The Interchange
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The energy system is changing fast. Come explore the future with journalist Stephen Lacey and venture capitalist Shayle Kann. Each week, they'll take you on a tour of the global energy transformation, providing provide insight into technology trends, markets, and companies -- making for wonky and entertaining listening.
Available episodes
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2 days ago
Are Batteries at a Turning Point?
Imagine a battery that costs less than half of today's costs, can charge a vehicle in less than ten minutes, run for ten or more years with heavy usage, lasts over a million miles, and is produced with abundant raw materials found all over the world.
None of those things are true of today's lithium-ion batteries.
But our guest this week, Gene Berdichevsky, predicts that will change in the next decade.
Gene was the seventh employee at Tesla and is now the co-founder and CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies, one of the biggest players in the battery space.
Our host Shayle Kann, a partner at the venture capital firm Energy Impact Partners, talks with Gene about new battery designs and chemistries that are hitting the market right now. By themselves, these advances are incremental. But taken together, they could usher in the kinds of batteries that would revolutionize the grid.
Gene and Shayle cover the fundamental tradeoffs between key battery features, namely energy density, charging speed, cost and longevity. They also talk about more sustainable raw materials, battery recycling, the limits of new investment in this space, and why Gene believes that existing big players will continue to dominate, while the new entrants face an uphill battle.
The Interchange is a production of Post Script Audio in partnership with Wood Mackenzie.
Mar 4, 2021
The State of Climate Tech Investing
Two years ago, we made an episode called “Cleantech Venture Capital Is Back.” After a decade in the wilderness, the world of climate tech has experienced a resurgence of investment and early-stage innovation.
So much has happened since then -- an election, a stimulus, low interest rates, SPACs, corporate commitments, and an explosion of advocacy around climate.
So where is the climate tech investment space now?
We check in with Abe Yokell, our guest from that February 2019 episode. He’s a managing partner at Congruent Ventures. He talks with our host Shayle Kann, who is a partner at Energy Impact Partners. They talk about the persistent problem of access to capital for some early stage climate tech startups, SPACs, the Mr. Burns Test, and which technologies are underhyped or overhyped.
The Interchange is a production of Post Script Audio in partnership with Wood Mackenzie.
Feb 26, 2021
How to Strip Carbon From the Atmosphere
Leading climate models point to a sobering reality: Even if the world’s economy reaches net zero emissions by midcentury, we will still have too much CO2 in the atmosphere. And so if we have to not just emit less, but remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, how do we do it?
Today we dive into carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. It’s an increasingly diverse and vibrant technology landscape, with some fundamental business model questions yet to be answered.
To take stock of this space, we spoke to Sarah Sclarsic, a carbon removal researcher at MIT with business acumen to boot: She co-founded the mobility company Getaround. She’s now an investor and on the boards of two SPACs (one of which took XL Fleet public).
We survey the existing technologies, ranging from the old school, like planting trees, to the novel, like direct air capture. And then we take a dive into some theoretical bioengineering approaches.
Sarah argues that we already use powerful biotech tools for medicine and food. She shares her research on the potential to apply these biotech approaches to CDR, laying out what these technologies might look like, such as bioengineering microbes to assist with enhanced rock weathering or cultivating fields and fields of carbon-locking cassava.
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
Feb 18, 2021
Decarbonizing Natural Gas
Last summer a record-setting heat wave in California caused rolling blackouts throughout the state. This week, a record-setting freeze knocked out power for millions of people in Texas and the Midwest.
It’s too early for a post-mortem on what happened, but we know that the cold affected all fuel sources, most of all natural gas. Wellheads and gas lines froze. Gas supplies were diverted to residential heating rather than power. This slice of the problem underscores how deeply we still rely on natural gas.
It is arguably the most important current source of energy in the U.S. and many parts of the world. Most long-term net zero projections phase out natural gas, but it’s going to be with us for decades, particularly in heavy industry.
So what do we do with it in the meantime? How do we tackle natural gas emissions and ultimately phase out natural gas in heavy industry?
We spoke to an expert in this space: Cate Hight, a principle at RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute). Last year she wrote a report called “The Role of Gas in the Energy Transition.” Now she’s working on RMI’s Mission Possible Partnership, which aims to decarbonize heavy industries.
Shayle and Cate talk about the rapidly changing emissions detection space, differentiated gas, and the many different colors of hydrogen.
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
Feb 11, 2021
All Finance Is ‘Climate Finance’
Climate change has gone macro -- as in macroeconomics. It’s not just an environmental, health and justice issue. It has become an economic imperative for financial analysts, finance ministers and the biggest asset managers in the world.
For the second year in a row, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink singled out climate change as the biggest priority for the world’s largest asset manager: “I believe that this is the beginning of a long but rapidly accelerating transition – one that will unfold over many years and reshape asset prices of every type,” he wrote in his 2021 letter.
Over many years, “alternative energy” just became “energy.” In the near future, will “climate finance’ just become “finance?”
This week, we have the exact right person to run through this: Kate Gordon, the Director of the Office of Planning and Research for California Governor Gavin Newsom. She's also senior advisor to the governor on climate.
Kate has been on the show before. She was one of the founders of the Risky Business Project, which was among the first ambitious projects to calculate climate risk and infuse it into financial systems.
As you'll hear in her conversation with Shayle Kann, she's thinking about how this will all play out in the world of money every day.
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
Feb 4, 2021
What Could Dethrone Solar in Home Energy?
Solar scaled first to become king in residential smart energy. But as other residential DER tech has advanced -- EVs, batteries, smart panels, and so forth -- has solar been dethroned as the anchor product in this space?
We’ll walk with Arch Rao, the CEO of Span, about the biggest technological changes underway in home energy.
* How should we sell and manage distributed energy resources?
* Who buys them, and what do we actually do with them?
* What will scale to the mass market?
* How will consumers interact with their DERs?
Span is a startup making a new kind of smart electrical panel. It just raised a $20m VC round and announced an integration with Alexa. Prior to Arch, helped lead the product team at Tesla that built and launched the Powerwall.
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
Feb 3, 2021
Covid Gave Us a Glimpse of the Future [Special Content from Wartsila]
What if we could see into the future? In 2020, we got our clearest view yet.
Last March, lockdowns swept across Europe, forcing an eerie silence on some of the world’s most iconic and bustling cities. It caused a steep drop in electricity consumption -- putting pressure on thermal generators and giving renewables a greater share of the generation mix.
“And all of that has really provided us a bit of a glimpse of the future to a time where we will have much more flexible supply on the system and renewables will be consistently taking a much greater share of the market,” says Tom Heggarty, a principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
The covid crisis proved that the European grid can handle large amounts of renewable energy -- at levels we didn’t expect to see for another five to ten years.
So how do we take this knowledge and game out the future?
For more answers, we turn to Jyrki Leino, a senior manager for business development at Wärtsilä. “We kind of stepped to the future right away. We saw the systems in a situation where in normal conditions would be in five or 10 years time,” he says.
Jyrki and his team at Wärtsilä wanted to help answer some simple questions: what happens to European power markets if the trends we saw during covid persist? And what happens if renewables are meeting nearly all load?
So they built an open-data test environment, called the Wärtsilä Energy Transition Lab or WET Lab. It’s like a fact-based choose-your-own-adventure for energy geeks. Or a crystal ball.
In this episode, brought to you by Wartsila, we look into that crystal ball.
Check out Wärtsilä's Energy Transition Lab to see the impact of Covid-19 on energy markets, and for clues about Europe’s clean energy transition. It’s an open-source data set that anyone can use.
Jan 27, 2021
Deep Decarbonization: Infinity War
What technology will become the dominant means of decarbonizing each part of the economy?
The pattern we see now — and that we expect to continue over the coming couple decades — is a series of battles between consistent contenders: electricity, hydrogen and carbon capture.
Electricity is hitting its stride. The power sector is getting cleaner, and electrification is spreading to light duty vehicles and even residential boilers. But electricity actually has only a 20% market share of all energy end uses. So what do we do with the remaining 80%?
These are tough-to-decarbonize arenas that rely on hard-to-replace fossil fuels: heavy duty vehicles, aviation, maritime shipping, chemical manufacturing, iron and steel.
Shayle called up Andy Lubershane, Senior Vice President of Research & Strategy at Energy Impact Partners to game it out. Andy has been writing about the potential phases of the energy transition and the roles these three technologies could play in different sectors.
Andy and Shayle got the inspiration for Deep Decarbonization Infinity War from Andy’s love of games. He not only uses games as a tool to think about the energy transition, but is actually in the process of creating his own board game.
It’s Deep Decarbonization: Infinity War. Let’s go.
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
Jan 14, 2021
Is 'Too Much' Wind and Solar a Good Thing?
We are going to build a lot more wind and solar over the coming decades. It will inevitably lead to oversupply of these resources on the grid. But is that a good thing?
That’s the focus of this week’s show, featuring a conversation between Shayle Kann and Columbia University's Melissa Lott.
The stars have aligned for a rare win-win-win situation: Solar and wind are popular with politicians; they’re popular with customers; and they’re often the lowest-cost resource, making them an attractive bet for investors.
As we build more solar and wind, many regions will start to look like California does on a sunny spring day, or like West Texas does on a windy night: power prices drop to zero or below, producers curtail excess electricity, creating the dreaded "overproduction” of renewables.
So what do we do with all this carbon-free power?
We asked Melissa Lott and it turns out quite a lot! She argues that renewable oversupply can actually be a feature of the grid, not a bug (even if it causes some minor pests along the way). There are all kinds of new resources we can harness with excess wind and solar.
Melissa is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy and she and her colleague, Julio Friedman, wrote a paper laying out the case for intentionally overbuilding capacity — and thus intentionally creating oversupply. They lay out a framework for figuring out what to do with intermittent excess energy and zoom in on a case study in New Zealand.
What happens when an aluminum smelter — one that uses a whopping 12% of the county’s annual demand and is powered largely by hydroelectric power — closes down? It was one decarbonization modeler’s dream.
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
Jan 7, 2021
Paths to Net-Zero Emissions by 2050
Net-zero commitments went mainstream in 2020. There are now 22 regions, 452 cities, and over 1,100 companies with revenues over $11 trillion that have pledged to bring emissions to net zero by middle of the century.
In 2021 we’re going to spend a lot of time working backward from that. We’ll be trying to understand the pathways to get to net zero and what it means for today — for the technology and business of decarbonization.
That brings us to this week’s guest: Jesse Jenkins, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton. He’s a well-known expert energy-systems modeler.
Last month Jesse and a team of colleagues at Princeton came out with a massive study called Net-Zero America that examines five pathways for the U.S. to decarbonize the entire economy.
Even without reading the report, you can probably guess some of the headlines: More renewables. More transmission. Electrify transportation. Carbon capture and carbon removal. But there are some other conclusions that are less obvious.
As more and more renewables come online, how will biomass, fossil fuels and hydrogen will fit into the multiple pathways to transition? We also examine the chicken-and-the-egg problem of CO2 transportation and CO2 conversion. And we ask: How much are these massive transition scenarios going to cost, and who’s paying?
The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.
We're also brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is building connected power plants of the future by integrating new solar technologies, storage and advanced control software. At the end of the show, we’ll feature part 3 of our series on the future of solar technologies with Nextracker CEO and industry veteran Dan Shugar.
Dec 18, 2020
The Virtuous Climate Tech Cycle of 2020
It’s been a great year for "climate" oriented public companies. Virtually every clean energy or climate company has dramatically outperformed market indices and most now have record-high equity value.
So what's going on here? And what might it mean for the next generation of climate technology companies?
In this final episode of the year, Host Shayle Kann talks with Sameer Reddy, a partner at Energy Impact Partners.
Sameer sits on the board of companies like Arcadia Power, Opus One, and Enchanted Rock. And he, like us, has been marveling over this public market madness and thinking about what it might mean.
Shayle and Sameer discuss the state of the market, the factors driving stock prices upward, historical challenges in the sector, and what could go wrong.
We're brought to you by Nextracker. Nextracker is building connected power plants of the future by integrating new solar technologies, storage and advanced control software. At the end of the show, we’ll tell you abo…
Dec 10, 2020
The Bumpy Road to a Hydrogen Economy
In this episode: we try to figure out where hydrogen is headed.
In the universe of clean energy, the world seems to rally around one big technology push each decade. This is when governments introduce subsidies, incumbents announce big projects, and a nascent technology gets a chance to scale from tiny to small, in the hopes of achieving liftoff.
In the 1990s, it was wind. In the 2000s, solar. In the 2010s, lithium-ion batteries. And in the 2020s, it seems increasingly clear it's going to be hydrogen.
But hydrogen is a different beast.
For one thing, you can't just harness it like you can solar or wind -- you have to make it. For another, there is a dizzying array of potential end markets for it, ranging from power to transportation to industry.
And finally, there's the pesky problem of the midstream. Assuming we start producing lots of clean hydrogen, and we find a market for it, how will we store it? How will we transport it?
This week, Shayle is joined by Gniewomir Fli…
Nov 20, 2020
Decoding the New Energy Customer
This week, Shayle Kann talks with Kiran Bhatraju, the CEO of Arcadia, about who's buying clean energy.
Every pathway toward economy-wide decarbonization drives straight through a dramatic transformation in the electricity sector. But so much of the discussion in that sector focuses on the supply side: how fast will wind and solar displace fossil fuels? what will happen with natural gas?
But there's another important player in this game: the energy consumer.
Consumers tend to be confusing when it comes to energy. It's hard to discern how much we actually care about it in the first place, what our preferences are, what decisions we'll make, what we'll pay for.
Most sectors that have undergone dramatic transformation have been driven by changing customer behavior, and energy may be no different. So we need to understand the consumer, and to find ways to deliver them products and services that will accelerate the energy transition.
Shayle and Kiran discuss the different groups of…
Nov 12, 2020
Autonomous Vehicles Are Going Off-Road
For all the hype around autonomous vehicles, we're still in the very early stages of a rollout. While most of the attention is being paid to the Waymos and Zooxs of the world, trying to build fully autonomous passenger vehicles on public roads, there's an entirely separate category being created: off-road.
These are similarly autonomous vehicles that are mostly all-electric. But they don't ride on public roads. Instead, they're in shipping yards, distribution warehouses, mining operations, on campuses, and in farming. It's underappreciated how big that shift could be.
In this episode, Shayle Kann talks with Alisyn Malek, the executive director for the Commission on the Future of Mobility. She is also the founder and CEO of Middle Third, a boutique consultancy focused on mobility strategy.
We’ll hear from Alisyn about the state of the technology, different applications, regulatory hurdles, and the near-term promise for deployment.
Support for The Interchange comes from Trina Solar…
Nov 12, 2020
California’s Optimal Decarbonization Path [Special Content From Wartsila]
This is a sponsored episode produced by GTM Creative Strategies in collaboration with Wärtsilä.
In August, California’s grid operators shut off power for millions of residents during an historic heat wave.
The blackouts caused confusion and outrage in the state. People were looking for someone to blame: an agency, a utility, or a technology like renewables.
We now know what happened. The cause was detailed in a lengthy, multi-agency investigation. It was a unique combination of factors, including a lack of preparation for extreme events. So will this hurt California’s decarbonization efforts?
“I do not think it changes the decarbonization goals. I think, if anything, it calls for the acceleration of moving toward a system that is more resilient, that is decarbonized,” says Amisha Rai, managing director at Advanced Energy Economy.
So if California’s blackouts accelerate clean-energy efforts further, how can we apply lessons from this summer? That’s what we’re cove…
Nov 4, 2020
Energy-Themed Game Show: Would I Lie to You?
Need a distraction from the election? Shayle Kann and Adam James have you covered, with an energy-themed version of the game show "Would I Lie to You?"
Rules:
* Each person selects three energy related facts or stories. Any number of the three can be lies, and at least one has to be a lie.
* They have to be clear lies, not slight adjustments of the truth.
* The other person can ask three questions. And they must get an answer.
* At the end of the round, the truths and lies are revealed. If the score is a tie, it moves to a penalty shootout where each person offers a fact/story and the other person has to say truth/lie. If someone misses, and the other person gets their next one right, they win.
Support for The Interchange comes from Trina Solar, a global leader in PV modules and smart energy solutions. With decades of industry recognition and awards, Trina Solar is committed to delivering reliable and fully bankable solar technology to the world. Download the free TrinaPro S…
Oct 29, 2020
The State of Carbon Capture, Removal and Utilization
Net-zero carbon pledges are heating up. Japan just committed to reaching net zero, just four weeks after China did the same. In total, seven of the 10 largest economies in the world (not including America, India and Brazil) have made such commitments. And that's on top of all the subnational players, the corporates, and others.
It has become increasingly clear that we're unlikely to reach net-zero at any significant scale without some pretty heavy carbon management. That means carbon capture, carbon removal, and carbon utilization.
As a result, the carbon management sector has seen a frenzy of activity over the past couple years, ranging from research to investment to innovation. Just this year we've seen venture capital flow into companies protecting forests, sequestering carbon in the soil, capturing co2 directly in the air, and converting captured CO2 into a range of products from cement to jet fuel.
So in this episode, we make sense of both the economics and the technology.
S…
Oct 22, 2020
The Carbon Hidden in Our Buildings
When we talk about climate change on this show, and what causes it, we are usually talking about gases that come from vehicles or from the electricity sector.
But what about the built environment? This week: we’re talking about the embedded emissions in our buildings.
There’s the natural gas that gets burned in them, and there’s all the electricity that it takes to power them.
And then there’s another category – all the upfront energy that went into making the buildings in the first place. That’s called “embodied carbon” or “embedded carbon” or sometimes “upfront carbon.”
In the next few crucial years when we can bend the arc of climate change, most of the emissions that come from buildings are going to come from the embodied carbon. So how we choose to build buildings really matters.
Our senior editor Ingrid Lobet has a special interest in buildings and wrote recently about embodied carbon for Greentech Media. Read that article here.
Just before e…
Oct 13, 2020
Making Sense of the DER Extravaganza
This week: consolidation and cooperation in the distributed energy market.
Just as federal regulators in the U.S. are making batteries, solar systems, electric cars, generators and other similar resources more valuable in wholesale markets, we’re seeing a new wave of business activity.
Wood Mackenzie predicts that U.S. distributed energy resource capacity will reach nearly 390 gigawatts by 2025. And a lot of companies are getting in on the action.
Amazon is jumping deeper into the smart-home game. Generac, one of the top generator companies in the U.S., just made another acquisition to help it manage batteries and pumps and motors and possibly other clean energy resources.
And Calibrant is a new company being formed by industrial multinational Siemens and MacQuarie Capital, part of the Australian financial services giant. Calibrant will offer businesses and industry and schools and hospitals no-money-down, on-site energy systems known as Energy-as-a-Service.
What do all th…
Oct 2, 2020
Will California’s Gas-Car Ban Boost America’s Flat EV Market?
California plans to ban new internal-combustion vehicles by 2035. But are electric vehicles ready to take their place?
We know that there are dozens and dozens more models of electric cars on the market. Ranges are increasing. Consumers like the driving experience. And total costs are creeping downward.
But America’s electric vehicle market is anemic. Dealers aren’t pushing them. Consumers aren’t demanding them. And there are still very real infrastructure challenges.
So in this episode, we’re unpacking those trends in the context of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order mandating a halt to new gas-powered cars in 15 years.
This is a conversation between co-host Shayle Kann and his colleague at Energy Impact Partners, Andy Lubershane. It’s a detailed look at the underlying trends that could complicate California’s plans.
In this conversation, they touch on the state of the EV transition, the state of the technology and consumer habits, and the impact of…
Sep 18, 2020
California's Grab Bag of Climate Risks
In recent weeks, five million acres have burned across California, Oregon and Washington State -- killing dozens, displacing tens of thousands of people, and causing untold damage.
In California, over three million acres have burned since the start of the year. At the height of the current wildfire outbreak, western cities had the worst air pollution in the world for days.
It makes the solutions we talk about on this show -- renewables, grid resilience, microgrids, decarbonization -- that much more urgent.
This week, we’re replaying a conversation that we taped last fall, just after a different round of record fires. It’s Shayle talking with Kate Gordon, the director of the office of planning and research in California. She's also a senior advisor to Governor Newsom on climate.
Kate details the diverse range of climate risks that California faces -- and how it's impacting every decision the state makes.
The Interchange is supported by Schneider Electric, the leader of digita…
Sep 13, 2020
The Cleantech SPAC Attack
The market for initial public offerings dropped way down this year. Or did it? There is a surge in activity in a different kind of IPO: a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. It’s also known as a reverse merger.
These are shell companies listed on exchanges with a mission to buy private companies and convert them into public ones.
According to a tally from Barron’s, there have been 70 IPOs through this method in 2020, with proceeds totaling $27.7 billion.
It’s creating a path for little-known, pre-revenue cleantech companies to get access to public markets. Does all this frothiness make sense? And why now?
The Interchange is supported by Schneider Electric, the leader of digital transformation in energy management and automation. Schneider Electric has designed and deployed more than 300 microgrids in North America, helping customers gain energy independence and control, while increasing resilience and reaching their clean energy goals.
We’re also sponsored by N…
Sep 7, 2020
Demand Response and California’s Blackouts
There are still questions about what exactly caused California’s blackouts during last month’s heat wave. We know that imports were down, natural gas plants tripped off line, and wind generation fell.
But what about all those air conditioners, batteries and industrial loads that are supposed to support the grid? What role did they play -- or didn’t they play -- in helping California’s stressed grid?
We’re going to look at how distributed resources are being used today in different grids around the U.S.
With us this week is Dr. Elta Kolo, a content lead on the grid edge team at Wood Mackenzie. She’s an expert on utility business models, grid integration, and demand response.
She’s going to help us understand the technology and market-design landscape for demand response. With California going through another round of grid stresses due to a heat wave and wildfires, this conversation is particularly relevant.
The Interchange is supported by Schneider Electric, the lea…
Aug 27, 2020
Why Trump’s Energy Dept Squashed a Supergrid Report
This week: how an innocuous grid-modeling project became a threat to Trump’s efforts to save coal -- and then languished inside the Department of Energy.
It’s one of many pieces of research that have been suppressed by the current administration.
What is the study? What does it tell us about the systematic dismantling of government under Trump? What are the implications for a cleaner grid?
Journalist Peter Fairley joins us to talk about his investigation, which was a collaboration between InvestigateWest and The Atlantic.
The Interchange is brought to you by Stem, a global leader in artificial intelligence-driven energy storage services. By combining advanced energy storage solutions with Athena, a world-class AI-powered analytics platform, Stem enables customers and partners to optimize energy use by automatically switching between battery power, onsite generation and grid power. Find out more.
The Interchange is also brought to you by GTM Creative Strategies. You’ve go…
Aug 20, 2020
The Wild World of ESG
Before the pandemic, one of the biggest news stories of the year was BlackRock’s decision to make climate risk a central part of its investment strategy. This isn’t your average family office; this is BlackRock, a company with $7 trillion under management.
It brought more mainstream attention to ESG, or environmental, social, governance. ESG is a set of standards for valuing ethical business practices, including decarbonization. Suddenly all kinds of ESG funds focused on sustainability are popping up, worth $1 trillion.
The concept is not new. But activity has ramped way up in the last few years. BlackRock’s splashy climate declaration only ramped it further.
It’s also a world that is not well defined, not well regulated, and still very messy. Will that messiness derail progress in the world of sustainable investing?
The Interchange is brought to you by Stem, a global leader in artificial intelligence-driven energy storage services. By combining advanced energy storage so…
Aug 13, 2020
The 'Climatetech' Hype Cycle: Buy, Sell or Hold?
We’re constantly going through waves of hype in different energy sectors: flexible solar panels, vertical-axis wind, electric planes, vehicle-to-grid, the smart home, blockchain. Some are real, some are not. Some just need to mature.
So what phase are we in now? In this episode, Shayle and Stephen are digging into different sectors and trends at various stages of the climate tech hype cycle.
They’ll decide whether to buy, sell or hold based on the current level of fanfare. In other words, do we think it's overhyped, underhyped or just right?
We’re going to do this for six sectors, some of which came from listeners.
* Green hydrogen
* Micromobility
* Residential battery storage
* Direct air capture (tons of people on twitter suggested this one)
* Blockchain
* Virtual power plants
And here’s Shayle’s climate tech hype cycle chart that we discuss on the show.
The Interchange is brought to you by Stem, a global leader in artificial intelligence-driven ener…
Aug 7, 2020
The Summer of Battery Storage
We may be facing one of the worst economic downturns in American history, but it hasn’t stopped the surge in battery storage development.
We’re constantly hearing the phrase “world’s largest” or “record breaking” as new gigawatt-scale projects are unveiled weekly.
Small-scale batteries are being attached to more than one-third of residential solar systems for leading installers, making distributed batteries a staple of home energy offerings.
New markets like Texas are heating up. And utilities are putting batteries front-and-center in their 100% clean energy plans.
As a result: we will likely see a 14-fold increase in batteries deployed on the grid in the US over the next five years, according to our analysts at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
With us is the reporter at the front edge of all these developments: Julian Spector, a staff writer at Greentech Media.
Read Julian’s coverage here. And check out his newsletter.
The Interchange is brought to you by St…
Jul 30, 2020
Cleantech Venture Capital in a Pandemic
The world looked bleak for startups in the spring.
According to figures from Crunchbase, venture capital deals were down 44 percent from March to June compared with last year. Seed-stage deals took the biggest hit, down nearly 60 percent. But series B deals also took a hit. It was difficult at any stage of funding.
Deals are finally coming back. Obviously, travel startups won’t be a hot category for a long time. But what about climate and cleantech? Are they insulated? And what does the reorientation tell us about who’s still all-in on the category?
We’re joined by Abe Yokell, managing partner and co-founder of Congruent Ventures. He and Shayle dig into a wide range of venture capital trends:
* COVID impacts on the “climate tech” venture revolution. We’ll check back in on what we talked about last time, given the new state of the world.
* The rise of the tech company mega-climate-fund
* Public market madness. What, if anything, does this say about exit prospects…
Jul 22, 2020
How Covid Is Reshaping Urban Transportation
Coronavirus is reshaping the way we move around. Will we emerge from this pandemic with smarter planning? Or will it dismantle already-weakened public transportation systems?
When economies across the world shut down all at once in March, the impact on transportation systems was immediate. According to the International Energy Agency, activity on roads globally was down 50% compared to the 2019 average. Commercial flights were down 75% compared to 2019. Many cities saw a more than 90% drop in public transport ridership. And leading ride sharing companies saw between an 80-90% drop in usage.
Activity has since picked up, but people are still moving around a lot less. The pandemic will likely shape behavior long-term, which will influence how we design our roads, bike lanes and public transit systems.
Our guest is on the front lines of these changes: Tiffany Chu, the CEO and co-founder of Remix. Remix works with hundreds of cities around the world to help them better plan multi-modal…
Jul 16, 2020
The Next Solar Behemoth: Sunrun Buying Vivint
Earlier this month, Sunrun, the largest residential solar company in the U.S., declared its intent to acquire Vivint Solar, the second largest installer. It’s an all-stock transaction that would value the combined entity at over $9 billion.
It's a big deal -- literally. The enterprise value attached to Vivint is $3.2 billion, which makes it the largest single transaction in the history of the distributed energy market.
It’s also a big deal because of what it says about the state and future of distributed solar, plus adjacent markets like energy storage and maybe even electric vehicles.
So that's what we're going to talk about today. Shayle sits down with Austin Perea, a senior solar analyst for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, to talk about the strategy behind this deal and what it tells us about the next phase of the market.
Assuming the acquisition goes through, how big will this new entity be?
The Interchange is brought to you by Fluence, a global leader in battery-base…
Jun 25, 2020
Is the 'Carbon Transparency' Era Coming?
This week: is carbon transparency finally coming?
Electronics maker Logitech became the most recent company to offer carbon labels on its products. Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell called carbon “the new calorie.”
It’s one of many attempts by food and consumer goods producers to make the lifecycle emissions of their products clearer to consumers.
In this episode, we’ll examine the new generation of climate labels. We’ve seen attempts at carbon labeling before. What makes these newer ones different? And will they stick?
Plus, we’ll try to answer listener questions about renewable natural gas, vehicle-to-grid, ESG standards, and COVID predictions.
This episode was recorded live in front of hundreds of listeners (remotely). Thanks to everyone who joined us!
The Interchange is brought to you by Prisma Energy Solutions. Prisma Energy Solutions provides a unique financing model for battery energy storage systems that can help you reduce energy demand, participate in both ener…
Jun 18, 2020
Data Centers: The Epicenter of the Clean Energy Economy
There is a widely-held perception that data centers -- the giant facilities that hold networks of society’s supercomputers -- are an out-of-control energy suck.
We’ve all seen headlines like this:
* “Your Netflix binge may be frying the planet”
* “Cut back on email if you want to save the environment”
* “Every Google search you do contributes to climate change”
* “Bitcoin could be the final nail in the coffin for climate change”
It’s actually not true, says our guest. These myths are rooted in bad projections and false statements from coal advocates, dating all the way back to the 1990s.
Yes, data centers collectively use a lot of energy. But they’re becoming hyperefficient. They’re a magnet for renewables development. And they’re helping us unlock the powerful software, algorithms and heavy computational tasks that run the clean energy economy.
Our guest has been researching data centers for decades. It is Jonathan Koomey, an expert on sustai…
Jun 10, 2020
The Strange Hype Around Nikola Motor
A boisterous CEO who brags of “out-Eloning” Elon Musk; a reverse merger that makes a little-known fuel cell trucking company as valuable as Ford; and no actual cars or trucks in production.
This week, we try to make sense of Nikola Motor.
Nikola Motor went public last week through a reverse merger, achieving a ~$13 billion valuation. As the markets closed on Wednesday, the company’s market cap was at $23 billion.
But with a non-traditional IPO, an enigmatic CEO, and zero revenue or actual vehicles, it’s become one of the more befuddling stories in cleantech in recent memory.
We’ll dig into the company’s claims and business model. Is this just another overhyped penny stock, or is there any substance to Nikola’s plan?
* LA Times: Electric Truck Maker Nikola Looks Like Tesla 2.0 — Except Even Riskier
* CNBC: Meet Nikola, the Speculative Electric Vehicle Stock
* Barron’s: Truck-Building Tesla Competitor Nikola Draws the Attention of a Short Seller
The In…
Jun 5, 2020
A ‘Just Transition’ for Fossil Fuel Workers
We use the term “energy transition” to define markets, technology, business models. But what about people?
The transition away from fossil fuels isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have. The hardest part isn’t building the clean resources. It’s shutting down the dirty stuff at a pace the science demands.
And that means disrupting entire classes of employment and communities that depend on fossil fuel extraction -- in other words, helping people find work somewhere else.
The often-used phrase is the “just transition.”
We have a guest who’s been researching and writing about this subject for years: Sandeep Pai.
Sandeep the author of “Total Transition: the Human Side of the Renewable Energy Revolution.” He’s a former journalist and a current PhD student and public scholar at the Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.
We’ll talk with Sandeep about his analysis of the strategies for transitioning fossil…
May 28, 2020
Decarbonization Draft: The Corporate Raider Edition
Greed is good. At least, it’s good for decarbonization.
This week on The Interchange podcast, we have a new edition of the fantasy decarbonization draft -- this one focused on acquiring and restructuring public companies.
We’re joining the ranks of corporate raiders like Carl Icahn, T. Boone Pickens and Gordon Gekko by taking over public companies and bending their strategies to our will. (For benevolent reasons, of course.)
Shayle and Stephen will pick their portfolio of companies. And then listeners choose who has the best investment strategy. (Vote over at @InterchangeShow on Twitter.)
Here’s how it works:
* We each have $25 billion to spend
* We can acquire a maximum of eight companies each. There’s no minimum.
* The cost of any given company is its market cap at the time of choosing.
* Our acquisition targets must be publicly traded
* Once we’ve acquired a company, we can control its strategy.
* The goal is to accelerate decarbonization in our chos…
May 21, 2020
The New Wave of Carbon Offsets: Is This Time Different?
This week, we’re talking about the new wave of carbon offsets. Will startups and corporates be able to solve accountability problems?
Right up until the global economy stopped working in March, the carbon offset market was surging. In 2019, offset sellers saw a 5-fold increase in purchases, after years of low demand in the wake of the financial crisis.
Flight-shamed consumers were demanding them. The world’s top companies were buying them in record numbers.
But then came the coronavirus shock. The steep drop in fuel and electricity consumption has slowed consumer demand for carbon offsets in the short-term, but there are still underlying trends that may herald the return of carbon offsets.
Is this time different? Can new players improve the quality and traceability of carbon reductions?
The Interchange is brought to you by Prisma Energy Solutions. Prisma Energy Solutions provides a unique financing model for battery energy storage systems that can help you reduce energy demand…
May 13, 2020
Mapping the Post-Covid Future for EVs and Energy Markets
This week: where does the COVID detour take us as we map the energy transition?
We’re once again thinking through the practical and theoretical consequences of the pandemic, in the near-term and well into the future.
Shayle and Stephen talk with Ramez Naam, a futurist, science-fiction author and energy expert. Ramez joined us last August to talk about some future scenarios for energy. The world is a dramatically different place today, so we’re bringing him back to recalibrate our sights.
We’ll talk about a wide range of subjects, including: oil consumption, behavior changes, demand for electric cars, and whether we’re delaying the energy transition.
The Interchange is brought to you by Prisma Energy Solutions. Prisma Energy Solutions provides a unique financing model for battery energy storage systems that can help you reduce energy demand, participate in both energy and ancillary service markets, improve renewables integration, increase system reliability, and reduce you…
May 11, 2020
Fuels Are the Final Piece of the 100% Renewable Grid [Special Content]
Electricity grids can handle a lot of wind, solar and water resources. But what will help us get from 80% renewable energy to 100% renewable energy?
The missing piece may be renewable synthetic fuels.
“When we really want to decarbonize the whole electricity system, absolutely synthetic fuels will play a key role,” says Matti Rautkivi, the director of Business Development and Strategy at Wärtsilä.
In this episode, produced in collaboration with Wärtsilä, we’re looking specifically at how to use green hydrogen to create renewable fuels -- and burn those fuels to create the fully-renewable electricity system.
There’s some uncertainty about how exactly this market will evolve. But experts like Rautkivi are confident that renewable fuels are going to become a vital solution.
“When we have excess electricity available, instead of curtailing it, we are going to put it through the synthetic fuels process and convert the electricity to fuels that we can store and use it la…
May 7, 2020
A ‘Permanent Reset’ in Oil?
Destruction. Dislocation. Collapse. A permanent reset. Read any news about oil markets, and these are the vivid descriptions you’ll encounter.
We are now deep into an historic pause for oil demand across the globe -- shutting down oil fields, causing negative pricing, overwhelming our storage abilities, and forcing up to a million job losses this year.
"We are looking at a major demand destruction that we don't even know will come back," said Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden on a recent investor call.
So if demand doesn’t come back, what happens? What are the direct consequences to the oil industry? And what are the opportunities for a “new energy order,” as the World Economic Forum is now calling it?
This week, Stephen and Shayle talk with Ed Crooks, vice chair for the Americas at GTM’s parent company Wood Mackenzie. Ed is a former editor at the Financial Times. He’s one of the go-to people watching oil market dynamics and how they intersect with the clean energy transiti…
Apr 30, 2020
It’s Time to Build: The Climate Edition
Famed software pioneer and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is out with a new piece, called “It’s time to build,” that is making the rounds among the thinkfluencer crowd. It’s part call-to-arms and part flogging over America’s inability to build.
“Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping other people to build, or teaching other people to build, or taking care of people who are building?” writes Andreessen.
Andreesen is a partner at the VC firm Andreessen-Horowitz. He is considered one of the more important people in software. He co-founded Netscape and wrote a manifesto in 2011 called “Why software is eating the world” that has been a guiding light for many venture investors and people starting companies.
Now he has a new focus on building physical things.
His new article sparked a surprising number of counter-reactions in the press, from think tanks, and fro…
Apr 24, 2020
Live From the Utility Closet and Sunroom
This week, we bring you a joint episode of The Interchange and The Energy Gang recorded in front of a live audience from our quarantine quarters around the country.
When we started making our podcasts seven years ago, it was clear that the energy transition would be a difficult one.
Both shows were designed as a forum to grapple with tough issues in an accessible, candid way. The clean energy industry has faced its share of crises over the years — but nothing quite like the current pandemic and economic freeze.
Supply chains are in limbo, funding opportunities for startups have vanished, and once-growing companies are at a standstill. Meanwhile, political leaders are trying to get money to struggling people and businesses, setting the stage for trillions more dollars in spending on infrastructure.
How will it all pan out? We’re trying to figure it out, just like you.
In this episode, we take listener questions about how to use the current crisis as an opportunity. We…
Apr 20, 2020
What Will the New Normal Look Like?
We have a live show coming up on Wednesday, April 22. It's free! Sign up here. And submit questions here.
What will be the “new normal” in the energy economy when coronavirus starts to dissipate?
The longer this goes on, the more dramatically it will alter how we make things, where we make them, what kind of companies grow or fail, and who suffers and who benefits
This week, Shayle and Stephen speak with Amy Meyers Jaffe, a senior fellow and director of the energy and climate change program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Amy focuses on oil markets, geopolitics, and the emerging clean energy sectors.
Amy recently penned a piece on whether we’re going to come out of this situation with a lasting impact on carbon emissions.
We hopped on a call to discuss many of the themes she’s writing about, including behavioral changes, the stimulus, and the future of oil.
Apr 10, 2020
Rewriting the Startup Survival Guide
This week: coronavirus is rewriting the cleantech startup survival guide.
The implosion for early-stage companies has been swift. According to a New York Times analysis, 6,000 people at 50 startups have lost their jobs since the middle of March.
Once fast-growing companies are losing their revenue overnight, laying off or furloughing up to 50 percent of their staff.
Companies in travel, consumer goods, or fintech are the hardest hit by the current economic freeze. The full impact on climatetech and cleantech companies is still unknown. That will depend on the sector they’re targeting, whether they’re generating revenue, and how long this crisis lasts.
Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey talk with Dr. Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs, and Emily Kirsch, founder and CEO of Powerhouse about how startups can make it through the current economic calamity.
Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send…
Apr 1, 2020
Quarantine Wonkery
We were feeling a little stir crazy this week, so we hopped behind the microphone with Chris Nelder, host of The Energy Transition Show for some wonkery while in quarantine.
In this episode we are exploring two simple questions: What was an unknown about the energy transition five years ago that we now know? And what is a question that has emerged in 2020 that is still unanswered?
And as expected, those questions brought us to some complex answers.
Thanks to Chris Nelder for a fun (socially distant) conversation.
Want to connect with us while stuck at home? Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.
The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.
We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracki…
Mar 25, 2020
Everything Is Different
This week, we're coming to you from our home isolation, partially frozen in time.
We're wondering how long things will be this way. How we will work? How he will keep healthy? How we will run our companies? How will we move forward?
It can feel like each day those answers are only further away. This week on The interchange, Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey get real on how the pandemic has changed their daily lives and their thinking about covering the energy disruption in the months ahead.
Will the current economic disruption lead to permanent changes that lower carbon emissions?
How does this economic disaster change the field for startups and large companies in clean energy?
Mentioned on the show:
* Kate Lister: Workplace Analytics and Telecommuting
* Twitter: Infectious disease expert Laurie Garrett
* NYT: Climate Change Has Lessons for Fighting Coronavirus, Somini Sengupta
* IEA: Put clean energy at the heart of stimulus plans to counter the coronavirus crisis…
Mar 20, 2020
Electricity Use During a Pandemic
This week: What does the load curve look like in a time of pandemic?
We are in the middle of a sudden, jarring economic shift. Store fronts, arenas and office buildings are dark in many cities. Homes are becoming the center of our activity -- and for many of us, our work.
That is causing sudden shifts in the way we consume energy. We’ve seen it play out in China, France and Italy.
So what is happening to the daily shape of electricity load here in the U.S.? And what are the long-term consequences to power providers if this goes on for a long time?
Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey talk with someone who knows how to read a load curve: Nick Chaset. Nick is Chief Executive Officer at East Bay Community Energy and on the board of the California Community Choice Association. He’s worked as Chief of Staff to the head of the California Public Utilities Commission and was special advisor to Governor Jerry Brown on distributed energy resources.
Nick will share some data about his CCA…
Mar 10, 2020
The Energy Intensity of Your Meal Kit Delivery
This week: What can meal kits tell us about the energy intensity of the food system?
When you get meal-kits delivered to your home -- are they a net benefit to the environment? Or are these time savers carbon-heavy?
Since 2012, there’s been a surge in meal-kit delivery options. Online buying and delivery is now the norm. There’s a surge in interest in healthy eating. And we’re all insanely busy. And that’s making Meal-Kits like Home Chef, Blue Apron and HelloFresh a $5 billion business.
But how guilty should you feel unboxing that pre-measured parsley, or berry sauce for that salmon? How does the carbon that got burned to make that packaging and drive that delivery van, compare to buying the ingredients yourself? Has anyone done the math?
We found someone who can actually answer this question for us: Dr. Isabella Gee, an engineer at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas. She did her thesis on this exact question -- and she spends her time looking at the food…
Mar 6, 2020
A Founder's Tech-to-Climate Journey
This week: what one entrepreneur's story tells us about the migration of talent from tech to climate.
Jason Jacobs is the founder of My Climate Journey, a podcast, newsletter, and slack room that brings together a high-level group of people who are dedicating their careers to addressing climate change.
Co-host Shayle Kann talks with Jason about his own journey -- and about what his story tells us about the shift underway in the world of tech.
The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.
We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant.
Feb 26, 2020
The Key to Unlocking 100% Renewables [Special Content]
The 100% renewable energy future doesn’t start with a country, state or region. It starts with a city. One power plant in a city, in fact. In Glendale, California.
Glendale is a city of 200,000 people just north of Los Angeles. And in 2014, the was in a tricky spot. The city’s natural gas plant was old. The City Council faced a decision that would impact the city for decades to come: revamp the 252-megawatt gas plant, or find local alternatives?
After modeling many different types of local resources, the city found the perfect mix: 75 megawatts of utility-scale storage; 15 megawatts of solar, efficiency and demand response; and 93 megawatts of Wärtsilä engines for backup reliability. It saved the city millions of dollars.
“And it's just a huge win...and really, an important model for the future of energy,” says David Millar a resource planning consultant at Ascend Analytics, who helped model Glendale’s energy system.
In this episode, produced in collaboration with Wä…
Feb 18, 2020
Using Artificial Intelligence to Mitigate Climate Change
This week, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many ways they can decarbonize the economy.
From optimizing buildings to modeling new industrial processes to better managing the grid, AI and machine learning are core to many technology strategies for addressing climate change.
So how, exactly, will they be implemented? And what problems can they solve?
With us is Priya Donti, a PHD student at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work is focused on machine learning, grid systems and climate change. She is also the co-chair of Climate Change AI, a group of academics and practitioners looking at machine learning as a decarbonization tool.
Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.
This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo G…
Feb 14, 2020
A Home Solar Veteran Talks Batteries, Smart Home, Tesla Roof, and More
This week: predictions for the future of home solar and batteries.
Big rooftop solar installers are competing with the largest utility-scale plants in terms of yearly deployed capacity.
Batteries are making their way onto more installations, opening up new advancements in software and power electronics.
Tesla finally says it’s making progress on the solar roof.
Meanwhile, extreme weather, wildfires and power shutoffs in California are providing a new entry point for consumers.
What does it all amount to? In this episode, we have a conversation with Barry Cinnamon, the CEO of Cinnamon Solar.
Barry has been installing solar for nearly 20 years. He knows the on-the-ground trends and where they fit into the broader market picture. He regularly writes about the industry on Greentech Media.
Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey sit down with Barry to talk battery applications, home control, EV charging, Tesla’s solar roof, and more.
Read along with us:
* Greentech Media: 10 Roofto…
Feb 4, 2020
24/7 Wind and Solar: The Art of Matching Round-the-Clock Renewables
A lot of companies and governments are committing to 100% renewable energy. But a target of that scope without considering time of use isn’t technically or economically optimal.
So how do we get 24/7 renewables for offices, data centers, municipal buildings, cities, and eventually countries?
Calculating renewables consumption on an annual basis isn’t sufficient. If we really want to make them an effective decarbonization tool, we need to match them to real-time demand. And there are a lot of ways to do it.
In the last few months, we’ve seen examples of large corporations taking the challenge head on. We’ve also seen the negative consequences for a city when it failed to account for time of use.
Dr. Melissa Lott, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, joins co-host Shayle Kann for a deep dive into 24/7 renewables.
Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_…
Jan 29, 2020
'Climatetech' Is Hot. Will Venture Investors Learn From the First Cleantech Wave?
“Climatetech” is suddenly the hot new thing in venture capital.
For years now, venture investors have stayed away from the cleantech category, a hangover from the Solyndra days that we have thoroughly documented on The Interchange.
But we appear to be in a new phase of interest. Prominent investors are publicly declaring their push into the space. Influential voices in tech are calling on more investors to do the same -- including Kara Swisher, who wrote a persuasive piece in The New York Times last week. And now startups of all kinds are getting a second look.
So. What’s going on? And have investors internalized the lessons from the previous investment wave?
With us to weigh in on those questions is returning guest Abe Yokell. Abe is a managing partner at Congruent Ventures.
Co-host Shayle Kann, a managing director at Energy Impact Partners, sets up the trend. Then Shayle and Abe dissect lessons from cleantech venture capital 1.0.
The basis of this conversation came…
Jan 22, 2020
Could Green Hydrogen Become the ‘New Oil’?
Less than one percent of all hydrogen produced today comes from renewables. Is that about to change?
The vice president of Siemens Middle East just called green hydrogen the “new oil” in the coming decades. A lot of big industrial companies and oil majors are taking another serious look at hydrogen. Why?
In an era of extremely cheap renewables that are increasingly being curtailed, hydrogen production could finally be an attractive use. There are emerging regulatory pressures on existing hydrogen production.
This week, we talk with Ben Gallagher, an expert on emerging tech at Wood Mackenzie. He’s the author of a new piece of research on the market. Ben will help us understand what’s different about today’s hydrogen hype.
Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.
This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar ene…
Jan 16, 2020
Would You Take These Bets About Cars, Cities and Voice Control? (Rebroadcast)
We’re undergoing some great changes here on The Interchange! We’re bringing on a new producer and we’re going to be featuring new voices that will help us tackle the energy transition in new and compelling ways.
So while we reorient ourselves, we are bringing you an episode from 2018 called “8 bets about the future.” We debated and bet on a bunch of different scenarios for the coming decades.
This is one of our favorite shows. It’s a good one to bring up from the archives as we prepare ourselves for the decade ahead.
The bets we discuss:
Bet #1: Bug will control machines with her voice more than with her keyboard.
Bet #2: Bug will never personally drive a car.
Bet #3: By the time Bug buys her first home, especially if she’s in an urban environment, her surroundings will transformed.
Bet #4: By the time Bug shops for her own groceries, >20% of her produce will be grown indoors
Bet #5: In Bug’s first home of her own, more than half of her electricity load will…
Jan 10, 2020
Proof the Energy Future Is Here
We’re now in the 2020s. Many of the tropes about this era from films and literature may not have come true, but there’s a lot happening around us that does feel futuristic.
And this week, we are offering up proof that we are living in the energy future — right now.
Shayle and Stephen are each going to pick a use of technology that once seemed futuristic, but is now a reality.
We’re also going to choose a technology that we thought would arrive but now, but is still seemingly off into the future.
What’s your pick? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.
This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage, or looking for back-up power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.
Dec 28, 2019
Our Most Popular Interviews of 2019
This show has a very simple mission: break down the complexity of the global energy transition in a clear way.
Whether that’s digging through reports, concepts, acronyms, business deals, or trends, we are constantly trying to make these topics accessible, yet wonky.
Some of our most popular episodes of 2019 featured guests who were particularly good at delivering on that mission. So we’re going to serve up some snippets of those conversations.
In this episode, we'll hear from:
* Dr. Leah Stokes from our July episode on the politics of the Green New Deal.
* Futurist Ramez Naam on the exponential trends disrupting energy.
* Analyst Adam James on the promise of aggregated distributed energy resources.
Happy new year! Please rate and review us as a gesture of support to close out the year. It’s very helpful for other people who are just finding the show.
Dec 27, 2019
Making 100% Clean Energy Goals a Reality [Content From Wartsila]
Countries, states, cities, utilities and corporations are all setting increasingly ambitious targets for clean energy.
There are lots of variations on the theme: 100% renewable energy, 100% clean energy, 100% carbon-free energy. They all require ambition -- and lots of planning.
In this episode, the first in a three-part series from Wartsila, we are exploring the causes and consequences of this 100% trend.
How did we get to this point where utilities and states are all committing to 100% zero-carbon or 100% renewable energy goals? What are the limitations? What is the potential? And what’s the pathway to achieving them?
Producer Lisa Barfai speaks with Emma Foehringer Merchant, a staff writer at Greentech Media, who describes the origin of the trend.
Then we’ll talk with Jussi Heikkinen, director of growth and development for the Americas at Wartsila, who outlines the practical consequences for the electricity system.
Wartsila creates smart, flexible power technologies to…
Dec 21, 2019
Decade in Review: Most Influential Deals, Stats, Twists and Buzz Phrases
It’s our last episode of the decade! We’re looking back over the last 10 years and making our choices for:
* The most important statistic
* The most impactful piece of research
* The top buzz phrase
* The most unexpected twist
* The most pivotal deal
* And the dark horse trend of the 2020s
Thanks to everyone who’s been listening to this show since 2014. We appreciate your feedback and support. Please continue to suggest topics via Twitter so that we can evolve over the next decade.
Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy management and automation.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric.
Dec 13, 2019
Emerging Tech That Will Help Revive Our Infrastructure
America’s physical infrastructure is in the dumps. The American Society of Civil Engineers regularly gives the country’s infrastructure a near-failing grade.
We need to rebuild a lot of stuff. Hardening our roads, grids, buildings, transit systems has a climate context to it: we need to do it better and we need to do it cleaner.
This week, we are exploring the cleantech opportunities in physical infrastructure. What are the most compelling trends shaping the way we optimize our electrical equipment, pipelines, streets, homes and buildings?
This conversation is based on Shayle Kann’s piece, titled “The World Around Us.”
We’re breaking the conversation into four parts:
* The geospatial revolution: how the combination of new sources of geospatial data (satellites, drones, sensors), combined with the data revolution, will allow us to gain a real-time operational picture of our infrastructure and ultimately optimize it.
* The culture of resilience: how increasing natu…
Dec 5, 2019
The Expert Who's Ranking Every Climate Solution
This week, we have a special addendum to our deep decarbonization draft.
We’re talking with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, the vice president of communication and engagement at Project Drawdown.
Katharine is one of the minds behind the Project Drawdown solutions list that we used as the basis for our draft. We chose the list because it spans so many different areas of the global economy.
Katharine is a renowned expert and self-proclaimed “climate solutionary.” She has a very popular TED Talk on gender equality and climate change, and she speaks regularly to the press about climate issues.
She was the lead author on the Project Drawdown book, which goes deep on the top 100 decarbonization solutions.
If you haven’t listened to our draft, go back and check it out. This conversation will make a lot more sense.
We talk with Katharine about the biggest wins for decarbonization, the most surprising opportunities, and how do they break down along the lines of high-tech and low-tech.…
Nov 20, 2019
The Deep Decarbonization Draft, Part II
This week, we offer our second installment of the Deep Decarbonization Draft — our fantasy sports event for energy and climate nerds.
Last year’s draft inspired similar versions at conferences and in the classroom. We’re bringing the game back by popular demand.
The premise is simple: Shayle and Stephen choose their teams of decarbonization technologies and methods, and then pit them against each other to determine who’s best at saving the planet.
This year’s list climate solutions comes from Project Drawdown. You can find their list and scores here.
Producer Daniel Woldorff has anonymized the list. We need to choose seven draft picks from the 80+ solutions across seven sectors. After all the picks, one steal is allowed.
Once the scores are locked in, we’ll tally up the total CO2 reductions and the total savings and determine a winner. Bonus points for the person who made the highest-scoring pick.
Listen to last year’s decarbonization draft.
Thanks to Mat…
Nov 13, 2019
Climate Risk, Part 3: The Underwater Mortgage Market
This week, we present the final episode in our 3-part interview series on climate risk. We’re going deep on the housing market.
Our guest co-authored an important study quantifying extreme weather risk in the U.S. housing market — and identifying how banks are shifting that risk to us, the taxpayers.
Shayle Kann talks with Amine Ouazad, a professor of applied economics at the graduate business school HEC Montreal. He recently co-authored a study called Mortgage Financing in the Face of Rising Climate Risk.
The New York Times summarized the research, asking we're facing problems similar to the previous housing crisis.
Topics covered on this episode:
* The role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the mortgage market: what happens when mortgage loans get securitized to them?
* Why does the decline in poor FEMA mapping and flood insurance create additional risk for lenders?
* How are risky mortgage loans in vulnerable areas getting sold to Fannie and Freddie — putting taxpa…
Nov 7, 2019
Climate Risk, Part 2: California's Crisis
This week, we present the second episode in our 3-part interview series on climate risk.
As the latest wildfires in California finally get under control, residents and public officials are in a state of panic. The scope and frequency of these disasters is expanding quickly. And it’s not solved by sprinkling more wind and solar on the grid — it’s a planning issue of the highest magnitude.
Our guest is someone who is thinking through the complexities of dealing with the growing impact of climate change on the geography, economy and the infrastructure of the world’s fifth-biggest economy.
In part 2 of our climate risk series, Shayle Kann talks with Kate Gordon, director of the office of planning and research for California. She is also senior advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom on climate.
It sounds like a dry job title. But it is an incredibly complicated role.
Topics covered in this episode:
* What are the risks the state of California faces due to climate change, tod…
Oct 30, 2019
Climate Risk, Part 1: How Do We Measure It?
This week, we present the first episode in our 3-part interview series on climate risk. How do we measure and quantify both the physical and economic risk of a warming planet?
This question has very real consequences for the way companies are run, the way cities are planned, and the way markets are valued.
In this episode, Shayle Kann speaks with Trevor Houser, a partner with Rhodium Group.
Rhodium Group and Blackrock recently wrote a report on the underpriced risks of climate change throughout the economy.
Topics covered in this episode:
* What counts as "climate risk,” and how is it distinguished from all the risks we face independent of climate change?
* The state of climate risk reporting: How has our ability to measure climate risk improved? How much certainty can we provide today? What gaps remain?
* Examples of climate risk in municipal bonds, commercial real estate, and energy & utilities.
* How big a challenge is it to get different players (investors, insurer…
Oct 29, 2019
The Internet-of-Things Promise in Buildings [Special Content From Centrica]
This week, we present a special episode in collaboration with Centrica Business Solutions and GTM Creative Strategies.
For the last decade and a half, we’ve been hearing about how the internet-of-things would completely reshape how our buildings operate -- and how people operate within them.
But while the layer of digital tech in buildings is advancing all the time, the IOT revolution is taking longer to play out than some expected.
“In short, a lot of the promise has not been fulfilled,” says Paul Kuehn, a senior sales director for distributed energy at Centrica Business Solutions.
“I don't think it's necessarily a measure of the technology at this point. We've gotten past the hype of having the devices. It's the use of the devices and the competency of the operators to be able to figure out how to solve problems with those devices,” explains Kuehn.
By next year, there will be 10 billion IOT devices connected to the cloud globally. In another three years, the number wil…
Oct 24, 2019
3 Barometers of the Energy Transition
This week: three barometers of the energy transition.
There are a lot of numbers flying at us every day — and it is our job to figure what they indicate about change.
In this episode, we’ll choose three different numbers from the transportation, heating and electricity sectors, and explain what they mean.
At the end, we’ll choose which stat is most important.
Follow along with us:
* Stat 1: 200 million
* Stat 2: 22 percent
* Stat 3: 50 percent
Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcast
Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy management and automation. Schneider Electric is pioneering solutions like microgrids, for everything from community resiliency to higher adoption of electric vehicles.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern…
Oct 17, 2019
Can Venture Capital Make America Do Tough Things Again?
Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcast
Venture capital is an effective source of money for scaling companies quickly. But what if your company needs 15 years to prove itself?
That’s the time horizon for many “tough tech” companies in energy that are developing new semiconductors, industrial processes, chemical production methods, and long-duration storage systems.
The first cleantech bubble showed the limits of VC in backing tough, capital-intensive tech. So we are asking: can venture capital ever step up to the big industrial-scale challenges of our day?
Our guest, Katie Rae, believes it can. Katie is the CEO and managing partner at The Engine, a venture firm based in Cambridge, Mass that invests in a wide-ranging sector she calls tough tech.
Katie joins us to explain why she’s hopeful that startups doing difficult things are finding more opportunities to connect with investors.
You can also learn mo…
Oct 7, 2019
What’s Driving the Residential Battery Surge?
The market for home batteries is picking up.
Residential storage capacity installations outpaced utility-scale installations in the second quarter of this year. There were more residential batteries installed in Q2 than in all of 2017.
So what’s driving the mini-boom?
Residential storage doesn’t mirror other technologies like solar. It’s more of an emotional sell — and there are a lot different value propositions that contribute to battery sales.
In this episode, Shayle Kann talks with GTM Staff Writer Julian Spector about the latest trends in residential storage.
Read GTM's recent coverage of the battery market:
* Coverage of record quarter for residential batteries
* On California’s new battery rebate for wildfire zones
* Generac’s strategy for entering the storage market
* Sonnen’s groundbreaking home battery development with utility contract
Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy m…
Sep 26, 2019
The Stranded Asset Threat to Natural Gas
There are $70 billion worth of natural gas-fired power plants planned in the U.S. through the mid 2020s. But a combination of wind, solar, batteries and demand-side management could threaten 90 percent of those investments.
New modeling from the Rocky Mountain Institute shows that more than 60 gigawatts of new gas plants are already economically challenged. And by the mid 2030s, existing gas plants will be under threat.
How severe is the threat? Could we eventually see tens of gigawatts of stranded gas plants?
RMI set out to answer that question in two reports on the economics of gas generation and gas pipelines. The tipping point is now.
Our guest, Mark Dyson, is a principal at RMI and one of the co-authors of the analysis. He joins us to talk about the modeling, the threat, and the consequences to power providers and investors.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out…
Sep 20, 2019
The Age of 100%
We are now in a new age for clean energy: the age of 100%.
Every week, we get some new declaration from a corporation, a city, a state or a utility that they are going 100%.
But not all targets are created equal. 100% what? 100% clean? 100% renewable? 100% carbon free? Net zero emissions?
To someone who doesn’t follow energy closely, they may all seem like the same thing. But these targets often vary wildly in terms of timing, ambition, and complexity.
So this week: we are surveying the range of targets: which ones matter, what do they add up to, and have they changed what’s possible?
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric.
We're also brought to you by Uplight, the company you once knew as Tendril and Simp…
Sep 10, 2019
Tesla’s Solar Gigafactory Struggles
New York State offered Tesla $750 million to turn Buffalo into a solar manufacturing hub — why hasn’t Tesla delivered on the vision it promised?
It’s been five years since SolarCity first declared plans to become a solar manufacturer, and nearly three years since Musk unveiled the solar roof. Tesla had plans to pump out thousands of solar roofs per week by now. But the company has quietly struggled to build out any meaningful production in its Buffalo location.
Customers are angry. Buffalo locals and New York politicians feel burned. And employees are jaded. What do we make of the Gigafactory 2 debacle?
We’re joined by Austin Carr, a reporter at Bloomberg, who’s been covering the Tesla solar story better than anyone else.
We’ll look at the history of SolarCity/Tesla’s manufacturing plans, the derailed plans for the solar roof, and how current manufacturing activity compares with Tesla’s promises to New York.
Read Austin’s reporting on Tesla’s solar business…
Sep 5, 2019
How Bad Are Oil & Gas Methane Leaks?
This week: how much methane are U.S. oil & natural gas drillers emitting? The data is accumulating — and it’s not looking good.
A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found yearly methane emissions were equivalent to 69 million cars on the road. Some estimates are higher. The United Nations says yearly methane leaks may amount to adding nearly 100 million cars.
As activist investors put more pressure on oil & gas drillers to deal with methane leaks, producers are now admitting there’s a problem. Meanwhile, they’re also touting “sustainably fracked” gas that comes from sources with fewer methane emissions.
But what will happen to industry efforts to clean up methane leaks now that the Trump Administration is rolling back regulations?
We are talking with Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca Elliott, who’s been covering this leakage issue very closely. She’ll detail investor pressure, the impact of regulations, and why so many big drillers support slashing methane.…
Aug 31, 2019
How the Kochs Built an Industrial Empire and Reshaped Politics
This week, we have an interview with Christopher Leonard, author of a new book, “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.”
Earlier this month, David Koch passed away. And it suddenly got everyone talking about the Koch Brothers again.
It got us thinking about them too — not just their role in politics, but about the company they built. Koch Industries is one of the most influential energy and industrial firms in the world. And the way the Kochs have run their company tells us a lot about their approach to conservative politics.
With David and Charles Koch back in the public spotlight, we’re talking with Christopher about their business practices, libertarian philosophies, and influence on politics.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV s…
Aug 25, 2019
Merchant Solar and Wind: A Ticking Time Bomb?
This week, we explore a possible financial time bomb for renewable energy: merchant risk.
Since the dawn of grid-connected wind and solar, long-term power purchase agreements were the financial glue that held projects together. Developers could rely on relatively simple multi-decade contracts, thanks in large part to policy that encouraged or mandated utilities to enter those agreements.
Today, things are a lot more complicated. It’s much harder to secure a long-term PPA, so more wind and solar projects are getting exposed to the risks of the market. Contract terms are being cut down to 10 years or less. And that means a vast majority of the electricity produced by those wind and solar projects must get sold on the competitive market.
Wind and solar face “covariance risk” — a negative relationship between electricity output and price. These resources must sell their electricity during the time of day when lots of other solar and wind farms are also generating, thus depressin…
Aug 13, 2019
The State of Distributed Energy Aggregation: How Is It Working?
This week, we’re talking about a trend that’s picking up in electricity markets: aggregation of distributed resources.
Utilities have been remotely switching off air conditioners to manage demand for a long time. But a range of emerging resources — solar paired with batteries, smart thermostats, intelligent water heaters, electric car chargers — are creating new kinds of virtual power plants.
People have been talking about the virtual power plant concept for years. And it’s finally happening in a meaningful way — although rolling out very differently in regional markets around the U.S.
In this episode, Shayle Kann talks with Adam James about the nuances to DER aggregation. They’ll highlight specific projects around the country and talk about how the business models work.
Shayle is our co-host and managing director at Energy Impact Partners. Adam is the chief of staff at Energy Impact Partners.
Adam previously worked at SolarCity/Tesla. He’s also a former analyst at…
Jul 15, 2019
The Surprising Public Opinion Trends Behind the Green New Deal
Note: after this episode, we will be on hiatus for a few weeks while Stephen Lacey goes on paternity leave.
This week, a conversation about what the Green New Deal reveals about public opinion on climate change.
Why are national climate politics frozen? The conventional understanding is that Americans are deeply divided on the issue along party lines.
Until recently, Democrats have been scared of talking too often about climate in national campaigns because they think the electorate is split; and the Republican Party has been outright hostile to climate policy, believing that’s what the majority of conservative voters think.
And then, in steps the Green New Deal. It’s revealing something extraordinary.
According to a Yale survey, 81 percent of registered voters say they would support the Green New Deal. And 64 percent of Republicans say they would support it. Other polls have shown similar levels of support.
So what does this reveal about how climate plays among the elector…
Jul 10, 2019
The Complexity of NYC’s Green New Deal [Special Content From Centrica]
This week, we present a special episode on behalf of Centrica Business Solutions.
The Green New Deal is now a driving force in climate politics. But up until now, it’s been mostly theoretical.
And then, in April, Mayor Bill De Blasio declared that New York City is creating its own version of the Green New Deal. As part of the law, large commercial buildings will need to cut emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050 — or face steep fines.
After so much theorizing about the Green New Deal, we can finally see what happens when a resolution meets reality.
And the impact is not what you might think. Many building upgrades in the city are now stalling because of uncertainty around the law.
“No matter who I’ve spoken to, nobody’s disagreeing with the goals. It’s the application of how we benchmark. There are clearly buildings that can become vastly more efficient. But this legislation doesn’t prize density, it doesn’t prize efficiency, for some of our mo…
Jul 9, 2019
Where Is the Global Energy System Headed?
Every year, we see a wide range of models for the future global energy system.
The scenarios come from a wide array of organizations: International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration; oil companies like BP, Shell and Equinor; and research outfits like Wood Mackenzie and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
And the conclusions are all over the map.
So a group of experts at Resources for the Future put them all together and created their own model — a way to compare the scenarios in a meaningful way and get a more accurate picture of how the future may play out.
In this podcast, we’ll dig through the report. Can clean energy start to replace fossil fuels, or will it simply compliment them?
You can read the Resources for the Future report (PDF) here.
Looking for another podcast this summer? Listen to ILLUMINATORS, a 5-part series about the history of business disruption from Tendril. What can energy companies learn from radical change in other industries? Subsc…
Jun 26, 2019
Solar & Wind Curtailment: A Liability or Asset for Grid Decarbonization?
On the docket this week: curtailment of renewable energy.
Historically, we’ve thought about curtailment as a waste of valuable clean electricity — a financial penalty for renewable generators who need to monetize every last electron.
It’s already an issue today. California has so much solar power, in certain months it is dialing back tens of thousands of megawatt-hours of PV generation. It’s happening in other states, to a lesser degree. And it’s so many people are focused on storage.
But our perception of curtailment is changing. New modeling suggests that overbuilding wind and solar is actually the most economic solution for achieving high levels of renewables — not necessarily relying on storage.
So, how should we think about curtailment? As a liability for generators and grid operators, or a tool for cleaning up the grid?
Recommended reading:
* LA Times: California Has Too Much Solar Power. That Might Be Good for Ratepayers
* GreenBiz: A Radical Idea to Get a…
Jun 18, 2019
Challenging Our Beliefs, Part 2: Do Individual Actions Matter for Climate?
This week, we’re challenging our long-held beliefs about whether individual actions matter. Even if we drastically altered our lifestyles, would it do anything to address climate change?
We all want to believe that our individual life choices will have a meaningful impact on carbon emissions. But a focus on solar panels, LEDs and vegetarianism may just be a distraction.
This week, Stephen is going to take the position that individual actions are inconsequential. Shayle will argue the other side.
This is the second installment that addresses this theme. Last episode, we asked: do people care about energy? Listen here.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric.
We're also sponsored by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capit…
Jun 5, 2019
Challenging Our Beliefs, Part 1: Do People Care About Energy?
Over the next two weeks, we are challenging our long-held assumptions about energy.
We’re going to take the opposite stance of an argument that we agree with. Can we change our minds?
In part 1, we’re revisiting the assumption that most people do not care about energy.
Most people care about convenience, lifestyle and price. But do they care enough about their energy use to make a change for environmental reasons without external pressure?
Shayle is going to take the opposite stance of what he believes — he’s going to argue that consumers do care. Stephen will respond by arguing that people don’t care.
For your reading pleasure, here’s the article Shayle references on “flight shame” in Sweden.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you ca…
May 29, 2019
The Epochal Shift in Commercial Energy [Special Content From Centrica]
We present a special episode produced in collaboration with Centrica Business Solutions.
In 2006, Kate Sherwood left her job in strategy consulting to work in solar.
“I realized what I had been doing wasn't getting me out of bed anymore,” says Sherwood. “So, I took a very big pay cut to move into carrying a bag, into being a salesman.”
Selling solar to corporate customers at that time wasn’t easy. But C&I solar blossomed as the technology got cheaper, financing got better, and companies got more comfortable.
Today, Kate is the vice president and head of sales at Centrica Business Solutions. There, she runs a team that packages all kinds of energy tech for commercial and industrial customers — solar, batteries, combined heat and power, demand response.
So much as changed since 2006. There’s a new company committing to 100% renewables every week; tech firms and industrial giants are looking to procure gigawatts of wind and solar for their operations; and extreme weat…
May 28, 2019
Jay Inslee's Climate Plan Is Every Wonk's Dream
What would a truly bold presidential plan to decarbonize the economy look like?
Democratic candidates are offering up their visions.
Elizabeth Warren is focusing on banning fossil fuel extraction on public lands and using the military to counter climate threats; Beto O’Rourke is looking to executive action; Joe Biden is teasing a “middle ground” plan.
Then there’s Washington State Governor Jay Inslee. He just released his second climate plan — it’s more of a manifesto — called the The Evergreen Economy. It’s a culmination of a decade and a half of his thinking, writing and policymaking on climate.
The document was so good, we decided to devote a whole episode to talking about it.
You can read it here. And check out Dave Roberts’ supplemental analysis here.
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. G…
May 15, 2019
Are Uber and Lyft Bad for Energy and Climate?
Uber and Lyft are now public — and now under more investor pressure to expand quickly. What does that mean for energy use and carbon emissions as more cars hit the roads?
Multiple new studies show that these transportation networking companies are causing more traffic and pulling people away from public transit. Meanwhile, cities and states are trying to clean up those fleets by promoting electrification.
Will we be able to clean up ride-hailing fleets fast enough?
This week, in honor of the Uber and Lyft IPOs, we are looking at the negative and positive consequences of ride hailing.
Recommended reading:
* GTM: Electric Ridesharing Benefits the Grid, and EVgo Has the Data to Prove It
* PBS: Why is Your Uber or Lyft Stuck in Traffic? Most lLikely bBecause of Uber and Lyft
* Schaller Consulting: Lyft, Uber and the Future of American Citi
* Streets Blog: Uber and Lyft Caused U.S. Transit Decline
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV…
May 3, 2019
Big Companies Quietly Embracing the Energy Transition
Big energy giants around the world are investing heavily in renewables and cleantech. But there’s a whole class of companies making moves in the sector behind the scenes.
In this episode, we’re looking at the unsung corporate heroes of the clean energy transition.
Shayle and Stephen share their picks for companies that are making surprising moves into renewable energy, electrification and clean materials.
What does it tell us about how deeply clean energy is embedded in the corporate world?
Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric.
We're also sponsored by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help…
Apr 23, 2019
A Futurist’s Take on ‘Exponential’ Energy Shifts
It’s taken decades for renewables to compete with fossil fuels. But we’re now entering the third phase of the clean energy transition, when new renewables are beating existing coal and gas plants on price alone.
"We’re on the verge of a new, radically different point in history,” argues futurist and technologist Ramez Naam.
This phase of the energy transition will bring change that is faster and more disruptive than at any point in history.
But will it happen fast enough?
This week, we’ll ask Ramez to outline the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for our energy future. We’ll look at how the energy transition may unfold, and what we can learn from other tech sectors.
In the second half of the show, we’ll talk about long-duration storage, the system-wide benefits of cheap batteries, the future of small-modular nuclear, and artificial superintelligence.
Ramez is chair of energy & environmental systems at Singularity University. He is a computer scientist who wor…
Apr 17, 2019
PG&E's Wildfire Saga
This week: we dig into the causes of PG&E’s latest bankruptcy: wildfires.
PG&E’s restructuring is one of the biggest in U.S. history — and it could be considered the first climate bankruptcy.
The utility faces tens of billions of dollars in liabilities after investigators pinned over a dozen wildfires on PG&E equipment. What does it tell us about the health of utility infrastructure and corporate preparedness for climate risk?
The future structure of PG&E is still uncertain as it moves through bankruptcy proceedings. And California lawmakers are struggling with how to both protect and penalize utilities for wildfire damages.
We are going to explain what wildfires mean for PG&E and other California utilities. We’ll speak with Katherine Blunt of the Wall Street Journal about what her reporting has uncovered.
Our current Interchange sponsor is PG&E. Please note: our sponsors have no influence on our editorial content in our podcasts.
Read some of Katherine Blunt’s repo…
Apr 10, 2019
Why Shell Is Pouring Billions Into Batteries, Microgrids, EVs and Electrification
Global energy giants have been on a distributed energy acquisition spree over the last few years. With the formation of its New Energies unit in 2016, Shell is leading the oil & gas majors in investment and vision.
Shell New Energies plans to invest $2 billion dollars in renewables, microgrids, batteries, electric vehicle charging, and other emerging tech every year. That number is just a tiny sliver of Shell’s fossil fuel and chemical businesses, but it’s enough money to start re-arranging the competitive landscape for clean electrification.
Most recently, the company acquired sonnen, a leading behind-the-meter battery company, and First Utility, a UK retail supplier and smart home service provider. Shell is developing smart home offerings through both companies.
This week, Brian Davis, the VP of energy solutions at Shell, joins us to discuss the company’s strategy.
His job: to help reshape the strategy of Shell and build up new businesses around biofuels and electrificati…
Apr 4, 2019
Which Legacy Automaker Is Leading the Electric Vehicle Race?
Within the next decade, automakers will invest up to $300 billion in electric models, according to a recent tally from Reuters. These automakers are also spending billions more on autonomy to compliment those investments. It could result in 21 million new electric cars, trucks and SUVs on the roads.
A lot of that activity is happening in China. But we’re also starting to see new investments in EV manufacturing in the U.S. For example, VW, Ford and Chevy are collectively putting over $2 billion into new or upgraded factories to produce EVs with autonomous functions.
So with all this money sloshing around, who’s doing what? And are any definitive leaders emerging?
On this week's Interchange podcast, we'll look at the competitive landscape for EV manufacturing.
Additional resources:
* GTM Squared: Major Auto Brands Unveil Their New Year’s EV Resolutions
* GTM Squared: The Rise of China’s World-Leading EV Market
* Reuters: Analysis of 29 Global Automakers’ EV Spendin…
Mar 26, 2019
Transmission: The 800kV Gorilla
We asked on a recent Interchange episode: how are we going to manage all this distributed energy on the grid?
This week, we’re asking: how to we manage all this centralized renewable energy hitting the grid?
The answer is both simpler and more complex. We need to build a lot more transmission, yes. But getting that transmission in place is one of the hardest and most controversial pieces of decarbonizing the electric grid.
There’s plenty of disagreement about how exactly we clean up the grid. Whatever your preferred plan, it probably needs to include way more transmission infrastructure -- like $600 billion worth by 2050.
This week, we’re going to look at why lots of transmission is needed, how much is actually needed, and if we can even build it. What are the current models telling us?
Recommended reading:
* New York Times: Missouri Regulators Approve Midwest Wind Energy Power Line
* Utility Dive: Electrification could drive $600B in transmission spending by 2050
* G…
Mar 18, 2019
Replay: Ode to the Pivot!
We're on spring break this week. So we're offering a replay of an earlier episode -- it's all about pivots.
Did you know that Nokia started out as a paper mill in Finland? Or that Nintendo once made instant rice? Many of the world's leading companies start out in radically different markets.
Cleantech is the same. Sales cycles are often slow, technologies don't work as planned, and customer needs are constantly evolving. In the tumultuous world of energy, companies pivot all the time.
On this week's episode of The Interchange, we celebrate the pivot.
We'll look back throughout history and choose the most successful and unsuccessful pivots of all time. What do they tell us about how to succeed in this market?
Recommended reading:
* Forbes: 14 Famous Business Pivots
* Wall Street Journal: How a Florida Utility Became the Global King of Green Power
* LA Times: How SunEdison Went From Wall Street Star to Bankruptcy
* Vestas: The History of Vestas Wind Turbines
* GTM: Har…
Mar 12, 2019
What’s Up With Tesla’s Energy Business?
This week, the history and future of Tesla Energy.
Back in 2006, Elon Musk posted a manifesto outlining his vision for a high-end sports car that would push unit volume and lower costs. It also included hints about an integrated company that will sell solar and batteries alongside cars.
More than a dozen years later, that vision is being put to the test. After launching a distributed and grid-scale battery business, acquiring SolarCity and then launching a half-baked solar roof, Tesla’s energy services division faces a questionable future.
Battery delays are a problem, the company is no longer a major solar player, solar roof production is feeble, and Tesla is moving entirely to online sales.
So what exactly is Tesla Energy?
We’re going to revisit the chronology and explore where it’s all headed.
Recommended reading:
* Bloomberg: Did Elon Musk Forget About Buffalo?
* Listen to our earlier episode with Tesla’s grid storage architect, Mateo Jaramillo.
* Fast Company:…
Mar 5, 2019
What Should We Do With All This Distributed Energy?
Distributed energy resources (DERs) are going to double on the U.S. grid by 2023, according to our researchers at Wood Mackenzie.
By then, we’ll likely have somewhere around 100 gigawatts of flexible capacity — made up of distributed solar, combined heat and power, electric vehicles, smart thermostats, and battery storage. Those technologies alone could amount to the current bulk power system in Texas.
Today, utilities are less likely to see those DERs purely as a threat. But figuring out how to manage all those resources is still a monumental challenge.
Now that we’re squarely in the middle of this doubling of DERs, how do we get markets right? This is an age-old question that many are working to answer — and we think it’s a good time revisit it.
We’re joined by Andy Lubershane, senior director of research at Energy Impact Partners, for a wide-ranging discussion about DERs from the utility perspective: the state of DERs, how they fit into utility operations, and whet…
Feb 27, 2019
The Accidental Green Job Counselors
This week, Shayle and Stephen stumble into career counseling.
There are now 3.4 million people in America working in clean energy, spanning across transportation, renewable energy, energy efficiency, environmental services and many other related areas.
It’s a big number. But it also means there are tens of millions of others with the right skills or the desire who haven’t yet joined the advanced energy economy.
We’ve gotten numerous career questions from listeners — some starting careers, some later in careers, and some in consumer tech looking to find a more meaningful job addressing climate change. This week, we’re going to address some of them, using our own experience and drawing from others.
We’ll hear from Nicole, an anonymous manager in tech who is looking for a way into the field.
We’ll hear from Astrid Atkinson, a former senior Google engineer who quit her job to start an energy software company.
We’ll hear from Mark Hughes, an engineer at Sila Nanotechno…
Feb 20, 2019
Building a Career With Intention [Special Content From Wunder Capital]
This week, we present an original podcast episode, brought to you by Wunder Capital. This is the third part of our three-part series produced with Wunder.
In this episode, we’ll hear the story of Dave Riess, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Wunder.
Well before co-founding Wunder, Dave found himself in a tricky spot. Even after building a successful career in software development, he was uninspired: “I’m working really hard solving these problems and fundamentally I'm helping big brands spend money more effectively on Facebook. And, nobody cares about that, including me.”
So Dave created a framework for evaluating his career path. And it took him in an entirely new direction into solar.
“The framework is quite simple. If I’m going to characterize myself by the work that I do, then why would I not work on the most important problem?”
Dave eventually landed on energy, education and health care as the main problems to solve. “Energy, in my opinion, is th…
Feb 12, 2019
Cleantech Venture Capital Is Back
After a long downturn, cleantech venture capital investments are back on the upswing.
According to year-end numbers from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, venture and private equity investments into the sector grew 127 percent in 2018 over the previous year, amounting to $9.2 billion. That is the highest total since 2010.
Years after venture capital plummeted in 2012 — when investors ran from clean technologies after getting burned by bad bets — we’re seeing a new wave of activity. Oil majors, billionaires and a wide range of corporations are getting in on the action. And there’s a wide range of new funds focusing on both software- and hardware-specific startups.
So, is this spurt of activity different from the last one? For one, fewer people are using the term "cleantech."
This week, we're joined by Abe Yokell, managing partner at Congruent Ventures. He and our co-host Shayle Kann, a senior VP of research and strategy at Energy Impact Partners, will talk about the changing…
Feb 5, 2019
Steal This Decarbonization Strategy!
Desperation has taken hold in climate policy. People are so anxious to do something meaningful, allies are fighting against each other over the solutions.
Is the right approach a Green New Deal to re-engineer the energy and labor markets with renewable energy? Or is it better to just price carbon in order to allow all kinds of technologies and carbon mitigation efforts to flourish?
We need both, says Hal Harvey, the CEO of Energy Innovation. In this episode, we’ll get beyond the tribalism and look at the suite of policies that will decarbonize the economy quickly and cost-effectively.
We’re going to talk about Hal’s new book, “Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy.”
Topics we’ll cover on the podcast:
* The Green New Deal and the reliance on renewables as a climate strategy. How far does the wind-solar-water plan get us?
* The debate about the effectiveness and elegance of a carbon tax. Is it really the end-all solution?
* The most…
Jan 29, 2019
Battle Royale: Utilities vs Oil Majors vs Mobility Providers vs Big Tech
As the trend toward electrification speeds up, what type of company will dominate the market?
We're hosting a cage match to find out.
On this week's episode of The Interchange, we pit utilities, oil & gas majors, mobility providers and consumer tech companies against one another. We're throwing them inside a voice-activated, electrified cage to see who will emerge as the energy company of the future.
Throughout this episode, we are trying to answer a straightforward-yet-complicated question: who is best positioned to win the long-term power game?
To set up the match, we’re going to profile each competitor and look at the evidence for their competitive edge.
Then, we’ll ring the bell. We’ll address the following: How might each competitor win? What areas will they be strongest in? What are their weaknesses? What will their dominance look like?
We’ll finish with some post-match color commentary and make our picks for the winner.
Don't forget to give The Interchange a ra…
Jan 21, 2019
What's Behind Rising US Emissions?
After a period of moderation, heat trapping gases are going up in the U.S. and around the world. In 2018, global emissions rose by 2.7 percent. And U.S. emissions rose by 3.4 percent, according to an early tally from the Rhodium Group.
This week, we're going to put some meaning to those emissions numbers. We are joined by Brad Plumer, an energy and environment reporter at the New York Times, who will help us dig into each sector.
We will answer the following questions:
* Why aren't wind and solar making up for coal closures?
* Which sectors are becoming the worst emitters?
* Will the "Trump bump" accelerate the emissions trend in the medium term?
* If we were king/dictator/wizard for a day, what sector would we address first?
Don't forget to give The Interchange a rating and creative review on Apple podcasts for your chance to win a yearly subscription to GTM Squared!
Read along with us:
* Rhodium Group: Preliminary US Emissions Estimates for 2018
* NYT: U.S. C…
Jan 17, 2019
This Republican Campaigned on Renewables and Won [Special Episode from Energy News Network]
This week, we present a special episode brought to you by the Energy News Network.
We profile State Senator Bob Steinburg, a local North Carolina politician who spent a lot of time in his republican primary campaign talking about the benefits of renewable energy.
We also talk with Elizabeth Outzs, a journalist at the Energy News Network, who covered Steinburg’s campaign.
“What we’re seeing in the way politicians are behaving and the way that people are responding to these polls is that clean energy is increasingly like mom and apple pie,” says Ouzts.
Read Elizabeth’s story about the campaign here.
For plenty more in-depth coverage on the clean energy transition in the Southeast, Northeast, Midwest, and West, head on over to energynews.us.
Jan 7, 2019
How Flexible, Dispatchable Solar Works
Forget everything you think you know about solar.
A growing body of research and real-world experience shows that solar can be a flexible, dispatchable resource. And it can potentially rival gas plants in providing grid regulation services — without the use of batteries.
We’ve had the technology to allow solar and wind to provide grid services for years. So how do we open up markets to unleash their full potential?
In this episode, we’ll look at some new modeling from First Solar, E3 and Tampa Electric Company that outlines how to use utility-scale solar power plants for spinning reserves, load following, voltage support, and frequency response. (Read Colin Meehan's tweet storm about the report, mentioned on the show.)
Dec 20, 2018
Hyped Stories, Underplayed Trends and Breakthroughs of 2018
This week, we’ve got our year-end recap — with an Interchange twist.
We’re going to cover the following topics:
* The story that didn’t warrant the attention it got.
* The story that should have gotten more attention than it did.
* The energy tech/sector/personality that had the biggest breakthrough of the year
* The energy tech/sector/personality that had the biggest setback of the year
* A notable trend that you wish you had predicted.
* The "most 2018" story of the year. In other words, a story that embodies the zeitgeist.
Get your GTM Squared discounted membership here using the promo code, PODCAST.
This podcast is sponsored by Sungrow. Sungrow is the leading pure-play solar inverter supplier with a range of solutions for both solar and storage applications. Find out more about how Sungrow is investing in U.S. solar.
Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you find your audio co…
Dec 13, 2018
Live: Energy Storage Trends of 2018, Oscars Style
This week, we've got a live episode recorded at GTM's storage summit. We'll talk about the hottest energy storage stories of 2018, Oscars style.
Julian Spector and Stephen Lacey debate nominees and award recipients in the following categories:
* Best original policy and regulatory development
* Best application for storage in a hybrid or supporting role
* Best foreign storage market
* Best new artist
* Best financial contribution
* Best storage project in a market leading role
* Plus, we remember the fallen storage companies of 2018.
If you didn't make it to the summit, GTM Squared members can watch every single panel here.
The Interchange is brought to you by Sungrow. Sungrow is the leading pure-play solar inverter supplier with a range of solutions for both solar and storage applications. With more than 2 gigawatts of inverters shipped to the Americas, find out how Sungrow is investing in U.S. solar.
Dec 4, 2018
Europe ’18 Tour: Brexit Chaos, French Gas Riots, & Polish Climate Talks
This week, we’re road tripping across Europe.
In Poland’s coal country, diplomats are breathing in smog-filled air, preparing to strengthen a global climate deal.
In France, angry protestors are rioting in the streets over a gas tax as part of the president’s climate policy.
And in the U.K., Britons may leave the European Union without a deal in place, threatening the health of energy markets and the economics of renewable power plants.
So as we close out the year, what better time to take a tour of the top European stories?
During our tour, maybe we’ll scope out a few subsidy-free offshore wind farms and battery manufacturing plants along the way.
We're joined this week by Jason Deign, GTM’s prolific contributing writer, who reports on a range of international energy topics for us. He’s with us from Barcelona, Spain.
Read Jason's reporting for GTM here.
If you want to go deeper, read Jason's deep reporting for GTM Squared on materials supply constraints caused b…
Nov 30, 2018
Blockchain in 2018: Where Are We in the Hype Cycle?
We’re back with another edition of “consensus” this week. GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna joins us to explain the arcane and hyped up world of blockchain to our listeners in the energy business.
We promised not to discuss blockchain on The Interchange until we saw some newsworthy developments — now we have too much to sift through. So we’re going to survey the most important stories of the last year.
We’ll start with a quick rundown of Amazon’s plan to develop blockchain-as-a-service: does this signal anything special about the market?
Then we’ll address a basic question: where are we in the hype cycle? Are people moderating their expectations?
Other stories we’re tracking:
* How did WePower tokenize Estonia’s grid data?
* Why did Grid+ face so many regulatory hurdles in Texas’ electricity market?
* The year of standardization: how are the players rallying around data and privacy standards?
* The cryptocurrency price drop: how does it impact investor en…
Nov 20, 2018
A Game of 'Would You Rather' for Energy Wonks
There are tradeoffs to everything in energy. So why not put those tradeoffs to a test?
We recently crowdsourced some "would you rather" scenarios from our listeners. On this week's Interchange podcast, we'll choose our favorites and debate the scenarios.
Here are the scenarios:
* Would you rather have $10 billion in renewable deployment funding, startup funding, or R&D? (Bryan Birsic, CEO of Wunder Capital)
* Would you rather see oil suddenly go to $20/bbl or $200/bbl? (Eric Hittinger, professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology)
* Would you rather have perfect load forecasting capabilities or perfect wind + solar forecasting algorithms? (Elizabeth Buechler, PhD student at Stanford)
* Would you rather have a national HVDC overlay grid or ready-to-go next generation nuclear plants with excellent ramping capability? (Michael Noble, CEO of Fresh Energy)
* Would you rather have an Electric @Ford F-150 or $15,000 EV? (Matt-Stephens Rich, electric vehicle s…
Nov 12, 2018
Plugging 'Plant Factories' Into the Grid
When you grow plants with electrons rather than the sun, what happens to the grid?
This week, we’re talking about the energy profile of indoor plant factories.
Indoor farming is having a moment. Venture capitalists are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into vertical farming startups growing in urban, industrial facilities. Cities are easing restrictions to encourage more plant factories. And even Elon Musk’s cousin founded a vertical farm.
We’re tackling this booming business: what’s driving it, what’s the potential, and what are the energy consequences?
We’re joined by Logan Ashcraft, an indoor agriculture expert who previously served as the manager of energy & power at Plenty. She’s currently doing research on the broader impact of these operations on the energy system.
Support for this podcast comes from Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital…
Nov 5, 2018
8 Bets About the Future
This week, we’re taking bets on the future of energy. Shayle wrote a piece celebrating his colleague’s expected daughter, nicknamed Bug.
Bug will be born at the beginning of 2019. She’ll enter high school in 2033 and turn 30 in 2049. What will her future look like?
In this episode, we outline 8 different scenarios that Bug may face in her lifetime — and decide whether or not to take Shayle’s bets.
The bets:
* Bet #1: Bug will control machines with her voice more than with her keyboard.
* Bet #2: Bug will never personally drive a car.
* Bet #3: By the time Bug buys her first home, especially if she’s in an urban environment, her surroundings will transformed.
* Bet #4: By the time Bug shops for her own groceries, >20% of her produce will be grown indoors
* Bet #5: In Bug’s first home of her own, more than half of her electricity load will dynamically respond to grid or price signals
* Bet #6: By the time Bug reaches 30 (in the year 2050), electricity’…
Oct 30, 2018
The Solar Window Shopper
How are residential customers shopping for solar?
This week, Stephen shares his solar experience. He’ll explain how and why he made his decision — and what it tells us about the way people look for solar offerings today.
Brian Sadler, the VP of project development at Revolusun, describes the residential solar sales cycle.
Vikram Aggarwal, the CEO of EnergySage, talks about how installers can better serve the solar window shopper.
Josh Garrett, an account director at Antenna Group, shares his bad experience with community solar.
Kiran Bhatraju, the CEO of Arcadia Power, explains the residential “energy concierge” concept for community solar, wind RECs, smart home devices and other services.
Recommended reading:
* Vikram Aggarwal's column at GTM: It’s Time for the Solar Industry to Embrace Window Shoppers
* Josh Garrett's colum at GTM: My Experience With Community Solar: Excessively Complicated and Frustrating
* GTM: Shopping for Community Solar? Contract Terms…
Oct 15, 2018
Are Buildings Smart Yet?
This week, a conversation with Joe Aamidor, an expert on smart buildings.
Over the last two years, large multinational energy firms have dumped billions of dollars into commercial energy management — acquiring companies in smart lighting, demand response, battery storage, energy billing, microgrids, smart controls and software.
But there’s no one-size fits all approach to the built environment. Creating a scalable business that serves the diverse needs of building owners is tough. Joe explains.
Read Joe Aamidor’s three-part series for GTM Squared on building energy management.
Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you find your audio content. Or integrate our RSS feed into the app of your choice.
Oct 10, 2018
Meet the Women Closing Solar Deals [Special Episode From Wunder Capital]
This week, we present an original podcast, brought to you by Wunder Capital.
Katie and Becca do a lot of solar deals. They're closing tens of millions in commercial solar projects every month.
Karen is an SREC trader and longtime real estate pro. She recently approached Katie and Becca with a complicated merchant solar project. The three of them worked hard to refinance the project -- and when it was all over, formed a deep relationship.
Katie Lynch is lead director of finance at Wunder Capital. Becca Gallery is the manager of business development at Wunder. And Karen Lichtin is the president of Cleanlight Power + Energy.
Despite their ability to do high volumes of deals, they often get the same reaction from men: "You are not what I expected."
Solar is more diverse than other energy sectors. But there are few women working on the business side of projects.
In this episode, talk with Katie, Becca and Karen about how they do deals, how gender dynamics play out in the solar industr…
Oct 2, 2018
Electric Aviation Is Coming
Self-flying electric airplanes are closer than you think. But how close?
Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures, has been watching the space intently. His firm recently invested in Lilium, a startup making a vertical takeoff and landing jet.
"In the near future, this industry could vastly change how and where we all live, work and play. There are indeed threats and challenges to this vision, but the wheels are already in motion, and the future is much closer than most people think," wrote Beebe and Joe Blair in a recent column.
A combination of improvements in batteries, software and sensors are forming the "corners of a very clear roadmap," says Beebe, speaking on The Interchange.
When electric aviation finally becomes commercialized — both battery-hybrid conventional planes and vertical-takeoff-and-landing jets — what will be the consequences for our communities and transportation systems?
In this week's episode, we talk with Beebe about the flight path…
Sep 26, 2018
Judge Kavanaugh's Past
Everyone is paying close attention to Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
On Thursday, Trump's Supreme Court nominee will face questions from Congress about alleged sexual assaults. In most cases, Supreme Court confirmation hearings aren't made-for-television affairs. But a new poll out from PBS and NPR shows that 58 percent of Americans will be paying attention to this week’s confirmation hearings.
Since so many people are fixated on Judge Kavanaugh, it’s a good opportunity to discuss his extensive record on energy and the environment.
This week on The Interchange podcast, we're joined by Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Michael is familiar with some cases that Kavanaugh has heard as a circuit judge — and he’s going to help understand Kavanaugh’s judicial philosophy.
Wara calls him an "extreme textualist" who rarely gives deference to agencies. "He tends to discover that words in legislation can only…
Sep 6, 2018
Untangling Solar and Storage Markets
This week, we take stock of the market for solar and storage.
How much solar and storage are getting built — and at what cost?
We’re joined by MJ Shiao, director of Americas research for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, for a look at the factors currently driving PV development and battery deployments.
We'll answer:
* How have tariffs impacted pricing?
* How did the sudden slowdown in China influence the U.S. market?
* How is the tax credit stepdown pushing development?
* What goes into record-low solar-plus-storage bids?
Support for The Interchange comes from Wunder Capital. According to GTM Research , Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project.
The Interchange is also brought to you by Shoals Technologies Group, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how Shoa…
Aug 28, 2018
Where Did All Those Electric Scooters Come From?
This spring, electric bikes and electric scooters started showing up on the streets of a handful of major U.S. cities in droves. Where did they come from? They were put there by a new breed of Silicon Valley companies focused on creating a new "last mile" ride sharing service.
The startups have spread so quickly, Uber and Lyft are now trying to get in on the action.
This week, we talk with Emily Warren, the senior director of public policy at Lime. Lime one of the leading "micromobility" companies hitting the streets. We'll talk with Emily about what this new form of mobility borrows (and hopes to avoid) from the last six years of ride sharing.
"That first wave of on-demand transportation has now prepared the public and the market to accept a much broader variety of transportation modes. They've now opened the door for a whole bunch of additional kinds of options that are coming on the scene. Frankly, I don't think any of us expected that scooters were going to be the thing," sa…
Aug 21, 2018
Best and Worst Cleantech Ad Campaigns of All Time
The clean energy industry may not have a lot of money to spend collectively on advertisements. But over the years, we've seen numerous TV ads, infographics, slogans, and all kinds of marketing campaigns from individual companies.
So this week, we are going to rank some of our favorite – and least favorite – marketing efforts. We'll also debate the perennial question: do we need a "Got Milk" campaign for clean energy?
We're joined by Tor Valenza, a marketing expert better known as Solar Fred. Tor founded the marketing firm UnThink Solar and is currently the director of marketing at SepiSolar.
Firstly, what is unique about clean energy that makes branding so important – yet so hard? Then, what are the best marketing campaigns in history outside of energy? Why are they so good? Finally, we’ll pick our favorite and least favorite ads or marketing campaigns in cleantech.
Below are links to our picks for best and worst campaigns.
Best non-cleantech campaigns:
* Mac versus…
Aug 14, 2018
The Always-On Energy Vampires in Your Home
This week, we’ve got an investigation into the always-on vampires lurking in your home.
Actually, one vampire in particular: your DVR box.
The engineers over at Sense Labs recently started opening up and testing DVR boxes. They found that power-save mode doesn’t actually do anything — it only saves about a watt of energy.
Compared to smart televisions, gaming consoles or smart phones, the power-save mode of DVR boxes is abysmal. But the cable industry says that it’s the overall efficiency of devices that matters — and they’ve slashed total power consumption by half since 2012.
Should consumers expect more? In this episode, we investigate.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started here to diversify your portfolio and support American solar projects.
Subscribe to The I…
Aug 7, 2018
How a Solar Bromance Cracked the Code for Commercial PV [Special Content From Wunder Capital]
This week, we present an original podcast, brought to you by Wunder Capital. If you’re interested in learning more about is connecting investors and installers at a record pace, read the company’s 2018 mid-year review.
Nick and Nick are good friends. They’re fellow solar geeks. They do business together.
In fact, they may have cracked the commercial solar code together.
Nick Kerwin is the director of partner development at Wunder Capital. Nick Giannotti is the president of New Columbia Solar in Washington, DC. The two met randomly when Nick Kerwin was on a trip in DC.
They formed a bond over solar that resulted in a single deal. And then another. And then 26 deals. And now it’s closing in on 40. In a single year, Wunder and New Columbia closed $7 million in small commercial solar projects — some of the hardest projects to finance. “That was the beginning of the solar bromance,” said Kerwin.
How are these companies blowing up so fast? Just this year, Wunder C…
Jul 30, 2018
Watt It Takes: How Schwarzenegger’s Chief of Staff Built a Battery Company
This week on Watt It Takes: We’ll hear from Susan Kennedy, the CEO of Advanced Microgrid Solutions, about her transition from politics to behind-the-meter energy storage.
Kennedy was an important player in California environmental politics. She influenced some of the biggest pieces of legislation that launched the state’s solar industry and cap-and-trade market. She also worked as a senior advisor to some the biggest names in both parties, including Dianne Feinstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
After two decades in policy and politics, Kennedy set out to build a company that could take on the unique challenges of distributed energy integration. AMS was born. It has since become one of the most important startups in the booming behind-the-meter storage market.
"You have to believe that you can do anything. You have to have courage and faith to do what you've never done before."
Watt It Takes is a collaboration between Powerhouse and Greentech Media. The series is recorded in fron…
Jul 23, 2018
Can the Eco-Right Push Republicans on Climate?
Ten years ago, in the summer of 2009, the U.S. House passed a landmark cap-and-trade bill. Then it died in the Senate a year later.
The politics of climate have been completely frozen ever since.
The rise of the Tea Party, Republican anti-Obama sentiment, and an influx of money against pro-climate candidates derailed the issue. Republicans stopped engaging — and the ones who did believe in finding solutions were either "primaried" out of office, or just fell silent.
One group, RepublicEN, has been working hard to rally grassroots support in Congress for conservative, free-market climate solutions. It's a small organization looking to influence a party in the midst of a tumultuous transition. But Alex Bozmoski, the group’s managing director, thinks it's still possible to move the needle on climate in Congress.
In this week's episode of The Interchange, we'll talk with Bozmoski about how to reach conservatives, how to categorize Republican lawmakers on climate, and why convi…
Jul 17, 2018
Energy Policy in a Tweet
Elon Musk recently laid out his plan for a government on Mars in one tweet: “Direct democracy by the people. Laws must be short, as there is trickery in length. Automatic expiration of rules to prevent death by bureaucracy. Any rule can be removed by 40% of people to overcome inertia. Freedom.”
That got us thinking. Could we craft an ideal U.S. energy policy in less than 280 characters?
On this week’s podcast, take up the challenge.
Stephen and Shayle will each lay out their overall approach to policy and then argue each one.
Stephen’s policy: Price climate pollution and send the money back to citizens or local governments. Put an end to supporting energy with the tax code. Establish fair and open access for all technologies on the grid. Electrify everything. Don't dogmatize renewable energy. Double ARPA-E's budget.
Shayle’s policy: Remain in Paris Accord. Retain CPP but increase targets. Resume and increase CAFE standards. Introduce federal green bank. Triple R&D on…
Jul 11, 2018
Ode to the Pivot!
Ah, the pivot.
Did you know that Nokia started out as a paper mill in Finland? Or that Nintendo once made instant rice? Many of the world's leading companies start out in radically different markets.
Cleantech is the same. Sales cycles are often slow, technologies don't work as planned, and customer needs are constantly evolving. In the tumultuous world of energy, companies pivot all the time.
On this week's episode of The Interchange, we celebrate the pivot.
We'll look back throughout history and choose the most successful and unsuccessful pivots of all time. What do they tell us about how to succeed in this market?
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started here to diversify your portfolio and support American solar projects.
This podcast is brought to you by Shoals, the gold s…
Jul 3, 2018
'Energy Independence' in Trump's America
The politics of energy independence are both deeply bipartisan and deeply partisan.
Every president since Richard Nixon has declared a goal of eliminating America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy. But each President approaches independence from a very different political lens. Jimmy Carter was the first to make renewable energy a centerpiece. Ronald Reagan dismantled that strategy and instead focused on lifting price controls on oil and gas.
Later, George W. Bush focused on domestic oil production, but also put in place some foundational policies to support domestic renewables. Barack Obama, of course, put renewables front and center.
Today, we have Donald Trump, who has made coal-powered "energy dominance" the centerpiece of his energy policy. What does that mean exactly?
And after nearly 50 years of talk about energy independence, how are we doing?
Joining us this week is Sarah Ladislaw, a senior vice president and director of energy and national security at the Cent…
Jun 25, 2018
Are Robots Coming to Take Over the Grid?
On this week's Interchange podcast, we saddle up to some adult beverages in a back room at GTM's grid edge conference to discuss the biggest topics in the industry.
First, to artificial intelligence and machine learning: What do we exactly mean by "distributed intelligence?" We'll examine some clear use cases.
Then to utility innovation: How do power incumbents grapple with the technologies that could break open their business models? We'll give a candid take how they're doing.
Finally to GE, Siemens and other industrial giants: Have power generation leaders — even those heavily invested in clean energy — completely underestimated renewables?
Stephen and Shayle are joined by David Groarke, the managing director at Indigo Advisory Group.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started her…
Jun 11, 2018
Solar Is Getting Super Cheap. What Next?
Coal has taken center stage publicly within the Trump Administration. But solar is the real innovation star behind the scenes.
This week, we're talking with Charlie Gay, the director of DOE's solar technologies office, about all the activity happening in the agency.
We'll discuss the solar power plants of the future: advances in power electronics; the normalization of energy storage; new ways to value and distribute solar electrons; and integration with the internet of things. We'll also discuss the winning politics of PV in Washington.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started here to diversify your portfolio and support American solar projects.
This podcast is brought to you by Shoals, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how…
May 23, 2018
Would Electricity Work in a Zombie Apocalypse?
Would electricity work during a zombie apocalypse?
Does Elon Musk own Amazon or Uber?
Are electric vehicles better for the environment?
These are questions that people are asking Google — and we're going to answer them.
This week on the Interchange, what our collective search history tells us about our perception of Elon Musk, electric vehicles and zombies.
Plus, we'll have the results of last week's Deep Decarbonization Draft. (Listen to that episode, if you haven't already.)
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started here to diversify your portfolio and support American solar projects.
This podcast is brought to you by Shoals, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how Shoals can make your project operate at the highest lev…
May 15, 2018
Deep Decarbonization Draft: Fantasy Sports for Energy Nerds
Like fantasy sports? Listen to our deep decarbonization draft.
In this episode, Shayle and Stephen choose their rosters of nine technologies to decarbonize the global economy. The goal: find the best resource mix to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.
After they battle it out, listeners decide who has the best team of technologies. Vote in our Twitter poll.
Here are the rules:
* The draft has nine rounds. The “team” resulting from each person’s picks will need to stand on its own.
* Each pick must be a unique technology. For example, “energy efficiency” is not a pick, but “LED lighting” is.
* Technologies with major subsets must be picked separately. For example, rooftop solar and centralized solar are two different picks.
* The existing technology mix will stand. (We don’t need to pick “transmission & distribution" in order to have electricity.)
* The time horizon will be through 2050.
* The winner will be chosen by listeners.…
May 8, 2018
Damn, Commercial Solar Is Hard
This week on The Interchange, a listener tries to convince his office building owner to install solar: "he's open to the idea, but we're struggling with the question of who pays," says Daniel from Menlo Park, California.
This conundrum gets to the heart of C&I solar's complexity. We'll address the landlord-tenant split that plagues commercial solar — and the broad range of financing and policy solutions.
Later in the show, we'll talk with two of our senior solar analysts at GTM Research, Michelle Davis and Allison Mond. Both residential installers and commercial developers have customer acquisition problems — only they’re the exact opposite problems.
Residential installers now have more attractive loan options for ownership, but it’s getting harder to find the next tier of customers who want PV on their roofs; meanwhile, commercial solar developers are seeing more demand for third-party ownership, but projects are still bespoke and complicated.
Davis and Mond unpack…
May 4, 2018
Batteries Are Changing Residential Solar
The solar industry is talking about battery storage almost as much as solar these days.
On this week's Interchange, we're addressing the shift toward storage in residential solar. Sunrun, a top installer, is at the forefront of the trend. In California, the company is adding storage to 20 percent of rooftop PV systems — and it believes other states will soon catch up.
Sunrun now thinks of itself as a grid services provider. We'll talk with Sunrun Chief Policy Officer Anne Hoskins about how this broadened focus influences the way it interacts with utilities, regulators and customers.
Shayle and Stephen will also talk about how batteries are changing the way consumers shop around for solar.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started here to diversify your portfolio and supp…
Apr 24, 2018
European Solar Rises Again, With Fewer Subsidies
Europe was once the world's biggest solar spender, until the region's PV market fell into a structural decline after subsidies were pulled back. Now Europe is on the upswing once again — this time, with far less government spending.
As European countries embrace competitive auctions, the Old World of solar is getting new attention. The region is expected to install 10-17 gigawatts a year through 2022, bringing cumulative installs from 111 gigawatts to 182 gigawatts, according to GTM Research. A good portion of that capacity won't see any direct government support.
Competitive auctions will make solar growth much more sustainable. But will it be enough to make up for the tens of gigawatts of coal and nuke plants closing around the region?
Tom Heggarty, a senior global solar analyst with GTM Research, joins us on The Interchange to grapple with that question. We'll put the new trends into a historical and macro-economic context.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the…
Apr 17, 2018
Shell Thinks Solar Could Beat Oil & Gas
Shell, the world’s sixth biggest oil and gas company, just published a future "sky" scenario that's getting a lot of attention.
That potential future: By 2050, renewables could overtake oil, gas and coal as the primary energy source; by that date, it could be “impossible” to purchase a new internal combustion car; and by 2070, there could be 10,000 carbon capture plants operating globally.
Shell's energy transition report is receiving mixed reaction. Many energy experts are hailing Shell for putting together such an ambitious document. A lot of environmentalists are cynical, since oil and gas still play a prominent role in the company's future vision.
In this week's episode, we're going to walk through the different scenarios outlined by Shell. We'll also discuss what Shell's business might look like beyond 2050, as the company acquires more electricity retailers, EV charging assets and renewable energy developers.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easi…
Apr 11, 2018
What Will Energy Blockchain Become?
Blockchain is largely untested compared to its potential. We know it’s likely transformative — we just don’t know exactly how.
There are hundreds of potential applications in the electricity business. Which ones will win out?
To kick off this week's show, Shayle, Scott and Stephen will examine different pathways for the technology. We'll answer:
* Of all the scenarios for the future of blockchain in energy, which one is most likely?
* Imagine a future in which blockchain doesn’t take off. What is the likely reason?
* Are there any pilots or trends underway now that push us in any of these directions?
In the second half of the show, we’ll talk with Kristen Brown, a business technology expert at Commonwealth Edison, about how the regulated utility sees blockchain influencing operations.
We’ll also talk with Michael Horwitz, a partner with Greentech Capital Advisors, about how he evaluates investment opportunities in the space.
If you missed the companion episode,…
Apr 3, 2018
How Blockchain Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading Might Work
Out of the 122 startups (and counting) that GTM Research is tracking in the energy-blockchain space, 22 are focused on peer-to-peer energy trading.
Sharing electrons directly with peers sounds cool, but why do it in the first place? Would it help the grid? Will it be a catalyst for more distributed energy? Or is it just a novel application?
In this episode of The Interchange, we're exploring the potential of peer-to-peer trading. We'll start with a segment of Consensus, where we explore a specific blockchain tech or concept.
Later in the show, we'll talk with Colleen Metelitsa, a grid edge analyst with GTM Research, about investment trends and emerging applications in the energy-blockchain space.
Finally, we'll talk with three blockchain startups -- Electron, Leap and Omega Grid -- about their experiences building partnerships with incumbent energy companies.
This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects acros…
Mar 27, 2018
Gina McCarthy
Gina McCarthy isn't happy watching Scott Pruitt dismantle the climate plan that she helped President Obama build. But she doesn't think Pruitt will be successful.
"They've made a lot of announcements, they haven't made a lot of progress," she said in an interview on The Interchange podcast. McCarthy predicted that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will keep getting "slapped back" by legal challenges.
And even if Pruitt makes progress, the markets have spoken against him. "The market has already dictated that strategy, and it's a clean energy future," she said.
In this week's podcast, we talk with McCarthy about the EPA under the Trump Administration. We'll talk about the viciousness of environmental politics, the coal industry's impact on politics, shifts in the energy markets, and why she's optimistic about the future. "The clean energy train has left the station and it's moving," she said.
McCarthy is currently the director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment a…
Mar 21, 2018
Solar's Tough Year
Last year was a tough one for many U.S. solar companies. For the first time, America's solar market saw a decline in growth and solar employment.
What gives? In this podcast, we're going to walk through the sector-specific factors that threw solar off its axis in 2017.
Some of the questions we address in this episode:
* Residential customer acquisition: why is it getting so much harder to find new customers?
* Solar-plus-storage: where are batteries getting the most traction?
* Utility-scale solar: what's the latest data on pricing?
* Sunrun and Tesla: why is Sunrun doing so well, while Tesla keeps shrinking?
* Non-residential: why is this sector outshining others in terms of growth?
Don't forget to come to our 11th annual Solar Summit in San Diego, where we'll be dissecting data in the top solar markets around the world.
This podcast is brought to you by Shoals, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how Shoal…
Mar 13, 2018
Google and Microsoft Are Shaping Energy Markets
Since 2015, large corporations have signed deals for more than 7 gigawatts of renewable energy.
As activity picks up, these companies are grappling with increasingly complex deals. They're no longer just thinking about renewable energy credits or average consumption over the year; they're now looking at matching wind, solar and hydro supply directly with their on-site demand in a more granular way. Consequently, energy storage is becoming more attractive.
This week, we're talking with two leading buyers of renewable energy, Google and Microsoft.
We'll talk with Neha Palmer, Google's head of energy strategy, about hitting 100 percent renewable energy. Then, we'll talk with Brian Janous, Microsoft's general manager of energy, about how deals around the world are structured.
We'll also grapple with a bigger question that corporate buyers are facing: what happens to their procurement when the gigawatts and gigawatts of renewables they’re buying literally reshape how markets funct…
Mar 6, 2018
A Blueprint for the Transactive Grid
Ryan Hanley is convinced that the distributed electric grid will create vastly more economic, security and societal value than today's centralized system.
Over the course of his career as a civil engineer -- working at Pacific Gas & Electric, SolarCity, Tesla and now Advanced Microgrid Solutions -- Hanley has worked to understand and extract that value.
"A macro theme that I've been tracking in my career is that exchange of value over the grid [that] I'm convinced will only become more transactive over time. More value will be exchanged in markets as the system relentlessly tries to take out economic fat from the system."
In this week's conversation, Shayle Kann talks with Hanley about the tools at hand to re-engineer the distributed, transactive grid system.
Topics addressed in this interview include:
* What distributed energy resources actually look like to utility distribution engineers and planners.
* The ultimate outcome of net metering battles and the marke…
Mar 2, 2018
Don't Like the Solar Buying Process? Start Your Own Company
In 2009, Sara Ross and her husband bought a dilapidated farmhouse in Massachusetts, intending to turn it into a net-zero home.
Solar was an important part of the plan. And then came the price tag: $81,000 in cash. Their local solar installer had no financing options at that time.
Ross cobbled the money together, but she became obsessed with the buying process: "How are other members of our family going to do this? How are our friends supposed to do this? How is this supposed to work? How are we going to scale this awesome thing if it's so very hard?"
Finally, she harnessed that obsession (and her six-year-old daughter's college fund) and started a solar loan company, Sungage Financial. This was before anyone was serious about loans.
Today, more rooftop solar in the U.S. is financed through loans than leases.
In this week's edition of the live podcast series Watt It Takes, Ross sits down with Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch to discuss how she built Sungage -- evolving from…
Feb 19, 2018
Can Solar Become the World's Dominant Source of Energy?
Nothing can stop solar's growth trajectory -- except maybe solar itself.
This week, we have a deep discussion on the future of solar photovoltaics. Solar is exploding around the world, but have we grappled with the technology and market limitations that could stop the next order of magnitude in growth for PV?
On this week's episode of The Interchange, Shayle Kann sits down with Varun Sivaram, author of the new book, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet.
Shayle and Varun examine every angle of the solar transition. They consider numerous possible futures, good and bad, for the technology.
"If we do not take the right actions and urgently in innovation today, I warn that in the medium term we might run into a penetration ceiling for solar. And by the time that happens, it might have been too late to start investing in these long-term innovations that only pay off after you've invested for a little while," explains Varun.
Varun Sivara…
Feb 9, 2018
Cleantech's Top Venture Capitalist, Nancy Pfund
Nancy Pfund is perhaps the most recognizable venture capitalist in the clean energy space.
Before she raised multi-hundred-million-dollar funds at her firm DBL Partners and made early investments in the likes of Tesla, SolarCity, Off Grid Electric, PowerLight, NEXTracker and Advanced Microgrid Solutions, Pfund had to start somewhere.
"In college, I didn't know what a venture capitalist was -- I was an anthropology major," she said at the January recording of Watt It Takes, the live podcast from GTM and Powerhouse in which cleantech founders tell their stories.
In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch interviews Pfund about her successful venture capital career.
Watt It Takes is a live interview series produced by Powerhouse in partnership with GTM. The conversation was recorded live in Oakland, California.
The next live Watt It Takes taping will feature Sara Ross, co-founder and CEO of Sungage Financial, who turned her frustration at the lack of rooftop…
Feb 8, 2018
Death to Energy Tribalism
The Breakthrough Institute was founded on the idea that traditional environmentalists were wrong about how to protect the planet.
Back in 2004, the co-founders called for ending the "politics of limits" pushed by environmental groups. Rather, they saw economic growth, technological innovation, and human ingenuity as the most important tools for environmental progress -- not necessarily regulatory limits. That angered large swaths of the environmental community.
Over the last decade, the Breakthrough Institute has thrust itself into the tribal warfare that grips the energy and climate movement. Energy innovation versus deployment? Renewables versus nuclear? GMOs versus organic food? The organization brings strong views in those areas.
In this episode, we’re going to talk with Alex Trembath, the communications director at Breakthrough, about where the think tank stands on renewables, nuclear, climate policy, and energy intensity. We'll also spend some time on tribalism itself -- a…
Jan 31, 2018
Our Blockchain Explainer Segment: 'Consensus'
Blockchain is coming to the energy industry in a big way.
We're at the beginning of a fierce hype cycle, when new startups are emerging weekly to tout their Initial Coin Offerings and tokenization platforms for energy trading. Utility executives are grappling with yet another distributed technology that proponents say will demolish the traditional power delivery business.
Still having a hard time understanding why all this matters? Getting lost in the maze of new terminology? We've got you covered.
On this week's Interchange podcast, we're starting a new segment called "consensus."
We'll bring a blockchain-related topic that we don’t understand -- a term, a business model, or an application -- and present it to GTM’s resident blockchain enthusiast, Scott Clavenna, to see if he can help us out. Hopefully we'll reach consensus.
In this week's segment, we're bringing two questions to Scott: How does WePower's tokenized energy trading work? And how to different vari…
Jan 23, 2018
Trump Issues Solar Tariffs: We Answer Your Questions
The Trump Administration just imposed 30 percent tariffs on imported solar cells and modules. How much will it stunt solar growth in America? Will it spark a broader trade war?
There are a lot of questions about the impact. In this podcast, we’re giving you the answers – or, as many answers we have, just a day after the decision.
This week, we'll bring together our teams from The Interchange and The Energy Gang together to answer listener questions about the tariffs. We'll also talk with GTM Research's Cory Honeyman about how (and where) the 30 percent penalty will impact projects around the U.S.
Thanks to podcast sponsor, Fiveworx. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed.
In this episode, we address:
* What does a 30 percent tariff mean for project economics in the residential and utility-scale sectors?
* How will the 2.5 gigawatt cell quota work?
* Will the decision help domestic U.S. manufacturing? Will it hurt…
Jan 17, 2018
What the Grid Really Needs
Grid nerds have spent the last few months whipped into a frenzy over Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s hastily-written plan to prop up aging coal plants in the name of grid resiliency.
And then, last week, federal energy regulators rejected it. Secretary Perry’s team couldn’t come up with the basic legal argument needed for FERC to consider the proposal.
The door is not fully closed, however. Regulators say they want to revisit the idea of grid resiliency -- and now they’re asking regional grid operators to report back on their actual needs.
So, it’s worth stepping back and asking the same question. What does the grid actually need? In an age when renewables -- and already, in some cases, batteries -- are the lowest-cost resources, how should we really be planning?
This week, we're joined by two grid experts who’ve been asking this question for years: Sonia Aggarwal and Robbie Orvis of the analysis firm Energy Innovation.
Sonia is the vice president of Energy Innovati…
Jan 12, 2018
Is Trump Saving Coal?
When President Trump took office, U.S. coal was in a state of decline. Between 2007 and 2016, coal production and consumption each fell by more than a third, and mining jobs fell from 125,000 to 75,000.
Trump promised to reverse that trend. Did his deregulatory agenda work?
In 2017, U.S. coal production grew by 6 percent. That increase, however, came from a factor unrelated to Trump Administration policy: demand in foreign markets. Meanwhile, domestic coal consumption fell by 2.4 percent last year.
This week, we talk with Trevor Houser, a partner with the Rhodium Group, about where things stand in America's coal sector. It still doesn't look good.
In this conversation, we unpack some of the big themes we're grappling with as 2018 unfolds: coal demand, electric system reliability, and possible directions for climate policy. Houser will also explain why we've "achieved escape velocity" in renewable energy, and why that matters for our emissions trajectory.
This podcast is brought to…
Jan 2, 2018
Watt It Takes: The Origin Story of Greentech Media
We spend most of our time talking about other companies. For our first podcast of the year, we're turning the tables and reflecting on GTM.
In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch interviews GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna about the origins of our company, the challenges of being a startup in the cleantech world, and our recent acquisition by Wood Mackenzie.
Watt It Takes is a live interview series produced by Powerhouse in partnership with GTM. The conversation was recorded live in Oakland, California.
As we prepare for the onslaught of news in 2018, this interview will give you more insight into how we operate as a company.
This podcast is brought to you by Fiveworx, a turnkey customer engagement platform for utilities. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed -- and get you beyond the meter.
Dec 22, 2017
Rebuilding Puerto Rico With Solar and Batteries
Three months after Hurricane Maria, there are still large swaths of Puerto Rico that don’t have power. It took two months to get half the island’s residents power again -- and hundreds of thousands of people are still without grid access as the holidays approach.
After a slow start, there are mainland crews there working day and night to restore electricity. They've been making progress, but the situation is still dire.
In the aftermath of the disaster, we’re finally getting a sense of what a resilient Puerto Rican grid could look like. The Puerto Rican Energy Commission recently asked for ideas about how to rebuild the grid, and some of the biggest heavy hitters in the industry responded.
In this week's episode, we're talking with Chris Shelton, the chief technology officer at the global electricity provider AES. He'll describe the company's vision for a network of solar-storage mini-grids the most competitive way to make Puerto Rico more resilient from future storms.
This…
Dec 14, 2017
Energy Storage Has Arrived
Energy storage has arrived.
This year brought numerous record-breaking battery projects, dozens of acquisitions and partnerships, and over a dozen utility integrated resource plans that factor storage. Within a decade, the U.S. storage market could be 25 times bigger than it is today -- swamping natural gas peaker plants, and enabling a vast array of new grid applications.
In this week's episode, we open up our vault of data and describe the state of storage in America: which sectors are dominating, how utilities are thinking about the technology, where the economics stand, and what to look for in 2018.
Plus, we'll have a conversation with Green Mountain Power CEO Mary Powell about how customer-sited battery storage fits into the utility's broad culture and tech shift.
This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schneider Electric. Find out…
Dec 5, 2017
The Conservative and Progressive View on the Future of Electricity Markets
Something feels different. In the last two years, there’s been a material shift in the way renewable energy and other distributed resources are discussed.
For so long, believers of wind, solar, batteries and microgrids have focused on targeted government support. But direct subsidies and mandates are diminishing in importance.
One example: utility-scale solar in the U.S., which was once almost exclusively driven by state mandates and tax credits, is now mostly being driven by economics. And tax credits are on a path to being phased out.
We now have a proven class of resources that can perform the same function as traditional power plants -- often at a lower economic and environmental cost. And these resources are hitting the grid at an accelerating pace.
Now that people are waking up to this reality, the conversation is shifting toward markets.
How do you put rules in place that fairly value the responsiveness, resiliency and environmental performance of distributed resources li…
Dec 1, 2017
Tesla's Giant Battery: Pros and Cons
Tesla built the world's biggest lithium-ion battery ahead of schedule. It's an important milestone for the technology, and Tesla itself.
But is it coming at a cost to smaller players in the industry?
This week on The Interchange, we'll talk about how Tesla's battery supply constraints are hitting downstream installers and developers. We'll bring GTM Staff Writer Julian Spector on the show to discuss his recent reporting on Tesla's delivery delays.
Then, we'll cover some of Spector's other big stories this year: how gas is suddenly challenging natural gas peaker plants around the world; and why New York is struggling to put a cohesive energy storage framework in place.
This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schneider Electric. Find out how it works.
Recommended reading:
· Tesla Fulfilled Its 100-Day Australia Battery Bet. Wha…
Nov 22, 2017
Dan Shugar, the King Midas of Solar
Dan Shugar lives, breathes and bleeds solar.
"If you cut my wrist, pure silicon comes out," he exclaimed in an interview with Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch, as part of the Watt It Takes interview series.
This week, Shugar steps behind the microphone to talk about turning his passion for PV into deals and acquisitions worth over $1 billion.
Shugar has a storied career. Some call him the "King Midas" of solar, because he's turned so many ventures into gold. He's the former president of Powerlight, the pioneering developer acquired by SunPower in 2006. He's now CEO of the tracker company NEXTracker, which was sold to Flextronics for $330 million last year.
In this edition of Watt It Takes, Shugar describes the moment he realized solar's potential while working for PG&E; how Powerlight was founded and funded; the risks he took when getting into solar; his passion for the environment; and why everyone is underestimating the growth of PV.
This conversation was recorded…
Nov 16, 2017
Collision Course: How Wind and Solar Are Disrupting Power Markets
We've spent a lot more time lately looking at the structure of U.S. power markets. Why? Because they're about to get shaken up.
It's already begun. In this episode, we'll look at how renewables are upending wholesale power markets today -- and what we can do about it.
We'll examine the issue from a few different angles.
How the growth of renewables is depressing power prices: Wood Mackenzie's Prajit Gosh describes why low-price events are becoming more common in wholesale markets than high-price events. He'll also look at the impact on other generation sources.
How prices are decreasing: MAKE Consulting's Dan Shreve talks about what's driving cost reductions in wind.
And GTM's Shayle Kann will look at the "vicious cycle" of low prices, and how to manage the wholesale market transition in the U.S.
This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schnei…
Nov 7, 2017
Watt It Takes: Sungevity CEO Andrew Birch
This week: a conversation with Andrew Birch, the co-founder and CEO of Sungevity.
For those who’ve been following the wild ride in solar, you’re going to want to listen to this conversation.
Sungevity was once one of the biggest residential solar installers in the U.S. – until it filed for bankruptcy protection at the beginning of the year. In this interview, Andrew Birch talks candidly about how Sungevity was founded, what killed an acquisition deal to save the installer, how market forces and the political landscape hurt the business, and where he thinks global solar trends are headed.
This interview was conducted on-stage at Powerhouse, an incubator based in San Francisco. It’s part of the “Watt It Takes” series on how top cleantech entrepreneurs built their companies. The series is produced by Powerhouse, in partnership with Greentech Media.
This podcast is sponsored by the New York Times ClimateTech conference, held in San Francisco on November 29 and 30. Engage wi…
Oct 31, 2017
Halloween Special: You Should Fear a Cyber Attack on the Grid
Still looking for a scary costume for this Halloween? Here's a terrifying idea: Dress up like an "attack vector" or an "advanced persistent threat."
This week's topic of conversation is a combination disaster movie and cat-and-mouse political thriller -- encompassing extreme weather, hacking and political espionage.
We're talking security threats to the electric grid with Dr. Paul Stockton, an international security expert based in Washington, DC.
Paul is the managing director for Sonecon, where he advises utilities and other operators of critical infrastructure on a wide range of security threats. Before that, he was Assistant Secretary of Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs, where he directed the agency’s response to Superstorm Sandy and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
In this interview, Dr. Stockton describes the many different vulnerabilities along the electric grid. How are they evolving? What can we learn from them?
Recommended reading:
Paul Stockton ana…
Oct 26, 2017
Blockchain for Energy, Part Deux: Real-World Use Cases
Two unproven startups just raised a combined $65 million to test out real-world use cases of blockchain in energy: Grid+ and Power Ledger.
Blockchain for energy is starting to get traction, and there's actual money flowing into the space. So what do these companies actually do?
In this episode, Shayle Kann talks with Scott Clavenna about the ideas, strategies and risks behind each of these startups. Then we talk about the heady world of ICOs -- initial coin offerings -- and why so much capital is flowing into this market all at once.
This is an update to our previous conversation on blockchain and energy. Listen to that episode for a primer on blockchain.
Oct 9, 2017
Watt It Takes: Dick Swanson, Founder of SunPower
This week, we’re unveiling a new podcast collaboration between Greentech Media and Powerhouse, called "Watt it Takes."
Watt It Takes is produced and recorded live at Powerhouse, a cleantech incubator and seed fund in Oakland, CA. Each month, a founder of a top clean energy company shares the personal story behind the company they’ve built.
Our first episode features Dick Swanson, founder, and former CEO and CTO of SunPower, who talks about the wild ups and downs of building one of the largest solar companies in the world.
The show begins with Shayle Kann, SVP at GTM, providing some market context. And then Powerhouse Founder and CEO Emily Kirsch leads the interview with Swanson.
Want to meet these industry luminaries and watch a live recording? Get tickets for future events: wattittakesoct2017.splashthat.com.
Oct 2, 2017
Rick Perry's Value-of-Coal Tariff
Thought that controversial grid resiliency report ordered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry was only an intellectual exercise?
It didn't take long for the Department of Energy to put it into action -- in exactly the way that critics feared when the report was first announced.
Last week, Perry asked federal energy regulators to consider new rules that would value coal and nuclear plants with 90 days of fuel on hand. In other words: find a way to help keep struggling baseload plants open by offering them a new financial incentive.
Or, as a supposed free-market proponent like Perry might put it for any other technology, "pick winners and losers."
After months of prebuttals from renewable-energy interest groups, the final DOE study was widely considered a straightforward account of power plant retirements on the U.S. grid. Travis Fisher, the project coordinator at the DOE, joined us on the podcast to talk through the process and his team's findings.
While many cleantech enthusiasts disagreed…
Sep 27, 2017
The Utility-Startup Paradox
There’s a paradox in energy. While new technologies are accelerating faster than ever, the adoption of those technologies by incumbents remains slow.
This presents a captivity problem for startups, particularly in electricity. They need incumbent utilities to reach customers and integrate new technologies at the grid edge –- but this reliance significantly slows progress, creates tension, and potentially destroys their chances of success.
Will the situation ever change? Or is it just the reality that startups (and their investors) need to accept?
And what about utilities? What is at the root of their hesitancy to quickly adopt new technologies?
In this week’s show, we talk with GTM Senior Manager Nick Rinaldi about a new in-house survey that addresses all those questions.
Read the survey: http://bit.ly/2wkooRU
Sep 25, 2017
America's Solar Trade War Escalates
In the four decades since congress passed the 1974 Trade Act, there have been 75 cases when U.S. industries used the law to argue that imports caused them injury.
The list of aggrieved industries is wide-ranging: footwear, CB radios, mushrooms, lamb meat, clothespins and steel. And now, solar.
Over the years, the International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of petitioners roughly half the time.
But according to a study from Georgetown Law, which analyzed the impacts of import penalties on lamb meat, line pipe and gluten, "none of the three industries were restored to sustained competitiveness" because of protectionist measures.
Last Friday, the ITC determined that US solar manufacturers faced harm from imports. If penalties are imposed, will the result be any different?
This week, we discuss the next steps in the solar industry's latest controversial trade case.
Recommended reading:
The Effects of Section 201 Safeguards on U.S. Industries: http://bit.ly/2wh5tHL
6 Ways to Encourage…
Sep 15, 2017
Microgrids, Hurricanes and Resiliency
We're having a bit of a moment for "resiliency" in the U.S.
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have forced a conversation about climate resiliency for coastal communities. Meanwhile, the Energy Department has made grid reliability and resiliency central to its mission.
This brings us to an important resiliency tool: microgrids.
Microgrids became a major part of resiliency plans in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. We’ll look at how that’s influencing the conversation today in the wake of Harvey and Irma. We'll also get a snapshot of how microgrids in Texas fared during the storm.
This week, GTM Grid Analyst Colleen Metelitsa joins us to talk about microgrid applications, the limits of certain technologies, and where they fit into the resiliency picture.
Sep 6, 2017
Policymakers Can't Keep Up With Battery and Solar Costs
It's difficult to keep up with cost and performance trends for technologies like batteries and solar PV. It's particularly hard for regulators and policymakers, who often rely on outdated analysis.
The latest example comes from California, where the California Independent System Operator is using three-year-old data on battery and solar costs as it evaluates alternatives to a natural gas peaker plant. The cost of lithium-ion batteries and solar PV have come down precipitously since then. So why are regulators using such ancient data to make this crucial decision?
This is not an isolated incident.
In this episode, we talk about the questionable analysis behind the Puente natural gas plant in Southern California. We'll also discuss some other examples of faulty data being used for energy planning decisions. Finally, we'll speculate on some possible solutions to the chronic problem.
Read Julian Spector's story on the faulty analysis: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/energy-sto…
Aug 29, 2017
Travis Fisher on DOE's Epic Grid Reliability Report
We are getting a clearer picture of the Energy Department's direction under Secretary Perry.
In the four months after Perry requested special report on threats to baseload power plants, we saw an unprecedented number of prebuttals from groups worried that it would assist in President Trump's mission to revive the coal industry.
We finally got the end result last week. While some environmental groups didn't like the report, it was a straightforward account of the factors changing the grid -- not a booster for coal, or any other technology.
But there are still a lot of outstanding questions. Are emerging distributed resources discounted in the report? Where does climate change fit in? How does the report inform policy going forward?
This week, we’ve got a wide-ranging interview with Travis Fisher, a senior advisor at the Department of Energy, who took the lead on the study. He talks to us about the process, critical reactions, key findings, and recommendations for market designs.
Recom…
Aug 22, 2017
From the Vault: Elon Musk and Grid Fan Fiction
What makes Elon Musk tick?
What will the grid look like in 2030?
This week, we (re)answer both of those questions. We're featuring a couple of our favorite podcast segments for your summer listening enjoyment.
First up, a 2015 Energy Gang interview with Ashlee Vance, a Bloomberg reporter and author of the book, Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Vance gives us an intimate look at why Elon operates in such a unique way. It's been two years since the book was released, but it's still just as relevant.
In our second interview, we dig into The Interchange vaults and serve up a conversation about what the grid may look like in 2030. It’s like a literary review of geeky grid fan fiction, written by Shayle Kann.
Sign up for our live Energy Gang in New York City on September 19:
This podcast is sponsored by Mission Solar Energy, a solar module manufacturer based in San Antonio, Texas. Visit Mission Solar at the upcoming Solar Power International conference at Boo…
Aug 18, 2017
Debating Google's Track Record in Energy
It’s been 10 years since Google shifted its attention from bits and bytes toward the world of therms and electrons.
It started with a wide-ranging investment and R&D initiative, called RE
Aug 9, 2017
Can We Make Nuclear Great Again?
That nuclear revival that many people hoped for? It’s not looking so good.
The latest blow came last week, when two South Carolina utilities backed away from a half-completed nuclear project in the state, after already spending $9 billion.
Nuclear is struggling, particularly in the U.S. In the second half of the show, we'll talk with Jessica Lovering, the director of energy at the Breakthrough Institute, about how to rethink nuclear. What can we learn from other industries in order to foster innovation, support advanced nuclear technologies, and push the industry to evolve faster?
We'll start the show by turning our attention to natural gas -- an abundant resource coincidentally responsible for eroding the economics of nuclear in America. Our team of analysts has been evaluating the economics of batteries versus gas peaker plants in select markets. We'll give an update on how batteries are stacking up against gas.
Recommended reading:
What the Struggling Nuclear Industry Can Learn Fr…
Aug 3, 2017
So You Want to Build a Cleantech Startup?
While venture capitalists swoon over startups devoted to making people click on ads and stare at their phones longer, they’re decidedly less interested in solving more difficult real-world problems -- like transforming the energy sector.
Yes, we’ve been talking about this downward trend for years now. And there are still a number of venture firms actively pursuing opportunities in energy decarbonization and decentralization.
But startups are realizing they can’t rely on venture capitalists like they used to. So where do they turn for support?
This week, we feature a conversation with four execs from incubators around the country. We chat about the emergence of new funding sources, different business models for incubators and accelerators, and the importance of corporate partnerships.
Joining the conversation:
Emily Kirsch, the founder and CEO of Powerhouse, a software-focused incubator and accelerator in Oakland, California: https://powerhouse.solar/
Emily Reichert, CEO of Greent…
Jul 26, 2017
100% Renewables: A Dead End?
We’re back in familiar territory on the podcast this week. Once again, we are revisiting Mark Jacobson’s famous -- some might say infamous -- 100% renewable energy scenario.
This week, we’re rounding out our previous conversation with Professor Jacobson by turning to Dr. Christopher Clack, the lead author of a critique of Jacobson’s modeling, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June.
Dr. Clack is the CEO of Vibrant Clean Energy, a grid modeling firm. His expertise is in mathematics, statistics and optimization. He formerly worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Dr. Clack is also the co-lead author of a 2016 paper in the journal Nature Climate Change looking at how the U.S. could slash carbon emissions by 80 percent.
In this podcast, we talk about Clack's rebuttal, Jacobson’s rebuttal to Clack’s rebutt…
Jul 20, 2017
Leaked Study Puts Energy Dept. in an Awkward Position
In April, Energy Secretary Rick Perry requested an analysis on whether renewable energy poses a threat to baseload power plants and the broader health of the grid.
Last week, an early draft of that highly-anticipated report was leaked. It concluded that renewables are not destabilizing the power sector.
The leaked version pointed to a natural gas glut, aging power plant fleets and flattening demand as the cause of baseload retirement -- not wind and solar.
Now the question becomes: how will the final version change? And does it now put the department in an awkward position? We debate the ethics and consequences of the leak.
In the second half of the show, we talk with Hervé Touati, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, about the latest trends in corporate renewable energy purchasing. The federal government may have walked away from its climate commitments, but corporations are doing more than ever -- and we’ll look at how deals are getting more complex.
Read the full te…
Jul 12, 2017
Mark Jacobson Responds to Skeptics of 100% Renewable Energy
Not long ago, energy nerds were pondering the feasibility of 20 percent renewables on the electric grid. We're long past that.
Today, the conversation is centered around 100 percent renewables economy-wide -- thanks largely to a body of work developed by Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson and his colleagues. Since 2009, he's argued that 100 percent renewables is not only feasible, it's desirable.
But as the stakes get higher, the debate gets more intense. Jacobson has picked up many high-profile supporters -- but he's also picked up a lot of critics, who believe his work is faulty and short-sighted.
That criticism to a head last month when a group of researchers published a lengthy rebuttal to one of Jacobson's 100-percent renewable scenarios. The internet exploded with points and counter-points and counter-counter-points.
In this episode, we talk with Jacobson himself. He responds directly to criticisms of the paper, sheds light on his modeling, and talks about the role of his work in s…
Jun 30, 2017
A Guide to Blockchain and Energy
Over the last 18 months, blockchain has evolved from an obscure concept in cryptocurrency circles into a mainstream corporate tool for "disrupting” entire industries.
If you don’t have a blockchain strategy, you are not innovating hard enough.
People love throwing around the term. But wait, what is it again? And why is it relevant to energy?
In this week's episode, we'll get some context from GTM CEO Scott Clavenna. We explore how it’s already being applied to utility operations and energy markets, and where the long-term potential lies. The conversation was recorded at GTM's Grid Edge World Forum.
The Interchange is brought to you by AES Energy Storage. AES is helping utilities harness the power of battery-based energy storage to make the electric power system cleaner, more flexible and more reliable. Find out more: aesenergystorage.com/interchange
Jun 21, 2017
The Changing Market Rules for Energy Storage
What happens when the most important market signal for energy storage gets stripped away virtually overnight? That’s what happened earlier this year when the regional transmission operator PJM put in place new rules for storage as a provider of frequency regulation.
Between 2011 and 2015, hundreds of megawatts of storage were put in place to balance the grid in PJM territory. A strong market signal made development extremely easy, causing an explosion of growth.
We’re in a different world today. New rules have lowered revenue for a 20-megawatt/5-megawatt-hour storage system from $623 in 2014 to $86 today, according to GTM Research's analysis.
Storage developers are now looking to other markets and other types of grid services to make money.
GTM Research Senior Storage Analyst Dan Finn-Foley has been tracking the regulation of frequency regulation in PJM and other markets. This week, we chatted about the impact on America's storage industry. We also looked to future revenue models i…
Jun 16, 2017
Inside the Minds of Top Utility Executives
Utility executives poured into Boston from across the country this week for the Edison Electric Institute’s annual conference. They talked about everything from crazy national politics to rate design to artificial intelligence and the future of workers.
We brought our recording gear and tracked down some top names in the industry. In this episode, we hear what's on the minds of utility executives.
Here are some highlights from the interviews:
Tom Fanning, CEO of Southern Company, on why decarbonization will continue under Trump: "We don't chase fads. Our business approach, our strategies, our models, have a much longer life than any political party or any particular administration."
Pat Vincent-Collawn, PNM Resources CEO, on automation and the future of work: "We're not thinking about that enough yet."
Julia Hamm, the CEO of SEPA, on how distributed energy is wrapped up in smart cities and artificial intelligence: "Utility executives are really starting to think about how does that s…
Jun 7, 2017
Journey to the Center of the Solar Industry
There are two stories playing out in solar today.
One of them is decidedly negative. The other is extraordinarily positive. And they're both unfolding at the exact same time.
In this week's podcast, we detail the different stories playing out in solar. We'll weave reflective conversation together with excerpts from Shayle's keynote address at last month's Solar Summit.
In part one, the brutal year for many businesses: Public solar companies are getting thrashed; module oversupply is causing severe financial pain for manufacturers; and even downstream companies who’ve benefited from cheaper equipment and growing demand have struggled. What does this tell us about the state of in the industry?
In part two, the macro trends: While the industry is in upheaval, the prospects could not be better for the technology. It’s one of the strange contradictions in solar. Where do we stand on the growth trajectory today?
In part three, preparing for explosive growth: How do you manage the coming…
Jun 1, 2017
Suniva Trade Case: A Doomsday Scenario for US Solar?
Here we go again. America's solar industry is in the midst of yet another trade dispute.
In late May, the U.S. government officially accepted Suniva's request to review the impact of imported cells and modules on domestic solar manufacturers. If trade officials request tariffs and minimum prices at the levels suggested by Suniva, it could set industry equipment pricing back to 2012 levels and installed system pricing at 2015 levels.
A lot of planned utility-scale solar projects would be destroyed. And a number of states would be out of reach for residential installers.
If the International Trade Commission agrees with Suniva's complaint, it will send recommendations to the president. And no one knows what Trump will do.
In an industry already facing a slowdown in growth, high duties on imported solar equipment could be a disaster. But is it a doomsday scenario?
In this week's podcast, we look at the potential consequences for solar businesses upstream and downstream.
Thanks to our laun…
May 25, 2017
Sunrun CEO Lynn Jurich Imagines the Future of Solar
Sunrun is now the largest standalone solar company in the U.S. And as a public company, it faces increased scrutiny of its solar services model from investors who are skeptical about residential solar conditions.
After reporting solid quarterly numbers for the end of 2016, the company is now dealing with accusations that it hid customer cancelation rates. Executives aren't commenting on an SEC investigation into canceled contracts, but analysts believe it's a distraction from the real metrics used to value Sunrun. The company also says it is a distraction, and that the allegations are false.
On stage at the Solar Summit, we talked about some of the immediate challenges -- investor sentiment, customer acquisition costs, and streamlining installations -- that Sunrun is grappling with. (Squared subscribers can watch every single session.)
After that session, we whisked Jurich into a back room for a podcast interview about Sunrun's long-term outlook. We asked about the role of solar as a g…
May 10, 2017
Mary Powell Is Not Your Typical Utility Executive
Mary Powell has a simple mantra: "Culture eats strategy."
Since taking over as CEO of Green Mountain Power, she's implemented a startup culture that represents a dramatic departure from a traditional utility model -- obsessing over the customer, mixing employees in order to uncover new ideas, testing out new products and re-imagining the power delivery business model itself.
She used to call Green Mountain Power the "un-utility." These days, Powell doesn't even like to talk about her company as a utility at all.
This week, we feature a live conversation with Mary Powell from the Clean Energy Trust Challenge in Chicago. She talked about her unconventional approach to managing a utility, and her outlook on how customer interaction with the grid will change.
Above all, she explained why understanding customers matters so much to people: "One of my biggest fears is being out of touch with what people want and what really matters to people."
Big thanks to our launch sponsor, AES Energy Stor…
May 3, 2017
Tesla's Grid Storage Architect
Since the day Tesla was founded, executives saw stationary storage as a compliment to the electric car business.
That was Martin Eberhard's plan when he co-founded the company and envisioned the Tesla Energy Group. Years later, after launching the Powerwall, CEO Elon Musk said the storage business could soon eclipse automobiles. Today, storage is an integral part of Tesla's package of offerings for consumers, and its development plans for utilities.
In 2009, Mateo Jaramillo was hired to execute Tesla's storage strategy. Well, eventually.
First, he was responsible for developing the company's powertrain. Over time, he became more heavily involved in stationary storage -- eventually building Tesla's in-house storage development arm and the team that designed the Powerwall and Powerpack. He drew on his years of experience at Gaia Power Technologies, where he worked on some of the earliest behind-the-meter battery systems in New York.
Last December, Jaramillo left Tesla to focus on his nex…
Apr 27, 2017
New York's Historic Utility Reform, Three Years On
In April of 2014, three of New York's most influential figures in energy -- Governor Andrew Cuomo, state "energy czar" Richard Kauffman and then-chief regulator Audrey Zibelman -- launched one of the most ambitious reform efforts in the history of electricity. It was called Reforming the Energy Vision.
It was simple, but extraordinarily bold. Here's how Zibelman explained it: “By fundamentally restructuring the way utilities and energy companies sell electricity, New York can maximize the utilization of resources, and reduce the need for new infrastructure through expanded demand management, energy efficiency, renewable energy, distributed generation, and energy storage programs.”
We’re a few years on since that vision was first articulated. And so it’s a good time to ask: what has REV accomplished so far? Is the state any closer to redesigning the electricity market than it was three years ago?
This week, we're talking to Lisa Frantzis, a senior vice president at Advanced Ener…
Apr 19, 2017
How Wealthy Are Residential Solar Customers?
How wealthy are the households that install rooftop solar? This question has surfaced repeatedly, most often when policymakers or regulators are considering solar incentives and/or changes to electricity rates.
This week, GTM Research and PowerScout released a report that offers -- for the first time -- household-level data on the relationship between residential solar and household income. In this episode, we dig in.
Access the free report here: https://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/how-wealthy-are-residential-solar-customers
Big thanks to our launch sponsor, AES Energy Storage. Learn more about AES' industry-leading storage solutions for the grid: http://aesenergystorage.com/interchange
Apr 14, 2017
The Complexity of a Zero-Carbon Grid
What will it take to slash carbon emissions in the electric sector by 100 percent?
We're already making immense progress in the electric grid. And we could use wind, solar and storage to cost-effectively cut grid emissions in half. But to go from 50 percent reductions to 100 percent -- that will take a much more diverse range of technologies. That is the conclusion of a new literature review of 30 studies, written by Jesse Jenkins and Samuel Thernstrom.
Jesse Jenkins joins us on the podcast. He’s an energy thinker, writer and a PhD candidate at MIT with an expertise in electric power system engineering.
In this week's episode of The Interchange, we define "deep decarbonization," discuss the limitations of our current pathway, and talk about the intense tribalism that feeds the debate over how to transition to a zero-carbon system.
We're re-launching the show this week publicly. Make sure to subscribe to us on SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher Radio or simply copy and paste our RSS feed in…
Mar 16, 2017
Offshore Wind Is Finally Coming to America
It’s been 15 years since Cape Wind -- the project meant to be America’s first offshore wind farm -- was first proposed. For years, the 130-turbine, 450-megawatt project was held up as the start of an entirely new industry in the U.S. But fierce legal opposition and project financing problems eventually brought the project down.
The offshore wind industry is now virtually all in Europe. In 2001, Europe had a few hundred megawatts of offshore wind projects. Today, it has nearly 13,000 megawatts of capacity -- and developers are on track to make offshore wind the cheapest form of new electricity. In fact, new projects are now beating 2020 price estimates.
When will America finally capture a piece of this budding industry?
This week's guest is well equipped to answer that question. Alicia Barton is the former director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, the former Chief of Operations at SunEdison’s global utility group, and is now the co-chair of the cleantech practice at the g…