#EP322
Today on the Clean Power Hour, we dive into one of the biggest bottlenecks strangling the clean energy transition: the slow, messy world of zoning, permitting, and early-stage development. Our guests are Julia Wu and Anuj Saigal, co-founders of Spark AI, a Y Combinator-backed platform that has ingested and summarized nearly every zoning code, ordinance, and permitting pathway in the United States.
Julia Wu is CEO and co-founder of Spark AI. She's a software engineer who cut her teeth at Microsoft, Apple (working on Siri), and Brex before founding Spark. Her background spans AI, natural language processing, and financial technology. Julia grew up internationally between Brazil and Asia, regions with massive energy needs and climate challenges, which shaped her commitment to infrastructure innovation.
Anuj Saigal is the co-founder of Spark AI and a veteran of the energy sector since 2010. He worked at the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office during the Obama administration, then moved through SunEdison, EVgo, and Natto (a video AI telematics company). Anuj has been a developer of utility-scale and distributed generation projects and understands the pain points of permitting and interconnection firsthand.
Key Discussion Points:
Spark AI uses large language models to aggregate zoning regulations, permitting requirements, local sentiment, and news articles for every jurisdiction in America
The platform compresses what used to take 4-10 hours of manual research per site down to seconds
Three core use cases: early-stage greenfield site selection, monitoring projects in development for regulatory changes, and rapid acquisition due diligence
Standard Solar (Brookfield-owned) reduced acquisition diligence from months to one week, cutting time by 75%
Dynamic Energy accelerated site screening while improving community sentiment risk assessment
UGE used Spark to assess a massive portfolio acquisition, determining which parcels had viable zoning paths
Spark reads and updates over a million documents multiple times per week, tracking city council meetings, moratoria, and local regulatory changes
The platform is LLM-neutral, easily swapping between OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and other models to optimize for accuracy and speed
Spark is expanding beyond solar and storage into data center development as AI power demands surge
Unlike off-the-shelf AI tools, Spark delivers consistency, accuracy, and citations developers need for trust-but-verify workflows
Every answer includes citations to exact passages in source documents, enabling legal and technical review
Spark uses browser agents and custom classifiers trained specifically for energy development workflows
AI-native platforms like Spark prove that technology enables smarter, faster development decisions while respecting local communities. The energy transition needs speed, and AI is delivering it where it matters most: the front end of development.
Connect with Anuj and Julia
Julia Wu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wu-julia/
Anuj Saigal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anujsaigal/
Spark AI Website: https://www.sparkhq.ai/
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