Energy is a dynamic system that is fundamentally important to all of modern life.

By Betsy Vereckey

As a student at Tuck with a passion for energy, Joshua Hotvet T’18 interned on an innovative project that paired solar energy with lithium-ion batteries, an experience that showed him how transformative batteries could be in helping solve the climate crisis. 

“It was right on the cutting edge because we were looking at connecting the batteries to the solar in a way that hadn’t been done before,” Hotvet says of his time at Cypress Creek Renewables. “Although it’s standard now, at the time it was brand new, and it led me to develop an intense interest in battery storage.”

Hotvet went on to work for Cypress full-time after Tuck, where he had focused the bulk of his studies on energy. He was a fellow at the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability and Innovation, completed three independent studies on energy, attended the Global Energy Forum in Colorado, and registered for applicable courses, including Professor Erin Mansur’s Energy Economics class, which Hotvet says “still continues to be important to what I do in my career.”

“Energy is a dynamic system that is fundamentally important to all of modern life,” he says. “Not only do we rely on it for nearly everything we do, but there’s also geopolitical and strategic concerns with energy that I was exposed to in the Marine Corps.”

Hotvet enlisted in the service when he was 18, “having always wanted to be a Marine,” and spent 11 years in active service in Iraq, east Asia, California, and Virginia. When he began looking at business schools, Tuck emerged as his top choice. He liked that Tuck was a veteran-friendly school in an “absolutely beautiful” place. Upon arriving in Hanover, he and his family were immediately welcomed into Sachem Village’s tight-knit community. 

In his most recent position as vice president of development at Agilitas, Hotvet put his battery systems knowledge to work and grew the energy company's pipeline of projects. He landed the position via a connection he made with Taylor McMaster T’18, another veteran and Tuck alum.

Hotvet says that the battery energy storage space is an exciting area with a lot of promise because there is tons of innovation and the prices are coming way down, which increases the likelihood of usage. Having more battery storage will allow for better optimization of the power grid and facilitate better integration of coal, gas, wind, and solar onto the grid. 

“This optimization can lower costs because by being able to store energy for later use, we can have fewer resources on the grid to meet peak demand and manage energy intensive events,” Hotvet says. “Once the markets and the regulation and the policy environment are all aligned to fully realize the benefits, batteries will be transformational for our grid. They just set up a ton of potential.”

This story originally appeared in print in the Summer 2024 issue of Tuck Today magazine.