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Currents

Latest episodes

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Feb 1, 2021 • 20min

Ep142: Climate Adaptive Infrastructure

Bill Green, managing partner of Climate Adaptive Infrastructure, joins us to talk about the meaning of the firm’s name and its mandate. We get into how Climate Adaptive Infrastructure is different from typical infrastructure investors, how the firm is tackling the ‘triple threat risk’ of the climate crisis, examples of recent investments the firm has made, areas that it is targeting, the point at which it wants to invest in a project and more.
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Jan 25, 2021 • 27min

Ep141: Leveraging Technology to Scale Clean Energy

Rudy Roy, CEO of HST, joins us to discuss the technology company’s mission of improving people’s lives by scaling clean energy. We discuss how HST has scaled its platform to have thousands of projects in over 100 countries, who the platform’s customers are, how its metasearch functionality works and applies to clean energy, how a software company can reduce a gigaton of carbon emissions, the challenges and opportunities he sees for global cooperation in the buildout of clean energy and more.
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Jan 21, 2021 • 1h

Ep140: Cost of Capital: 2021 Outlook

Many developers struggled during 2020 to find tax equity. Economists expect growth to start slow and accelerate by year end. Interest rates remain low, but the yield curve is becoming steeper as the bond market takes into account the potential for future inflation. Listen to a discussion led by Keith Martin, partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, among John C.S. Anderson, global head of corporate finance and infrastructure at Manulife, Jean-Pierre Boudrias, managing director and head of project finance for North America at Goldman Sachs, Jack Cargas, managing director at Bank of America, Ralph Cho, co-head of the North American power and infrastructure group at Investec, and Yale Henderson, managing director at J.P.Morgan, about what to expect in the year ahead for tax equity, bank and term loan B debt and project bonds.
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Jan 19, 2021 • 24min

Ep139: Arcadia's Community Solar Strategy

Kiran Bhatraju, CEO of Arcadia, and Jorge Vargas, operating partner at Energy Impact Partners, join us to discuss Arcadia’s community solar strategy, including subscriber management. We discuss the benefits of community solar compared to retail or rooftop, where the market is most active, how to manage community solar offtake effectively, how billing works, how customers can save money, Arcadia’s work with the project finance community, getting investors comfortable with no FICO scores and more.
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Jan 11, 2021 • 24min

Ep138: A Look at the Corporate PPA Market

John D. Powers, vice president, global renewables and cleantech at Schneider Electric, joins us for a close look at trends in the corporate renewable energy market. We discuss how an organization can best accelerate its carbon neutrality efforts, Schneider Electric’s Gigaton PPA Program with Walmart, whether other organizations can replicate the program, new corporate PPA markets that are emerging, opportunities for organizations to automate and digitize, other sustainability models and technologies to consider and more.
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Jan 4, 2021 • 36min

Ep137: Community Solar Market Update

Adam Kuehne, senior vice president of project finance at Summit Ridge Energy, a leading owner-operator of community solar projects in the US, joins us for a community solar market update. We discuss the market today, how it has been affected by COVID, what 2021 will look like, the next variants of community solar, his wish list for regulatory reform and more.
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Dec 22, 2020 • 9min

Ep136: Tax Extender Bill Unpacked

Keith Martin, partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, joins us to unpack the tax extenders bill that cleared Congress on Monday night. We discuss how the bill affects solar, wind, and other renewable energy projects, the immediate impact on the market, who the biggest beneficiaries are and more.
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Dec 21, 2020 • 20min

Ep135: Smart Technology in the Energy Industry

Nick Merricks, head of UK smart electricity meter products at Landis+Gyr, joins us to discuss smart technology in the energy industry. We discuss how COVID-19 has affected the market, the growing need to invest in infrastructure that will support the energy transition, how vital smart meters are to reaching net-zero carbon emissions, how regulation affects energy digitalization, what technologies Landis+Gyr is developing to support deployment of EVs and more.
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Dec 15, 2020 • 32min

Ep134: Developing Solar + Storage

Steve Vavrik, chief executive officer, Josh Prueher, chief financial officer, Mark Klein, chief operating officer, and Doug Moorehead, chief technology officer of Broad Reach Power, join us to discuss their investment strategy in solar + storage. We get into why they are so heavily concentrated in ERCOT and California, how they are different from other developers, the new battery projects they are developing in ERCOT, the changes they have seen in battery projects over the last decade and what they think we will see in the next five years and more.
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Dec 7, 2020 • 32min

Ep133: Clean Energy and Rural America’s Economic Rebound

Reid Spolek, energy lead at Google, Chris Hansen, vice president of origination and renewables at TVA, Spencer Sessions, senior manager of economic development at TVA and Johan Vanhee, chief commercial officer and chief procurement officer at Origis Energy, join us to discuss the role of clean energy in rural America’s economic rebound. We discuss how the organizations are involved with solar and energy storage in rural American communities, how the projects affect low-revenue-base communities, the challenges and lessons learned from the recently announced Skyhawk project, a 100-MW solar installation in Tennessee, how large corporate energy buyers like Google are viewed and much more.

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