Energy Gang

For well over a decade, researchers have been modeling the cost of state renewable energy mandates. The results break down in predictable ways: conservative and progressive groups often come to very different conclusions based about costs and benefits. An  authoritative 2015 report  from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab found that compliance costs for state renewables targets only make...

This week on Watt It Takes : How a product manager at Google saw promise in geothermal heat pumps — and applied the lessons of solar to an underserved market. In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Kathy Hannun, the co-founder of Dandelion, a home geothermal company that uses a proprietary drilling technique, simple product design, and financing to cut the cost of ground-sourc...

This week, we present a special episode produced in collaboration with CohnReznick Capital. How do you broker billions of dollars worth of renewable energy deals — and do it again and again? It takes grit, sure. But it also requires empathy. And that, says Conor McKenna, is the  real  art of the deal. McKenna is a senior managing director at CohnReznick Capital Markets. He’s helped close...

The tech giants are all going long on renewables, but Amazon seems to be going long on oil and gas. A new story details Amazon’s budding romance with the fossil fuel industry, while also lagging behind its peers in buying clean energy for its operations. Other tech companies are using their analytics for helping extract more fossil fuels — but is the extent of Amazon’s pursuit unique? Then, a new...

This week, the Green New Deal ripples through Washington. A few leading Republicans are responding to the progressive climate plan with some ideas of their own: the New Manhattan Project and the Green Real Deal.  They’ve gotten a mostly cold response from the left. But have we finally broken the ice for a legitimate cross-party policy discussion on climate? We’ll look at the GOP responses. Th...

This past week, we recorded a live show at the MIT Energy Conference.  The theme of the show: what the grid may look like by 2040. As a topical show, we usually don’t know what we’re going to be discussing until a day or two in advance. But the theme of the MIT conference was "tough tech and the 2040 grid" — so we decided to take it head on.  To start, we’ll adjust our brains to the 2040...

Lyft is set for an IPO on Friday; Uber is driving up to the IPO window soon. Investors seem enthusiastic, but skeptics see a lot of risks and a bumpy path to profitability. In 2018, transportation network companies — pretty much Lyft and Uber — gave 2.6 billion rides. Lyft gave a billion of those rides, doubling its revenue over 2017 to $2.2 billion. We know the consumer appetite is there. But as...

We're on spring break this week. We'll be back on Thursday with our regular show. To get you through the next few days, we’re offering up an earlier episode of Watt It Takes about the origin story of Greentech Media. In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch interviews GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna about the beginning of the company, the challenges of being a startup in the cle...

The latest numbers for U.S. energy storage activity are out. They show a surge of activity coming over the next five years, leading to 6x market growth. By 2024, the storage market will be worth $4.7 billion dollars, driven evenly by utility-scale and behind-the-meter battery projects. On this week's episode, we'll unpack the numbers in the latest  Energy Storage Monitor  from Wood...

This week on Watt It Takes : Terry Jester has seen it all in her four-decade career in solar and electronics. As both an engineer and an executive, she’s learned that timing is everything in the energy business.  “I think as I’ve gotten older, I understand when best to strike…a good idea can not make it for bad timing, and a bad idea can go too far.” In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirs...

This week, we’ve got a bonus episode produced in collaboration with NEXTracker. It’s all about the risks and rewards of doing business in the roaring Latin American solar market. We are speaking with two of the most in-the-know people on the subject. We’re joined by Manan Parikh, Wood a solar analyst focused on the Americas for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.  And we’ll hear from Alejo...

We weren’t planning on making the Green New Deal a weekly item on the show. Then a video of Senator Dianne Feinstein dropped over the weekend, where she appears to lecture climate-protesting kids. It set off a chain reaction of outrage. The social media fervor has since died down, but some really interesting journalism was left in its wake. This whole affair highlighted the crazy upheaval in clima...

It’s been one year since the Trump White House slapped 30 percent tariffs on solar cells and modules imported into the US. What happened since? The solar industry said tariffs would destroy tens of thousands of jobs and set the market back years. Turns out, the market is a lot more resilient than presumed. We now have the jobs numbers and installation data for 2018 — and yes, the tariffs defi...

The Green New Deal plan is out, and we’re suddenly having a national conversation about climate change again. It’s also injecting some early drama into the presidential primaries. This week, we’re digging into the plan. We’ll tell you what’s in it, assess the reactions, and look at whether it will amount to anything. Also: is the democratic-socialist agenda antithetical the “creating climate wealt...

This week on Watt It Takes : How David Crane worked his way up in the power business to become CEO of NRG Energy — only to get tossed out of the job for his bold stance on climate. In this episode, Emily Kirsch talks with Crane about taking risks in the conservative power industry.  We’re going to hear from Crane about why being a CEO is so lonely, how his open exit letter to NRG employees we...

This week: a battle Royale for energy dominance. We're cross-posting an episode from our other Greentech Media podcast, The Interchange . The competitors: utilities, oil & gas majors, mobility providers and big tech. We’re pitting them against each other inside of a voice-activated, electrified cage to see who will emerge as the energy company of the future. Subscribe to The Interchange&n...

What will the U.S. grid mix look like in 2050? It depends on which models you follow. The future according to the Energy Information Administration's  latest report : wind will stop growing, coal will stop declining, demand for electricity will keep going up, and emission reductions will moderate. A lot of people are unhappy about it. It's no secret that EIA is ultra-conservative in its model...

What is energy efficiency? That sounds like a pretty simple question. But it’s not. Defining efficiency used to be pretty straightforward: weatherize, upgrade equipment and lighting, use a bit of social science to cut consumption. But now efficiency is becoming just as much about shaping demand in real-time to support distributed energy. And that’s shaping how it gets defined, implemented and trac...

We are about to witness one of the most contentious and consequential bankruptcies in the history of energy. PG&E, California’s biggest utility, is reeling from wildfire costs — and it is now headed to the courts, where it will likely be dismantled. Will it crush California’s goals to clean up the electric grid? Or will lawmakers step in with a political fix? The stakes couldn’t be higher. We’...

The political insanity in Washington can feel disconnected from reality. But two years into the Trump presidency, Americans all over the country are feeling it in the form of higher pollution. In this week's episode, we're starting off with a look at how the government shutdown and Trump's regulatory rollback are impacting energy-related agencies, and encouraging the discharge of more chemicals, h...

This week, it’s our year-ender episode. And you know what that means: we’re going round the horn with our assessment of 2018. First, we’ll discuss the top trends of the year.  Then, a roundup of the best energy journalism of 2018.  And finally, some predictions for 2019 — with a twist. Here some links to our top journalism choices: “ The Coal Bailout Nobody is Talking About ,” by Joseph...

This week on  Watt It Takes : Wunder Capital CEO Bryan Birsic on why he wants to solve the commercial solar financing challenge, when so many others couldn't. "That is what a startup is to me. It's 50 or 100 people who can move a multi-billion-dollar industry in a way that an incumbent with thousands of people and multitudes of resources cannot," says Birsic. Since it...

Back in 2008, there was a lot of excitement about geothermal. Many major banks were backing large-scale geothermal projects around the world; a wide range of startups were promising to unlock new resources; and wind and solar hadn’t shown their explosive growth yet.  But then the financial crisis hit. In the decade since, growth in geothermal has been lumpy — relegated to a handful of support...

California has seen a million and a half acres of forest burned this year. As the state recovers from the devastating Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire, residents are looking for someone to blame. Now attention turns to utilities. Both Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric are under investigation and facing class-action lawsuits for potentially starting the blazes. What happ...

This week on  Watt It Takes : How Sunrun CEO Lynn Jurich convinced homeowners and banks to invest millions into third-party rooftop solar during the great recession. “Everybody said it won’t work. We took it as a challenge,” says Jurich. “And so we just went for it.” Sunrun was a pioneer in residential solar services. Unlike some of its fallen brethren pushing the national model, Sunrun grew...