Loading...

PODCAST

SunCast

Nico Johnson takes you into conversations with those at the forefront of Renewable Energy. SunCast gives an inside look into what is happening in renewable energy. From conversations with the biggest Solar Panel manufacturers in the world to the small startups creating the future of renewable energy, such as carbon capture and battery technology breakthroughs. SunCast is dedicated to providing the knowledge, research, tools and expert guidance you need to understand, grow and be ahead of the

science natural sciences

All Episodes

59:14

972: How Smart Solar Developers Treat Land as Growth...

SunCast ·

2026/10/01

Could the land beneath your solar project help finance the next one, without giving up equity in your company?Laura Pagliarulo, CEO and co-founder of SolaREIT™, returns to SunCast to share what six years of financing solar and battery real estate have taught her about how developers grow without overextending themselves. Her company has financed real estate beneath projects representing nearly $8 billion in total value.Laura explains how land purchases, lease purchases and land loans can

en

43:58

971: The Hidden Bottleneck Slowing Solar Automation |...

SunCast ·

2026/09/29

If robotic automation is becoming inevitable in utility-scale solar, where does that thesis run into the realities of actually building a power plant?That's the question behind today’s episode.We start with Nick de Vries, CTO of Silicon Ranch, to ask what an owner actually wants from automation. Nick's answer sets the standard: the technology matters only if it improves safety, quality, repeatability, and the performance of an asset Silicon Ranch expects to own for decades.Then Matt

en

01:09:21

970: 11 Years, 3 Pivots, and a Successful Exit |...

SunCast ·

2026/09/24

What does it actually take to build a company someone else eventually wants to buy?For Jason Kaminsky and kWh Analytics, the answer was 11 years, three major pivots, a transition from COO to CEO, difficult layoffs, plenty of capital, and learning when to stop chasing good ideas so the company could execute on the right one.Jason returns to SunCast after kWh Analytics' acquisition by Beazley to unpack the entrepreneurial journey behind the announcement. He shares how the company evolved from

en

16:42

969: Could Data Centers Pay for Your Rooftop Solar? |...

SunCast ·

2026/09/22

Data centers need enormous amounts of power, and apparently they need it fast. What if some of the outrageous sums of money they’re willing to spend to get that power went directly toward putting solar and batteries on homes and businesses?That’s the idea Barry Cinnamon wants to pressure-test in today’s Tactical Tuesday on SunCast.Last week, Barry compared the dramatically different costs of solar and storage in Australia and the U.S. This week, he moves from diagnosing the problem to

en

01:08:58

968: How to Make Better Building Technology...

SunCast ·

2026/09/17

Buildings consume an enormous amount of energy. We have plenty of technologies that could make them perform better. So why is the real estate industry often so slow to adopt them?Dermot Sweeny has spent decades confronting that problem from the architect’s side. When he couldn’t convince clients to try a radically different approach to office design, he bought an older building and proved it himself. More than 7 million square feet later, that willingness to test ideas in real buildings has

en

15:23

967: Why U.S. Solar Costs 2–3x More Than Australia |...

SunCast ·

2026/09/15

In Australia, residential solar and storage can be installed for about $2 a watt. In the U.S., a comparable system can cost more than twice that.Why?Barry Cinnamon was curious enough to go to Australia and investigate. What he found challenges the simple explanation that America's solar price gap comes down to permitting, labor, and other “soft costs.”Australia offers a useful counterfactual: what can solar cost under a very different set of market and policy choices? And which of those

en

01:18:02

966: When Solar Works But the Savings Don’t |...

SunCast ·

2026/09/10

When Charlotte Meerstadt put solar on her Amsterdam home, the numbers made sense.Then Charlotte moved to the U.S. and rented out the apartment. The solar panels kept doing exactly what they were supposed to do: producing cheap, clean power. But, while the tenant received the lower utility bill, Charlotte still owned the panels and had no clear way to capture the savings her asset was creating.That mismatch revealed a bigger problem hiding across rental housing and distributed energy: the

en

13:30

965: 3 Lessons From Germany’s Plug-In Solar Boom |...

SunCast ·

2026/09/08

Germany has turned plug-in solar from a fringe idea into a mainstream energy product found in millions of homes. And the biggest lessons for the U.S. aren't really about solar panels.They're about making solar easier.In this Tactical Tuesday, CraftStrom Co-Founder and CEO Stephan Scherer shares what nearly a decade in the European plug-in solar market taught him about how a new energy category actually scales.Simplicity matters as much as technology. Germany had to simplify registration and

en

01:13:44

964: Why the Best Energy Technology Doesn't Always...

SunCast ·

2026/09/03

The best technology does not always win.Sass Peress has spent nearly four decades learning why. Since entering solar in 1988, he has built companies, introduced new technologies, sold hundreds of thousands of solar products, backed ideas that worked, backed at least one that did not, and learned firsthand what separates an exciting invention from something customers will actually buy.One of his most useful distinctions is between “bleeders” and “leaders.” Being first can mean paying for

en

54:21

963: How Exact Solar Keeps Growing in a Shrinking...

SunCast ·

2026/09/01

While many solar companies are fighting to stay afloat, Exact Solar is flying.After growing 23% and then 50% in the previous two years, the Pennsylvania installer says it's up another 73% so far this year. That kind of growth in this market raises an obvious question: what are they doing differently?Aaron Nichols joins Nico once more to unpack the answer, and it isn't just one clever marketing tactic.Exact has built a growth flywheel around learning. Completed projects become proof the

en

01:22:22

962: What If We Paid Households to Power the Grid? |...

SunCast ·

2026/08/27

America needs more power. Data centers are accelerating demand, utilities are planning billions of dollars in new infrastructure, and households will ultimately help pay for much of it.But what if we invested some of that money in the households themselves?Ari Matusiak, co-founder and CEO of Rewiring America, makes the case that homes can become a meaningful part of America’s energy infrastructure—and that households should be compensated for the value they provide to the grid.In this

en

58:18

961: Latinoamérica 2026: Dónde Poner Tiempo, Capital...

SunCast ·

2026/08/25

En Latinoamérica, la oportunidad no siempre está donde se anuncia más capacidad, sino donde existe una combinación real de demanda, capital comprometido y capacidad de ejecución.Nico Johnson conversa con Juan Manuel Carbajosa, Director de Ventas para Latinoamérica de Shoals Technologies, y Mario Gomez, Presidente de TCI GECOMP. Juntos aportan dos perspectivas complementarias para entender el mercado: la de un responsable global de desarrollo de negocio que habla con decenas de operadores y

en

55:52

960: Why Good Companies Still Struggle to Get Noticed...

SunCast ·

2026/08/21

Good companies don't automatically get noticed. And doing good work isn't enough to ensure that customers, investors, journalists, communities, or increasingly AI systems understand why your company matters.Melissa Baldwin has spent more than 20 years exclusively in energy and climate communications. As Senior Vice President at Tigercomm and host of the Scaling Clean podcast, she's had a front-row seat to what helps companies earn attention and trust, and what causes otherwise strong

en

19:06

959: The Argument for Automation: Making Solar...

SunCast ·

2026/08/18

Solar construction has always depended on experienced crews adapting to whatever the jobsite throws at them. But what happens when the industry needs to build more projects than its best crews can possibly cover?Cody Houser has spent much of his career on the other side of that problem. Before becoming Director of EPC and Constructability at FTC Solar, he spent eight years running his own construction company, driving piles, building trackers, managing crews as large as 250 people, and

en

01:08:41

958: Australia’s Second Act: Building the Solar...

SunCast ·

2026/08/13

Australia has spent years ahead of many markets on the distributed solar adoption curve. Now it is giving the rest of us an early look at what happens when millions of those systems move from installation into decades of ownership, maintenance, repair, replacement, and eventually recycling.Daniel Lazarus, co-founder and CEO of Industrias Services Group, has built his company around that second act. After years in solar construction, he saw an enormous need for maintenance but also

en

45:10

957: How Do You Plan a Grid You Can’t Predict? |...

SunCast ·

2026/08/11

Utilities used to plan around relatively predictable demand. That assumption is disappearing.In this opening keynote from Intersolar & Energy Storage North America Midwest, Nico Johnson sits down with 3 utility executives; Bria Shea of Xcel Energy, Andy Plenge of ComEd, and Brice Sheriff of Ameren Illinois to examine what happens when electricity demand can arrive faster than the infrastructure needed to serve it—and distributed energy resources increasingly change how power moves

en

01:19:46

956: How Do You Prepare a Family Business for Its...

SunCast ·

2026/08/06

Pepper Construction has survived the Great Depression, World War II, multiple recessions, and a global pandemic. As the family business approaches its 100th anniversary, its next challenge is not simply surviving another disruption. It is pursuing new opportunities without losing the culture, discipline, and sense of responsibility that carried it this far.Jake Pepper is part of the fourth generation preparing to lead Pepper into that next chapter. His path into the family business was anything but

en

25:55

955: Why Some Companies Last and Others Don't | Marc...

SunCast ·

2026/08/04

After building and selling multiple companies, Marc Lopata has learned that the decisions that shape a business are rarely the ones people celebrate. They're the small decisions, made consistently over time, that ultimately determine whether a company lasts.In this conversation, Marc shares the operating philosophy he's developed through decades of building companies, leading teams, and mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs. From hiring the engineering intern who eventually bought

en

54:51

954: Can Clean Energy Build Mythic Power? | Tom Matzzie

SunCast ·

2026/07/30

We know how to build power. Every day, the clean energy industry builds more of it.But there's another kind of power that's far more difficult to generate—and arguably even more important.The kind that determines whether an industry continues to grow regardless of who's in office. The kind that shapes public opinion before a project is ever proposed. The kind that makes policymakers think twice before standing in your way.Tom Matzzie has spent his career building both.Before founding

en

27:41

953: The Hardest Part of Solar Isn't What Most People...

SunCast ·

2026/07/28

Few people have had a front-row seat to the evolution of the modern solar industry quite like Jeff Spies.Over four decades, Jeff has helped shape the industry as an engineer, educator, trainer, and founder of Planet Plan Sets, working alongside installers and EPCs to solve the technical and permitting challenges behind thousands of solar and storage projects. That perspective gives him a unique vantage point on how the industry has changed—and what hasn't.In this conversation, Jeff shares

en

982 results

Similar Podcasts

The Deep Dive Lab: Unraveling Materials Science

Son Hoang

New Books in Political Science

New Books Network

Station 151

Pale Matter | Realm

Beyond the Divide

Koala Moon

StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson