A thermal-runaway incident, a mass solar cancellation wave, or a DERMS outage hits your utility partners, your investors, and the local news desk within the same hour – and most CleanTech comms plans were written for a product launch, not a fire marshal press conference. We build the crisis infrastructure – message trees, engineering sign-off chains, regulator-facing statements – before you need them, then run the room when you do.
The Problem
Engineering and comms speak different languages during a safety event
A battery storage thermal-runaway incident needs a statement that is technically defensible to a fire marshal and NFPA investigator, not a warm PR paragraph. Most CleanTech companies route the first public statement through marketing before engineering has confirmed root cause, and that statement then gets quoted back at them in the incident report six months later.
A solar installer bankruptcy or mass cancellation wave burns trust faster than it burns cash
When a residential solar company halts installs or a financing partner pulls out, homeowners who already signed contracts start comparing notes in Facebook groups and Nextdoor threads before your call center even opens. Silence reads as confirmation that the company is folding, and every day without a customer-facing statement adds another wave of chargebacks and attorney general complaints.
A grid software or DERMS outage puts your comms team inside a utility's incident command structure
When your platform goes down and it affects a utility's ability to manage distributed energy resources, you are not the only party writing a statement – the utility has its own regulatory reporting obligations and its own comms team, and yours has to sync with theirs before either one talks to a reporter.
A greenwashing accusation or investigative story lands on investors who are already skeptical of clean-energy claims
Climate-focused investors and institutional LPs have sat through enough overstated impact claims across the sector that a single investigative piece questioning your emissions math or supply chain sourcing gets forwarded straight to your board before you've drafted a response. Because IRA, ITC, and PTC eligibility already invites scrutiny of your technical claims, a credibility hit here can bleed into your next tax-credit filing or interconnection application.
How We Help
We start with an incident audit, not a messaging workshop.
From there we build the response architecture itself: a decision tree for who has to clear language before it goes out (engineering sign-off is mandatory for any statement making a safety or performance claim), pre-approved holding statements for each ranked scenario, a regulator and utility-partner contact map, and a spokesperson bench trained on the difference between a technical-safety answer and a reputational one.
When an actual incident hits, we embed directly with your team for the duration – drafting statements against the sign-off chain we built, monitoring press and social sentiment in real time, coordinating with your outside counsel on what can and can't be said before a formal investigation closes, and managing the utility, regulator, or investor-facing threads in parallel with the public one.
After the acute phase, we run a structured after-action: what statements held up, where sign-off slowed things down that shouldn't have, what the utility or regulator asked for that we didn't anticipate, and what the incident audit needs to add for next time.
What makes this different from a traditional agency retainer is that we're fractional operators, not an account team billing hours to "monitor the narrative." The same person who built your sign-off chain is the person on the call with your fire safety engineer at 2am.
What we deliver
- Scenario-ranked incident audit specific to your technology (battery storage, DERMS/grid software, EV charging hardware, solar/financing)
- Engineering-to-comms sign-off chain with named approvers for safety-claim language
- Pre-approved holding statements and regulator/utility-partner contact map
- Spokesperson training split by technical-safety vs. reputational response
- Live incident embed: drafting, sentiment monitoring, counsel coordination for the duration of the event
- Structured after-action review with updated audit and sign-off chain
The company that survives a battery fire isn't the one with the best press release – it's the one where the fire marshal's statement and the company's statement say the same thing, because engineering cleared the language before comms sent it.
Our Methodology
We run crisis-comms engagements as a 90-day build, not an open-ended retainer. Days 1-30 are the incident audit and infrastructure build: scenario ranking, sign-off chain design, holding statements, and regulator/utility contact mapping, all reviewed with your legal and engineering leads before anything is finalized. Days 31-60 are stress-testing – a tabletop exercise run against your actual org chart, using one of the ranked scenarios, timed against real decision points (when does the fire marshal get a statement, when does the SEC filing window open, when does the customer email go out).
Days 61-90 are refinement and handoff: we tighten the sign-off chain based on where the tabletop exposed bottlenecks, finalize spokesperson training, and set the cadence for keeping the audit current as your product line or utility partnerships change. If a real incident happens during the build, the plan flexes immediately – we drop the roadmap and run the live response, then fold what we learned back into the infrastructure.
What makes this different from a traditional agency is that we're not selling ongoing narrative monitoring as the product. A traditional retainer keeps billing whether or not there's a crisis; our build produces a sign-off chain, contact map, and trained spokespeople that your team owns and can run without us once the 90 days are done. We stay on call for live incidents, but the infrastructure isn't designed to require us forever.
How We Work
The first 30 days are almost entirely diagnostic – working sessions with engineering, legal, EHS, and customer ops to rank plausible crisis scenarios and map who has to sign off on what. You should expect two to three working sessions a week during this phase, not a single kickoff call followed by silence.
Days 30-60 shift to building and testing: draft sign-off chains and holding statements circulate for review, and we run at least one live tabletop exercise against your actual team, not a hypothetical org chart. This is where most gaps surface – usually in who has authority to approve a safety-related statement, or how fast your utility partner's comms team can be reached outside business hours.
By day 90, your team has a tested, owned crisis architecture and a trained spokesperson bench. Our team is a fractional unit embedded in your existing Slack or Teams workspace during this window – not a separate agency team working from a shared drive you check weekly. If an actual incident occurs at any point in the engagement, we pause the roadmap and run the response with you in real time.
After the 90-day build, most clients keep us on a lighter monitoring and on-call basis so the plan stays current as products, partnerships, and regulatory exposure change – updated after any material shift like a new battery chemistry, a new utility territory, or a new tax-credit filing.
- A tested sign-off chain that engineering, legal, and comms have actually run through a tabletop exercise, not just signed off on paper
- Pre-cleared holding statements for your top-ranked crisis scenarios, ready before an incident rather than drafted during one
- A trained spokesperson bench that can distinguish a technical-safety answer from a reputational one under real press questioning
- A regulator and utility-partner contact map that shortens the time between an incident and coordinated public communication
If your cleantech & energy company needs crisis communications leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does crisis communications support cost for a CleanTech or energy company?
The 90-day build – incident audit, sign-off chain, tabletop exercise, and spokesperson training – typically runs $30K-$60K depending on how many product lines and utility relationships need mapping. Ongoing on-call monitoring after the build is a lighter monthly retainer, usually $5K-$12K, that keeps the plan current and puts us on standby for live incidents.
What is the difference between a technical-safety crisis and a reputational crisis in this vertical?
A technical-safety crisis – a battery thermal-runaway event or an EV charging hardware recall – requires every public statement to be cleared by engineering because the words used can become evidence in a regulatory investigation. A reputational crisis – a greenwashing accusation or an investigative story about your supply chain – is about narrative and investor confidence, and moves faster than any regulator's timeline, so it needs a different sign-off path and a different spokesperson posture.
Can you actually respond fast enough during a live incident, given the fractional model?
Yes, because the fractional model is what makes the fast response possible – we're not starting from zero when the incident hits, we're executing a sign-off chain and holding statements we already built and tabletop-tested with your team. The person embedded during the live incident is the same operator who ran your tabletop exercise, not a new account rep reading your crisis binder for the first time.
How is this different from hiring a traditional PR or crisis agency?
A traditional agency typically sells ongoing narrative monitoring and bills whether or not a crisis occurs, and their crisis plans are often generic templates adapted with your logo. We build a plan specific to your actual technology risk – thermal runaway, DERMS outage, hardware recall – test it against your real org chart in a tabletop exercise, and hand you an owned sign-off chain your team can run without us.
How do you measure whether the crisis comms engagement worked?
During the build, success is measurable and binary: does the tabletop exercise expose sign-off bottlenecks before a real incident does, and can your spokesperson bench correctly separate a safety-claim answer from a reputational one under questioning. During an actual incident, we track how long it takes from event detection to a cleared public statement, and whether the language matches what engineering and legal confirmed rather than what sounds best in the moment.
What size or stage of CleanTech company is the best fit for this engagement?
This fits companies that already have real safety exposure or regulatory surface area – battery storage manufacturers past pilot deployment, grid software vendors with live utility integrations, solar or EV charging companies with installed customer bases – not pre-revenue startups whose crisis exposure is still theoretical. You should also have at least a nominal legal and engineering function willing to sit in the sign-off chain, since the whole model depends on those functions clearing language alongside comms.
How long does it take to build a working crisis response before we're actually protected?
The core sign-off chain and top-ranked holding statements are usable after the first 30 days, though we consider the plan properly load-bearing only after the day 60 tabletop exercise exposes and fixes the real bottlenecks. Companies with multiple product lines – say, battery storage plus a grid-software arm – should expect closer to 90 days before every scenario has a tested chain.
