Suncast

This week we’re excited to welcome our guest, John Farrell, to Suncast. John Farrell is an author, a podcaster, co-director of the Institute of Self Reliance, and leads the Energy Democracy Initiative. He has also been featured in the New York Times and is widely known as a “guru of distributed energy.”  On this week’s episode, we were able to get some deeper insights from him specifically focused around:  1.) The Institute of Self Reliance, their mission, and how that fits in to address the needs of marginalized communities 2.) Empowering local energy through his current work and spotlighting additional programs like the “Our Power Maine” campaign 3.) His predictions on the next shift in the market including what he finds to be a “one-in-a-generation” opportunity  From his writing of “Energy Self Reliant States” to his present work and outlook on Energy Democracy, John Farrell is a force and voice that champions local communities and their power to decide and structure their energy future. And

Many will instantly recognize the popular NPR Quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” If you don’t, you really have missed one of the all-time-great NPR staples. Well, at Intersolar North America last month, Scott Nguyen, CEO of Bodhi Solar, and I hosted a very special version [Scott’s brainchild] of WWDTM - the Solar Edition! Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me is a very entertaining quiz show built off real life stories from current events; as you might suspect, the solar edition draws from real (and hard-to-believe) stories curated from the solar industry at-large. We had a special group of panelists help deliver the stories (and some levity): Mark Culpepper from Dronebase, Kathy Heilmann from Shoals Technology Group and Stan Pipkin from Lighthouse Solar.  You are going to love the stories, and I hope it leaves you laughing, or at least wanting more! Join us for a fun and interesting time and play along to see how well you would have done on the show. Should we do more like this? Shoot me a LinkedIn Message and l

Alex Williams is a problem-solver. That, and he loves to recruit high-performing sales people. He loves watching people transform into what they think they can be. And through the pandemic he got his perfect chance. His company, Solar Energy Partners, hired and trained over 1000 sales people over the last 18 months, all focused on knocking residential homeowner’s doors and consulting them to “go solar”. And it appears they’re very good at it. Since Alex was a teen, he’s looked for disparities in markets and tried to come up with a way to insert himself into the cash cycle by solving this or that missing element. That’s how he found himself in the Shale Fields of North Dakota, and ultimately its his curiosity and keen sense of opportunity that got him out of Oil & Gas and into Solar. From building the fastest growth sales org at Vivint (we discuss how) to now building one of the largest independent solar sales rep organizations, Alex quickly discovered his unique gifting for recruiting and building systems

Can Energy Storage unlock a “Solar-Plus-Storage-Powered Future” for the largely yet-to-be-disrupted Commercial and Industrial segment of solar? Today’s guest, Yotta Energy’s CEO, Omeed Badkoobeh, believes it can, and we get into the innovative storage technology they’ve created to address this behemoth and largely untapped market. Of the more than 22 GW of corporate renewable energy deals announced since 2008, more than 15 GW of these deals were announced since 2018, according to the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA) Corporate Renewable Energy Deal Tracker. Further, projections show that just within the Fortune 1000, C&I customers will need up to 85 GW of renewable energy through 2030.  Many developers & Installers today agree with REBA that solar growth in the U.S. and globally will come not from huge Utility segment, but from expansion in this commercial and industrial segment. So, if this is the case, how do these developers add energy storage capacity in an environment  where real

How did Zvi Alon become Chairman and CEO of one of the early MLPE pioneers, Tigo Energy? By believing in the strategy he mapped out and invested in! When the original founders lost hope in the plan, Zvi stepped in, and the rest is history. Hear today how one of the iconic power electronics companies birthed here in Silicon Valley stayed alive amidst the Asian manufacturer influx to the solar power electronics sector. And Tigo didn’t just stay alive, but managed to thrive, driving innovation across the value stream, pioneering & championing change in the way rooftop solar was installed, at least in the USA that is. We get a rare glimpse of the inside story from the man who made it happen, Zvi Alon.  Zvi recently hired past SunCast guest (and longtime friend) Jing Tian as their Chief Growth Officer. Jing joins Zvi in this interview to discuss what got her excited about sparking Tigo’s new chapter of growth. And, of course, we get into their big news, the launch of a residential storage product to compe

I’ve been getting a LOT of inbound over the last year since President Joe Biden took office as investors and renewable energy developers the world over increasingly see the United States as a “great place to invest”. Sergio Blanco was my direct boss at Conergy, the last real “job” I held, at a time when I was trying to learn what it takes to develop and acquire pipeline in the then-booming Latin America solar market. We went through a LOT of projects, market consideration and strategy meetings, and on-the-ground hunting. So, you could say we both understand what it looks like to develop new markets through trial-by-fire.  Sergio is now the Director of Project Finance at Partner Engineering and Science (Partner) and is focused on helping Partner’s stakeholders evaluate and due-diligence the Renewables sector. He leads the Due Diligence process, financial modeling, project accounting, and feasibility reports for lenders of solar PV and Storage projects, amongst others. He has managed the acquisition and fi

I first met Cary Hayes back when I was working at Trina Solar circa 2012. He was still at REC Solar, and we had an unforgettable dinner (and too many laughs) in Phoenix. I’ve always wanted him on the show, and am so glad to finally have the chance. Cary and I have a lot of fun in this interview because that’s the kind of human and leader Cary is…he exudes both fun and confidence while remaining one of the most fiercely competitive people I’ve had the pleasure to know. You’re going to love every second of this interview - I sure did. Cary is now President of REC Americas, but his journey to that role is anything but ordinary or direct. Today you can learn the secret trick he used to land his first real job, at Smith-Barney no less, after being a professional ski-bum for 8 years. Then, hear why he quit his high-paying job to write articles and follow his passion. He moved to California, slept on a couch, and was actually doing hard labor making $20 an hour before he finally landed at REC Solar.  It was at

Andrew Birch, affectionately referred to by many as simply “Birchy”, joins Nico in this live interview [rebroadcast] from the Intersolar N. America expo hall floor from Thursday January 13, 2022. Birchy is the Godfather of online solar sales (you may remember him as the co-founder and CEO of Sungevity), and always has keen insight into what’s trending and what to consider within the fast-growing distributed solar arena. Birchy had just come from the CALSSA “Save our Solar Jobs Rally” in LA, and gives an update on the state of the industry in light of the recent negative press on CA’s NEM3.0 ruling.  From the CALSSA website: “The CPUC’shttps://calssa.org/blog/2021/12/13/nem-3-proposed-decision ( proposed decision on NEM-3) would destroy net metering, ending our state’s clean energy leadership and decimating our industry, and our jobs, in the process. This is our SOS, our chance to make our voices heard and insist that the PUC change course. Now is the time to go big. Our industry is on the line. Our jobs

Jason MacDuff is President of greenpenny, a virtual carbon-neutral bank dedicated to financing a sustainable tomorrow.  Money deposited in greenpenny is secure, earns interest, and is only used to finance renewable energy systems and carbon reducing efficiency projects - no fossil fuels.  And greenpenny has been offering their residential and commercial solar loans in the midwest for longer than just about anyone. As Jason said, “It’s time for banks to offer green products and services  that empower customers to take their own climate actions.” But greenpenny is distinct in the market because unlike most solar financiers or banking fintech startups, it’s part of an actual century-old midwestern bank! After 24 years at Wells Fargo, Jason was ready for a change.  He took two years off to travel the world and came back with a new perspective & passion, determined to use his experience in banking to make serious progress on climate change.  It’s a big leap from major bank to banking e

Some of you will recall, Nico was live-broadcasting from the CleanPower21 tradeshow in Salt Lake City back in December.  While he was there, Nico got the chance to sit down with Heather Zichal, the CEO of the organization that runs the CleanPower show and that has been shaking things up in Washington for you and me in a good way all last year. The three areas covered in today’s episode are: 1. AWEA rebrand to ACP & 2022 Goals 2. Messaging to the solar industry specifically, from Heather & ACP 3. Acquisition of ESA  Launched at the start of 2021, the American Clean Power Association is a new trade association unifying the wind, solar, storage and transmission companies that are driving jobs and investment in the U.S. economy and providing solutions to the climate crisis.  Many of you will recognize is as “the AWEA rebrand” or something along those lines, but I believe it’s much more than a simple rebrand. From their website: The American Clean Power Association works to champion policies

You probably assume that the Utility-scale solar market, having deployed hundreds of GW globally, has surely by now figured out the necessary software suite to manage projects.  It’s hard to imagine how everybody would just keep building novel tools in silos like it’s still 1998 and Salesforce still doesn’t exist! Well today’s guest, Andrea Barber, founded RatedPower to solve the same challenges she noticed many of her colleagues were struggling with, including her former employer and their customers. In today’s episode, we get into the details of how and why this powerful female leader found herself answering the call to step out on her own and start a company focused on solar project design & management software. Fresh off a ~$6M Series A, Andrea and team are bringing their SaaS suite of utility-scale solar project development tools to the US market, and Nico gets down to the details with Andrea on the acute problems they aim to solve, along with the usual how, when, where & why of choosing her

Mark Culpepper, who heads up global solar for Drone Base, is on a mission to simplify the process and amplify the importance of solar site data gathering with aerial methods. As the name might imply, Drone Base has built an entire business around aerial thermographic inspection. They’re on a role, hot off a $20M round of investment and acquisition of India-based Airprobe to add a sophisticated A.I. engine to their platform of global data analysis. And Mark is the guy who’s bringing them into the Solar industry at-scale.  While at SunEdison, Mark created the solar industry's first global monitoring operations centers designed to track power, energy and revenue on solar power plants around the world. Now, he's designing programs for both drones and manned aircraft to capture thermal imaging of solar energy systems and turn that into actionable data. He sees a big need ahead -- solar at utility-scale, which means that monitoring and identifying systems defaults quickly is even more important. For a system t

If you have yet to set out your goals for 2022, then you’re absolutely in the right place. If you have, then maybe this anecdote will help support your courage to achieve them! As we wrap 2021, most of you overachievers have likely already mapped out your 2022. But for some of you, goal-setting (actually really writing it down) has not been a regular practice. Well, today’s guest credits his practice of goal-setting since age 19, I mean really committing it to writing, to becoming a 4-time All-American athlete, hitting over $1.3 Billion in sales, retiring “early” by age 32, and ultimately finding his current passion: Regenerative Capitalism. Jim Gale, CEO of Food Forest Abundance, is a remarkable and inspiring human, and this interview is a great way to wrap this current year.  I believe it can help vault us into the New Year by breaking down Jim’s story and success markers so that you and I can enter into the next year ready to set a  new bar for personal growth, self-expression, achievement (if th

Merry Christmas! As a special bonus for these longer days, I decided to NOT break out this 100 minute episode into 2x50min episodes bc I believe you don’t need to be tricked into listening when the content is good enough - just know that it’s long and you might need to pause and come back - or like listener Alex recently did you can just binge for 10 hours while you paint the house! (thanks for telling me your story, Alex! Stoked you’re loving SunCast.) I believe today’s guest’s journey is my journey, and maybe it’s yours. I identified so much with him and had so much curiosity about how he built his company, that I ended up interviewing him for 2 solid hours! In short, https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-greenfield-595a406/ ( Geoff Greenfield) uses the power of business as a force for good.  If you think this is white-guy speak for “i really want to feel good about what I do” well then you’re in for a treat bc you and I both want to hear how Geoff rationalizes his privilege (hint: he’s very aware of and i

In the final episode of Season One of our Green Hydrogen series, we’re looking at how Hydrogen might be useful to aid hard-to-abate industries such as Steel in achieving a zero-carbon future.  Let’s get serious about carbon intensity for a minute: the steel industry produces approx 2.6 GIGATONS* of carbon emissions  annually, that’s over 7% of total  global emissions and it’s a product that is not optional in today’s world. If you’re having a hard time wrapping your head around that number, I give you a great example further down with a reference for further reading.  For this final episode of the season, Joachim von Scheele, Global Director of Commercialization for leading gas retailer, Linde, has set his sights on decarbonizing Steel and other large industry emitters through energy efficiency and, yes, Green Hydrogen.  As a longtime Global leader for Linde, Joachim has spent his 20 year career living and working in India, China, and Europe where these hard-to-abate industries are cr

If you’ve been around the solar industry for long, you might recognize the name, Raffi Garabedian. If you don’t, however, it’s probably because you haven’t studied the rise of one of the largest solar manufacturing brands in the world, First Solar, or perhaps you didn’t sell against First Solar for years like Nico did in his past life! Raffi was the Chief Technology Officer at First Solar for the better part of the last decade, and recently retired to pursue “other interests”.  When he came out if stealth this year, we were surprised, and pleased, that it was in pursuit of another cutting edge technology scale-up endeavor - productizing an electrolyzer stack that can scale effectively for developers as many, like Intersect Power, scour the market for a partner to help convert those clean green electrons from massive solar and wind parks into Green Hydrogen.  Founded by experienced renewable energy technologists, Electric Hydrogen aims to cost-effectively decarbonize the massive industrial sectors th

In the words of today’s guest, Hanan Fishman, “Planning a DC microgrid is no different than any other technical undertaking. You need to start with defining the problem you are trying to solve. In the realm of microgrids, several buzzwords often come to mind including resilience. But you’ll need to drill beyond just buzzwords and really understand the problem you want to solve, whether it is offsetting higher demand charges, creating greater resiliency from grid outages or something else altogether. Answering this first question will determine if a DC microgrid even makes sense versus an AC coupled topology.” Hanan Fishman is the President of Alencon Systems and has over 20 years’ experience in technology development and commercialization. He actually sold his last company to a brand you might recognize, Autodesk! Today, he’s working hard to scale a DC-DC “platform”, we might refer to it as a DC Optimizer, and he has a particular view on the weaknesses in the current power conversion model/market, and how Ale

Biraj Borkataria is always looking at the details to determine how they affect the big picture.  As an analyst for RBC, ranked #7 globally for his sector, he’s a respected voice in the discussion around Big Energy’s transition toward climate solutions. In this Part 3 of our Green Hydrogen series, Biraj and I aim to take stock of how Green Hydrogen is developing through the lens of major global energy players.  What is tipping the scales?  Who is working together now and what role does the government play?  How can we separate hype from reality, what innovations are inevitable, and who can participate in the revolution?  Is there space for startups? Where are the billion dollar investments going?  Will the Supermajors play along? If you’re new to the Hydrogen discussion, you’ll also appreciate the description on the “colors of hydrogen” (blue, black, green, what?), scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions defined, carbon capture ventures versus renewable hydrogen production, and even the detai

Two decades ago, Jason Goodhand was working in Hydrogen. But he says it’s different now. “Whether it's renewable energy, or oil and gas, every sector is trying to ramp up to have enough people to work on hydrogen projects. And it's incredible how fast it came around this time.”  How has the market developed?  What’s changed over the last twenty years?  Did he just say “electrolyzer”?  We talk about the journey to scale the industry, the goals of a 100% renewable grid, and opportunities for hydrogen in synergy with other renewables.  “I don’t think lithium will get us there” …. let’s look at the business case for clean hydrogen and who’s tackling the challenges to bring it to market at scale.   This is part two of our Green Hydrogen Mini-Series.  Hear them all as they are released this week on https://mysuncast.com/hydrogen (SunCast). Episode 1 - Nexus of Deep Decarbonization & “The Inevitability of Hydrogen” with Sheldon Kimber, CEO Intersect Power Episode 2 - The G

It’s time to bet on the future. Climate change is here, disasters are daily, and even financial systems are strained to breaking. In Episode One of our Green Hydrogen Mini-Series, Sheldon Kimber is thinking outside the grid and betting on dramatic change, with his eyes set on five inevitable technologies of the zero carbon future. What markets will be both profitable and scalable? Why is Green Hydrogen a giga-ton clean gas solution? And how does it even work? We talk about his vision of the carbon-neutral future and the steps Intersect Power is taking to get there. Hold on, because we are going to be thinking big and out of the box in the series. Don’t miss it. The Green Hydrogen Mini-Series is produced in partnership with Intersect Power. It will help you filter hope from hype and reality from fiction to see where the true opportunities exist with Green Hydrogen. Be sure you’re subscribed so you’ll catch each episode as soon as it is released. Here’s a peak at what’s coming this week in the Green Hydrogen Mi