Suncast is a decidedly better show because of today’s guest. I mean that in all sincerity. In 2018, sitting with Tara Doyle over a beer at SF’s Thirsty Bear brewery, I was challenged to diversify the then very-white-very-male interview guest roster of the fledgling show (still under 100 episodes!!). That day I pledged to get SunCast to at least a 30% representation of female guests (the % of female to male team members in the industry at the time). And, to kick off Women’s History Month in 2019,...
Mar 22, 2022•31 min•Season 9Ep. 455
Meghan Nutting's work speaks for itself; She has advocated for and contributed to numerous Solar policies and solutions over the past decade-plus. Additionally, she cut her teeth in public affairs, has worked as a Legislative Director for New York State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, and as a Press Secretary for former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe. She then served at SolarCity as the Director of Policy and Electricity Markets as the industry pulled out of the last recession way back in 2009. Pre...
Mar 17, 2022•1 hr 34 min•Season 9Ep. 454
This week’s tactical Tuesday features Britta von Oesen, longtime #Solar Warrior and Clean Energy maven who currently serves as Managing Director with CohnReznick Capital where she opened the W. Coast (SF) Office. She has over a decade of experience with everything from investment banking to tax equity and development in the environmental sector and she’s done BILLIONS of dollars in transactions. Not surprisingly, we recently revealed that her 2020 episode is one of our top listened-to episodes o...
Mar 15, 2022•22 min•Season 9Ep. 453
Shaun Keegan co-founded Solar Landscape with a childhood friend in 2012, personally developing each side of the business from design and build to legal and policy. In 2020, his sister, Kate Gold joined the company to lead their community engagement & workforce development initiatives. Kate joins the interview today to provide some color into Shaun’s background and this truly family-run business. You can also check out her interview last year, episode 408 , where we highlighted Kate as Solar ...
Mar 10, 2022•59 min•Season 9Ep. 452
Just a few weeks ago (Feb 2022), I was live and in person at the RE+NorthEast Trade Show. I LOVE in person interviews!! Especially this one with Nadia Pabst, VP of the newly created Public Affairs Practice, a notable expansion of Antenna Group who is so well known for Marketing and PR. From storage to solar fleets to self driving vehicles, Nadia brings a surprising breadth of experience and subject matter expertise to the political acumen clients would expect from a Public Affairs expert. So, wh...
Mar 08, 2022•16 min•Season 9Ep. 451
We are kicking off Women’s History Month with Mary Powell, the Chief Executive Officer of Sunrun, the Nation’s leading home solar, battery storage, and energy services company. You may also recall that Mary served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Mountain Power Corporation (2008-2019), an electric services company that serves 75 percent of the State of Vermont’s residential and business customers. During her tenure, Mary delivered on an ambitious energy vision to provide low...
Mar 03, 2022•58 min•Season 9Ep. 450
In this audio-exclusive, host Nico Johnson gets unique behind-the-scenes insight into the strategic investment by two industry giants, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Shell Ventures, into one of the more well-established building energy management platforms in climatetech - GridPoint. GridPoint today announced it has closed a $75 million strategic capital raise led by the Sustainable Investing Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs), with additional participation by Shell ...
Mar 01, 2022•20 min•Season 8Ep. 449
Warning this is a 2-hour life course that you don't want to miss! Queue it up and set aside the time. You will be rewarded Ever meet someone and stand in awe of their genius? Well, have we got a show for you! This week’s episode features Michael Burz, CEO and Co-Founder of Enzinc, a green energy startup developing a revolutionary type of battery based on zinc. While most stories illustrate a slow and steady upward journey toward success, Michael’s story is one mind-blowing achievement after anot...
Feb 24, 2022•1 hr 59 min•Season 8Ep. 448
Today's Tactical Tuesday features Derick Lila, the founder of PV Buzz (a platform focused on the North American Solar industry.) Recently, he made an interesting post on LinkedIn about Black History month and its emphasis on "black awesomeness" while overlooking issues related to black wellness. The post was particularly notable as the theme of this year's Black History Month is centered around Black health and wellness. I commented as I am prone to do, and it struck a chord, so I asked Derick t...
Feb 22, 2022•31 min•Season 8Ep. 447
Miles Braxton went to UVA specifically to study in the lab of Mool Gupta, the Father of Photonics. He should have been a prime candidate for the booming solar industry: a black engineer, young and ambitious, ready to put his boots on and earn his stripes. Then, he couldn’t find a job. Anywhere. He now leads Risk Management for the Goldman Sachs Renewable Power Group, and is Co-founder and Director of Strategic Partnerships at the BlackOak Collective. Not a bad turn turn in his luck, but as you’l...
Feb 17, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 8Ep. 446
Happy Tuesday, Solar Warriors! If you've been keeping up with our podcast, then you'll remember Alex Williams, CEO of Solar Energy Partners, who appeared on the show at the beginning of this month. In that episode, we talked at length about his company and his success in mobilizing over 1000 people into high-performing solar sales. And while his success is undoubtedly inspiring, too often, we can fixate on trying to replicate results without sufficiently investigating the habits, mindsets, or ot...
Feb 15, 2022•16 min•Season 8Ep. 445
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...
Feb 10, 2022•1 hr 33 min•Season 8Ep. 444
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...
Feb 08, 2022•28 min•Season 8Ep. 443
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...
Feb 03, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 8Ep. 442
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 E...
Feb 01, 2022•21 min•Season 8Ep. 441
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 acro...
Jan 27, 2022•57 min•Season 8Ep. 440
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, ...
Jan 25, 2022•46 min•Season 8Ep. 439
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 ...
Jan 20, 2022•1 hr 35 min•Season 8Ep. 438
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 ...
Jan 18, 2022•20 min•Season 8Ep. 437
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 empowe...
Jan 14, 2022•50 min•Season 8Ep. 436
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 &...
Jan 11, 2022•26 min•Season 8Ep. 435
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 custo...
Jan 06, 2022•58 min•Season 8Ep. 434
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...
Jan 04, 2022•42 min•Season 8Ep. 433
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-...
Dec 31, 2021•53 min•Season 8Ep. 432
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 jo...
Dec 24, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Season 8Ep. 431
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 ...
Dec 21, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 8Ep. 430
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 i...
Dec 20, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Season 8Ep. 429
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 altoget...
Dec 16, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 8Ep. 428
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 governmen...
Dec 15, 2021•56 min•Season 8Ep. 427
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 ...
Dec 14, 2021•56 min•Season 8Ep. 426
