Clean Power Hour

FEOC compliance is the number one question solar buyers ask in 2026, and the answer determines which module manufacturers survive. In this episode, Tim Montague talks with Chris Lettman of Imperial Star, Benoy Thanjan of Reneu Energy, and the host of the Solar Maverick podcast, and Dean Solon of Create Energy at InterSolar San Diego 2026.  Here's what you'll learn in this conversation: F...

Natural gas prices in Europe surged roughly 80% after the Iran war disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off 20% of the world's oil supply. On this episode of The Clean Power Hour Live, Tim Montague and John Weaver break down how this energy war affects electricity costs, solar economics, and your business as a clean energy professional. They cover solar's fastest grow...

Third-party testing shows robotic solar panel installation reduces micro cracks and defects by 16 to 20%. In this episode, Tim Montague sits down with Jay Wong, CEO of Luminous Robotics, and Andy Klump, longtime solar industry advisor, at RE+ Boston. They walk through the new Lumi 4 robot, its autonomous pallet bot companion, and how robotics-as-a-service delivers 20 to 30% cost reduction for EPCs...

Every disconnected monitoring platform in your stack is a blind spot. And every blind spot is lost revenue. On this episode of The Clean Power Hour, host Tim Montague sits down with Hervé Billiet, CEO of Sunvoy and co-host of What Solar Installers Need to Know.  Sunvoy is a solar fleet monitoring and customer management platform that pulls inverter data from multiple brands into a single dashboard...

Energy bills have jumped as much as 30% in the last year, and data center demand is outpacing grid growth. CPS America, with over 10 gigawatts of string inverters shipped in the US, is responding with a wave of new products: skidded string solutions, a 250kW 600V inverter platform, and fully integrated C&I battery storage with industry-leading fire safety certification.  In this episode, Tim M...

LFP battery storage pricing dropped from over $1,000 per kilowatt hour to under $100 per kilowatt hour in a few short years. That single shift is reshaping project economics across the solar and storage industry. In this episode of The Clean Power Hour, host Tim Montague sits down with Wes Kennedy, a 30-year clean energy veteran. They cover DC coupling, middle market strategy, the AI-driven energy...

For the first time, batteries and solar powered California around the clock, with batteries running as the number one morning electricity source at nearly 6,000 megawatts. Tim Montague and John Weaver break down this milestone and a packed week of clean energy news, from a Supreme Court ruling striking down global tariffs to a Republican push to reinstate the 30% solar ITC.  EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS Cal...

Most solar asset owners still manage performance data the same way they did 10 years ago. Dan Leary, founder of Denowatts, says that needs to change. In this episode, recorded live at RE+ Northeast in Boston, Tim Montague sits down with Leary and Doug Macmillan of Portside Systems to explore energy accounting, a method for identifying exactly where solar production losses occur and what owners and...

The 30% investment tax credit is going away. The safe harbor window closes July 3, 2026. After that, commercial solar stands on its own. So what separates the companies that thrive from the ones that disappear?  Costa Nicolaou, founder and CEO of PanelClaw, joins Tim Montague at RE+ Northeast in Boston for a direct conversation about surviving and growing in the post-ITC market. This episode cover...

One LinkedIn post. Almost 400,000 impressions. Aaron Nichols has earned 1.8 million impressions on LinkedIn in one year, and he did it by breaking every rule the clean energy industry follows. His message is blunt: solar companies insist on being boring, and they are losing the public conversation because of it. In this episode, host Tim Montague sits down with Aaron Nichols to break down four sto...

Wind farms are defeating the Trump administration's stop-work orders 5-0 as federal judges allow offshore construction to resume, while data centers drive consumer power bills up 30-50% across the country.  Tim Montague and John Weaver cover the latest clean energy developments from RE+ Northeast, including breakthrough robotics from Luminous and the emerging DIY solar market that could deliv...

Storm Fern just knocked out power for nearly a million Americans. But here's what the media won't tell you: this wasn't a freak accident—it's the new normal. New research from the Union of Concerned Scientists reveals that 100% of the worst power outages in the last decade share one shocking cause. And it's getting worse every year. This matters now because we're buil...

A Missouri state senator wants to ban all solar construction for two years, threatening a 430 MW project already under construction. On the Clean Power Hour Live, Tim Montague and John Weaver cover the Missouri solar moratorium, the first UL standard for balcony solar, Elon Musk's 100 GW solar manufacturing ambitions, and Vineyard Wind's court victory sending its final turbine to sea. Th...

What separates solar projects that get built from those that die in development? Brad Stutzman has spent 16 years figuring out the answer. Brad is the Founder and CEO of O3 Energy, a Dallas-based solar development and construction company. He started in 2009 during the Great Recession, pivoting from real estate financing to renewable energy. O3 Energy has since deployed hundreds of on-site solar p...

Most businesses are stuck in AI demo mode, watching impressive one-off showcases that never become daily operations. In this episode, Tim Montague welcomes Josh Huston from Agents Anywhere to break down the three categories of AI opportunity: apps, agents, and automations. Josh has spent over three years helping companies turn AI from buzzword into working business infrastructure. Key Discussion P...

Energy storage is not a green technology. It's grid infrastructure. That reframe from Shawn Shaw, CEO of Camelot Energy Group and author of "Energy Storage Systems," challenges how we talk about batteries in the energy transition. With 22 years in solar and storage and 1.2 GWh of projects commissioned in late 2025, Shaw brings practical insight into why storage matters for grid oper...

#EP328 Federal funding for tribal clean energy projects has been rescinded. Tribes that invested millions in solar and microgrid projects now face stalled construction, lost jobs, and broken promises. David Harper, CEO of Huurav, is stepping in with bridge loans to keep these projects alive. David Harper is a tribal member from the Colorado River Indian Tribes on the Arizona-California border. He...

In this week's Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague and co-host John Weaver examine the widening gap between China and the United States in clean energy deployment. The hosts analyze new data from Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson showing China is on track for a clean economy by 2050, while the US lags a century behind. They discuss record battery installations, solar manufacturing shifts, and what...

#EP327 What if we could remove a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere for $2 billion a year? Peter Fiekowsky, author of "Climate Restoration" and founder of the Foundation for Climate Restoration, returns to The Clean Power Hour with a solution most people have never heard of: localized ocean iron fertilization. An astrophysicist and semiconductor entrepreneur by training, Peter has...

#EP326 Happy Holidays! Today on the Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague breaks down his top 5 episodes of 2025, featuring conversations that shaped how we think about solar, storage, virtual power plants, microgrids, and AI. From Jigar Shah's call for the industry to become a political force to Spark AI's permitting breakthroughs, these episodes capture where clean energy is headed. Key Episo...

#EP325 Home battery storage sits at less than 1% market penetration in America. The solar industry spent years focused on small urban systems while whole-home backup solutions remained out of reach for most homeowners.  Tim Montague sits down with James Showalter, founder and CEO of EG4 Electronics, to discuss whole-home backup solutions that provide true energy independence. James shares his jour...

#EP324 Microgrids offer utilities eight distinct value stacks (or streams), yet most still treat them as experimental pilots. Today on the Clean Power Hour, we reveal how microgrids are strategic network assets that deliver value every single day, not just when the grid fails.  Martin Szczepanik is Director of Energy and Resources at Baringa, a global energy consultancy. He brings 11 years of util...

#EP323 Building clean energy projects faster starts with better tools. Maryssa Barron, Founder and CEO of BuildQ, joins Tim Montague to discuss how AI transforms energy project development.  Maryssa Barron is the founder and CEO of BuildQ, the enterprise AI platform purpose-built for clean energy project teams to accelerate development, financing, and asset management. She brings cross-disciplinar...

This week on Clean Power Hour Live, Tim Montague and John Weaver break down the biggest solar and storage headlines shaping the industry right now. The US reached 40 gigawatts of grid storage in 2025, beating the 35 gigawatt goal set in 2017. But supply chains are struggling to keep up. 100 amp-hour battery cells are sold out through 2026 as demand surges across residential, commercial, and utilit...

#EP322  Today on the Clean Power Hour, we dive into one of the biggest bottlenecks strangling the clean energy transition: the slow, messy world of zoning, permitting, and early-stage development. Our guests are Julia Wu and Anuj Saigal, co-founders of Spark AI, a Y Combinator-backed platform that has ingested and summarized nearly every zoning code, ordinance, and permitting pathway in the United...