Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Yesterday, Base Power announced a $1 billion series C, giving the residential battery company an eye-popping $4 billion post-money valuation. Base manufactures, installs, owns, and operates residential batteries — a vertical integration strategy that CEO Zach Dell says is the “magic” to beating utility-scale batteries on CapEx. The company also acts as an electricity retailer and sells generation capacity.

So how does Base’s business model work? And what will it do with its new fundraise? 

In this episode, Shayle talks to Zach about Base’s business model, the vertical integration strategy, and the challenges ahead. They cover topics like:

The customer value proposition: how customers pay for backup power and Base uses the batteries for grid services

Bases’s “gentailer” business model in ERCOT, earning revenue from monthly customer fees, retail electricity sales, and battery arbitrage

The regulated market approach, where Base sells capacity directly to utilities

Base’s vertical integration strategy: from ground-mounted designs to decoupled installation processes

Challenges like managing a fixed workforce amid fluctuating demand and the declining price volatility in ERCOT

Resources:

New York Times: Base Power, a Battery-Focused Power Company, Raises $1 Billion

Open Circuit: Is this moment for distributed energy different?  

Catalyst: Is now the time for DERs to scale? 

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by Bloom Energy. AI data centers can’t wait years for grid power—and with Bloom Energy’s fuel cells, they don’t have to. Bloom Energy delivers affordable, always-on, ultra-reliable onsite power, built for chipmakers, hyperscalers, and data center leaders looking to power their operations at AI speed. Learn more by visiting BloomEnergy.com.

After the failure of federal climate legislation in 2010, clean energy advocates realized they had to look elsewhere for momentum. The result was a shift toward states and regional markets — and the creation of Advanced Energy United, a trade group built to make policy progress outside of Washington.

Today, that strategy is more important than ever. With the federal government rolling out new regulatory hurdles, load growth accelerating, and an affordability crisis growing, states have become critical for industry growth.

In this episode, Heather O’Neill, the CEO of Advanced Energy United, talks about a new playbook for scaling clean energy in this environment. The framework: build it, make it flexible, and make it affordable.

That means removing red tape for new projects, unlocking more value from existing infrastructure through tools like virtual power plants and advanced transmission technologies, and ensuring affordability as utilities make massive investment decisions.

“States are where some of our most forward-looking and politically resilient clean energy policies have been developed,” said O’Neill. “And that’s where the opportunities are today.”

This week, we feature an edited version of our recent Frontier Forum with Heather about how states are shaping the clean energy transition, and how companies can use United’s new playbook to grow the market.

You can download United’s new playbook guide here, and watch the full Frontier Forum conversation with live audience Q&A at Latitude Media.

Demand response was the original distributed energy resource. In its early days, it was surprisingly manual: a grid operator would call up a large load, like a factory, and request a few hours of reduced demand during peak times.

Fast forward to today and DERs look dramatically different. They’re automated, deployed frequently across the country, and include everything from EVs and thermostats to sophisticated management systems at paper mills and data centers. 

So how did DERs evolve from phone calls to fully fledged virtual power plants? And what role do they play now as electricity demand surges?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Dana Guernsey, co-founder and CEO of DER and VPP developer Voltus. She is also the former director of energy markets at EnerNOC, a pioneer in demand response. Shayle and Dana cover topics like:

The changing mix of customers and resources, as well as the evolving use cases

Voltus’ new “Bring Your Own Capacity” model, allowing large loads like data centers to fund regional VPPs

The barriers that hold DERs back, like access to data

The market forces shaping DER adoption, including load growth, declining system costs, and market structures

How DERs stack up against conventional power plants in meeting rising demand

Resources:

Open Circuit: The grid flexibility solutions staring us in the face

Catalyst: Is now the time for DERs to scale?  

Catalyst: Making DERs work for load growth  

Catalyst: PJM and the capacity crunch  

Latitude Media: Google expands demand response to target machine learning workloads

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by Bloom Energy. AI data centers can’t wait years for grid power—and with Bloom Energy’s fuel cells, they don’t have to. Bloom Energy delivers affordable, always-on, ultra-reliable onsite power, built for chipmakers, hyperscalers, and data center leaders looking to power their operations at AI speed. Learn more by visiting BloomEnergy.com.

Agricultural byproducts like corn stover, wood chips, and soybean husks typically get left to decompose and release carbon dioxide. Don’t call them “waste” though; some farmers use these byproducts as field cover to improve soil health. And industry uses a fraction of this biomass as feedstock for valuable products like ethanol, electricity, and heat. Theoretically, it’s a vastly underutilized resource. 

The problem is that agricultural residue is really hard to collect. The economics of gathering, sorting, processing, and refining are tough. On top of that, it makes for a crappy fuel. It’s low energy density and high carbon, compared to oil, for example.

So in what applications does agricultural residue make the most sense? And how do you economically collect the material at scale?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and CEO of Charm Industrial, a carbon removal startup that collects agricultural residue and refines it in the field into what it calls “bio-oil.” It then injects the bio-oil underground for sequestration. Together, Peter and Shayle discuss the use cases and collection of agricultural residue, covering topics like:

How the difficult economics of collecting and transporting biomass have killed centralized biomass projects, except in a few niche examples

Why Peter says the processing and densification are key to improving the economics

The tradeoffs between big, centralized processing facilities and Charm’s on-field mobile pyrolysis units

The case for using agricultural residue for applications where the carbon content matters, like iron-making, sustainable aviation fuel, and carbon removal

What’s driving carbon removal buyers and what it takes to build trust with them

Resources:

Catalyst: Fuzzy math and food competition: The pitfalls of sourcing biomass for carbon removal  

Open Circuit: What we learned from the ethanol disaster  

Catalyst: Shopify’s head of sustainability on the realities of the carbon removal market  

Catalyst: From biowaste to ‘biogold’  

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a solar and energy storage development and procurement platform helping clients make optimal decisions, saving significant time, money, and reducing risk. Subscribers instantly access pricing, product, and supplier data. Learn more at ⁠go.anzarenewables.com/latitude⁠. 

Catalyst is supported by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform by visiting ⁠energyhub.com⁠.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at ⁠⁠antennagroup.com⁠⁠.

A decade ago, DERs were hot. The hype was that things like batteries, smart devices, and other distributed energy technologies would offset the need for expanding traditional grid infrastructure.

But DERs never took off, at least not at the scale that many hoped for. They had high price tags and short track records compared to the existing substations, transmission lines, and generation options  that utilities were familiar with. In short, the market didn’t need them yet.

Fast forward 10 years, and things have changed. Load growth is increasing  while major grid bottlenecks — like in transmission, interconnection, and supply chains — may be opening up a new opportunity. 

So is the time finally right for DERs?

In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners. Last week, Andy published a blog post making the case that DERs were a good idea that was just too early, but the market is ready now. Shayle and Andy cover topics like:

What held DERs back a decade ago 

Why now is different, including falling system costs and growing grid bottlenecks

The difference between demand response and virtual power plants

The potential hurdles to scale, like supply chain bottlenecks, foreign entity of concern regulations, and fire codes

Resources:

Latitude Media: Can distributed energy answer AI’s power problem?  

Open Circuit: The grid flexibility solutions staring us in the face  

Catalyst: Making DERs work for load growth  

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a solar and energy storage development and procurement platform helping clients make optimal decisions, saving significant time, money, and reducing risk. Subscribers instantly access pricing, product, and supplier data. Learn more at ⁠go.anzarenewables.com/latitude⁠. 

Catalyst is supported by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform by visiting ⁠energyhub.com⁠.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at ⁠⁠antennagroup.com⁠⁠.

The idea of colocating data centers with behind-the-meter generation is picking up steam, including large projects in Memphis, Texas, and Utah developing significant on-site capacity, mostly from combined-cycle gas plants. The main argument is speed to power. Building your own generation allows data centers to sidestep the challenges involved in grid upgrades, transmission, and permitting. 

But when does a good idea jump the shark?

In this episode, Shayle brings Brian Janous back on the show to talk about why a data center might not want to colocate generation. Brian is co-founder and chief commercial officer at data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure. He makes the case for relying on alternatives instead, like batteries, grid-enhancing technologies (GETs), advanced conductors, and a range of other non-generation options to take advantage of untapped capacity in the existing grid. Shayle and Brian cover topics like:

Whether 24/7 loads actually needs 24/7 power and why utilities solve for peaks, not 24/7 needs 

The constraints of colocation, including gas constraints, added complexity and cost, and permitting challenges

The complexity of multiple-party solutions involving VPPs, GETs, and other alternatives vs. the relative simplicity of single-party generation 

Why both Shayle and Brian are skeptical of on-site nuclear

Resources:

Catalyst: The case for colocating data centers and generation  

Latitude Media: AEP, Dominion argue there’s no such thing as ‘isolated’ colocation for data centers  

Catalyst: Explaining the ‘Watt-Bit Spread’  

Catalyst: The potential for flexible data centers  

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a solar and energy storage development and procurement platform helping clients make optimal decisions, saving significant time, money, and reducing risk. Subscribers instantly access pricing, product, and supplier data. Learn more at ⁠go.anzarenewables.com/latitude⁠.

Catalyst is supported by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform by visiting ⁠energyhub.com⁠.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at ⁠antennagroup.com⁠.

You sent in great questions, and today we’re answering them. In this episode, Shayle hands it over to Lara Pierpoint, the managing director of Trellis Climate at the Prime Coalition and host of The Green Blueprint. Together they cover topics like:

Whether solar radiation management will remain the “black sheep” of climate technologies

What technologies will excel in a world of rising power prices

Whether the nuclear renaissance is finally here

Why Lara and Shayle are more bullish on vehicle-to-home than V2G

The thorny plastics problem – and whether it’s core to climate change

Resources:

Catalyst: Solar geoengineering: Is it worth the risk? 

Latitude Media: Google, Kairos, and TVA ink historic next-generation nuclear deal  

Catalyst: The US power demand surge: The electricity gauntlet has arrived  

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a solar and energy storage development and procurement platform helping clients make optimal decisions, saving significant time, money, and reducing risk. Subscribers instantly access pricing, product, and supplier data. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Adding flexibility to data center loads could ease strain on the grid and reduce the need for costly new generation. And, according to one study, shaving off just a few megawatts during peak hours could also unlock unused capacity —as many as 98 gigawatts in the U.S —  if those facilities reduced load by just 0.5% each year.  

The problem: data centers promise near-perfect reliability, often “five nines” (99.999% uptime) in service-level agreements with customers. That leaves little room to adjust something as critical to reliability as power. 

But times are changing. The data center market is reckoning with the constraints of the power grid and growing concern about pushing up electricity prices to pay for new generation. In July, the Electric Power Resource Institute’s DCFlex demonstration at an Oracle data center in Phoenix, Arizona, reduced load 25% during peak demand. And this month Google expanded its demand response through two new agreements with Michigan Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

So what are the actual mechanics of data center flexibility?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO of Emerald AI. The startup’s data center flexibility platform powered EPRI’s DCFlex demonstration. Shayle and Varun cover topics like:

What people often misunderstand about how much of their nameplate capacity data centers actually use 

The distinct load profiles of training, inference, and other workloads

How data centers can pause, slow, or shift workloads in time or space to reduce demand

What it will take for flexibility solutions like Emerald AI to earn operator trust 

How much flexibility data centers can realistically achieve 

Varun’s long-term vision for evolving from occasional demand response to weekly or even daily load shifting

Resources:

Latitude Media: Nvidia and Oracle tapped this startup to flex a Phoenix data center  

Latitude Media: Google expands demand response to target machine learning workloads   

Catalyst: The potential for flexible data centers  

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a solar and energy storage development and procurement platform helping clients make optimal decisions, saving significant time, money, and reducing risk. Subscribers instantly access pricing, product, and supplier data. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is supported by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform by visiting energyhub.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Editor's note: With the Trump administration's efforts to roll back California's electric trucking rules, there's new attention on heavy duty transport right now. So we're bringing you a deep dive into the industry, an episode of The Green Blueprint on Terawatt Infrastructure's $1 billion strategy to build charging depots.

In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terrawatt Infrastructure with a bold mission: create the backbone for America's electric trucking revolution.

Within its first year, Terrawatt secured a billion-dollar investment. But as the company developed plans for a nationwide charging network, it confronted the daunting challenge of building infrastructure for an electric truck market that barely existed. 

High-profile bankruptcies like Nikola Motors cast long shadows over the sector's viability, raising questions about whether heavy-duty transport can truly be electrified.

In this episode, Lara talks with Neha about how Terrawatt aims to transform freight transport despite market skepticism. Neha explains Terawatt’s strategic approach to site selection, innovative charging designs for fully-loaded trucks, and the vision for a revolutionary California-to-Texas network.

Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Our first episode covering sodium-ion batteries featured a cautious take on the chemistry: Back in February Adrian Yao, founder of Stanford’s STEER program, explained the challenges of reaching competitive energy density and costs, especially given the falling price of LFP. Still, sodium-ion chemistries are picking up steam, thanks largely to growing deployments in stationary storage and small-scale mobility in China.

So what’s a more bullish take on sodium-ion?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Landon Mossburg, founder and CEO of sodium-ion battery manufacturer Peak Energy. He outlines a pathway to competitiveness and argues that, in the right applications, the advantages of sodium-ion chemistries outweigh their challenges. Shayle and Landon cover topics like:

Why almost all current deployments of sodium-ion capacity are in China — and why Korean battery giants are committed to LFP right now

The thermal advantages of sodium iron pyrophosphate (NFPP) vs. the higher energy densities of layered oxides

Sodium-ion's supply chain benefits and lower CapEx requirements

How NFPP’s system-level savings in cooling, safety, auxiliary power, and maintenance — plus strong cycle life — could offset its current cell cost premium

Resources:

Catalyst: The promise and perils of sodium-ion batteries  

Latitude Media: Peak Energy’s quest to build US sodium-ion battery dominance  

Latitude Media: Is it too late for the US to rival China on sodium-ion batteries?  

Nature Energy: Critically assessing sodium-ion technology roadmaps and scenarios for techno-economic competitiveness against lithium-ion batteries  

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a solar and energy storage development and procurement platform helping clients make optimal decisions, saving significant time, money, and reducing risk. Subscribers instantly access pricing, product, and supplier data. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is supported by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform by visiting energyhub.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.