This week, we finally left behind a destructive regime that thwarted environmental policy at every turn. We exchanged it for a government putting climate experts and clean-energy doers in its highest ranks in a way that no prior administration has done before.What comes next?First up this week: If Biden wants his $2 trillion climate spending plan to make a bigger impact, should he emphasize rooftop solar and small-scale batteries? A leading modeler says a local solar-storage plan could save hundreds of billions of dollars as we build out the net-zero grid.Then: the board members of major corporations are often ignorant about climate change and what it takes to address it, according to a new report from NYU’s Stern business school. Why is that true – still? What can be done about it?And last: Should you sign up for your utility’s green power program? Is there a better way to guarantee that your monthly power bill supports the world you envision? We’ll answer a listener question.Recommended reading:VCE: Why Local Solar for All Costs LessLocal Solar For All RoadmapLA Times: Boiling Point: How rooftop solar could save Americans $473 billionBloomberg: Many Corporate Boards Don’t Fully Understand the Climate CrisisHarvard Business Review: Boards Are Obstructing ESG — at Their Own PerilNREL: Voluntary Green Power Procurement - 2019 Utility Green Pricing RanksEnergy Sage: What to look for, and availability of community solarThis podcast is brought to you by Sungrow, a leading provider of PV inverter solutions around the world. Sungrow has delivered more than 10 gigawatts of inverters to the Americas alone — and 120 gigawatts in total across the globe. Learn more about Sungrow’s cutting-edge solar projects.This podcast is also brought to you by CPower. CPower and its team of energy experts are back with a webinar series aimed to help organizations make sense of the chaos and optimize their energy use and spend in 2021. This hour-long webinar series features market-by-market breakdowns to help energy planners make the right decisions. Register today.

The Energy Gang

Why Local Solar + Storage Is a Pillar of the Net-Zero Grid

BlocPower CEO Donnel Baird is on a mission to clean up old, inefficient buildings in America’s cities -- and help people who are exposed to the worst pollution. BlocPower was founded in 2012. It’s raised venture capital from Kapor Capital and Andreesen Horowitz. But that process was not easy for a company with a mostly non-white leadership team. As a black founder, Donnel was turned down 200 times before any venture firms were willing to back his vision.“It was really difficult for us raising capital. One of our investors when I talked to him two or three years ago and said I was struggling to raise capital, he was like ‘yeah man, just hire some white people and send them into the fundraising meetings and it’ll clear things up,’” explains Donnel.BlocPower is a Brooklyn, New York startup electrifying and weatherizing buildings in underserved communities -- slashing pollution and saving money. This includes housing units, churches, community centers. And the mission for Donnel isn’t about just about hitting milestones for investors. It’s about changing the fabric of underserved communities that are plagued by pollution and energy poverty. That’s because Donnel has lived it himself.In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch talks with Donnel about how he channeled his frustration and anger around racial unfairness into a business model for the energy transition.Listen to all our past episodes of Watt It Takes here. This series is normally recorded in front of a live audience, but we’re now recording the interviews remotely. See future events from Powerhouse here.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Sungrow, a leading provider of PV inverter solutions across the world. Sungrow has delivered more than 10 gigawatts of inverters to the Americas alone -- and 120 gigawatts in total across the globe. Learn more about Sungrow’s cutting-edge solar projects.The Energy Gang is also brought to you by CPower. CPower and its team of energy experts are back with a webinar series aimed to help organizations make sense of the chaos and optimize their energy use and spend in 2021. This hour-long webinar series features market-by-market breakdowns to help energy planners make the right decisions. Register today.

Watt It Takes: BlocPower CEO Donnel Baird

In the final moments of 2020, the most important U.S. energy legislation in a decade flew in under the radar, attached to the coronavirus relief and government funding bill. It’s an astonishing collection of measures. It sets aside $35 Billion in new funding for clean energy R&D, phases out some of the most egregious greenhouse gases, and extends tax credits for wind, solar, nuclear, and carbon capture. What’s the impact?It would have been a bill big enough to discuss this whole episode. But it’s been eclipsed by the possibility of more ambitious legislation under a Democrat-controlled Congress -- thanks to some big Senate wins in Georgia on Wednesday.With a window of action open, how much can get done in the next two years? We’ll dig in. Lastly, one of the biggest business stories from the last year: Tesla. A stratospheric stock price, strong sales growth, and the second richest man in the world. What do Elon Musk’s fortunes foreshadow for EVs?Recommended reading:Greentech Media: What Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Did, and Didn’t, Get from Congress This WeekE&E News: 13 Ways the Massive Omnibus Hits EnergyDave Roberts Volts Podcast: The Energy ActE&ENews: Things to Watch in a 50-50 Senate Bloomberg: Tesla Poised for Expansion After Just Missing 2020 TargetBarron’s: Tesla Passes a Market-Cap Milestone. It’s Worth More Than Facebook.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Sungrow, a leading provider of PV inverter solutions across the world. Sungrow is supplying inverters for a series of new, world-class solar facilities that will support Facebook’s operations with 100% renewable energy. Learn more about Sungrow’s cutting-edge solar projects.The Energy Gang is also brought to you by CPower. CPower and its team of energy experts are back with a webinar series aimed to help organizations make sense of the chaos and optimize their energy use and spend in 2021. This hour-long webinar series features market-by-market breakdowns to help energy planners make the right decisions. Register today.

America's Drastic Shift: What Are Paths for Climate?

Goodbye 2020. We’re not sad to see you go. Even though this year brought a lot of outright bad stuff, it also brought a lot of positive, nuanced storylines in energy.We’re going to tackle as many of them as possible, using suggestions from our listeners as a guide.And no, they won’t be pandemic-related. Not explicitly anyway. You can listen to our previous episode for our pandemic picks.We’ll tackle your suggestions: breakout technologies, political corruption, corporate momentum, energy justice, new financing approaches, and regulatory change.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IOT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

Year-Ender: Listeners Choose Top Trends of 2020

We’re featuring an episode of Google’s new podcast about data centers, called Where the Internet Lives. What would it take to run data centers on clean electricity, everywhere, every hour of the day? In this episode, we look at the evolution of data center energy use in a world confronting the threat of climate change – and explore promising ideas that could fuel a carbon-free future.Subscribe anywhere you get podcasts. Or find it in these top platforms:AppleGoogle PodcastsSpotifyStitcherRSS Feed

Introducing: Google’s Quest for 24/7 Clean Energy

As we close out 2020, we are diving into the top stories that defined this frenzied and heavy year. This week, we’ll start the show with a look back at how Covid re-shaped the energy transition. We’re going to revisit some predictions that did -- and didn’t -- come true. Next episode, we’ll look at a wider range of (non-pandemic) 2020 stories.Then later in the show, advertising and PR professionals are suddenly being pressured to reveal how much of their income is from fossil fuel clients. Are firms in this industry the next to lose their social license?And last: what could a Youth Climate Corps accomplish? And how should it be set up? We look to a Depression-era program to rally the passions of America’s climate generation. Resources:New Yorker: When “Creatives” Turn Destructive: Image-Makers and the Climate CrisisYale 360: How a Climate Corps Could Put Youth to Work in Greening America“Where the Internet Lives” podcast from GoogleThe Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IOT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

Revisiting Pandemic Predictions for Energy

Climate risk is now the topic du jour in Washington. The Biden transition team identified it as a powerful policy lever in the business world that could help the president-elect’s climate agenda without Congress. But how? Could it happen at the Securities and Exchange Commission where companies disclose legal and other threats? What about a role for the Federal Reserve? What can Biden himself do?This week, we’ll look at how federal action may happen -- and what impact it would have on emissions.Then, from the first days in office, Trump’s team went after environmental protections with the focus of trained assassins. Those efforts are only intensifying in the weeks before Trump leaves the White House. How might Biden stop these “regulatory bombs?”Last: reactions to Biden’s hires are revealing a split in the climate community. What do they reveal about theories of change in this changing political moment?E&E News: Biden to Shine Light on Corporate Climate RiskBloomberg: All Businesses Everywhere, Get Ready to Disclose Your Climate RiskNew York Times: E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff ResistancePropublica: Tracking the Trump Administration’s “Midnight Regulations”Twitter: Bill McKibben defense of Brian DeeseTwitter: Matt Yglesias on the only way to make climate progressThe Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IoT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

A New President’s Powerful Tool: Climate Risk Disclosure

Cathy Zoi has seen it all. She’s studied and worked in oil, gas and clean energy since the Reagan Era. Now as CEO of charging company EVgo, she knows the future of energy is coming fast. “Rideshare drivers are now starting to drive EVs, those folks need to charge once a day away from home, and they need to do it fast. When COVID hit, delivery drivers for food deliveries needed to charge on our network. Fleet companies like Amazon. So every month that goes by, there is a new opportunity, says Zoi.”Cathy has a breadth of energy and cleantech experience working in leadership roles at non-profits, startups, venture capital, academia, and government agencies.Cathy was on the team that developed the original Energy Star rating when she worked at the Environmental Protection Agency. She was chief of staff in the White House Office on Environmental Policy in the Clinton-Gore Administration. And she is co-founder and executive chairman of Odyssey Energy, a software start-up bringing distributed clean power to developing countries. In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Cathy Zoi to discuss how that journey inevitably led her to electric transportation.Listen to all our past episodes of Watt It Takes here. This series is normally recorded in front of a live audience. But we’re now recording the interviews remotely. See future events here.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IoT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

Watt It Takes: EVgo's Cathy Zoi on Scaling EV Infrastructure

In the 1960s, scientists who worked for General Motors and Ford discovered that the exhaust from their cars was very likely changing the climate. They made presentations at conferences. They briefed senior executives. And then, they were publicly contradicted and their work was suppressed. We’ll talk to Maxine Joselow, the journalist who reported the story for E&E News over many months. She talked with more than two dozen former GM and Ford employees, retired auto industry executives, academics, and environmentalists about what the companies knew about climate change five decades ago.It leaves the reader wondering: what if automakers had taken the problem more seriously a half-century ago?Then, plenty of conservative states are embracing renewables. But now 100% clean energy mandates are spreading to redder states. The latest is Arizona: a place where elected officials and a giant utility previously worked to stop the march of clean energy. We’ll look at the shift. And last: can a Marshall Plan for fading coal communities rebuild America’s former industrial regions?E&E News: GM, Ford Knew About Climate Change 50 Years AgoScientific American: A Woman Warned GM about Warming, But Men Didn’t ListenGreentech Media: Arizona Regulators Pass Rule for 100% Clean Energy by 2050Smart Cities Dive: Mayors Unveil $60B Plan to Support Midwest Energy TransitionUniversity of Pittsburgh: Marshall Plan for Middle America RoadmapThe Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IoT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

Automakers Knew About Climate Change 50 Years Ago

Has 2020 – which seemed irredeemable – just done a 180? We’ll be back in the Paris agreement, Biden’s got a zero-emissions plan, East Asia’s making big moves, and there might even be a vaccine for Covid-19.President-Elect Joe Biden has already named his environment transition team. And he discussed climate change with four European heads of state this Tuesday.He also has a “Build Back Better” one-pager that looks a lot like the green recovery plans in Europe we’ve been discussing for months. We’re going to look at specific things a Biden administration can do in each identified category to get to net-zero emissions.Then, 2020 is turning into the year of net-zero. Japan and South Korea have now promised to zero out carbon emissions by 2050. That preserves the possibility of keeping warming at or below 1.5º C. This fall, China also issued its first-ever net-zero date. That means most of East Asia has now committed to eliminating all new carbon emissions by a certain date. President Moon Jae-in of South Korea actually ran and won on a platform of a Green New Deal for Korea. He’s talking about a ‘just transition’ away from dirty energy. And Japan says it will rethink its reliance on coal. These are big stories on their own. Bigger in the context of America’s re-engagement with the world as we head toward climate negotiations in 2021. The Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IoT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

Day-One Climate Priorities for Biden’s White House

This episode was produced in collaboration with GTM Creative Strategies and the Opower team at Oracle Utilities.The last two years have brought a surge of plans for zero-carbon energy from some of the biggest power providers in the world. Dozens of U.S. utilities have committed to decarbonizing by 80% or more by 2050."Two thirds of U.S. consumers are now served by utilities with carbon or emissions reduction goals," says Scott Neuman, group vice president of Opower, at Oracle Utilities.National Grid is the latest utility to up the ante. The electricity and gas supplier now wants to hit net-zero emissions by 2050."In terms of decarbonizing and reducing emissions across society, it can break out into three broad areas, decarbonizing generational power, decarbonizing transport and decarbonizing heat," says Badar Kahn, the presdient of National Grid US.In this episode, we’ll hear from Badar Kahn and Scott Neuman about how zero-carbon goals may reshape utility operations -- and reshape the role of the customer."We're taking everything we've learned, everything we've built, and focusing our team on changing behaviors that will deliver the greatest emission reductions as quickly, affordably and accurately as possible," says Neuman.Opower is working every single day to help your utility build a clean energy future. Utilities around the world rely on Opower to connect with their customers. Opower helps people save energy, save money, and adopt all the clean energy products & services we need right now.

How Customers Will Shape Zero-Carbon Utility Targets [Special Content]

This week: the future of the planet depends on the mail. The mail-in votes are still being counted, but it’s increasingly likely that Joe Biden will become America’s next president.As of this recording on Thursday morning, Biden’s path to the presidency looks much better than Trump’s. It could be Thursday night or Friday when we get calls for Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina. We do not have an official result. But the direction feels clearer -- and we have plenty of local results, too.Meanwhile, America is officially out of the Paris Climate Accord. What happens next?In this episode, we’re just going to cover a smattering of stories coming out of the election.Plus, we’ll answer a bunch of listener questions.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Wärtsilä Energy, leading the transition toward a 100% renewable energy future. Wärtsilä launched “The Path to 100%” to accelerate the transition to renewables. Become part of the discussion.The Energy Gang is brought to you by Honeywell, a leading supplier of IoT solutions to mission-critical industries around the world. Honeywell Smart Energy helps utilities transform their grid operations through advanced solutions and targeted services from edge to cloud. Learn more.

Can Biden Undo Trump's Damage?

We’re just a few days out from the election -- and how could we talk about anything else? Climate is finally beginning to play the kind of role that we have waited so long for. In this pre-election episode, we’ll recap where things stand: and how energy and climate are playing into late-stage messaging of Biden and Trump. Plus, what are some of the crucial down-ballot races we’re watching election night? And last: Five years have passed since the largest terrestrial natural gas disaster in U.S. history. A methane well in the Los Angeles hills broke open and shot a plume of methane into the air for four months.  What’s changed since the Aliso Canyon leak? And how did it accelerate distributed resources in the state?The Energy Gang is brought to you by Sungrow, the leading global supplier of inverter solutions for renewables. During these uncertain times, Sungrow is committed to protecting its employees and continuing to reliably serve its customers around the world. Sungrow has also leveraged its extensive network across the United States to distribute face masks to communities in need.The Energy Gang is also brought to you by KORE Power. Based in the U.S., KORE Power is situated to meet the growing global demand of the energy storage market. KORE Power is building the first large-scale battery cell manufacturing facility in the U.S. owned by an American company. Once it’s operational, the 1-million-square-foot facility will have 12 gigawatt-hours of scalable manufacturing capacity. Learn more. 

Biden Wants to ‘Transition’ Oil & Gas

This week on Watt It Takes: Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Solstice CEO Steph Speirs.Solistice is a community solar company trying to make PV accessible to everyone.Steph Speirs grew up one of three kids, first generation, in Hawaii. Her mom had immigrated from Korea. She knows what eviction feels like, and what it’s like to skirt homelessness. And she knows how a poor credit score can sink a human being.She got a scholarship to a private high school, became a National Merit scholar and accrued three masters degrees at Yale, Princeton and MIT.  In this interview, we’ll hear how her time in the Obama administration led to a summer internship with the non-profit impact investor Acumen. She worked on solar lanterns in India. Her time in Yemen, India, and then Pakistan led to an awakening about energy injustice in the United States. Solstice has now developed demand for 100 MW of community solar and just closed its biggest funding round so far. To learn more about future speakers and attending a live event, go to Powerhouse.fund and click on the events tab. You can listen to all of the episodes of Watt It Takes here.The Energy Gang is also brought to you by KORE Power. Based in the U.S., KORE Power is situated to meet the growing global demand of the energy storage market. KORE Power is building the first large-scale battery cell manufacturing facility in the U.S. owned by an American company. Once it’s operational, the 1-million-square-foot facility will have 12 gigawatt-hours of scalable manufacturing capacity. Learn more. The Energy Gang is brought to you by Sungrow, the leading global supplier of inverter solutions for renewables. During these uncertain times, Sungrow is committed to protecting its employees and continuing to reliably serve its customers around the world. Sungrow has also leveraged its extensive network across the United States to distribute face masks to communities in need.

Watt It Takes: Why Steph Speirs Wants Solar For All

In a year when clean energy and clean vehicle jobs were supposed to increase by some 175,000, we are down by half a million jobs. We will tell you why, and explain the numbers. What will reverse the decline?Then: Did New Jersey just pass the most sweeping environmental justice law in the country? The new law will mean big changes for industrial sites -- and the neighborhoods that often feel their worst impacts. And last: What about all that nice, flat water in hydropower reservoirs? Could we float solar panels on it? The Department of Energy says we could. And it would actually produce massive amounts of electricity. E2: Clean Energy Sector Enters Final Months of 2020 Down 478,000 JobsBloomberg: Most U.S. Oil Job Losses in Pandemic Are LastingFortune: The Oil and Gas Industry Has Lost More Than 100,000 Jobs This YearNJ.com: Landmark Law to Protect N.J.'s Poorest Communities From PollutionDOE: U.S. Hydropower Potential from Existing Non-powered DamsThe Energy Gang is brought to you by Sungrow, the leading global supplier of inverter solutions for renewables. During these uncertain times, Sungrow is committed to protecting its employees and continuing to reliably serve its customers around the world. Sungrow has also leveraged its extensive network across the United States to distribute face masks to communities in need.The Energy Gang is also brought to you by KORE Power. Based in the U.S., KORE Power is situated to meet the growing global demand of the energy storage market. KORE Power is building the first large-scale battery cell manufacturing facility in the U.S. owned by an American company. Once it’s operational, the 1-million-square-foot facility will have 12 gigawatt-hours of scalable manufacturing capacity. Learn more. 

Taking Stock of Job Losses in Clean Energy

Looking to understand the fast-changing world of energy? This isn't your ordinary energy business show. Every week, we debate and discuss the latest trends in energy, cleantech, renewables, and the environment. Join us as we explore the forces transforming energy markets in America and around the world.

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The Energy Gang

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