SunCast

If you want to understand where the energy industry is heading, pay attention to the journalists tracking it every day.

Thankfully, we get to sit down with three of the most plugged-in reporters covering the energy transition: Sammy Roth of Climate-Colored Goggles (formerly w/ LA Times), Julian Spector of Canary Media, and Darrell Proctor of POWER Magazine.

What signals are shaping the market right now — from capital flowing into new energy projects to grid bottlenecks, AI-driven electricity demand, and the evolving narrative around fossil fuels and nuclear?

These are the conversations ha...

What does serious capital actually look for in the energy transition?

In this episode, Nico sits down with Brendan Bell, Co-Founder of Aligned Climate Capital and a former member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, to discuss how experienced investors evaluate energy companies, infrastructure projects, and management teams.

Brendan shares a practical look at:

• why raising capital has become more selective

• the common mistakes founders make when pitching investors

• what strong management teams do differently

• how infrastructure investors think about risk, scal...

From Davos to data centers, Axios reporter explains the new rules of power.

Amy Harder is one of the most widely read and respected reporters covering the intersection of energy, climate, and policy. As the national energy correspondent for Axios and author of the Harder Line newsletter, she helps industry leaders understand what’s actually happening inside the energy system.

In this conversation with Nico Johnson, Amy breaks down the forces reshaping the global energy landscape.

Artificial intelligence and data centers are driving electricity demand growth for the first time in de...

For nearly a decade, Abby Hopper served as President and CEO of SEIA, the Solar Energy Industries Association, representing the U.S. solar industry through one of its most transformative periods.

From trade wars and policy battles to the rise of domestic manufacturing and record industry growth, Abby had a front-row seat as solar moved from the margins of the energy system to the center of it.

In this conversation, Abby reflects on the challenges she inherited, the progress the industry made, and the work that still lies ahead — from building political influence in...

Every year, there is a new “crisis” in solar.

And yet… the industry keeps growing.

With leadership transition underway at the Solar Energy Industries Association, Darren Van’t Hof steps in as Interim President and CEO at a pivotal moment. Policy uncertainty. Permitting bottlenecks. Election year noise. And a projected $25 billion flowing into storage in 2026 alone.

So where do we really stand?

In this candid conversation recorded live at Intersolar & Energy Storage N.A., Darren shares why solar has already won the cost battle, why storage may be the most dur...

Most energy projects look solid on paper. Fewer stay on track in the field.

Brandon Moss sees the difference every day.

Energy demand is rising. Load growth is real. Timelines are tightening.

So what actually keeps large energy projects on track?

In this conversation, Brandon Moss, CEO of Shoals, shares what he sees from the center of utility-scale deployment. Shoals touches a significant portion of U.S. solar projects, giving Brandon a rare vantage point into how projects are planned, where they slip, and what separates strong operators from...

Listen to the full 2.5 hour episode here: https://suncast.media/episodes/900

Most companies don’t fail because of strategy.

They fail because standards slip.

In this 13-minute vignette, T.J. Rodgers breaks down the management system he’s used across more than 25 acquisitions to build and scale billion-dollar companies — and why discipline, not charisma, determines whether a business survives.

Inside:

• Why 19 out of 20 decisions in your company are made without you

• Why quality must be enforced, not admired

• Why speed of correction matters more than av...

Battery storage is scaling fast.

But scaling portfolios exposes weaknesses most owners never see coming.

As projects move from single sites to gigawatt-hour fleets, many IPPs discover something uncomfortable: they have dashboards - but not decision-grade visibility.

In this Episode, Lennart Hinrichs, EVP and General Manager of the Americas at TWAICE, explains what actually changes once batteries begin operating at scale.

We discuss:

“This is not an offensive play. It’s a defensive play. It’s a must win.”

That’s how Sheldon Kimber describes AI for companies like Google.

If your business depends on organizing and serving information, AI isn’t optional. It’s existential.

And if AI is existential, power becomes strategic.

In this conversation — recorded before Google’s acquisition of Intersect Power — Sheldon lays out the durable thesis that led here:

The U.S. grid isn’t collapsing.

It just can’t scale.

Transmission is stalled...

T.J. Rodgers has built — and rebuilt — billion-dollar companies across semiconductors, energy, storage, and manufacturing.

In this 2.5-hour Episode 900 deep dive, he walks through the operating principles behind that track record — in detail.

This isn’t a surface-level conversation. It’s a masterclass in how durable companies are actually constructed.

We unpack:

🔹 The mental models he uses to evaluate technologies and markets

🔹 The acquisition and integration process he’s deployed dozens of times

🔹 Why revenue per employee tells the truth — and what most CEOs hide behind

🔹 What “qu...

Conference season is back, and if you are heading to Intersolar and Energy Storage North America 2026, this episode is your unfair advantage.

Nico Johnson sits down with the people who know the show better than anyone. Event Director Beckie Kier, Solar Games mastermind Shannon Twombly, and Conference Chair Gene Hunt. Together, they break down how to get the most value from your time in San Diego, whether this is your first Intersolar or your tenth.

This is more than a show preview, it’s a snapshot of where the clean energy industry stands ri...

Modern founders spend years building toward a hopeful exit or liquidity event. Almost no one talks about what comes after the acquisition.

In this episode, Nico Johnson sits down with Andy Klump, founder of Clean Energy Associates (CEA), for a thoughtful conversation about leadership after transition. After fifteen years growing CEA and completing a multi-year earn-out, Andy is in a rare season of pause — stepping back from the CEO seat and reflecting on what actually mattered.

Rather than revisiting the early days, Andy shares lessons from leading through change, protecting culture during uncertainty, an...

Want to grow a billion-dollar business? You need better systems, not just better ideas.

Adam James has had a front-row view as Energy Impact Partners has scaled from a $500M fund into a multi-billion-dollar force as a clean energy VC. But, as he shares, the secret to success isn’t capital or flashy pitch decks. It’s an obsession with infrastructure, team building, and doing the messy work of aligning people and process.

In this candid conversation, Adam breaks down his methodology for scaling fast-growing organizations. From audits and goal-setting to the surprisingly over...

The solar industry scaled faster than almost anyone expected. But in the rush to deploy, one part of the system never fully got built.

In this episode, Nico Johnson sits down with Suvi Sharma, founder of Solaria and now co-founder and CEO of SolarCycle, to talk about what happens after solar works. Suvi explains why end-of-life planning, repowering, and material recovery are no longer edge cases - they’re becoming core infrastructure challenges for the industry.

This conversation goes beyond recycling. It’s about maturity. About what it means for solar to grow up a...

What goes through Alex Honnold’s mind when he’s thousands of feet off the ground without a rope?

After his first-ever Taipei 101 Live Broadcast ascent of one of the world’s tallest buildings, we thought it’d be useful to revisit what we learned from Alex about mental fortitude and his singular admonition to “do the thing”. Curious how Alex channels discomfort into growth? This episode explores the surprisingly grounded mental habits that drive one of the world’s most extreme athletes and how those same frameworks apply to business, energy, and impact.

You’ll hear...

Clean energy should be easy to finance.

The money exists.

The technology works.

The demand is real.

And yet, projects stall. Deals drag. Capital gets stuck.

And with the IRA crumbling under our feet, everyone is right to ask “how will these projects actually get funded?!”

So what’s actually broken?

In this episode of SunCast, I sit down with Alfred Johnson, CEO and co-founder of Crux, to unpack how clean-energy finance actually works once a project leaves the slide deck — how pricing gets dis...

Data centers aren’t the problem.

They’re the stress test.

As AI-driven demand surges, the grid is being pushed in ways it was never designed for. But instead of asking how to slow data centers down, today’s conversation asks a better question: Is the grid fit enough to handle what’s coming next?

In this Tactical Tuesday episode, recorded live with the Smart Electric Power Alliance, we explore grid fitness — a new way of thinking about flexibility, planning, and speed to power.

SEPA’s Ann Collier is joined by Ty...

What does a modern energy company actually look like?

In this episode, Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US, joins Nico Johnson to explore a question that sits at the center of Octopus’s strategy:

Is it a utility with great technology—or a technology company operating inside energy?

Nick’s career spans California energy policy, years running East Bay Community Energy, and now scaling Octopus in the U.S. He brings an operator’s perspective on what it really takes to build and run energy businesses inside complex regulatory systems.

The...

Big things come in small packages. Could something smaller than a deck of cards be instrumental in our ability to meet the needs of the energy transition?

In the ever-evolving landscape of power electronics, one material has been steadily gaining prominence due to its exceptional properties and transformative potential: Silicon Carbide (SiC). This remarkable semiconductor has revolutionized various industries, from automotive to aerospace, with its ability to operate at high temperatures, voltages and frequencies.

As data centers and energy infrastructure increasingly need higher-voltage, higher-current devices to meet the demands for AI, this technology...

The power grid isn’t just growing (at unprecedented rates!)

It’s becoming more complex, more distributed, and harder to manage.

In this episode, Marc Spieler, who leads NVIDIA’s global Energy business, explains how AI and accelerated computing already support grid operations, solar and storage forecasting, and infrastructure planning across the energy sector.

Nico and Marc explore why electrification and data center growth are reshaping demand patterns, how software-defined infrastructure helps utilities avoid costly missteps, and where AI delivers practical value today. This conversation focuses on real workflows, real constraints, and wh...

The energy grid is facing a challenge unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Think about this: one Virginia co-op has over 20 GW of demand in its queue. That’s more than the energy demand of New York City. As electrification and data center expansion accelerate, public power and electric co-ops are on the front lines of solving this surge.

Electric cooperatives and public utilities are facing a wave of electrification, data center load, and manufacturing demand that rivals the size of major cities. That’s what major power providers are up against — but they’re...

2025 was a year of hardship for many, yet it was also a crucible for entrepreneurs, developing grit, resilience and perspective. We were able to capture some phenomenal conversations on the SunCast Podcast, and wanted to highlight a few that stand out for their vision and which also got among the most downloads of the year. In 2025, the clean energy industry was finally thinking like Amazon, building like Ford, and investing like it’s personal. Today’s episode highlights some of the key moments in the SunCast Podcast that illustrated these points through conversations with a powerhouse lineup of l...

What do a struggling mom in Georgia and a solar installer named Jim have in common? Their stories can change elections and shape public perception of clean energy.

In this final episode of 2025, Aaron Nichols returns to SunCast with a mission: rescue storytelling from corporate cliché and remind us why one emotional story is worth a thousand graphs. His viral LinkedIn article Four Rules for Storytelling Corporate America Desperately Needs takes aim at how we confuse content creation with actual narrative power.

Aaron and Nico dissect why storytelling in our industry so often f...

🎄 Pull up a chair and pour some eggnog. It’s time for the first-ever SunCast Christmas episode.

This special holiday edition brings together the full SunCast leadership crew—Nico Johnson, Jeremy Pingul, and (drumroll, please) new team member Josh Beck—for a reflective and lively roundtable you won’t want to miss.

What made 2025 so memorable? From Alex Honnold’s surprising passion for solar, to technical deep-dives and industry revelations, this episode is packed with powerful moments and bold predictions. The crew also shares what inspired them most—from tribal nations to Texas renewables.

Can the city known for oil & gas become the center of clean energy?

In this powerhouse episode, we meet Jane Stricker, SVP of Energy Transition at the Greater Houston Partnership and Executive Director of HETI (Houston Energy Transition Initiative). Jane shares a front-row view of Houston’s bold strategy to stay the energy capital of the world – not just in oil, but in all forms of energy.

Jane breaks down how Houston is scaling clean tech faster than ever before, attracting startups and corporate giants alike, and why over $95 billion has already been inve...

Solar is finally getting smarter. And faster - thanks to…robots?

Recorded live at RE+ 2025, this episode takes you behind the scenes of solar’s most advanced innovations — from automation in engineering to AI-driven O&M and digital twins. Hosts Amy Norstedt and Josh Beck sit down with some of the Industry’s most forward-thinking executives to talk real-time transformation across the project lifecycle.

Featured in this episode:

Tyler Nelson, CEO at Revamp’s outlines how their new software suite (proven on >15% of all new solar built in the US last year!) is...

Most people in solar avoid the uncomfortable conversation: what happens when systems age, warranties expire, components fail, and the original installer is long gone.

Cesar Barbosa — founder of NuLife Power Services — has built a business around the part of the industry nobody wants to talk about: decommissioning, system remediation, and repowering. In this episode, Cesar breaks down why aging commercial solar is becoming a massive opportunity, the common failure points he’s seeing in the field, and why he believes repowering is the next frontier for EPCs, developers, and asset owners.

We also get in...

The rules of the game have changed. Have you figured out the OB3 playbook?

From massive tax credit shifts to permitting bottlenecks and foreign entity restrictions, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” has reshaped the future of clean energy in America. At this year’s RE+ 2025, top minds from GoodLeap, Infineon, SEIA, and Wood Mackenzie broke down what OB3 really implicates across solar, storage, and grid infrastructure.

Recorded live from the PowerUp Podcast Stage, this episode captures the pulse of an industry in motion. You’ll hear how residential solar is pivoting fast, why semi...

AI is pushing the grid to its limits — and transformers are now the critical path for both data centers and renewable projects.

Today’s guest, Doug Banty, EVP at Forgent (and former CEO of MGM Transformers), sits at the intersection of these two worlds. Half of his week at RE+ was spent across the strip at the Yotta data center conference, where the only topic on everyone’s mind was power. In this episode, Doug explains how AI-driven rack density is rewriting the entire powertrain, why hyperscalers are treating speed like an existential priority, and what t...

What’s your plan when the power goes out?

If you think a generator is your only option, think again.Today’s conversation, live from our RE+ PowerUp Live stage, Rachel Stotts of Jackery breaks down a new category of home energy backup: flexible, modular systems that you can easily scale and take with you. Whether you're facing tornadoes or planning a weekend tailgate, portable energy solutions cover everything from your fridge to your CPAP machine, and they’re becoming increasingly popular with prosumers who don’t want the hassles of traditional energy storage.

No per...

“Speed to Power” is the new race — but can the grid keep up?

Hyperscalers, AI, and industrial demand are pushing load growth from flat to vertical. Yet most projects still take five to seven years just to interconnect.

That’s the bottleneck Hugo Mena is tackling as Chief Growth Officer at Electric Power Engineers (EPE).

This live conversation addresses the forces shaping the grid of the future — and what it’ll actually take to deliver power at the speed innovation demands. Hugo shares how developers, utilities, and data centers can collaborate to unlock sp...

This Giving Tuesday, SunCast brings you three powerful stories of how clean energy is transforming communities, saving lives, and unlocking local climate action.

Host Nico Johnson sits down with leaders working across three different fronts of the climate fight:

• Robin Swanhuyser — Twende Solar

Electrifying community hubs in places like rural Ghana, turning schools and clinics into resilience engines for entire villages.

• Will Heegaard — Footprint Project

Deploying portable solar microgrids after hurricanes and wildfires, from Jamaica to Western North Carolina.

• Jack Hanson — Run on Climate

Empowering...

Can getting a solar permit be as fast as ordering takeout?

Permitting may be the most boring part of solar, but it's also the biggest bottleneck.

That’s what Matthew McAllister is working to fix. As CEO of SolarAPP, he’s leading a quiet revolution that helps installers skip the paperwork and get to work faster with instant, automated approvals.

In this episode, we dive into Matthew’s journey from the West Wing to the frontlines of the clean energy transition. With a background in government technology and big public wins like l...

America’s about to make a big bet on critical minerals and rare earths. In case you missed it, the DOE just reorganized and announced a major initiative around the refining of this critical element in our energy and defense future.  Why?  Because the energy and defense sectors are dangerously dependent on China’s refining power; but, what if we could change that without opening a single new mine? 

We recently covered a company that’s rethinking rare earth and critical mineral supply chains from the ground up. Mark LaVerghetta, VP at ReElement Technologies, explained that thei...

In 2008, Fluence installed one of the first lithium-ion battery systems ever connected to the U.S. grid. Back then, the idea of a domestic battery supply chain felt distant—almost theoretical.

Today, it’s real.

John Zahurancik, now President of Fluence Americas, has spent nearly two decades pushing the storage industry from “interesting pilot projects” to critical grid infrastructure. The last time he was on SunCast, he said domestic content would happen.

This year, Fluence started shipping it.

In this episode, John breaks down how storage has quietly become the back...

Most solar projects are still built the hard way—treating structure, electrical, and software as separate scopes that have to be stitched together in the field. But the teams delivering gigawatts today know something different: solar plants work best when they’re designed as systems, not parts.

In this Tactical Tuesday, Nico sits down with three of the people shaping that shift inside Nextpower:

Jake Morin (Chief Product Officer),

Ryan Schofield (VP of Electrical Systems), and

Jyoti Jain (Head of Software Product Management).

Together, they break down what...

Batteries aren’t just supporting the grid anymore, they are defending the grid.

Chris Finley, CCO of TruGrid, joins Nico on stage at PowerUp Live to explain how battery storage has shifted from a “nice-to-have” to a mission-critical asset class. Whether it’s enabling arbitrage in ERCOT or powering hyperscale data centers, battery systems are now leading the charge, literally.

From the complexities of supply chains to the myths about lithium tech, Chris shares a practical, from-the-field perspective on what it takes to deliver large-scale battery projects in today’s challenging market. He also break...

A Powerwall delivery truck flipped. No fire. No smoke. Seemed safe.

They tossed those Powerwalls into a landfill. Four days later—explosion!

That incident didn’t just make headlines; it changed Tesla’s fire strategy. In this Tactical Tuesday, retired Battalion Chief Kathleen McCaffery explains how that one mistake led Tesla to create a Global Fire Liaison role—and why every developer, EPC, and AHJ should borrow the playbook.

Kathleen walks through the real science of lithium-ion incidents and the simple operational changes that stop projects from turning into disasters. It’s short, p...

This episode marks ten years of SunCast - and the return of its very first guest.

In 2015, a young GTM Research analyst named Adam James joined host Nico Johnson for the debut episode exploring the rise of solar in Latin America.

A decade later, Adam is a Partner at Energy Impact Partners and Chair of the Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI). Together, he and Nico reflect on how far both they—and the clean energy industry—have come.

This isn’t just a reunion; it’s a conversation about how work, leadersh...

“Is your project really compliant?”

That’s the billion-dollar question developers across the U.S. are asking as Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) rules tighten their grip on clean energy tax credits. If you are(were) banking on the ITC, PTC, or 45X, you can’t afford to miss this Tactical Tuesday deep-dive.

The rules are shifting. Supply chains are murky. And guidance is still evolving. Host Nico Johnson pulls together an expert panel to decode how FEOC is reshaping the way projects are sourced, engineered, financed, and papered across the U.S. solar an...