Currents

Katie McClain, partner at Energize Ventures, joins us to discuss the company’s investment approach. We get into what it looks for in clean energy and climate tech companies, how its approach differs from other funds, how Katie’s policy background shapes her personal investing thesis, the way decarbonization goals are shaping the clean energy economy and much more.

Maria Klutey, president of Activate Renewables, joins us to discuss how the company’s business model maximizes the value of renewable real estate holdings. We get into the history and background of Activate, its competitive advantage, the advantage that comes with partnering with DESRI, the structures offered to landowners and developers, how much of a project’s capital stack it typically funds, challenges to the business moving forward and more.

Matt Harper, chief commercial officer at Invinity Energy Systems, joins us to explain vanadium flow batteries. We discuss the future of energy storage, how vanadium flow batteries differ from lithium-ion, what has held back vanadium flow so far, what’s next for Invinity and more.

Sheldon Kimber, CEO and co-founder of Intersect Power, joins us to discuss what he is seeing in the industry and talk about the company’s latest financing. We discuss Intersect’s interest in green hydrogen, how big of an impact tariffs are having on supply chain issues, the current tax equity market, Intersect’s $2.6B financing for construction and operations of a six-portfolio project, and more.

Maryann Johnson, senior managing director of property and energy claims at Beecher Carlson, Brian DiLuigi, senior vice president of alternative energy, and Alex Nephew, risk management and insurance advisor with Brown & Brown, join us to discuss the complexities of insuring renewables. We discuss the different capabilities Beecher Carlson and Brown & Brown have to help renewable energy companies, the types of coverage the insurance market has in place for solar and other renewables, some of the differences within the renewables industry relating to coverage and cost for asset owners, what has been happening in regard to losses and claims due to recent severe weather events, the differences relating to coverage and cost for solar asset owners, risk factors that dictate appetite and cost for carriers, what developers and asset owners should be doing to minimize their risk and cost, and more.

Jackson Moore, product director at DNV for renewable energy software, joins us to discuss DNV's solar energy validation work and to address questions about how and why solar assets may underperform. We discuss factors that may affect the likelihood that a project will satisfy investor expectations, whether any of the common causes of underperformance may be remediable during operation, how underperformance risk is being addressed in project finance transactions and more.

Sam Porter and Mike Sloan, partners at Synergetic, join us to discuss green energy infrastructure. We go over Synergetic’s mission to deliver zero-carbon energy, the current infrastructure issues that it has identified, how fast the energy transition can happen, what has been learned from Texas’ proactive electric transmission plan (CREZ), what they expect from the infrastructure bill and more.

Michael Edesess, managing partner, and Pascal Schoneburg, founder of M1K, join us to talk about sustainable finance. We discuss what sustainable finance is, the financial instruments included in it, whether sustainable finance has been embraced by corporations, the benefits of a sustainable investment and more.

Arunava Mitra, CFO of Mitsubishi Power Americas, and Nik Nunes, CEO of Industrial Development Funding (IDF), join us to discuss their collaboration to provide creative forms of financing for energy projects. We get into who the two companies are, their plans for the energy transition, how Mitsubishi Power Americas is creating value for customers through the IDF financing solution, the most important trends and opportunities over the next 10 years in energy, where the companies see opportunities for future collaboration and more.

Brett Phillips, vice president, sustainable and responsible investments at Unico Solar, joins us to discuss the company and how it is developing projects in the C&I space. We get into the type of projects that Unico is investing in, the biggest challenges in developing C&I, the company’s joint venture with Excelsior Capital, how the company’s real estate background makes the contracting process easier, the company’s approach to tax equity and more.