Latest / Factor This / Midterms, newsletters, and RE+: A conversation with the SolarWakeup guy

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Midterms, newsletters, and RE+: A conversation with the SolarWakeup guy · Factor This

0:04
SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, and welcome to DTEX Factor This podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm Factor This content director Paul Gherkey.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: If you've been around the renewable energy industry for any length of time, it's likely you've stumbled across the Solar Wake Usletter.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Founded and written by industry veteran Jan Brandt, the Daily Digital Digest features news, trends, and voices that inform executives and investors across the solar landscape.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Although Brandt himself admits he isn't much for routines, he's kept Solar Wakeup going for 14 years, even through a stint as president and CEO of a publicly traded solar tracker company, FTC Solar.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: These days, Brandt is working alongside former SIA head Abby Hopper on a podcast called Boots on the Ground, billed as straight talk about the headlines shaping solar and storage.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: I had a chance to catch up with Jan just after the U.S.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: midterm elections, before both of us head to Las Vegas for the annual renewables bacchanalia that is RE Plus.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: This episode of the Factor This Podcast is the bulk of our conversation, ranging from data centers to distributed energy, from the founding of Solar Wake Up to the next president of the United States.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Yan, I've gotta start by giving you some grief, which is probably a terrible way to ambush somebody to start a conversation.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: But I've been reading your solar wake up newsletter for as long as I have been in the energy industry.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: So shout out to you for that.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: And for as long as I have been in it, I'm not sure that you've recognized our rebrand like once.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: I think we're still Renewable Energy World to you, which I understand because that is the URL that you go to to visit our content on Factor This.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: But we didn't factor this for like a year and a half now.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: And I still see Renewable Energy World pop up.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, hey man, that's us, kind of.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh you're you're absolutely right.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, I still call RE plus SPI.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Um I have I have a problem with I've gotten to that point of my career where I refuse to recognize rebrands.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's my way of saying to the young guns, hey, I've been here a while.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Um but you're right.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: I have but I have been on a uh previous, I think the podcast was always called Factor This by Renewable Energy World.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, uh I will uh I will work to endeavor to adjust my branding.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: If you do decide to finally take that leap, that'll be the moment that we shift the rebrand back.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: So so don't worry about it.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: It's cool.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: I listen, I like the renewable energy world branding.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: I think that there's a real strong audience there, and I think there's a ton of interest in renewables.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: And even through the past couple of years, when renewables have been facing all sorts of all sorts of legislative and other hurdles that I mean, nothing new to that space, obviously, but it's been a rough patch over the last little bit, as you know.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: But obviously, uh there's there's a huge need for renewables in the larger utility and energy conversation right now, and I think the results of the midterm uh elections in our rearview mirror indicate as much too.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: I would love to pick your brain on that.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but first, I would like to acclimate you a little bit to our viewers and listeners who might not know you.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: You are correct.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: You did appear on the OG Factor This podcast with my predecessor John Engel, who founded that brand back before my time with the company.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: I actually uh took a quick look at that episode earlier.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: But for those who don't know Jan Brandt or might just know Solar Wakeup, but not you, the person, who are you?
3:29
SPEAKER_01: What are you about?
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've spent the last 20 years in the solar industry, but all the different angles, utility scale, residential, manufacturing, IPP side, uh, somehow I've become in my court with my corporate hat.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I've become a little bit of a either scale a business or turn it around uh guy, you know, which has brought me to six different, you know, very different types of companies.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, some that have been sold, some that, you know, we we turn it around and I decided to go do something else.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh so it's been super exciting.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, 14 years ago, right around now, right, heading into SP R E SPI Orlando, um, keynote speaker there was uh ex-president Bill Clinton, uh, for those of you that want to know.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And module prices were, I don't know,$2.250 a watt.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we were going through our first trade case, and but I was in between gigs and I said, people are going to forget who I am, and I really couldn't have that happen.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: So I started the first episode of Solo Wake Up newsletter, sent it to 37 of my friends, about 10 of them unsubscribed because they said, What is this?
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Jan's email got hacked.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what kind of friends are those?
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Nice business endeavor, pal.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh exactly.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: So it's been, you know, for the most part, I publish it five days a week.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's now morphed into uh I now also publish a premium version, which is about like a 10-minute personal podcast where I talk about things and I've recognized I like to talk more than I like to type.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And uh Abby Hopper, the former CEO of C and I, started a podcast called Boots on the Ground.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: So I I'm a little bit everywhere, uh, but most recently I was a CEO uh of a publicly traded uh tracker company called FTC Solar and left there back in May of this year.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for sharing a little bit of your everywhere here.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm glad that you're making the rounds to that degree.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: And it it's rare that you get another person who does podcasts on your own podcast.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: It almost feels like a little, a little weird, like there's some conflict here where it's like, is this my show or your show?
5:37
SPEAKER_01: If you want to grab the reins at any point, please feel free.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I might, Paul, especially because I I want to know more about your broadcast background.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, I mean, the people here could probably just Google it.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: There's all sorts of stuff about me and my former life on the internet.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I was all around, man.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: I I uh I started in the second smallest TV market in the country, WBKB, We Barely Know Broadcasting, in Alpina, Michigan.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: I was a sportscaster there, uh, sportscaster in Boise, Idaho for three years, Tampa, Florida for two, and then out to Phoenix, Arizona for a stint as a main news anchor and uh worked for the Arizona Cardinals, did their pregame show uh for three years out there, and then made it to NBC News in New York, office in Rockefeller Center, right across the hall from Bravo.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: Got there March 1, 2020, caught first wave co caught first wave COVID before we even knew what the symptoms were, and my whole team was laid off by the end of the year.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh so that was the TV career, like 12, 13 years crisscrossing the country, and then uh found my way into energy shortly after that with Clarion Events, which obviously owns D Tech, which uh factor this is the media arm of DTEC, which I guess is an important thing to establish if we're still trying to convince you of the rebrand.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: That's that's awesome.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say, which Dakotas did you start with?
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: The only reason I know that is a good friend of mine, uh, shout out to Lauren Shahadi.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: She's on MLB Network.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she was a sportscaster fresh out of broadcasting school at UF.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and she was in Minot, North Dakota.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: That was her first, her first dent.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those jobs, uh, the the Casper, Wyoming out there in the world, the uh the Alpina Michigans, the Minots, some really small places to cut your teeth.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: And listen, the journalism industry, as you know, ain't what it used to be.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: And TV in particular has been a ship that's been slowly taking on water for quite some time.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: And there are still some people that make excellent careers out of it.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: And I respect the hell out of the journalism profession.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: I still fancy myself as a bit of a half journalist myself, even though I do a lot of B2B stuff these days.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the same time, I think that there's real value in going to one of those places, uh, a two-stop light town, where you're living in a little apartment complex and and maybe on food stamps like I was back in my Alpina days, just trying to make ends meet and really learning the craft in a way that you can't when you're put into a really well-oiled operation, uh, because you're just flailing at that age and with those lack of resources.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: You're just learning the hard way always.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the best way to learn.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, solar's not that much different.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh my first solar project was 25 kilowatts, uh, a little over$8 a watt for Ford dealership.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh I would get Sunday night press releases about, you know, Sun Edison signing a one megawatt project with a utility.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, how do you do a one megawatt project?
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and now some companies won't pick up the phone for anything under 100.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: That's wild how much times have changed.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, that just that shows your OG chops that you've been around this space for a really long time.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: Has it felt more exciting for you in this last little stretch here?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Because I I feel the anticipation just being in the energy space is sort of like a daily thing.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Like there's real news in this space, there's stuff happening, things are changing rapidly.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, look, that's a what probably one of the things I've learned uh quite a bit in the latest uh you know edition of podcasting that I've gotten into, right?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: I used to do sort of the interview evergreen shows.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when Abby and I started, I was like, do is there is there enough to cover and to give our opinion on on a week-to-week basis?
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a hard moment where we look at 10 stories and say, how do we chop this down to two or three topics uh that are relevant?
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Because everything seems important to an executive these days.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And we want people to be unsurprised by the news uh and give our opinion and punditry of it.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but obviously it's been an exciting moment, you know, just talking about politics and the impacts that the federal system has on solar in general, but also like all the states, et cetera.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, solar likes to think of itself as quite nonpartisan, and they want the politics uh to view the industry as nonpartisan or bipartisan, depending on which way you come at it.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is um, you know, it is a highly regulated industry, and whether you get local permit and local approvals, um, you know, and not as we've grown, it's become harder and harder to find growth uh within ourselves alone, right?
10:02
SPEAKER_00: So like we look to toward data centers, et cetera, for growth.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's been quite the moment for the solar industry as we've gotten to this 50 gigawatt scale.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: 20 years ago, we used to fight for renewable portfolio standards and need a solar carve out uh in order to be competitive.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: We needed subsidies.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Florida had a$4 per watt rebate.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, under fully Republican trifecta government, um I think our political uh aspirations or sort of wish list these days is leave us alone and let us just give us approvals.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Um which is uh it that doesn't work, right?
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And because fundamentally the solar industry now needs to recognize uh two things is if you don't ask for anything, uh we still have opposition that's going to find things to take away or to get in our way as we build solar.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Um and in a regulated market, growth isn't going to manifest itself just because we have the largest funnel of interconnection and we're the cheapest energy or the fastest to the grid.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: We actively have to be fighting political battles.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And we have this inherent thing where we don't think we have any opposition.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Let me be very clear to everyone, you know, and many fellow CEOs are quite a bit at fault for believing this.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: We have opposition.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: We have real competition, whether it's the natural gas industry, uh, you know, people, someone else wants to deliver the power and they want to deliver energy at a higher cost than we uh are able to.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, they will keep trying to take things away and get in our way.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: So this belief that just because we don't ask for anything, then nothing can be taken away from us is completely false.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: So we have to use this moment, uh, not just at the federal level, but the state level.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Look, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, all Democrat trifectas now.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, that is a good political environment for solar to go clean some things up.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and ultimately many of those things is just local permitting and getting more projects done.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So go have those political arguments and fight for uh, you know, where the growth in solar is going to come from.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: I think you're 100% right.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And I was gonna tiptoe into the midterm conversation.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: You just jumped in the pool.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: You said cannonball and made a run for it.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: I would love to pick your brain on some of the midterm results that we uh are still sussing out.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: We're recording this on Thursday, November 5th.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: So just in the wake of the uh midterm elections, um, what was your take on the status of clean energy, you know, now two days plus removed from the midterm elections?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, look, it the solar industry would have you believe that this was an energy election.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: And that was certainly part of it, right?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: It was an affordability election.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: But at the core, solar policy is affordability policy because there's never the cost of a commodity fuel that's going to come in once you make the original power investment.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, the question is, is you know, what kind of solar should be built?
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Where should it be built?
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And what's its relationship with sort of the elephant in the room that's data centers?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we'll see post-election how much of an issue data centers still are politically at once people are trying to govern.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Um I've been on the record that I think it's going to become more of a community-by-community approach, right?
13:27
SPEAKER_00: What is what is the net positive?
13:29
SPEAKER_00: What is the upside for the community uh to have a data center?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and ultimately the increased power demand that the utilities and the solar industry very much want.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: And if the communities don't want it, you'll have to find the communities that that are willing to negotiate uh with you know, solar farm developers, data center developers.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And in some cases, those two things are the same company.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and hopefully increasingly more so.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: I think the new permitting is definitely going to be a little stickier.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: I believe Bloomberg found the only municipality that voted in favor of uh data centers in an article that came out this morning.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: I I had read that it was a clean sweep referendum on data centers across the board.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh at one point I think the count was like 41 for 41.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: If anyone who had it on the ballot was saying no data centers in their community.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: And obviously a lot of the gubernatorial candidates um that advanced uh have have uh stated positions on data centers that might lead to some sticky development in in 2027, 28, and beyond.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: I've read some things on the old energy Twitter, which I'm sure you're a part of too, right?
14:31
SPEAKER_01: And that's another thing that rebranded that I still call it uh you know what?
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm just as guilty as you, Jan.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: You still call it Twitter?
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, probably.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: I just re-downloaded the app, though.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you're not in the energy Twitter discourse anymore.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't participate.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: I just observe like I'm watching zoo animals through the glass.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: I I like to watch the guys go back and forth.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know how to do that, which is why I deleted it in the first place.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And you know, next thing you know, I'm being called uh a subsidy queen or something.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Well yeah, I mean it's uh I've been a staunch advocate for the investment tax credits for going back 15 years when people were first trying to kill it inside the soul industry.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know, uh I just I can't stop myself from having an opinion.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you're gonna give me the outlet to give it, I'm going to.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's a great place to catch crossfire too.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: You can catch strays on on Twitter, or I guess X as people call it now, without having done anything at all, as you know.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: The subsidy thing always bothers me because every industry is subsidized in some way.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And you just referenced the direct competition that solar the arena you're in right now is with gas and oil.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the most subsidized markets that exists.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: They will they will have you believe that there is no subsidy to oil and gas.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just their subsidies are a lot uh smoother in terms of where they hit, right?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Like we don't get subsidized for development of solar solar farms, for example.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: We get subsidized for actually building it.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's probably one of the only subsidies in American tax code history that has gotten more efficient for the taxpayer uh over its life, right?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: You you we used to get 30% on eight dollars per watt, and now we're we were getting 30% investment tax credit on a dollar per watt.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, as we've been driving the price down.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Look, the reality is the tax code is complete, is we've always done economic policy in America through the tax code.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Going back to the first fire department in Philadelphia, it was a voluntary tax assessment.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: If you want fire protection, then you pay this advalor this non-advalorum tax.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you do, uh, then you pay it, right?
16:40
SPEAKER_00: So and solar is um, you know, I think now is an interesting moment.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: The solar industry is going to have to decide whether or not they want the tax credit back.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And I understand the CEOs that say privately yes, but publicly no, because they don't want the investment community to have this cliff moment when in uh without argument, there's going to be a moment where if we have a tax credit, a politician is going to want to take it away because sometimes we care about the debt and sometimes we don't.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Um and so it's you know, it's an interesting argument, but that is that is a function of the times of our business, right?
17:19
SPEAKER_00: And the stronger we get, the more skilled we'll be at protecting the things that we want and expanding things that we want.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but look, the my favorite oil and gas subsidy is that they get to uh take tax benefits on uh active income, right?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: So like there's this weird active uh passive income allocation of tax benefits in the tax code, meaning unless you work in solar full time, and I'm not a tax lawyer, so don't you know take any advice from me, but you get to offset your active income with your uh tax investments.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Other if you're a real estate investor and you want to invest in solar tax credits, you can't.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: You only get to offset your passive income, which is much harder to find.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Oil and gas is actually exempt from this.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I've always said the best tax code that the solar industry could advocate for is to just put comma solar, right?
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Oil, comma, solar, and gas exempted from the active income allocation.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a great name for a solar startup company, comma solar.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to do some explaining, though, on the back end for it to make sense.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: But I do love the name.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting moment.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, certainly the midterm elections, uh, and look, the solar industry is full of Republicans.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: So don't uh don't get me wrong, you know, but they usually come from the sort of the business perspective.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm sure there's uh MAGA around the solar industry, but um, I think Americans want uh and very quickly want more affordability, and solar industry should figure out a way to be part of that solution.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Can we just say something that I don't think I've ever heard anyone say out loud?
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm just I'll say it, I'll fall on the sword.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: I this is my opinion and my opinion alone.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Feel free to nod along if you like, Jan.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: It's weird to think of generation technologies as partisan.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: Like when I flip the light switch on, I don't think in terms of red or blue, or if the you know what I mean?
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Like that just seems so odd to me.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, geothermal is such a red technology, I hate it.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get it, fracking and and like there's I understand why there's connections to red and blue within generation types, but like when you zoom out a little bit, it seems very silly.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: The money is red and blue, right?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, and and it's like data centers is a perfect example, right?
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And look, there was plenty of solar moratoriums over the past decade where it's like, I don't want solar on the farmland because I, as a commissioner, know better of what a farmer should put on his property, which is complete bogus crap, right?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: But data centers are very similar.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Everyone that's you know, a lot of people that are voting against a data center are also plugging questions and asking Claude and Chat GPT for answers.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: It's not they just don't want the mega data center shining its lights and running its uh gas and you know, gas generators in their backyard, but they certainly want a data center to be in your backyard, Paul, right?
20:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, and so they want America usually wants the outcome of things without it impacting themselves.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And uh that's usually what you find underneath the vote.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a this was momentary, and it caught the data center developers by surprise.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Six months ago, everyone loved it, right?
20:31
SPEAKER_00: The parish in Louisiana, the where teachers got a$50,000 bonus uh because Meta was building a data center.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And I actually think a lot of politicians are gonna come back to this where there's too many jobs, too much construction, but it's going to be done in a way that's, you know, within the community.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, what do we get?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the ideas I have for data centers is hey, look, you're going to need a hundred megawatts of power that you're going to put a strain on a grid.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: A, you're going to upgrade to grid and you're going to give bill credits back to consumers.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: But two, why don't you put 100 megawatts of solar on the residential homes in the community to offset the power that you're you're going to use, right?
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden all those homeowners and balcony solar, et cetera, get to have lower energy bills because of the data center.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be a long-term, very personal benefit that they get.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: There's so many ideas around affordability that would make data centers part of the solution for the communities that want to negotiate some kind of leverage.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: I I am all in favor of finding ways for data center developers to pay for the next clean evolution of our grid.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: But I hesitate at the idea of charging a specific customer class just because they've got the pockets to do it.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: That does feel weird.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to be Mr.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Back Pocket of the Utilities, but it does it does seem odd to be like, well, you guys have to pay because you're forcing a bunch of upgrades and you you really need this right now.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: But every other large, like a manufacturer, for example, we're reshoring a ton of domestic manufacturing.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Are we treating those developers the same way as data center developers?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: We're not, because we don't we know they don't have the capex uh that the Googles have.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes and no, right?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, A, there's a solar developer that would like a word, Paul, because when they want to build a solar farm and they're told it's a hundred million dollar substation upgrade, you know, that's straight out of the developer's pocket to get that project up and running.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: And often the argument is I'm upgrading the substation for so much more because there's already existing capacity there.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And the way that we've historically done it through industrial rate schedules is that people pay for a demand charge, right?
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Like if I need uh 10 megawatts of power, I pay a demand charge of X dollars per kilowatt on a monthly basis based on my highest 15 minutes of use.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it's sort of transferred around.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: The back door of that is that industrial manufacturing has been this economic development boon, and they're very sensitive to energy costs, right?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: They need to pay two, three cents a kilowatt hour.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: So actually, con residential consumers have been shouldering the burden in order to get that economic growth, which is sort of the cycle of creating jobs and community, et cetera.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: What the data center companies are saying is like, look, our value of energy is, as Elon said on the on the last SpaceX call, is between$30 to$50 per watt.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's somewhere around$4,000 per megawatt hour, depending on how you want to calculate that out.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: They don't have that sensitivity sensitivity.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: What they need is speed.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, you use the term, right?
23:42
SPEAKER_00: It's very uh punny right now.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: It's speed to power.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Data centers aren't looking at the costs of building the upgrades as a negative.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: They're simply saying, like, hey, we'll pay right now in order to get the upgrade.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: But what's happening though is the utilities are like, wait a minute, we like to pay for the upgrades because we want to rate base it.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: They want to rate base it.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: And they want to rate base it.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: It takes time too, more time than the developers have.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, right?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: So data center companies and utilities seemingly are having a secret fight in the background where one wants to go faster than the other one, and one's willing to pay while the other one wants to profit off paying on behalf of someone else.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: No, that makes sense.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like there's going to be some scale back in the US after seeing the referendum in the midterms?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Or do you think it's sort of full steam ahead and that this is still going to be a very active space in 27 and 28?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: It's it it I don't think it slows, right?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Unless there's a demand reduction.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, look at the capex numbers that came out of the sort of big tech companies.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be different tiers.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: It's obviously cost of capital is very high.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And the stock market today would vehemently disagree with my commentary on this because they see a rotation out of uh AI stocks today and the solar stocks are strong, are, you know, they were up 10% yesterday, they're down 10% today.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, so all of our, you know, listeners are a little bit poor for it.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think people will pick and choose, right?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: If Texas, which has the second largest pipeline of data centers today, uh, you know, that's obviously been a giant blue tsunami.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh every statewide office in the state house was flipped over to Democrats.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: If there's a change in policy of how fast data centers can be built in Texas, um, you know, Oklahoma might say, hey, we're open for business, or, you know, any other state.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And look, the largest pipeline of data centers is Virginia.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: And that's, you know, I believe a blue trifecta.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And so there's just so much economic growth in building and maintaining and operating these data centers.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: even if no new data center is built, every data center that already exists, I think there's close to 3,000 of them, currently has racks that are somewhere between 50 and 150 kilowatts per rack.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: They could double the size of each one of those to 250 kilowatts with technology that ships today.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And if they wait a year, then it can be close to a megawatt per rack.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: So the capacity of these data centers could actually 10x without building a single new one.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: So the power demand is going to exist one way or another, and the federal government's not going to let these data centers and the data that comes with it go offshore.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: In a couple of weeks here, we're going to be headed out to Ari Plus.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Not together.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Unless you want to ride.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I'm coming from New Jersey.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: It's probably not going to make a lot of sense for you.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: And look, if if the company Private Jet is willing to pick me up, Paul, then by all means.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: I wish.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't have those kind of bucks.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: I was in an enterprise rental driving a Chrysler Pacifica up to Boston this past week for D Tech Northeast.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: So a couple tiers below that.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: But we're both going to be out at RE Plus in Vegas.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Who doesn't love Vegas right before the holidays?
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Um sorry, I just couldn't without taking a shot.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: Um there's going to be a lot of conversations about how we are powering data centers.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a lot of conversations about midterm reactions.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a lot of conversations about the status of solar and other renewables in this unknown that we're moving into, but with cautious optimism, as you think about your approach to RE Plus this year in this massive gathering of everything renewables, um, what do you expect the temperature of the room to be like?
27:31
SPEAKER_01: And what conversations do you expect to have with industry leaders?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, it's going to be an interesting moment.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, and I'm about to burst your bubble of hating Vegas a little bit more prior to the holidays, but I don't know if you realize, but starting on Thursday night, F1 races are going to start while we're in Vegas.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: So actually most of the roads will be shut down.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: While while the solar industry is in town.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: So traffic, traffic will be a little bit smoother than usual.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Fantastic by making you driving around.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm a big F1 fan, so everyone knows that it's not going to be something that bothers me that much.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: But it uh certainly interesting moment.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Um look, here's what I'm I'll be interested to see is, you know, there's going to be a little bit of hesitation of, you know, what is our growth next year?
28:21
SPEAKER_00: We're also a couple weeks ahead of the December 4th deadline of 232.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Is that going to get extended into the new year or not?
28:28
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a that's going to be a majority of the conversation.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, the entire procurement supply chain is moving into a domestic setting, right?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Every inverter, every switch gear, transformers, at the very least, has to be non-Chinese.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And what I've been telling uh people is you really have to have a fully domestic uh procurement strategy, if not for projects right now for the pretty near near-term future.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: So expect every billboard at the show to say, you know, our manufacturing site is in Texas, it's in New Mexico, it's in South Carolina, it's in Georgia.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, wherever it may be, everyone's going to have both fiok and domestic content questions.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it depends on kind of how the stocks do between now and then.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the anthropic IPO is probably hanging over the head of probably there's about five or somewhere between five and ten companies that's exhibiting at the show that has confidentially filed to go public, and they can't quite go ahead with flipping it public and actually going through with it until the anthropic IPO goes well.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: And this whole contagion of is there a rotation, is there a data center malaise that's caused by the election results?
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you look fundamentally the question is is uh what's going to happen in a new Congress?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: What deals can they make with the president?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: What does the solar industry want?
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, those are all questions that people are asking.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And there's not a lot of answers about, you know, at least the last one, which is what does the solar industry want from its politicians?
30:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, that kind of circles back to something that you brought up earlier, that there needs to be more vocal advocacy in general for this is what I want, this is what I need, and this is how we're gonna get it.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: And and those, I mean, shout out to you uh for being a part of those conversations too.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, to to steer this a little sideways, do you do you have a hard time separating solar from storage now?
30:25
SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like the battery storage indust industry is is sort of linked particularly with solar?
30:31
SPEAKER_01: And maybe not in a bad way.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: So storage used to be the little cousin to solar, right?
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Where it's like, oh, I'll add storage to my solar site.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Um I hate to burst the bubble for the solar people, but storage is now, you know, our little cousins grown up and can beat us up.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: I lost in basketball to storage, just dunked all over me.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and energy storage, because energy storage is now, um, I've called it the Chevy Volt on steroids, but data centers are going to be powered not by generators or solar farms, they're going to be powered by giant battery banks for a variety of different reasons.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: But we are all filling the pool of energy inside the bat, the battery systems.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the natural gas industry is actually going probably going to be bigger for energy storage than solar is.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: But the benefit of that is that storage allows more solar to be built.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I Abby Hopper asked me to start, help her start the energy storage division at SIA.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And so I was its first chair uh back when I was uh part of the leadership team at FlexGen.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I've sort of watched storage grow.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, now you've sort of seen the market pick and choose which companies should be rewarded, which ones should not.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's also going through a giant cycle of domestic onshoring of manufacturing, which some companies are struggling with, right?
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Namely, Fluence has had a horrible time trying to get its domestic supply chain up and running.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: The CEO and CFO uh left earlier this week.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh so there's a lot going on.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of our kind of the listeners, at least the solar market, they keep going back to the safe haven of let's just buy a Tesla megapack, but now they're sold out and prices are increasing.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: So now you have to go back and figure out how do I create plan B without all of the sort of Chinese overlay that happens in both the hardware and the software that's in energy storage?
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that'll be a really interesting moment, but it's the part of the industry that I think is really going to carry us as a soul industry uh in the business side and especially in the public markets.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I think you'll see a lot of energy storage deals, both in consolidation as well as IPOs in the next year.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Do you do you think it carries that same partisan uh weight to it, or do you think of energy storage as as nonpartisan?
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Look, I think the bipartisan nature is that everything needs to be made here, which is not as easily done as said.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Um and so that'll be that'll be interesting to watch.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: I think the uh it depends how much the oil and gas companies invest or are part of the equity upside in the storage space.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: The problem is, look, if if you look at the utility market, the rate-based market, they used to rate base uh natural gas sort of CCGTs.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: This is you know, four or five years ago for like$1,100,$1,200 a kilowatt.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Today it's somewhere close to three to$3,500 a kilowatt.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: So it gives you a levelized cost of electricity of somewhere around 14 cents.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Solar and storage can deliver, you know, fully baseloadable, dispatchable energy, you know, under 10 cents.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: And so if storage is helping solar too much, then it becomes a partisan topic that oil and gas is against.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, but if the power quality, especially as data centers move to 800 volt DC, which is happening relatively quickly, then you're going to see things like storage and fuel cells uh rise to the top.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: But then you have to remember the infrastructure.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And you saw this with the Oracle deal in New Mexico.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: If you want to build a bunch of fuel cells, you still need the gas pipelines.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't get the gas pipelines, you can't build your data center, right?
34:17
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the tran the solar farm without the transmission.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Paul, this is the part of the episode where you're going to edit in the scene from the West Wing around renewable energy.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: And we're all sitting around the table bashing each other uh while the puppeteers in the oil and gas industry uh continue on.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: And look, the permitting fight is a great example.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: We're all sitting here wanting to push the permitting fight.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I uh I have an outlier take because everyone, all the headlines today is that the permitting bill uh chances have gone down since the election because Democrats are going to want to hold on to it into the new Congress and negotiate a better deal.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I actually think the chances went up because it's it's so pro-oil and gas and so uh such a benefit to the executive branch to be able to move things through that I actually think that the lobby that really wants to push it through in order to have two great years of permitting is you know, oil and gas infrastructure that is going to be positive.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's certainly things for the solar industry and transmission and VPPs, but I actually think that the chances of it went up.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not a DC insider, so I might be completely wrong about it, uh, but I have the contrarian take on it.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: No, I think that's a smart take.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at the look at the folks who are uh in opposition to it.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, outside of utilities who have some issues with with Baja for other reasons, um, you know, Sierra Club is one that, you know, they don't like the idea that we're fast tracking permitting in ways that compromise some environmental reviews, even though some on the environment environmental side would argue that those protections are still very much in place in Baja, and maybe they didn't need to be as stringent and uh red tapey as they have been previously.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh but no, I I don't think that there's I you know I struggle with it too because I I see your I see both sides of that argument.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: Um I just hope they get it done because I feel like the moment is now.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: I just released a podcast this morning, actually, conversation with uh Niskanon Center and Advanced Energy United that we recorded on Monday before the election about the prospects, uh what's in Baja and sort of setting the stage for that culture vote coming up on November 9th.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh or hope, at least, you know, we'll see.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: When the Senate returns, I'll just say that.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Um we'll we'll we'll see.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what's gonna happen with votes and if we're gonna look at things.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Um but you I just I feel like there's enough in there for everybody that we should be able to find a way to get something moving because the log jam as it exists right now feels so unsustainable.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, interconnection cues is just the start of the conversation.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned supply chains.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everything just seems so jammed up right now, and not just federally, but in those individual states too, that are trying to get these projects on.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh look, I uh DC is not functional on its best day.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be uh quite the interesting day.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: I think something like 38 uh red districts flip blue in the house.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people that are heading to DC today that probably weren't expecting to have to book a flight.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, so there's a lot of redecorating happening in DC.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And so now you have the six, you know, 40-day window where a lot of people, it's their last chance to be to be valuable and powerful uh while, you know, before they head to the private sector.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: And yeah I said it on another podcast uh yesterday, which is I think you're gonna see the mother of all omnibus spending bills uh coming out of Congress, whether or not the permitting bill is part of it.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: I expect it is.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it's good enough to pass.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not fine, like I understand the environmental concerns.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know that the the political system warrant you know is g get valuing the opposition enough uh versus the people that are going to financially benefit from it happening.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And look, a lot of solar companies, solar EPCs, for example, what they're also building is a lot of high voltage transmission and high voltage substations.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you saw Solve by uh a contractor in the in the space.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: G.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Vernova did a$9 billion deal for a high voltage manufacturer uh a couple of weeks ago.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: And Quanta, right?
38:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, QA, which has a couple of solar EPCs in its umbrella, only about 20% of their business is solar and wind, but they added 25,000 employees in the last 12 months, and their Q3 revenues was up like 57% to$12 billion, right?
38:45
SPEAKER_00: So, like, you're already seeing the trend towards high voltage DC.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: And my prediction was the next thing that's like right now, the MA topic is high voltage and all things high voltage.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: I think energy storage is uh is the next thing where people are just going to plow a lot of corporate dollars to expand uh both the service, the software, and the manufacturing side of all things storage.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Fingers crossed on the manufacturing side for reasons you mentioned, that's a sticky space for sure.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, really tough to build here in the U.S.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: with domestic components.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: We spent a lot of time talking about the status of clean energy and and looking ahead to RE.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to circle back to that newsletter one more time.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: What inspired you to start Solar Wake Up when you did send it out to your handful, a few dozen friends that first time and garnered your first unsubscribes?
39:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I like most things in my in my career, I've saw someone doing something interesting, you know, in a parallel universe.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: And I I th I think, you know, someone should do that.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And usually when I think to myself, someone should do that, I say, well, don't be lazy and just do it yourself.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh most people that know me well know that I'm not a man of man of routines.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Like I literally have none.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: And that I've stuck with solar, you know, solar wake up for 14 years is kind of a feed on its own.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: But I look, every time I think it's run its course, I think about the fact that it's probably the biggest room in solar, right?
40:13
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is probably the biggest room I can think of as either the keynote at Infocast or the opening session at RE Plus, right, where there's like two, three thousand people.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: Every single day, more than those more than that, opens the newsletter.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: And the more I write, and so sorry for all the journalists that are reading, the more I write, the less they click on the links of the stories that I'm I actually want them to go to.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I fill the void of punditry, which I certainly enjoy.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: I like to, you know, I like to hear myself the most dangerous places between me and a microphone.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's I've enjoyed doing it.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy the conversations, especially when people say, Jan, you're wrong about something.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: I wish there was more of a, you know, you're a podcast host.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: I wish there was more counterpoint.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, people listen and then, you know, write back.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of it.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: So it tends to be one directional.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I want I want people to have another opinion, another data point.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, I don't want people to be surprised uh when they when something happens to their business or to them.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that I can at least try to make a few surprises less surprising to their everyday business habits.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: That's the same ethos we try over here too.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: We want to make you smarter, we want to make you better at your job and keep you informed.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: And if I can make you laugh a little bit, uh happy to do that too.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: I find the same thing as someone who who is responsible for populating a lot of v newsletters.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: They don't click on the stuff that you write and the stuff that you want them to click, that's for sure.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: It's always the other stuff.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, the the funny thing about that punditry and the space between the microphones is that um as much as we love to hear ourselves talk, that interaction with the listenership, the viewership, the readership is the most valuable feedback that we can get our hands on for sure.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: And and I think both you and I appreciate being able to talk to people in the industry.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: And the best way to get someone to talk to you is to upset them in some way, you know?
42:13
SPEAKER_01: When you when you put something out in writing that they don't agree with, that's the best chance you're gonna get an email.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh look, uh I usually know going into a podcast episode what uh is going to upset people.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: And look, it's part of the strategy, right?
42:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh some of the biggest podcast hosts, they certainly uh have mastered uh that expertise.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but the other day we were recording and something happened that wasn't in the script where uh Abby and I decided on an ad hoc basis, like, who do you think today is going to be president post-2028?
42:48
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, she gave an answer um which was sort of down the middle.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: She said JB Pritzker, and I said something that caused me to get a lot of text messages because I said Aussie.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: I said Tucker Carlson.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: What?
43:04
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna I was gonna hate on Abby's choice, but now I get to pick on you.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, explain it.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: I I think Tucker Carlson, and it's not a want or hope.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: I just think the way that he captivates his audience and gets people to uh to agree with him is you know, he does he has a rhythm and style that causes people to repeat what he says.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think about the debate stage and and there are other people that could beat him, but they're not running, right?
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Tucker Carlson is the one that uh is most likely to run that on a Republican debate stage would be quite uh interesting to see how people fare against him.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, I think his audience, uh, and I see it on social media, is uh quite captivated by it.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: But like you know, JB Pritzker versus Tucker Carlson.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know which way um America would vote.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: But I also said, look, when when Donald Trump came down those uh golden stairs at Trump Tower, I remember sitting at the family table and they're like, that's crazy.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: That's never gonna happen.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I think you're gonna see him walking down the steps of Air Force One because I I don't think a politician has a chance against uh celebrity in America.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: We're we're part we've reached the point of student government where the most popular kid is going to win as opposed to the most deserving.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: That may have been true.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: I feel like the referendum that we saw this week might kick back at that idea a little bit and that people are fed up with the particularly the dinner table issues, the affordability stuff, the gas prices, the electricity prices, the war in Iran, et cetera, on down the line without taking this, you know, too far out in the left field.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: But but I, you know, I don't think either one I can I bet on this?
44:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't think either one are gonna either.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, we no, now you have to put your stamp on it.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: Who do you think will be the president?
45:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll give you mine.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: I agree with you, though, in that the cult of celebrity is still very relevant in the United States.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: But I think that we, whether we should or or should not, create celebrities out of politicians.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: And I think the midterm results this past week indicate uh that there's an entire new crop of, particularly on the left, um, politicians molded as younger versions of Bernie Sanders, as alternate versions of Zoran Mamdani, who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams across vast swaths of the electorate that I think uh even they were probably surprised to find success in.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's gonna be the blueprint for 28 from the Democratic side.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: And I I think, particularly if we can get a permitting bill done and things actually start getting done and break up this log jam that we've we've had in Congress for the past couple of years.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: I have no reason to think that the presidency wouldn't go blue in 28.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Prisker doesn't fit the bill that I'm describing.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: I think Ossoff does.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: I think it's too early for an AOC type, and I still think she's pretty polarizing in a lot of circles, too.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I think John Ossoff kind of jumped to the front, and I think guys like Gavin Newsome maybe took a step back.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's just my perspective.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: And you talked about orders and the value of an order in Carlson.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: Have you have you heard guys like Al Sayyed talk?
46:26
SPEAKER_01: Not saying that he could ever be elected president of the United States.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that we're we're ready to have that conversation, but someone who can carry a microphone, my goodness, that man's a speaker.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: He's phenomenal, right?
46:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, and and I think if you I mean I talked about this, so you know, sorry for your audience if I caught catch him off guard, but if his name was Mike Rogers, he would have gotten an extra, you know, you percentage vote, you know.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm from Michigan, so I I I get I got friends back there.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I have a problem with Michigan because I got denied from the University of Michigan.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, that's that that's uh that's my my pain to carry.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: That's old grief.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: So but is is your call that you think Osof is the next president?
47:09
SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna make me just pick a name out of that.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: You gotta pick a name.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: You get to change.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Like three months from now, we'll do this again.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll I'll probably be revising it then.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: But just in the in the afterglow of the midterms, I think um I think he stands out.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna let you skate with the political answer because I don't know that you said John Offtoff is gonna be the next president, but you know, uh well I think you've you've been around politics long enough that you leave outs uh quite a bit.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, you you lived in Arizona, you covered news in Arizona, Mark Kelly certainly is uh, you know, trying to see if there's some fervor for him.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Everything changes at the moment, right?
47:51
SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you a great example.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: If Mark Cuban, who has said he wouldn't run, said, I'm running, I think it would be hard for any Democrat politician, assuming he would run as a Democrat, which I would assume he would, could beat Mark Cuban in a primary.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: And I disagree.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: I think we're so past that.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: You really think we want another Shark Tank host or the next apprentice host as president again?
48:17
SPEAKER_01: I you don't think we've grown past that?
48:18
SPEAKER_01: You think we're still stuck in that rut as Americans?
48:20
SPEAKER_00: It's how it's always been.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: It's it and I don't think I don't think it changes all that much.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, ultimately, I mean look, we'll we'll see.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh Democrat, you know, bring this full circle about the politics of solar.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: Solar has been has found a really strong home in Texas, right?
48:42
SPEAKER_00: One of the largest and fastest growing solar markets in the country.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: Is this like, and you would say to the legislators and now the statewide officers of of Texas, you know, Gina Hinajosa and um, you know, to some extent uh Telerico, who said he would still be pro-oil and gas, right?
49:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, so in the Senate, um, you know, you'll have these oil state Democrats.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: But the question is, is what does a Democrat in the governor's mansion change or want to change to potentially be even more pro-solar?
49:18
SPEAKER_00: Right?
49:18
SPEAKER_00: Is it a you know capacity market for solar, right?
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Ericot is famously non-capacity market, um, fast tracking permitting, fast tracking and I don't know, right?
49:29
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, in a state where there really wasn't any complaints about speed to power and access to labor and access to land and all those things, the solar community doesn't have a long wish list of things to ask for in Texas.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: And now you've had regime change, right?
49:47
SPEAKER_00: And what happens next, right?
49:49
SPEAKER_00: How does the solar industry manifest even stronger, which you would argue most people would, that Democrats are friendlier to solar?
49:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but at the state level, we shall see, right?
50:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be a telling moment at the state level.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I you look, I'm really interested.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: What's Nevada, what's solar going to ask for in Nevada and Arizona, right?
50:10
SPEAKER_00: Those are solar hotbeds, uh, a lot of land that's unused for unusable for anything else, um, a ton of appetite for new power and clean power.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then uh the last thing I would pose to you uh is, you know, Congress isn't going to pass a lot of things in the next two years, right?
50:29
SPEAKER_00: It's one year, a budget bill in 2027, and then there's another election in 2028, which, you know, the campaign's gonna kick off on January 1st for everyone.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: But what if Congress tries to put uh into the data center bill some RPS, some requirement for clean energy that data centers need to be powered 80% by solar, for example, or to be backed up by energy storage.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: So you're bringing your own capacity.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: Those are some interesting concepts that could elevate solar.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I think the tech community would welcome to have those kinds of requirements.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, federalism states' rights still has to get worked out.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: But there's certainly some message bills that the Democrats and Congress could do, knowing that the president's not going to go for them, uh, and everything was is going to get buried in whatever budget deals they make together.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: We've rambled uh quite a while, Jan.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you taking my call and just sort of uh ripping through a whole bunch of stuff, um, you know, ad lib like this.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: Um happy to continue this conversation anytime, and thanks for all that you do.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine keeping a labor of love alive for that long.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: I do a lot for the love of the game.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Putting up with it for 14 years is an awful lot, but I'm glad that it still serves you as well as it does.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: And uh it has certainly been an asset for me.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: And and I think of it as a you know part-time journalist myself that anytime I made it into the solar wake up, that whatever I put my effort in was worth its salt.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: So thanks to you.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Look, I I will make sure that fact this ends up more often on the on the newsletter than than Renewable Energy World ever did.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: Hey, and then when we switch it back to Renewable Energy World, I'll make sure to ping you so we can keep up to date on that and the revolving door of rebrands in the energy space.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: It's always a pleasure, Paul.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: All right, thanks for the chat, man.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: Take it easy, and I'll see you at RE Plus.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.