Sheldon Kimber

Founder and CEO, Intersect Power · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveoperatorLinkedIn ↗intersectpower.com ↗

Sheldon Kimber founded Intersect Power in 2016 to build, finance, and operate utility-scale solar, battery storage, and co-located power infrastructure. Previously the Chief Operating Officer of Recurrent Energy, he is known for pioneering merchant solar deployment and structuring major grid-scale transactions.

12statements → 6claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.83/5average certainty → 2.33/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 2 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 predictions · 2 assertions · 2 opinions · 1 insight · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Sheldon argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up

Kimber: AI inference will ultimately draw far more power than training

“I think now what we're seeing is that inference in the aggregate is actually probably a much larger draw than the training in the long run.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 44:04 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up

Kimber: AI data centers will never offer flexible power load

“Every second you aren't running that at a hundred percent capacity factor is enormous amortized cost, right? So that it's just, it's one of those things where it's like, you'd be a fool to turn it down. You have to at some points because operationally, you kno…”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 28:49 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

100% certainty 3

100% certainty 4

0% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Sheldon Kimber on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said12 What others said4 Episodes1

Everything Sheldon Kimber said on Catalyst that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Kimber: Data centers are entering an era where grid connection is optional

“Generally speaking, I think we're moving into an era where grid connection is optional and should be optional. And that, you know, we should be able to, you know, operate these things fully off grid if necessary.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 23:28 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Opinion

Kimber: Hybrid renewables and gas engines beat new combined-cycle plants

“If you go build a CCGT right now for 2000 dollars KW and, you know, like you can't even find sort of like You know, labor unions and pipe fitters and whatnot that have ever even built these things in many cases, right? You know, it's going to take five, six ye…”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 26:44 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Prediction Didn’t hold up

Kimber: AI data centers will never offer flexible power load

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 28:49 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Insight

Kimber: Edge LLMs trigger recursive queries, massively multiplying datacenter power demand

“Every smaller distilled LLM that is power efficient doing inference is going to launch thousands of queries to bigger, more capable models that can actually reason their way through buying something on Amazon and reason. So it's almost like increasing the worl…”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 43:13 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Prediction Held up

Kimber: AI inference will ultimately draw far more power than training

“I think now what we're seeing is that inference in the aggregate is actually probably a much larger draw than the training in the long run.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 44:04 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Disclosure

Kimber: Intersect pivoted clean power assets from hydrogen to AI

“We thought maybe hydrogen would be first because of the supply side supports under the IRA. The demand just didn't materialize, and now all of a sudden, AI has just swept up all of the assets that we developed for, you know, behind the meter And co-located loa…”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 19:32 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Assertion Open · timeframe Feb 2028

Kimber: Co-located renewables can power Texas data centers carbon-free 75%–80% of the year

“75 to 80% of the hours of the year, we can run fully carbon free with, you know, wind, solar, and batteries all on the same site. And then, you know, 20%, maybe a little over 20% of the time, we need to have some gas or we need to use the grid.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 25:58 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Opinion

Kimber: Reputable crypto players are among the smartest in the power market

“All of our interactions with the crypto folks almost universally, I'd say that the reputable players in the space are some of the smartest and most creative people I've found in the power market.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 33:35 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Kimber: Federal crackdowns on Chinese clean energy equipment will not ease under Trump

“You've got the commerce and trade. You've got DOD and national defense you know, all kind of coming at, in particular, the Chinese sourced equipment for renewable energy. So that's been happening for a while. I don't anticipate it to get any better under Donal…”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 8:01 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Assertion Supported

Kimber: 15-year PPA prices are rising despite low spot electricity prices

“There's kind of an odd thing going on where spot prices remain quite low, but, you know, PPA prices for 15 year deals are kind of floating up.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 13:04 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Disclosure

Kimber: Intersect Power has two multi-gigawatt data center sites in Texas Panhandle

“We've got two multi gigawatt scale data center sites in the panhandle of Texas. One of them's three gigawatts, one of them's over a gigawatt single sites and they're capable of being fully off grid if you want them to. They're on gas, they have you know, multi…”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 24:04 The case for colocating data centers and generation

Disclosure

Kimber: Intersect Power is project financing about $9B of capex

“We're in the middle of project financing about nine billion dollars of capex right now.”

Sheldon Kimber Feb 13, 2025 ▶ 44:46 The case for colocating data centers and generation

The other half of the tape: Sheldon Kimber's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 3 episodes on Catalyst. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Shayle Kann 2 Jigar Shah 1 Brian Janous 1