Clean Power Hour

Georgia is the second-largest data center market in the country, and its grid is straining under load growth no one predicted five years ago. Michael Chanin, CEO of Cherry Street Energy, joins Tim to break down how behind-the-meter solar and storage are stepping in, why utilities need private capital to keep rates in check, and what a multi-gigawatt data center outside Savannah means for the region.

Tim sits down with Micha...

The U.S. needs 400 GW of new capacity over the next two decades. Michael Grasso, CEO and founder of Grid Rails, tells Tim Montague that roughly twice that much flexible capacity is already plugged in, and explains why only 20% of eligible devices are enrolled in virtual power plant programs today.

Data centers, EVs, heat pumps, and new construction are pushing U.S. electricity demand up by roughly 50%, about 400 gigawatts ov...

Wildfire smoke from Canada cut solar production across New England by as much as 40 percent, according to ISO New England, a loss of 2,500 megawatts at peak hours compared to the forecast. 

Tim Montague and John Weaver dig into that data, including John's own project numbers, on the Clean Power Hour Live. They also cover a massive BYD battery storage deal in Abu Dhabi, a new gas car ban in China, rising copper prices, and a wav...

Power generation is changing fast. As utilities struggle with interconnection delays and growing electricity demand, businesses are looking for faster, more reliable ways to secure power.

In this episode of Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Walt Jordan, Chief Revenue Officer at dGEN Energy Partners, to explore one of the least talked-about emerging technologies in distributed energy: linear generators.

Unlike traditional ...

America's electric grid wasn't built for AI, electric vehicles, battery storage, or the rapid growth of renewable energy.

So how do we modernize a system that was built and started in the late 1800s and early 1900s, more than a century ago?

In this episode of Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Zaid Ashai, CEO of Nexamp, the nation's largest community solar developer, to discuss community solar, battery storage, grid modern...

What does it take to turn next-generation solar technology into a bankable commercial product?

Swift Solar is closing the U.S. heterojunction and perovskite tandem solar cell gap. Dr. Gunter Erfurt, managing director at Swift Solar and former Meyer Burger CEO, joins Tim Montague and John Weaver to explain why U.S. module capacity sits near 50 gigawatts while domestic cell capacity trails at 5 gigawatts.

Following Swift Solar's acquis...

Community microgrids saved lives during a PG&E shutoff in Humboldt County. Lisa Cohn of Microgrid Knowledge has tracked every project getting built in America right now. She tells you what separates the ones that succeed from the ones that fail, and what you need to know before entering this market.

Community microgrids are among the fastest-growing segments in solar and storage, and among the hardest to finance and build. Lisa ...

Solar carport installation costs can swing by 12 cents per watt before a single panel goes up. Kyle Sinclair, CEO and co-founder of SDE (Sinclair Designs and Engineering), James Strizki, Project Manager and CFO of GenMounts and Renewable Energy Holdings, and Matt Boyce, a PE licensed in 27 states and Principal Engineer at Engineered Solutions, join Tim Montague to break down exactly how carport projects are won and lost. Between th...

CATL unveiled its TENER Sodium energy storage system at Intersolar Europe in Munich, rated for 15,000 cycles to 70 percent state of health at room temperature. CATL frames that as a 25 to 30 year service life, and it takes only 34 modules to stand up a one gigawatt-hour site. That single specification changes how commercial storage professionals price, propose, and finance battery projects. Tim Montague and John Weaver dig into wha...

A single design error on a commercial solar project can cost $60,000 to $70,000 to fix. Scott Wyssling and Catherine Kelso of Wyssling Consulting explain what quality design actually looks like, why AI cannot replace a licensed engineer reviewing plans, and how battery integration really fits into commercial solar today.

In this episode, Tim Montague sits down with Scott Wyssling, founder and principal at Wyssling Consulting, and Ca...

Battery energy storage fire safety is one of the most urgent permitting challenges facing solar and storage developers in 2026. Mike Nicholas, Energy Storage Specialist and Fire Consultant at Hiller Companies, brings a rare perspective: he built Kern County's entire BESS permitting program from scratch in 2019, when no national standards existed, and now travels the country helping developers, EPCs, and fire departments get these p...

A US federal court just ruled the IRS acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner on solar and wind safe harbor rules, shaking up project timelines for developers racing toward the July 4, 2026 deadline. 

Meanwhile, at the Shanghai Solar Show (SNEC), energy storage claimed more floor space than solar panels for the first time, signaling a major shift in where the industry is placing its bets. 

Tim and John dig into safe h...

Solar & storage pioneers Solar Design Associates share 50 years of firsts on the Clean Power Hour. They put solar on the White House in 1979 and built the first community solar garden in America. Haskell Werlin and Steven Strong trace solar's fall from $16 to $1 per watt, explain why the battery cost curve is following the same path, and break down what the ITC-free era means for developers.

Solar and storage pioneers Solar Desi...

Community microgrids and virtual power plants are two of the most misunderstood concepts in clean energy, and the gap between them is where billions of dollars in grid value are being left on the table. Craig Lewis, Founder and CEO of the Clean Coalition, returns to The Clean Power Hour to break down how community-scale microgrids and VPPs actually work, where the money is, and why the current policy window in California matters to...

Energy resilience for homeowners is the mission behind Energy Access Innovations, a multi-brand clean energy company building an end-to-end ecosystem for solar and battery storage. Nicole Tomasin, Chief Commercial Officer at EAI, joins Tim Montague to explain how the company serves the consumers the rest of the industry ignores, including DIYers and rural markets.

Battery storage and solar access for homeowners is moving beyond coas...

Silicon solar is approaching a hard physical efficiency ceiling at 30%. Perovskite tandem solar is the only proven path through it. Joel Jean, CEO of Swift Solar, explains the technology, what the Meyer Burger acquisition brings, and where tandems sit on the road to commercial scale.

After seven decades, silicon solar is closing in on its physical efficiency limit, and no previous thin-film technology has been able to outperform it ...

A new report from Clean Energy Associates found that some solar module factories in their first year of production are hitting yield rates as low as 30%. That means 70% of modules coming off certain lines require rework before they ship. The finding applies directly to US manufacturers, most of which are still in early ramp-up stages. 

In this week's Clean Power Hour Live, Tim Montague and John Weaver break down what the report...

Community microgrids are functionally illegal in most of the United States, yet climate-driven outages are getting worse. Cameron Brooks of Think Microgrid explains why wires laws block resilient grid solutions and what it costs us to keep burying lines instead.

Burying power lines costs $4 million per mile in Colorado and up to $9 million per mile in California. That means every 20 to 25 feet of buried line costs as much as it woul...

American solar manufacturing is getting a reboot. Dean Solon, founder of Create Energy and formerly of Shoals Technologies, sold 1 GW of product in Q1 of this year alone. In this episode, he walks Tim Montague through his vertically integrated factory in Portland, Tennessee, and names exactly why utility-scale solar equipment is quietly failing at scale. 

American solar manufacturing has a reliability problem, and the u...