Interchange Recharged

This week: coronavirus is rewriting the cleantech startup survival guide.The implosion for early-stage companies has been swift. According to a New York Times analysis, 6,000 people at 50 startups have lost their jobs since the middle of March. Once fast-growing companies are losing their revenue overnight, laying off or furloughing up to 50 percent of their staff.Companies in travel, consumer goods, or fintech are the hardest hit by the current economic freeze. The full impact on climatetech and cleantech companies is still unknown. That will depend on the sector they’re targeting, whether they’re generating revenue, and how long this crisis lasts.Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey talk with Dr. Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs, and Emily Kirsch, founder and CEO of Powerhouse about how startups can make it through the current economic calamity.Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We were feeling a little stir crazy this week, so we hopped behind the microphone with Chris Nelder, host of The Energy Transition Show for some wonkery while in quarantine.In this episode we are exploring two simple questions: What was an unknown about the energy transition five years ago that we now know? And what is a question that has emerged in 2020 that is still unanswered?And as expected, those questions brought us to some complex answers.Thanks to Chris Nelder for a fun (socially distant) conversation.Want to connect with us while stuck at home? Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we're coming to you from our home isolation, partially frozen in time.We're wondering how long things will be this way. How we will work? How he will keep healthy? How we will run our companies? How will we move forward? It can feel like each day those answers are only further away. This week on The interchange, Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey get real on how the pandemic has changed their daily lives and their thinking about covering the energy disruption in the months ahead. Will the current economic disruption lead to permanent changes that lower carbon emissions? How does this economic disaster change the field for startups and large companies in clean energy?Mentioned on the show:Kate Lister: Workplace Analytics and Telecommuting Twitter: Infectious disease expert Laurie GarrettNYT: Climate Change Has Lessons for Fighting Coronavirus, Somini SenguptaIEA: Put clean energy at the heart of stimulus plans to counter the coronavirus crisisGuardian: Financial Crises are Filtering Mechanisms for StartupsWant to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week: What does the load curve look like in a time of pandemic? We are in the middle of a sudden, jarring economic shift. Store fronts, arenas and office buildings are dark in many cities. Homes are becoming the center of our activity -- and for many of us, our work.That is causing sudden shifts in the way we consume energy. We’ve seen it play out in China, France and Italy.So what is happening to the daily shape of electricity load here in the U.S.? And what are the long-term consequences to power providers if this goes on for a long time?Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey talk with someone who knows how to read a load curve: Nick Chaset. Nick is Chief Executive Officer at East Bay Community Energy and on the board of the California Community Choice Association. He’s worked as Chief of Staff to the head of the California Public Utilities Commission and was special advisor to Governor Jerry Brown on distributed energy resources. Nick will share some data about his CCA’s changing load curve. Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week: What can meal kits tell us about the energy intensity of the food system?When you get meal-kits delivered to your home -- are they a net benefit to the environment? Or are these time savers carbon-heavy?Since 2012, there’s been a surge in meal-kit delivery options. Online buying and delivery is now the norm. There’s a surge in interest in healthy eating. And we’re all insanely busy. And that’s making Meal-Kits like Home Chef, Blue Apron and HelloFresh a $5 billion business.But how guilty should you feel unboxing that pre-measured parsley, or berry sauce for that salmon? How does the carbon that got burned to make that packaging and drive that delivery van, compare to buying the ingredients yourself? Has anyone done the math? We found someone who can actually answer this question for us: Dr. Isabella Gee, an engineer at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas. She did her thesis on this exact question -- and she spends her time looking at the food system broadly. Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.The Interchange is sponsored  by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week: what one entrepreneur's story tells us about the migration of talent from tech to climate.Jason Jacobs is the founder of My Climate Journey, a podcast, newsletter, and slack room that brings together a high-level group of people who are dedicating their careers to addressing climate change.Co-host Shayle Kann talks with Jason about his own journey -- and about what his story tells us about the shift underway in the world of tech. The Interchange is sponsored by Viking Cold Solutions, a leader in thermal storage for refrigerated warehouses, grocery store freezers, and restaurants around the globe. Find out how thermal storage can benefit your facility.We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The 100% renewable energy future doesn’t start with a country, state or region. It starts with a city. One power plant in a city, in fact. In Glendale, California.Glendale is a city of 200,000 people just north of Los Angeles. And in 2014, the was in a tricky spot. The city’s natural gas plant was old. The City Council faced a decision that would impact the city for decades to come: revamp the 252-megawatt gas plant, or find local alternatives?After modeling many different types of local resources, the city found the perfect mix: 75 megawatts of utility-scale storage; 15 megawatts of solar, efficiency and demand response; and 93 megawatts of Wärtsilä engines for backup reliability. It saved the city millions of dollars.“And it's just a huge win...and really, an important model for the future of energy,” says David Millar a resource planning consultant at Ascend Analytics, who helped model Glendale’s energy system. In this episode, produced in collaboration with Wärtsilä, we look at the hidden hero of the 100% renewable future: power systems modeling.This is the second in a three-part series produced in collaboration with Wärtsilä. You can listen to part one here.As cities, states and countries make tough choices about cleaning up their power systems, they need to rely on sophisticated models. We’ll look at the experience of Glendale. And then turn to Joe Ferrari, the general manager for utility market development at Wärtsilä North America. Joe is an expert on how utilities are planning for the 100% renewable energy future.“The technology is there. It's just understanding how to put all the pieces together,” explains Ferrari.Wärtsilä creates smart, flexible power technologies to enable a cleaner grid and put the world on a path to 100% renewable energy. They’re helping clients worldwide meet their clean energy goals in an efficient and cost-effective way. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many ways they can decarbonize the economy.From optimizing buildings to modeling new industrial processes to better managing the grid, AI and machine learning are core to many technology strategies for addressing climate change.So how, exactly, will they be implemented? And what problems can they solve?With us is Priya Donti, a PHD student at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work is focused on machine learning, grid systems and climate change. She is also the co-chair of Climate Change AI, a group of academics and practitioners looking at machine learning as a decarbonization tool.Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage or looking for backup power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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, wildfires and power shutoffs in California are providing a new entry point for consumers. What does it all amount to? In this episode, we have a conversation with Barry Cinnamon, the CEO of Cinnamon Solar.Barry has been installing solar for nearly 20 years. He knows the on-the-ground trends and where they fit into the broader market picture. He regularly writes about the industry on Greentech Media. Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey sit down with Barry to talk battery applications, home control, EV charging, Tesla’s solar roof, and more.Read along with us:Greentech Media: 10 Rooftop Solar and Storage Predictions for the Next DecadeGreentech Media: 10 Mistakes I’ve Made Selling and Installing Battery Storage SystemMercury News: Why Every House in California Will Have Solar PowerListen to Barry’s podcast: The Energy ShowWant to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage or looking for backup power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 effective decarbonization tool, we need to match them to real-time demand. And there are a lot of ways to do it. In the last few months, we’ve seen examples of large corporations taking the challenge head on. We’ve also seen the negative consequences for a city when it failed to account for time of use.Dr. Melissa Lott, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, joins co-host Shayle Kann for a deep dive into 24/7 renewables.Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage or looking for backup power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.