Community microgrids and virtual power plants are two of the most misunderstood concepts in clean energy, and the gap between them is where billions of dollars in grid value are being left on the table. Craig Lewis, Founder and CEO of the Clean Coalition, returns to The Clean Power Hour to break down how community-scale…

Energy resilience for homeowners is the mission behind Energy Access Innovations, a multi-brand clean energy company building an end-to-end ecosystem for solar and battery storage. Nicole Tomasin, Chief Commercial Officer at EAI, joins Tim Montague to explain how the company serves the consumers the rest of the industry ignores, including DIYers and rural markets. Battery…

Silicon solar is approaching a hard physical efficiency ceiling at 30%. Perovskite tandem solar is the only proven path through it. Joel Jean, CEO of Swift Solar, explains the technology, what the Meyer Burger acquisition brings, and where tandems sit on the road to commercial scale. After seven decades, silicon solar is closing in on…

A new report from Clean Energy Associates found that some solar module factories in their first year of production are hitting yield rates as low as 30%. That means 70% of modules coming off certain lines require rework before they ship. The finding applies directly to US manufacturers, most of which are still in early…

Community microgrids are functionally illegal in most of the United States, yet climate-driven outages are getting worse. Cameron Brooks of Think Microgrid explains why wires laws block resilient grid solutions and what it costs us to keep burying lines instead. Burying power lines costs $4 million per mile in Colorado and up to $9 million…

American solar manufacturing is getting a reboot. Dean Solon, founder of Create Energy and formerly of Shoals Technologies, sold 1 GW of product in Q1 of this year alone. In this episode, he walks Tim Montague through his vertically integrated factory in Portland, Tennessee, and names exactly why utility-scale solar equipment is quietly failing at…

Solar racking is one of the lowest-cost line items on a DG project and one of the highest-risk failure points. Kyle Sinclair, Co-founder and CEO of SDE (Sinclair Designs and Engineering), joins Tim Montague to explain how USA-made steel and 4-day commercial engineering turnarounds are solving the lead time and logistics failures that slow commercial…

LG Energy Solution plans to bring over 50 gigawatt hours of annual battery manufacturing capacity online in the US by the end of 2026 across five facilities (MI, IL, AZ, OH, GA). The company also projects a 15% cost reduction on its next-generation cells by 2028. Tim Montague and John Weaver dig into that story…

San Diego pays the second-highest electricity rates in the United States, trailing only Hawaii, and peak-hour pricing from 4 pm to 9 pm runs up to triple morning rates. In this episode, Tim Montague sits down with Rod Matthews, President of Brevian Energy, a North County San Diego developer focused on solar, battery storage, and…

Eighty-five towns across New York state sit under battery storage moratoriums right now, and two of three Westchester County towns where Joe Tassone Jr. built successful battery projects in 2020 have since banned the technology outright. In this episode, Tim Montague sits down with Joe Tassone Jr., partner at onCORE Origination, a site origination firm…