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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's episode features special guest Jennifer Hiller of The Wall Street Journal, who wrote about U.S. utilities' plans to spend about $1.4 trillion over the next five years to upgrade the aging power grid and meet surging electricity demand driven largely by AI data centers.

This week’s “Cleantecher of the Week” is Kerry Bowie, President and Founder of Browning the Green Space, or BGS, a nonprofit in Massachusetts that creates job and business opportunities in clean energy for people of color through training programs, startup support, and career pipelines. It also brings together companies and partners to remove barriers and expand access to affordable, equitable energy solutions. Congratulations, Kerry! 

This Week in Cleantech — April 17, 2026 

1. Stung by Iran war, countries are turning against U.S. fossil fuels — The Washington Post
2. US power and natgas prices turn negative in Texas and California as mild weather cuts demand — Reuters
3. Michigan regulators to utilities: Incorporate virtual power plants, or else — Factor This
4. Great Britain households to be urged to use more power this summer as renewables soar | Renewable energy — The Guardian
5. Utilities Plan to Spend $1.4 Trillion Over Next Five Years to Power AI Boom — The Wall Street Journal

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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's episode features special guest Kelsey Tamborrino from POLITICO, who wrote a story in E&E News about a new survey of renewable energy developers that found federal permitting requirements are significantly slowing clean energy deployment.

This week's “Cleantechers of the Week” are Sam and Juliana Bendek, co-founders of Elastic Energy. The company developed a new tech that stores energy using natural tree sap. Congratulations Sam and Juliana!

This Week in Cleantech — April 10, 2026 

1. Wisconsin city passes nation’s first anti-data center referendum — POLITICO
2. Exclusive: Record funding for fusion power lands as Trump eyes cuts — Axios
3. State Climate Laws Targeted Around US as Iran War Spikes Gas Prices — Bloomberg
4. Will the Iran war derail the energy transition? — The Financial Times
5. Federal permitting obstructs clean energy deployment, survey finds — E&E News

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There’s no shortage of talk about the hardware and AI-driven transformations that will define the grid of the future. However, the true driver of success is about a strategic mindset that’s focused on change management, which is inherently more about people and process than it is technology and tools. Andy Quick lived and enabled this reality during a nearly 30-year career at Entergy, a journey that culminated in him serving as the utility's first-ever Chief AI Officer. Today, he’s taken that experience to the grid edge as Senior Industry Advisor for Noteworthy AI, where he helps utilities define and redefine their transformation roadmaps.

We caught up with Quick to talk through how he helps utilities navigate the "how" and "when" of tech integration, what it means to move past the hype to make difficult choices about which tools will truly modernize legacy processes, the importance of an organization's willingness to transform its human-centric workflows, and much more.

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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's episode features special guest Jeff St John from Canary Media, who reported on a 21 gigawatt solar and battery storage project in California, which is potentially the largest project of its kind in the world.

This week's "Cleantechers of the Week" are Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie, hosts of the brand new podcast, The Polycrisis. This podcast will cover geopolitics, climate change, finance and industry. 

This Week in Cleantech — April 03, 2026 

1. What Americans Really Pay For Electricity — Heatmap News
2. Top energy developer warns on overbuilding power supplies for AI — The Financial Times
3. US AI Data Center Expansion Relies on Chinese Electrical Equipment Imports — Bloomberg
4. A Winter Without Snow Depletes Europe’s Clean Energy Reservoir — Bloomberg
5. ‘We’re harvesting the sun’: A huge solar project grows in California — Canary Media

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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's "Cleantecher of the Week" is Robert Piconi, CEO of Energy Vault. This week, the company officially acquired the 175 MW McMurtre battery storage project in ERCOT North, taking its global portfolio of owned, operating, and under-construction assets to 715 MW. Congratulations, Robert!

This Week in Cleantech — March 27, 2026

1. Could a global economy dependent on renewable energy see less war? Experts explain — ABC News
2. Asia Turns Back to Coal as War Chokes Off Natural Gas — The New York Times
3. JPMorgan Warns Aging US Power Grids Pose National Security Risk — Bloomberg
4. How to get Big Tech to pay your energy bills — The Washington Post
5. Britain responds to Iran war energy shock by requiring solar panels and heat pumps in all new homes — CNBC

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Terms like “AMI 2.0” often mean different things to different teams, depending on a utility’s current infrastructure and future goals. This lack of consensus is why Matt Wakefield, Director of Information, Communication & Cyber Security at EPRI, argues that the industry may need to shift from hardware versions to core capabilities. By positioning AMI as a cross-cutting platform for grid visibility and DER integration, utilities can move far beyond simple meter-to-cash functions.

The “NextWave AMI” framework is designed to provide that capability-based lens, focusing on long-term value rather than the integration of a specific tool. Matt joins the Factor This podcast to explore how aligning people and processes with high-value AMI use cases allows utilities to achieve "stacked benefits" that address mounting pressures like affordability and grid resilience. He unpacks the limitations of viewing AMI 2.0 as a fixed technology stack and shares the resources available to help utilities plan their next transformational upgrades.

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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's episode features special guest Jennifer McDermott from the Associated Press, who reported on Revolution Wind, an offshore wind project targeted by Trump administration that is now sending power to the New England grid.

This week's "Cleantechers of the Week" are Martin Mulvihill, a partner at Safer Made, and Arlene Blum, a chemist, mountaineer and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute. Safer Made is a venture capital fund that invests in companies reducing human exposure to harmful chemicals, including through PFAS-alternatives, and the Green Science Policy Institute is a nonprofit that advocates for safer use of chemicals. 

This Week in Cleantech — March 20, 2026

1. How Ann Arbor, Michigan, is creating its own clean energy utility — Grist
2. Trump Officials Weigh New Plan to Stop Offshore Wind Farms — The New York Times
3. Surging Gas Prices Reignite EV Interest — Bloomberg
4. Oil and gas prices are soaring. Some countries are ready with solar panels and EVs — NPR
5. Offshore wind project targeted by Trump administration starts sending power to the New England grid — The Associated Press

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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's episode features special guest Chuck McCutcheon from Axios, who wrote about a new coalition of companies, including tech giants like Google and Tesla, which is aiming to make better use of underutilized capacity on the U.S. power grid

This week's "Cleantecher of the Week" is Samir Pendse, CEO at Coral. New York–based Coral provides instant rebates for energy and HVAC upgrades and recently raised $7.5 million in pre-seed and seed funding. The company is working to expand access to affordable financing for sustainable home upgrades at a time when energy bills are rising. Congratulations, Samir!

This Week in Cleantech — March 13, 2026 

1. Jefferies Makes the Case to Double Down on Clean Tech Investments — Bloomberg
2. Demand for AI Data Centers Sends Prospectors Hunting for Land and Power – The New York Times
3. Solar group takes revenge on Chip Roy over tax credits — E&E News
4. The Electric: Its Sales Sliding, BYD Fights Back With a New Battery — The Information
5. Exclusive: Google, Tesla unite to fight energy costs — Axios

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The energy landscape has entered a volatile era of climate disruption. Regions once considered safe now face the devastating reality of escalating wildfires and extreme weather. In this episode, we sit down with Don McPhail, VP of Market Development at eSmart Systems, to discuss why traditional, asset-focused mitigation is no longer enough for utilities across the United States.

We explore the critical shift to community-first resilience models, where protecting life-sustaining infrastructure takes priority over mere compliance. How exactly are digitization and AI-powered digital twins transforming grid safety? What does it mean to use high-resolution imagery to identify minute defects like upside-down cotter pins in a way that creates quantifiable value? Don provides a roadmap for utility leaders ready to trade siloed data practices for predictive insights that save time, money, and lives.

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This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in clean energy and climate featuring Paul Gerke of Factor This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week's episode features special guest Evan Halper from the Washington Post, who wrote about some MAGA figures who are warming to solar despite Donald Trump’s longstanding criticism of it.

This week's "Cleantecher of the Week" is David Jankowsky, CEO of Francis Energy. Francis Energy provides ultra-fast charging stations for EVs, and focuses on expanding charging access to underserved and rural communities to ensure no community is left behind in the transition to electric vehicles. Congratulations, David!

This Week in Cleantech — March 06, 2026 

1. Don’t Look Now, but the Green Transition Is Still Happening — The New York Times
2. What Trump’s war on Iran means for the US energy crunch — The Verge
3. What AES’ $33.4 billion take-private says about energy and AI — Latitude Media
4. Europe Is Learning An Uncomfortable Truth About Local Battery Production — InsideEVs
5. Why Katie Miller and other MAGA influencers suddenly love solar power — The Washington Post

Energy policy on your mind? Check out all episodes of the Factor This Policycast