This AI for Solar Platform, Popular Power is driving the renewable energy transition globally

This is the Cerulean Network Podcast - where we meet the innovators and investors bringing Earth-scale solutions to the great challenges and opportunities of our time.

Our guest today is Morgan Babbs, co-founder of Popular Power.

In the face of policy headwinds and politically divisive market dynamics, Morgan shares how her company is helping the solar industry go global, go faster and do more for their communities.

In our conversation, Morgan dispels the myths of the newest policy changes in the United States, the perceived challenges of operating cross-border, and highlights Popular Power's global reach and local impact through a unique market incentive, Popular Power Ups.

We cover her and her co-founders remarkable history in the solar industry as project developers and operators in some of the fastest-growing yet most difficult and remote locations, and we'll see how their grit and insights from that history, inform Popular Power's future as a global platform for managing and accelerating renewable energy.

Now a note for context . . . at Cerulean we back founders who have deep domain expertise at the earliest stages and that means getting into a level of detail on product and markets that bring a whole host of complexity and terminology. And so in this conversation about renewable energy markets a lot of acronyms get used. Here's a quick guide to the terms, RECs - renewable energy credits, IRECs - the international version and G.O.s - The European Union's Guarantee of Origin (GO) system, to all of which Popular Power is adding an impact layer that values community and economic inclusion in addition to clean power.

We'll also talk about IPPs and VPPS - Independent Power Producers and Virtual Power Planets, which are providing grid services similar to traditional utilities. And we'll cover market segments using shorthand like C and I for Commercial and Industrial, SMB for Small to Medium Business and Rezi for Residential Customers and lastly DG for distributed generation - the key to rapidly expanding and democratizing renewable energy.

PPAs - Power Purchase Agreements - which allow project developers to finance large projects with standing, long-term agreements users who pay for the power their equipment generates.

O&M Operations and Management - the fundamental process of keeping your renewable power plant producing and delivering the optimal power.

OBBBA - The $4T deficit spending bill passed by congress in 2025.

Favorite Book: The Grid - By Gretchen Beck

Founders prior companies: Illu Mexico, Sol Colombia, and Navajo Power Home.