This Week in Solar

What’s new:

On January 27th, Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced the “Lower Bills and Local Power Act” (LBLPA), a legislative package designed to provide immediate cash relief to families while aggressively modernizing the state’s power grid.

Here’s what it would do at the state level:

* Solar financing: A new $70 million “Gap Financing Program” will fund local solar and storage projects, explicitly designed to offset cuts to federal Investment Tax Credits under the Trump administration.

* Cash relief: The bill allocates $100 million for a new round of direct utility bill rebates for families, scheduled to hit this fall. This is on top of $200 million in electricity bill rebates that Maryland started sending out to all Maryland ratepayers last year.

* Highway power: The state is putting $10 million toward using existing highway rights-of-way for new high-voltage lines and battery storage, allowing them to bypass complex private land acquisition deals.

Why it matters:

* They’re filling the federal gap: With federal clean energy support shrinking, Maryland is stepping in with state funds (reinvested from utility compliance payments) to keep local solar and storage on track.

* They’re cutting red tape: By focusing on highway rights-of-way and existing state-owned lines, the administration can deploy desperately needed infrastructure faster than traditional permitting will allow.

* They’re defending consumers: The bill frames energy policy as a housing affordability issue. By cutting utility profit incentives and forcing participation in regional planning, the state estimates it could save ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.

What he’s saying:

“Energy policy is about more than megawatts and transmission corridors. It is about whether Maryland families can afford to live in their homes.”

- Wes Moore

11.2 Megawatts of New Community Solar To Be Built in Delaware

What’s new:

TurningPoint Energy (TPE) and Standard Solar announced a new partnership on Jan. 27 to build two major community solar projects in Delaware that will offer clean energy access to nearly 1,700 homes.

Here’s what you should know:

* The projects: The collaboration will deliver 11.2 MW of power across Harrington, Delaware. Both projects feature single-axis tracker systems and are scheduled for completion in 2027.

* Charitable giving: As part of the deal, TPE is donating $40,000 to local non-profits in the host counties.

Why it matters:

* It’s a statewide commitment: This move continues TPE’s 2022 pledge to invest over $100 million in Delaware’s energy infrastructure.

* They’re offering energy equity: The projects are designed to lower electricity bills for subscribers who cannot install panels themselves (like renters), with 15% of bill savings specifically reserved for low-income customers.

* It’s a state policy win: Standard Solar cited Delaware’s “forward-looking” Renewable Portfolio Standard as a key driver for the investment, proving that state-level policy continues to attract national capital even as the federal administration de-prioritizes solar development.

Musk Says Cost of Deploying Solar in U.S. ‘Artificially High.’

What’s new:

Elon Musk used his debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos to argue that solar energy is the critical bottleneck preventing an AI-driven economic boom.

Here’s an overview of his statement:

* His 100GW target: Musk announced that Tesla and SpaceX are independently working to build up to 100 gigawatts per year of solar manufacturing capacity within the United States.

* Critique of tariffs: Musk slammed US solar tariffs, arguing they make the cost of deploying clean energy “artificially high” at a time when electricity is desperately needed.

* How much solar he believes we need: Musk reiterated his long-standing belief that roughly 100 by 100 miles of solar panels in a corner of Nevada or New Mexico could power the entire United States.

Why it matters:

* We’re headed for an AI energy crunch: Musk warned that the world is approaching a hard limit where “we’re very soon going to be producing more chips than we can turn on.”

* Domestic Pivot: By targeting 100GW of domestic manufacturing, Musk is attempting to bypass the tariff barriers he criticized.

In His Words:

“Unfortunately, the tariff barriers for solar are extremely high, and that makes the economics of deploying solar artificially high.”

- Elon Musk

Sources:

Maryland introduces legislation to curb energy costs, spur solar development

Governor Moore Announces the Lower Bills and Local Power Act to Combat Rising Utility Costs and Deploy Affordable Local Energy

Standard Solar, TurningPoint Energy spearhead Delaware community solar portfolio

TurningPoint Energy and Standard Solar Partner to Build Two Delaware Community Solar Projects, Totaling 11.2 MW

In Davos debut, Musk says US tariffs make solar power a challenge

Elon Musk at Davos 2026: why technology could shape a more ‘abundant future’

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

In this episode of This Week in Solar, host Aaron Nichols sits down with Brett Simon, Director of Commercial Strategy at e-Zinc, a long-duration battery storage manufacturer.

Brett explains what makes e-Zinc’s zinc-based hybrid flow battery different from the lithium systems most people know (and why that’s huge under the current administration).

You can connect with Brett on LinkedIn here.

Listen to this episode on:

* YouTube

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

Expect to learn:

* Why battery storage is essential for a renewable grid once you cross 60 to 70 percent clean generation.

* How battery storage can be a non-wired alternative to expensive grid upgrades

Quotes from the episode:

“Storage is the enabler for a high-renewables grid. Once you get to around 60 to 70 percent renewables, you basically need long-duration storage for the grid to function efficiently.”- Brett Simon

“Our system is completely lithium-free. Everything in the battery is made from commodity materials, so we are not exposed to the same extreme commodity risk that lithium-based chemistries face.”- Brett Simon

Transcript:

Aaron Nichols:Hello, everyone, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to This Week in Solar. As always, I’m your host Aaron Nichols, the Research and Policy Specialist here at Exact Solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania.And today, I think we’re going to be talking more about batteries, which is an area I know shamefully little about—and I’m excited to learn a lot more.So our guest today, Brett Simon—would you tell us a bit about EZinc and your role there?

Brett Simon:Sure. Hi, everybody. I’m Brett Simon, Director of Commercial Strategy at EZinc. EZinc is a long-duration battery storage manufacturer based out of the Toronto area of Canada—though I personally work out of our U.S. arm in northern New Jersey.Our solution is a zinc-based hybrid flow battery that can discharge anywhere from 10 to 100 hours. Traditional flow batteries have two tanks that pump solution between them; ours is a single sealed tank. If you were to look at it, it would resemble a fish tank with a potassium hydroxide electrolyte. It uses zinc chemistry to charge and discharge energy, giving advantages like long lifetime, low degradation, inherent safety, and, of course, the long duration I mentioned earlier.It’s made entirely of commodity materials, so we aren’t subject to the extreme commodity risks affecting other technologies that rely on rare earth elements or materials refined in foreign nations.

Aaron Nichols:So does that mean lithium is not involved in the chemistry at all?

Brett Simon:We don’t use any lithium. Our solution is completely lithium-free.

Aaron Nichols:That’s amazing—you’re much less dependent on supply chain disruptions.

Brett Simon:Definitely. I was just at a conference in Austin, Texas, where there was a lot of discussion about supply chain and the drive toward domestic manufacturing for the storage industry, especially with new federal rules around foreign entities of concern. There’s going to be a big push toward domestically manufactured content.

Aaron Nichols:So what are some of the major differences in degradation between zinc and lithium?

Brett Simon:Good question. Lithium systems have improved a lot over time, but typically, depending on how much you cycle them, you’ll get between a 7- and 13-year lifetime. Our battery targets a minimum 15-year lifetime. That’s a major difference.Our system also has a different discharge profile. Lithium systems—because they’re shorter duration—are usually cycled almost daily. Ours, being long-duration, often does partial cycles each day.

Aaron Nichols:Do you have a similar depth of discharge?

Brett Simon:Ours is superior—0 to 100 percent. Lithium generally doesn’t go below 5 percent or above 95 percent. But customers don’t really see that difference. The rated capacity they buy is what they get.

Aaron Nichols:On EZinc’s website, it says your mission is to enable a safe and cost-effective transition away from fossil fuels to renewables. For listeners who might not know—why is energy storage so important for renewables?

Brett Simon:Storage is the key enabler of a renewable grid. A study from about four years ago found that once a grid hits 60–70% renewables, you need 8+ hours of duration storage to function efficiently because of generation variability.Some grids are already approaching that level. Hawaii, for example, was facing solar backfeed issues as early as 2015, even requiring battery storage or smaller systems to limit exports.

Aaron Nichols:They also eliminated net metering, didn’t they?

Brett Simon:Exactly. So if we want to scale renewables, we need storage—and increasingly, long-duration storage. Ten years ago, a 1 MWh project was exciting. Now, 100 MWh deployments barely make the news.

Aaron Nichols:At a basic level, renewables don’t produce power all the time, so we need to store it for when it’s needed most.

Brett Simon:Exactly. And beyond that, storage improves the transmission and distribution grid. It can defer or replace costly infrastructure upgrades—substations, poles, and wires—saving utilities time and money.

Aaron Nichols:That’s huge. Utilities in our region raise prices every year because they can’t keep up with upgrades.

Brett Simon:Yeah, and you’re in PJM territory—same as us in New Jersey. Energy prices and grid constraints are major political topics here, especially during elections.

Aaron Nichols:We even have governors threatening to leave PJM! It’s wild. Anyway—what are the major challenges facing storage deployment right now?

Brett Simon:Three main ones:First, supply chain. The global battery market is still dominated by China—something like 80–90% of lithium refining happens there. With FEOC (Foreign Entities of Concern) rules kicking in around 2026, there’s urgency to build a domestic supply chain.

Second, market design. PJM and other regional operators weren’t built for storage. FERC Order 841 forced markets to compensate storage, but mainly short-duration. We need a similar order for long-duration systems. Right now, if you bid a 24-hour resource, you’re only paid as if it’s a 4-hour one.

Third, interconnection and permitting. The process is painfully slow—averaging seven years in PJM from queue to approval. Batteries and solar can be built in a year or less, but permitting delays everything.

Aaron Nichols:And permitting isn’t standardized—every jurisdiction does it differently.

Brett Simon:Exactly. Even stormwater rules vary wildly and can add months if developers don’t plan for them.

Aaron Nichols:You mentioned before recording that you have a soapbox about AI and energy. Let’s hear it.

Brett Simon:I’m an AI skeptic—not that it’s bad, but it’s overhyped. It’s great for optimizing battery charge/discharge and identifying faults, but most companies claiming to use AI can’t explain what it actually does. I’ll ask at conferences, “What does that mean?” and often get blank stares.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, that happens across industries. Everyone says “we use AI,” but no one can show where.

Brett Simon:Exactly. It’s become a buzzword. I even tried Spotify’s AI DJ once—it said, “You were listening to Blink-182, so here’s Taylor Swift.” That’s not intelligence. I just want companies to be transparent—say what AI actually does and why it’s needed.

Aaron Nichols:That’s a great point. Reporters tell me they’re drowning in AI-generated responses. Sometimes not using it is an advantage.

Brett Simon:Totally. It comes down to authenticity. If your AI truly optimizes performance—great. But if you can’t explain it, it’s a red flag.

Aaron Nichols:I’ve called myself a “nerd whisperer” since joining this industry. There’s often a gap between engineers and communicators—people saying “it’s AI, it just works,” when they don’t understand it themselves.

Brett Simon:Exactly. I don’t expect a marketing rep to recite algorithms—but they should be able to clearly explain what it does and why it matters. I once met someone who did just that—gave a full, 20-minute breakdown of how their AI worked. I wish more would follow that example.

Aaron Nichols:Alright, to wrap up, I ask everyone the same final question. My grandma just turned 80, and she was born into a world where renewables didn’t exist. What do you think clean energy looks like 80 years from now?

Brett Simon:Eighty years from now—so, 2105—I’m going to dream big. I think humanity will at least start building a Dyson Sphere: solar panels orbiting the sun, capturing massive energy directly from our star. It sounds crazy, but a hundred years ago, no one could imagine video calls or smartphones. Why not?

Aaron Nichols:That’s what would make interstellar travel possible, right? Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about how civilizations evolve through energy levels—and a Dyson Sphere would get us to the next one.

Brett Simon:Exactly. Even in my lifetime, the pace of progress has been wild. Maybe by then we’ll have near-infinite storage—or at least affordable, practical long-duration storage everywhere.

Aaron Nichols:That’s a great vision. Brett, thank you so much for coming on today. If people want to find you, where can they connect?

Brett Simon:LinkedIn is best. I post regularly and attend plenty of clean energy conferences, especially around New York City. So if you see me at one, say hi!

Aaron Nichols:Awesome. Thanks again, Brett. And for everyone listening—that’s been This Week in Solar. We’ll talk to you next week.

Brett Simon:Thanks for having me on, Aaron. I really enjoyed it.

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

What’s new:

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill wasted no time Wednesday, signing six executive orders before she finished her inaugural address.

Two of them were related to energy. Sherrill declared a formal State of Emergency regarding utility costs, allowing the state to bypass red tape, expedite power projects, and get new generation on the grid as fast as possible.

* (EO #1) Freezing Rates: The order halts upcoming utility rate hikes and utilizes existing state funds to offset bill increases scheduled for June.

* (EO #2) Solar & Nuclear Push: The administration is fast-tracking thousands of megawatts of new solar and battery storage in the short term, and establishing a nuclear power task force to figure out longer-term projects.

Why it matters:

* Immediate Relief: The policies take an aggressive stance against regional grid operator PJM, blaming their “mismanagement” for current costs and forcing utilities to realign business models to benefit ratepayers.

* Supply, supply, supply: Sherrill’s strategy is based on the idea that more power will automatically mean lower costs. Her administration is shifting focus to getting in-state generation on the grid fast rather than relying on the regional grid.

Her own words: “In the Navy, I learned that you have to lead, follow, or get out of the way... I promised the people of New Jersey that I would be on a mission to deliver starting Day One.”

Checking In on Trump’s Campaign Promise to Cut Energy Bills In Half

What’s new:

President Trump and his administration have yet to deliver on their campaign pledge to cut energy bills by 50% in their first year, as electricity and gas prices climbed significantly in 2025.

* Bills are rising everywhere: The average US household electricity bill rose 6.7% in 2025, and gas bills jumped 5.2%.

* It’s worse in our region: Electricity prices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, however, rose far faster than the national average, rising by double-digit percentage points across both states.

* Disconnections: Utility shut-offs (when a power company intentionally cuts power to a specific region) are also spiking. In New York, the disconnection rate rose fivefold. In December, thousands of Colorado residents went without power for an entire weekend due to an intentional utility shut-off.

Why it matters:

* Supply vs. Demand: Experts say the grid is failing to meet new demand due to the “ideologically driven attack” on wind and solar. Solar is now the cheapest and fastest power source to deploy.

* Policy paradox: The White House is doubling down on fossil fuels and blaming “blue states,” but analysts note that infrastructure costs and extreme weather are driving rates up regardless of state politics.

Sources:

Promise Kept: Governor Sherrill Takes Bold Action with Executive Orders Declaring State of Emergency on Utility Costs

New Jersey governor spends first day in office issuing executive orders on solar

Trump promised to cut energy bills in half. One year later, has he delivered?

How Trump’s promise to slash energy bills in half has failed across the US

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

Aaron sits down with Dan Crawford, Senior Vice President at Echo Communications Advisors, a policy-first communications firm that works exclusively with climate and clean energy clients.

Dan spends his days helping clean energy companies and nonprofits shape public narratives, place op-eds, and talk to policymakers in ways that actually move votes.

He and Aaron dig into how energy prices became one of the hottest political issues in the country and how the solar industry can seize the moment.

Listen to this episode here, or on:

* YouTube

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

You can connect with Dan on LinkedIn here.

Expect to learn:

* How the clean energy sector got outmaneuvered in Washington during the One Big Beautiful Bill fight

* What clean energy companies can do right now to tell better stories, get local press, and bring elected officials into their projects.

* Why facts alone do not speak for themselves, and how emotion, human stories, and pocketbook concerns drive modern energy politics.

Quotes from the episode:

“Energy prices are not going away as an issue. Voters see the increases on their bills and they are looking for someone to blame and someone to fix it.”

- Dan Crawford

“Clean energy has flipped from being something people supported for climate reasons to something most voters support because they want cheaper electricity.”- Dan Crawford

Transcript

Aaron NicholsHello, everyone, and welcome back to this week in solar. As always, I’m your host, Aaron Nichols, the research and policy specialist here at Exact Solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania.And today we have someone that I’ve followed for a little while. Once we got started talking on LinkedIn, I realized that I’ve been subscribed to the Echo Communications Newsletter for, I think, over a year, and until I got really excited to make that connection.We have Dan Crawford here, the Senior Vice President at Echo Communications Advisors. Dan, would you introduce yourself and echo and talk about what a day in your working life might look like?

Dan CrawfordYeah, Aaron, it’s great to be on the pod. I started listening and we’ve been really enjoying the interview so far.Great to be chatting with you. So Echo Communications and advisors. We are a DC based policy first communications firm. We focus exclusively on climate and clean energy clients.So what I tell people is, you know, we help climate and clean energy companies, nonprofits, organizations have their voices heard in Washington and across the country.So if you’re looking to change policy, if you’re looking to fix a piece of legislation or get something past or input with lawmakers, you know, we help with communications tactics like media, op-eds, messaging to have your voice heard.

Aaron NicholsOkay, great. And just off the top of my head, I’m really interested in landing op-eds. How, what’s a off the top of your head tip for anyone who’s interested in getting more?

Dan CrawfordYou know, op ads are top. They’re easier said than done. Yeah. There’s a lot of people submitting a lot of op ads to not a lot outlets.I would say the first tip is know your audience. So, if you are trying to reach, you know, people in the specific area look for, you know, local or regional outlets, if you’re trying to reach people that are interested in a specific topic, you know, look at trade publications, look at kind of more niche websites, don’t assume that if you’re writing an op-ed, you have to pitch it to USA Today of New York Times, you know, they’re probably going to be outlets that are better read by your audiences.And if you kind of do your homework a little bit and find something that you think is a really good fit, you’re more likely to get it picked up.You know, having a clear message and a really unique point of view is really helpful. It can’t just be, you know, hey, here’s, you know, this thing that I think is cool, pay attention to me.You have to be making an argument, you have to be, you have to be saying something that it is unique to you that they’re not hearing from a bunch of other people.So make sure your argument is unique, make sure your audience, you have the right audience in mind, and make sure that your writing is solid and compelling.

Aaron NicholsYeah, okay, those are all great tips. I mean, I’ve never thought about this until I just asked you that, but the average editor who’s publishing op-eds probably has to sort through just the craziest stuff you can imagine coming into their newspapers.So make yours easy quick and related.

Dan CrawfordYeah, you have to imagine, you know, these folks are probably spending like two minutes for submission before they decide whether to accept it or reject it.So you have to make sure that you can grab their attention with something that’s very compelling. When they get go, that’s a unique argument that they haven’t heard before.And a point of view that is not represented in their newspaper or if they’re out there already.

Aaron NicholsYeah, well, to take it in a different direction, one thing that I wanted to talk to you about and that we are very excited about at Exact Solar because we install Solar in New Jersey is Mikey Cheryl, winning the governorship of New Jersey. And we also had Abigail Spanberger win the governorship of Virginia and both talked a lot about using clean energy to bring down energy prices when they were on campaign trail.We also saw two new elected officials to the Georgia Public Service Commission who ran on very similar terms, which for that to make national news is crazy.A lot of people probably hadn’t even heard of public service commissions before the last couple of years. So do you think this will be a winning strategy for other candidates a year from now as we go through the midterms?

Dan CrawfordYeah, I absolutely do, you know, 2025 elections were a big issue with energy prices across the board, and I don’t see any sign of that changing in the next year.Or if you look at New Jersey and electricity prices were up 20% year over year this summer and polls showed that a vast majority of voters considered it to be an important issue in the election.And Cheryl was really able to seize on that. She came out and announced that she was going to freeze rates, be executive order, and that she was going to fight to reform PJM, the grid operator in New Jersey.And, you know, she really kind of defined the debate over energy prices, and I think, you know, it was very smart and she ended up winning on the issue.You know, we were joking before we started recording. When was the last time a grid operator would say a household name, you know, in an election?So it’s clear that voters are paying attention. People have noticed that their electricity prices are going up, you know, in Virginia, data centers are a huge issue.There’s more data centers in Virginia than I think anywhere in the world, definitely anywhere in the country. And, you know, people see them as you’re driving by, you see these huge data centers, and you know that they’re just gobbling up tons of power.And there’s a big fight over whether there should be more of them and how they should pay for their power.And Spamberger was really able to see them on that as well. And then, of course, in Georgia, you had two Democrats winning in the public service commission, which is the first time that Democrats have won statewide non-federal election in Virginia or in Georgia in like 20 years or something like that.And, you know, these, these public service commissioners, gigs, like, usually if you’re, if you’re in an incumbent, you’re not really worried about a reelection challenge, people tend to just kind of like vote the same people in over and over again.So the fact that voters were fired up enough to even go to the polls for this election, let alone vote for a challenger shows that energy prices are going to be, you know, a huge issue.And I think what we’ve seen is really a flipping of the script with clean energy where, you know, clean energy, especially solar is oftentimes the cheapest form of energy that we put on the grid.It’s by far the fastest, and when you talk about supply constraints as data centers are demanding more power, you know, the fact that you can put solar panels up, the fact that you can get solar panels up and connect them to the grid in a couple of years compared to five, six, seven, eight years for a gas plan means that solar is by far the best option and so clean energy has kind of switched from being something that people backed because they cared about climate change, they backed because they care about the environment, to something that the majority of voters support because they want to see cheaper electricity.And I think that flipping of the script has been really interesting. And it I think is a great sign for the solar industry and for the clean energy industry in general going forward.

Aaron NicholsYeah there’s so many places to go here and so many things that I’m curious about since you are in this every day and you know so much more than I do.But I am I’m particularly interested in the story that’s being told right now because I know that that Mikey Cheryl and Abigail Spanberger won, and there was this public service commission election as well.And the media has really seized on that, saying, like, energy is going to be a hot-button issue. But four people does seem like a small sample size to me.And so I’m interested in what you’ve seen in the broader picture as well.

Dan CrawfordYeah, I mean, you know, 2025 is an off-year election and, you know, it’s not even a proper mid-term, so you really only have Virginia and New Jersey and then a couple of smaller state elections.So it’s a small sample size, but I don’t think this issue is going away. You’re already seeing Democrats talk about it, you know, who are sort of thinking about running for President in 2028.Governor Pritzker in Illinois just signed legislation to really kind of beef up energy production in the state. So you’re seeing, you’re seeing national names talk about it more and more.And you know, electricity prices are not going to go down anytime soon. So I think it’s going to continue to be a key issue going forward, especially with the president out there really attacking clean energy and doing its best to cancel wind projects and solar projects with Republicans and Congress rolling back incentives to put solar panels on your rooftop.Energy prices had become this very sort of politicized thing. And you know, I think there’s an opportunity there for the clean energy industry to kind of harness this political power.Now all of a sudden people really care about where is their energy coming from and how much does it cost.And you know, the solar and you know, wind and battery industries, you know, they really have an opportunity to say like, hey, we are the energy sources of the future.We are going to make the grid more reliable. We are going to make your energy cheaper and we want politicians who support our industry.

Aaron NicholsYeah, I’m really excited to watch that play out. And I know that if we’re talking about a public service commission election, like you said, for someone to defeat incumbents in something that most people have probably just checked a box on every election and never really thought about is huge.And I know Georgia got hit really hard with price increases. I think they’ve had, I read in that New York Times article about canceling solar for all, but I think they’ve had four or five in the last four years, and it’s gone off some huge amount.So obviously, there’s public frustration that candidates are tapping into here. But how do you think that clean energy companies who historically have not been amazing at public perception PR media?How can they tap into that same frustration and use it to our advantage?

Dan CrawfordYeah. Yeah. The first thing I’d say is, you know, make sure that you’re telling your story.So, you know, if you’re a company that’s breaking ground on a new project, you know, have a press conference, invite your local officials and invite your representative.Talk about the jobs that you’re creating. Talk about the impact your project is going to have on energy prices. Don’t be afraid to, you know, to talk about what your projects mean for the economy, what they mean for homeowners, ratepayers.You know, find out who your representatives are, make sure you’re in touch with them. You know, if you, if you can go to their offices and sit down and chat, visit DC and really start to advocate for the industry, you know,And I think a little bit of it is just that kind of flipping of the script of remember solar and all this clean tap is going to make energy prices cheaper. And so we don’t have to appeal to people sort of sense of altruism or their concerns over climate, which have always asked someone who cares a lot about climate.You know, it’s tough to admit, but they’ve always been secondary to pocketbook concerns. And so now the energy, the clean energy industry has, I think, a very firm ground to stand on to say like, we are making electricity bills cheaper.We are making it easier for you to get power. We are making it easier for you to, you know, get through blackouts and brownouts and survive and unreliable grid.All of these things that just sort of like make people’s lives easier, you know, we can now kind of talk about our role in that.

Aaron NicholsAnd I think I want to emphasize something you talked about at the beginning, just from my own narrow band of personal experience that’s about telling your story and inviting local officials.I think we’ve been very successful in that. When we were trying to have more of a national impact in the run up to the one big beautiful bill, we were too small for reps to listen to us in Washington.But our local impact and zooming in on one story, specifically the fact that we built an off-grid system that powered a greenhouse that grows organic produce and a food desert in inner city Philadelphia, and then inviting reps and non-profits, that got us all sorts of media attention.We probably couldn’t have afforded just in terms of eyeballs on us, and also landed us in NPR. And so I think one thing that in my own, once again, narrow band of experience, the clean energy industry doesn’t seem to do a good job of, is zooming in on emotional one stories and trying to tell the story of the whole thing at once saying you know if we if we’re saying we’re going to lose 100,000 jobs that’s much more difficult for a human mind to conceive of than saying Jim’s going to lose his job Jim just got an electrician’s license Jim has a family.

Dan CrawfordYeah I mean telling those individual stories can be so powerful and showing that kind of depth. I tell people, when you’re trying to get a story picked up by the media, you want to think about kind of breadth or depth.Does it have a very broad impact? Does it affect everybody? Or does it have a really profound impact on a few people?Because media like to tell those stories. They like to be able to find specific people that they can interview and say, like, yes, this is making my life better or, you know, this will make my life worse.And having those individual stories can be just super powerful.Yeah. The other thing I’ll say is, you know, I think this whole industry has some great trade groups that are, you know, really doing a good job making the case in Washington.So, you know, if you’re interested in, you know, getting involved with your trade associations band together and make sure that, you know, your collective voice has be heard.

Aaron NicholsAnd I think there’s there’s an order of operations there as well. Like we realized, okay, so this project involves education, politicians love education, specifically they love to stand in front of education and talk about how great it is.And the media loves to photograph politicians while they stand in front of education and talk about how great it is.And so if you can make sure that everyone gets what they want.Yeah, you can create a really special moment.

Dan CrawfordYeah, totally. And I’ve been talking a lot about prices. I think the prices are the key issue next year and for years to come.But the cleaning and energy industry has so much to offer the economy as a whole. When you think about AI, I mean, one, like we’re going to need so much energy to power AI and it can’t just come from oil and gas.It’s going to have to come from everywhere. You cannot build a new gas plant in less than eight years right now.You can build solar a solar plant in two.And, and be, you know, when you think about how the workforce is being transformed because of AI, you know, a lot of jobs that were high paying jobs that you would go to college for are gonna be harder to get and they’re gonna be harder to come by.And then meanwhile, I guess what jobs can’t be outsourced AI, electricians, like people that are actually on the ground using their hands installing solar panels, building windmills.And I think that those are in a way the jobs of the future because they’re the jobs that we’re going to need that are going to pay really well, and it can’t be outsourced or turned over to the robots.

Aaron NicholsYeah, and to get there, we obviously have to go through to Washington, and there’s going to have to be policy that’s favorable to that.But in the run-up to the OBBB being passed, I mean, we really got our butts kicked as an industry. And I went to Nico Johnson’s some at last month, and he had a former state rep come speak who told us that in their time in office they had to ask one person to be the clean energy industry’s filter for them, because there were so many competing companies talking to them about all these different things that they wanted, and no one seemed to have unified messaging or goals, whereas on the other side of the aisle, the fossil fuel industry knew exactly what they wanted and how to get it, and there’s just a lot more practice at that. So how do you think as an industry, as someone who works in Washington, how do you think as an industry, we can get on the same page, and what common messages do you think we have that we can rally behind? I know energy affordability is one that you mentioned.

Dan CrawfordYeah, you know, I think leading up to the OBBBA, BBBA. I think there was a feeling that the like the facts would speak for themselves.You know, you had all of these projects that were breaking ground. You had all these investments that were being announced.And a lot of them were in Republican states and Republican districts. And I think a lot of people, you know, sort of thought, well, there’s no way that they will vote, you know, against these tax credits that they’ll vote to roll these incentives back because you know we are making investments in their district and I think people were maybe a little naive and didn’t you know didn’t put enough stock in the strength of the ideology of some of the members of Congress that were pushing this legislation forward.You know it was no there were plenty of there were plenty of members who said oh yeah I support the tax credit that you wish you keep you know this tax credit or that tax credit, I think we should protect some of the IRA, but it was nobody’s top priority.Nobody was willing to put their neck out there to be the one to save this particular tax credit.And so, at the end of the day, they all voted yes anyways, even though they said, oh yeah, we should protect the IRA tax credits.I think that was definitely a lesson learned. I think having the affordability messaging, you’ve already seen advocacy organizations and trade organizations start to coalesce around affordability, which is huge.You know, the oil and gas industry has had a lot more time, right, like they’ve been around for longer. They’ve had time to kind of consolidate power, but they are very good at kind of speaking from you know, the same notebook, right?Like they are very practiced and very disciplined. And they’re very good about thinking about where does their money go, you know, where are their donations going.And so you have members of Congress who they know where their bread is buttered. And they, you know, support the oil and gas industry because they’re getting donations, They’re going to make support, they’ve got support for years, even at the expense of their own constituents.You know, you think about it, you know, so our employees close to 300,000 people in America, that’s like five or six times more people than coal employees.And it’s getting to be close to rivaling oil and gas, at least the sort of direct employment. And, you know, the coal industry and the oil and gas industry, they just have spent so much time kind of building political power that now they have this outside impact on politics.And, you know, I think it’s going to take some time, but I think that that should be the model for the clean energy industry is, you know, how do we build political power?How do we make sure that we are being heard in Washington and that our influence reflects our impact on the economy, our impact on prices, our impact on jobs.

Aaron NicholsYeah, my friend Spencer Meeks, I don’t know if you’ve been lucky enough to meet him at a conference or anything.He says facts don’t speak for themselves at all. which I have come to believe that’s true as well. And I think that emotion has a much larger role to play than we like to imagine it does.I think as people who tend to be a little more educated or have gone to a little more university, whether that makes us educated or not on one side of the aisle, I think that there’s this over-reliance on facts and an under-reliance on emotion, and I mean facts have really never mattered less to the political discourse these days.Yeah, which is interesting to see. I mean, I like to say that no one is sitting around waiting for a graph that proves them wrong.I think people only go. I think people only go looking for facts when they already believe in emotionally charged story.

Dan CrawfordYeah, I think that’s right. You know, I think the energy, the clean energy industry is at a bit of an inflection point now where for the longest time, you know, it was, it was an ideological choice to support clean energy because you were, you were doing it for political reasons.And it’s sometimes meant sacrificing something and meant spending more money because you wanted to get carbon free electricity. And I do think that there is a moment right now where we’ve kind of crossed this inflection point where now you don’t have to care about climate to support clean energy.You just have to care about, you know, electricity that’s cheap, that’s reliable, that’s fast to deploy. So, you know, I’m hopeful, as somebody who does care about climate, you know, very deeply, I’m hopeful that, you know, the economics will win out and that people will support energy, clean energy because of the economics.And I think that that’s the best path forward is to just keep investing, keep doing what you can to make this technology better and cheaper and faster, and let people vote with their wallets.

Aaron NicholsYeah, and I think the psychological emotional lever to pull in the short term is this system that we rely on for this thing that we now need is completely out of your control, and And it’s just going to continue costing more.There’s nothing you can do about that, except this one thing. And that, yeah.

Dan CrawfordWell, and people should, people can get involved at all levels of government. I would say, find out if your state has an elected public service commission or public utility commission, find out where your PUC stands on the issue.You know, find out where your representative stands on the issue, you know, like you’re going to see things like BJM in New Jersey and Pennsylvania becoming a really big issue, you know, and just like grid operators and interconnection cues and all this stuff that, you know, feels very technical and very wonky is going to become very important to the, you know, the simple question of, you know, can you get power to your house and how much is a cost?

Aaron NicholsYeah. Well, Dan, to bring it home since we’re running out of time, I ask everyone the same last question who gives me their time to guest on this show.And that it has to do with the fact that I was at my grandma’s 80th birthday party a couple months ago.And as I was sitting down to write a LinkedIn post about it afterwards, I realized that that means that she was born into a world where clean energy did not exist.She was born in 1945, so Missouri had just been electrified a couple of years before. The only way we knew how to generate energy was to dig things up and burn them.We had no other way of doing it. Solar PV was an invention until she was nine years old and then that took decades to become cost-effective.And then, you know, at the turn of the century, the price just cratered and became way more cost effective. All of that has happened within her lifetime.So if you are just going to spitball moonshot, what do you think clean energy looks like 80 years from now?

Dan CrawfordOh, that’s a great question. And I love just the historic perspective there. I was at an event where they were talking about electric cars and somebody brought up a a news article from like the 1830s that was about steamships, and now steamship technologies never going to beat the, you know, the wind and sailing ships there, too slow, they’re too high-byes.So we’ve been having these debates for ages, right, and you know, I just think that we need to, you know, we need to have that historic perspective of, like, yeah, hundred years ago, we didn’t have, we didn’t have natural gas, right?We had coal and that was it. You know, doesn’t mean we’re going to have to have coal forever and it doesn’t mean we’re going to have to have natural gas forever.I think that in 80 years, you know, the technology will be at a point where we can, where everybody in the world has abundant energy and, you know, energy is everything.Energy is at the heart of economic prosperity. It’s at the heart of economic growth. It’s how countries become superpowers. It’s how developing countries become developed countries.And, you know, if we can unlock cheap, abundant, clean energy for the world, I just think we’re just going to see this explosion of human wellness and flourishing.So that’s the future that I’m working for. It’s the future that you’re working for. I hope the future that our listeners are working for as well.

Aaron NicholsAmazing. Then, if you want to be found, where do you like to be found? I assume you mean on the internet.

Dan CrawfordI do mean on the internet, if you’re not a person.Well, I didn’t watch it in DC. If anybody wants to get coffee, if you’re here, I’m always always happy to chat.But echo coms.com. It’s e-c-o-c-o-m-m-s.com. We have a great newsletter that goes out once a week where we we talk about but you know, it can verify it as a copy of the day.Appreciate it. And we do some of these interviews as well. So Aaron, maybe we’ll have to have you on our newsletter, The Echo Chamber.And I’m on LinkedIn as well. Folks should find me. I wish I had to reconnect.Fantastic. For everyone listening, that’s been this week in solar and we will see you next week.Thanks so much, Dan.Thanks a lot, Aaron. This was great.

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

What’s new

More than 60 top scientists from around the world just released a report on Nature.com (linked in today’s sources) saying that solar power is taking over as the top power source faster than anyone expected.

Experts from labs in the United States, Germany, Japan, and other countries found that the world now has more than 2 terawatts of solar power, double what we had just four years ago, and that solar will likely be the world’s dominant source of power by 2050.

Why it matters

It took the world 68 years (1954-2022) to reach 1 terawatt of solar. We reached 2 terawatts just over two years later.

A terawatt is a LOT of electricity. 1 Terawatt of electricity is 5% of the electricity the entire planet uses at any given moment.

It’s hard to visualize, but let’s try.

First, we need to buy one billion microwaves, or about half of the microwaves that exist on the entire planet.

Now we need a space to lay them all down. We’ll have to level Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island, and fill the space with nothing but microwaves, and somehow plug them all in.

Then we’ll need to turn them on at the same time. As soon as they’re all on, we’re using roughly 1 terawatt of electricity.

The report predicts that we could have 75 terawatts of solar power by 2050.

So um… Imagine covering all of upstate New York in microwaves, and you’re somewhere near imagining the amount of clean power we’re about to generate.

To stay on track and hit that huge number, we’ll need more efficient solar panels.

Companies like Tandem PV are building new types of panels called “tandems” that stack layers of perovskites and silicon to catch more light and turn it into electricity that will be more widely available soon.

While this technology grows, the U.S. government is cutting money for solar to focus on oil and gas, which the scientists in the report warn could let other countries like China take the lead in this new energy race.

It’s important to note how different solar energy is from fossil fuels. The sun provides free fuel to some part of the earth 24/7, 365.

In just one hour, the Earth gets enough sunlight to power the whole world for an entire year. Because the fuel is free, solar power is the cheapest way to make electricity. You just lay panels out, and they make electricity.

Solar power doesn’t require the infrastructure that you need to dig things up, transport them to a different place, and burn them to make electricity.

The “solar century” is already here, and the countries that embrace solar power will be the most sovereign in the future, because they’ll have complete control over their energy generation.

Court Blocks Some of Trump Administration’s Clean Energy Cuts

What’s new:

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the U.S. Constitution by canceling clean energy grants for states that did not vote for him in the 2024 election.

Why it matters:

The ruling restores seven specific grants worth $27.6 million, which had been awarded to projects like electric vehicle charging programs and building efficiency projects.

The lawsuit was brought by the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, and several environmental groups after the Department of Energy (DOE) cut over $7.5 billion in funding last October.

The court found that there was “no rational relationship” between where a project is located and whether it deserves funding, calling the administration’s actions a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

While this specific ruling only saves a small portion of the canceled funds, legal experts say the decision sets a precedent that could protect other projects from being targeted for political reasons.

The DOE disagrees with the ruling and claims the projects were cut because they didn’t meet necessary standards, but the judge noted the administration freely admitted to making decisions based on voting patterns.

Sources:

Talking About Energy Dominance? Solar Would Like to Have a Word. - Inside Climate News

Historical and future learning for the new era of multi-terawatt photovoltaics

Court says Trump DOE violated Fifth Amendment when canceling clean energy funding to blue states

Trump administration unlawfully cut clean energy grants, court rules | Utility Dive

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

In this episode, Aaron talks with Abby Hopper, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

Reflecting on her nine-year tenure, Abby discusses how she transformed SEIA by creating a culture of vulnerability and embracing thought leadership.

(She also spills the beans on what she’s doing next).

Listen to this episode on:

* YouTube

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

Connect with Abby on LinkedIn here.

Expect to learn:

* Why personal branding is a critical tool for getting messages out there in 2026 (Abby went from 30,000 LinkedIn followers to 70,000 in less than two years).

* How Abby built a company culture that SEIA’s employees love.

* Advice for solar industry newcomers on how to find “your people.”

Quotes from the episode:

“I believe in my soul that in order to be highly effective and deeply impactful, we need to be connected to the people around us.”

- Abby Hopper

“I’ve never met a more scrappy industry. We’re constantly being challenged, and we constantly keep coming up with new iterations and new ways to get our work done.”

- Abby Hopper

Transcript:

Aaron Nichols: Abby, I’ve noticed that you’ve like, really embraced thought leadership during your time at the Solar Energy Industries Association. And several other large companies seem to be doing the same thing like Kelly McPherson with Navigating the Grid at Radiant, Benoit Tanjan at Solar Maverick Podcast, Juliet Piper at Goodleap. Why do you think so many companies are now putting time and resources into putting faces on their brands?

Abby Hopper: Yeah, it’s a good question. Um. And I’ll tell you why I do it, and then I can hypothesize about why I think I’ll do it. I mean, I have done it not really as sort of a sea of branding exercise, but more of a way to talk to our members and the solar and storage community, right? Like there’s the world I live in, policy, politics. So it couldn’t feel really inaccessible and really far away, you know, and especially like over this summer and the spring and the summer when there’s all this battle over HR1 and are we gonna get the tax credits? Are we gonna keep the tax credits or the tax credits going away? Like not really knowing who to believe and what to believe and who had the story. I felt like it was really important to be a voice. I was like, let me just tell you what’s really going on.

And that like because of that, it became more of like a brand that it didn’t start out with that way. I feel like I know the other people that you mentioned, you know, in friends with all of them. And I think each of them are storytellers in their own way. And so it’s certainly for brands a way to differentiate themselves. It’s a way for people to feel a connection because they feel connected to the person. But I also think, especially the three that you mentioned are really interested in people and in what makes this industry go and how things are evolving and how technologies are evolving and where the innovation is happening. So I can say for me it’s been such a joy to like use my voice in this different way.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, and I think that there’s a lot of data that seems pretty clear that people tend to follow people and engage with people a lot more than they do with an organization page. So you can really, I guess, think of your own LinkedIn page, which has grown tremendously, as just another way of getting information out there to people who don’t really want to follow a brand page.

Abby Hopper: Yeah. Well, I think that’s right. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that because I use my LinkedIn differently, I think then some people do, like, what I write about today. Oh, today I wrote about a Washington Post article that, you know, shows that there was there’s an experiment where a woman changed her gender to male and then asked Chachibiti to make her post more masculine, whatever that might mean, and her impressions quadrupled overnight. It’s fascinating, right? I’m not saying whether that’s good bad, but I’m saying like we should be thinking about what does that mean.

Tomorrow I’m writing about the word of the day after you and I get off the phone, I’ll do that. Then on Wednesday, I’m writing about supply chains and storage costs in the solar and storage, like not storage, but like getting stuff to places costs. And that, like, mix of personal and professional information and reflection, I think that makes it more interesting It makes me more interesting for me personally. That’s the kind of people I follow, like Kelly. You know, Kelly does that too. I know more about ranching and rodeos than I did.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah. She’s awesome.

Abby Hopper: She’s so awesome, but don’t you wanna go out to her house and ride around in her horses? It looks gorgeous.

Aaron Nichols: It does. Yeah.

Abby Hopper: Yeah. And I think, I mean, that’s the type of creator I am to and the reason, like, I was gonna do it somewhere and I picked LinkedIn, but I just, I’m interested in stuff and I want people to know. Well, I’m interested in stuff and I want people to know and I’m also interested in what other people think about stuff, right? Like, like, I’m curious. Like, how are people thinking about large language models and inherent bias or how are people thinking about, like, like what are they want to accomplish in 2026? Like I love, I love stories. Like I love people and I love the stories they tell. And so I have found like did to be a really good platform for eliciting those kinds of stories in ways that it might not have been intended for, but it’s certainly super effective at.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, I’ve really, I’ve enjoyed my time on there so much. And unfortunately, as we all know, as everyone who follows you knows, you’re transitioning out of your role as the CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. So I would love to know what you’re proudest of as you’re looking back on your time there and everything you’ve accomplished.

Abby Hopper: Yeah. It’s hard to pick like one thing, right, because I’ve been there for nine years now. But I will I will say there’s a personal one and a professional not personal but like an organizational one and a professional one and the professional one is the passage of the inflation reduction. I mean that was just was so Transformation for our industry and it was such a show of force in terms of our advocacy and our Impact and you know, we can have a long conversation.

Sorry. I’m always wiggly. I can’t sit still I do not sit still ever.

Aaron Nichols: So I have the same curse right I’m always like oh I’m standing right now are you really playing with my wedding ring yeah I could stay with mine but uh no I play with my hair I play with my pen and I rearrange my legs.

Abby Hopper: So the passage of the IRA like you know Now, it has been amazing, it has transformed the industry, it will continue to transform it, even with some of the rollbacks, it’s still transformational. So that’s what I’m like really proud of. And, you know, having been there for the years leading up to it on the whole fight for the year and a half that it happened, it did just happen overnight. That was awesome. And then getting to go to the White House and having this big party on our roof and like it was just awesome.

Um, um, I think internally the thing on the most proud of is the culture we’ve created. And I, you know, that’s like such a, what does that even mean, Abby? Like, you’re critical. I don’t know what that means.

Aaron Nichols: It’s a nice buzz word.

Abby Hopper: It is so busy. Um, but I mean, things like we’ve been voted multiple times as one of the best workplaces, right? By our employees. And, um, and it means that people, like come up to me, like at the holiday party we had last month and say, well, I’ve never worked anywhere like this before. Like I’ve been in politics. I’ve been in solar for a decade, two decades. And I’ve never been at a place where like people really value us as people and not just as workers, right? And and it’s I feel really proud of that. I’m really trust that that will continue after I leave because I think that’s a lot of magic sauce of what makes see a such an effective place.

Aaron Nichols: I didn’t write this down as a question, but I’m interested to go down that rabbit hole a little bit with you. Like, what is culture and how do you create great culture?

Abby Hopper: Yeah. The way I think about culture is sort of, how does it feel to be at work? Like for us, it’s work. How does it, what does it feel like? And do I, do I feel included and welcomed and listened to and valued and like listen to and value aren’t the same as being like I always agree with or get my way right that’s not the kind of workplace I create but something where people get to say their piece and get to have a voice and what and how the how the work gets done. So I think that’s part of it I think like how do we make that happen is through a lot of like conversations with employees around you know what do they think what are they doing how can we do it better but also like hey um you should probably go home like you know you don’t get an award here for staying late like you don’t get no word for emailing me at 10 o’clock at night in fact if you’re emailing me at 10 o’clock at night I’m probably gonna ask you like what’s going on um Yeah, I always tell my team like we don’t have emergencies in solar right like we really don’t We work really really hard, but we also like I’m better at my job when I’m happy And I’m happy when I see the people I love and I get enough sleep and I you know read interesting books I’m not really good at my job when I’m just running on fumes.

Yeah, so that’s a part of it And then like, you know, we pay for healthcare and we match our 401k and like we, uh, we give people the week between Christmas and New Year’s off without having to take PTO. And this year, I mean, the year was so rough that I just closed the office for a week at August. And it was like, everyone just go, go, we don’t have to take PTO, we’re just shutting down and resting for a week, right? Like that’s in my mind. That’s what it means. Right. Well, what do you think? I mean, you work. What is the culture mean to you?

Aaron Nichols: I think culture means being valued and just being seen as human, like not feeling like an automaton to me, being knowing that I’m able to just express how weird I am. Like, I have a very irreverent sense of humor. So getting to sneak in some jokes and have that be respected is a big part of culture for me because if If we’re not being ourselves, then what are we doing? I have a big issue with professionalism in general Because it’s just this idea that we pretend that we’re a bunch of people that we’re not I would much rather work in a place where I can I can be funny. I want I like being funny And I guess my guess is most people would prefer to be around you when you’re being funny.

Abby Hopper: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s probably right.

Aaron Nichols: Well, going back to that unfortunate week in August where you’ve told everyone to go away for a week and just recharge. I mean, obviously we’ve had a very difficult year. We might be headed for a difficult few years as an industry. So, as you’re transitioning out as CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, what advice do you have for us all as we’re navigating this next few years together?

Abby Hopper: Yeah, I would say like, again, kind of the professional on the personal and the professional side. I mean, you know better than I, the demand is there, right? Customers want our product, and so remaining innovative and flexible about how we deliver that product And how we communicate about that product and what we’re offering and sort of being very solutions oriented and very like almost technology agnostic, which is funny because I represent the solar storage industry, but really, you know, understanding that customers want reliable affordable clean, they do, they want clean power and like, they don’t really care, like and what constellation it comes. So if it’s a combination of storage and solar or wind and storage or whatever, just like get it to them and the best way possible, one of the reasons I wanted to work in this industry was because I’ve never met a more like scrappy industry, right? We’re constantly being challenged and we constantly keep coming up with new iterations and new ways to get our work done.

So I was, that was my strong professional advice is to like stay ahead of the curve there. And then I think personally, it’s what like staying connected to other people and other people that make you happy both personally, but professionally, right? Like some of my closest friends I met in the solar industry, which I wouldn’t have guessed when I got here. You know, that wasn’t my goal in becoming the CEO. My goal was to just like pay the bills and have a good career, but I have met some of my closest friends here and feeling grounded in that and like there’s so much satisfaction in what we’re doing, even when it’s really hard is important. So, you know, find some really good friends. There’s a quote I love by Joseph Campbell that the influence of a vital person vitalizes.

Aaron Nichols: And it’s so yeah, it’s so important to stay connected, and I’ve actually, I’ve been really impressed by the quality of people that I’ve met in the solar industry and just, like, what a great filter it is for people of quality, because I’ve been in so many rooms that I thought were going to be my people and weren’t. Like, I was a, I was a Peace Corps volunteer, unfortunately, very briefly before we were evacuated and I was an educator and I kept thinking I was going to find my people and I didn’t until I got here. And what is it about the people here that makes me feel like they’re your people.

Abby Hopper: The scrappiness is a big part of it. The understanding that we’re a part of something bigger and the willingness to sacrifice in service of something greater is a big one and the creativity that it has taken to just constantly pivot business strategies. I mean, I’ve only been here two and a half years and we’ve done it so many times. I am last year was the 50th anniversary of Sia and I had the chance to interview some of the founders, like these older, you know, like gentlemen in their late 70s or early 80s and one of them said something that was so profound to me because, you know, imagine 1974 we were, it’s It’s not like it is today, right? And he said to me, like Abby, we were selling a dream. Like, we were, you know, we were asking people to believe and invest in a dream. That’s not us anymore. Like, we have product, we were $70 billion in a dream. It’s not a dream, but I just, I love that idea. And I do feel like part of the scrappiness, I’m part of the higher purpose, is that we can see a way that the world should be. And we believe in profit, right? Like, you have to pay our, you know, pay our workages and support our families. And so the idea that you can both do good and do well, I like that combination myself.

Aaron Nichols: That’s really funny that you say that because that’s exactly what brought me here because it was after that time, Peace Corps education, nonprofits. I was like, all right, I wanna save the world but I don’t wanna go broke doing it. Actually, I don’t wanna save the world. I save this all time. I don’t wanna save the world. I wanna save the wild. I’m a Colorado mountain boy, I want the wild, it’s to remain wild.

Abby Hopper: Yeah, yeah, I like that. I never heard it said that way. I don’t want to say the world I want to say the wild. Well, it’s interesting because I worked in nonprofits too, like before I went to law school. I worked in domestic violence shelter and it’s super important work and when you’re not compensated in a way that’s like, you can sustain a family. It really starts to like, it starts to mess with my head. Like, what is my value? Like, what am I, what is my worth? And, you know, people that are doing things that I don’t value are making so much more money than I am and therefore can have more freedom in terms of supporting themselves than I could. And so, um, like figuring out that, like, like how do both do work that really matters and be able to, you know, like kids in college, right? Like, that’s real.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, what’s that trendy Japanese word where you draw all the Venn diagrams of the Ichigai?

Abby Hopper: Oh, I don’t even know that word.

Aaron Nichols: Oh, okay, yeah. It’s like the intersection of all the things you love.

Abby Hopper: I like that. I have a different Japanese word. Except, I can’t remember it, so it’s not that interesting. But do you know Jesse is is there you like oh yeah?

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, I’ve seen some of this stuff.

Abby Hopper: He’s married to the founder of spanks right? Yeah, I’m like we So she you know, one of his eight million companies is big-ass calendar Which I bought because I needed a big-ass calendar And his theory is like you pick your it’s Magoshi or something like this like you’re big thing of the year. The big thing you’re gonna accomplish...

Aaron Nichols: I know I know this. Yeah, it’s oh man. I used to have a fitness plan based on it. I can’t yeah. I’ll remember in a second.

Abby Hopper: You will. You will. You’re so gay. It’s in misogy.

Aaron Nichols: Yes. There we go.

Abby Hopper: So you pick your thing. Yeah. And then that’s what set like that’s what centers your year or your friends and then you kind of do around it. Anyway, that’s my contribution you should have the Japanese word.

Aaron Nichols: Nice. All right, get a remember. Yeah. Well, I’m glad you found your people here.

Abby Hopper: Thank you. That makes me really happy. I mean, at the end of the day, right? It’s the people that were around that bring us joy.

Aaron Nichols: Yes. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And thank you for commenting on that. I am very happy right now. And I’ve been very intentional about filtering the right people into my life. and just got married, and I’m just in a good time.

Abby Hopper: Congratulations.

Aaron Nichols: Thank you.

Abby Hopper: When did you get married?

Aaron Nichols: Saturday.

Abby Hopper: What?

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, my fiance and I did a private ceremony in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Abby Hopper: Oh my god, no, what are you playing with your buddy rank?

Aaron Nichols: It’s been on there for like two days.

Abby Hopper: Shins, are you going on a honeymoon?

Aaron Nichols: Eventually we will. We did nothing but travel last year since we met. So we’ll yeah, we’re we’re nesting right now.

Abby Hopper: That is awesome. Well, I’m so excited for you. I love love.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, me too. Yeah, I think like you it’s clear that you’ve facilitated that love and community in the culture that you’ve created and in the industry as a whole, which is amazing. And I’m curious like what do we do now that you’re gone? How do we can send? How do we continue to facilitate that community?

Abby Hopper: Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, it’s way bigger than one person. So you’ll, you’ll be fine. We’ll be totally fine.

Aaron Nichols: But, um, I know I will. I’m worried about all the data driven nerds, Abby.

Abby Hopper: What I think, you know, I think, like, go back to what you said about sort of professionalism, right? Like we’re professionals. So we shouldn’t be talking about you got married or I got married. or we shouldn’t be talking about are we happy or not? We should be talking about how much did we sell? What’s the bottom line who are political enemies and how do we fight them, right? Like, I don’t believe that that’s the most efficient and effective way for us to get our work done. Like, I believe in my soul that in order to be highly effective and deeply impactful, like, we need to be connected to the people around us. And so that is a theory of leadership, you know, doesn’t belong to anyone person. But I think that’s the way that we keep that connection and that energy in what we’re doing is by really like having covered, apparently just conversations with each other about what’s going on.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, and I think I’d like to hear you talk about advice for new people as well. And I think to expand on that a little bit, I think the solar industry can be intimidating as someone who’s only been here for two and a half years. Like everyone who’s been in here longer than five years is like best friends and godparents to each other’s children and they show up to the conferences and they do a Viking handshake and they’re like brother and forged in the fires of war. So like how do you recommend like what advice do you have for people like me who are just finding their footing here and just getting into careers?

Abby Hopper: Yeah. Yeah, so when I got here nine years ago, I was brand new to the solar industry, right? And I found it. I’ve worked in other industries and law firms and energy sources, energy technologies, but I’d never been anywhere where everyone introduces themselves and then says, how long they’ve been in the industry, right? It’s true. Hi, I’m Aaron. I’ve been here for two and a half years. Him. I’ve been here for nine years, right? like it sort of sounds like AA, like hi, I’m here, I’m up in here, whatever, here, um so I felt that same way too.

Like I was I was because what I found was not only did I did just one have to figure out who everybody is, but then you have to do the next level of understanding of who people used to work with and where all of these other like embedded networks are especially like and for my world and the political world, like understanding that is critical. So I think my advice to people that are just coming into our industry is first of all, welcome. We’re really glad you’re here. And saying that to people who are here, I mean, imagine like walking into a room, walking into a conference, walking into a deal and just saying, hi, I’m so glad you’re here.

Aaron Nichols: So nice to meet you. Yeah. It totally changes the entire conversation.

Abby Hopper: Yeah. But I think finding your people really matters and so whether it is like mountain, man of Colorado or solar sisters or blacks and energy, like it is so important to find community. And that community can be defined in so many different ways. And that’s like, you know, I did not come into this work thinking I was going to spend this much time at trade shows. I’m an attorney. I know how to litigate. I didn’t really know what trade shows were before I got here. But obviously I spent a lot of time at trade shows. And one of the things I noticed immediately was that you walk into this huge trade show, and it’s like, I don’t know anyone. Nobody looks like me. I feel completely overwhelmed and isolated. and I was the CEO and the owner of the event. And I was like, God, I’m so proud, this is rough. And so we have really tried to create different pathways through our events where people can find community. And if it’s like, here’s the storage pathway and here’s the technical pathway and here’s the geographic pathway. So it’s not just like how we identify as humans, but sort of what is our business interest or what is our market segment or our geography. But that’s really what I would say to people coming into the industry as sort of find, find people with him you share some values.

The last thing I’ll say on that, that was a very strong opinions about networking, shocking. And I really, like, I sort of have a rule that if someone’s trying to talk to me about solar and storage after about eight o’clock at night, they’re dead to me, right? Like, you not want to be, you know, listening to a band at an event at RE Plus. Yeah. And some of the ones that talk to me about either their latest technology or whatever.

Aaron Nichols: You’re like, tell me something like, are you into model trains?

Abby Hopper: Tell me something interesting. Seriously. Tell me about breeding corgis. I don’t care. Tell me something.

Aaron Nichols: Yes. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You and I would get along just fine at a like 8.30 p.m. at a happy hour, but holy cow, authentic networking. That’s my strong advice. Right. Yeah, rather than hello, how can I use you today? That’s what an old friend of mine used to say about networking.

Abby Hopper: That’s really funny. It’s so true. It’s so transparent. Everyone knows that’s what you’re doing. Yeah. I always joke about that. We should just like, we should actually say what we mean.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah. And you know, when we’re not recording, I’ll tell you some of the jokes I’ve thought about like at singles events.

Abby Hopper: Oh my god, I would love to know. Well, I also, I also feel like there should be some way to be like, you know what? I’ve assessed and you’re of no use to me. So let’s just call it now, right? Like, like, can we dispense with the chat for the next 10 minutes? Well, I figure out how to exit this conversation.

Aaron Nichols: I have a good story for you when we finish recording. But I would be remiss as we’re winding this down here if I didn’t ask you what comes next for you. Obviously, you spent nine years in this role. You’ve seen such an evolution of the solar industry. I mean, I think the Solar Energy Industries Association is probably way bigger than it was. I’m only here two and a half years, so I have no idea. But you’ve seen so much change. So what what happens next?

Abby Hopper: For me or for the industry?

Aaron Nichols: For you?

Abby Hopper: Thank you for asking. Yeah, the organizations tripled in size, the budget tripled in size, like it’s a whole different game just in my company. I too just got married, although I think I have three months on you. So congratulations.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah. Thank you.

Abby Hopper: I plan I plan to spend time with the with the man that I’m wildly in love with. I mean, that obviously, like, you know, having spent so much time on the road for the last nine years, I haven’t known them for nine years, but it feels really different. Like, I’m not, we got home right after New Year’s and we’re not traveling for six weeks. I’m not traveling for six weeks and I don’t know. I don’t know the last time I was home for six weeks in a row. Like I honestly don’t know what, probably during COVID, like not even trying to be funny, probably during COVID.

So it feels different to be home. Like I really, I have so much energy and so much creativity and so much passion. And I feel very strongly about how the world is evolving. I don’t love it, I really don’t love it. And so I’m trying to figure out like how to use my passion for this energy transition, my deep belief in humanity and like the fact that all people should have human rights and be safe and loved. And my, like, I just love creating and building and writing and talking. And like so, I don’t know exactly what that looks like in terms of like, what job do you have Abby? I don’t know. But that’s what’s guiding this next period of like figuring it out right so I’m giving myself a couple months off to chill and rest like nine years of sleep deprivation to catch up on and then I’m gonna like feel see see how the world needs me next you know if I’m open to all good ideas anyone who has a good idea should share it with me

Aaron Nichols: I mean I think I think it’s far be it from me to give you advice, but you’re on a good track just coming from someone who spent four and a half years out of the country by myself like bag of bonding in various ways in my 20s. Like there’s nothing like, I don’t know, you can call it a micro retirement or just time to just actually figure out what comes next.

Abby Hopper: Yeah, I feel like it’s a combination of personal and professional, like, oh my God, I said that 12 times, like that’s sort of how, like because they’re the same, right? They’re the same. We’re one person. Like my mom passed away two years ago on Saturday. And so my mom passed away, my kids were all the way at school. Like it was the, it really marked the end of Abby being the primary caretaker. Right? The primary caretaker to at least one human since my daughter was born in 2002. So 2002 to 2024, that was my primary identity. That not ended, right? My kids don’t need me in that same way and my mom had passed on and then And so this is another chapter that’s closing, like, so it feels like over the last two years, like, personally, I’m not through so much change. And so, yeah, I’m not exactly sure what’s going to, like, come out of your other side. But I had to, I totally burst into tears this morning about all of this change and, um, but reminded myself that like, in order for new growth to happen, like, we’ve got to sort of close the door on what this is. So I’m excited to see where that new growth takes me and to give it a little time to germinate.

Aaron Nichols: That is so beautiful. Have you ever have you ever read Cheryl Straits tiny beautiful things?

Abby Hopper: No, but I feel like someone gave it to me over the weekend. I was looking around.

Aaron Nichols: I’m going to give you one of her books over the weekend. It probably was not, it’s true that it is. I’m going to look and I’ll email you after this, but I’m going to write it down nonetheless. I talked about it on my first date with my wife and I just bought her a copy for Christmas and if someone just gave that to you, that’s incredible because it’s one of the best books on transitions. it’s just a collection of Cheryl Strade’s writing when she was writing an advice column for the rompest, and it’s the most beautiful emotional thing I’ve ever read. It’s incredible.

Abby Hopper: Wow. No wonder you got a second date. I’m literate.

Aaron Nichols: Well, you’re literate and fairly compassionate. it. Like I’ll take you a long way in this world. I spent some time dating. I’ll take you a long way. Yeah. I mean, that was fun for a while before I decided to settle down. But yeah, it was nice how low the bar was when I was out in the dating world. Anyway, so to close things out.

Abby Hopper: And I tell you about like when I was single, I was like a hundred percent convinced we should have like singles parties at R.A. Plus, I was like seriously, we should definitely have singles parties at R.A. Plus, but we should have some sort of way to check because you know, everyone’s single at a conference. So like, people, why is there then made a sign of that was a terrible idea? yeah, yeah, probably.

Aaron Nichols: Well, Abby, I ask everyone who comes on this show, the same closing question. And it has to do with the fact that I spoke at my grandma’s 80th birthday party last year. And as I was sitting there afterwards, just thinking about everything I’d said and what that meant and how that was connected to what I do. I realized that 80 years means my grandma was born into a world where we’ll be called renewable energy didn’t even exist. Like she was born in 1945. Electrification had just come to Missouri where she was born in 1933. So she was born very shortly after that. PV wasn’t invented until 1954 and then it was super inefficient. Like Jimmy Carter didn’t put panels on the White House till 79. Those were water heating. Windmills didn’t even generate electricity when she was born. They just pumped water. And so everything that’s happened, that whole story arc of the invention of renewable energy and then it becoming the cheapest source of power and the invention of like long-term storage, all of that has happened within her lifetime. So if you’re going to play us out with just a wild moonshot prediction. What do you think clean energy looks like 80 years from right now?

Abby Hopper: 21.06. Nice. I have no way to verify that but I’m going to assume you’re correct.

Aaron Nichols: Yeah, you’re a literate and I can add.

Abby Hopper: One of the things that I think is going to happen, and I don’t think it’s going to take 80 years, is that like some of the issues around viewshad that are, you know, people bring up with solar, with termites, with offshore wind are just going to go away because I think about my children who are like 18, 21, and 23, they don’t notice solar panels, they don’t notice wind turbines, just like I don’t notice transmission lines when I’m going down the interstate, right? like I don’t notice the distribution lines that are outside of my house that there’s so much a part of our world that our eyes don’t see them anymore. And so I think there’s going to be like and then not that it’s in future, all of those like objections around viewshide will go away because we will just have change. It’s a cultural change.

But I think that But distributed energy is going to be like one of the most important ways that we democratize energy and energy access. Like I think that will have a hugely important impact on people. And people in this country, people on reservations, like people who are experiencing energy poverty and certainly in other countries and other continents. And then I think we are going to have to be dealing with climate refugees. We already are and it’s only going to continue. And so I think kind of the urgency of the need for the kinds of technologies that we work in will be increasing. I mean, we can’t wait until 2106. For that to happen, we’ll all have burned up by then. But I do think, so I feel like there’ll be some, honestly, I think, I’ve never thought about it in 80 years, but I think there will be some sort of equilibrium because we will have had to address so many of these issues. And so what, you know, you said there wasn’t alternative energy. What will be obviously the majority of energy will just be the norm. Hopefully we can move on to like, how do we address our food system so that people are not hungry?

Aaron Nichols: Yeah. I love the vision of renewal energy as no big deal. And there’s so many social causes that I hope like are the same that we just don’t even talk about them anymore because they’re just so integrated.

Abby Hopper: Yeah. Yeah, like people should have human rights. All people. Exactly. And be able to live with dignity and humanity and love home they love and be where they are. Yeah. Yeah. Very strongly about that.

Aaron Nichols: Well Abby, where do you want to be found going forward if you do want to be found online?

Abby Hopper: Oh my Dear friend, I definitely want to be found. I need all the advice people have to give me. So I’m not leaving LinkedIn. I’ll still be there. I still plan to post. It’ll be interesting to see how that evolves, but absolutely I’ll have a little bit more time even to post. And soon I’ll be watching my own website once I figure out how to make a website.

Aaron Nichols: Well, Abby, it’s been a pleasure and everyone listening that’s been this week in solar Thank you

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

There’s something I haven’t stopped thinking about for nine months.

At the American Solar Energy Society’s conference last summer, one of the speakers mentioned that 70% of the carbon reduction we’ve seen since the turn of the century from deploying clean energy has come as a direct result of state and local policy.

That means that federal policy isn’t nearly as important as we think it is, and that we have more power than we think.

It’s easy to feel helpless when we look at national news, but it’s an illusion. State and local policy is a lot easier to influence than federal policy, and often has a greater impact.

I wanted to spend today’s episode talking about the states that are stepping in to offer solar incentives as the government phases out federal ones.

We’re starting with New Jersey since we install there at Exact Solar, but make sure you still till the end to see what other states are taking action.

What’s new:

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed “smart solar” legislation (S4100/A5264), mandating the creation of a statewide, automated permitting platform for residential solar and battery systems.

Here’s what you need to know:

* The Department of Community Affairs must launch the system within 18 months, allowing code-compliant projects to bypass red tape and receive “near-instant approval.”

* Implementation will be overseen by the incoming administration of Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill.

* Municipalities can only opt out if they prove they already have a comparable automated system in place.

Why it matters:

This new system in New Jersey is aimed at tackling a specific “soft cost” that plagues the industry nationwide. New Jersey currently has the third-slowest solar permitting timelines in the U.S.

Permitting hurdles add $3,800 to $4,500 to a typical installation in NJ and cause nearly 20% of projects to be canceled before construction begins. Experts estimate this single fix could help add 200,000 additional solar installations by 2040.

Go deeper:

While NJ tackles permitting, other states are passing different policies:

* Colorado: Governor Jared Polis has directed state agencies to “prioritize expeditious review” of renewable facilities to lock in tax credits before they expire in 2027. Colorado is also rolling out a home energy rebate program aimed at electrifying homes.

* California: The legislature passed bills (like S.B. 302 and A.B. 1408) to integrate interconnection into transmission planning and fight back against interconnection queues that often stretch to as long as five years.

* Maine: Regulators recently fast-tracked proposals to bring enough new renewable energy online to power 13% of the state’s annual usage.

* New York: The state introduced standards prohibiting gas and fossil fuels in most new buildings and is reviewing budget laws to accelerate renewable deployment.

Waste Management Is Putting Solar On Old Dump Sites

What’s new:

Waste Management (WM) and Reactivate have announced a nationwide partnership to transform up to 50 former landfills into solar energy and storage sites.

Reactivate, an Invenergy company, will develop, construct, own, and operate solar projects on at least 50 of WM’s closed landfill sites across North America.

* The planned projects include community solar, small utility-scale solar, and energy storage projects.

* Reactivate expects to complete the first phase of projects by late 2027.

Why it matters:

Former landfills are often “dead zones” that cannot support new development. By leasing these difficult-to-develop parcels to Reactivate, WM can do something with land that would otherwise be useless.

Sources:

States work to speed renewable deployment before ITC deadline

States Take Action on Renewable Energy After OBBBA Curtails Tax Incentives | Novogradac

NJ governor signs bill to speed up residential solar permitting

Smart solar permitting bill passes New Jersey legislature

WM will build solar on at least 50 former landfills

Reactivate and WM Collaborate Nationwide to Convert Up to 50+ Landfills into Solar Energy Sites

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

Aaron talks with Annalisa Farrell, a solar data and monitoring specialist.

Annalisa has spent years troubleshooting the gap between how solar energy systems are modeled to perform and how they actually behave in the field.

Expect to learn:

* Where the industry’s biggest education gaps are, from electricity bills and performance expectations to who is actually responsible when something breaks.

* What happens when hardware, software and finance teams “speak different languages” about the same solar energy system (spoilers, it’s massive confusion).

* Why compassion, clear expectation setting, and real-world experiences matter more than slick marketing.

Quotes from the episode:

“We have software people, hardware people and finance people. They all see the same site through completely different lenses, and the confusion often lives in those gaps.”

- Annalisa Farrell

“If we want solar to be truly sustainable, we should be learning from nature. The earth has already figured out how to live on sunlight.”

- Annalisa Farrell

Transcript:

Aaron Nichols:Hello everyone and welcome back to this week in solar. As always, I’m your host Aaron Nichols, the Research and Policy Specialist here at exact solar in Newtown, Pennsylvania.Yes. And today we are interviewing someone that makes me feel validated that I’m always hammering on we don’t have enough education in the industry.I’ve seen her content on LinkedIn and I’m glad that I’m finally getting to talk to her. It’s Annalisa Farrell, ladies and gentlemen.Annalisa, if you would like to just introduce yourself and talk a bit more about your background in the solar industry?

Annalisa Farrell:Yeah, it’s great to be here, Aaron. Thank you so much. I’ve been in the solar industry for I think coming up on six years now I started right before the pandemic started and in a former role I got to do a lot of the troubleshooting on the data and so being involved in the data monitoring side of things I was involved in a lot of the troubleshooting that happened in between software and the end point of that hardware information collection.So we all know that we’ve got all of those pieces of hardware that are out there in the field, we’ve got those inverters, we’ve got the modules, we’ve got all of these different components out there that all need to be monitored in some way, shape or form to allow us to take that data and make it into something more meaningful for not only, the people that are getting the information, but the wider array of places that that information goes.So in this former role, I was at a company called also Energy and I was there tier two support technician.And that’s how I got started in this industry was doing all of the troubleshooting. So it was a variety of issues that would come in and not to get too into detail there.But it was a lot of fun to see all of the different ways that we could see different sites that were unique and how those different sites that were unique could present different problems.And getting into the industry at that tier two entry level was just the biggest blessing. I started out not really knowing where I was going to go with a sustainability degree, so I knew that I loved the environment, the three pillars of sustainability, the equitable decision making, the environment, and then obviously the economy piece in there as well. So those three pillars, how those were contributing, wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, got into the solar industry through a support role and that support role harnessed a lot of the hardware aspects that we have issues with onsite in addition to all of the software issues that can associate that and then from there in addition to starting out in that role took it into a variety of different places and got to explore a lot more of the solar industry through different roles that taken on and all of which was so much fun to just learn about and I think I’ve got just so much information as to how we understand that data that’s coming in from the hardware where that goes and then how people are going to use it in all of the different ways that people need to utilize that data and all of the areas that data can cost some heartaches for folks and how we can remedy these issues because it gets into the weeds and this is a niche industry and I think that was the reason I got so excited about it was that it is niche, it’s new, it’s exciting people, are trying to discover what the industry standard is daily.What is the industry standard on how we’re going to handle X protocol for X type of site that nobody’s ever seen before with hardware that just came on the market that it’s just all of the different unique situations that come up and all of that were definitely just the most fun to get into of the industry with and then be able to troubleshoot and problem solve in different ways. So I think that’s a little bit about the background and it’s so thrilled to be here.Thank you so much, this is wonderful.

Aaron Nichols:Thank you, yeah, it’s so funny how so many people get here. It seems like you blindly stumbled in just like I did.But then you come for the first job and you stay for the people, like there’s so many amazing people in the solar industry and it sounds like you’re really enjoying the what I call nerd whispering where you take the data and then you talk to the technical minded people who are creating things and driving the industry forward and then you kind of translate that to a wider audience and teach them how to actually understand what it is.

Annalisa Farrell:Exactly and then yeah and it depends I think the thing even with the stumble into the industry, even if you stumble, it’s kind of like you get, an offshoot of something and all of a sudden that’s the thing that you have knowledge on.You just worked into it and it’s fun to through all of my past roles and different experiences. It’s been interesting to see through the different levels of companies where people would come in with different types of questions.So I would say that even where people are stumbling into the industry at all levels, it’s so interesting to see all of the different.I don’t want to say education gaps, but perhaps the education that’s still coming out that still is being made aware to everyone.So it’s definitely fun to see all of that.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, it’s never ceases to amaze me. This is something I joke about all the time.How everything is a deep rabbit hole. No matter what you get into, there’s just people who are intense about it.That’s their whole lives, and that doesn’t matter if it’s solar energy, or if it’s knitting, there’s someone who is just insane about it.

Annalisa Farrell:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love it. I love that I keep finding that. It’s like sourdough bread is like that.I think there are so many different systems that are in place that have to work together. And I think the sustainability degree that I got at Colorado Mountain College was a huge part of my understanding for solar because when I came into right that first role, getting all of these different problems.It seemed like there was no logic to the system that I was understanding. And then once you get into the different types of rates that people are interested in how financial reporting works into different situations, which types of people are interested in which pieces of information are we more interested in revenue grade meters? Are we more interested in the inverter level? Who’s troubleshooting what? For what reason? And you just dive in.Again, like you He said to all of those different rabbit holes, but I think with the systems of it, once you start getting into, okay, the software system already existed, right?People were already using the internet, people were already using this framework of software. Software existed, right? Software existed and then hardware already existed, but not in the fashion that we’re connecting it to hardware.So the connection point, I feel like is something that’s been unique to watch people learn how to monitor sites and going through different monitoring protocols.What different companies think are important to some extent. It has been fascinating that it’s still evolving as well with different error codes on in borders.Like, what does this one mean? Will we talk to a different manufacturer that has a different error code meaning for different problems?How do we, harmonize language, I think throughout the industry as well in addition to our abundance of acronyms.

Aaron Nichols:Well, I would love to talk about translating all of that information to the wider public.I think you mentioned before we started recording that you’ve worked to educate a lot of homeowners who actually didn’t even realize that operations and maintenance were part of owning a solar energy system.I’m interested in how those conversations have gone and also why you think there’s is such a knowledge gap there that needed to be addressed.

Annalisa Farrell:I wouldn’t even say it’s primarily with homeowners. That was certainly an aspect of parts of my past roles. It was, I think, the most vulnerable that I’ve seen someone in the solar industry genuinely asking for help as compared to when we get into more commercial and utility conversations, those types of calls, someone’s in it, it’s a job. it’s part of the day-to-day. They at least have an experience and understanding if you’re in that job calling into that role, kind of, or calling into request assistance.In comparison, a homeowner having minimal experience, not really understanding any part of the solar industry, they’re calling in for assistance based on the, how do we put this politely?The reality television show that is the solar industry with all of the name changes and it’s all over the place.There are so many different things happening all of the time in this industry, but it does keep it very interesting.For a homeowner to have absolutely no idea, hey, I need a solar O&M company. Someone came to me, I have this system.It’s installed on my roof. I can see that I should be getting X amount of dollars that were assured to me by X Individual, backed by X company.And now I, the homeowner, hypothetically, in their call coming in, are saying, I have this. I’m not seeing this dollar about coming in.Something is wrong here. Lo and behold, they find out that perhaps that company has gone out of business due to the volatility of the market.And again, as I’ve kind of noted the reality TV show of it, so the volatility of the market, perhaps that company’s gone out of business, that homeowner has no idea what’s going on.And from there, it’s you need to Google a solar O&M company in your zip code to find out how somebody can get out there to resolve the issues that are happening at your site because I can see that in the data.I can’t, I can see that you’re not getting that on your bill. And from there, that leads to the confusion, the panic.I don’t know what’s going on. I can see that I was assured these dollars. It’s not offsetting. I had their plans for this.And to see someone at that moment in their most vulnerable moment, trying to say, I need help. I’ve called all of the members.Somebody, nobody’s getting back to me. Please leave me the time of day. I need some compassion, some empathy, the talk me through this.What can you tell me? And so sometimes I feel like it was just going through the information with someone and ensuring them, hey, you’re at this address.Yes, I’m at that address. Fantastic. This is great. I’m so happy that you’re at that address. You know, start giving people yes questions.And your name is yes. Oh, this is great. I see this is your email address. Is that yes? Okay. Cool.So it’s like I can go through certain pieces of information. reassure someone, give them all of the steps, and yes, let me empower you to do a Google search to look for solar, O&M, plus your zip code.Let’s get you on your way. Because, you know, in that point of view, from the data monitoring aspect of it, and particularly in analysis, you can’t help somebody through that because it’s their contract, and that’s a different system that’s operating within the solar industry as a whole.And that’s one piece of it that can simply get really tricky. Really tricky, really fast.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, and that’s something that we, as a company who’s been around for 20 years, we have such an uphill battle to fight because there’s, there’s just so many companies that have come in, over-promised, built a system and then gone out of business or disappeared and left a homeowner just kind of holding the bag.And that’s why we always have to encourage homeowners. you should go with someone local who’s been doing it a long time who’s going to treat your home well because if you just go with the bargain basement price and you don’t do a lot of research, I mean it’s very likely, but very possible that they’re not going to build the system to actually be durable for 25 years.And to get into that system then is, okay, we have the system that’s operating itself, right, as that thing, you know, connecting to the grid person’s home or, you know, you get into a commercial space utility space, how all of that is operating in the care, the quality is something that is the most important that efficiency, the quality and I think for this industry to continue to thrive. It is that diversity through all of the different teams checking in saying okay We’ve got one person monitoring. We’re making sure that we’re monitoring that we’ve got preventative maintenance kind of checks We’ve got the correct it like that those are standard throughout the industry and yet there still seems to be a question of Quality of work throughout the industry is kind of of the barrier I think we’re all trying to overcome to see where there is quality work as compared to where there is room to improve or to educate and to understand why someone wouldn’t have the time to do quality work and understanding the larger demand of the solar industry is huge right now.Like it seems like the business continues just to thrive personal opinion. It seems as though the business is dry or business industry is thriving and it’s nice to see that as people are continuing to invest in solar energy, it’s that okay, there’s still a demand and need for people in this industry and quality people, and do people have enough time to get to those sites? Do we have enough time for it?You know, what’s the quality scheduling? I think mindfulness truly is the theory there that quality scheduling giving people enough time to do the work with proper education to ensure that we get that best data and then from there can ensure the actual versus expected model data through estimates that have been assured to all parties throughout the industry if that makes sense.

Aaron Nichols:Yeah, of course. And I think that comes down to incentives at the end of the day.I mean, what are the incentives for someone to do a great job? And if a company has been around for a long time and they have good reviews.That means that, they, the only way they continue to stay in business is by doing the right thing by homeowners.I think homeowners and even for the whole solar industry, I would say for homeowners. Well, you also mentioned that you’ve worked with executives who didn’t understand the way solar hardware and software work together.What did you mean when you said that? That’s called anybody out. We’re not pouring all of it to you. But it’s been examples in which I would say there is a value that someone has seen.

Annalisa Farrell:That’s called anybody out. We’re not pouring all of it to you. But it’s been examples in which I would say there is a value that someone has seen.And it goes, you know, as we know, the solar industry is well-based within the finance industry and that that’s something, you know, there’s publicly traded companies here.and it’s nice to see that it’s at that level of involvement, but then that also means right, we had the software people that it existed doing software things.They knew their network setups, they knew software, they do software stuff. We have hardware people, they do hardware stuff, we knew that hardware people existed.That connection, that melding is already something that is at questionable, like we’re already struggling through that point sometimes. and then de-factoring in addition to that finance world, also already existed in the finance world, likes to play in hardware and software.So you bring these three systems together with different languages, different ways of understanding one another and getting into the points of software person has issue with hardware person equals finance person sees number.When the finance person, you know, we’re the executive, the person who’s looking at how are we performing? Why am I not seeing these metrics?allowing the success I want to see. I know that my team is working hard. I’m not seeing the success that I want to see represented.Why is that happening? And sometimes it can come down to small system errors, you know, the way that communication is happening between two pieces of hardware or software.Or there was a glitch where an inverter wasn’t producing, but the meter was. And And how can how do those two things interact equaling something that’s ending up on someone’s desk that is not necessarily involved in the in the day to day operations, but still wants to be involved to get this piece.And so to that extent, I would say that there are also metrics that are being utilized that sometimes maybe aren’t the best indicators to how the site is performing, right?So we have our estimates which are giving us how the site should produce, that’s what we’re selling to the homeowners, that’s what we’re pitching to people, you know, here’s what it could produce.This is the estimate of the system. And then once the site actually starts producing, we get into the actual production values in addition to the expected production values, how those two match up to the estimate, etc. are up.And when those metrics are calculated, there are different pieces that go into the software that have to be represented by the hardware.And those two pieces, it’s like a mystery. I feel like if anything, I would be a puzzler because I constantly enjoy going down those rabbit holes and figuring out which which which nuance piece did somebody miss here that it was it in the modeling that we missed this number was it in was it a piece of hardware on site that didn’t have the right wiring configure, you know, what are we looking at here? How did how is someone fussy about why this number doesn’t look right?And then to follow that question, are we looking at the actual versus expected numbers, a predicted estimate, what language are we using there?A first question, and then to follow that up, is that even a good number for us to look at? Because I feel like availability has been a number that has Availability has been in the industry for a minute, and my absolute beef with availability is that there are so many different ways to calculate it, and if you have so many different ways to calculate availability, that everybody could do a different.And there’s just, For anyone who’s listening who’s not in the industry, it doesn’t know what that is.What is availability? Availability is a metric that is derived from the pieces of hardware that are on site. So we have our modules, which generally are not monitored, however, there are companies out there that do monitor modules, and you can get into individual module panel.You can monitor those. You can get into that level of monitoring. In addition to that, you can get all the way out into a more removed level of monitoring, which you’d be only looking at the meter.So if you’ve got the module you’ve got the panel those rows of panels then I’ll go into an inverter the inverter right We know it’s taking our direct current turning it into all treating current or then getting that to the grid Depending on the system layout could be any number of however somebody wants to look at it and then from there Excuse me from there right We’ve got the inverters that then are taking that information up to a revenue grade meter revenue grade meter hypothetically sending all of that information out again depending on system setup.So availability is looking at all of the pieces that are on site and saying how often were you available to produce energy.And there are different ways that you can say how available were you to produce energy. I’m so sorry, I’m going to call.

Aaron Nichols:That’s okay. I can edit it. No worries. Go for it.

Annalisa Farrell:Thank you. Oh my goodness. I appreciate that. Yeah. I’ve been rambling and I apologize.

Aaron Nichols:That’s okay. Let me think about how we can bring this home. So obviously, all of this is so complex. I mean, there’s so many things here that the average person just doesn’t understand.I’m finding that to be so true when it comes to electricity generation, electricity distribution, how electricity is made and how it gets to your house.There’s so many people who don’t even understand how their electricity bill actually works when we’re talking to homeowners. So, where do you think the biggest education gap in the solar industry is right now?What do we need to do a better job of communicating to the public?

Annalisa Farrell:That’s a very, very good question to communicate to the public. cool to start off with now. I think that it would be really great for people to have more compassion when they’re installing the systems to some extent and then during those times where we see volatility within our industry to understand what builds those companies even though they are floundering or you know they’re making a transition in the industry perhaps you know they’re being purchased perhaps that company is going in a different direction.I think it would be crucial that as those shifts in the industry occur that there is compassion and empathy towards the homeowners during that time especially understanding, hey, as we installed your system, this is what it’s expected to produce, you should be receiving X type of communication through, you know, mail, email, this type of format is how you will be receiving that.And then during that, you know, end-of-company time or whatever that looks like during the volatility of their issue, I would say that it’s crucial to communicate, this is what you need to look for.These are your next steps, due to issues perhaps seen or unforeseen to the reason that someone would leave the industry.We’re leaving the industry. The company is leaving the industry or as homeowners enter the industry. This is what you’re aware of to make sure that they have resources available and you know, there are great resources out there like the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center that offers tours where you can go on to a site see the great capabilities of solar.You can see how agriculture and a microclimate under a panel can lead to longevity with the system and all of the different ways that you can have different pieces of, you know, farm animals on sites.The benefits larger than just, hey, it’s on my roof. I would say that it would be important to get people involved on the level that they get to feel they experience something.So perhaps more resources across the U.S. involving, you know, outreach is the Colorado Agrival take learning center has been doing to involve people a little bit more and recommending that hey field trips are there because I think the opposite direction that we would prefer it to go would be that you get tick-tock influencers on solar sites trying to say hey this is the cool thing which isn’t I don’t think the soul of the industry which is to say we want this through a technical engineering way to be something that’s beneficial to people and to see it real world through an agricultural point of you I think would be most beneficial and so if you had resources at the beginning the you know companies telling you hey this is what could happen you’ve got resources outside of that company and then should something happen at the end of a company’s time within the industry this is how we could treat you with a little compassion and empathy to say, Hey, here are your other companies that we would recommend looking at. And we are doing this for you, the consumer, because you helped us during this time to even build this company.Thanks for being a part of our vision here. Now we’d like to repay your investment in us by saying here’s the compassion and allowing you an exit or helping us through our exit.Here’s your next source because is, thank you for helping us a little bit.

Aaron Nichols:So just more clarity and expectation setting up front.Yeah. Well, and Alisa, to bring it home, I always I ask all my guests the same question at the end.And it has to do with the fact that I was at my grandma’s 80th birthday party a couple months ago.And I realized as I was sitting there that 80 years means she was born into a world where renewable energy did not exist.And everything that we now are fighting for wasn’t even a possibility when she was born in 1945. She was born right after the Rural Electrification Act in 1933, I believe, 1935, somewhere in there.And Solar PV was invented in 1954. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House in 1979 and then all of that development and just dropping of PV prices happened since the millennium.So I’m curious if you just want to spitball and throw out an answer, what do you think clean energy will look like 80 years from now?

Annalisa Farrell:Oh my, I truly hope it’s a more inclusive biomimetic process involving more portions of the environmental world within the hardware software components so there are companies that have been recently introduced the one that comes to mind at the top of my head as soulless industries.They’re out of Silverthorn Colorado and the concepts behind biomimicry, biomimetic concept is along the bullet train where we think about the bird that was referenced, the King Sparrow or something along those lines with the bullet train, to go along with aerodynamics.They were experiencing issues in the tunnel with the bullet train. And as the tunnel was going through the bullet train and it created an awful noise, they go, okay, oh, it’s the King Fisher, that’s the bird.So then they referenced, well, the King Fisher is able to dive at these incredible speeds, how do we reference that in the bullet train?And I think it would be cool to see that as they adopted the beak shape into the bullet train or the beak shape of the kingfisher into the bullet train, it would be nice to see the solar industry adopt more nature processes and biomimetics and how do we actually track the sun?So in soulless industries that was out of silver, or is out of silver-thorn Colorado. They were looking at different pieces of how heating oil was a more efficient way to track the sun as sunflowers do.So sunflowers track the sun all day and flowers are able to track the sun all day. We’re sitting here with algorithms and you know all of the different register tables to put it into the software to make sure that I can you know it’s tracking appropriately based on an irradiant sensor.But I think in 80 years there’s going to be hypothetically more integration with natural products where we’re seeing, you know, the technology that is referencing biodegradable and that we can recycle panels more efficiently that they’re able to be utilized on the outside of buildings that we can see absolute integration across total types of buildings and infrastructure.But in a way that’s very mindful and thoughtful aware of the best integration of these systems to say, you know, this is a spot where we really could utilize this and it’s going to be the best way for us to harness the sun without compromising any of the environmental aspects that we have because currently, you know, we’re doing great putting them on rooftops hate to see the clear cutting of landscapes hate to see the clear cutting of any type of environment where we’re putting into, you know, a monoculture.So at least let’s do dual use in agriculture or, you know, start looking at ways that we could put them on the outsides of buildings and get into the Jetsons future.It seems not that far off. But in a very mindful thoughtful way that’s saying, okay, what’s the best use of materials here so that we can do the efficiency biodiversity biodiversity of the sun that nature has been using for forever.And so it’s like the environment’s already thrived on this. The earth has sustained itself for long enough. If we’d like to sustain the solar industry, let’s start looking at how we can adopt some of the reference points throughout the other points of nature that we have, I think, not to be too much,

Aaron Nichols:but that’s a beautiful vision.

Annalisa Farrell:Well, I hope so. Yeah. I’ve got a little positive hopeful vision. Yeah.

Aaron Nichols:Well, if people want to find you, where can you be found?If you want to be found?

Annalisa Farrell:Currently I’m on LinkedIn right now and that would be the best way to contact me or through email.

Aaron Nichols:Okay, great. Yeah. Well, yeah, if anybody wants to talk to Annalisa and go find her on LinkedIn, thank you so much for coming on today.And for anyone listening, that’s been 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

1. The “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

The biggest news of the year for the solar industry happened with the Trump Administration signing the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

The new bill phased out tax credits that made solar cheaper for companies and families.

It pulled hope away from thousands of Americans like Jennifer McCoy, a single mother in Georgia working three jobs. She’d been approved for a solar energy system that would lower her out-of-control power bills through the Solar for All Program, only to learn that the program, and her project, were cancelled as a result.

The bill eliminated thousands of manufacturing jobs and raised electricity prices for consumers.

2. Federal Government Tries to Stop Solar Growth

The administration also used its power to block solar growth in other ways.

On his first day in office, the President shut down the government office responsible for new energy technology.

The administration has since also put high tariffs on imported solar parts, raised costs for American companies, cancelled permits for big solar farms on public land, and restricted renewables on farmland.

This prevents more farmers from following examples like Carmen Fernholz, who used a REAP grant to install a 40-kW solar array on his Minnesota farm in 2024, drastically reducing his operating costs. Those same incentives won’t be available going forward.

3. National Solar Companies File for Bankruptcy

As rules changed and costs went up, a few national solar companies ran out of money to operate.

In June 2025, Sunnova and Mosaic had to file for bankruptcy.

Later in the year, PosiGen also had to file for bankruptcy because the tax breaks they relied on to grow were phasing out.

4. Solar Booms Anyway

The 2025 data is irrefutable. Solar + Storage is the dominant form of new generation capacity in the United States.

Despite the government’s actions, solar power had a record year. Solar, wind, and batteries made up 92% of all new power added to the U.S. grid.

Tech companies needed massive amounts of electricity for data centers, and many chose to develop their own solar projects to get it quickly.

Among these companies is Meta, who partnered with Silicon Ranch to break ground on a 100-Megawatt solar and storage project that will only power their data center in South Carolina.

100 Megawatts is enough energy to power 40,000-60,000 homes at once.

5. The World Leaves the U.S. Behind

While the U.S. fought over energy laws, other countries raced ahead. China deployed more clean energy in six months than the rest of the world has in decades.

In Europe, solar power became the number one source of electricity for the first time.

The global market is moving to clean energy, with or without the United States.

Sources

The 2025 energy transition in eight charts: clean wins, dirty setbacks | Reuters

The 2025 Energy Transition in Eight Charts: Clean Wins, Dirty Setbacks: Maguire

US solar installations jump 49% in third quarter, report says | Reuters

Clean energy is still winning. These 10 charts prove… | Canary Media

Canary Media’s top 11 clean energy stories in 2025

Solar Power World’s most-read stories of 2025

American Energy Under Threat: Political Attacks Threaten Half of All Planned Power in the U.S.

In Georgia, Trump’s Cuts to Solar Projects Hit Some of His Voters

Trump’s War on Solar & Wind: A Timeline of Recent Federal Actions | Third Way

Trump’s rural energy freeze hits Midwest, GOP districts hardest

Meta data center in South Carolina to run on power from 100-MW Silicon Ranch solar project

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

In this episode, Aaron talks with Ayelet Hines, the Community Acceptance Strategist at Tigercomm.

With 30 years of experience running issue campaigns and the last several focused on clean energy, Ayelet brings a political organizer’s mindset to one of solar’s biggest bottlenecks: local opposition and permitting.

She argues that what many solar developers treat as a technical or PR problem is actually a political problem with known solutions, if the industry is willing to change how it communicates.

Listen to this episode on:

* YouTube

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

Connect with Ayelet on LinkedIn here.

Expect to learn:

* How oil and gas successfully branded themselves as rugged, rural, and patriotic, while painting renewables as coastal, elitist, and out of touch.

* Why developers lose the “race to define” their projects, and how that creates a vacuum opponents happily fill with fear-based narratives.

* What rural voters actually care about, based on research in The Rural Voter.

Quotes from the episode:

“You need facts to win, but facts are not why you win. You win because a trusted person in the local official’s sphere of influence vouches for you.” - Ayelet Hines

“Community engagement is not a side show. It is the fulcrum on which this industry lives or dies.” - Ayelet Hines

Transcript:

Aaron Nichols:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to this week in solar. As always, I’m your host, Aaron Nichols, the Research and Policy Specialist here in Newtown, Pennsylvania.And today’s guest is Ayelet Hines from Tigercom. And Ayelet, would you mind introducing yourself, introducing Tigercom, and talking a bit more about your background in the solar industry?

Ayelet Hines:Sure thing. Ayelet Hines, VP of Community Engagement at Tigercom, which is a clean tech communications PR firm based on the Washington DC area.And I have spent the last 30 years leading issue campaigns to change policies at all levels of government, and for the past four or so years, I’ve been really focused on helping developers apply political campaign thinking to their efforts to win a permit.

Aaron Nichols:Okay. So where do you think developers miss the mark when communicating with communities that they’re trying to develop in clean energy projects in?

Ayelet Hines:In 2023, I interviewed 26 developers at 18 different companies to try to really understand what was happening with this problem because it’s clear to me as a political person, this is a political problem with a solution that this can be solved with money and there’s nothing so unique about this political problem that we don’t know how to solve it.So I interviewed all these developers and I asked them, what are you seeing, what are opponents doing to you. Why are they doing it? What are you doing?

And one of the first things I noticed is that developers leave a communications vacuum. There’s something that we call the race to define. Like so much about winning in politics is being the first. You got to be the first in to local officials, reporters, anyone who you want to really hear your message.You got to be in the room and and inculcate them with your message before the opposition does that. If you don’t do that, you’re leaving a communications vacuum that your opponents will then fill with their fear-base emotionally connected message.

And so what I found is that developers were losing the race to define themselves, the project, their land owners, and responding to opposition too late and with fact sheets, so human, like the research is clear on this. Humans are emotional creatures. First, rational creatures are very distant second. We can be no other way.

So like this industry is comprised of a lot of really smart people who have a lot of technical expertise, but we can’t lead with that. We have to lead with trusted messengers. We know today, especially, the messenger matters more than the message and developers usually are not culturally credible trusted people when they enter a community.

Aaron Nichols:Okay, so people need to hear from people like them and often developers aren’t like them or don’t know how to speak to them is what you’re saying.

Ayelet Hines:Correct. So one of the things that the Oral and Gas industry has been very successful at is positioning themselves as rugged, part of rural and the real America, hard, manly man work, patriotic.And the renewable energy sector has been positioned by them as for like liberal coastal, prehistidriving beta males.

I mean, you see that on shows like Tulsa King, Land Man, like there’s an episode of Tulsa King in which Sylvester Stallone who plays his character called Dwight, he ends up in a holding cell in Tulsa with this little man who had just been beaten up by the cell bully and they get in this conversation about what are you in for? And the little man says, a green energy scam.

This whole conversation about how renewables are a government creation, they’re fraud. And we let that happen to us, right? Hollywood writers are for sale. And that is one of a hundred ways we are not positioning ourselves as part of rural America, right?

So where is our space to build utility scale projects that we need to transition away from fossil fuels? It is in rural counties and these counties vote for Trump by a lot. That wouldn’t have been a problem 15 years ago, right? Like renewables used to be about private property right which is why Texas is number one and Iowa number two in solar.

But renewables got pulled into the culture wars on the eve of Obama’s re-election campaign, right. Have you ever heard of the word Salindra?

Aaron Nichols:I am vaguely familiar but I’d be happy to have you lay it out.

Ayelet Hines:Sure. So Obama’s opponents were looking for something to tarnish him with and so they turned to his Department of Energy which had a guaranteed federal loan program. They were making loans to clean tech companies.These were investments that most investors would probably find too risky to put their money in. But one of the companies that got a loan from this very successful loan program is called Selendra.

They got their loan, a couple of years later, they filed for bankruptcy. There was no wrongdoing in the Selendra case at all. No one spent a minute before a judge because there was no this fake non-scandal about Selendra and they spent $800 million on attack ads, most of which aired on Fox News.

And it was at that moment that we watched support for renewables among white Republican men crater from 94% support to 47% support. So the Selendra fake scandal was very successful in positioning renewables as outsiders.

That is a barrier that, in a perfect world, you would have tried to overcome 15 years ago. So now our problem is more complicated and a lot more expensive, but we still have to do that. We have to position ourselves as compatible with a rural and agricultural way of life, which we can do.

We know how this is done. Just look at Ford Truck ads. We need to make everything we do and say look and sound like a Ford Truck ad.

Aaron Nichols:Right. I would actually agree and I think we’re very, very bad at that kind of messaging. And I think just as someone who’s relatively new here, we seem to be very hesitant to use emotional messaging.

I think sometimes we hide behind facts and we hide behind graphs, but I was very lucky earlier this year to give a talk for Switch Colorado, and I called it “Why no one wants to see a graph when they’re worried about a fire,” the story being, you know, that someone had said on a call that we sent all of our researchers to this community that was worried about battery fires with charts and graphs and they got shouted down.

And my first thought was, of course, they got shouted down. If I was worried about a fire and someone said, here’s a graph, I’d be like, get out of my house.

And I think we seem to be hesitant. It’s almost like, you can tell, correct me if I’m wrong here, but we seem to be hesitant to play by the same rules. It’s like fossil fuel has decided to play very, very dirty and we are really wanting to take the high road, but we just keep losing and losing and losing.

Ayelet Hines:Yeah. And just to be clear here, I’m not taking on oil and gas, because they are rational actors. There are lots of industries that do what they do, right? Look at McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, right? Like these brands, these industries have really wrapped themselves around every aspect of life. And that’s what we just have not done.

So the hesitancy for us to do that, well, I think renewables, like people who work in the sector think that the truth will set them free all while facts are on our side. That is just not how humans operate.

Aaron Nichols:Right. I like to say no one is sitting around waiting for a graph that proves them wrong.

Ayelet Hines:I love that. I love that.

You know, there’s an 80-20 rule in campaigns and it is like I see organizations, companies spend 80% of their resources trying to convince people to agree with them through charts and maps and graphs and videos and all the stuff. And only 20% of their resources applying pressure or creating the political cover that local officials need to feel in order to support projects.

And by political cover and pressure, I mean one-on-one meetings, letters, phone calls, right? Things that let local officials know that people whose voices they care about are paying attention.

And we need to flip that around. We should spend 80% of our resources applying pressure, giving political cover, and only 20% trying to convince people to agree with us. And I’ll tell you, I don’t care if a local official likes what I’m up to. I only care how he votes.

Aaron Nichols:Right. So where do you think that, why do you think that ratio is so skewed for people that work in renewable energy. Where do you think that that mistake in thinking comes from?

Ayelet Hines:Being really smart and thinking that just really believing in your data.

Aaron Nichols:Right. Okay. Well, knowing that people are emotional first, logical second, that people only look for facts if they already believe emotionally charged stories, what have you learned about working hand-in-hand with rural communities to deploy clean energy while also making sure they feel heard.

Ayelet Hines:Right. So feeling heard, people need to feel heard way upstream from where most developers start having conversations in communities. I know a lot of developers are afraid to poke the bear.

The bear is already poked. 25% of counties have passed bans on renewables. That number doubles every three years. At this rate we can expect that by 2030 about 40% of counties are going to be off limits to renewables, like markets are literally closing.

So you need facts to win but facts are not why you win. You win because you get some trustworthy person in the sphere of influence of the local official to vouch for you. So let’s say you have awesome tax revenue numbers. Like we’re going to bring all this tax revenue, create all these jobs, we’re going to then generate all this economic activity.

Don’t go straight to local officials with that information. Your first stop should be with the local economic development person, the local tax authority, someone who brings authenticity. Go get their blessing first.

Show them your numbers. Say, do these numbers look good? Yes, they do. Then you can shop those numbers around, say, local tax guy, local economic development guy signed off on our numbers. He says that they look good.

So you’re borrowing that person’s credibility for your own project, you cannot depend on your data alone.

Aaron Nichols:Absolutely. And so when you say that we also need to talk to people further downstream, does that mean that sometimes people are just, you know, moving the project along as far as they can and then coming to the community and saying, hey, how do you feel about this? But they haven’t consulted the community to begin with.

Ayelet Hines:Well, the number one complaint that rural Americans have against developers, they say developers are going into communities cutting back room deals with politicians and letting everyone else know about a project after the fact.

We need to remove the possibility of that accusation by going into these places much earlier. What about engineering an invitation to come in? How revolutionary would that be? What if you asked people, what do you want for the future of your community? And would hosting a project help you achieve that?

Yes, it would. Or only if it met these conditions. Great. Let’s have a conversation.

Aaron Nichols:Right. And then you have people fighting for you and trying to get that across the finish line with you rather than you fighting upstream.

I mean, as someone who grew up in a small town, I can definitely tell you, you know, like, if you grow up in a town of 2000 people, if you piss off Jim, we’re all pissed off. Like Jim is gonna tell Sally who works at the cafe. Sally is gonna tell Jane who works at the flower shop and pretty soon, everyone is against what you’re trying to do.

Ayelet Hines:No, the rumor mill starts with the first knock on a landowner’s door or when that first letter hits a land owner’s mailbox that alerts the community that you are in town snooping around, so even like an interest letter to a land owner.

If you don’t get out and ahead of that, you are too late and your problem just got more difficult and more expensive to solve.

Aaron Nichols:That’s interesting. Do you think that there’s something there that people misunderstand about rural Americans? Because I think it could be possible that, you know, for people who live in cities, maybe they don’t know their neighbors in the same way. And maybe they are just come in and they don’t understand how things work.

Ayelet Hines:Yeah, well, I highly recommend a book called The Rural Voter, written by two political scientists at Colby College. They don’t pay me to shill their book, but I do it whenever I can, available on Audible also. But they usually have the best and most data on rural voters.

And just in case you don’t read the book, I’m going to give you the punchline. So rural Americans perceive a shared fate and have shared grievances that cause them to vote in certain ways and those three things are belief in hard work and equal opportunity, and that’s good for us because that’s where private property rights fits in.

Cultural precarity, they believe that their culture and way of life is threatened, so it is incumbent upon us to demonstrate that we are not a threat, that in fact we can help them keep what they love about the place that they live, because the third is civic pride. They love where they live. They feel safe. Cities are dangerous, full of people who don’t work as hard as they do. They believe they live in the real America.

So those shared grievances and that shared fate have helped make rural American an identity.

Aaron Nichols:Okay, well thank you for the recommendation and for sharing the three main points of the book. I mean that’s incredibly helpful and I can absolutely, you know, as someone who grew up in a small town, 100% verify that those are all true.

So to bring it home, because we are unfortunately out of time, even though I could clearly talk to you for hours, I ask every guest who comes on the same question, and it has to do with the fact that a couple months ago I was at my grandma’s 80th birthday party, and I realized as I was sitting there doing the math that her turning 80 means she was born into a world where what we call renewable energy did not exist.

We only knew how to go find things, dig them up, burn them, run out of them, and then dig more things up to burn. Those were the only ways we knew how to generate energy. She was born 10 years after the Rural Electrification Act, so where she was living had just gotten electricity. Her parents had come of age in a non-electric area. Windmills only pumped water and the first solar PV cell wasn’t invented until nine years after she was born in 1954.

Then Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House in 79 and then on and on and on to where we are today. I am curious just if you want to theorize, spitball, moonshot, whatever. What do you think energy is going to be, the dominant energy source, because it’s the cheapest energy source and it’s the fastest to deploy?

Ayelet Hines:I do think that if we ignore community engagement like it’s not a side show, it is the fulcrum on which this industry lives or dies. If we ignore building local support, like the political cover we build for local permitting officials is the same support that we show up and down the political food chain.

That is, like, building local support is how we get a better federal policy landscape. Until we do that we’re going to continue getting stepped on like the current administration is doing, trying to kill this industry. But I do think that in 80 years we’re going to see a lot more deployment of renewables because reality.

Aaron Nichols:I can’t wait for it. I mean we, I think we share a similar mission. We both want to tell emotional clean energy stories and, you know, make it cool to the people who don’t think it’s cool.

So I’m very grateful that you came on today. I yell at Heinz, if you want to be found where can you be found?

Ayelet Hines:You can find me at A-hines at tigercom.us, T-I-G-E-R-C-O-M-M dot us. I am leading a training on this skill set on December 3rd at RE Plus Midwest in the Chicago area.

It’s a four-hour training, very hands-on and it is by far the most economical way to get trained in this skill set. So I hope to see your listeners out there at RE Plus Midwest on December 3rd. And I’ll send you the link to the registration, you can put it in your post.

Aaron Nichols:Oh fantastic. Thank you very much. And for everyone listening, that’s been this week in solar, and we will talk to you next week.

Ayelet Hines:Thank you.

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