Latest / Clean Power Hour / Brownfields to Brightfields - Turning Landfills into Clean Energy Assets with Annika Colston | EP199

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Brownfields to Brightfields - Turning Landfills into Clean Energy Assets with Annika Colston | EP199 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Annika Colston: It's really a call to action. I mean, just to bring it full circle to where we started, you know, we all have these sites in our communities and they are often, you know, overlooked, but we should be telling our communities to go out there and develop them. And you know, there are companies like AC power and others that wants to help build community driven clean energy projects.
• 1:14
  intro: Are you speeding the energy transition? Here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts, Tim Montague and John Weaver bring you the best in solar batteries and clean technologies every week, I want to go deeper into decarbonisation. We do two, we're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industry. So let's get to it.
• 1:35
  intro: Together, we can speed the energy transition.
• 1:42
  Tim Montague: Today on the Clean Power Hour, developing solar on brownfields and landfills in particular, I'm Tim Montague, welcome to the Clean Power Hour, please check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com.
• 1:53
  Tim Montague: Give us a rating and a review and tell a friend about the show. My guest today is Annika Colston, she is the president and founder of a company called AC power based in New York, but working in a handful of states across the East Coast and the Midwest. Welcome to the show.
• 2:12
  Annika Colston: Thank you so much, Tim, I'm so delighted to be here.
• 2:15
  Tim Montague: You might be wondering, how do you see an eye solar PPAs get financed? For many, it remains a mystery. For others, there's conductor, conductor solar helps hundreds of developers and EPCs. Find investors, close transactions and collaborate effectively.
• 2:29
  Tim Montague: With competitive bids from high quality partners. Conductor, make sure you and your customers get the best PPA deal every time free to use for developers and EPCs visit conductor.solar today.
• 2:43
  Tim Montague: I'm unusual because my father is a landfill expert. And so I grew up learning about the challenges that landfills present for humanity. But a good thing happened right and we can repurpose landfills now as solar fields. And the expression we use in the industry is brownfields to bright fields.
• 3:08
  Tim Montague: It's a great expression. But tell our listeners Annika how you came to the landfill industry and then to the solar industry.
• 3:17
  Annika Colston: That's great, I would be happy to and I can I imagine that my children will be able to relate to what you said about your dad, because, you know, it all started with like drives to, you know, the in laws house or whomever and you see, you know, pointing out landfills off the road. And, and you know, some people don't even notice them. But once you have them pointed out, you know, now my kids are pointing them out to me. So they're everywhere.
• 3:40
  Annika Colston: They're everywhere. That's true.
• 3:44
  Annika Colston: So I've been developing renewable energy projects since the late 90s. always been drawn to kind of the underdog project.
• 3:53
  Annika Colston: So looking at technologies that are viable, but what kind of projects need a little extra push in order to get them developed. And so in 2015, I sold a portfolio of landfill gas to energy projects. And these were small scale projects that weren't regulated by the EPA are required to install emission reduction systems. So they were voluntary systems, and would contribute to climate change emission reductions. And many of those sites were on, you know, declining gas curves, and there wasn't going to be a long term interest for electricity. So I sold that portfolio and was looking at you know what to do next. And many of my colleagues were developing solar projects.
• 4:44
  Annika Colston: And I knew that that was a, you know, a great place for solar for developers to focus at that time, but I couldn't find my underdog angle. And then it dawned on me, all of those sites that I had gone to visit that just didn't have enough gas and had been properly closed, but we're still regulated, we're still presented a financial burden to their owners still had 2535 years of post closure maintenance. Those sites were just sitting there as beautiful, excellent candidates for solar.
• 5:19
  Annika Colston: And so I found an AC power in 2017 to focus focus exclusively on repurposing low value land in particular sites that had been previously contaminated into revenue generating solar facilities. Yeah, you know, it's
• 5:38
  Tim Montague: until you really start to look for landfills or recognize the pattern of what they look like you don't realize how many there are. And I live over an aquifer called the Mohammed aquifer here in Central Illinois, which is a wonderful resource of really clean drinking water for only a, you know, a limited geography here in central Illinois, if you go an hour south, you're no longer over the aquifer and you have to pipe in and good water from the Mohammed aquifer, many communities buy water from other communities and move it around here in central Illinois. But there's over 100 landfills on top of the Mohammed aquifer. And you can think of a landfill as a bathtub. Okay, and it's got a liner generally, depending on when it was built, and but but it's like a bathtub, and then you fill it with garbage. And then you put a cap on top, and you hope that the cap remains intact, and sheds water off the top. But the reality is that the second law of thermodynamics guarantees that this data is going to fall apart. And it's going to leak and water is going to get in and it's going to leach out through the bottom.
• 6:51
  Tim Montague: Even if it has a leach a collection system, that system is going to be imperfect. So anyway, landfills are a threat to drinking water, among other things. And, and you generally can't do much with a closed landfill, right? It's a small mound of earth. I mean, it could be hundreds of acres, or just a few acres there. They vary in size. My first commercial solar project that I walked was the closed landfill in Urbana. Shout out to Scott TAs, who is the is the sustainability director for for the city. And now there is a lovely community solar array on that landfill, which is providing green electrons to low and middle income residents of Champaign County. So it's a wonderful way to repurpose a landfill, which you otherwise really can't do anything with.
• 7:45
  Tim Montague: But Annika, tell us about landfill solar? Where does it work? And how does it How does it work? Because it doesn't work everywhere? And why are you working in the geographies that you're working in? And and then if you would tell us a little bit about those, those states that you're working in?
• 8:05
  Annika Colston: Yeah, Tim, you're absolutely right about the sheer volume of potential sites. And the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates estimates that there is at least 13 million acres available for solar development, and that there's over 10,000 closed landfills that could generate up to 63 gigawatts of solar electricity. So the market is is huge. It really does come down to where is it viable to, to develop these projects. And there are additional costs that go into developing solar on landfills. So they are not apples to apples with a ground mounted traditional system or a rooftop system. So one of the most important things for us is to be working in states that either offer an incentive directly for landfill solar development, or to be working in a state that has community solar. And so the reason why those two programs either have incentive or community solar program help is because they provide sufficient incentives to make these projects economic. So in a community solar program, the revenue that a solar project receives is based on the residential rate and some discount that you're providing to the, to the end users, as well as, in most cases, an incentive that's offered by the state. So that's the structure in Illinois, which has a fantastic community solar program and a lot of landfill solar under development. The other states that have similar programs are New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts.
• 9:56
  Annika Colston: And there are a handful of others that are prioritizing landfill solar development. But I think what is interesting to look at the evolution of how these programs come to be, is that generally, a state government decides that they want to promote solar. So they put in place a target and renewable energy target and a program and they say we're going to become, you know, 30 or 50%, renewable by 2050, or some kind of goal and they put a program in place to support that. And you know, as soon as there's mention of a solar program, all of the solar developers who want to want to migrate immediately to that state because they see this opportunity and it's a bit of luck. undergrad at that point is to find the best sites for solar. And that solar siting boom usually happens before the local municipalities have figured out how to even deal with the demand that is coming for the solar energy. So in places like New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York State that were early movers, they saw this drive toward, toward turning farmland or agricultural land into solar. And now, you know, I am not an expert to talk about agriculture tags are all of the advances that have been made. But just looking back over the last 10 years, you know, there's been a lot of advanced advancements. But there's been a lot of resistance and uncertainty around how to convert this land into solar and what that means. And so these states as in response to that decided to put in at the state level, some siting requirements to incentivize the reuse of low value land like landfills into solar projects. So that areas that were sitting there as great candidates were able to get reused. And so we, you know, encourage states that are considering a solar program the future to incorporate those siting requirements and where they want solar to be situated early on, and encouraged development of these sites.
• 12:21
  Tim Montague: So let's, let's walk through this process. You mentioned the land grab, like when a market first takes off, like Ohio, is, is on the tail end of that land grab right now, they don't have a robust community solar market yet, but the writing is on the wall that they are going to. And so the developers are acquiring site control. When you go to a landfill owner, many of them are owned by government entities.
• 13:45
  Tim Montague: But there's both and I would imagine some private, some public. What is that process?
• 13:49
  Tim Montague: Like? Because most landfill owners are probably not familiar with landfill solar. Here in the Midwest, maybe there are places in New York and New Jersey where landfill owners are more used to that now because the industry has been developing landfill solar for a longer period of time. But what does that like?
• 14:08
  Tim Montague: And then how does that play out?
• 14:12
  Tim Montague: And, you know, in a good market, so to speak, what percentage of landfills do you think will ultimately get solarized?
• 14:21
  Annika Colston: Yeah, great questions. I think that it is a bit unfortunate how the kind of markets do develop. And so you know, we are seeing that Ohio is a great example. Because I think that the kind of land grab happened over the last couple of years. And I think there's still a lot of uncertainty around whether a program will be approved, or how soon, and I think we're now seeing this in Michigan, which had quite a lot of legislation around community solar, but now it you know, has kind of stalled in the 11th hour. And that's unfortunate because it puts a little bit of a bad reputation, the intentions are good to go in and get an option agreement. But if there are not the economics to support a project, developers can't put in the hundreds of 1000s and ABI and eventually millions of dollars that are required to to develop and construct the project. So I think we you know, we look for sites that are usually over 25 acres of a developable area. And just to give a rule of thumb, a one megawatt of solar is roughly four to five acres can be can be less, but on a landfill, you usually have other kind of things that you need to work around, like, like Wells and setbacks and roads, and so 25 acres of ideally flat so landfill, so you want a slope that's less than 20%. There still haven't that hasn't been sufficient technology really to figure out how to to put racking onto a steep slope. I think it's a great opportunity in the future. And there are many, many more megawatts that could be installed once somebody puts in place some technology that can be kind of guaranteed, and it's financeable and then we look to enter into an agreement with the host or the landlord that will allow us to complete the initial due diligence, like any other solar project, you need to ensure that there's interconnection capacity and it's feasible. And then you're looking at permitting, which is obviously much more extensive for landfill solar project. But if you're working with a municipality, you know, they're usually working hand in hand with them on the design and those approvals. The another thing that developers don't realize is such an issue with these landfill sites and other contaminated sites is title. So we, you know, nine out of 10 times our projects run into some sort of title issue. And I think that it's mainly because these sites, you know, date back to the 60s or earlier, or, you know, it was this kind of, like, that's the town dump mentality.
• 17:27
  Annika Colston: And it was like, oh, yeah, just put the dump over there. Right.
• 17:30
  Annika Colston: And so in terms of like, tax lots and access and easements, they weren't well documented.
• 17:34
  Annika Colston: And there was a lot of transfers of ownership. And so when title records, you know, when the title commitment comes along, and they're doing these title reports, nine out of 10 times, we don't, aren't able to get legal access, or there's not clean title. And so we've become, you know, experts in that field for sure. And resolved this in some ways by having a an affiliated company who is able to take title to the underlying property. And so I think that that's a really interesting opportunity for municipalities. And the public entities who have these blighted properties that do not produce property taxes, they may have liens, they may be an eyesore, they they're overgrown, and you know, and they're just really a detriment to the community. And we can come in and improve the site and generate revenue for the town through, you know, future property taxes. And if it's a community solar project, you can bring the community solar, the local renewable energy to the residents, and in offering a discount on the electricity and engaging the low and moderate income subscribers.
• 19:01
  Tim Montague: On that note about Title check out my interview with Monroe jet of title leader.
• 19:04
  Tim Montague: He is an expert in Title work and has created a wonderful platform to expedite securing title documents for solar development. So if you're a solar developer or checkout title leader, but you mentioned this, the problems that can arise with with titles, and then my understanding is you have to do what's called curative work to correct that. It paints a picture though Annika it can, can you usually get the work done and move forward? Or what is your success rate there?
• 19:47
  Annika Colston: Yeah, I mean, I think that we are committed to our projects, possibly to a fault. You know, we'd like to overcome the challenges that are associated with these projects.
• 19:59
  Annika Colston: And, you know, we had a projects come online recently in Old Bridge, New Jersey that was on a Superfund site that had, you know, no owner and was basically a part of a defunct partnership.
• 20:15
  Annika Colston: And there were when we initially reached out to the group that was responsible for the Superfund site, they said, Sure, we'd love to talk to you about solar. And there's just three small issues. There's no title, there's no there's no owner, there's no legal access. And, you know, we need to have, you know, 30 or so folks and the the group that is responsible for the Superfund site to all agree on how to move forward and you know, work with the EPA, right.
• 20:46
  Annika Colston: So it was quite a feat to work with all of the groups to move it along. But I think what really struck me as the single most important thing that to measure success was having a champion walking alongside with us. So there's somebody else that wants this solar project to happen as much as we do, then we can usually find solutions and have you know, had great working relationships with the state agencies with the federal agencies, and you know, the local government these types of projects are, you know, presents so many opportunities for a win win and multiple benefits that it's usually worth saying I'm through
• 21:33
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• 22:10
  Tim Montague: Very well. So we have lots of landfills. We have, I think you said 63 gigawatts worth of landfill potential here in the United States. That's a lot of gigawatts. And, yes, there are some challenges because landfills are often built three dimensionally they build a mound out of the out of the waste pile. And so there's slope to the, to the landfill, and what you want to solarize and there are limitations there. I'm curious though there are some products that come to mind like Earth, those which is flat Earth solar, certainly on that South East West slopes, you could do flat the earth potentially, have you looked at systems like that?
• 22:54
  Annika Colston: Yeah, we have.
• 22:54
  Annika Colston: And usually it comes down to the economics of the project. And, you know, is there sufficient incentive to support things that are a bit outside the box or, you know, maybe have higher, you know, higher costs? Again, I'm always, you know, we're a small but mighty team. And so we are always looking to build connections and partnerships and relationships. So that, you know, that is amazing the amount of technological advances and economies of scale that are gained every year. And you know, despite tariffs and changes in incentives, and taxes and equipment, delays in China, and everything else, you know, we continue to see these types of projects, be more economic to build every year. So I think we will find long term solutions that will allow us to hopefully build on, increase the developable area and the slopes that we can build on, I know that there are some tracker projects that are now being built on ballasted systems. And I think that could be a big change in the economic drivers, because my understanding is, you can, with a tracker project, you'll use more acreage for the same amount of capacity output, but your production will increase, you know, 30 to 50%, sometimes, which has a significant impact on the revenue generation. So if you're not space constrained at a site, but you're interconnection constrained, finding a solution that allows for a tracker system on ballast, rather than doing fixed tilt would be a game changer.
• 24:50
  Tim Montague: Yeah. So just for our listeners, most landfill solar is done with ballasted, fixed tilt racking, you have ballast blocks that are, you know, the size of a bookshelf, these are big cement blocks, that then has embedded piles that come out of that, and then you attach the racking to that, and that's fine, right? When you have flat or low slope. The problem is when you get a higher slope, because generally, the boundless block is being put on top of a pile of gravel to cushion the the, the cap from the ballast block, you don't want the ballast block to sink into the landfill. So anyway, yeah, we'd love to hear what your team thinks of flat earth or like a peg solution, where you're creating more of a surface of solar panels trackers are great 94% of utility scale solar is done with trackers in the US now trackers swept the market because of the greater LCL IE, you know, more energy with less solar. And now there's some some counterbalance to that with these flat earth or low to Earth where there's less steel, less racking, or no racking in the case of Earth house. So look forward to
• 26:13
  Annika Colston: absolutely it's you know, and that's the demand that goes hand in hand. If there's sufficient demand for solar on landfills, then I imagine those innovators will go out and develop the technology to ensure that it's available and then those costs will come down. And so that again, goes back to the regulators and the lawmakers to ensure that you know, that the legislation that they're putting worth supports these types of projects and then be able to see them be more and more.
• 26:48
  Tim Montague: So, let's talk about that. Why is landfill solar more expensive to develop?
• 26:53
  Annika Colston: Well, it's primarily in the in the engineering in the EPC cost, the engineering procurement construction cost. So the racking, can make up a significant, you know, maybe 10 to 15% additional cost, there can be increased labor costs associated with it, I mean, generally will say like, if we get a quote, for a landfill project that's up like $1.50, EPC, we would see essentially, probably $1.15 to $1.20, for the same project that's not on landfill. So that's, you know, and then, of course, most of those can be tracker projects, which we don't have. And so the production efficiencies, you know, the the output that you have is significantly reduced.
• 27:45
  Annika Colston: You know, I think that it's also incredibly important to point out that lead when you do it developing solar at a landfill, the landfill is the priority.
• 27:59
  Annika Colston: And I think that that's an, we make sure that we say that every single one of our clients over and over and over again, the landfill is under compliance, they are subject to regulation.
• 28:12
  Annika Colston: And the job for those that are overseeing the landfill is to ensure that they keep it in compliance, and they maintain health and human safety. And, you know, as you started when you said, you know, drinking water, lead shade, all that's happening in a landfill and a landfill may be contained and, and quite benign. But if it's still under post closure, care, which most of them are, you need to be prepared for what's going to you know, what might happen anytime over the next 20 years.
• 28:41
  Annika Colston: And so, we need to build solar in a way that it's complementing the remedy, the compliance, the regulation, and allows for the landfill to remain the priority.
• 28:50
  Annika Colston: And that can be sometimes a bit of a challenge for a tradition for a solar developer, because they want their multimillion dollar facility to be the priority, right, understandably, so it is building a long term partnership to figure out how can we operate and maintain the landfill closure and have a successful economic solar project?
• 29:16
  Tim Montague: I mean, it sure seems to me like a lot of the expense, the higher expense of these projects stems from having to use ballast ballasted solar.
• 29:24
  Tim Montague: So maybe there's a way to innovate around that and move away from ballasts blocks altogether, that would be I think, a good because the ballast is potentially a threat to the landfill cap also. But I'm no I'm no landfill engineer.
• 29:41
  Tim Montague: So well, we'll have to see how the how the engineers see these these little, you know, no racking solutions. Because there is a benefit of, you know, vegetation control is a major thing for these landfills. Also, you don't want woody material growing on the landfill that's going to punch holes in the cap, Woody woody roots are very tenacious, they will go through just about anything. And so the the landfill operator is having to do maintenance, do vegetation control. And if you can, if you can have very high ground covered ratio with solar panels, that's going to greatly reduce the amount of weed control or mowing or whatever you're doing right to control the vegetation.
• 30:26
  Tim Montague: And
• 30:28
  Annika Colston: that is another good kind of segue, just to mention another benefit for these landfill owners is that the solar facility will take over responsibility for a good chunk of that operation and maintenance. So beyond just the benefit of you know, lease revenue, or even, you know, being able to divest of the property entirely, you can also get, you know, have some reduced lnM costs. So the ongoing mowing, snow removal, visual operations, you know, security, fencing, those types of things are often responsibility that's borne by the solar developer.
• 31:05
  Annika Colston: Yeah.
• 31:08
  Tim Montague: I'm curious if you can take a give us a read on on land lease rates, because for Greenfield solar here in the Midwest, lease rates might be nine to $1,200 a year per acre.
• 31:22
  Tim Montague: Okay. Which is very good for a landowner who's traditionally cropping that land, okay? They might be making $300 If they're, if they're renting their land.
• 31:32
  Tim Montague: So a landowner can triple their income by renting their land or leasing their land to a solar developer, which is why it's not that hard. Hard to get landowners interested. It's hard to get the other things the interconnection, the permit, etc. But what when you're when you're approaching landfill owners what what are the going rates there?
• 31:58
  Annika Colston: So we quote our lease rates in megawatts, but again, I can, you know, I can do that math from, you know, as I said, it's about four acres or per megawatt. But I think that the lease rates can be comparable, you know, the, there are, again, somewhere like Illinois, obviously, lease rates in Illinois are much higher than lease rates in Ohio. And because we have a program in Illinois that can substantiate the assumptions. So going into, you know, an initial proposal, I can make some assumptions about how many megawatts I'll install, and that is to be confirmed through interconnection. So it is impossible to know without having gone through the interconnection process, how many megawatts you will actually be able to build because it's the utility that will confirm capacity that's available, as well as upgrade costs and the timeline to complete the upgrades. So the unknowns, you know, the things that really differ are related to the cost to build, as you mentioned, but there may be some incentives that come in and offset that. So like the state of New York, for instance, they have an actual landfill adder. And so that landfill adder can help offset the costs, the higher costs.
• 33:32
  Annika Colston: There are also, you know, some investment tax credit benefits for certain projects that might qualify, there are brownfield the energy communities adder, which has a section for Brownfield, which unfortunately eliminates more landfills, then it benefits, but there are some that can get that additional tax credit. And if you secure that tax credit, it makes for a very economically attractive project.
• 34:04
  Tim Montague: So is the is SEIU a working on that fix or what?
• 34:07
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I was very curious to learn that the IRA did not necessarily accelerate landfill solar development? No.
• 34:16
  Annika Colston: And that that's why we call it the solar coaster, because it's all these ups and downs. Right? So there was a pretty brief moment after, you know, August 2022, when the inflation Reduction Act was passed, where, you know, I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be able to develop solar projects across the United States, like I don't need a state program anymore, the federal incentive is going to be sufficient. And then of course, I worried that I would have so much competition because everyone was going to want to be a landfill developer. And then I realized that they actually didn't include most landfill sites. So it very clearly exclude Superfund sites, certainly municipal solid waste landfills, any surplus or regulated EPA sites. So the short answer to that is No, I don't think there is going to be a fix to that. I think that it's, it's unfortunate, because those are the types of sites that you know, really need them.
• 35:22
  Annika Colston: And especially like the example I gave where there was in New Jersey, where there was $3 million worth of back taxes that hadn't been paid, you really need a robust incentive program in order to kind of dig out of that hole and make that site economically attractive.
• 35:43
  Tim Montague: So in Illinois, we have Illinois shines. And then we have a parallel universe known as solar for all which is targeting low and middle income.
• 35:52
  Tim Montague: And also I think Brownfield. So in when you look at your work in Illinois, are you strictly working within the solar for all program? Yes,
• 36:08
  Annika Colston: yeah. Yep. And we've, we've really moved aggressively into Illinois, and we've found that the program structure you know, they just say I think that all community solar programs are generally competitive. And so that can be an issue because there's usually more demand for the incentive then is available. And that can seem that can be frustrating because if the goal is to get as much renewable built as possible, we should be allowing The projects that are viable to move forward and get the incentive, let's build it all this year, instead of putting it out over, you know, doling it out over the next five or 10 years. But it's, it is a overall a very good program, the interconnection process in Illinois is sufficiently transparent. It's definitely becoming quite saturated, especially in the Amerind territory. But there's some, you know, we have excellent projects that are under development that I think are going to be quite impactful to the communities that are around them. And, you know, we're just so excited to hopefully see them move forward in the next couple of years.
• 37:23
  Tim Montague: So let's close this out with what are the benefits to a local community, right, you've got a landfill, that has cost center for whoever the owner is, let's just assume into municipal closed landfill, they today they have a cost center that they have to maintain. Tomorrow, they're getting some income by leasing the land. They're Greening the Grid locally and regionally right with a phenomenon like community solar. So it's good for, you know, in the long run, it's good for the environment, Greening the Grid, less coal and natural gas, electricity. And then there's tax income for the taxing bodies in Illinois, I think we have 16, different taxing bodies. It's, it's an amazingly long list. But what in your mind? What are the short list of benefits that I haven't already identified? And, you know, how do you sell this to local communities?
• 38:19
  Annika Colston: I mean, I think you hit the three important ones, and kind of obvious ones.
• 38:23
  Annika Colston: I think that what is starting, what we've recognized in the last year, and are really excited to continue to pursue and work with communities on are the additional community benefits. And one thing about these landfill and and previously contaminated sites is that they were often cited in economically disadvantaged communities. And there is this overlap of environmental justice issues with the availability of these projects. And so I think that there can these solar projects can bring community benefits beyond just the reduced solar reduced electricity costs and serving low and middle income families. But there could also be ways to tie in work through the environmental justice programs and working with the local communities to find out what else can be done, and how can this project be designed in a way that supports the community?
• 39:24
  Tim Montague: Yeah. Well, is there anything else you want to share with our audience? And this could include, you know, authorities having jurisdiction or or, you know, elected officials, county officials, of course, my energy, professional audience, but what else should people know that they may not know about landfill solar? Well, I
• 39:51
  Annika Colston: think that it's really a call to action. I mean, just to bring it full circle to where we started, you know, we all have these sites in our communities, and they are often on, you know, overlooked, and people prefer to maybe ignore them and not think about them.
• 40:06
  Annika Colston: But we should be telling our communities to go out there and develop them. And you know, there are companies like AC power and others that want to help build community driven clean energy projects. And I think we should, you know, we all go out there and push and say, Hey, that, you know, that all dumped down the road or that, you know, dilapidated property would make an excellent candidate. So tell your, you know, tell your municipal leaders,
• 40:34
  Tim Montague: you might be wondering, how do you see an eye solar PPAs get financed? For many it remains a mystery. For others, there's conductor, conductor, solar helps hundreds of developers and EPCs find investors, close transactions, and collaborate effectively.
• 40:48
  Tim Montague: With competitive bids from high quality partners. Conductor, make sure you and your customers get the best PPA deal every time free to use for developers and EBCs visit conductor.solar today.
• 41:03
  Tim Montague: Very well. Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com.
• 41:08
  Tim Montague: Please give us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. That is the best thing you can do to grow the show's audience and tell a friend about the show. We love word of mouth recommendations and reach out to me I love hearing from my listeners. You can do that on LinkedIn or via the website cleanpowerhour.com Annika How can our listeners find you?
• 41:29
  Annika Colston: Well, you can check out our website at acpowerllc.com Or follow our page on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.
• 41:40
  Tim Montague: You'll also be in my conference Uh, yeah, I was gonna say you'll be coming to Midwest solar expo here in May May 20 to 23 in Chicago. So if you're listening to this, this is this episode is going to be probably in March of 2024. But so check out Midwest solar Expo, or any of the RV plus mid, the RV plus regional events, of course. So lots of opportunities to press the flesh with developers like Annika. Thank you so much Annika, let's grow solar and storage.
• 42:15
  Annika Colston: My pleasure.
• 42:15
  Annika Colston: Thank you.
• 42:17
  Tim Montague: Hey, listeners.
• 42:17
  Tim Montague: This is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you. I do this for you, twice a week.
• 42:26
  Tim Montague: Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey.
• 42:48
  Tim Montague: And it would mean so much to me.
• 42:54
  Tim Montague: If you would go to cleanpowerhour.com. Click on the About Us link right there on the main navigation that takes you to the about page. And you'll see a big graphic listener survey, just click on that graphic, and it takes just a couple of minutes. If you fill out the survey, I will send you a lovely baseball cap with our logo on it. The other thing I want our listeners to know is that this podcast is made possible by corporate sponsors.
• 43:26
  Tim Montague: We have chin power systems, the leading three phase string inverter manufacturer in North America. So check out CBS America. But we are very actively looking for additional support to make this show work.
• 43:45
  Tim Montague: And you see here our media kit.
• 43:45
  Tim Montague: With all the sponsor benefits and statistics about the show.
• 43:49
  Tim Montague: You know we're dropping two episodes a week. We have now over 320,000 downloads on YouTube. And we're getting about 45,000 downloads per month. So this is a great way to bring your brand to our listeners and our listeners are decision makers in clean energy. This includes projects executives, engineers, finance, project management, and many other professionals who are making decisions about and developing, designing, installing and making possible clean energy projects.
• 44:24
  Tim Montague: So check out cleanpowerhour.com both our listener survey on the about us and our media kit and become a sponsor today. Thank you so much. Let's go solar and storage