Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy Podcast

Climate change is no longer a distant or abstract issue. It is rapidly becoming a financial reality embedded in home values, insurance premiums, mortgage risk, and long-term affordability.

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Winston Morton, CEO of Climative, to explore how physical climate risk is reshaping the economics of buildings across North America and why resilience is emerging as one of the most important value drivers in real estate.

With more than two decades of experience spanning engineering, enterprise IT, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and clean energy, Winston brings a systems-level perspective to one of the biggest challenges in the energy transition: how to turn awareness into action at scale.

Climative sits at the intersection of climate risk, building performance, and financial decision-making. Its platform helps homeowners, banks, insurers, utilities, contractors, and governments understand how climate impacts a specific building, which upgrades improve resilience and efficiency, and how those investments translate into lower risk and higher long-term value.

In this conversation, Wes and Winston unpack why traditional energy programs often fail to drive action, how emotional and life-stage moments influence homeowner decisions, and why comparing energy use to neighbors is rarely enough. Winston explains the three pillars required for real activation: clear guidance, affordable capital, and trusted execution.

They also explore a powerful analogy shaping Climative’s vision: the idea that buildings need a climate “credit score.” Just as financial systems rely on standardized data to price risk, today’s housing market lacks a unified, scalable way to assess physical climate risk across millions of buildings. That gap is now being priced into insurance, lending, and asset valuation, often without homeowners realizing it.

The discussion goes deeper into why the climate conversation is shifting from prevention to adaptation, how catastrophic losses are accelerating changes in insurance and finance, and why economics, not policy, will define the next phase of climate progress. Winston outlines the massive retrofit opportunity sitting idle across North America and what it will take to unlock over a trillion dollars in resilience, efficiency, and clean energy investments.

This episode is essential listening for anyone working in climate, energy, real estate, finance, insurance, or infrastructure, and for homeowners trying to understand how climate risk is quietly reshaping the future of housing.

Key themes include:

• Why climate risk is becoming financial risk
• How resilience upgrades impact insurance, mortgages, and home value
• The missing data layer holding back large-scale retrofits
• Why economics will drive climate action faster than policy
• How Climative is building a scalable platform for millions of buildings

Listen to learn how the future of home value will be defined by resilience, data, and action.

Links: 

Winston Morton on LinkedIn

Climative's Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

The solar industry has never been simple, and few leaders understand its full arc better than Marty Rogers.

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Marty Rogers, General Manager for North America at SolarEdge, for a wide-ranging conversation on leadership, global perspective, and what a healthy solar industry actually looks like over the next decade.

Marty’s career spans more than three decades across electrical distribution, global manufacturing, service organizations, and renewable energy leadership. From building businesses in the U.S. to leading teams across Asia and Europe, his experience gives him a rare operator’s lens on how solar has evolved, where it struggles, and why its long-term fundamentals remain strong.

The conversation begins with Marty’s unconventional career path and the formative leadership lessons he learned early, including the importance of patience, cultural awareness, and empowering teams rather than micromanaging them. He explains how global experience reshaped his approach to leadership and why strong middle management is often the true engine behind execution and growth.

From there, the discussion moves into the realities of the “solar coaster.” Marty breaks down why the industry’s ups and downs often feel dramatic in the moment, yet consistently trend upward over time. He shares why policy changes, incentives, and political noise rarely alter the long-term trajectory, and how smart operators adapt rather than panic.

A major theme of the episode is the shift from viewing solar as a transactional product to understanding it as a 20–30 year partnership. Marty explains why long-term service, support, and customer trust are essential to sustaining the industry and how that mindset influences everything from product design to organizational structure.

The episode also dives deep into today’s biggest growth areas, including commercial rooftop solar, energy storage, and virtual power plants. Marty outlines why commercial rooftops remain one of the most underutilized assets in the country, how storage has moved rapidly from optional to essential, and why VPPs are becoming a critical tool for grid stability and cost control.

Listeners will also hear an inside look at SolarEdge’s U.S.-based manufacturing strategy, including inverter and battery production across multiple states and the significance of exporting solar technology from the United States. Marty explains how shorter supply chains, domestic manufacturing, and product simplicity are reshaping reliability, scalability, and installer experience.

The conversation closes with a forward-looking view of the industry. Marty shares why solar’s fundamentals remain strong, why demand for energy is only accelerating, and why the industry’s future continues to move “up and to the right.”

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How global leadership experience shapes better solar organizations
• Why solar’s long-term growth remains intact despite policy swings
• The importance of treating solar as a decades-long partnership
• Why commercial rooftops and storage represent massive untapped opportunity
• How virtual power plants are quietly becoming essential grid infrastructure
• What responsible scaling and U.S.-based manufacturing really mean for solar’s future

Links: 

Marty Rogers on LinkedIn

SolarEdge

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with David Piperno, CFO of SparkCharge, to explore how portable energy solutions are reshaping EV charging, fleet electrification, and grid stability.

SparkCharge is best known for building the world’s first portable EV charging network, but the conversation goes far beyond charging vehicles. David explains how mobile energy storage, pay-as-you-go models, and rapid deployment are solving some of the biggest bottlenecks in clean energy adoption, from long infrastructure timelines to rising grid constraints.

Drawing on more than two decades of experience across finance, mobility, and energy technology, including leadership roles at Zipcar, Deloitte, and Spartan, David shares how aligning sustainability with strong unit economics is the key to scaling climate solutions.

Key Themes Covered

• Why EV infrastructure keeps falling behind demand
  David breaks down why traditional charging infrastructure is too slow, too expensive, and often underutilized, especially for fleets trying to scale quickly.
• How SparkCharge’s portable, pay-as-you-go model works
  The discussion explains how SparkCharge eliminates upfront capital costs, deploys in days instead of years, and scales energy up or down based on real usage rather than peak assumptions.
• Flexibility as a competitive advantage
  From same-day deployments to serving locations without grid upgrades, SparkCharge’s approach gives fleets operational certainty while reducing financial risk.
• When delivered energy can be cheaper than the grid
  David walks through peak shaving, avoiding demand charges, and absorbing surplus renewable energy, showing how mobile storage can lower energy costs while supporting grid stability.
• Beyond EVs: supporting the grid and other power-constrained industries
  The conversation expands into non-wire alternatives, frequency regulation, data centers, and how mobile energy assets are becoming essential as electricity demand accelerates.
• Why EVs are deflationary and ICE vehicles are not
  David explains total cost of ownership, declining battery prices, lower maintenance, and why EVs continue to improve over time through software updates.
• What the U.S. must do to stay competitive
  The episode explores policy consistency, infrastructure incentives, and why pace matters as global competition in clean energy intensifies.
• The role of AI in accelerating electrification
  David shares how SparkCharge is using AI to reduce fleet analysis timelines from months to minutes, enabling faster and more accurate energy deployments.

Why This Episode Matters

As electrification expands across transportation, data centers, and industry, the grid is under unprecedented pressure. This episode offers a practical look at how mobile energy, storage, and flexible deployment models can close the gap between ambition and execution, without waiting years for infrastructure to catch up.

Whether you’re leading a fleet, building energy infrastructure, or navigating the clean energy transition, this conversation provides real-world insight into what scalable, economically viable solutions look like today.

Links:

David Piperno on LinkedIn

SparkCharge's Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Joe Adiletta, CEO of Volexion and a veteran of the battery world, to explore what it really takes to commercialize deep tech innovation in one of the most capital-intensive and strategically vital industries of our time: lithium-ion batteries.

With two decades of experience spanning A123Systems, 24M, Ionic Materials, and now Volexion, Joe brings a rare blend of hard-won insight and strategic clarity. This isn’t a conversation about hype. It’s about navigating the messy, capital-constrained, slow-moving reality of energy storage innovation and doing it anyway.

Volexion’s approach? A conformal graphene coating, what Joe describes as a “wetsuit for cathodes.” It’s a subtle but powerful manufacturing innovation that improves battery performance without overhauling production lines. And it’s gaining traction globally.

But this episode goes far deeper than the tech. We unpack what it takes to build hard tech startups in the U.S., close the missing-middle funding gap, and lead teams through the emotional rollercoaster of building the next generation of industrial infrastructure.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why the cathode, not the anode, may be the most underleveraged opportunity in battery innovation
• How Volexion’s “small change, big impact” strategy drives measurable results with minimal disruption
• What it takes to turn university research into commercial materials shipped around the world
• The brutal realities of funding first-of-a-kind facilities and what hard tech really needs from investors
• Why battery breakthroughs haven’t followed the step-change model of software and why that’s okay
• How Joe leads through uncertainty and builds resilience inside small, mission-driven teams

Why it matters:
Energy storage is foundational to the electrification of everything. Battery innovation is a national priority. But meaningful progress doesn’t always look like sci-fi headlines. Sometimes, it’s a quiet revolution in materials science, backed by great people and smart capital.

Whether you're a battery nerd, an energy investor, or a founder navigating the tough terrain of cleantech startups, this episode is a must-listen.

Links: 

Joe Adiletta on LinkedIn

Volexion's Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

What if the strongest opportunities in renewable energy aren’t in massive utility projects, but in the overlooked middle of the market where disciplined operators consistently outperform?

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Mike Silvestrini, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Energea. After developing more than 500 solar projects across three continents and scaling Greenskies into a national C&I leader, Mike is now opening global solar investing to everyday investors.

He unpacks the hard realities, the operational lessons, and the global opportunities most people never see.

Inside the episode:

How Greenskies scaled from a two-person startup

• Why being undercapitalized became their advantage
• How Walmart and Target reshaped the businesss
• What selling the company taught Mike about timing

How Energea was created

• The financing gap Mike discovered while meeting solar companies around the world
• Why emerging markets offered high-quality projects but little access to capital
• How Energea structures diversified portfolios with monthly dividends

Global markets and performance

• Why Brazil became a breakout success
• How South Africa’s unstable grid drives demand for solar-plus-storage
• Why Colombia’s hydro volatility creates huge opportunity

Operating solar assets in the real world

•  Why theft is often a bigger threat than weather
•  Why key O&M and customer functions stay in-house
•  How experience shapes better underwriting and better assets

Mike also shares why he believes solar is positioned to win on economics, even if public perception lags behind.

If you want a clearer view of how global solar projects are financed, built, and operated, this conversation delivers rare insight from someone who has been in the trenches for nearly two decades.

Links:

Mike Silvestrini on LinkedIn

Energea's Website

Energea - Get Started

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

What if the key to unlocking nuclear energy’s future has been buried all along?

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth dives into one of the most overlooked and misunderstood challenges of the clean energy transition: nuclear waste disposal.

His guest, Rod Baltzer, is a 25-year veteran of the nuclear waste industry and now CEO of Deep Isolation, a company pioneering deep horizontal borehole disposal for spent nuclear fuel. With a background in finance and a career spanning public and private sector leadership, Rod brings a rare combination of technical insight, regulatory experience, and business acumen to an issue most would rather ignore.

For decades, the nuclear industry has lacked a permanent solution for high-level waste, relying instead on short-term storage and costly, politically stalled mined repository concepts. Deep Isolation offers a radically different approach: leveraging proven directional drilling technology from oil and gas to safely and affordably isolate nuclear waste more than a mile underground, horizontally, in stable geologic formations.

Rod breaks down:

• Why traditional mined repositories are 70% more expensive and far slower to implement
• How horizontal boreholes can isolate waste for over a million years with peak doses lower than a single banana per year
• What Deep Isolation’s universal canister makes possible across fuel types, reprocessing, and storage
• Why the real bottleneck isn’t technology, but outdated U.S. policy stuck on Yucca Mountain
• How countries like Estonia and others in Eastern Europe are leapfrogging the U.S. with forward-looking nuclear strategies

This episode also tackles widespread myths, including the “green goo” misconception, and explains why transportation concerns persist, even though nuclear waste has an extraordinary safety record.

Rod shares why the nuclear industry can’t afford to treat waste as an afterthought any longer, and why solving it now is essential to ensuring nuclear’s role in a clean energy future.

If you're curious about the back end of the nuclear lifecycle and how it may be the unlock for scaling next-gen clean power, this conversation delivers both a reality check and a hopeful vision for what's possible.

Links

Rod Baltzer on LinkedIn

Deep Isolation's Website

YouTube Video - Rocket Powered Train Impact Test of Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipping Cask

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

Most conversations about solar focus on growth, installation, and deployment. Far fewer address the reality on the other end of the lifecycle: what happens to millions of solar panels once they’re damaged, decommissioned, or reach the end of their usable life.

In this episode, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Dr Janette Freeman, Vice President of Business Development at Fabtech Solar Solutions, one of the few companies in the United States specializing in solar panel recycling, refurbishment, and reuse. Blending decades of leadership experience with a background in consciousness studies, Dr. Freeman brings a rare combination of technical clarity, industry insight, and human-centered perspective to one of clean energy’s most misunderstood challenges.

Together, they break down the true scale of solar waste, why perceptions don’t match reality, and how the recycling landscape is evolving far faster than most people realize. Dr. Freeman also explains the economics behind recycling, why the reuse market is reawakening, and how developers, EPCs, and asset owners can plan ahead to protect both budgets and brand reputation.

Beyond the operational side, this episode explores the mindset required to lead in a rapidly changing renewable energy ecosystem. Dr. Freeman shares how resilience, adaptability, and emotional intelligence have shaped her approach to navigating the solar coaster and helping steer an emerging industry toward circularity.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why solar panel waste is dramatically smaller than often portrayed
• The biggest misconceptions that still slow down recycling adoption
• What 75 percent of today’s recycling volumes reveal about industry growth
• How companies decide between refurbishing, reselling, or fully recycling modules
• The economics behind recycling and why costs are dropping
• How risk, compliance, and reputation increasingly influence end-of-life decisions
• Why landfill access is tightening and how that accelerates circular solutions
• How the recycling market has rapidly expanded from only a handful of providers
• What the next decade looks like as the first major wave of utility-scale projects retires
• The leadership mindset needed to stay steady in a volatile, high-growth sector

Dr. Freeman’s mission is simple: keep solar modules out of landfills and in the circular economy. Her work demonstrates how technical innovation, practical problem-solving, and grounded leadership can move an entire industry forward.

If you work in solar development, EPC, asset management, recycling, sustainability, or energy policy, this episode delivers essential clarity on one of the most important and misunderstood components of the clean energy transition.

Tune in to learn how the recycling revolution is taking shape and why mindset matters just as much as machinery.

Links: 

Dr. Janette Freeman on LinkedIn

Fabtech Solar Solutions' Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

When policy shocks hit and the ground shifts beneath an entire industry, real leadership is revealed.

In Episode 78 of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth welcomes back Kimberlee Centera, Founder and CEO of TerraPro Solutions, one of the renewable industry’s most trusted names in risk management and project finance.

Over more than 30 years in renewables, Kimberlee has guided utility-scale projects through every policy swing imaginable. But this conversation goes far beyond spreadsheets and contracts. It’s a deep, honest look at how leaders, developers, and communities navigate change when the playbook gets rewritten in real time.

Together, Wes and Kimberlee explore:

• Leadership under pressure: How to build trust and communicate when everything feels uncertain
• Community impact: Why renewable projects are more than energy, they’re lifelines for rural economies
• Policy shifts and resilience: What HR1 means for developers, and how the smartest teams are adapting
• Culture and values: How Kimberlee keeps her virtual team engaged, aligned, and growing through change
• The next generation of leaders: Why collaboration and inclusion are shaping the industry’s future

From clawbacks and compliance confusion to new state-level alliances, Kimberlee breaks down what this new era of renewables really looks like and what it demands from leaders who refuse to sit still.

Her message is clear: Uncertainty is inevitable, but pausing progress isn’t an option. The brave will keep moving, keep building, and keep people at the center of the mission.

If you’re a developer, investor, or leader navigating the new renewable landscape, this episode delivers real insight, encouragement, and a reminder that innovation often grows out of adversity.

Links: 

Kimberlee Centera on LinkedIn
TerraPro Solutions
Episode 39 with Kimberlee

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

Episode Summary

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Steffanie Dohn, Vice President of Government Affairs at McCarthy Building Companies, shares how one of America’s most trusted EPCs is redefining what progress looks like. From reframing the national energy conversation to transforming rural economies through workforce development and authentic community engagement, this conversation explores what it truly means to build trust through energy.

Full Show Notes

When most people talk about the energy transition, they talk about technology. Steffanie Dohn talks about people.

As Vice President of Government Affairs at McCarthy Building Companies, Steffanie has built her career at the intersection of policy, community, and progress. She helped shape landmark legislation like South Carolina’s Energy Freedom Act and now leads government affairs for one of the most respected engineering, procurement, and construction firms in the United States.

In this conversation, Steffanie and host Wes Ashworth explore how building trust has become McCarthy’s competitive advantage, and why the next frontier of renewable energy success depends less on megawatts and more on mindset.

Together, they unpack the essential building blocks of lasting energy progress:

• Reframing the national dialogue: why it is time to stop talking as much about “renewables” and start talking more about energy as a whole
• Community engagement that lasts: how early, authentic outreach can transform skepticism into local pride and long-term partnership
• The workforce revolution: how McCarthy’s apprenticeship programs and local hiring commitments are creating careers, not just jobs, in rural America
• Depoliticizing energy: how business leaders can step into advocacy to bridge divides and strengthen America’s energy reliability
• A “yes, and” mindset: why embracing multiple energy solutions, not competing over one, is the key to abundance and resilience

Through each story, Steffanie reveals a human-centered vision of the energy transition that honors the past, builds the future, and keeps communities at the heart of progress.

Whether you are an EPC leader, policymaker, developer, or someone who wants to understand what is really happening on the front lines of energy transformation, this episode delivers insight, inspiration, and practical lessons from one of the industry’s most trusted voices.

Links:

Steffanie Dohn on LinkedIn

McCarthy Building Companies 

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth welcomes Emily Easley, Founder and CEO of NOVUS Energy Advisors, for a powerful look at how oil, gas, renewables, real estate, and AI are colliding to define the next era of energy.

Emily’s career bridges both sides of the energy spectrum. A sixth-generation Texan who built her career in Washington, DC, she has spent more than 20 years translating the language of policy, power, and investment for companies across the energy landscape. At NOVUS Energy Advisors, she helps clients connect hydrocarbons, electrons, land, and capital into deals that can withstand market shifts and policy cycles.

In this conversation, Wes and Emily explore how to move from rivalry to partnership in the energy transition. They discuss the gaps in understanding between oil and gas and renewables, the rapid rise of AI-driven power demand, and how real estate and data centers are now shaping the grid itself. Emily shares what she has learned from decades of navigating both boardrooms and backfields, and how she helps organizations find common ground in a polarized industry.

Topics covered in this episode:

• How the oil and gas and renewable sectors can learn from each other
• Why the biggest barriers to collaboration are cultural, not technical
• The AI and data center boom and what it means for the power grid
• The truth about permitting and interconnection bottlenecks
• How utilities and developers can plan smarter in an era of exponential load growth
• What regulation really signals about maturity and commercialization
• Why trades, field experience, and historical knowledge are irreplaceable in the new workforce
• How to spot true operators versus opportunists in a fast-changing market

Emily also shares her outlook on carbon capture, direct air capture, and the policies shaping those technologies. She explains why regulation often follows commercialization and how that shift can signal progress rather than punishment. Throughout, she brings a rare blend of technical fluency, policy insight, and human perspective that makes complex topics understandable and actionable.

For anyone trying to navigate the intersection of energy, technology, and capital, this episode offers a masterclass in how to think long-term and build relationships that last through every cycle.

Links: 

Emily Easley on LinkedIn

Novus Energy Advisors Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: [email protected]
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/