Today on This Week In Solar, Aaron Nichols welcomes Emmitt Muckles. He’s a solar trainer, consultant, DJ, and self-described “social nerd.” We focused this conversation on why solar is the greatest career path out there, how to teach technical topics people actually remember, and why love and empathy make better trainers and teams.

Emmitt is an absolute joy to interview and listen to.

Expect to Learn:

* The “know your audience” playbook: how Emmitt gets manuals and SOPs to land with 14-year-olds and grandmas.

* Why it’s important to start with love, let love help you create art, and let art lead you to mastery.

* Career advice for newcomers: “find your rock” (specialize), then collaborate to move the industry forward.

Quotes from the Episode:

“I want you to overstand, not just understand. Start with love, and the art will follow.” – Emmitt Muckles

“If your bill jumps from $200 to $400 and you can get solar for $200 a month—you’re winning.” – Emmitt Muckles

“Two literacies every adult needs: financial literacy and energy literacy.” – Emmitt Muckles

You can listen to this episode here, or on:

* YouTube

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

Transcript:

Aaron Nichols: Hello everyone and welcome back to This Week in Solar. I’m your host, Aaron Nichols, the Research and Policy Specialist here at Exact Solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania. And today we have a very special show for you. It is someone who is a new acquaintance in my life and feels like a kindred spirit. I had so much fun when I was on his podcast—it was my favorite interview I’ve done since I started in solar two years ago (sorry, Nico Johnson—Suncast is incredible too!). It’s Emmitt Muckles, ladies and gentlemen. Emmitt, if you’d like to introduce yourself—say who you are and what you do—we can get into it.

Emmitt Muckles: You know, when you have a name like Emmitt Muckles, how do you introduce yourself? It’s “Emmitt Muckles,” and everybody goes, “Oh, it’s Emmitt,” that’s how it is. Well, let’s talk about what I do—what I travel around doing. The big thing is I am what the guy who got me into this industry, Mo Mahon, calls a “social nerd.” Which means I like really technical things, I’m in my head a lot, but I know how to interact with people and I have empathy. I empathize with the audience: how are you interpreting what I’m presenting? How are you overstanding it? I say “overstand” versus understand because I want you to overstand what I’m conveying. And a big one—in sales and in training—is: know your audience. So many times I’ve seen people who didn’t.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah—do you know Spencer Meeks? His superhero origin story is training speakers in clean energy—he wants to make clean energy sound good. He hammers on how technical professionals don’t know how to sound charismatic. He tells a story of going to a conference where one talk was on starfish and another was on properly decommissioning the most poisonous gas known to man. He figured the gas talk would be amazing and the starfish would just pass time—then the starfish talk was phenomenal with visuals and storytelling, and the gas talk was just a guy reading bullet points for an hour.

Emmitt Muckles: That is a thing. I was just in a conversation today with a potential client asking, “How do we create engagement with manuals and SOPs?” You have to find the human connection. As you digest it, how would you explain it to your 15-year-old, your 10-year-old, your 70-year-old? There’s a dynamic: your grandma has patience; your 14-year-old doesn’t. And sometimes all of them are in the same room—how do you communicate so they all leave with value? You have to dig into the spiritual part of yourself—take your “eyeballs out” and look back at yourself. What would you see if you didn’t know you?

Aaron Nichols: Let’s talk about the Venn diagram—spiritual, engaging—and then your consulting business and how that fits into solar and beyond.

Emmitt Muckles: Everything I do starts with love. You have to love the people, the content, the structure—if you do it with love, it gels. If you do it just for money, you can tell; it’s not there. When you look for the love, you find the art. Everyone who’s really good figured out the art—LeBron, Jordan, Bruno Mars—they flow. For me it started with inverter training. I was working for an inverter manufacturer because someone I’d trained in another industry brought me in. The solar coaster is real. I worked at Fronius for seven years—people were shocked I stayed that long—but there’s a time and place for everything. Through roles and factions, training stayed in my spirit. Even in sales, I trained others. Recently I asked, “Why am I doing this for one fine group? Why am I in a box?” I meditated, talked to the universe, and got the OK: time to do it. What’s kept me here is it hits everything I love—being with people; really technical things; harnessing my ADHD to focus on NEC codes, UL listings, and hyper-local policies because they might matter. It lets me use all my talents. I’ve even DJed in solar.

Aaron Nichols: I noticed your LinkedIn—about 10 years as a DJ. I’m curious about the origin story—and how you ended up in solar.

Emmitt Muckles: There’s a guy named Mornet “Mo” Mahon. I trained him. We were in gaming at MGM Grand Detroit; we did some work in Vegas too. I was a manager, he a technician. The UAW needed to sort pay structure—folks hired in with different skill levels. I created a course: rudimentary electronics and applied troubleshooting. You took a test, your score determined pay. Years later, we’d both moved on. I check on people—love is big with me. I called him: “How you doing?” He said, “I need you.” He was at an inverter manufacturer and needed a trainer; that earlier course impacted him. He brought me on knowing I’d pick apart service processes (I came from automotive). I became trainer and troubleshooter and created the Fronius service program for the Americas—cost savings and community builder—bring people in, show you care, help them save money or create revenue. As for DJing: I’m from Detroit—always a side hustle. Marketing folks would say, “We’re going to Vegas—want to DJ?” I’d say, “Yeah!” I DJed at the Stratosphere, Gilley’s, corporate events—might DJ at NABCEP in Milwaukee. It all flowed from friendship, concern, doing good work, and genuine energy—each one teach one—elders pass it down.

Aaron Nichols: I’ve been blown away the last two years meeting amazing people in solar. I was in education—those weren’t my people. Peace Corps—also not quite it. In solar, I found my people: service-minded, hustling, hard-working, believing in a better future. With you working for big names over a decade-plus—how have you ridden the policy waves of the solar coaster and stayed so high-spirited? That’s what impressed me when I met you.

Emmitt Muckles: I’m from the east side of Detroit—once the murder capital—those were my coming-of-age years. Every day I wake up, put feet on the ground, use the bathroom, have coffee—I’m winning. Some people can’t get out of bed, can’t have coffee—I’m winning. I’ve been outside the country; when you come back you realize how good we have it. We drive ourselves crazy with choice. But to move forward we have to reevaluate the financial model to make solar affordable. I suspected they’d remove incentives, people would say “solar’s dead,” then raise rates—and that’s happening. I moved to Indiana paying under $0.10/kWh; I read it could go to ~$0.19 soon. We saw increases—people asked, “What’s going on?” That’s when solar makes sense in the middle of the country and elsewhere—offset it. If your bill went from $200 to $400 and you can get a $200/month solar loan with 100% offset—you’re winning.

Aaron Nichols: Exactly. Even if you finance, you’ve already taken out a forever loan with the utility—with no ownership, no innovation, just rising costs. Home ownership has costs, sure, but rates going up while EV incentives drop means lots of folks bought EVs without solar to offset. Now rates rise—making the case for solar without incentives. If people embrace that, they’re golden.

Emmitt Muckles: We’re at the infancy. I love Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point—we’re not close yet. Meanwhile, we’re adopting energy-hungry things—AI everywhere. Data centers require energy. Either neighborhoods offset with VPPs and intelligent grids, or we get brownouts. Americans won’t tolerate that. One gateway is “solar generators”—portable power stations. Park one by your entertainment center, run a cord to a foldable module on the patio—even in an apartment with sun. It’s economical. We often look through a toilet-paper-roll perspective instead of broader options.

Aaron Nichols: EnergySage just wrote about this. I did a 2.5-week remote work road trip with my girlfriend—dispersed camping—200W panel, a budget battery bank, and Starlink. We took video calls from the woods. With a $100 marketplace panel and used battery bank, you can run an entertainment center off solar and avoid utility usage. It’s also about literacy.

Emmitt Muckles: Two things every adult should understand: financial literacy and energy literacy. We take both for granted. On money, there’s credit—even with a 500 score you’ll get a card (at awful interest) and use it. On energy, when rates go up you need to adapt: maybe AC can’t stay at 69°F all summer—bump to 74; maybe your insulation isn’t what you thought. A little logic goes a long way.

Aaron Nichols: Having been to the developing world, I’ve met people with more “common sense.” Extreme privilege can erode it. I’m the oldest—my younger siblings had more security. Different experiences shape different resilience.

Emmitt Muckles: Exactly. We have a 16-year-old who barely goes outside—walked to the mailbox and got sunburned. Their world is inside. We just have to take inventory of where we are and see what’s available. For the next-gen of climate-tech workers: look at what your life could be in 10 years. Find a rock that’s yours. Mine is training and communication—that means staying current on a lot. But you can be an SME on one thing—be the person who answers questions. Get enough of those people in a room and all the questions get answered; from there, everything moves forward.

Aaron Nichols: So: don’t try to be a generalist—find what you love in clean energy and bring your special sauce.

Emmitt Muckles: Exactly. I know someone who just does safety—deep nerd on it. Someone who’s only into batteries. Someone who lives in permitting (my buddy Jeff Spies niched into permitting). There are countless avenues—technical and human. Sometimes the job is the human interface that ties it together. Early solar had a tight community—OGs who built it. Later came the “tight-suit” era—sales-heavy. We just have to keep the community going. If you get a chance, talk to David Katz about how he started—tell him I sent you. The elders were OGs; they built the foundation.

Aaron Nichols: To close, I’ve been asking everyone the same question tied to my grandma’s 80th. Ten years before she was born (she was born in ’45), the Rural Electrification Act happened. We only knew how to dig and burn to make power. PV came in 1954. In ’79, solar thermal went on the White House. In her life we went from barely having electricity to today’s ultra-low solar prices. Where does clean energy go in 80 years?

Emmitt Muckles: That depends on us—globally. If we become a global community and remove “us vs. them,” energy can be localized everywhere. Think Back to the Future—a tiny reactor in the DeLorean. Maybe not that, but breakthroughs are coming. I’m going down the VPP rabbit hole—my household uses ~30 kWh/day on average; probably more than needed. If we culturally condition ourselves to use what we need, not what we want, renewables and other methods become easy to adopt. It’s a mindset shift, and your generation and the next are perfect for it—you see the world differently. Limiting consumption saves money and aligns with values, and the second-hand economy makes it easy to get what you need and repair it—building a relationship with your things. That DIY spirit is where we may be going—much like your grandma’s generation.

Aaron Nichols: Where can people find you if they want to connect or hire you?

Emmitt Muckles: I’m heavily on LinkedIn. On TikTok I’m @SolarEmmett. On X I’m @e_muckles—just type “Emmitt Muckles,” it’s a unique name. That’s Emmitt with “ITT”; Emmett with “ETT” is my dad! I used to hate the name at 13, but now it’s great—nobody steals the handle. Thanks for having me—this was a treat. And remember: the sun never sends a bill… from the What’s Up Solar podcast.

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