Tim Montague

How to Build a Great Solar Company: Lessons from LightWave Solar CEO Chris Koczaja #365

Chris Koczaja grew LightWave Solar to 30 million dollars by refusing to chase every deal. This is the discipline that got him there. Chris Koczaja is the CEO of LightWave Solar, a residential and commercial solar and storage installer in Nashville, Tennessee, now in its 20th year in business.  In this conversation, Tim Montague asks…

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How do we Remove 1.7 Trillion Tons of CO₂? #364

Enhanced rock weathering pulls carbon dioxide from the air using crushed rock. Jim Mann, CEO and founder of Undo, explains how the process works and why the technology scales fast. Undo turns rock dust into permanent carbon storage and sells credits to Microsoft and British Airways at $350 a ton, a price Mann expects to…

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Commercial Solar Reality: A 700 kW Project, 5 Years in the Making #363

Dual-use solar financing in action: Sunrise Solar’s Richard Stoltzfus built a 700 kW behind-the-meter array for Harbor Sales Company. The build stacks a USDA REAP grant with a Maryland MEA grant and drives the customer’s levelized energy cost to near zero. A 700 kW behind-the-meter solar array now offsets 70 percent of the electric load…

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Georgia’s Data Center Boom Is Straining the Grid. Here’s How Solar Fits In #362

Georgia is the second-largest data center market in the country, and its grid is straining under load growth no one predicted five years ago. Michael Chanin, CEO of Cherry Street Energy, joins Tim to break down how behind-the-meter solar and storage are stepping in, why utilities need private capital to keep rates in check, and…

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Why 80% of Grid-Ready Devices Are Still Sitting on the Sidelines? #361

The U.S. needs 400 GW of new capacity over the next two decades. Michael Grasso, CEO and founder of Grid Rails, tells Tim Montague that roughly twice that much flexible capacity is already plugged in, and explains why only 20% of eligible devices are enrolled in virtual power plant programs today. Data centers, EVs, heat…

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Wildfire Smoke Cuts New England Solar Output by 40 Percent

Wildfire smoke from Canada cut solar production across New England by as much as 40 percent, according to ISO New England, a loss of 2,500 megawatts at peak hours compared to the forecast.  Tim Montague and John Weaver dig into that data, including John’s own project numbers, on the Clean Power Hour Live. They also…

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The Grid Can’t Keep Up. Can Linear Generators Solve the Power Crisis? #360

Power generation is changing fast. As utilities struggle with interconnection delays and growing electricity demand, businesses are looking for faster, more reliable ways to secure power. In this episode of Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Walt Jordan, Chief Revenue Officer at dGEN Energy Partners, to explore one of the least talked-about emerging…

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The Grid Was Built Over a Century Ago. Here’s How We Fix It. #359

America’s electric grid wasn’t built for AI, electric vehicles, battery storage, or the rapid growth of renewable energy. So how do we modernize a system that was built and started in the late 1800s and early 1900s, more than a century ago? In this episode of Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Zaid…

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Swift Solar’s Plan to Close the 10x U.S. Solar Cell Gap

What does it take to turn next-generation solar technology into a bankable commercial product? Swift Solar is closing the U.S. heterojunction and perovskite tandem solar cell gap. Dr. Gunter Erfurt, managing director at Swift Solar and former Meyer Burger CEO, joins Tim Montague and John Weaver to explain why U.S. module capacity sits near 50…

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Lives Saved: The Case for Community Microgrids #358

Community microgrids saved lives during a PG&E shutoff in Humboldt County. Lisa Cohn of Microgrid Knowledge has tracked every project getting built in America right now. She tells you what separates the ones that succeed from the ones that fail, and what you need to know before entering this market. Community microgrids are among the…

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