Interchange Recharged

Blockchain is coming to the energy industry in a big way.We're at the beginning of a fierce hype cycle, when new startups are emerging weekly to tout their Initial Coin Offerings and tokenization platforms for energy trading. Utility executives are grappling with yet another distributed technology that proponents say will demolish the traditional power delivery business.Still having a hard time understanding why all this matters? Getting lost in the maze of new terminology? We've got you covered.On this week's Interchange podcast, we're starting a new segment called "consensus." We'll bring a blockchain-related topic that we don’t understand -- a term, a business model, or an application -- and present it to GTM’s resident blockchain enthusiast, Scott Clavenna, to see if he can help us out. Hopefully we'll reach consensus.In this week's segment, we're bringing two questions to Scott: How does WePower's tokenized energy trading work? And how to different variations of cryptocurrency mining?If you need a blockchain 101 course, try listening to our earlier Interchange episode on the subject.This podcast is brought to you by Fiveworx, a turnkey customer engagement platform for utilities. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed -- and get you beyond the meter.Recommended reading:GTM: Can We Prevent a Global Energy Crisis From Bitcoin Mining?GTM: WePower Expansion Hints at Adoption of Blockchain for Energy TradingCome to our Blockchain in Energy Forum in New York CitySubscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Trump Administration just imposed 30 percent tariffs on imported solar cells and modules. How much will it stunt solar growth in America? Will it spark a broader trade war?There are a lot of questions about the impact. In this podcast, we’re giving you the answers – or, as many answers we have, just a day after the decision.This week, we'll bring together our teams from The Interchange and The Energy Gang together to answer listener questions about the tariffs. We'll also talk with GTM Research's Cory Honeyman about how (and where) the 30 percent penalty will impact projects around the U.S.Thanks to podcast sponsor, Fiveworx. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed.In this episode, we address:What does a 30 percent tariff mean for project economics in the residential and utility-scale sectors?How will the 2.5 gigawatt cell quota work?Will the decision help domestic U.S. manufacturing? Will it hurt domestic installation jobs?What kind of challenges will we see at the World Trade Organization?Is there a pathway toward a negotiation with China?How could local policy blunt the negative impact of these tariffs?Read all our previous coverage and analysis of the Trump Administration's solar tariffs:GTM Research: New Tariffs to Curb US Solar Installations by 11% Through 2022GTM: Trump Administration Issues 30% Solar Panel Import TariffGTM: Foreign Solar Manufacturers Weigh Opening US Facilities as Tariff Decision LoomsLike our shows? Make sure to give The Interchange and The Energy Gang a rating and review on Apple podcasts. And make sure to subscribe to both shows on Apple podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or anywhere you get your podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Grid nerds have spent the last few months whipped into a frenzy over Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s hastily-written plan to prop up aging coal plants in the name of grid resiliency.And then, last week, federal energy regulators rejected it. Secretary Perry’s team couldn’t come up with the basic legal argument needed for FERC to consider the proposal.The door is not fully closed, however. Regulators say they want to revisit the idea of grid resiliency -- and now they’re asking regional grid operators to report back on their actual needs.So, it’s worth stepping back and asking the same question. What does the grid actually need? In an age when renewables -- and already, in some cases, batteries -- are the lowest-cost resources, how should we really be planning?This week, we're joined by two grid experts who’ve been asking this question for years: Sonia Aggarwal and Robbie Orvis of the analysis firm Energy Innovation.Sonia is the vice president of Energy Innovation. She heads up the firm’s work on power sector transformation and energy policy. And she also launched America’s Power Plan, a collection of insights about rapid change underway in the electric sector. Robbie is the policy design projects manager at Energy Innovation, where he works on power sector transformation issues. He’s a contributor to America’s Power Plan.This podcast is brought to you by Fiveworx, a turnkey customer engagement platform for utilities. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed -- and get you beyond the meter.Recommended reading:A Year-End Update on Electricity Policy from the FieldWind and Solar Are Our Cheapest Energy Generation Sources: Now What Do We Do?Grid Flexibility: Methods for Modernizing the Power Grid (PDF)A Roadmap for Finding Flexibility in Wholesale Markets (PDF)Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When President Trump took office, U.S. coal was in a state of decline. Between 2007 and 2016, coal production and consumption each fell by more than a third, and mining jobs fell from 125,000 to 75,000.Trump promised to reverse that trend. Did his deregulatory agenda work?In 2017, U.S. coal production grew by 6 percent. That increase, however, came from a factor unrelated to Trump Administration policy: demand in foreign markets. Meanwhile, domestic coal consumption fell by 2.4 percent last year.This week, we talk with Trevor Houser, a partner with the Rhodium Group, about where things stand in America's coal sector. It still doesn't look good.In this conversation, we unpack some of the big themes we're grappling with as 2018 unfolds: coal demand, electric system reliability, and possible directions for climate policy. Houser will also explain why we've "achieved escape velocity" in renewable energy, and why that matters for our emissions trajectory.This podcast is brought to you by Fiveworx, a turnkey customer engagement platform for utilities. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed -- and get you beyond the meter.Recommended reading from the Rhodium GroupThe Year in CoalElectric System Reliability: No Clear Link to Coal and NuclearPreliminary US Emissions Estimates for 2017Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We spend most of our time talking about other companies. For our first podcast of the year, we're turning the tables and reflecting on GTM.In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch interviews GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna about the origins of our company, the challenges of being a startup in the cleantech world, and our recent acquisition by Wood Mackenzie. Watt It Takes is a live interview series produced by Powerhouse in partnership with GTM. The conversation was recorded live in Oakland, California.As we prepare for the onslaught of news in 2018, this interview will give you more insight into how we operate as a company.This podcast is brought to you by Fiveworx, a turnkey customer engagement platform for utilities. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed -- and get you beyond the meter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Three months after Hurricane Maria, there are still large swaths of Puerto Rico that don’t have power. It took two months to get half the island’s residents power again -- and hundreds of thousands of people are still without grid access as the holidays approach.After a slow start, there are mainland crews there working day and night to restore electricity. They've been making progress, but the situation is still dire.In the aftermath of the disaster, we’re finally getting a sense of what a resilient Puerto Rican grid could look like. The Puerto Rican Energy Commission recently asked for ideas about how to rebuild the grid, and some of the biggest heavy hitters in the industry responded.In this week's episode, we're talking with Chris Shelton, the chief technology officer at the global electricity provider AES. He'll describe the company's vision for a network of solar-storage mini-grids the most competitive way to make Puerto Rico more resilient from future storms.This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schneider Electric. Find out how it works.Recommended reading:GTM: Group of Energy Heavyweights Unveils Plan for Puerto Rico’s Future GridThe Hill op-ed: Puerto Rico Needs a Weatherized Mini-Grid Network to Survive the Next MariaAES Corporation: A Vision for Restoring Puerto Rico’s GridSmart Electric Power Alliance: Build Back Better for Puerto RicoSubscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Energy storage has arrived. This year brought numerous record-breaking battery projects, dozens of acquisitions and partnerships, and over a dozen utility integrated resource plans that factor storage. Within a decade, the U.S. storage market could be 25 times bigger than it is today -- swamping natural gas peaker plants, and enabling a vast array of new grid applications.In this week's episode, we open up our vault of data and describe the state of storage in America: which sectors are dominating, how utilities are thinking about the technology, where the economics stand, and what to look for in 2018.Plus, we'll have a conversation with Green Mountain Power CEO Mary Powell about how customer-sited battery storage fits into the utility's broad culture and tech shift.This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schneider Electric. Find out how it works.We're also sponsored by Mission Solar Energy, a solar module manufacturer based in San Antonio, Texas. Find out more about Mission’s American-made, high-power modules.Recommended reading:GTM Research: U.S. Energy Storage Monitor, Q4 2017GTM: The 10 Stories That Defined Energy Storage in 2017GTM Squared: Watch the Live Broadcast From US Energy Storage Summit 2017Make sure to subscribe to The Interchange on Apple podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your audio.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Something feels different. In the last two years, there’s been a material shift in the way renewable energy and other distributed resources are discussed.For so long, believers of wind, solar, batteries and microgrids have focused on targeted government support. But direct subsidies and mandates are diminishing in importance.One example: utility-scale solar in the U.S., which was once almost exclusively driven by state mandates and tax credits, is now mostly being driven by economics. And tax credits are on a path to being phased out.We now have a proven class of resources that can perform the same function as traditional power plants -- often at a lower economic and environmental cost. And these resources are hitting the grid at an accelerating pace.Now that people are waking up to this reality, the conversation is shifting toward markets.How do you put rules in place that fairly value the responsiveness, resiliency and environmental performance of distributed resources like aggregated batteries, real-time energy efficiency and commercial microgrids? And how do you manage the surge of wind and solar so they don’t crush wholesale markets by flooding them with cheap power at the wrong time?That’s the framework we’re operating in today. It's uniting groups across the political spectrum that favor of open markets and oppose the Trump Administration's agenda to prop up coal.This week, we'll talk with two experts who are focused intensely on the evolution of markets: Lenae Shirley, the senior director of technology innovation and market adoption at the Environmental Defense Fund; and Devin Hartman, a senior fellow with the R Street Institute.How much should we read into this alignment?This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schneider Electric. Find out how it works.Recommended reading and listening:R Street Institute: Refreshing Price Formation in Electricity Wholesale MarketsEDF: More Subsidies than You Think Influence the Cost of ElectricityThe Interchange: Renewables Are on a Collision Course With Power MarketsSubscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tesla built the world's biggest lithium-ion battery ahead of schedule. It's an important milestone for the technology, and Tesla itself. But is it coming at a cost to smaller players in the industry?This week on The Interchange, we'll talk about how Tesla's battery supply constraints are hitting downstream installers and developers. We'll bring GTM Staff Writer Julian Spector on the show to discuss his recent reporting on Tesla's delivery delays.Then, we'll cover some of Spector's other big stories this year: how gas is suddenly challenging natural gas peaker plants around the world; and why New York is struggling to put a cohesive energy storage framework in place.  This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Now, you can reap the benefits of a microgrid with no upfront capital through the new microgrid-as-a-service business model from Schneider Electric. Find out how it works.Recommended reading:·      Tesla Fulfilled Its 100-Day Australia Battery Bet. What’s That Mean for the Industry?·      NRG Asked to Suspend Its Controversial Gas Plant Application. What Does That Actually Mean?·      Can Batteries Displace Gas Peakers in South Australia’s Fast-Changing Grid?·      Years In, NY REV Lacks Major Storage Action. That May Have to Change SoonSubscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dan Shugar lives, breathes and bleeds solar. "If you cut my wrist, pure silicon comes out," he exclaimed in an interview with Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch, as part of the Watt It Takes interview series. This week, Shugar steps behind the microphone to talk about turning his passion for PV into deals and acquisitions worth over $1 billion.Shugar has a storied career. Some call him the "King Midas" of solar, because he's turned so many ventures into gold. He's the former president of Powerlight, the pioneering developer acquired by SunPower in 2006. He's now CEO of the tracker company NEXTracker, which was sold to Flextronics for $330 million last year. In this edition of Watt It Takes, Shugar describes the moment he realized solar's potential while working for PG&E; how Powerlight was founded and funded; the risks he took when getting into solar; his passion for the environment; and why everyone is underestimating the growth of PV.This conversation was recorded live in Oakland, California at Powerhouse. In the next episode, GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna takes the stage.This podcast is sponsored by Schneider Electric. Want to protect yourself from escalating energy costs? Invest in a microgrid. Find out more: www.schneider-electric.us/microgridListen to earlier episodes of Watt It Takes:SunPower Founder Dick Swanson’s Guide to Launching a Cleantech StartupLessons From the Fall of SungevityLike our shows? Make sure to give The Interchange and The Energy Gang a rating and review on Apple podcasts. And make sure to subscribe to both shows on Apple podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or anywhere you get your podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.