Alex Houlston — BOOM!: electrifying Australia's residential and commercial properties
Boom — simplifying building electrification and helping banks tackle scope three emissions.
Trying to electrify an existing home can feel like a punishing PhD thesis, which is why Aussie climate-tech business Boom exists. In this chat, co-founder and CEO Alex Houlston and I unpack how their purpose-built software simplifies building electrification, helping property owners navigate 32 different product combinations without losing their minds. We also discuss why a residential mortgage portfolio is essentially just a property portfolio waiting to be upgraded, and how banks are using the platform to tackle financed emissions.
With 12 million existing Australian homes needing to ditch fossil fuels to meet 2030 renewable targets—meaning retrofitting an eye-watering 50 homes every single working hour—Alex explains why the current manual approach simply won't cut it. It is a brilliant look at how software can untangle the messy intersection of energy, property, and banking.
What’s in this episode
(03:11): Alex gives us the Boom elevator pitch: Australia's leading building electrification platform designed to make making the switch effortless.
(04:05): Boom focuses primarily on existing buildings and hard-to-reach markets like SMEs, where business owners lack the time to figure out sustainability upgrades.
(04:50): The scale of the challenge: to hit zero emissions by 2030, Australia would need to retrofit 50 homes every single working hour.
(07:40): Operating as a B2B2C white-label platform, Boom turns sophisticated energy modelling into a simple calculator that handles around 32 different appliance combinations.
(11:18): Full electrification of a typical family home costs between $10,000 and $20,000, aligning closely with bank green loan products.
(13:30): Alex shares his background working on state government housing redevelopments and how he met co-founder Tosh Shattown at CSIRO.
(15:40): After starting as a consulting firm, Alex and Tosh quickly realised that software was the only viable way to scale their environmental impact.
(21:30): Boom signed a deal with Bank Australia to launch a calculator helping their mortgage loan book customers electrify their homes.
(25:40): Alex explains why a bank mortgage loan book is really just a residential landlord portfolio needing transparency to avoid greenwashing.
(30:21): The Boom team currently sits at eight people split across Victoria, New South Wales, and Jakarta.
(30:56): Alex breaks down the classic startup hurdles: data distribution, getting tangible data, and securing dollars.
(36:15): The ABC uses Boom across 62 buildings to procure and verify solar systems, targeting completion by mid-2026.
(38:07): Alex demystifies scope three emissions—the massive indirect emissions sitting in bank mortgages that lenders must eventually reduce.
In their words
“If we assume that it was going to happen by 2050, let's say... that would mean retrofitting 50 homes every hour, every working hour, let's say eight hours a day, between now and 2050. So you can imagine if we crunch that... down to 10 years, yes, it becomes a much bigger goal, a much bigger problem.” — Alex Houlston
“A mortgage loan book is a property portfolio just like a residential landlord. So, for a bank, they want to treat it as a property portfolio and get those insights on the impacts they've had to avoid greenwashing.” — Alex Houlston
“In the end, banks just want to sell money. That's what they're there for, and that makes the world go round.” — Alex Houlston
About the guest
Alex Houlston is the CEO and co-founder of Boom, an Aussie climate-tech business delivering building electrification solutions. Before founding Boom, he spent years working in state government housing redevelopments and energy performance contracts. He brings deep practical insight into how software can scale sustainability across hard-to-reach property markets.
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