Interchange Recharged

This week, we’re unveiling a new podcast collaboration between Greentech Media and Powerhouse, called "Watt it Takes." Watt It Takes is produced and recorded live at Powerhouse, a cleantech incubator and seed fund in Oakland, CA. Each month, a founder of a top clean energy company shares the personal story behind the company they’ve built. Our first episode features Dick Swanson, founder, and former CEO and CTO of SunPower, who talks about the wild ups and downs of building one of the largest solar companies in the world. The show begins with Shayle Kann, SVP at GTM, providing some market context. And then Powerhouse Founder and CEO Emily Kirsch leads the interview with Swanson. Want to meet these industry luminaries and watch a live recording? Get tickets for future events: wattittakesoct2017.splashthat.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thought that controversial grid resiliency report ordered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry was only an intellectual exercise? It didn't take long for the Department of Energy to put it into action -- in exactly the way that critics feared when the report was first announced. Last week, Perry asked federal energy regulators to consider new rules that would value coal and nuclear plants with 90 days of fuel on hand. In other words: find a way to help keep struggling baseload plants open by offering them a new financial incentive. Or, as a supposed free-market proponent like Perry might put it for any other technology, "pick winners and losers." After months of prebuttals from renewable-energy interest groups, the final DOE study was widely considered a straightforward account of power plant retirements on the U.S. grid. Travis Fisher, the project coordinator at the DOE, joined us on the podcast to talk through the process and his team's findings. While many cleantech enthusiasts disagreed with the lack of attention on distributed resources in the report, there was wide agreement that it was not a political document. That is, until Perry issued his letter to FERC last week. Now the politics are center stage. And it's going to get messy. In this week's Interchange podcast, Shayle Kann interviews Ari Peskoe, a senior fellow in electricity law at Harvard Law School. They'll talk about the specifics of Perry's "flimsy" request, and, more importantly, what it could mean for regulatory priorities under FERC. Has the government found a new way to keep coal alive? Or is this a half-baked attempt to prop up struggling plants? "This seems to be a total retreat from market-based principles," explains Peskoe in the podcast. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s a paradox in energy. While new technologies are accelerating faster than ever, the adoption of those technologies by incumbents remains slow. This presents a captivity problem for startups, particularly in electricity. They need incumbent utilities to reach customers and integrate new technologies at the grid edge –- but this reliance significantly slows progress, creates tension, and potentially destroys their chances of success. Will the situation ever change? Or is it just the reality that startups (and their investors) need to accept? And what about utilities? What is at the root of their hesitancy to quickly adopt new technologies? In this week’s show, we talk with GTM Senior Manager Nick Rinaldi about a new in-house survey that addresses all those questions. Read the survey: http://bit.ly/2wkooRU See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the four decades since congress passed the 1974 Trade Act, there have been 75 cases when U.S. industries used the law to argue that imports caused them injury. The list of aggrieved industries is wide-ranging: footwear, CB radios, mushrooms, lamb meat, clothespins and steel. And now, solar. Over the years, the International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of petitioners roughly half the time. But according to a study from Georgetown Law, which analyzed the impacts of import penalties on lamb meat, line pipe and gluten, "none of the three industries were restored to sustained competitiveness" because of protectionist measures. Last Friday, the ITC determined that US solar manufacturers faced harm from imports. If penalties are imposed, will the result be any different? This week, we discuss the next steps in the solar industry's latest controversial trade case. Recommended reading: The Effects of Section 201 Safeguards on U.S. Industries: http://bit.ly/2wh5tHL 6 Ways to Encourage American Solar Manufacturing Without Import Duties: http://bit.ly/2yBZ9fp Foreign Solar Manufacturers Weigh Opening US Facilities as Tariff Decision Looms: http://bit.ly/2hhX97Z See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're having a bit of a moment for "resiliency" in the U.S. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have forced a conversation about climate resiliency for coastal communities. Meanwhile, the Energy Department has made grid reliability and resiliency central to its mission. This brings us to an important resiliency tool: microgrids. Microgrids became a major part of resiliency plans in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. We’ll look at how that’s influencing the conversation today in the wake of Harvey and Irma. We'll also get a snapshot of how microgrids in Texas fared during the storm. This week, GTM Grid Analyst Colleen Metelitsa joins us to talk about microgrid applications, the limits of certain technologies, and where they fit into the resiliency picture. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's difficult to keep up with cost and performance trends for technologies like batteries and solar PV. It's particularly hard for regulators and policymakers, who often rely on outdated analysis. The latest example comes from California, where the California Independent System Operator is using three-year-old data on battery and solar costs as it evaluates alternatives to a natural gas peaker plant. The cost of lithium-ion batteries and solar PV have come down precipitously since then. So why are regulators using such ancient data to make this crucial decision? This is not an isolated incident. In this episode, we talk about the questionable analysis behind the Puente natural gas plant in Southern California. We'll also discuss some other examples of faulty data being used for energy planning decisions. Finally, we'll speculate on some possible solutions to the chronic problem. Read Julian Spector's story on the faulty analysis: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/energy-storage-nrg-puente-gas-peaker-plant-cost See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We are getting a clearer picture of the Energy Department's direction under Secretary Perry. In the four months after Perry requested special report on threats to baseload power plants, we saw an unprecedented number of prebuttals from groups worried that it would assist in President Trump's mission to revive the coal industry. We finally got the end result last week. While some environmental groups didn't like the report, it was a straightforward account of the factors changing the grid -- not a booster for coal, or any other technology. But there are still a lot of outstanding questions. Are emerging distributed resources discounted in the report? Where does climate change fit in? How does the report inform policy going forward? This week, we’ve got a wide-ranging interview with Travis Fisher, a senior advisor at the Department of Energy, who took the lead on the study. He talks to us about the process, critical reactions, key findings, and recommendations for market designs. Recommended reading: DOE staff report on electricity markets and reliability: http://bit.ly/2wlKV1v DOE's Grid Study Is a Rorschach Test for the Future of Electricity: http://bit.ly/2xubKA5 GTM Squared -- Getting Into the Weeds of DOE’s Grid Report: http://bit.ly/2wfTEUq See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What makes Elon Musk tick? What will the grid look like in 2030? This week, we (re)answer both of those questions. We're featuring a couple of our favorite podcast segments for your summer listening enjoyment. First up, a 2015 Energy Gang interview with Ashlee Vance, a Bloomberg reporter and author of the book, Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Vance gives us an intimate look at why Elon operates in such a unique way. It's been two years since the book was released, but it's still just as relevant. In our second interview, we dig into The Interchange vaults and serve up a conversation about what the grid may look like in 2030. It’s like a literary review of geeky grid fan fiction, written by Shayle Kann. Sign up for our live Energy Gang in New York City on September 19: This podcast is sponsored by Mission Solar Energy, a solar module manufacturer based in San Antonio, Texas. Visit Mission Solar at the upcoming Solar Power International conference at Booth 3975. You can find out more about Mission’s American-made, high-power modules at missionsolar.com. Recommended reading: Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future -- https://www.amazon.com/Ashlee-Vance/e/B003YLHAJG How the Grid Was Won: Three Scenarios for the Distributed Grid in 2030 -- https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-the-grid-was-won See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s been 10 years since Google shifted its attention from bits and bytes toward the world of therms and electrons. It started with a wide-ranging investment and R&D initiative, called RE See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

That nuclear revival that many people hoped for? It’s not looking so good. The latest blow came last week, when two South Carolina utilities backed away from a half-completed nuclear project in the state, after already spending $9 billion. Nuclear is struggling, particularly in the U.S. In the second half of the show, we'll talk with Jessica Lovering, the director of energy at the Breakthrough Institute, about how to rethink nuclear. What can we learn from other industries in order to foster innovation, support advanced nuclear technologies, and push the industry to evolve faster? We'll start the show by turning our attention to natural gas -- an abundant resource coincidentally responsible for eroding the economics of nuclear in America. Our team of analysts has been evaluating the economics of batteries versus gas peaker plants in select markets. We'll give an update on how batteries are stacking up against gas. Recommended reading: What the Struggling Nuclear Industry Can Learn From Boeing, SpaceX and Big Pharma: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/struggling-nuclear-industry-breakthrough-institute-trump GE Digital Gas Plants vs. Utility-Scale Batteries: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ge-digital-gas-plants-vs-utility-scale-batteries This podcast is brought to you by Wunder Capital, an award-winning investment platform that allows you to invest directly in solar projects and earn up to 8.5 percent annually. Create an account for free at WunderCapital.com/gtm. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.