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The U.S. solar industry is primed for significant growth in the coming years, emboldened by big federal incentives and even bigger demand for renewable energy.

But asset owners are increasingly talking about extreme weather, underperformance, and labor shortages as growing risks to solar’s growth prospects. These are some of the uncomfortable issues in opposition to the industry's rosy public outlook.

Episode 51 of the Factor This! podcast features Jason Kaminsky, CEO of clean energy insurance provider kWh Analytics, which just dropped its fifth annual Solar Risk Assessment. And it's loaded with valuable insights.

Kaminsky shares the data behind solar's biggest risks, along with pathways to avoid potholes down the road.

That's all next on Factor This!

Show notes:
-Read the fifth annual Solar Risk Assessment from kWh Analytics

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In the spring of 2016, Jeff Bishop was developing wind projects when he came across an analyst chart that caught his eye.

Battery storage, the analysts forecasted, would follow a similar cost curve as solar. Costs would plummet as deployment ramped up to support a grid ever more dependent on intermittent renewable energy resources.

Bishop quit his job by the summer and launched Key Capture Energy, a developer, owner, and operator of grid-scale battery storage projects.

Turns out, the analysts were right. Seven years later, battery storage deployment is booming.

But the industry is still finding its way. Developers and regulators face questions about how to best use batteries, and what policy structures are needed to facilitate deployment. Moreover, the industry is learning on the fly about how these assets will perform under various state and utility demands.

Bishop joined Episode 50 of the Factor This! podcast to break down how states should, and shouldn't, go about procuring battery storage, and why software is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Plus, stick around for the inside story of how Key Capture went from the brink of insolvency to raising $100 million.

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Praise for the solar industry's meteoric growth often shines on developers and their multi-gigawatt pipelines and portfolios. Seldom does the limelight extend to the construction crews putting steel in the ground.

But clean electrons aren't generated by hope, targets, and schematics. It's the engineering, procurement, and construction firms that are executing the vision for a clean energy transition.

Therein lies an overlooked hurdle on the horizon: There simply aren't enough qualified EPCs, and workers, to meet the booming demand for solar projects. And rich incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act only stand to magnify the glut in supply.

Episode 49 of the Factor This! podcast features Chris Dunbar, CEO of Blue Ridge Power, for an inside look at how one of the industry's leading utility-scale solar and storage EPCs is navigating a chronic labor shortage and a tumultuous market plagued by supply chain constraints, trade disputes, and the interconnection slog.

Sure, gigawatts of solar projects are in motion. But who's going to build them?

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For more than 20 years, Adam Browning was solar's biggest cheerleader.

There was 165 MW of interconnected solar in the U.S. in 2002 when Browning founded Vote Solar. The organization quickly evolved into the industry's preeminent advocacy group. When he stepped down as executive director in 2021, that figure stood at 122 GW.

Today, Browning has his sights set on the next big decarbonization story, using lessons learned from solar's twists and turns to take on a "biblical" challenge.

Episode 48 of the Factor This! podcast features an old friend to many in solar.

Browning, now the executive vice president of policy and communications for the startup Forum Mobility, looks back on his storied career leading Vote Solar, reacts to the controversial NEM 3.0 ruling in California, and shares why he's starting over to takeon fleet electrification.

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Hurry up and wait.

We launched the Factor This! podcast one year ago — May 9, 2022 — to share a fresh and introspective account of the Auxin Solar tariff petition.

It's been a dark cloud hanging over the solar industry ever since—delaying projects and dampening enthusiasm around the Inflation Reduction Act.

May 2023, for better or worse, was supposed to restore certainty at last with a final determination from the Commerce Department. But that ruling was punted to August, yet again drawing out the industry's prolonged panic attack.

Episode 47 of the Factor This! podcast features an interview with Tim Brightbill, a partner and co-chair for the international trade practice at DC law firm Wiley Rein. He's also an adjunct international trade law professor at Georgetown.

Brightbill broke down the latest in the Auxin case and where it goes from here. Plus, a look back on the exclusive interview with Auxin Solar CEO Mamun Rashid that established the Factor This! as a must-listen for the solar industry.

That's all next on Factor This!

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Agrivoltaics -- solar PV paired with livestock or crops -- make for rich marketing materials. Good luck finding a developer brochure free of grazing sheep.

But the project segment is far more than a kitschy niche.

While the concept is well-understood in Europe, the U.S. is still finding its way with agrivoltaics. Early iterations lacked scalability due to added costs and irrational system requirements established by policymakers.

Lucy Bullock-Sieger wants you to forget everything you think you know about agrivoltaics.

As the vice president of strategy for Boston-based developer Lightstar Renewables, Bullock-Sieger is on a mission to prove that agrivoltaics is ready for primetime with a new approach.

In addition to establishing a cost-neutral agrivoltaics development process, Lightstar has experienced improved community relations, expedited permits, and a mitigant to the interconnection nightmare.

Bullock-Sieger joined Episode 46 of the Factor This! podcast to break down the rosy future for agrivoltaics. 

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A decarbonized grid, powered primarily by solar and wind, will require a lot of energy storage. Lithium-ion batteries, while the technology du jour, won't come close to solving the impending problem on their own.

The long-duration energy storage dilemma is multi-pronged: today's market structures don't adequately reward energy storage of longer than four hours, and potential solutions are mired in technical challenges and steep capex costs.

But one company may have cracked the code.

Episode 45 of Factor This! features Robert Piconi, CEO of Energy Vault, a company well on its way to deploying long-duration gravity storage systems at scale.

Energy Vault first made its splash with towering cranes lifting and lowering blocks under the guiding principles that have made pumped hydro the world's most significant energy storage resource.

Now, with a redesigned concept, the company is deploying its systems in partnership with major players like Enel… and even landed a green hydrogen deal with Pacific Gas & Electric, California's largest utility.

Can long-duration energy storage finally break through?

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The news from Entergy Louisiana may have required a second reading. And a third. The utility wants to go (really) big on solar. Why now?

Entergy Louisiana asked state regulators in March to approve 3 GW of new solar resources. That's on top of its request from a few weeks earlier for 225 MW of new solar, which would have nearly doubled the state's existing capacity.

Louisiana isn't known as the friendliest to solar. What led to the sudden change of heart?

Entergy  Louisiana CEO Phillip May joined Episode 44 of the Factor This! podcast to share an inside look at a Southern utility's view on the energy transition. May shared his outlook for solar, energy storage, green hydrogen, offshore wind, and more.

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More than a decade since John Berger founded Sunnova… the company is one of the largest residential solar and storage providers in the country. That would be enough for a lot of people. But success hasn't stopped Berger from pushing the envelope.

He recognized early on in his career, from his time at Enron and then the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, that the way we viewed and consumed energy was broken. He didn't necessarily know the answer then… but knew he would do whatever he could to fix it.

From Sunnova's push to create a micro-utility in California, to the aggregation of tens of thousands of residential solar and battery systems to compete with the monopolistic utility model, the company, and Berger, have set out to upend the status quo.

In Episode 43 of the Factor This, Berger gives his unvarnished take on decarbonization and taking on Goliath.

That's all next on Factor This!

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A new era of cleantech innovation is here. And it’s a good time to take stock of what’s in the pipeline. Green hydrogen, circular economies, and next-gen batteries are at the heart of “Cleantech 2.0.” These innovations could take the clean economy to new heights when paired with fresh federal incentives for fighting climate change.

Alok Sindher, a partner at the venture capital firm Fifth Wall, joined Episode 42 of the Factor This! podcast to break down what’s on the way and who’s positioned to cash in.

Fifth Wall is one of the largest VCs driving cleantech innovation with $2.9 billion raised for cleantech startups. The firm recently led the $30 million Series A round for solar module recycling startup SOLARCYCLE.

That's all next on Factor This!

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