This Week in Solar

Enphase’s New EV Charger Turns Your Car Into a Home Battery

What’s new:Enphase announced that its EV charger, which can fill your electric car and let your EV’s battery send power back to your home in an outage, will be available in the second half of 2026.

Why it matters:This technology, known as “bidirectional charging,” is already available for Tesla owners and homeowners with Tesla solar panels. Enphase is making it available to people outside Tesla’s ecosystem.

How it works:

* An electrician installs the charger and a small device near your meter.

* During an outage, the system safely separates your home from the grid and uses your car’s battery instead.

* The app helps you choose when to charge, when to power the house, and when to share with the grid.

Who it’s for:Homeowners with a compatible EV who want backup power without putting batteries on their walls. Homeowners with EVs can even start with just the charger and add rooftop solar or a home battery later if they want.

If you’re interested in this technology and live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, Exact Solar would love to talk to you!

Contact Us Here

Rules and utility programs vary by location. Not every EV supports two-way charging yet, and not every utility allows sending power back to the grid. Enphase says it will share a list of supported cars and programs closer to launch, in the second half of 2026.

SolarEdge’s New Battery Lets Homeowners Start Small and Add More Later

What’s new:SolarEdge showed off a new home stackable solar + battery system called Nexis at the RE+ trade show in Las Vegas. It works with any SolarEdge products.

Why it matters:If your power goes out, a home battery can keep lights, Wi-Fi, and the fridge running. On normal days, it stores your daytime solar so you can use it at night and buy less from the grid. But batteries are expensive, and the amount of time they can run a household depends on how many batteries a homeowner can afford.

SolarEdge’s new battery system is designed so homeowners can start small, then plug-and-play as needed without costly electrical upgrades.

Availability will roll out through SolarEdge partners, with launch targeted for 2026. Incentives and utility rules vary by location ask your installer what rebates and backup options apply to your home.

Contact Exact Solar Here

Sources:

Enphase to bring bidirectional EV charger to market next year

Enphase Bidirectional EV Charger

Enphase Energy Unveils New IQ Bidirectional EV Charger Architecture for Home Backup and Grid Services

SolarEdge rolls out stackable residential LFP battery at RE+

SolarEdge Unveils Next Generation All-in-One Home Solar + Storage Solution at RE+ 2024

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

This week, Aaron Nichols sits down with homeowner and clean energy enthusiast Thomas Crookham, who shares his journey of going solar with Exact Solar in 2024.

Expect to learn:

* Why Thomas finally chose to go solar in 2024 after decades of wanting panels.

* How Exact Solar’s customer service and communication stood out compared to competitors.

* How Thomas cut his electricity bills by 65–80%.

Quotes from the Episode:

“Exact Solar wasn’t the cheapest, but they were head and shoulders above on service. Every question was answered.” – Thomas Crookham

“I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t do this if they can afford it and have the right roof.” – Thomas Crookham

“When I reconnect with people, they say, ‘I used to get so mad at rate hikes. Now it doesn’t even apply to me anymore.’” – Aaron Nichols

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 met today's guest at a conference a few months ago and he's also a homeowner who went solar with Exact Solar. So, please welcome Thomas Crookham to the show, everybody.

Thomas Crookham:Hey, thanks for having me, Aaron.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, of course. I’ll just launch right into it. I'm really curious—what motivated you to go solar this year, and why did you choose Exact Solar as your installer?

Thomas Crookham:Sure. I mean, I've been wanting to go solar probably since I heard about PVs, when I was reading about it in science magazines before the internet. So, I've wanted solar panels for a long time.

This year, you know, we finally saved up for it. The IRA was in place, and we had just finished our addition. Our original roof was too pitched and not quite right for solar panels because we have a 120-year-old home, but on the addition, the roof is perfect.

So everything just sort of aligned in that regard.

And why Exact Solar? I did some research. I checked in with different non-profit organizations—gosh, I’m blanking on the name right now... Solarize Philly! Yeah. They gave a couple recommendations and I got a few contacts, got some quotes.

The reason I chose Exact Solar was they were competitively priced—not the cheapest, not the most expensive—but the service and answering all my questions was far and above everyone else.

I felt bad for Dave because I asked way too many questions, went deep into the details. He was super patient and answered everything. That was great.

Aaron Nichols:That's wonderful, man. Yeah, we get quite a few of those reviews. Someone just commented on the episode we put out yesterday saying something very similar: “You guys weren’t the cheapest price, but you had the best service and answered all my questions.”

And when it came time to put solar on their second property, they just called us without even looking at anybody else. Hearing stuff like that, man—that’s awesome.

Thomas Crookham:Yeah, it wasn’t like Exact was way more expensive either. Everyone was competitive. It was just head and shoulders above on the service.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. I heard a quote from that financial guru Dave Ramsey that I love repeating: “If you do what you say you’re going to do, on the timeline you say you’re going to do it, you won’t be able to beat people off with a stick.”

That’s something we’ve ingrained in our philosophy, and it’s been amazing to see how positive people’s experiences are—and then they refer more people, who then also have positive experiences.

Thomas Crookham:Yeah. I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t do this if they can afford it and have the right roof.

I just got my most recent PECO bill. I had my system turned on in March or April. There was some issue with PECO not billing me properly. They weren’t billing me at all, actually. Once the new meter went in and it got corrected, I finally got bills a couple days ago—and it’s amazing to see how little I’m paying now.

Aaron Nichols:Correct. Yeah. Are you comfortable talking about the difference?

Thomas Crookham:Yeah, I mean, you’re recording me, so I guess you’re quoting me. These numbers aren’t exact, but my bills are at least 65–80% lower depending on the month. That was actually slightly better than expected.

I never projected to hit 100% offset just because of roof size and positioning—it’s not perfectly optimal, not south-facing—but the savings are still great.

Aaron Nichols:Awesome. That’s everybody’s favorite part. When I reconnect with people, they say, “I used to get so mad every year with another rate increase, but now it doesn’t even apply to me anymore.”

Thomas Crookham:I know. My family gets annoyed because I’m always on the app, like, “Hey guys, guess what I’m doing? I’m generating electricity!” They roll their eyes.

Aaron Nichols:How old are they?

Thomas Crookham:Thirteen and eleven.

Aaron Nichols:Oh wow—so right at the age where whatever you do isn’t cool.

Thomas Crookham:Not quite there yet, but getting close.

Aaron Nichols:Well, thank you for passing that education on to the next generation, man. That’s amazing.

So, during the project—you mentioned our team was communicative and answered all your questions. How did the experience go? Were there any hitches? How did we exceed your expectations?

Thomas Crookham:It was completely seamless. The install took place within the day-and-a-half expected. There was a small issue with the inverter not getting online, but it was just a quick callback, a calibration, and it was fixed.

Even PECO, aside from the billing, got their part done within about three weeks after installation.

Exact Solar was super organized: “Here’s what’s going to happen next, and here’s why.” It was all step-by-step.

Aaron Nichols:So if someone comes to you and says, “Should I do this?” what do you say?

Thomas Crookham:Heck yeah—do it as fast as possible.

Aaron Nichols:Amazing. That is so good to hear.

Okay, I’ll end with my fun little moonshot question. My grandma just turned 80, and I realized she was born into a world where renewable energy didn’t exist. Within her lifetime we’ve gone from only fossil fuels to inventing renewables, improving efficiency, and even putting solar panels on the White House.

So—80 years from now, what do you think clean energy looks like?

Thomas Crookham:Eighty years? My gosh. Honestly, I think technologically we already have a lot of what we need. The biggest hurdle is just getting humans to do what they need to do.

I think we’ll be at or near 100% renewable. Anything hard to decarbonize will still be synthesized from renewable energy sources. Maybe even solar airplanes if they advance far enough.

Fusion might finally be real by then. Geothermal will play a big role too. Personally, the thing I’m most excited about is solar paint—just painting houses and generating electricity.

I think we’ll have solar on every roof, solar fences, even solar balconies. We’ll have solar everywhere.

Aaron Nichols:I’d love to have a solar fence. My neighbors might not like it, but who cares—I’ll just design something that looks cool.

Well, Thomas, thank you so much for coming on today. If anyone has questions about going solar or wants to connect with you, where can they go?

Thomas Crookham:They can send me an email. Or if people contact you, you can connect them with me. I’m happy to talk to anyone.

Aaron Nichols:Perfect. I’ll keep myself as the barrier there. Thanks for coming on, man. It was a pleasure talking to you, and so nice meeting you at the conference.

Thomas Crookham:Likewise—let’s stay in touch.

Aaron Nichols:All right. Thanks for tuning in, folks. That’s This Week In Solar.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Trade Court Okays Retroactive Tariffs on 2022–24 Solar Imports

What’s new:

The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that President Biden’s 2022 two-year pause on AD/CVD collections for solar cells/modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam was unlawful.

The court cleared U.S. Customs and Border Protection to assess retroactive duties on entries between Apr. 1, 2022, and June 6, 2024.

Why it matters:

The decision could trigger billions in back duties (estimates range as high as $54 billion) on roughly 88 GW of imports. Developers and utilities that relied on low-cost Southeast Asian panels may face steep, unexpected costs, with some projects already completed now exposed to tariffs of up to 200% of their value.

The ruling is a major win for Auxin Solar and Concept Clean Energy, who argued the moratorium undermined domestic manufacturers.

Clean energy groups and developers who opposed the case warn that the retroactive charges could ripple across the industry, stall projects, and create further uncertainty in the solar supply chain.

This ruling is supported by the Solar Energies Industries Association, as well as many larger panel manufacturers and developers.

ITC opens new trade case on solar imports from India, Indonesia, Laos

What’s new:The U.S. International Trade Commission voted 3–0 to proceed with antidumping/countervailing duty probes into solar cells and panels from India, Indonesia, and Laos, after a petition from the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing & Trade.

Why it matters:U.S. manufacturers say Chinese-owned and other producers shifted output to these countries to dodge existing Southeast Asia tariffs, undercutting U.S. prices and investment. A final case could add new duties and reshape near-term module sourcing.

Gavin Newsom Fast-Tracks Clean Energy Projects

What’s new:California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing state agencies to accelerate permitting and interconnection for energy projects in danger of losing Inflation Reduction Act support.

Why it matters:Federal timelines tightened under the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” putting tens of gigawatts of planned clean energy at risk; Newsom’s order aims to save projects before credits lapse.

The order tells the state’s Energy Working Group to immediately identify IRA-eligible projects at risk and help agencies “take all steps necessary” to speed approvals. It also instructs the CPUC to prioritize actions that connect renewable generation and battery storage to the grid over the next three years.

Sources:

Trade court orders retroactive duties on solar panels imported back in 2022

US trade court orders retroactive solar duties on Southeast Asian imports

ITC unanimously votes to investigate solar panels from India, Indonesia and Laos

US will proceed with probe of solar imports from India, Laos and Indonesia

Governor Newsom signs executive order to accelerate projects at risk of losing IRA support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Quick Note:

Due to technical difficulties during the interview, today’s episode will be available as audio only. You can still listen to this episode as a podcast right here on Substack, on Apple Podcasts, or on Spotify. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the interview!

Show Notes:

Liz Robinson is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Solar Energy Association and a 40-year veteran of Pennsylvania’s clean energy movement.

She spent more than three decades leading the Energy Coordinating Agency before taking the helm at PSEA, where she’s focused on energy education, policy advocacy, and accelerating the state’s transition to affordable, abundant, and clean power.

Liz is a nationally recognized leader in energy efficiency and solar, with a deep history in workforce development, community outreach, and building science.

Here’s her LinkedIn.

Expect to learn:

* How Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel legacy is holding solar energy back.

* Why energy efficiency and solar are “two sides of the same coin.”

* How PJM’s backlog of solar projects is driving unnecessary electricity rate hikes.

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 Aaron Nichols, the Research and Policy Specialist here at Exact Solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

Today we’re talking to someone who has been working in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania energy for a long time. As part of our goal to fight some of the short-term panic around the Inflation Reduction Act and assure people that solar has been around for a while and will continue to be around, we decided to bring her on. So everyone, please welcome Liz Robinson to the show.

Liz Robinson:Thanks, Aaron.

Aaron Nichols:So Liz, you are the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Solar Energy Association, right?

Liz Robinson:Yes.

Aaron Nichols:If you wouldn’t mind, could you talk to us a little bit about the organization, your role, and what a day in your life looks like?

Liz Robinson:Sure. The Philadelphia Solar Energy Association has been around for about 40 years, initially unincorporated and then incorporated. It’s a very small local nonprofit started by architects and energy nerds at Penn, and its focus has always been education.

It principally focuses on school-age education programs. I was asked to join when I resigned from the Energy Coordinating Agency some years ago. I’ve always been really interested in education and really believe Americans as a nation are undereducated — our energy literacy level is pretty low.

We are in the midst of a transition to clean energy, and it’s critically important that people have better access to the fundamentals of energy, particularly solar. My focus now is really on improving the quality of tools available for children and youth to learn about solar.

Aaron Nichols:As someone who’s had a 40-year career in energy — which is so crazy for me to think about, since I’m barely two years in — you have more experience than anyone we’ve interviewed so far. I’m interested in what changes you’ve seen over that time, and why, after all this time, you still love solar so much.

Liz Robinson:I’m not inherently a technical person; my background is more social science. I spent almost 35 years in energy efficiency and only recently came into solar.

My orientation to energy is that it’s key to all life on Earth. It’s critical that energy be abundant, accessible, affordable, and clean. Energy efficiency remains the cheapest form of energy, but solar is a close second — and has quickly caught up in recent years.

I’ve always regarded them as two sides of the same coin. They go together, particularly in buildings. You don’t want to put a fancy solar system on a very inefficient building — as they say, you don’t put lipstick on a pig. Reducing load first allows solar to carry it efficiently.

Under the Biden administration, there’s been a strong emphasis on using a wide range of tools to achieve abundant, affordable, clean energy. Unfortunately, we’ve taken a turn for the worse lately, but to be frank, this is inevitable. Humanity needs clean, abundant, affordable energy.

I’ve been heartened by the extraordinary technical developments in recent years. My husband and I are decarbonizing our lives — moving from fossil fuels to all-electric, powered by solar. The new highly efficient electric appliances — induction stoves, heat pump water heaters, heat pumps — are extraordinarily efficient, quiet, clean, and durable. I’m very excited about the transition, and I believe it’s inevitable, despite short-term setbacks.

Aaron Nichols:“Inevitable” is the word I keep hearing from veterans in this industry. The way I’ve been describing it is: we’re in a trilogy, and this is The Empire Strikes Back.

Liz Robinson:Oh, I like that.

Aaron Nichols:Darth Vader’s our father, we’ve lost a hand, and now we have to gather strength and move forward. Not to get too lost in the metaphor, but I’m really curious — what was energy efficiency like 40 years ago, and what’s the growth curve looked like in your career?

Liz Robinson:Forty years ago, it was very rudimentary. Technical advances were slow at first, but they began to speed up during the Obama administration. DOE Secretary Steven Chu — a Nobel Prize-winning physicist — made an extraordinary difference. He laid the groundwork for rapid development in both energy efficiency and solar, putting the U.S. on a strong scientific footing.

The Obama administration raised efficiency standards significantly. The energy efficiency field shifted from basic auditing to “building science” — understanding energy, humidity, moisture, materials, pollutants, and health in buildings. This led to leapfrogging technology improvements.

The pace of change is now accelerating exponentially — because we’re transforming the largest, most powerful industry in history: fossil fuels.

Aaron Nichols:As someone who’s pretty chronically online, I’ve noticed the dizzying amount of misinformation — things like “windmills cause cancer” or “solar panels kill plants.” Has this always been the playbook?

Liz Robinson:No. The difference is that solar is now the cheapest, cleanest, fastest form of energy generation worldwide, which makes it very threatening to fossil fuels. Its availability has accelerated coal plant closures. That’s a direct threat to an industry that’s had friends, money, and lobbying power for 200 years.

I think we’re in the “death throes” phase of fossil fuels. The industry has largely given up on Europe — which is now firmly on a clean energy path — and is focusing on preventing the U.S. from moving forward. This is the last desperate phase.

Aaron Nichols:That reminds me of the quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Liz Robinson:Exactly.

Aaron Nichols:You and I have both chosen not only a hard industry, but a hard state to fight in. Can you talk about the challenges of implementing renewables in Pennsylvania?

Liz Robinson:Pennsylvania is where U.S. fossil fuel industries got their start — coal, oil, gas — and much of the state’s wealth and political power is tied to them. More recently, fracking brought gas back in a big way, coinciding with the Tea Party’s rise.

It wasn’t always this way. When I started, the most dedicated conservationists in Pennsylvania were Republicans — especially in Chester County. They valued resource stewardship. That’s been turned on its head.

Aaron Nichols:That’s hopeful in a way, because solar is broadly popular — even with conservatives — if framed right.

Liz Robinson:It’s the most popular form of energy. It represents freedom, independence, and savings.

Aaron Nichols:In the short term, though, with the loss of IRA incentives, what’s the way forward for solar companies?

Liz Robinson:I don’t think this is permanent. But companies will need to tighten belts, diversify, and perhaps move into larger-scale projects. Residential will be hit hardest, followed by community solar. Utility-scale may hold on longer.

We’ll lose jobs and some companies in Pennsylvania. The industry’s multiple scales — residential, community, utility — offer some resilience if companies can pivot.

Aaron Nichols:And for home and business owners?

Liz Robinson:I think education is key. Pennsylvania is facing astronomical electricity price increases due to poor utility-scale planning and mismanagement by PJM, our grid operator. PJM has hundreds of projects — 87% of them solar — stuck in its queue. If admitted, they’d lower prices. Instead, prices are rising.

For consumers, the best defenses are energy efficiency and solar. Buying your energy in bulk — locking in decades of production — is a smart move, especially with rates climbing.

Aaron Nichols:These are big problems, but they’re worth throwing a lifetime at. As someone who’s been in the fight for 40 years, what advice do you have for the next generation?

Liz Robinson:Resilience, resourcefulness, flexibility, and the ability to anticipate what’s coming. Hold yourself to high integrity — trust is the industry’s most important asset.

Aaron Nichols:To close, I’ve been asking everyone a moonshot question: what do you think clean energy will look like in 80 years?

Liz Robinson:It’s hard to picture that far ahead, but I believe we’ll have clean, abundant, affordable energy for all. Solar’s abundance can transform economies, lower the cost of essentials, and democratize access to energy. Once people experience that, they won’t give it up.

Aaron Nichols:Liz Robinson, if people have questions or want to reach out, how can they find you?

Liz Robinson:Email is best, or LinkedIn.

Aaron Nichols:Thank you so much for coming on.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Listen to today’s episode here, or on:

* YouTube

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

PosiGen Halts Most Operations

What’s new:Residential solar installer PosiGen has ceased most U.S. operations, laying off nearly all of its roughly 500 employees nationwide (though the exact number hasn’t been confirmed).

They attributed the move to “significant financial difficulties,” including a missed interest payment that triggered a lender cash freeze and default notice. The company says it’s seeking new capital or a sale; failing that, it will shut down entirely.

Why it matters:PosiGen focused on low- to moderate-income customers.

This pullback strands customers and contractors. It’s part of a broader residential downturn: 2024 installs fell 31%, and several major national players filed for bankruptcy, including:

* SunPower

* Sunnova

* Mosaic

These bankruptcies make great headlines, but for us at Exact Solar, and for many of the solid, dependable solar companies around the country who have been serving their communities for decades, they reinforce our belief:

Solar should be local.

So many solar installers (like Exact Solar) aren’t trying to grow at any cost and will continue to install high-quality systems and service them for their entire lifetimes.

Solar and Wind Top Coal in First Half of 2025

What’s new:

New EIA data show solar supplied 8.7% of U.S. electricity in the first half of 2025 and 10.2% in June alone. Utility-scale solar output rose 37.6% year over year through June, small-scale climbed 10.7%, and together they grew nearly 30%.

Combined, wind and solar provided 20.3% of U.S. power (more than coal or nuclear). Renewables as a whole (wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal) reached 27.7%, second only to natural gas, which fell 3.7%.

Why it matters:

Solar now generates almost 45% more than hydropower and exceeds hydro, biomass, and geothermal combined.

Even with recent policy changes, developers still expect about half of the new U.S. capacity this year to be solar and another 13% wind.

Team Brunel wins the World Solar Challenge

What’s new:

Delft’s Brunel Solar Team won the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge’s Challenger Class race yesterday, crossing the finish line first after a grueling 3,021 km race from Darwin to Adelaide.

Official preliminary results show Brunel’s Nuna 13 averaging 86.6 km/h with an event time of 34.9 hours recorded on August 28th.

Why it matters:

The World Solar Challenge is a 3,000-km solar EV race that’s been runing every two years since 1987. Team Brunel’s victory is their eighth world title; they’re the “Michael Jordan” of this event by far.

Here are the rules of the challenge from Bridgestone’s website:

* Solar Panels can have a Maximum area of 6㎡ (spread out across the vehicle)

* Vehicles must have 3 or more wheels, and maximum dimensions are: length 5.8m, width 2.3m, height 1.65m

* 1 driver at a time (Teams must have 3 to 6 designated drivers who take turns driving.)

* Source of Power = Solar energy only

* Clock doesn’t stop once it starts, but charging is allowed overnight, so long as the charging source used solar power to charge.

Personally, I’m a little bummed. I was pulling for the University of Michigan team, since my friends at Optivolt made the solar tech to power their car. But you can’t win em’ all.

Sources:

Residential solar installer PosiGen lays off almost entire workforce

Residential solar installer PosiGen ceases “most of its operations”

Solar is nation’s fastest growing electricity source, expands by 30% in 2025

EIA: Solar and wind leave coal in the dust with record 2025 output | Electrek

Brunel Solar Team

Preliminary Results | Bridgestone World Solar Challenge

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Show Notes:

Spenser Meeks is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Apex Presentations, where he’s helped more than 1000 clean energy leaders get everything they can out of their speaking engagements.

Going to be at RE+ on September 8th? He’s moderating a panel on storytelling. Pack the seats.

If you like today’s episode, DM him on LinkedIn.

Expect to learn:

* Why storytelling (not statistics) moves audiences, especially in B2B.

* How technical founders and engineers can break the “curse of knowledge” and make their ideas emotionally engaging to a wide audience.

* Why we should stay optimistic post Inflation Reduction Act.

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 before we get to today's guests, I wanted to say that today's episode is brought to you by solar in a really interesting way.I'm actually on a road trip and I'm recording this from the back of my truck. And none of this would be possible without solar energy.I have a 200 watt solar panel sitting out in the field that's powering a battery bank that is powering a starlink.And because of that, I'm able to work on the road. So it really is. And let me lead in a little bit with today's guest.My friend, Spencer Meeks, who I'm very excited to have as one of the first people I'm interviewing on this week in solar, has trained more than 1,000 clean energy speakers.And we have similar opinions and we've commiserated together a lot on how we think that the industry leans way too hard on technical information and not hard enough on storytelling.And I'll let you tell him more or I'll let him tell you more about himself as we go on, but I guess the first question I want to ask you Spencer is the reason that we decided to do this series is because we're obviously going to be moving forward in a post-inflation reduction act world.And as someone who has worked with more than a thousand leaders in this space, What do you think clean energy needs as we move forward?

Spenser Meeks:Well, first off, thanks for having me. I'm really excited for the conversation in general today. But I think that there's a lot of room for optimism still.What the clean energy industry needs to realize more than anything else is that we were growing and thriving before the IRA was a thing.Now, that doesn't mean that it's not a bad thing the significant portions of it are under attack and getting repealed or otherwise being impacted.But what does buoy me here is that this industry is populated largely by grizzled veterans that have been up and down the solar coaster a couple of times.And this might be the first time for some people to run into this amount of antagonism from the federal level.But it is not unprecedented. Right? Yeah. So there there are reasons to be optimistic and there are reasons to double down and really boo yourself by the fact that there are a large number of people that are in a similar context as you are and there's every reason to continue to push into fight and to grow this industry because it is a necessity not a nice to have right there's economics driving this more than anything else, it's not just an environmental argument that's to be had.And that's really been shown through the fact that some of these portions, these repeals have been softened significantly compared to what they originally proposed to be.I know that that's, you know, maybe a little bit too much cup half full for some people to say that, but it can always be worse.And there are provisions that are still going to be able to support this industry and ways to fight back in a more meaningful way.So when it comes to application, just leaning off of my own subject matter expertise, I think messaging has a lot to do with how we recover from this and continue to grow the impact and influence of this industry.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, man, it's really, it's been so amazing to me since I joined the solar industry just a little under two years ago, seriously, just how many veterans I've met that are basically like, they've been in it for more than 10 years, they're all best friends, their godparents to each other's children and I think that's kind of that closeness forged in the fires of war.

Spenser Meeks:Yes, that is very much it. What is it? A trauma bonding, right? Yeah, definitely. So it doesn't mean that what we're going through right now isn't terrible. It doesn't mean that it's not, it's completely unjustified.It's going to impact consumers, you know, expenses in a very concrete way on in the very individualistic way, especially in red counties and states, more than anywhere else.It's on, I think, a lot of the policy leaders to really continue to highlight those realities, so that when we're electing officials on where we're advocating for what our needs are as a community, federally, state-wise, locally, that we stay closely tied to, like, what are those impacts, you know, on an individual level.Sometimes, and this is maybe pralling into a later portion of the conversation here, but oftentimes, what I think trips us off more than anything else is focusing on being right and focusing on high level stats that show an aggregate how everything thing is correct and that we need to do what our recommendations are.Frequently, studies have shown that the most important impactful thing that you can do when talking about an initiative that you care about is find a case study, a specific instance where something went particularly well, perhaps in an unexpected way, and making it human scale.What happens to an individual? What happened to a single family? What happened to a single company? How many jobs were affected, how many families were affected, and what do that mean for them?Because of course we all experience our lives as individuals. So it's not surprising to find that stories about individuals are a lot easier to put ourselves into that context and relate to them.

Aaron Nichols:Absolutely, and that's something that a lot of nonprofits will talk about as well. They'll show that they get higher donations if they show one suffering child rather than five.It's really interesting how as humans we want to help, we want to help solve a small problem. And as soon as the problem starts to feel bigger and bigger and bigger, we either start to feel helpless or we spin off a conspiracy on why it is the way it is.Sure. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Well, yeah, I'm particularly interested in how a lot of people who are into clean energy are also very into data and logic and science, which makes a lot of sense, but you can't fight emotion in with data.It just doesn't seem to be the way things work, but you do see a lot of discourse online, on social media, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, where people who are into clean energy are fighting people who say, windmills cause cancer by saying, well, here's a graph that shows that that's not true.And obviously that never works. So I'm interested in, with you as a messaging expert, and someone who's worked to help people who are technically minded, refine their messaging, ground them in emotion, do all of those things, what do we need to do as companies, as leaders, as we're moving forward?

Spenser Meeks:Well, I want to come back to something, you just said that it was kind of interesting with like, hey, you know, windmills cause cancer, here's a graph.I want to say I agree it is ineffective with that individual who says windmills cause cancer to show them a graph.Could be that like your audience really isn't trying to convince that individual as much as maybe the other people that are watching or reading that discourse that it can help to kind of dismiss that approach as kind of inane.Now that has a place and I'm not going to be here to give you a 401 on how to deal with internet trolls.The best way to deal with internet trolls is typically like just don't feed trolls and they typically die. Ignore them or block them or otherwise just say like okay, that's kind of interesting.Here's a graph to interact, then like make your point and then bail because the reason that they're there is primarily to try your energy as much as possible and to distract from the initiatives that you're trying to highlight the import of.So I just wanted to make that quick aside before we came back to the information overload, perhaps, that we tend to use in the industry.

And I guess to spin off on that a little bit before I let you go again, I think there is.There is obviously benefit to taking the high road and sometimes just letting someone show you how crazy they are and then you just being calm and rational by comparison can also be very powerful.So I do want to make sure that I-

Aaron Nichols:100 percent.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. As soon as you start frothing at the mouth and getting agitated and angry, they've already won.Right. So the best thing that we can do is keep our heads as best as we can and to not engage when we're getting a little too activated in that way.

Aaron Nichols:Absolutely. Yeah, the technical piece is really fascinating, right? Cause I think a lot of people are drawn towards using facts and figures and data to make their points in this industry.And part because the history of how this industry has grown. This, you know, credit where credit’s due. Most of the companies existed, existed in the past like 23 years on the backs of very technical founders.These are typically engineer-minded individuals that have a pension for tech to either make panels more efficient or more effective or whatever, like moving the needle incrementally is really important.We spend a lot of money on R&D and it's critical to develop technologies that do what they say they do.We can't build an industry on the back of something that doesn't work. That said, you have to tell a story that emotionally engages people to get them to buy in.Right. And that works if you're playing the numbers game of consumer sales because, hey, you have tens of thousands of customers.The renewable energy industry is primarily a B2B context where we're trying to sell to utilities and like, or maybe if you're a manufacturer to install to installers, who are then selling to residential homeowners.We're talking about Rezzy Solar, for instance. So most of my experience is in the B2B context, like how do we get people to care and how do we get them to participate, especially in the B2B context where the tendency is to lean again on heavy facts because we expect that people are making their decisions based on like what's the ROI, what's the return on investment, or how does this actually move the needle for us in a meaningful way?It even more tends to pull people towards this kind of dry, data-driven decision-making and conversation.

Spenser Meeks:15 different scientific disciplines, all unanimously agree that storytelling is the single most important and impactful tool that you can use to increase people's memory and retention and motivate them to act in accordance with your recommendations.

Aaron Nichols:Right, and I know you and I have talked a lot about storytelling and grounding things in emotion before, and I think there's a lot of people who, when I talk about how powerful stories are, kind of roll their eyes and say, yeah, yeah, whatever.And I'm sure you've gotten the same kind of thing, especially technical people. But how do you put together a compelling emotional story?

Spenser Meeks:Sure. So where do we start with these kind of things? The introduction is super important. Grounding and extreme relevance for your audience is critical.So the first thing that I would share with anybody considering doing this is make sure if you're talking in a presentation as a panelist or other discussion yourself to make sure that you start with the good stuff.Yeah. Don't start with "Hi, I'm Spenser Meeks, I'm the founder and principal consultant at Apex Presentations where I've worked with over a thousand of you," but like making it all about you and yours and like all of this stuff that has—like, people won't typically are drawn towards wanting to do credibility building at the very beginning so the people will then be like, okay, this person sounds serious, they sound well informed, I should listen to them.That doesn't really happen. So the right way to do that is by starting out with what's relevant to them, what the benefit is to the audience that you're speaking to and what's at stake if they don't act.Right. So little poke the bear at the end. So like most people that don't do this, guess what—they're exposed to extreme risk due to Attorneys General suing them for poor consumer support practices, or what have you.Right, like what's the like, oh damn, like I didn't realize that that was a potential issue. That causes them to lean forward.Right. Then you can go, hi, my name's Spencer Meeks. I am an authority to speak on this subject. I'm so excited to share this message with you today.Yeah. So that's—I like to start with that piece because I'm happy to talk to you about how to build emotional engagement but people aren't willing to go on that journey with you unless you can show them in the first minute and a half that what you're sharing is relevant and pertains to their situation.And sometimes in like a sales conversation or that kind of environment, what can be helpful is literally ask them, like tell me what's going on.It seems like we're having this conversation because of X—is that true? Like do a little bit more discovery there before you launch into what's important—what you think is important to them.

Aaron Nichols:And you have kind of an interesting superhero origin story that propelled you along that path and made you want to kind of make technical people sound more interesting and more engaging.If you'd like to, if you'd be willing to share a little bit about that, about the presentation of the starfish versus the poison gas.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah, so thanks a lot. For those that aren't familiar with me, I am actually a recovering engineer, right? So I used to do process and quality engineering work for solar panel manufacturing.I wouldn't be talking about storytelling if it wasn't extremely pragmatically focused. Like I talk about this stuff because it has impact.The way that this clicked in my mind and when I'm talking to people about this to help them understand like why does this actually work or why should we actually care about this is—I had an experience early on in my academic career where I went to a conference and I'm sure many of you have had a similar experience here where there were two different speakers.One of them was talking on the population dynamics of starfish—just where do starfish like to live in the Puget Sound, which, if you're not familiar, is off the west coast of Washington here.This is like rocks, cobbled sand, where they like to live and eat, et cetera.The next one was on a safe, environmentally friendly way of degrading and getting rid of VX nerve toxin, which is the most powerful chemical weapon known to man.For those of you that were around in the 90s, if you've seen the movie The Rock with Sean Connery, this is the chemical weapon that they had stockpiled on Alcatraz that they were threatening to kill the entire population of the San Francisco with.It is heinous stuff and it's real. If you get a droplet on the tip of your finger, you will die within minutes.And of course, like any weapon, the US has enough stockpiled to kill the entire population of the planet a few times over.They're leaking in barrels from the Cold War. It's not a great scene.Anyway, so that's a context, right? Speaker A, Speaker B: starfish and chemical weapons that will murder you in a second.So Speaker A gets up and she shares beautiful underwater photography, talks about a couple experiences that she had doing these dives, pictures of starfish traversing the rocks, the cobbles, the sand, reiterates her key points, shows a scanning electron microscope image of these latching mechanisms they use to anchor themselves to rocks, ends with a smile on her face and a song in her heart.Second person gets up. He shares a couple chemical formula and then reads bullet point status for 10 minutes. And when he's done speaking, he asks for questions.It's dead silent. Not because everybody completely understood what was happening and going on and everything was perfectly clear. It's because they all checked out, right?When I was walking out of that room, thinking about starfish, I knew that something was wrong. And it's fundamentally—facts do not speak for themselves.

And we've all had the experience, right, of going to a conference session that sounds great on paper. And then about five to ten minutes in, you start looking at your phone, maybe you're trying to figure out if you could download a slide deck instead of sitting for the entire session.You realize you need to prep for the next conversation you're about to have. You want to figure out where the session is that you're going to next.You start to check out. And once that happens, it's really hard to get back involved again.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. Yeah, and I think that there's—obviously not universally across the clean energy industry—but in the public persona, there's a lot of talks about solar and gas that are just bullet points, and we're getting better at it.I think we've gotten a lot better in the last couple of years, but I think we have a long way to go getting better at storytelling.And some of the places that I really like to look at, as an example, are some companies in residential solar. Not everyone's great at it, but some are pretty good.And the off-grid solar market, which—holy god—are they great at just showing how awesome their products are and what the impact is.It kind of just goes up from there. And it's interesting how the people who are more beholden to B2C—like you have off-grid completely beholden to B2C, residential, a lot of them do commercial as well, so they're half-half—and then further up you go up the chain, it seems to me like the worse they are at talking to the public.And I don't know if that's because of where I am in the industry, but we've had some really incredible things happen when we've leaned on our best stories—like leaning on the commercial system that we installed on five Habitat for Humanity homes at once, or the system that we built that's off-grid that powers a greenhouse that grows organic produce in a food desert really close to the infamous Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia.When we've leaned on those things, we've gotten either tons of local coverage—or in the case of the greenhouse, we got a lot of local coverage that got us a relationship with an NPR reporter that then led to a story about people rushing to install solar panels before Trump became president, where the president of our company got a picture and we got a backlink and it got picked up all over the country.And so it's just, it's so important to think about why people should listen to things. And it's often not the reason why you like things.

Spenser Meeks:Yes.

Aaron Nichols:It's not the reason why you think things are cool. The more you can lean on emotion and the less on logic, it seems to me like the more success you'll have.And you actually made me think of this phrase that I've been saying a lot, which is: if you want to be heard, be worth listening to.

Spenser Meeks:Yes. And that—everyone should have that tattooed to the inside of their eyelids that are trying to do this kind of thing.Right. It has to pertain to them, because we live in an environment now that is extraordinarily noisy. If you spend any time on social media—If you are online, it's just—everything is trying to grab your attention. And so we have really strong filters now, all of us, to try and make sure that we're going to preserve what we actually spend our energy and our time on.And so there is a substantial, in a lot of cases, BS filter that you need to surpass in order to reach people.And this is why—especially in the advent of AI here—that it's quality, not quantity, that is going to win the day, especially in a B2B context.So when you're working in a B2C context, that storytelling is monumental. It’s the whole thing.The reason it gets so frequently missed also in B2B context or you're talking about the people that are even more technically minded—frequently struggling with it, right?That happens in part because it is a necessary part of the conversation to get to the technical details. To the ROI, to all of this.But the argument—the hill that I'm going to die on for the rest of my life—really is: don't skip the first step.Do a quality intro. Make sure that people have the context and care—what the core conflict is—before you get to bring up your product, your service, the nuts and bolts of how these things work, which you can then spend a lot of time on because you're probably talking to an executive, you're probably talking to an engineer.We do need to validate the emotional buy-in that we're creating on the front side. It's just that you have to do that emotional buy-in piece first.And emotional buy-in is, I would argue, probably largely what you're talking about there.The thing that most people—sounds like—is that it actually provides a significant service.It's not the exact kilowatt-hours of the system that's being installed. It's not the nuances of how the inverter interconnects with all the other bits and pieces of technology that are involved.

Aaron Nichols:Well, like that piece is called the curse of knowledge, right? The things that us as subject matter experts get excited about probably are not going to be the things that get other people excited.It’s our area of comfort. And so in times of stress—like if you're giving a presentation or you're part of an interview—to fall back on what you know as an authority can feel more comfortable.It's just not as effective.A little bit of prepping, a little bit of awareness to know, like, what are the stories that demonstrate this? What’s the emotional impact and individualized sizing of this that will get people engaged and involved?

Spenser Meeks:Yeah.

Aaron Nichols:Heard you say that to someone who doesn't understand what gigawatts are, when you say five gigawatts, you might as well say six billion widgets or, you know, five hundred million nonsense words—floor muggins.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah, exactly. Doesn't matter. Yep.And then this is something you talked about earlier that I think is really good to keep in mind—is people's intuitive connection to the scale of things is really important to keep track of.And this is why it's important also to talk about individuals instead of like tens of thousands of people.Our ability to actually hold in our mind a number of people or a number of something taps out at about like 15—15 max.Which is why a lot of languages evolved to have, like: one, two, three, many.

Aaron Nichols:Right?

Spenser Meeks:There’s just more than that—it’s just like: a lot.Right. And a quick way of this is trying to think about the difference between a million and a billion.It doesn't feel like that big of a difference, right? A million seconds is about three days.Can you guess how long a billion seconds is?

Aaron Nichols:A lot of years.

Spenser Meeks:32 years.

Aaron Nichols:Right.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah. Okay, these differences in scale are really hard to internalize.They're really hard to internalize even if you're a person that's already working in the industry.The difference between a hundred megawatt project and a 2.5 gigawatt project is insane.But only if you can do something like visualize it—like actually show a picture of what a few hundred panels looks like versus like many thousands of panels covering an entire hillside.Right. So it's a call toward: how much more concrete, how much more clear can we make this level of impact, this level of scale to people and make it relevant to them—keeping a really strong eye towards who your audience is, what their level of experience and exposure is—will always mean that your messaging will land tighter.And if you don't know who your audience is—ask them. Like when you're starting a conversation with someone:"Hey, how’s it going? What's your background? What's your level of experience with this? Do you want me to air about this thing that I'm about to rant to you about?"

Aaron Nichols:Really? So this is a classic in sales:“So what got you to schedule the call with us today?”

Spenser Meeks:Yeah.

Aaron Nichols:Right. And then shut the front door—and listen.Well, man, I could talk to you for hours and I have. You've helped me so much. But we're running short on time here.And so when I was thinking about putting this short little interview series together, post–Inflation Reduction Act, I thought that the last question I want to end with is going to take a little bit of explaining.But a couple weeks ago I got to give a speech at my grandma's 80th birthday party—which, thanks to the things that you taught me for my clean energy speech, I absolutely nailed.And just like everything you've taught me—like I made a LinkedIn post about how the stuff you taught me helped me teach a friend in England how to give a better best man speech.And like, you've made such an impact in my life. And so I'm very grateful for that.But I was thinking about it afterwards—my grandma just turning 80 was born into a world where we didn’t have renewable energy.We didn't have clean energy. That didn’t even exist. Oil companies were still putting lead in gasoline when she was born. It was a completely different world.The first solar cell—the first PV cell—was created in 1954.So this is just a fun, moonshot question. But the reason I wanted to ask it is to kind of ground the scale of thinking about how far clean energy has come in my grandma's lifetime.And just imagining where we'll be in 80 years compared to that.Because I think the next three years under this administration are going to be an inconvenience.Clean energy obviously isn’t going to go anywhere. It’s going to be annoying, but we’re going to get through it.But if you’re just spitballing for fun—in whatever sci-fi context you want to do, don’t worry, we’ll both be dead, no one’s going to hold us to this prediction—Where is clean energy in 80 years?

Spenser Meeks:Oh, in 80 years? I mean—more than the dominant supply and capacity resource, absolutely.Like I am very firmly long on climate technology and solar—it’s already happening.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah.

Spenser Meeks:To your point—I mean, right now you can’t get a new natural gas turbine in five years.Like, we’re still gonna be building solar at breakneck paces, it’s just gonna be more expensive than it needs to be.So, like, where is energy in 80 years?I think it’s geothermal, solar, and wind, and hydro.I think that the days will be long gone of wanting to be dependent on the eccentricities of the international oil and gas markets.We’ll move towards transportation being completely de-hydrocarbonized.I’m hopeful that when I’m, you know, my parents’ age, that I’ll just be bopping around in an EV that’s auto-driving itself from point A to point B.I’m not going to have to worry about air pollution concerns at all.

Aaron Nichols:Totally.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah. I mean—yeah. And self-driving cars.I think we’re going to be in a great spot, man.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah. No—politics is still going to be, you know, a factor for sure—making sure that we’re getting the kind of minerals that we need and where things are being produced and the jobs that are there to support all of that industry? Fantastic.But I will die happy if I know that we just decarbonized our energy system.I want people to not have to think about this stuff at all—to not have to worry about keeping their lights on or cooling their homes or any of that—because it shouldn’t ultimately lead to our air being polluted and our water being poisoned, right?

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. Like, that’s just a fundamental that should be a given that is not today.So people will be in a great spot.It just means that there’s going to be a lot of work from plenty of point.And there’s nothing new.Well, you and I got 40 years of work left in us. So let’s make it happen. It’ll be good.Thank you so much for doing this today.It’s been a pleasure. I’m happy to call you a friend and I’m always just excited to talk to you.

Spenser Meeks:Yeah, it’s a pleasure. And thanks for inviting me on.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Quick note: I’ve designed today’s episode to be an overview that you can send to friends and family to show them the policies of this administration that affect solar energy, all in one place. Enjoy!

When we’re plugged into the news cycle, it can be easy to get angry about something and then forget it. Especially since so much is coming at us daily, and so much news isn’t related to clean energy.

So I’ve decided to take today’s episode to do a recap of policies that have been passed since January that affect the solar industry.

If I’ve missed anything, please let me know in the comments!

January 20 (Inauguration Day)

President Trump signed two executive orders on his first day in office:

* Declaring a National Energy Emergency

* Unleashing American Energy

The National Energy Emergency order declared high energy prices and state-level climate policies a national security threat, giving federal agencies broad emergency powers to fast-track energy projects, bypass environmental reviews (under NEPA, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act), and even use eminent domain or the Defense Production Act to accelerate infrastructure.

The Unleashing American Energy order revoked nearly every Biden-era climate and clean energy directive, halted Inflation Reduction Act funding (including solar and EV programs), dismantled the social cost of carbon, and directed agencies to rescind any rules that “burden” domestic energy development.

Neither one mentioned solar specifically, but they set the stage for this administration’s policies by excluding solar and wind from the definition of “energy.”

Sec. 8. Definitions. For purposes of this order, the following definitions shall apply:

(a) The term “energy” or “energy resources” means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals, as defined by 30 U.S.C. 1606 (a)(3).

February 5th

The administration froze funding for the EPA’s $7 billion Solar for All program.

Solar for All was designed to help low-income households go solar through grants and loans, thereby lowering their electricity bills.

Grant recipients, including nonprofits like GRID Alternatives and several states, were abruptly notified that reimbursements were suspended and the funding portal was shut down, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in approved projects in limbo.

The freeze stemmed from President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy executive order, which directed agencies to halt climate-related IRA and infrastructure law spending while prioritizing fossil fuel development

April 8th

President Trump signed another Executive Order:

PROTECTING AMERICAN ENERGY FROM STATE OVERREACH

Again, this Executive Order omitted solar and wind from the list of energy-generating resources:

My Administration is committed to unleashing American energy, especially through the removal of all illegitimate impediments to the identification, development, siting, production, investment in, or use of domestic energy resources — particularly oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.

This executive order directs the Department of Justice to challenge and overturn state and local laws that impose climate-related restrictions on energy production.

It specifically targets policies like carbon caps, climate liability lawsuits, environmental justice rules, and renewable energy standards that the administration views as “burdensome” or “ideologically motivated.”

While the order is framed as protecting fossil fuels, it could directly harm solar deployment. It’s designed to favor fossil fuels by stripping states of their ability to set climate or renewable energy goals.

May 20th

Steep tariffs on imported solar panels go into effect:

In May 2025, the U.S. International Trade Commission finalized a decision to impose steep antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

They ruled that the U.S. industry has been harmed by unfairly cheap imports. The tariffs range from 14% to over 3,500% depending on the country and manufacturer.

July 4

One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed.

The bill phases out clean energy incentives, including:

* Residential Investment Tax Credit (ITC, Section 25D)Repeals the 30% federal tax credit for homeowners who install rooftop solar, phasing it out completely after December 31, 2025.

* Commercial Investment Tax Credit (ITC, Section 48E)Eliminates the technology-neutral ITC for businesses, schools, nonprofits, and other entities investing in solar systems unless projects begin physical construction before July 4, 2026.

* Production Tax Credit (PTC, Section 45Y)Ends the technology-neutral PTC, which rewarded utility-scale solar (and wind) projects for generating power.

* Domestic Content Bonus CreditRemoves the 10% bonus adder for projects using U.S.-made solar panels, inverters, and other components, weakening federal support for domestic solar manufacturing.

* Low-Income & Energy Community AddersCancels the 10% bonus credits for projects located in low-income communities or former fossil-fuel-dependent regions.

* Direct Pay & Transferability (by proxy) Essentially repeals the ability for tax-exempt entities (like schools, hospitals, municipalities, and tribes) to receive credits as cash payments, and blocks credit transferability between companies.

July 7th

President Trump Signs the Executive Order Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources

There were several Republican Members of Congress who only agreed to sign Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” if he promised to make it harder for developers to move clean energy projects forward. So he signed this Executive Order days after the bill was passed.

The order directs the Treasury Department to terminate production and investment tax credits for clean electricity, and the Interior Department to strip away any regulatory “preferential treatment” for renewables compared to fossil fuels and nuclear.

July 17

The Interior Department moved to dismantle what it called “regulatory favoritism” for wind and solar.

The new policy ended right-of-way and capacity fee discounts for renewable projects, imposed extra political oversight by requiring the Secretary’s office to review all approvals, and aligned with Trump’s earlier order eliminating renewable tax credits.

Officials framed the change as correcting unfair advantages granted under Biden, while boosting coal, gas, and nuclear.

August 1

The Bureau of Land Management released guidance targeting solar and wind projects on federal lands, citing the Department of the Interior’s decision to end “preferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy.”

They ended long-standing right-of-way and megawatt capacity fee discounts, which had helped lower costs for developers leasing public lands for renewable projects.

The announcement also confirmed that all solar and wind project decisions under BLM’s jurisdiction would undergo elevated review by the Secretary’s office.

This action raises the cost of siting projects on federal land and makes the approval process far more uncertain.

August 8

EPA officially moves to end Solar for All, which, as previously mentioned, offered solar access to low-income households

The program, created under the Biden administration, was part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and aimed to bring rooftop solar, community solar, and battery storage to more than 900,000 households.

In the official announcement on Twitter, Zeldin called the program a “boondoggle.”

August 15

The Treasury Department and IRS issued Notice 2025-42, providing updated guidance on how renewable energy projects can qualify for the Investment Tax Credits as they’re being phased out.

The rule eliminates the 5% “safe harbor” test that previously allowed developers to lock in eligibility by spending just 5% of project costs before the construction deadline.

Projects must now satisfy the “physical work test” to qualify as having “begun construction.” That means developers must start actual, continuous, significant physical work before deadlines, not just spend money. Developers can no longer rely on pre-purchased equipment or minimal upfront costs to secure credits.

Projects stuck in permitting or interconnection queues are now at higher risk of missing eligibility.

August 18

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), under Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, announced that it will no longer support solar or wind projects on productive agricultural land, effectively ending the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) support for solar farms.

They declared that funding and loan guarantees will no longer be available for solar projects on agricultural land.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Show Notes:

Dara Bortman is a Returned Peace Corps Response Volunteer and former co-owner and Senior VP of Marketing & Sales at Exact Solar.

Over 15 years, she helped grow Exact Solar into one of the most respected solar installers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, building a company culture rooted in honesty and advocacy.

Here’s her LinkedIn.

Expect to learn:

* How Exact Solar grew from a single (almost accidental) pool heating project into a values-driven regional leader.

* Why honesty and education are the most effective sales tools for a solar company.

* How advocacy and community impact projects can become powerful marketing engines for any home service business.

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, as you can see, I'm across the table from someone. Someone not on Zoom, because I am in Boulder, Colorado for Solar 2025.

And we've got a very special guest. This is Dara Bortman, the one who started it all. One of the ones.

Dara Bortman:One of the ones who started it all. That's right.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, you were part of a dynamic duo.

Dara Bortman:That's right. Yeah.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah.

Dara Bortman:Mark and I.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. Yeah. Dara is one of the co-founders of Exact Solar, you know. And I have been doing this little interview series to talk to veterans in the industry about where we think solar is going to go, what's going to happen now that the Inflation Reduction Act's been repealed.

But I think a good place to start with this conversation would be to talk about the superhero origin story of Exact Solar.

Dara Bortman:Okay. We can do that. So, back in the olden days. I can't believe how long it's been. I guess it was back in 2005 or so.

Aaron Nichols:I was 12.

Dara Bortman:Oh my God, please. Yeah, yeah. I had children already. Anyway, so, Mark and I had always been interested in renewable energy, clean energy, and energy efficiency.

We actually took a class in Pennsylvania from Johnny Weiss.

Aaron Nichols:Okay. I've heard the name before. I've never, I never got to meet him.

Dara Bortman:Yeah. He was amazing. And he just passed away recently from cancer, unfortunately. Mark and I had always been interested in renewable energy, energy efficiency, but it was back pre-solar times.

So, American pre-solar times — meaning mostly that it was pre-tax incentives for solar.

Aaron Nichols:Right. So, both at the federal level and the state level, right?

Dara Bortman:Yeah, I think 2005 was the first one, if I remember right. It was around there, 2005 to 2008. In that area were the first East Coast state incentives, and also the federal tax credit, I think, started in ’08 or ’09.

Right. So, back in the early days, we actually took a class in Pennsylvania from the great Johnny Weiss about energy efficiency and renewable energy at the time, and we both took online classes, and we realized that, yeah, we weren't doing any work related to it, but it was something we'd always been interested in.

We decided at the time to pick up our family and move to Costa Rica.

Aaron Nichols:Amazing.

Dara Bortman:So, at the time we had a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old.

We'd never been to Costa Rica. Picked up the phone, we're like, okay, we're going to move there, on the map, and, you know—

Aaron Nichols:So, long before Costa Rica was cool.

Dara Bortman:Long before Costa Rica was cool, but it was a democratic country, it was safe, good medical.

Aaron Nichols:Right.

Dara Bortman:All that stuff. So, we decided we wanted our children to see that not everyone in the world got to live in a big house in suburban Pennsylvania like they did.

Aaron Nichols:Totally.

Dara Bortman:We wanted them to see that not everyone in the world speaks English, right?

Aaron Nichols:Yeah.

Dara Bortman:The type of things that we felt a child doesn't understand, really, unless they see it, right?

So, you can tell a kid that not everyone in the world speaks English, but I don't think they can conceptualize that until they're dumped into a place where everyone around them is speaking a different language.

Aaron Nichols:Oh, right? Yeah. Not everyone speaks my language. I don't know. Everyone's exactly like me. Not everyone looks like me, and not everyone lives in a big house like me.

Dara Bortman:So we at that time felt it was important to have a bit of an adventure with the kids, and we picked up and moved to Costa Rica for what was at the time six months and then it got extended to a year.

Not long after we moved there, Mark saw an ad in the local newspaper in Costa Rica advertising for Solar Costa Rica.

Aaron Nichols:A company down there that was installing solar on—

Dara Bortman:Right, on local homes.

Aaron Nichols:Okay.

Dara Bortman:So, he contacted the owner. He ended up coincidentally being an American who had just moved down to Costa Rica after being in the solar industry in California and Arizona for like 20 or 30 years.

Dara Bortman:So, people had been doing solar in America, but not PV. Solar hot water was his specialty. And he had retired down to Costa Rica.

Mark picked up the phone, called him up and said, “Can I just shadow you on some jobs? Can I just follow you around and, you know, like mind-meld with you and learn what you know?”

Bruce was amazing. This great guy — he would leave his glasses behind or his briefcase behind or his wallet. But he really was wonderful. He took Mark under his wing and taught him basically everything he knew about solar water heating down in Costa Rica.

So, while we were there for that year, Mark learned a lot.

Aaron Nichols:So to preface — solar wasn't even on your radar before Costa Rica?

Dara Bortman:Not as a business.

Aaron Nichols:Okay.

Dara Bortman:Like, entrepreneurial… there’s no entrepreneurs in either of our families.

Aaron Nichols:Okay.

Dara Bortman:So, being a business — a small business owner — wasn’t something on our radar. We both worked for corporate America. Mark worked for a company that was owned by a family, but it was basically corporate America. So that was never something that we thought about — like, “Oh, let's start a solar business.” It wasn’t on our radar.

But when we moved back to America, Mark reconnected with some nonprofits in the Philadelphia area that had been dabbling in solar.

Aaron Nichols:Okay.

Dara Bortman:You know, early solar water heating mostly.

Aaron Nichols:Who was it back then? Was there, like, a Solarize Philly back then?

Dara Bortman:No, there was none of that. It was actually the ECA.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, they’re great.

Dara Bortman:They're awesome. And maybe one or two others. But when we got back, Mark reached out to them and said, “I learned a lot in the last year. Maybe I can help you out. What are you doing with solar now?”

And they were like, “We’re not doing anything with solar. It’s not happening. We're not doing anything.”

But one of them said, “Oh, but this lady just called us the other day and she was interested in solar pool heating. Why don't you give her a call and see what she wants?”

So he did.

Aaron Nichols:Oh, wow.

Dara Bortman:She ended up living in Yardley. He went, spoke with this very nice woman, told her about solar pool heating, how it worked, gave her a price… actually, I don’t think he even gave her a price. She just said, “I'll take it.”

Aaron Nichols:That's amazing.

Dara Bortman:She didn’t ask for references. She didn’t ask for insurance. She didn’t ask for anything. She just said, “That sounds great. I'll take it.”

So he calls the guy up that gave him the lead and said, “She’ll take it. When will you come out to install it?”

And the guy said, “No, no. You don't understand. We don't do it. It's all you, dude.”

So Mark came home that afternoon and said, “I think we’re in business.”

Aaron Nichols:Oh my god.

Dara Bortman:And that was the start of Exact Solar.

Aaron Nichols:As a sidebar, I love that every entrepreneurial journey begins with low-maintenance people.

Dara Bortman:Yeah, exactly.

Aaron Nichols:Like, “Sure, put it on my house. I don’t care.”

Dara Bortman:That was the first one. She didn’t even ask for the name of the company. She just wanted the pool heating.

So that’s how Exact Solar started. There wasn’t really a solar photovoltaic industry in New Jersey or Pennsylvania yet. There were some early adopters in New Jersey, but nothing in Pennsylvania at that point. But there were solar water heating and solar pool heating people, and we became huge fans of that technology.

It’s so efficient, there are no moving parts, and it lasts forever.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah.

Dara Bortman:We ended up servicing systems for people whose systems had been installed when Jimmy Carter was president. When he put those panels on the White House, some people said, “I could do that for my house.”

They installed systems in the ’70s and ’80s, and when we started Exact Solar in 2005–2006, people would say, “I think my system needs a tune-up.” And those systems were still working just fine — heating pools or the water in their homes.

Aaron Nichols:It’s crazy that in America when people think of solar, they never really think of water heating.

Dara Bortman:Yeah, it’s not really a thing anymore.

Aaron Nichols:What happened?

Dara Bortman:Well, part of the problem was that solar water heating requires copper tubing. It’s basically a big, well-insulated metal box — the collector — that sits on your roof, or evacuated tubes, which is another kind of advanced thing. Once it’s up there, it’s there forever.

But when copper became expensive, the prices stayed high. Unlike PV, where prices have dropped dramatically in the last 20 years, solar water heating didn’t change much. An average house in suburban Pennsylvania was maybe $9,000–$10,000 at that time, and I assume it’s similar now.

The payback depends on your home and what you’re using to heat your water.

Aaron Nichols:When did y’all start doing PV?

Dara Bortman:PV really started picking up when Pennsylvania and New Jersey added state incentives. That, plus the federal tax credits, all came in around 2009. I think our first PV system was in 2009 or 2010.

Pennsylvania had a bucket of money for both water heating and PV, but once it ran out, they never replenished it. That helped some early adopters, but really the PV industry picked up around 2010.

Aaron Nichols:How did y’all manage to build such a great company with such values? That’s one question I wanted to ask you — because we’re scaling such a beautiful reputation now, and there’s so much groundwork y’all did that makes it so much easier for us to sell what we’re doing.

Dara Bortman:That’s so great to hear. When we sold the business to Doug, we looked for someone who would continue our legacy — our prioritization of customer service and support of our employees. We really built a family at Exact Solar, not just an employee team.

How did we do it? I think from the beginning we grew slowly, which we were lucky to be able to do. We were also very lucky to find some great early team members who were eager to learn and do things the right way — the quality way, not the easy way — and have fun while doing it.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah.

Dara Bortman:And part of it is taking care of your employees the way you’d want to be taken care of. We didn’t have to build a corporate machine like the ones we had come from. I loved my jobs in corporate America, but I knew which parts of that I wanted to keep and which parts I didn’t.

Aaron Nichols:What were some of the things you didn’t want to keep? For anyone building a small business, what do you throw out to create a great culture?

Dara Bortman:Well… that’s a hard question. I think of it more as additive than subtractive.

What we added was more of that “female energy.” I was the mom at that company. Especially in a construction-type industry, that’s unique.

When we hired installers who came from other companies, they weren’t used to that energy — being open to people’s personal stories, listening, supporting them, and not throwing people away at the first sign of adversity.

Part of it is just listening to people and making sure you’re supporting them the way you’d want to be supported yourself. I always live by the golden rule — treat others the way you’d want to be treated. That’s the company I wanted to go to work for every day. Respect goes both ways.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. It’s been wonderful to step into something like that. Even though I came in years after y’all sold the company, so many people from your time have stayed — like Don, Nick…

Dara Bortman:Yeah. Muzzy, Dima…

Aaron Nichols:I shadowed Dima’s crew when I was back in PA in May.

Dara Bortman:So yeah, we built a real family. And what came with that was caring about the triple bottom line — people, planet, and profit. We had the luxury to do that. Not every business does.

We didn’t just focus on maximizing profit. We’d spend more on employees, spend more time learning about policy that would benefit our employees and customers long-term. That long-term view is important when you’re building a company in perpetuity.

If you’re always looking at short-term profit, you might miss how policy being discussed now will affect your team two years or five years from now.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. That’s where transitioning into the policy side of things — becoming active at the local, state, and federal level — has really helped us. I’ve been telling people, advocacy is marketing. Especially in solar.

Dara Bortman:Especially in an industry so new, where a large part of your marketing is education — of consumers, your sales team, your installers, politicians. Education takes time and patience.

Aaron Nichols:That’s something we’re reaping the rewards of now. Alyssa — our marketing manager — and I have talked about how funny it is that we’re both former teachers. Doug’s strategy is essentially education and advocacy, with a long-term view.

We went all-in on educational content two years ago, and now we have so much organic lead flow — not only from posting content but also from advocacy, like publicizing that we built a solar system powering a greenhouse in a Philadelphia food desert.

Dara Bortman:Exactly. Maybe that job wasn’t as profitable as a big suburban house job, but it was important. Those kids learned so much from that project, and will carry it forward in their lives.

Aaron Nichols:Not only that — we had our congressman speak at the ribbon cutting, and got free earned media that led to more jobs. We didn’t spend a dime on that — just highlighted our advocacy.

Dara Bortman:Right. That’s a great point. I never bought leads. Tried it once or twice — total waste of money. Leads are a waste. That whole lead-gen industry is poppycock.

Our marketing was customer referrals — to neighbors, friends, coworkers, family. We didn’t have a huge marketing budget because our customers were our marketing base.

We always put honesty at the top of the list — with the sales team and with customers — even if it was bad news, like a utility delay. Honesty builds trust, and that’s what makes your customers say, “I trust Exact Solar.”

Aaron Nichols:Which has been wonderful for me, because we’re scaling a locally-based, values-based business that cares about the work we’re doing. Coming from education, Peace Corps, and nonprofits, it’s been amazing to step into this.

Dara Bortman:And each job you install, you’re saving the world one solar system at a time. When it’s a product you believe in and trust, it’s so much easier to sell.

Aaron Nichols:So how long were you operating before you sold?

Dara Bortman:We started in 2005–2006 and sold in 2021. So 15–16 years.

Aaron Nichols:Obviously there were many changes over that time — especially with incentives. How did you navigate that?

Dara Bortman:The “solar coaster.” We’ve been through it many times — losing or almost losing incentives. The key was honest communication with every prospective customer: “We’ll try to get your system in before the credit expires, but part of it’s out of our hands.”

We required honesty from salespeople, even when they might be incentivized not to. That way, there were no surprises.

We also found that customers who care about the environment still want to go solar, even if the numbers aren’t as good as before. Many feel, “I need to do something to make a difference.”

Aaron Nichols:There’s also the American thing of giving people something and then saying they can’t have it anymore.

Dara Bortman:Yes. And a lot of our customers after those “down” moments were people who just needed to feel like they were helping the future. Even if payback wasn’t as quick, it was still a good deal.

You’re not going to stop this train — only slow it.

Aaron Nichols:The way I describe it — it’s a trilogy. We’re in The Empire Strikes Back. The bad guys have won, we’ve lost a hand, we just found out Darth Vader’s our father. Now we have to move forward.

Dara Bortman:Right. There’s no stopping solar and wind — they require no fuel. Once the power plant is installed, there’s no additional fuel cost. It saves money, it saves the environment.

Aaron Nichols:Nico Johnson talks about how weird it’ll be to tell our grandkids we used to dig things up and burn them.

Dara Bortman:Right — and it made people sick and polluted our air and water. And some people were okay with living in a pile of trash as long as they made money.

Aaron Nichols:It’s stressful and depressing right now, but if you run a brand with integrity, you’ll make it through these down cycles.

Dara Bortman:Yes. It’ll go back up again.

Aaron Nichols:So as someone who ran a solar company for 15 years — what’s your advice to other owners navigating this?

Dara Bortman:Solar’s not going away. Be honest about the numbers. Utility rates are going up everywhere — like the PJM auction results that just came in higher than last year.

Stick it out. It’s stressful, but if you’re honest, your customers will be happy. Lean on honesty, brand, education, and advocacy.

Aaron Nichols:I love what you guys did — encouraging customers to contact representatives about bills. Our customers appreciated that, and became policy advocates themselves because we pointed out what was going on.

Dara Bortman:People often don’t know what’s happening with policy. They think they have no power, but they do. Every phone call matters.

Aaron Nichols:Even though we threw everything at the government this cycle and still had leaders let the industry down.

Dara Bortman:Yes. It’s disheartening when representatives you thought supported clean energy vote against it, despite huge pushes from constituents.

It’s hard to pick yourself up and make the next call, but you have to. Even if it doesn’t always work, doing nothing guarantees failure.

Aaron Nichols:To bring it home, I’ve been asking everyone a fun moonshot question: In 80 years, what do you think clean energy will look like?

Dara Bortman:Transportation will be completely different — maybe flying cars, self-driving vehicles that charge wirelessly as they move.

Solar paint, solar windows, solar roofs integrated into buildings. Wireless transmission of electricity. No more mining and burning fuel.

Electricity will be cheap because we’ll be overproducing with solar and wind. Excess will go into batteries or be let go — and that’s fine, because it costs nothing to produce from the sun or wind.

Aaron Nichols:Amazing.

Dara Bortman:Yeah. It’ll be a whole new dynamic.

Aaron Nichols:Dara, this has been so lovely — and I think you thought you didn’t have much to say when you sat down, but it turned out to be wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

EnergySage Reports Busiest Month Ever

What’s new

The solar lead generation platform EnergySage says July was their busiest month since their founding in 2009. Homeowners working with installers on their site jumped 205% from last year, and questions from shoppers through the platform hit an all-time high.

Why it matters

The rush started after Congress passed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” declaring that solar energy systems must be installed by Dec. 31, 2025, to get a 30% tax credit on their total solar project cost, an incentive passed into law under the Biden Administration.

We’ve experienced this rush firsthand at Exact Solar, especially since many homeowners in our region saw record power cost increases in June.

Installers’ calendars are filling up: 35% expect to stop taking new customers before Oct. 1, and 9% say they’re already full for 2025.

EnergySage expects solar sign-ups to slow in January when the credit ends, then pick up again in the second half of 2026.

New Altitude Record Set for Solar-Powered Plane

What’s New

A Swiss pilot, Raphaël Domjan, flew a solar-powered airplane called SolarStratos up to 31,237 feet, breaking the old record of 30,298 feet that was set in 2010.

The flight lasted a little over five hours, and he even flew near a regular passenger jet. Their team sent the flight data to officials to confirm the new record.

Why it matters

These flights have repeatedly proven that planes can fly at the cruising altitude of passenger jets, without gasoline.

The team’s next goals are 10,000 meters (about 33,000 feet) and then the edge of the stratosphere.

EPA Officially Cancels Solar for All

What’s new

The EPA officially ended its $7 billion “Solar for All” program. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said on X that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (which included Solar for All ) was eliminated.

Why it matters

The program gave money to 60 groups to help about 900,000 low-income households add rooftop or community solar and lower electric bills.

With the program canceled, several pending projects designed to reduce the energy bills of low-income communities are now at risk.

Sources

EnergySage sees massive spike in home solar interest with ITC set to expire

Politics EPA terminates $7 billion Solar for All program

World Pilot breaks altitude record for solar-powered plane, crossing paths with commercial airliner, his team says

SolarStratos: Solar-powered plane smashes altitude record held for 15 years by Solar Impulse

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit exactsolar.substack.com

Show Notes:

Nico Johnson is the founder and host of SunCast, where he’s interviewed more than 800 clean energy leaders about the future of solar, storage, and electrification.

A two-decade solar veteran, Nico has worked in markets from South Carolina to Chile and has become one of the most trusted voices in renewable energy.

Here’s his LinkedIn.

Expect to learn:

* Why clean energy will still thrive without tax incentives.

* How shifting from “selling solar” to “selling electrification” will change the products, financing, and customer experience in the post-IRA world.

* Why solar will be “so cheap it’s basically free” within 80 years.

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 Aaron Nichols, the research and policy specialist here at Exact Solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania.And before we get into today's guest, I wanted to say that today's episode is brought to you by solar in a very interesting way not as a sponsor but as a technology.I'm actually on a road trip deep in the woods of Wyoming right now and because I have a 200 watt solar panel and a battery bank and a starlink I'm able to record this interview from the back of my truck which is incredible and that's what I love about solar energy more than anything is that it enables things that were previously not possible.And that is something that I love about our first guest. I really cannot believe he's our first guest that he agreed to be our first guest on this podcast.But I could go on about him forever. Nico Johnson has been a mentor and a friend to me since I started this industry two years ago and started posting on LinkedIn.I was the editor of content at his podcast, Sundcast, for a little an investor and entrepreneur. He's so well known in the space.I'm just incredibly grateful that you're here, Nico, and thank you for being our first guest.

Nico Johnson:Well, I have to say, I wish that I could be there in the woods of Wyoming with you. Like, you were here in our kids' treehouse with me only a few, a couple months ago.And it's been wonderful to see that all of your ideas take flight and the fruit of that is the sort of newfound stardom that I think you're enjoying on LinkedIn, if not, if nowhere else.But it's funny to me, the number of folks that you now will respond back to me. Oh yeah, I'm talking to that person.And it's great. It just shows how easy it is with the current tools at our disposal to build a network and rapport quickly if you're intentional about it and you are your evidence of that.So my hat's off to you. I think that what you're doing with this week in solar is wonderful. It's something that I've been asked by countless people that we should be doing.And I'm like, no, we're not a new show. Somebody should do that, though. And I'm really very pleased that you have started this.I encourage you to keep it up. And of course, when you reach out and ask if I would join you for the series, I'm happy to do so one little way.I can both contribute to the work that you're doing and acknowledge that it's work worth doing.

Aaron Nichols:Thank you so much, man.And yeah, to riff on your earlier point about just meeting leaders in the space, I've been in disbelief since I came into this industry just how accessible the leaders in the space have been.I think my favorite story is we were planning a workforce program that unfortunately we weren't able to pull together, but we called Sean White about helping run some of it, and I had done my NAPSET PV associate and taken Sean White's course on heat spring and seen his face.And I thought he was going to be this inaccessible digital guru, and then I called the number and he just said, hey, it's Sean White.I mean, there's this phone, yeah. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. Yeah, it's been so amazing to be connected to so many of these leaders, and you have been a large part of that for me.So I'm eternally grateful and I think that brings us to our first question, which is that on your podcast, Suncast, which everyone here should be listening to, if you're interested in clean energy, you've interviewed more than 800 clean energy leaders and entrepreneurs, just the preeminent founders in the space, incredibly brilliant people.So obviously, we're going to be navigating a post-inflation reduction act world soon, and among all of these entrepreneurs, I guess it's a two-part question.Is there a common thread that you see and also what do clean energy entrepreneurs need to be doing now that we're gonna be navigating world without incentives?

Nico Johnson:It's a great privilege to be able to spend the last decade of my career interacting with what has proven to be a very accessible group of elite performers in the industry, founders, executives, investors, advisors who are helping bring about the clean energy transition.There's something very interesting that perhaps is a through line. It is that because of the nature of our industry, founders in this industry you're extremely resilient and are kind of against all odds, kind of people.They've chosen to go into a field where we had a commanding 0.2 percent adoption rate in the United States of all energy users, right?Less than 0.08. I remember because we said it was less than one-tenth of one percent. It was like 0.08. And we've seen that skyrocket to the single digits, almost getting in double digits here.And the amount of belief that it takes to build a business around that prospect for the last 20 years or the last two years required more than a spreadsheet and a spreadsheet around fundamentals of how incentives work.A lot of folks get into this industry because they have an affinity for helping their neighbors and their planet, but also because they want to leave a legacy.So one of the things that losing the RRA and seeing the current disruption in the incentive of structure for this business that happens is it can give, it can be a bit of a blow to folks belief system that this deserves to exist.And that's one of the things that I'm encouraged from creators like you that there is a need to remind folks that this not only is inevitable but it needs to exist and that it is economic uniquely feasible around the world without incentives.America is not only one of the most fat incentives in the solar market globally. It's one of the markets that can operate without incentives.You'll hear a lot of naysayers say that it won't. And I would say that the devil’s in the details, soft costs, et cetera, and things that we've allowed to continue or perpetuate that shouldn't.But I worked a long time in Latin America, and I watched the Chile market get below-grid parity in 2013. 12 years ago, like, what do the Chileans have that we don't sell for one?Their avoided costs or what they were paying in retail, like Chesey, was closer to like 20-25 cents a kilowatt hour.They didn't even have a distribution system that could distribute power from the north of Chile to the south of Chile.It's like California. It'd be like if California's ice, inland empire couldn't interoper, wasn't interoperable with PG&E. Right, and they still got to grid parity.Most of Europe is at or near grid parity. Australia's been at grid parity. Obviously, again, it's how much does it cost for the inputs?And we have lived in the privilege of having super low cost inputs, my home, where I grew up in South Carolina, my parents were paying somewhere in the 7 to 8 cents a kilowatt hour range for their predominantly coal power in South Carolina.So it's hard to make the numbers pencil for solar when all that coal power and all that natural gas power has been heavily subsidized to get off the ground, right?So the embodied subsidies are available now to serve as a counterpoint to why we don't need subsidies, but this technology is inevitable.I think that we have to not sell on the technology, but the inevitability of change and the reality that every consumer's pocketbook thanks to the actions of this administration.Every consumer's pocketbook is going to get hit. That everyone's electricity costs are gonna go up, not down. And the beauty of this, and I think you probably have a question about it, but I'm gonna go ahead and put it in here.Like the beauty of everything that's happening right now is that in the timeframe of somewhere between 18 and 24 months, the equivalent of our 30% federal incentive will happen in the reverse, but in their pocketbook.So their actual real cost will go up by 30% if they didn't already go solar. And most solar and solar at that point will be able to say if you had gone solar at the end of 25, you wouldn't have experienced this 30% increase, right?Would have been sheltered or hedged from it. So we really got to get to that inborn American resilience of wanting to own our own power, wanting to own to be the standard bearer for the future of our family.And you can really actually take control of your family finances by eliminating variable costs. And what your utility will charge you in 18 months is a wild-ass guess.So, solar is one of the best ways to hedge against the inevitable increase.

Aaron Nichols:It is really incredible. And we're, I don't want to say lucky because obviously there's people who are going to suffer as a result of this but we are seeing record power increases in our region as an installer that covers New Jersey and Southeast Pennsylvania, we've had an incredible skyrocketing of power rates because of some things that we don't need to get into right now.But it's just going to get worse, and we've been using the language Smart Shoppers buy-in bulk. Why not buy your energy in bulk?

Nico Johnson:Oh, yeah. Excellent. That's, I like that. Yeah. I mean, Florida alone is at 20% rise in electricity over the past five years.Right. And that's just if you look across the entire market and average it, in certain jurisdictions, it's gone up as much as 300 percent, same in California.

Aaron Nichols: So yeah, I think that obviously covers—it’s a sad thing to be hopeful about—to know that there’s just so much price gouging, and of course there’s going to be a lot. You can tell, power is going to cost more and more.And I think the reason Americans dislike that is because you’re just always going to pay more for the same product.It’s never going to innovate. It’s never going to change. It’s going to be the same thing, but you’re always just going to pay more for it.And all of that is still going to exist. So obviously, there’s a lot to be hopeful for about there. But is there anything else that you’re very hopeful about as we head into this new market?

Nico Johnson:

I am—two things. Actually three things.One, I’m hopeful that SolarAPP will become adopted universally.It has proven to reduce overhead and soft costs, especially in one of the hardest areas to reduce—and that’s permitting.So SolarAPP should be adopted by every municipality across the United States. I think that will increasingly happen.

I’m hopeful number two that we will see a right-sizing of how installers treat their sales teams.There’s been a lot of outsourcing of sales, and I think we’re going to see a lot of sales teams move back in-house to the best installers.And the best and the brightest are going to be proud of their internal sales process and sales teams. It’s going to be something they own and manage.And I think a lot of the external sales reps, by the way, who are really good at conversion, are going to be great consultants.

But I don’t think that as an industry we will—or should—rely on the external sales team model that became very prevalent over the last seven, eight years.Structurally, it’s very difficult to find other markets like that. Alarms is one. Garage doors is another.I feel like it’s a handful. I’m probably wrong—somebody can fact-check me in the comments—that rely on door-to-door sales.I’m hopeful that solar will now move beyond door-to-door sales as the primary mechanism for selling to homeowners.

And then the third: I’m hopeful we’ll see a resurgence of exactly what you’re doing—off-grid solar.I think off-grid DIY solar is going to see a great resurgence.I’ve considered how I should create content around it to take advantage of the renewed interest, because whether you have incentives or not, if you’re off-grid, you don’t get them.It was really monopolistic anyway, so I think the DIY market is going to see a huge resurgence.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, that’s something I was just talking to our mutual friend Spenser Meeks about when I interviewed him as well.I think we have a lot to learn from the way the off-grid market markets itself.They are so good—especially because they have to be B2C—but they’re so good at just saying, “You are going to have an awesome new lifestyle that you couldn’t have had before because you have this thing.”

Yeah. So obviously we’re moving forward. I mean, it’s incredible to hear that you’re so hopeful about where we’re headed and that you think the companies doing it right are actually still going to win.I’m very grateful to be part of a company that isn’t using door-to-door sales.But as anyone who’s listened to my episodes on Suncast knows, I did actually start in solar doing door-to-door sales.And everything I’ve done since then is really just kind of penance for my sins.I want to be clear that I don’t want to vilify the door-to-door sales industry—I think it did tremendous good in helping us scale fast—but it didn’t come without false promises and some really negative side effects.I think that’s going to get worked out finally.It’s something we’ve been calling for—a reckoning there.

And I do think it’s important for the solar industry to present a more united front under the current administration.But if you do want to learn more about many of the things that happened in the door-to-door era, there’s a woman named Alana Semuels. She’s a reporter for Time Magazine and she wrote an excellent four-part series on it.

So moving on—as we move into this new world, what do you think are maybe some challenges or opportunities we haven’t foreseen?This is one reason I wanted to do this interview series. There’s been so much talk about what could happen—and none of it happened.We were lobbying so hard and got just a little bit of what we wanted. But now we’re in a new world.What do we do now? What are some challenges or opportunities you think we haven’t thought of yet?

Nico Johnson:Yeah. One of the obvious challenges to me is that the 25D and 48E incentives were monetized through capital markets—and those products are going to go away.If not entirely, they’re going to dramatically change.So the near-term challenge we have as an industry is not just squeezing in as many sales before December 31, 2025, as possible.

It’s: how do we actually, when the industry goes from 5% to 45% adoption, create a product that helps every homeowner finance this—like they finance a refrigerator?When do we get to the point where someone can have an Affirm loan on their solar generator—because what they’re really buying is a balcony solar system with four panels and one EcoFlow battery?

Some really smart people are thinking about how to engage the broader banking sector—not just Wall Street.I mean people like Anson Rabinowitz and Mikkelson from Atmos.They basically provide a fintech solution for community banks and federal credit unions and other entities trying to distribute funds—even grant programs—in a more scalable, economic way.By leveraging fintech like Atmos, they’re able to reach more people at lower cost.

Just here in my home state, the Clean Energy Fund is looking for a program manager to execute a several-million-dollar program across North Carolina.Those programs aren’t administered by groups like GoodLeap or Mosaic.So I think there’s a real market opportunity for groups like Atmos that can bring industry and financial tools to bear.

I’m reminded of the folks at Project Solar.That was a fantastic interview. It blew my mind—this burgeoning DIY market and the e-commerce tools letting us treat solar like a consumer product, not a bespoke project.In truth, if we’re honest about what the sales orgs did over the last 5–7 years, they standardized a product that could be sold by anyone—even a college student at the door.That wasn’t possible when I started my company in 2006.

So I’m hopeful. But the big challenge is: how do we finance this?How do we help consumers see it as just another appliance?

Another point—I think we’ve been selling solar, but we’re no longer just selling solar.We’re selling electrification.If you listen to what utilities are saying, we’re selling distributed energy resources—often in the form of a battery that may or may not have solar attached.Batteries didn’t get touched. So some utilities may start selling batteries.Solar is now just something that makes that battery better.

If you think of people who sold home AV systems—they weren’t selling speakers. They were selling a TV, and the speakers made it better.I think the battery is the television of our category. Everyone wants one.Solar just amplifies its value.

Aaron Nichols:Right. That’s a really good point—and thank you for pointing that out.

You know, Nico, one of the things that’s just been so interesting to me since I came into this industry is the quality of people—and how close everyone seems.I joke with everybody that it can be intimidating. You meet veterans and they’re all best friends, godparents to each other’s kids.So it can feel like a club that’s hard to break into.

But I’m interested—first, why do you think such good people are here?And second, what causes that closeness?

Nico Johnson:Every month, as I ride the solar coaster, I think at least once about an alternate reality I could’ve chosen.One that wasn’t the pain train of trying to make solar a commonplace appliance.

I’ve been in the industry since 2006, and the people I’ve met are here for the same reason I am—not to make money, but to make an impact.We want to leave a legacy.

I don’t know if I’ll be remembered beyond the day I die. But the folks I’ve met who’ve persisted—who’ve stayed—have become my best friends, my kids’ godparents.They believe in this.

It’s not unlike an F1 team.Fifteen or twenty years ago, the idea of an American or Brit winning the F1 title seemed impossible.But then Lewis Hamilton did it.Yes, he was a world-class athlete. But people around him believed it was possible.

A lot of us have been enablers of this industry. Johnny Weiss—our dear friend—he just passed away. He founded Solar Energy International.He didn’t do it to make money. He did it to make an impact.

People call me all the time saying they work in fossil fuels or banking and hate their lives.They’ve made more money than they imagined—but dread the moment their kids ask: “Why didn’t you do something different?”And the only answer they’d have is financial security.

So many of us have foregone financial security to be part of something that could change how we make, use, store, and move electricity.

Jerry Shao said this is the biggest wealth transfer in generations.And what brings us together is that we are seed planters, not harvesters.

When you’re in a community of seed planters, you’re surrounded by long-term thinkers.

Aaron Nichols:I remember Honold saying something similar when you interviewed him—how he goes to clean energy conferences and says, “These are my people.”He doesn’t have to filter.

It’s amazing.And as someone to whom the baton is now being passed, it’s incredible to see the groundwork y’all have laid.It’s humbling. It makes me feel like I’m in the right place.

Nico Johnson:If you want to use that baton analogy, I’m in the second leg.There’s a generation of Johnny Weisses who were here in the ’70s. That’s the first leg.My generation got the baton around 2004–2006.You’re in the third leg. And in a relay race, each leg gets faster.

I remember Johnny telling me, “How do you do it? You’re running so fast.”And now I look at the work you’re doing, the work others your age are doing, and I’m in awe.I don’t have that energy anymore.But there are still miles to go.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah. And as we think about baton passing, I’d like to give you the chance to riff a little.I spoke at my grandma’s 80th birthday the other week—happy birthday, Grandma!And I realized she was born in 1945. Renewable energy, as we know it, didn’t exist.PV wasn’t invented until 1954. Jimmy Carter didn’t put solar on the White House until 1979—and that was just solar thermal.

So to end things: where do you think renewable energy—or solar—will be in 80 years?We’ll both be gone. No one will hold us accountable.

Nico Johnson:I love that. I’m glad I won’t be accountable for this answer.

I’ve said this from the beginning. In one of my early Suncast episodes, Camila Patrini said:“In 80 years, solar energy will be free.”

So I’ll borrow that:In 80 years, solar energy will not only be ubiquitous—it’ll be so cheap it’s basically free.And that will create entirely new paradigms of business and energy services.

People will be aghast that there was opposition—just like people are shocked now that anyone opposed cars or computers.Our grandchildren will say, “What do you mean people didn’t like solar?”That’s like saying you don’t like clean air.

And when energy is free, firm, distributed, what would you build?What businesses would you create?What paradigms would you change?

This is not hypothetical. It’s a technological reality.

Companies like BrightNight and Intersect are already building solar-natural-gas-battery hybrid plants with 75%+ capacity factors.In 2006, that was unthinkable.

So 55 years from now?Universal acceptance. No question.

I’m also excited about small modular nuclear.And who knows—maybe we’ll just be able to paint solar on.

Aaron Nichols:We already can!

Nico, thank you so much for being our first guest. It really means the world.Anyone listening should check out suncast.media.And if you want a great place to start, just search my name—I’ve been on three times.

That’s This Week in Solar.If you liked today’s episode, reply to the Substack email, leave a YouTube comment—whatever’s on your mind.We’d love your feedback.

We’ll see you next week.

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