Latest / Clean Power Hour / What's Driving the UNSTOPPABLE Renewable Energy Movement? | EP299

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What's Driving the UNSTOPPABLE Renewable Energy Movement? | EP299 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Keith Zakheim: Up two years ahead if there's a change in government or what have you. The reality is, you see it right now, these big tech companies are signing massive contracts to get more electrons. They just are, and it's renewables, right?
• 1:04
  Keith Zakheim: So reality hits politicians in the face much less quickly than it does corporate and the reality is the corporate see that they have an insatiable appetite right now for energy, electricity and power, and so there's going to be a lot of a lot of demand for new energy, and renewables is the quickest.
• 1:27
  Keith Zakheim: Is the fastest way to do that and meet that need. Are
• 1:30
  intro: you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.
• 1:40
  intro: We do too. We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition
• 1:53
  Tim Montague: today on the Clean Power Hour, the bullish case for the energy transition, or the flip side crisis, is opportunity. My guest today is Keith Zakheim. He is the CEO of antenna group, a communications and marketing firm based in New York City, and they have a very extensive sustainability practice. He is also the host of the age of adoption podcast, which covers a lot of what we're going to talk about today. So welcome to the show. Keith
• 2:24
  Keith Zakheim: Tim, thanks so much for having me. And you know, I've been a listener to clean power hour for a long time. So for me, it's an honor to be here.
• 2:31
  Tim Montague: Great to have you.
• 2:31
  Tim Montague: So it is Strange Days in America. It's, I like to say it's the best of times and the worst of times. We have so much resources flowing into the energy transition. It truly is an unstoppable force, solar, wind, batteries being the most cost effective sources of clean energy. You see that right globally, 80 90% of new energy on the grid is is clean energy, and yet we have an administration in Washington that wants to stick a stick in our eye and create friction and claim to be propping up the fossil fuel industry and claiming that there's this green scam going on. But Keith, before we get into the green scam, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and why you care about sustainability.
• 3:21
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah. Thanks.
• 3:21
  Keith Zakheim: Thanks. Tim, so I started antenna group, or it was a different iteration when I started it, but I started a public relations shop in 2005 so hard to believe it's been 20 years, and when we started, the agency made the decision that we wanted to focus in verticals that we found to be interesting, consequential and mission driven. I come out of the public affairs space and issue advocacy space and 2005 for those who remember, I think George W Bush and his State of the Union address kind of kicked off the latest phase in government investment in renewables and climate and the private sector quickly started to kick in as well. So we found it to be, you know, both an interesting opportunity, one, of course, that's important, you know. So for interesting, consequential and mission driven, it was certainly mission driven. We thought there was a great business opportunity as well. So we started early on, and we started in business pretty quickly. The issue for us as an East Coast based see was in 2005 you couldn't find a lot of comms and marketing people that had domain expertise and renewables and climate. And a lot of our clients were on the West Coast.
• 4:29
  Keith Zakheim: You know, the venture community at that point in Northern California, were funding a lot of these companies, so we had to figure some way to build out a bench of great communications professionals who could speak in a sophisticated way about climate and renewables. And we were lucky enough. It was kind of serendipitous that there was an agency in San Francisco called antenna group that at that point in their history was focusing on climate and sustainability and what we called cleantech back then, and we were lucky enough to be able to acquire that agency, and that immediately enabled us to fill a bench of fantastic comms and marketing professionals, and away we went. And over the years, you know, we've ridden that solar coasters. They call it as I know you have Tim and in general, you know, we've experienced the ups and downs of the industry, but all along, we had a belief and an immutable belief, honestly, that the future of climate and sustainability and clean tech and clean energy was inexorable, and it's and it's increasing adoption, and we wrote it, and we've been blessed to grow over the years as we've now expanded into all the different marketing disciplines, whether it's web development and performance, marketing, creative and design, addition to our public relations and comms, and we've also added public affairs. We're now global, so we've been able to scale as the industry has scaled, which has been gratifying and. Ultimately, you know, we're doubling down in this environment. I know we're going to talk more about this environment and the headwinds and where things are going, but ultimately, again, we both have this abiding belief that this is what the future is, and we see some really interesting near term and long term opportunities.
• 6:07
  Tim Montague: So we're recording here in mid July, 2025 the Senate and the Congress has ratified the BBB, the big, beautiful bill, which is a wrecking ball in some regards to clean energy and the solar industry, is kind of freaking out. Many companies are casting about for how to navigate these tumultuous waters. And my opinion is that we are here to stay. Yes, there is going to be a contraction, and many companies will go away. There will be lots of mergers and acquisitions, and there will be a refocusing for some companies, or an expansion into other markets, adjacent markets. So I think the days, for example, of the solar alone installer, are pretty much gone. You have to embrace batteries full on. You really should consider HVAC or roofing or some adjacent trades to solar, because solar pairs so well with other trades, and that gives you multiple legs to stand on. But it really depends. You know, that's like if you're an installer, now, if you're a technology company that makes solar panels, it doesn't really matter to you whether or not the US exists, frankly, right, Keith, because we're such a minor player in that global economy. But what is your take on a I'm curious like, what do you think the Trump administration is trying to achieve with the BBB in regards to the energy transition? And what is the bullish case that you have, you know, come to and that you're communicating with your clients and through your clients.
• 7:57
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah, so, I mean, there's a, there's a kind of an economic case. I think that's bullish in terms of how we communicate things for our clients and with our clients. We can discuss that. It's obviously related, just getting to your first question around the BBB and the point around it, you know, I can't, necessarily, I don't think anybody can read Donald Trump's mind and figure out exactly why he does certain things, whether or not his he detests renewables because of a windmill that was near one of his or wind turbine that was near one of his golf courses in Scotland, and that turned him off, whether or not it's the big oil lobby that certainly has made a case for a long time that sees renewables as a threat, although the truth is Big Oil, I don't know, or certainly a lot of the major oil companies have huge investments, certainly around carbon capture. So I don't think they look at, you know, they don't deny climate change, but ultimately, you know, let's put aside what Donald Trump was thinking. I think we can all agree that it is significant headwinds for an industry that was growing by leaps and bounds with the inflation Reduction Act. But I just don't, I don't share the view that this is a death knell, and I don't even share the view that in the short term, it's going to be, it's going to be a correction. Don't get me wrong, but I still think that the short term, there are just indicators and trends that play into the hands of continued prosperity in the solar renewables market. I do agree about coupling, you know, solar and batteries and in general, kind of looking at the home as one of these micro grids that if you can sell into all cell batteries and panels and energy efficiency systems and with electric I mean, there's a lot of things that can be coupled and agreed, but ultimately just kind of the bullish case. To get back to your question, I think in April, 96% of all the energy that was added to the grid came from renewables, right? So it's now the cheapest electricity source in most parts of the US and globally, even without federal support, right? And then, of course, like renewable projects, those you know, built without PPAs or subsidies, are becoming viable. And like high demand markets, I think the economics ultimately work. Corporate demand is policy agnostic, right? And it's accelerating. So the Googles, Amazons, Microsoft of the world, they're signing gigawatts of solar, wind, PPAs, they need it, right? I mean, we need electrons on the grid. And let's face it, as much as this administration wants more natural gas, wants more coal, those we just don't have the capacity. New plants take a long time to be built, from what I understand, well, what they need to build natural gas plants.
• 10:26
  Keith Zakheim: Those turbines are on back order. They don't have them readily available. So those are, I mean, again, so the demand is going to make it that we need those renewable electrons. I'm not an economist, Tim, but laws of supply and demand. If the demand is going up with these tech giants, and if supply is going to go down because of putting renewables aside and not being able to get in. Off of traditional electricity sources on the grid, then the price is going to go up, which will make renewables competitive, maybe even more competitive. So state and local governments are still all in. Global Markets are booming. We're getting better around grid tech interconnections, hopefully get better regulations around that.
• 11:08
  Keith Zakheim: So there's just a lot, in my opinion that I can make one bullish about it. Will there be an adjusted period? Of course, will there be some contraction?
• 11:17
  Keith Zakheim: Of course, the truth is, Tim, every market needs some contraction, right? So I think that's going to happen. There'll be but ultimately, I'm very bullish on it.
• 11:27
  Tim Montague: Yeah. I mean, it was really happy days under the Biden administration with the IRA. And in my opinion, that was very good industrial policy. And we did see the reshoring of many, well, onshoring and reshoring of battery factories and solar panel factories. And you know, some of that's going to go away now. And SEIA, you know, is documenting this, but the Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over eight gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS product lineup includes string inverters ranging from 25 kW to 350 kW.
• 12:11
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• 12:34
  Tim Montague: Go to chintpowersystems.com or call 855-584-7168, to find out more. I guess I'm I'm curious.
• 12:39
  Tim Montague: Zak like, what you tell your clients, if you're a solar technology company, and let's say you're you're very entrenched in the US market. Is this a time to diversify into other markets geographically? Or do you think that technology companies don't have to worry too much about it, they can just double down on the US, because this is just kind of going to blow over, and people will realize, look, we need more grid power and wind, solar and batteries are the answer. That's the most fiscally responsible thing for anybody to do, and it's just going to happen, which is kind of my assessment. But I'm just curious, yeah, what do you what are you advising your clients? Who are going, Yeah, things are going to be bumpy here in the US for the next couple of years. And that is, you know, it is only a couple of years, probably right. And then some other administration will be in DC, and things will change. But in the near term, if you're a manufacturer of solar technology, what is your advice?
• 13:57
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah, so just to your last point, you know, look two years ahead if there's a change in government or what have you the reality is, you see it right now, these big tech companies are signing massive contracts to get more electrons on the grid. They just are, and it's renewables, right? So reality hits politicians in the face much less quickly than it does corporate and the reality is the corporates see that they have an insatiable appetite right now for energy, electricity and power, and so there's going to be a lot of a lot of demand for new energy and renewables is the quickest. Is the fastest way to do that and meet that need. Okay, let's take a step back here in terms of what we're counseling our clients. And first of all, you know, we're not management consultants, so clients don't ask us, should we go global?
• 14:46
  Keith Zakheim: Should we stay domestic? I have my opinions on that, but I don't really get paid to give that advice. What they are asking us, is this is our business. These are the headwinds. How do we talk about it now? And how do we talk about it with employees, who, most of them choose to work with us. And I'm not talking about just Solar Tech, I'm talking about fortune, 100 companies that we work with, right? How do we talk about climate sustainability, clean tech, renewables to all of our different stakeholders in this environment. So it's employees, it's customers, right? It's the public markets, it's private markets, to the venture capital community. How do we talk about this stuff? So for us, you know, there's a number of things.
• 15:25
  Keith Zakheim: Number one, let's try to align with this administration and their priorities, right? Because ultimately, we can beat our head against the wall about this administration. This is the reality, right? This bill got passed. This is policy.
• 15:37
  Keith Zakheim: Ultimately, economics is policy.
• 15:37
  Keith Zakheim: Is economics really the other way around? So this is what we're facing. And the Trump administration has made very, very clear that there's three pillars that they look at, right, whether or not something's going to make America stronger, right? Whether it's gonna make America more secure and whether it's gonna make America more prosperous.
• 15:54
  Keith Zakheim: And you know, we could break those three down. I think there's a really good argument to be made for climate it makes us more secure around resiliency. It makes us stronger. The more energy we have domestically, the less we have to import some geopolitical risk. It makes us stronger.
• 16:07
  Keith Zakheim: There prosperity, of course, jobs and returns on investment, being able to power the AI revolution, right? So we can really align with those three pillars of administration in a way that's not cynical, not disingenuous, it's real. And hopefully that gets, you know, gets momentum. There's also, I mean, you know this, Tim, I think all of our listeners know this. There's multiple value propositions when it comes to climate sustainability, right?
• 16:32
  Keith Zakheim: And I think many of us who joined in this industry have a redemptive perspective on it, right? So it's going to we really do believe it's going to save the planet. We really do believe there's a cataclysmic challenge to our ability to survive. But let's put that aside, because clearly, in this environment, that does not seem to do the trick. That's been obviously politicized. And people think that when someone talks about climate change and disasters and saving the planet, ultimately, that's an ideological perspective and a factual one, so they're not interested in that. But there are multiple value propositions, right? And we talked about energy abundance being one, right? 96% of new generation April was renewables. We need electrons on the grid. We've got to talk about that. We've had this week wildfire. You know, we had the flash flooding in Texas, right? We have wildfires in Europe. We have, you know, extreme heat in Europe right now. In fact, I think there's some emergency regulatory discussions in Europe right now because of what's happening, I think, in Catalonia. So there's and again, it's not about saving the planet. It's how do we everybody wants to avoid these types of extreme weather events, and to the extent that climate tech and sustainability tech can help with that, there's more resilience to supply chains, right? That's another value prop. The economic returns are, you know, another value prop.
• 17:48
  Keith Zakheim: And, of course, jobs. And as I mentioned before, the economics of it, ultimately, I think even it's going to be borne out very, very soon, solar and wind, renewables, coupled with battery, they are going to be able to compete in the market, even without these subsidies, because laws of supply and demand are going to put a ton of pressure, upward pressure on prices. So even without these subsidies, I think solar and wind will be able to make
• 18:13
  Tim Montague: it. Yeah, I mean energy prices are going to go up, right there. Is there. There is a lot of demand for energy, and if supply is level and demand goes up, then price will go up. And that does make solar wind batteries pencil better.
• 18:29
  Tim Montague: Let's talk about sustainability, though, I always tell my clients when I'm talking to a facility owner, I never lead with sustainability. I always lead with savings that they could benefit from by going solar or participating in community solar. And I'm just curious you obviously have embraced this paradigm that humanity has an opportunity here to save our own butts. The earth is going to be here one way or the other, no matter what we do, pretty much.
• 19:02
  Tim Montague: And the question is, can we hold on to the good life that we have in any semblance of what we have today, like we have an amazingly generous life, and we have a great opportunity to lean in and take the inventions that we've made and deploy them at scale.
• 19:21
  Tim Montague: And we also need to do other things. Okay, there is a lot of legacy carbon in the atmosphere.
• 19:30
  Tim Montague: The energy transition is, is 1/20 of that greater problem, but it's a significant piece of the problem. But what is your philosophy about this? And how do you, how do you try to guide others towards better communication and PR about sustainability?
• 19:50
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah, so, I mean, there's a lot of things to break down there. So I don't know that we've ever positioned the company as a do gooder, right?
• 19:55
  Keith Zakheim: PR firm, we, you know, we've typically really been around the technology of the market, of the opportunity in climate, clean tech, sustainability, energy transition, whatever the you know, whatever the term of the day was, and the reason for that is, you know, I'm an incrementalist, right? So by nature, I'm an incrementalist.
• 20:21
  Keith Zakheim: Candidly, I'm a conservative, small c, right? For the same reason, I think change happens slowly. I think radical change typically backfires, which maybe we're experiencing right now, candidly. And you know what I found about the climate and sustainability community, and I thought, you know more about the NGOs and some of those, you know, latter advocates, is that they're not incrementalists, you know? They really are looking for extreme change right away.
• 20:44
  Keith Zakheim: And I've never believed in that.
• 20:48
  Keith Zakheim: I think that it's as I mentioned before. There isn't an inexorable transition to a cleaner world, a world where companies are transitioning to climate and sustainability solutions. And we see that, right? We call it the age of adoption. At our agency, we're at a time and kind of the history of climate sustainability, over the last three, four years, where companies of all shapes and sizes, industry agnostic, are rapidly adopting Climate Solutions just is the that's just the case, and that's incremental, right? They didn't one day stop with fossil fuels, grind the economy to a halt and start renewables. It's just not, ultimately, that's not feasible.
• 21:23
  Keith Zakheim: And I think a lot of the backlash we're experiencing right now is because of that.
• 22:22
  Keith Zakheim: And again, right? So radical change very often gets a radical backlash, so we see it as incremental, and that's really been the guiding principle of our agency. We won't work with fossil fuel companies. That's just not a that's not something we'll do. We see that as regressive. Won't do it. But at the same time, we feel that there's a place for fossil fuels, but that's the reality right now. Let's be smart about the transition. Let's keep going forward. The metaphor I love, it's not mine, but I always repeat it is incrementally march down that football field, and as long as when you take a breath and turn around, you're closer to the next goal post, that's success, and that's how we counsel our clients, that's what kind of a guides our business.
• 23:02
  Keith Zakheim: That's what, what's been our mission all these years.
• 23:10
  Tim Montague: So the energy transition is happening, and you have grabbed onto this, this expression, the age of adoption.
• 23:19
  Tim Montague: So let's, let's talk a little more about that. We could completely net zero the economy with the technology that we already have, and that includes wind, solar, batteries and heat pumps and geothermal, etc, etc, etc, electrification of transportation. And as thing, as technologies become adopted, there's this thing called the cost adoption curve, and the technologies become more affordable, and that is a positive feedback loop. And then when we went from horse and buggy to internal combustion engine, right? It had nothing to do with people's dislike of horses. It had to do with their ability to go 50 miles an hour for three hours, which they couldn't do on a horse,
• 24:05
  Keith Zakheim: or horsepower, literally and figuratively, right? More horsepower.
• 24:08
  Tim Montague: It was just more economical and more convenient.
• 24:11
  Tim Montague: And that switch happened at first gradually, but then there's this there. There is this acceleration that that happens. And we are in a period globally of acceleration, right?
• 24:23
  Tim Montague: We are going vertical, globally.
• 24:23
  Tim Montague: Now in the US we're going to we're going to see a little tailing off, and then we'll come back again. But I'm just curious, I guess, how you communicate this to stakeholders, like like employees? You talk about incremental change, but incremental change does lead to, ultimately, a radical transformation, like the economy is going to be radically different in 30 years. So I don't know. I'm struggling to put my finger on this exactly, but that is a hard to grasp phenomenon, I guess.
• 25:02
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah, I don't see that as a tension. I see that as inevitable. I mean, I totally agree with you. I totally agree.
• 25:09
  Keith Zakheim: But the question is, ultimately, how do you stop the roller coaster? How do you get the transition to continue in the right direction? My perspective is, and this has been true in history, it's always going to be incremental change. That's true in political environments.
• 25:24
  Keith Zakheim: That's true in social justice, that's true really everywhere.
• 25:27
  Keith Zakheim: Just the second you do something extreme or more radical, you're inviting a backlash, and that's ultimately what we're experiencing right now in the US. But that's been true throughout history. What I will say, you talk about our employees, and you know, we call them fellow ants in our in our agency. But ultimately, I'm a big believer. People say to me, okay, well, yeah, you're into climate sustainability, but you're in comps. You know? Why aren't you out there installing solar panels? Want you out there innovating technologies and ultimately, like comms and marketing have a huge role to play. Narratives have a huge role to play. Every single great movement in history of the world, right religions, social justice movements, what have you? Political movements have all been initiated and have all been sustained and grown through storytelling. That's just the reality. And you know, it's Jesus Moses and Muhammad, they were amazing storytellers, right? The Bible, Quran. These are great, great media platforms in order to convince people, and that's what, ultimately, I think what we do as comms and marketing people, I think there's, I think it's redemptive to me. It's playing a huge role in this. And I think the challenge is. Magnified and made a lot more difficult because of the environment we're in today, the media environment. I mean, we live in a post truth, post data world that's riven by conspiracy theories, and it makes it really, really hard to tell a story that we think is factual, that we think is real, right? So what do you do? And to me, again, that's where storytelling comes in, because storytelling has to be a motive, right? It has to connect with people. Storytelling has to ultimately involve and tell stories about real people, real encounters, not just anecdotal, but in a sustained way. And I think that's what we're doing. I think that's what the people that come to work for antenna do. And we find it to be gratifying. We find it to be something that gets us excited every day to come to work and work with companies that are committed to this.
• 27:32
  Tim Montague: What does it mean to be sustainable? In your mind, like, what is the heart of sustainability?
• 27:41
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah, so to me, it's ultimately, it's a company that is deploying solutions could be hardware, software, best practices, doesn't matter, that are in the service of making their companies more climate sensitive period. That's it. That's how a company makes them send out. I know there's ESG, which, by the way, from a comms perspective, not a word one should use anymore in this environment. It's third rail, right? But ultimately, if a company is doing that in a meaningful way, like real implementations, integrating into full operations, right?
• 28:16
  Keith Zakheim: Supply chains, it becomes part and parcel of the company, embedded in the roots of a company that, to me, is a sustainable company. We call it also a conscious brand. I think in business schools now call it responsible business. These are things that companies have to do now. I think ultimately, like if you want to be an ongoing concern as a business in the next 1020 years, you have no choice. But to me, that's what sustainability is.
• 28:43
  Tim Montague: So we have capitalism, which is very good.
• 28:48
  Tim Montague: It is a system that is very good at concentrating wealth and creating wealth. And I, you know, one of the questions I ask myself, Keith is, if every company in America became a B Corp, right, where there's theoretically some higher mission to the organization, other than just turning a profit. Would we solve the problem of climate chaos? And I have to say, I don't necessarily believe so and but I do resonate with your definition of okay, being climate sensitive. And so I'm just curious. Like, if you look into the crystal ball and you're talking to your family about 1020, 30 years into the future, what is it that is going to be different about our economy? If there is, you know, some semblance of a modern economy as we're that we're inventing.
• 29:50
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah. So first of all, I agree with you. I mean, it's just not, it's just not realistic for every company to be, B Corp, just not, not realistic. And we can go, there's a lot of reasons for it, but ultimately, why has, and I believe capitalism in the market, market economics have worked, and it's pulled. You know, in the history of the world, standard of livings have increased more than it ever had.
• 30:14
  Keith Zakheim: More people have been pulled out of poverty than ever in the history of mankind, right? I mean China and India, the amount of people have been pulled out of poverty in the last 10 years because of industrialization and opening up their economies, has never been seen before. So it works. The question is, ultimately, will climate and sustainability, will those investments, will those best practices? Does that align with market economics? I think it does. You mentioned before the economies of scale and how that that ultimately is a concept in market economics, right, and in capitalism and and ultimately, I think the most successful companies, which the assumption of capitalism, is that those who are running those companies want to be the most successful. They can only be that successful if they are at this point, adapting their businesses to become more climate sensitive and sustainable full stop. I don't think ultimately that there is.
• 31:07
  Keith Zakheim: It's not a zero sum game. Let's put it that way, between either we're a capitalist society or we're going to transform the world to net zero. I don't think it's a zero sum game. In fact, I think it's something that ultimately they work hand in hand. So
• 31:23
  Tim Montague: you mentioned a frame earlier. You know, like you said, ESG is out, right?
• 31:27
  Tim Montague: We're not talking about ESG. Was it responsible business, or what is the frame? What is a simple frame for business that is sensitive to sustainability, without using the S word?
• 31:41
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah? Yeah, responsible business, to me, is probably, you know, if you, if you're at a cocktail hour with other comms people, that's, that's what being bandied about.
• 31:52
  Keith Zakheim: So, yeah, I guess responsible business, ESG, ultimately, to me, you know, it's interesting.
• 31:55
  Keith Zakheim: I think people couple Deia or dei with ESG, and both of them being third rails. I actually see them as different challenges. I think that the current Zeitgeist when it comes to dei is actually a culture war against Dei. I think that people think, well, if you break up dei into its components, nobody disagrees with that. I actually think that's wrong. I think that plenty of people in this administration, plenty of people right now, from an ideological perspective, might disagree with all three, and that becomes a culture war that's very difficult to combat with language and comms. ESG is much more of a political issue, right? And I think a lot of ESG and a lot of the backlash against the IRA comes from the fact that it was, it's associated with liberal economics, associated with Biden that becomes a political game.
• 32:47
  Keith Zakheim: So again, ESG itself, as a term, as an acronym, should be stayed away from but the component parts, certainly the energy part of ESG, I should say that to me, is something that is much easier to deal with if it's if it's dealt with smartly and responsible businesses understand, and this is also conservative economics that evolved over the last 1015, years, that you're not just responsible to the bottom line, but there's multiple stakeholders who you're responsible to. And corporate America understands that, and you're responsible the stakeholders, because ultimately, that's how you're going to be responsible to the bottom line. And I think that, I think that there's a lot to be said there for where we are right now.
• 33:26
  Tim Montague: Hey guys, are you a residential solar installer doing light commercial but wanting to scale into large CNI solar? I'm Tim Montague. I've developed over 150 megawatts of commercial solar, and I've solved the problem that you're having you don't know what tools and technologies you need in order to successfully close 100 KW to megawatt scale projects.
• 33:53
  Tim Montague: I've developed a commercial solar accelerator to help installers exactly like you just go to cleanpowerhour.com click on strategy and book a call today. It's totally free with no obligation. Thanks for being a listener. I really appreciate you listening to the pod, and I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Go to clean power hour and click strategy today. Thanks so much. So I have one hard question and one easy question to close this out. The hard question is, why do we as a species struggle to care about future generations? You know, on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, future generations rank towards the bottom in modern society.
• 34:40
  Tim Montague: There are cultures, I'm sure where that's different, indigenous cultures. But let's face it, in modern society, future generations rank fairly low. And for us, in my opinion, for us to have a sustainable future on Earth, we're going to have to care more. Do you have any ideas about what that takes?
• 35:07
  Keith Zakheim: Yeah, so I'm one of my side hobbies. Let's talk about behavioral psychology. And you know, so we're all played by these heuristics. They call them, right? So biases that we have just we've evolved to have these, these neurological biases. One of them, everybody has this confirmation bias. But another bias we have is we just constantly discount the future.
• 35:28
  Keith Zakheim: Great way to see it as terms of investments, right? So typically people, if they really were not people, discount the future, and therefore they don't understand that compounded interest. And, you know, we are, many of us, or most of us, are plagued with, you know, wanting instant gratification, right? So these are all biases discounted the future. I think another one we tragically see today is, you look at birth around the world, I think you know, very few countries now have replacement rates, right? Because, and when you don't have children, you tend to discount the future as well, because you're pretty much living for today. So I think there's a lot there to unpack, but to me, it's a combination of a heuristic around we just discount future our brains again, and we've evolved for that, right? Because, you know, when we were trying to survive in the Savannah, who cared about the future to avoid the tiger or the lion, right? Now, really hardwired. Seriously, it's hardwired into us, yeah, and that now, you know, so we haven't evolved for where we are in the world today. So that was the first part. You asked me a second question as well. I think so
• 36:26
  Tim Montague: the easy question, Zak is, what are you doing with the age of adoption podcast, and who are your dream guests on that show?
• 36:37
  Keith Zakheim: Oh, thanks, yeah.
• 36:37
  Keith Zakheim: So the age of adoption podcast is and Tim, you were a fantastic guest. I. And so thank you for again, coming on that we want to get on on the show just people who are smart and candidly, who have been in the industry for a while, so they can tell that adoption story. And again, for us, we look at the history of climate over the last 25 years, and two distinct kind of epochs or phases, right? So up until five years ago, we call it the age of innovation, and that's when companies and entrepreneurs and investors were all spending money and time innovating in the solutions, hardware, software, best practices that they hoped one day would be widely adopted.
• 37:18
  Keith Zakheim: Last three, four years, we've seen that come to fruition, right? So we want people who have been around long enough in this space, who can really reflect on that, and we ask them, what's your age of adoption story, right? How have things changed for you over the past 20 years, as you yourself and your companies transition from one age to the next, we've had amazing guests. If you had asked me a few months ago, kind of who are my dream guests, one of them would have been Jigar Shah, but we actually just had Jigar Shah on the podcast and released that episode. He's he's just incredible to listen to.
• 37:45
  Keith Zakheim: He's one of those people as you know Tim. You can just kind of ask a question, drop the mic and just listen, and he can go all day. He's fantastic. But ultimately, we just want those kinds of people. I don't really care about their title, I don't care about what company they're from. If you can give me somebody who's really thoughtful and has experienced this, and can really give me a good sense, and our listeners, more importantly, a good sense of how the world has changed and how they're experiencing that. As somebody who's passionate about climate and sustainability, that's a great guess for me.
• 38:17
  Tim Montague: Awesome. Thank you so much. Keith Zakheim CEO of Antenna Group. I really appreciate this opportunity.
• 38:23
  Tim Montague: Thank you for having me on your show. And with that, I'll say, let's grow solar and storage.
• 38:27
  Tim Montague: Have a great day, Keith.
• 38:30
  Keith Zakheim: Let's do it.
• 38:30
  Keith Zakheim: Thank you. You.