines and infrastructure for grid connection. Traditional energy developers spend months evaluating single locations, only to have projects die when they discover these hidden costs.

The Solution
Astro’s proprietary AI models predict these grid connection costs upfront, enabling it to buy the most profitable land before costs increase. Astro’s models handle all the early development work - from finding the right location to securing grid connection agreements - creating a pipeline of development-ready projects that larger energy companies can immediately start building.

Backstory
I’m Alex, I studied physics + computer science at Stanford and was an energy trader at Citadel. While trading energy markets, I discovered that power grid congestion patterns are highly predictable - but developers aren’t using this data. This insight led me to build models that identify the best land to buy and prepare for larger developers to build on.

Ask
We’re looking to connect with:

• Energy companies interested in buying development-ready projects (land secured + grid connection approved)
• Landowners and brokers near major transmission lines in central Illinois
• Power systems engineers with interconnection study experience

If you’re interested in accelerating the clean energy transition or have expertise in any of these areas, I’d love to chat! You can reach me at alex@astroenergy.ai