Energy Gang

This podcast episode sponsored by  West Monroe Partners , and brought to you by creative strategies. How do we think about change in the electric utility industry caused by distributed resources? Is it like telecom? Internet-based retail? Sam Uyeno, senior manager in West Monroe Partners’ energy and utilities practice, says that it may be more like ride sharing. As distributed resources flour...

Are we entering a new era of grid planning? In recent years, we've assumed that sweeping reforms are the best way to get distributed energy built. But in pockets of the country, a more localized approach to deploying these assets is taking hold – and it could be the sign of a much bigger shift to come. On this week's  Energy Gang,  we'll look at Washington, D.C.'s new proposal for a...

SunPower couldn’t convince the Trump Administration to abandon tariffs on imported solar panels. So now it plans to buy one of the companies pushing tariffs in the first place. Yesterday, SunPower unveiled plans to acquire SolarWorld’s U.S. operations. Two months ago, CEO Tom Werner said SunPower was going to divest from America. But now he’s buying his way back...

Statoil is the largest operator of oil and gas rigs around the world. Consequently, the company's biggest low-carbon investments are offshore: floating wind farms and distributed carbon capture and storage. This week, we're talking to Stephen Bull, the VP in charge of Statoil's low-carbon business, about where he sees the most potential. We'll talk to him about the performance of floating wind, th...

After a multi-year decline, global carbon emissions are on the upswing. The International Energy Agency now says that emissions grew in 2017 -- caused by an increase oil, natural gas and coal demand. Nearly three-quarters of new energy demand across the globe was served by fossil fuels. At the same time, America saw another yearly drop in carbon emissions, which IEA says was assisted by&...

It’s been a bad couple of weeks for two of Silicon Valley’s top car companies. After a pedestrian was killed by one of Uber’s autonomous cars in Arizona, the company’s AV operations were suspended. Other driverless car companies are now weighing the consequences to the technology, and regulators are asking if we need to slow down real-world testing. Tesla is dealing with two crashes of its own. Th...

In the early 2000s, investors weren't very interested in SunEdison's business plan to finance solar with power purchase agreements. "No one wanted to hear about physical infrastructure," said Jigar Shah, who drafted the business plan and co-founded the company. It took until 2006 to raise venture capital. But soon after, PPA customers started rolling in: Staples, Ikea, then Whole Foods....

There are three forces coming together in the transportation sector: vehicle autonomy, vehicle sharing, and vehicle electrification. On their own, app-based sharing and electric vehicles are powerful agents of change. Together with automation, "they're revolutionary," argues Dr. Dan Sperling, author of a new book on the subject. "It will change our lifestyles, it'll change the automobile indu...

Amazon's analytical approach to understanding the customer allowed it to move beyond books and dominate the retail space. Entire industries are getting upended and transformed as a result. This story about disruption is a familiar one. We’ve seen how it plays time and time again – and it’s not pretty for the incumbents who fail to catch up with technology.  It's a compelling narrative in the...

Last June, comedian John Oliver devoted a long segment to the struggling coal industry on his HBO show  Last Week Tonight .  He turned his attention to Robert Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, one of the most bombastic advocates of coal. And then Murray sued Oliver for defamation. That defamation lawsuit was thrown out by a judge last week. But the saga tells us a lot about Robert Murray...

If storage is the Swiss Army Knife of the electric grid, then U.S. energy regulators are breaking out their tool belts. Last week brought a historic ruling at FERC. Commissioners told regional grid operators to create rules valuing the grid services of energy storage. Will it screw natural gas peakers – or maybe cut, saw, file, prune, hook, or crimp them? Later in the podcast, an infrastructure re...

Since the White House slapped penalties on solar panels made outside America, a handful of companies say they’re likely to ramp up production in the U.S. In recent weeks, two Asian producers -- Jinko Solar and United Renewable Energy -- said they're planning to set up new module assembly plants. Other domestic producers are making plans to hire new employees. How should we interpret this...

There are tens of thousands large-scale wind turbines scattered across America. That means over a million and a half households are located five miles from a turbine. And they’re actually inching closer to homes on average,  according to government researchers . So how do those machines impact our property values, our soundscapes, and our quality of life? The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab&nb...

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 Interc...

The next sector ripe for electrification: aviation. Electric airplanes could completely make over the regional airline sector -- fundamentally changing the way we move around the country and creating new economic opportunities. On this week's  Energy Gang , we'll talk with Ashish Kumar, the CEO of Zunum Aero, about the company's electric propulsion system and hybrid-electric airplane model. W...

Nearly one year after President Trump was sworn into office, we’re re-examining the state of energy politics in Washington. Our post-election episodes were some of our most popular shows of last year. This week, we’re returning to the subject now that we’ve got experience, and not just speculation. Amy Harder , an energy and climate reporter with Axios, joins us to talk about a wide range of...

What's it like inside the Environmental Protection Agency as the Trump Administration dismantles it from the top down? This week, ProPublica’s  Talia Buford  joins us on  The Energy Gang  to talk about how Scott Pruitt’s aggressive regulatory rollback agenda is changing the agency’s relationship to science, to industry, and to the staffers who've worked there for deca...

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...

Good journalism is more important than ever. In our last episode of the year, we're choosing our favorite energy reporting of 2017. We'll start off with a conversation about a damning investigative piece on how U.S. utilities put ratepayers on the hook for $40 billion in failed coal and nuke projects. Tony Bartelme, a special projects reporter at the  Post and Courier , joins us to talk...

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 epi...

Southern New England is hungry for more clean energy, and states like Connecticut and Massachusetts are turning to Hydro-Quebec for its excess hydropower. There's one sticking point: they need a new transmission line to get all that power from Northern Quebec. And citizens in the states that could host new transmission projects -- New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine -- are resisting construction plan...

We've reached a new stage in cleantech. Years after the VC bubble popped, startups are pursuing new approaches to scaling, finding customers, partnering, and raising money. Those new approaches to scaling early-stage cleantech were crystallized this year. And we're going to talk about them. This week, we recorded live at  Greentown Labs , the largest cleantech in...

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 hi...

The House passed its tax reform bill yesterday that includes cuts to renewable energy tax credits. The package is already having a chilling effect as developers stall projects because of a potential change to the tax code. What will happen when the Senate and House try to reconcile their two bills? We'll try to anticipate the political chess match before the pieces move. Then, we'll take a look at...

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...