Sesame Solar

Sesame Solar, founded in 2017 by Lauren Flanagan, Namit Jhanwar, and Adam Kasefang, manufactures mobile, renewably-powered Nanogrids designed for off-grid power and emergency response. The company is headquartered in Jackson, Michigan, and operates as a majority woman-owned business with a subsidiary in Mumbai, India. Co-founder and CEO Lauren Flanagan is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in the technology sector, having founded five companies and two angel investment funds focused on women-led startups. Her background includes working with tech giants like Apple and NeXT and pioneering one of the first Software as a Service (SaaS) companies. This experience in scaling technology ventures informs Sesame Solar's mission to provide rapidly deployable and easy-to-use energy solutions.

The core of Sesame Solar's business is the sale of its Mobile Nanogrids, which are self-contained, turnkey energy solutions built into ISO shipping containers or trailers. The business model is transactional, with unit costs ranging from $100,000 to $300,000, targeting enterprise and government clients. Key customers include the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army, major telecommunications companies, and disaster relief organizations. These clients utilize the Nanogrids for applications such as mobile command centers, medical facilities, water purification, and communications hubs in areas where the grid is unavailable or has been compromised by events like hurricanes.

Sesame Solar's flagship product is a hybrid Mobile Nanogrid that uniquely integrates solar panels with green hydrogen and battery storage. This system allows for continuous, carbon-free power generation, offering weeks of energy autonomy without the need for fossil fuel supply logistics. The Nanogrids are engineered for rapid deployment; one person can set them up in under 15 minutes with minimal training. The units can produce 3-20 kW of solar power and have battery storage capacities ranging from 15-150 kWh. The integrated green hydrogen system uses solar power for on-site electrolysis of water, storing the hydrogen to power a fuel cell when solar is unavailable, with oxygen as the only byproduct. This modular design allows for customization, enabling the Nanogrids to be configured for a variety of essential services, including providing hundreds of gallons of potable water per day.

Keywords: mobile nanogrids, off-grid power, renewable energy, disaster response, emergency power, solar power, green hydrogen, battery storage, mobile command centers, clean water filtration, deployable infrastructure, U.S. military contractor, government technology, enterprise energy solutions, energy resilience, sustainable infrastructure, transportable power, remote power solutions, Lauren Flanagan, woman-owned business