SunCast

How did one of the solar industry’s true pioneers take everything he’s learned about solar in the last 20 years and make it Free and open-sourced to the world?Andrew Birch (Birchy), Co-Founder of the first company to pioneer delivering online solar designs(Sungevity), tells us what his research suggests is the answer to scaling solar by 30% per year through 2050 to address climate change.The 1st barrier - permitting.The 2nd barrier - adding 10M people to the industry in the next 10 years. The question is - How could you possibly scale with these structural barriers? The solution is a complete end-to-end software solution that wraps CRM, proposals and financing together, but it’s not just software.Birchy's software is bringing in service providers to exhibit products and essentially pulls everything into a single place. They make that bundle white-labeled to installers as well as accessible and online and completely free.That’s Open Solar, but there’s so much more to Birchy’s story. So queue it up! Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

Coronavirus has drastically changed the global economy with impacts across every industry, including clean energy and solar development. We may have never seen an economic or public health crisis at this scale, but policy, solar and finance experts have reason to believe that renewable energy can weather this storm and continue to grow. Moreover, the industry can help create jobs and meet public policy goals once we return to a new normal.How can we navigate current challenges, and what can we expect from the future of solar financing and development? To answer those questions, we hosted a marvelous panel with New York State Senator, Kevin Parker, Member and Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Telecommunications; PPL Director – Solar Development, Brian Fratus; Entersolar Business Development Director, Suparna Kadam; ROTH Capital Managing Director, Philip Shen, and RadiantREIT co-founder, Jim Spano.Today’s episode is a recap of one of our Live webinars back in May.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

COVID-19 has touched every corner of our economy, and guess what? The solar project finance and acquisition space is not the exception. Jesse Grossman, CEO of Soltage, joined us here on SunCast to provide his insights on this concerning area.Jesse has directed over $600M into solar asset investment through Soltage, which currently owns and manages a solar portfolio of over 300 MWs across 14 states.The main points of our conversation were how the solar industry has changed since the start of the 2020 pandemic, what small and medium-size solar developers can do to best position their assets for sale in the post-COVID economy, and Jesse’s takeaways from the 2007-2009 recession that can help solar developers today.Today’s episode is a recap of one of our Live webinars back in June.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

We’ve been extending into e-mobility and energy storage as you might have noticed in our recent episodes. Both elements serve the collective consciousness of how low-carbon future for the grid can be achieved, as well as mas penetration of renewables as a whole.Today, we have Giovanni Bertolino, Head of E-Mobility for U.S. and Canada at Enel X. We are going to tease out what’s happening in the market from their mobility-business representative. He’s focused on growing the Residential and Commercial smart charging business, and he’s been serving Enel X and others in the utility sector for a long time.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

From residential to large-scale utility projects, energy storage (predominantly in the form of batteries) is leap-frogging other applications for finally providing firm and transactive power to the grid from renewables.How are developers using storage as a force-multiplier and where can we expect to see further business model innovation? We had the pleasure to break this question down with Jacqueline DeRosa, Vice President Battery Energy Storage Systems of Ameresco, Omeed Badkoobeh, Co-Founder & CEO of Yotta Energy, Marek Kubik, Market Director of Fluence in the UK, and Zach Ward, Head of North America Division of Sungrow USA Corporation.This was the final session of Day 2 of our SunCast Clean Energy Summit back in April 2020. Check out this and more sessions over at www.suncastsummit.comCheck out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

Today’s episode is one of the keynotes of our SunCast Clean Energy Summit: the State of the Union of Clean Energy in the LATAM region. Learn about this market’s ecosystem, players, and dynamics from BloombergNEF's Head of Research in LATAM, James Ellis. He is based in São Paulo, and he oversees an analyst team focused on research material into the clean energy sector across the LATAM region. This was a great session to those who needed (and need) to make critical decisions around how to grow their companies, how the market moves, and how to stay ahead of it.This was one of the sessions of Day 3 of our SunCast Clean Energy Summit back in May 2020. Check out this and more sessions over at www.suncastsummit.comCheck out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

Did you ever wonder how ideas like SunRun’s Brightbox Storage Program got their start?Today’s Intrapreneur and solar OG, Paul Dailey, has had a hand in that bright idea and more in his 2+ decade career on the solarcoaster. We dig into his journey to Director of Product Strategy at Outback, the twists and turns along the way, and the carefully curated and practical steps he took to craft his role in this booming market. Committed listeners will recall that we had Paul on last week for a Tactical Tuesday on Storage Trends, so if you missed that one, I hope you’ll bookmark it for later as well.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

What you’re about to hear was recorded LIVE during the pandemic, but also during the first-ever virtual solar conference hosted by our friends over at Midwest Solar Expo 2020.I was the moderator for a panel dedicated all about the innovations around operations and maintenance. This topic certainly demands more attention than what it’s getting within the clean energy industry, so we’re trying to give it more exposure. Thanks to our friends at Midwest Solar Expo 2020, as well as the fantastic individuals who participated in this panel:Etienne Lecompte, Founder & CEO of PowerHubEric Peterman, CEO of GRNE SolarReegan Moen, Business Development Manager of SOLV.It was such an interesting conversation, so stay tuned to hear all of their contributions to this panel.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

It’s truly an honor every time I get the chance on this show to highlight the work that folks are doing to bring light, electricity, hope and opportunity to those less fortunate. Today’s entrepreneur has traveled the world producing and acting in films, and she has learned what a privilege we have in developed countries to consider electric lights and running water a necessity, not a luxury.She also has seen first hand how introducing the simplest of light can eradicate darkness in many different ways, and elevate equity, in particular among females, in powerful ways in a community. That’s why Nicole Watson founded Econic Earth Foundation. She’s taking light into dark places from India to Kenya and bringing good news to you and me... and she's just getting started. I encourage you to set aside some time as you hear her story and ponder what you also can do with the freedom and luxuries you’ve been afforded to care for those less fortunate. You may not start a foundation, or even a movement, but you can be sure you have the power to change lives.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

Today’s conversation is aimed to discuss the storage scenarios many of you face, which are Residential & Commercial spaces, and today’s Intrapreneur, Paul Dailey, has a decorated career in some of the most recognized and established solar companies in the business serving those 2 markets.It’s no wonder Outback Power recruited him to head Product and Market Strategy, and it was great to have a fellow podcaster on the show as Paul originated the AEE podcast nearly a decade ago!We are going to dig into Paul’s predictions for Storage based on an article he penned for GTM back in February. We covered system costs, storage trends, safety standards, AC v DC Coupling and more.Check out OpenSolar OS 3.0 at: https://suncast.media/opensolarIf you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeoLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus