Interchange Recharged

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, wildfire...

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 e...

“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 m...

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 produc...

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 decade...

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 goin...

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 go...

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 t...

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...

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 i...

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. Katharin...

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 a...

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 busin...

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.&nbs...

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. ...

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 lo...

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 : 2...

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...

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 va...

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 plant...

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 v...

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 struggle...

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...

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...

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, th...