This week, we’re featuring an episode of The Green Blueprint.  In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks with Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems. Cindy and her team at Sage Geosystems are developing geothermal technology that could revolutionize energy storage. Instead of pumping water up a mountain, they pump it deep into the earth, providing cost-effective, long-term storage for intermittent renewable sources.  They’re piloting this technology at a new commercial facility in partnership with  San Miguel Electric Cooperative, a rural Texas electric cooperative that is transitioning from coal to solar and battery storage thanks to a USDA grant.  Lara and Cindy talk about Sage’s groundbreaking new technology, its first commercial facility, and upcoming partnerships with geothermal giant Ormat Technologies.  If you are looking for more Open Circuit episodes to consume, subscribe to Latitude’s YouTube page.  Explore the new era of AI innovation in the fifth season of Where the Internet Lives, an award-winning podcast from Google and Latitude Studios. Follow and listen to Where the Internet Lives on ⁠Apple⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Google⁠, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ready to accelerate your career in clean energy? Yale’s Financing and Deploying Clean Energy Certificate is a fully online, 10-month program built for working professionals. It delivers real-world skills in clean energy policy, technology, project finance, and innovation — all in just five hours a week. Enroll here and use the discount code OpenCircuit26 on your application to save $500 on tuition. Applications close April 20, 2026. Join Latitude Media on April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, a two-day, in-person conference on the digital and energy infrastructure buildout needed to support AI load growth. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠!

This year alone, the biggest tech companies plan to spend more than $600 billion on physical infrastructure — eclipsing the railroad boom, the interstate highway system, and the Apollo space program. But are investors starting to flinch? This week, we examine the negative market reaction to tech earnings. Is Wall Street reacting to the infrastructure bottlenecks that stand in the way of building at that scale? Or are they worried about the tech industry’s approach to solving them? Then we turn to one of the boldest responses to those bottlenecks: space-based data centers. After SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, Elon Musk says orbital computing powered by solar could be imminent. We unpack the arguments for and against space-based data centers. Then we look at solar. Musk says Tesla plans to build 100 gigawatts of domestic solar manufacturing capacity. Tesla has launched a new panel and mounting system that it claims will reduce installation time by 30%. At the same time, a new poll from Trump’s chief pollster shows majority support for solar among GOP voters — especially when panels are made in America. Is there a vibe shift underway? Ready to accelerate your career in clean energy? Yale’s Financing and Deploying Clean Energy Certificate is a fully online, 10-month program built for working professionals. It delivers real-world skills in clean energy policy, technology, project finance, and innovation — all in just five hours a week. Enroll here and use the discount code OpenCircuit26 on your application to save $500 on tuition. Applications close April 20, 2026. Explore the new era of AI innovation in the fifth season of Where the Internet Lives, an award-winning podcast from Google and Latitude Studios. Follow and listen to Where the Internet Lives on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join Latitude Media on April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, a two-day, in-person conference on the digital and energy infrastructure buildout needed to support AI load growth. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠!

2026 could be the year of the mega-IPO, with OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic all rumored to be eyeing public markets. But for energy nerds and hot-rock lovers, there’s another IPO to watch: Fervo Energy. With Fervo preparing for a long-anticipated IPO, the geothermal sector is heading into a moment of price discovery. It’s a test of whether next-generation geothermal has finally crossed a new commercialization threshold and becoming bankable, repeatable infrastructure. Over the past few years, over a billion dollars has flowed into geothermal startups, including Sage Geosystems, Zanskar, Quaise Energy, Eavor, XGS Energy, and Dandelion Energy. These companies are taking very different approaches — from enhanced geothermal systems and pressure-based designs to AI-driven exploration and ultra-deep drilling — but they’re all chasing the same prize: firm, clean power at scale. Meanwhile, geothermal developers are signing contracts and partnerships with large tech companies looking to power future data centers. And the industry’s ties to oil and gas drilling have given it political durability under the Trump administration. With this rare moment of alignment, can geothermal unlock a much larger pool of infrastructure capital? Later in the show, we ask a different but related infrastructure question: what happens to the fossil fuel system as demand declines? We discuss new research looking at how unmanaged decline could lead to price shocks, reliability risks, and political backlash if replacement infrastructure isn’t ready in time. Join Latitude Media on April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, a two-day, in-person conference on the digital and energy infrastructure buildout needed to support AI load growth. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠! Explore the new era of AI innovation in the fifth season of Where the Internet Lives, an award-winning podcast from Google and Latitude Studios. Follow and listen to Where the Internet Lives on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Electricity affordability has become the defining energy issue of 2026. As policymakers scramble for solutions, two very different playbooks are taking shape. On one side, a blunt-force federal approach led by the Trump Administration that treats affordability like an emergency. Keep coal plants open. Force markets to change. Make large power users pay directly for new power plants through market interventions. On the other, a quieter, asset-light strategy is emerging at the state level. In places like Illinois, Virginia, and New Jersey, governors and legislatures are increasingly looking to virtual power plants to meet growing peaks and avoid overbuilding the grid. This week on Open Circuit, we break down these two paths. What actually lowers costs, and on what timelines? We start with the federal push to reshape PJM capacity markets and make big energy users pay for new supply. How would that actually work? Is it real market reform, or political signaling? Then we turn to the state level, where VPPs and distributed resources are increasingly central to affordability plans. We compare how Illinois, Virginia, and New Jersey are approaching the problem. Join Latitude Media, April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, our flagship event on the AI-energy infrastructure buildout. The two-day conference will bring together developers, utilities, regulators, and hyperscalers to align on what’s real, what’s possible, and what can get built to meet AI infrastructure demand. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠!

It’s been nearly a year since a national energy emergency was declared, with big promises on prices and reliability. So we’re asking a simple question: how’s that going? In this live episode of Open Circuit, recorded at the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, we take stock of a power system under growing strain. Outages are up, prices are up, markets are stressed, and grid reliability experts are warning of a “five-alarm fire.” We’ll start with a look at how accelerating load growth, tighter reserve margins, delayed interconnection, and extreme weather are colliding — and what breaks first if current planning assumptions don’t change. Then, we’re joined on stage by Wilson Rickerson, president and co-founder of Converge Strategies, to explore grid resilience through a national security lens. As the military increasingly depends on the civilian grid, what happens when that system is under sustained stress? Wilson explains why thinking about the grid in a wartime context leads to familiar priorities: flexibility, transmission expansion, regional markets, and better coordination. And we talk about a report from Converge on lessons from the grid at war. Join Latitude Media, April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, our flagship event on the AI-energy infrastructure buildout. The two-day conference will bring together developers, utilities, regulators, and hyperscalers to align on what’s real, what’s possible, and what can get built to meet AI infrastructure demand. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠!

Meta just unveiled the biggest-ever corporate deal for nuclear power. It’s a sprawling set of contracts for both existing plants and next-generation reactors that totals 6.6 gigawatts. Just a few years ago, the conversation in the U.S. was about which nuclear plants were going to shut down next. Now, some of the world’s largest technology companies are trying to lock them up under long-term contracts, while building new ones. But critics argue that parts of Meta’s deal don’t add new capacity fast enough — possibly pushing electricity prices even higher in an already-tight market. And that concern is suddenly political. This week, President Trump said tech companies need to pay their own way when it comes to electricity, signaling just how central data centers are to the national debate over affordability. This week, we have a breakdown of Meta’s nuclear push. We’ll look at what it means for power markets, how it compares to what the rest of the hyperscalers are doing, and whether this moment actually changes the future of advanced nuclear. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

This is an episode with a lot of firsts: the first show of the year, the first full show on video, and the first with our new co-host, Caroline Golin. In 2026, we’re launching a new chapter for Open Circuit as we sharpen our focus on the physical constraints shaping the energy transition — exploding power demand, grids that can’t keep up, tech companies reshaping electricity markets in real time, and investors trying to figure it all out. This is no longer a conversation about whether clean energy can scale. It’s about whether the systems around it can move fast enough to support the next wave of industrial demand. To kick things off, we dig into some of the forces redefining the power sector: the fight over capacity, the rise of co-located and merchant power, the limits of data center flexibility, and what Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect Power tells us about the race to buy power. We also officially introduce Caroline Golin as our new regular co-host. Caroline brings a unique perspective to Open Circuit: she spent the last seven years inside Google, where she served as global head of energy market development and innovation.  Caroline helped shape how Google procures electricity, engages utilities, and navigates capacity constraints across global markets. That experience puts her at the center of many of today’s most urgent questions around energy. Welcome to the new Open Circuit, where we decode how clean energy actually gets built. If you want to watch the episode, subscribe to the show on YouTube! With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

After more than 40 years in the energy industry, Katherine Hamilton is retiring. And that means she’s also retiring from the podcast after a decade behind the microphone. In this farewell episode, Katherine shares insights into a career that spanned one of the most transformative periods in energy history. We’ll reflect on her accidental entry into grid engineering at Dominion Virginia Power in the 1980s, where she learned to design distribution circuits, calculate load, and build early efficiency projects.  She talks about how those experiences gave her an intuitive grasp of how the grid works — a foundation that shaped her roles at NREL, in federal advocacy, in leading industry associations, and becoming a trusted policy voice in clean energy. We’re deeply grateful for the clarity and optimism Katherine brought to every conversation. Over the years, she helped listeners make sense of policy upheavals, market shifts, and the messy, unpredictable reality of the energy transition.  This is a chance for us to say thank you. Katherine was an incredibly effective translator for the clean energy industry, and we’re going to miss her deeply.  This is our final episode of the year, but we’ll be back in January with fresh episodes. Nextracker is now Nextpower. As electricity demand surges with AI, data centers and electrified infrastructure, solar is the only power source that can scale fast enough to meet this moment. Nextpower is the technology platform built for this future, delivering connected systems that unify the structural, electrical and digital technologies of a solar power plant. Powering what’s next at Nextpower.com.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

This year, the energy industry changed faster than we could talk about it. We collectively said more than 225,000 words on this show — some of them were informed takes, some speculation. So how did they age?  This week, Stephen reaches into a stocking stuffed with quotes from past episodes, and Jigar and Katherine must decide to defend, update, or disown their own words. Then, we honor the storylines and surprises that defined the year. The categories include:  The biggest plot twist The breakout star  The best villain  The most underrated storyline Finally, we look ahead and make one bold prediction for 2030. In a year of growth, uncertainty, and a bit of existential dread, join us for our recap of the last 12 months. Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win a $100 gift card! Nextracker is now Nextpower. As electricity demand surges with AI, data centers and electrified infrastructure, solar is the only power source that can scale fast enough to meet this moment. Nextpower is the technology platform built for this future, delivering connected systems that unify the structural, electrical and digital technologies of a solar power plant. Powering what’s next at Nextpower.com.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com.

Three years after ChatGPT ignited the AI race, the assumptions driving the trillion-dollar data-center boom are starting to shift. The belief that endlessly scaling large language models will unlock AGI — and justify unprecedented growth in electricity demand — is now being questioned by some of the field’s most influential voices. At the same time, utilities are planning roughly a trillion dollars in grid upgrades, much of it based on speculative data-center proposals and a still-evolving understanding of real load. In this episode, Stephen Lacey unpacks the growing tension between an AI industry defined by rapid iteration and a power system built on decades-long investment cycles. What does that mismatch mean for forecasting, financing, and resource planning? We then feature two conversations from Transition-AI Boston. Former FERC commissioner Allison Clements and Generate Capital’s Peter Nulsen explain why traditional planning signals no longer offer the certainty they once did. How do load uncertainty, short-term contracts, and sequencing challenges reshape the risk profile for new energy projects? In the second discussion, Mike Kramer of Constellation, Dawn Owens of Fervo Energy, and Sam Simmons of Form Energy explore whether AI-driven load will create meaningful demand signals for clean, firm technologies like geothermal, advanced nuclear, and multi-day storage. What will determine if they gain a real foothold? We will soon be opening registration for Transition-AI 2026 in San Francisco. More details here. Nextracker is now Nextpower. As electricity demand surges with AI, data centers and electrified infrastructure, solar is the only power source that can scale fast enough to meet this moment. Nextpower is the technology platform built for this future, delivering connected systems that unify the structural, electrical and digital technologies of a solar power plant. Powering what’s next at Nextpower.com.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

This year in energy has had the vibes of a dysfunctional family gathering: everyone showed up with big feelings, and no one agreed on the menu. To celebrate Thanksgiving, we’re processing the chaos right at the dinner table. In this holiday special, the team matches classic Thanksgiving guest archetypes with the biggest energy storylines of 2025. Who is the drunk uncle sucking up all the oxygen in the room? Who is the pragmatic parent holding the family together? And who is the rebellious teenager threatening to upend the status quo? But first, we serve an appetizer of the week’s biggest news: a new analysis from Grid Strategies shows that projected peak load growth has quadrupled in just two years to 166 GW. And we’ll wrap with leftovers — the unfinished stories we’ll be sharing well into next year. Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win a $100 gift card! Nextracker is now Nextpower. As electricity demand surges with AI, data centers and electrified infrastructure, solar is the only power source that can scale fast enough to meet this moment. Nextpower is the technology platform built for this future, delivering connected systems that unify the structural, electrical and digital technologies of a solar power plant. Powering what’s next at Nextpower.com.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

Utilities are facing a collision of pressures: extreme weather, rising load, affordability concerns, and growing regulatory friction. Everyone agrees the grid needs to be hardened. But the real question is: how much resilience should we pay for? On one side, utilities are confronting unprecedented stress from storms, wildfires, flooding, and heat. On the other, they’re under pressure from regulators and customers to keep rates down — even as costs spike from inflation, supply chain delays, and long-overdue modernization. The Edison Electric Institute estimates that utilities are planning about a trillion dollars in grid investment by 2030. But how much of that is truly focused on resilience? And how do we balance the need for those investments with all the other cost pressures hitting the system? This week, we’re joined by Julia Hamm, a partner with the Ad Hoc Group, to break down where resilience fits in. We look at how utilities justify resilience spending, how regulators are responding, and why so much of the debate comes down to defining the line between reliability, resilience, and routine maintenance. Then we widen the lens to the emerging resilience-tech market, a growing ecosystem of startups focused on wildfire detection, predictive weather analytics, vegetation management, sensors, and advanced grid modeling. We explore how these technologies could help utilities target investments and turn resilience into opportunity rather than pure cost. Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win a $100 gift card! Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

After Bill Gates dropped a new climate manifesto, the internet did what it always does: lost its mind. Conservatives claimed victory, progressives accused him of selling out, and somewhere in the middle was a real debate about how the energy transition actually happens. This week, in our episode recorded live at Greentown Labs, we’re jumping into the fray. What does the debate say about the state of climate tech in 2025? We’ll start with a look at the debate over Bill Gates’ latest letter on climate impacts, philanthropy, and tech progress. Why does he obsess over innovation while ignoring the systems that help solutions scale? Then we turn to the so-called “new normal” for climate tech capital. Venture investment is thawing, public markets have rebounded, and infrastructure money is pouring into the sector. What does that mean for startups? Finally, we end with a little thought experiment about what history will remember us for. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

Here’s something surprising: in states like North Dakota and Texas, the surge of new industrial and data center load has actually moderated electricity prices. The very thing many people blame for higher power bills has, in some cases, had the opposite effect. According to a new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, load growth has slightly lowered retail electricity prices on average over the past five years. So what’s really driving them up? The answer isn’t renewables or AI. The study finds that generation costs are down 35% since 2005, but transmission costs have tripled and distribution costs have more than doubled. Billions are now being spent to upgrade the grid and harden it against extreme weather. This week, we’re joined by guest co-host Caroline Golin to unpack the new data. We’ll discuss what’s driving those infrastructure costs, why utility spending remains so opaque, and what could happen over the next five years as large loads multiply. Later in the show, we’ll talk about a new proposal from Energy Secretary Chris Wright to accelerate the interconnection of large loads with onsite generation or flexibility capabilities. The proposal could speed up data center projects, but also risks triggering a new clash between federal and state regulators over reliability, costs, and control. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com.With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

After years of U.S. restrictions on advanced semiconductors, Beijing is fighting back by cutting off exports of the raw materials that make those chips possible: rare earths, graphite, gallium, germanium — the invisible ingredients inside motors, power electronics, defense systems, and data centers. The move caught Washington off guard. The Treasury Secretary compared it to “pointing a bazooka at the industrial base of the entire free world.” These minerals only make up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of imports, but their strategic value is enormous. They’re woven into every emerging industry the U.S. hopes to dominate. And that’s the point. Under China’s new export rules, foreign companies will need government approval to trade or process these materials, giving Beijing leverage over the supply chains that feed both clean energy and artificial intelligence. In this episode, we look at the impact of China’s restrictions. And we also ask: is the AI war really an energy war? If you zoom out, this isn’t just a chip war or a minerals dispute — it’s a systems war. America has been pouring billions into digital intelligence, while China has been focusing on the “electric stack” that brings enormous strategic economic value. The electric stack is the vertically-integrated network of mining, refining, manufacturing, and grid infrastructure that underpins both the emerging electricity-based economy. China has spent decades mastering it. In the second half of the episode, we unpack an essay from Packy McCormick and Sam D’Amico that argues America is playing the wrong game. Are we overestimating the value of artificial intelligence and underestimating the electric infrastructure that intelligence runs on? Resources discussed in this episode:  The Electric Slide by Packy McCormick & Sam D’Amico Mastering the Electro Tech stack by Noah Smith The Electrotech Revolution report from Ember The Electro-Industrial Stack from Andreessen Horowitz NYT: China’s Rare Earth Restrictions Aim to Beat the U.S. at Its Own Game Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

The AI economy isn’t coming. It’s already here. In the first half of 2025, investment in AI infrastructure outpaced all U.S. consumer spending. Tech companies are now building the equivalent of an Apollo program every ten months, while data centers are drawing capital away from nearly every other sector. As money floods into chips, servers, and substations, the “B word” is suddenly on everyone’s lips: bubble. This week, Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View and one of the sharpest analysts of exponential technologies, joins Open Circuit to unpack the difference between a boom and a bubble. Azeem discusses his recent analysis on bubble dynamics, which established a dashboard for monitoring the health of the AI economy. Azeem has spent the last decade chronicling how exponential technologies collide with the real world. And lately, that collision has been literal. Data centers are running into grid limits, power supply is the new bottleneck, and trillions in capital expenditures are reshaping capital flows across the economy. Scott Clavenna, Latitude Media CEO and lead author of the AI-Energy Nexus newsletter, also joins as guest co-host to draw from his experience covering the telecom bubble of the 90s. So where is this cycle headed? What’s on the other side of it? And what happens when exponential technologies hit the limits of steel, concrete, and electrons? In this episode, we’ll check the gauges of the AI economy, and ask what it means for the energy economy. Plus, we examine the state of AI, if we’ll ever see energy’s AlphaFold moment, and whether we’re seeing the limits of computing scale. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

Distributed energy resources have never looked stronger. Fleets of batteries are now performing like gas plants, virtual power plants are dispatched daily, and hyperscalers are supporting new models to finance capacity around their data centers. But investor-owned utilities? The Edison Electric Institute says they’re planning more than a trillion dollars in new infrastructure over the next decade to support historic load growth — with no mention of DERs or flexibility as solutions. So which world are we living in? The one where DERs become essential infrastructure, or the one where they remain a rounding error for utilities? This week, we examine this critical moment for distributed resources. Tim Hade, a co-founder of Brightfield Infrastructure and former COO of Scale Microgrids, joins us to talk about the tug-of-war at the heart of the grid transition.  We unpack a recent historical overview of DERs from Andy Lubershane, who argues that technical innovation and the desperate rush to meet load growth is turning them from nice-to-have experiments into distributed capacity resources that grid operators can actually count on. We also dig into EEI’s new report on utility planning, and examine why utilities still resist DERs even as customers and data centers push them forward. What are the consequences of ignoring them at this precarious moment when power prices are rising quickly? Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!

For the last decade and a half, the loudest voices in the climate movement have treated decarbonization like a moral crusade: ban gas stoves, declare climate emergencies, punish fossil fuel companies. But those tactics don’t lower utility bills or build durable political coalitions. And now, amidst a radical shift in U.S. politics where the economy dominates, there’s a growing call for a pragmatic reset. This week, we dissect two critiques of climate politics. In a Bloomberg essay, Michael Liebreich argues it’s time to ditch the guilt and doom, stop chasing impossible targets, and focus on fast, affordable progress. Alex Trembath of the Breakthrough Institute says the “climate hawk” is an endangered species in U.S. politics.  We’ll walk through their arguments, and debate what a reset in climate politics and policy might look like. Plus, another reset in finance. Generate Capital and Greenbacker, two of the most important clean energy investors, are both under new leadership. Both companies are re-evaluating their approaches to the market. What do these shakeups say about the state of climate capital and the “missing middle” of projects that still struggle to get financing? With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026 . Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Want your clean energy brand to stand out in a crowded market? Work with Latitude Studios, our in-house agency that provides content creation and marketing services for brands at the frontier of the energy transition. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Eggs were the symbol of inflation in the last election. Now, as electricity bills spike, they are becoming a symbol for consumer frustration in 2026. Americans are feeling the squeeze. Bills are up nearly 30% since 2021, outpacing inflation and straining household budgets. Eighty million Americans are struggling to pay, four in five feel powerless, and politicians are scrambling for someone to blame. On Truth Social, Trump points at renewables. On TikTok and Bluesky, users rage about data centers. Utilities blame extreme weather. Governors blame corporate utilities. So who’s actually guilty? According to Charles Hua, the CEO of PowerLines, the real story is far more complicated: billions in spending for transmission and distribution systems without enough careful planning or oversight. In this episode, we explore how rising bills are creating a political storm, how affordability is reshaping state campaigns, and what it would take to cut rates by 20% through smarter regulation and an emphasis on unlocking current grid capacity. With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026 . Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Want your clean energy brand to stand out in a crowded market? Work with Latitude Studios, our in-house agency that provides content creation and marketing services for brands at the frontier of the energy transition. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

On his first day in office, Trump laid out his wind policy in one simple sentence: “We aren’t going to do the wind thing.”  With stop-work orders, red tape, and wild claims about whale-killing electromagnetic fields, the White House has stepped up its war on wind. The flashpoint is Ørsted’s $5 billion Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island, which was weeks from delivering 700 megawatts of clean power to New England, and now frozen by federal order. The threat against the project is more than a local fight: it signals that even fully permitted, nearly finished clean energy assets can be derailed for political leverage.  Analysts warn that this is sending shock waves through the entire energy sector, raising the cost of capital for everything from solar farms to advanced nuclear. In this week’s Open Circuit, we unpack the wider impacts. What does it mean when federal approvals don’t hold? And can states, governors, and utilities step in to keep projects alive when Washington is trying to kill them? Plus, we look at the split story for clean energy jobs. We’ve seen a fresh round of layoffs, bankruptcies and canceled projects, even as the government projects tens of thousands of new renewable and battery jobs by 2030. What is the long-term picture for employment? We’ll end with a look at Amory Lovins’ new piece on nuclear, where he argues the AI boom won’t rescue reactors from their economic flaws. Is the current demand picture enough to revitalize the U.S. nuclear industry? With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026 . Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Want your clean energy brand to stand out in a crowded market? Work with Latitude Studios, our in-house agency that provides content creation and marketing services for brands at the frontier of the energy transition. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

In 2004, Dr. Sarah Kapnick was a young banking analyst at Goldman Sachs when she spotted a blind spot: no one was helping clients understand climate risk. Two decades later, she’s the Global Head of Climate Advisory at JPMorgan, turning climate science into boardroom strategy. Kapnick’s career path — from Wall Street, to NOAA’s chief scientist, and back to finance — mirrors the way markets are evolving: from ignoring climate risk, to struggling with it, to finally beginning to price it. Without adaptation, large companies could face $1.2 trillion in annual climate-related costs by the 2050s; utilities alone could see $244 billion in yearly losses. But adaptation isn’t just about avoiding losses — it’s also a chance to seize opportunities.  Kapnick calls it climate intuition: the ability to think about climate risk the way we think about interest rates or labor costs. In this episode, we dig into what that intuition looks like in practice. From infrastructure investors getting serious about resilience to consumer brands redesigning products, is climate finally becoming a normal part of doing business? Plus, we also look at the deep data gap. Without strong regulation, will companies ever disclose or understand enough of their risks? And with government climate monitoring under threat, how will the private sector step in? Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

This week, we’re doing something a little different: we’re turning to Jigar’s social media feeds and listener questions to guide our conversation on the latest news in clean energy. First, we tackle the affordability crisis. President Trump recently posted on Truth Social calling renewables "the scam of the century" and blaming them for rising prices. We look at how his policies are making the crisis worse, and why Trump now owns the problem. Then, we look at how VPPs are hitting a tipping point, explaining how companies in the space are now selling "pain medication" instead of "vitamin pills." We also look at some big stories in solar. New tax guidance is making utility-scale harder to finance, but it gives small systems under 1.5 MW a safe harbor. Could that unlock more commercial rooftop capacity? Plus, we look at Pakistan’s DIY solar revolution, and the barriers to $2/watt solar. Finally, we talk about building real political power. Jigar outlines an idea for creating a community trust for the clean energy industry that will strengthen local connections and increase the industry’s clout. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

We're witnessing a profound shift from discrete AI tools to always-on AI companions — systems that provide constant feedback, conversation, and support. Sound familiar? It's the 2013 movie "Her" becoming reality.  In this episode of Open Circuit, we have a conversation with MIT’s Vijay Gadepally from our Transition-AI conference about how the spread of artificial intelligence is reshaping our digital energy footprint.  As a senior scientist at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and CTO of cloud computing company Radium Cloud, Gadepally has an inside view on the energy intensity of reasoning models, AI agents, and chatbots. He details how simple tasks are now becoming energy-intensive computing events. Gadepally also explains how operations per watt have improved dramatically, why better software can dramatically reduce emissions, and what it will take for computing innovations to keep pace with our growing appetite for AI. Registration is now open for the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas next January. Power Resilience Forum 2026 is the premier event on grid resiliency, bringing together leaders from across the power sector to address the new realities of planning and operating the grid in an era of extreme weather and wildfires. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

In the last two quarters, capital spending on AI has blown past all U.S. consumer spending. Investments in AI infrastructure have already eclipsed the telecom and dot-com booms. The top tech companies are pouring so much money into computing power that they may be single-handedly propping up an economy wobbling under chaotic tariff policy. Gigawatts of new data center requests are flooding utility interconnection queues. And while the numbers are big, the uncertainty is even bigger. Which projects are real? Which are just phantom projects? And how do you plan a grid for a future where half of all new U.S. load could come from data centers by the end of the decade? In this episode, recorded live at Latitude Media’s Transition-AI conference in Boston, Stephen Lacey talks with two experts watching the boom from different angles: Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies; and Anuja Ratnayake, an emerging technologies executive at the Electric Power Research Institute.They break down the scale of the AI-driven demand surge, the challenges of forecasting in a speculative market, and the implications for utility planning. Registration is now open for the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas next January. Power Resilience Forum 2026 is the premier event on grid resiliency, bringing together leaders from across the power sector to address the new realities of planning and operating the grid in an era of extreme weather and wildfires. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Over the last four years, the U.S. clean energy manufacturing sector saw a historic boom. Factory construction doubled, foreign firms opened production in dozens of states, and federal policy spurred over $150 billion in manufacturing plans. But a swirl of conflicting policies — from chaotic tariff threats to complex foreign sourcing rules — is freezing planned investments, spooking some manufacturers, and prompting some firms to halt growth plans. Core incentives like the 45X manufacturing tax credit remain intact. But new sourcing regulations are complicating those incentives. In this episode of Open Circuit, MJ Shiao, VP of supply chain and manufacturing at the American Clean Power Association, breaks down the recalibration now underway for companies making equipment in the U.S. We explore the rise and stall of the manufacturing boom, dig into ACP’s latest data on where facilities are being built, and unpack the cascading uncertainty created by new FEOC rules and tariffs. We also ask whether the U.S. can rebalance its industrial strategy to move beyond final assembly and build a more resilient, upstream supply chain.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Why can your phone instantly reroute you around traffic, but your utility can't tell you when to charge your car for maximum savings? Why can Uber optimize thousands of drivers in real-time, while the electrical grid struggles to optimize distributed resources? Both transportation and electricity systems emerged during the Victorian era with remarkably similar infrastructure: central hubs connected by sprawling networks. Train stations and power plants. Main lines and transmission lines. Local roads and distribution networks. But over the next century and a half, these parallel systems took radically different paths. Transportation embraced real-time telemetry, dynamic pricing, and consumer-centric innovation. But electricity remained fundamentally unchanged — still moving electrons through the same basic infrastructure with minimal visibility into what's happening at the distribution level. Devrim Celal, chief flexibility and marketing officer at Kraken, has been studying this divergence. And he believes we're finally at a point where electricity systems can catch up. "We've just left the Victorian era and we've got a long way to go," says Celal. "But we're seeing incredible results that consumers are willing to participate." In this episode, produced in partnership with Kraken, Stephen Lacey talks with Devrim about why utilities are finally ready to embrace the same consumer-centric innovation that transformed transportation decades ago. The conversation reveals how historical innovation patterns in transportation offer a roadmap for electricity's next phase — and why the convergence of these systems through electric vehicles might finally force the grid into the modern era. This is a partner episode, brought to you by Kraken.  Kraken removes the outdated, siloed tech that's holding back most utilities. Their unified operating system streamlines and enhances operations, meaning happier teams and happier customers for a fraction of the cost. Join leading utilities across the globe and redefine the sector with Kraken. Go to kraken.tech to learn more.

As America faces a surge in electricity demand, the federal government is working hard to slow the very resources needed to meet it. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is expected to slash clean energy deployment by as much as 60% over the next decade — bringing back hard tax credit sunsets, introducing tight construction deadlines, and imposing strict foreign entity restrictions.  Meanwhile, a DOE reliability report warns of a 100-fold increase in blackout risk in high-renewables scenarios. And a new permitting order now puts decisions on fencing, road construction, and land grading under the direct authority of the Interior Secretary. It’s a moment of cognitive dissonance in Washington, as policymakers talk about building energy faster, while quietly dismantling the tools to do so. In this episode of Open Circuit, we’re joined by Costa Samaras, director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon and former White House climate and energy advisor, to make sense of the moment. We unpack the contradictions at the heart of the GOP’s energy agenda, explain why the post-IRA tax landscape is still favorable for some sectors, and explore how the politics of permitting could shape developer decisions for years to come. Later in the episode, we dive into the DOE's blackout modeling, and explain why the report’s assumptions are so misaligned with the on-the-ground reality. Finally, Costa lays out his vision for a Grid New Deal, explaining why AI fast lanes, public investment, and smarter grid interconnection rules are essential to meeting this demand surge with clean energy. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Learn more about 38 North Solutions’ Policy Pulse, providing highly curated, actionable snapshots of the political developments shaping the clean tech landscape. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The story of climate change is usually told through fossil fuels — pipelines, coal plants, oil companies. But there's another story that accounts for nearly a third of global emissions: agriculture. And we've barely begun to grapple with it. In this episode of Open Circuit, we're joined by Michael Grunwald, longtime journalist and author of the new book "We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate." Grunwald spent years investigating why agriculture lags decades behind energy in decarbonization, and what it would take to catch up. First, we tackle food-based fuels. Grunwald profiles researcher Tim Searchinger, who discovered that biofuels accounting ignored land use. While ethanol was hailed as a homegrown climate solution, it was actually worse than gasoline once you factored in the "carbon opportunity cost" of using land for fuel instead of food. Why did it take so long to recognize? This land use blindness persists today. Despite the science showing the climate impact of biofuels, the government is backing a sustainable aviation fuel program with tens of billions in new biofuel subsidies — including explicit language preventing regulators from considering land use impacts. Then, we tackle feel-good agricultural solutions like regenerative agriculture, vertical farms, and local food systems that may have ethical benefits, but often don’t have meaningful emissions impacts.  Finally, we ask what ag tech can learn from energy's scaling playbook: How do we deploy high-yield agriculture and synthetic biology solutions in a rapid, ethical way?  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Learn more about 38 North Solutions’ Policy Pulse, providing highly curated, actionable snapshots of the political developments shaping the clean tech landscape. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

America is choosing obstruction over abundance. While AI, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing require massive infrastructure investments, we're trapped in a permitting system designed for a different era — and a political system that rewards blocking over building. In this episode of Open Circuit, we're joined by Brian Deese, former director of the National Economic Council and current MIT innovation fellow, to unpack why America's building capacity has become our biggest competitive bottleneck.  Drawing from his Foreign Affairs piece, "Why America Struggles to Build," Deese explains why breaking down physical infrastructure constraints could drive the next wave of economic growth. Deese argues that 80% of project delays stem from state and local regulations, not federal policy. Using a "zero-based budgeting" approach to permitting, states could dramatically accelerate deployment of projects. Meanwhile, AI could slash the time and cost of environmental reviews from months to weeks, if regulators allow it. We also explore the outcome of the recent GOP’s tax and spending bill, and examine why the Inflation Reduction Act's messaging failed to create political durability. Deese argues that winning on infrastructure requires both economic arguments — jobs, wealth, and lower costs — and visceral arguments about strength, reliability, and energy security. As Deese explains, we're at a "unique economic moment" where AI, clean energy, and geopolitical fragmentation are converging to create unprecedented infrastructure demands. Can America overcome the politics of obstruction to build it? Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Learn more about 38 North Solutions’ Policy Pulse, providing highly curated, actionable snapshots of the political developments shaping the clean tech landscape. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

When 47 million people across Spain and Portugal lost power for nearly half a day in April, the finger-pointing began immediately. "Too much renewable energy," declared the critics. Even U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright piled on: "When you hitch your wagon to the weather, it's a risky endeavor.” There's just one problem with this blame-renewables narrative: it's completely wrong. In this crossover episode with the Redefining Energy podcast, we examine the official Spanish grid operator report that reveals a complex web of failures.  While the blackout began with a solar plant sending frequency oscillations through the grid, what followed was a cascade of problems: conventional generators that failed to provide required voltage control, inadequate battery storage to balance massive solar capacity, weak interconnections to neighboring grids, and ultimately, poor system management by grid operators themselves. Our guests, Laurent Segalen of Megawatt-X and Gerard Reid of Alexa Capital — co-hosts of Redefining Energy — help us decode what went wrong and what Spain needs to fix.  "Spain has installed 30 gigawatts of solar in the past 10 years and there's hardly any batteries and there's hardly any connection with the rest of the continent,” explained Segalen. “The system has become more fragile."  “We've had, in the UK, an interconnector going down, 1.4 gigawatts. Well, guess what? There was no blackout. Why? Because batteries came in straight away,” said Reid. We’ll discuss the many factors behind the outage, and explore why Spain’s grid operator is trying to avoid blame. Then, we’ll look at how security is reshaping European energy investment. As America leans into its role as a dominant petrostate and pulls back from post-World War II security commitments, Europe is being forced to reconsider how to structure clean energy supply chains.  We also explore the emerging split between "petrostates" and "electrostates" — countries that control energy through scarcity versus those that build abundance through manufacturing and technology. While America doubles down on fossil fuel dominance, can Europe position itself alongside China as a leading electrostate? Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Learn more about 38 North Solutions’ Policy Pulse, providing highly curated, actionable snapshots of the political developments shaping the clean tech landscape. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The climate tech investment landscape is undergoing a major recalibration. After a period of rapid growth and inflated valuations, investors and startups are now navigating a complex environment shaped by tariffs, shifting incentives, and economic clouds. In this episode of Open Circuit, we examine the latest data and investor sentiment trends with Kim Zou, CEO of Sightline Climate.  Sightline’s data shows climate tech investment declined 19% in the first half of 2025, reflecting both macroeconomic pressures and sector-specific challenges.  The firm’s recent investor survey reveals how the sector is grappling with extreme policy whiplash, with tariffs leading the list of worries. The ongoing reconciliation bill debate adds another layer of uncertainty around IRA tax credits, leading investors to search for “policy proof” business models.  Startups are also facing a growing funding gap. Companies developing first-of-a-kind projects face a particular hurdle: they need infrastructure-scale capital but still carry venture-level risk, creating a mismatch that "most private investors aren't really willing to accept," said Zou. That gap — what Zou calls "the missing middle within the missing middle" — is heavily weighing on companies ready to build their first commercial facilities. Despite the headwinds, new opportunities are emerging: grid-enhancing technologies had their best quarter ever, driven by the growing power demands of AI; companies focused on cost savings rather than green premiums are attracting more attention; and innovative financing structures are evolving beyond traditional equity models. Acquisitions doubled in the first half of the year, driven by bargain-hunting “where corporates and strategics are buying up companies at more opportunistic costs,” said Zou. We also explore how U.S. investors and companies are increasingly looking to European markets, the practical challenges of scaling hardware-intensive technologies, and why some sectors are better positioned to navigate the current environment than others. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The grid faces a mismatch: the system is getting smarter, but we're not getting smarter about how we use it. Utilities have installed 130 million advanced meters. Millions of homes have smart thermostats, water heaters, and batteries that could work in concert. Data centers could unlock over 100 gigawatts of new capacity without major infrastructure expansion. Yet most smart devices aren't coordinated, advanced meter data sits unused, and there's no standard way to plan for or pay flexible loads.  In this episode of Open Circuit, we examine what is holding back grid flexibility — and what it would take to unlock the resources we've already paid for. We’re joined by Arushi Sharma Frank, the founder of Luminary Strategies, and former markets policy lead for Tesla, who explains the imperative for flexibility: "We have a massive opportunity to leverage this for the whole grid. Why would you not want to leverage the opportunity that is staring at you in the face?" Sharma Frank, who is also a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has long been on the front lines of DER policy. We examine the barriers to deploying VPPs, AMI, and flexible data centers. Utilities want these services, but why don’t planners and regulators trust them? The fix isn't complicated: align state agencies with regulators, make sure all customers benefit from flexibility programs, and bring tech companies into the grid planning process. As Sharma Frank puts it: "If we're going to procure a grid asset, it needs to be in a procurement process for a grid asset, period." Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The exponential growth of AI is colliding with the linear reality of building energy infrastructure — forcing a rethink of how tech companies power their ambitions.  Is the corporate clean energy playbook becoming obsolete? In this live episode from Transition-AI in Boston, we dive deep into the infrastructure challenges of the AI era. We’re joined by Caroline Golin, who spent eight years building Google's energy strategy before leaving earlier this year. We examine how tech companies moved from a buyer's market with abundant resources to a seller's market with serious capacity constraints.  "The vast majority of procurement in this country looks like single-source renewable PPAs, and that's what it's been for years," Golin explained. "That wasn't going to get us to where we needed to go." Then we turn to a financing puzzle. We need to see more than $5 trillion in capex spending on data center infrastructure by 2030 to keep pace with computing demands from AI. But even with many different types of capital trying to solve the infrastructure challenge, they all want completely different things. How do we align them? The just-in-time procurement model that served the hyperscalers for a decade must evolve into global-scale, integrated infrastructure development. Can regulators, utilities, and policymakers keep up? Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at sungrowpower.com.  Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

This week, we’re featuring an episode of The Green Blueprint featuring Drew Baglino, a former SVP at Tesla. Subscribe here.  In 2014, Drew Baglino was helping build Tesla's energy division with a passionate, scrappy team. Using parts from Tesla's vehicles, they created the first Powerwall home battery. But as demand grew, they hit a critical bottleneck: cell shortages. Customers across multiple markets were already excited about the Powerwall, but Drew’s team struggled to keep up with demand. With Powerwall 2 already announced, pressure mounted while the supply chain faltered. And with Tesla prioritizing vehicles, the energy team was left to "get the scraps and figure it out.” In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks with Drew Baglino, former senior vice president of powertrain and energy at Tesla, about building a new product category through bootstrapping and creative resource sharing. Drew shares how a couple dozen "Swiss Army knife" engineers created a residential battery system that would ultimately define the market. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at ⁠sungrowpower.com⁠.  Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. The Green Blueprint is hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

America is facing an uncomfortable question: do we know how to build anymore?  House Republicans just passed a reconciliation bill that would repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act while adding up to $5 trillion to the national debt. The legislation doesn't just gut clean energy incentives — it hinders the most realistic path to meeting exploding electricity demand. After leveraging hundreds of billions in clean energy investments, 80% flowing to Republican districts, every GOP House member who promised to protect these programs voted to eliminate them anyway.  "Who wants this?" asked Costa Samaras, former White House energy advisor and current director of Carnegie Mellon's Scott Institute for Energy Innovation. "Who wants to have more expensive energy and less manufacturing in the United States?" This week, Samaras joins Open Circuit to talk about the potential impact of the legislation, lessons learned from the IRA, and whether the abundance framework offers a viable alternative for scaling the clean energy economy. As the country faces 150 gigawatts of new electricity demand by 2030, the reconciliation bill would make deploying and manufacturing a wide range of clean resources more expensive — likely forcing investment overseas. This sets up a direct collision with the "abundance agenda," which argues that America has become too good at stopping things and not good enough at building them. The abundance solution: make it easier to build infrastructure, accept some messiness in exchange for progress, and focus relentlessly on outputs rather than process. But can abundance thinking survive an era of deep political instability? We explore what an "IRA 2.0" might look like — one that pays for performance, builds government capacity, and creates durable coalitions for getting big things done. Get tickets for Transition-AI: Boston to see Open Circuit live, with Google’s Caroline Golin. Open Circuit is brought to you by Sungrow, the trusted provider of PV inverters and battery storage. With over 605 GW installed worldwide and a BloombergNEF ranking of “most bankable” in power conversion and energy storage, Sungrow provides solar tech you can count on. Learn more at ⁠sungrowpower.com⁠. Open Circuit is brought to you by Natural Power. Natural Power specializes in renewable energy consulting and engineering, supporting wind, solar, and battery storage projects from concept through financing. Discover how we're creating a world powered by renewable energy at naturalpower.com. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Texans take pride in their competitive electricity market, a system designed to let the cheapest resources win. And that market is increasingly choosing clean energy, with wind, solar, and batteries dominating new generation. Nearly 40 gigawatts have been added in just four years, equivalent to the capacity of a mid-sized European country. This market-driven boom has unequivocally lowered costs and improved reliability. But now, in a major ideological reversal, some Texas lawmakers are trying to stop it. Bills advancing through the legislature would override market signals, impose unprecedented restrictions on renewables, and cap economic growth in the eighth-largest economy in the world. "People aren't choosing renewables out of any ideology or just because they like it better or it's clean or anything like that. It's low cost and that matters a lot to the business community," said Doug Lewin, who runs the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter and hosts the Energy Capital podcast. Lewin joined Open Circuit to explain the high stakes in the Lone Star State. He describes how the oil and gas industry is increasingly inking power purchase agreements with wind and solar as they electrify operations. Data centers are flocking to Texas because of the attractive energy picture. And distributed energy is poised for explosive growth as virtual power plants come online. So why are some lawmakers trying to slam the brakes on this economic engine? According to Lewin, it's a mix of well-funded disinformation campaigns and social media algorithms that keep feeding anti-renewable content. "There are people out there that are clearly not acting in good faith and are putting information out there that is really misinformation and they know it," said Lewin. Bills like SB 715 and SB 388 would require solar and wind to have backup and exclude batteries from being counted as dispatchable resources. Lewin calls this an attempt to tie Texas' economic growth to gas turbine availability, "which just seems like a spectacularly bad idea." Modeling shows these bills could cause blackouts and add billions in costs for consumers. With the legislative session in its final weeks, the business community is pushing back — but Lewin says anything could happen. Get tickets for Transition-AI: Boston to see Open Circuit live, with Google’s Caroline Golin. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

When Elon Musk canceled Tesla's affordable Model 2 last year to go all-in on Robotaxis, he may have made the most consequential decision in the company's history. As Chinese automaker BYD captures global market share with lower-cost vehicles and superior charging technology, has Tesla prematurely surrendered the market it created? "In his mind, I think he ushered in the EV revolution for the world, and that problem is solved, and now he wants to move on to AI and robotics," said Bloomberg reporter Dana Hull. This pivot comes as Tesla's growth story has fundamentally changed, with the company abandoning its promise of 50% year-over-year growth and its target of making 20 million cars annually by 2030. Meanwhile, the political transformation of Musk has created massive challenges for Tesla's brand.  The departure of key executives has also left critical initiatives like virtual power plants and grid services without clear leadership, despite Tesla Energy showing promising growth. This week, Dana Hull, veteran auto and tech reporter at Bloomberg who has covered Elon Musk's companies since 2009, joins us to discuss Tesla's strategic pivot and uncertain future in an increasingly competitive EV landscape. Dana is a regular contributor to the Elon, Inc. podcast. "The company's product lineup is very murky right now," said Hull. Tesla's refreshed Model Y isn't selling as well as expected, and more consumers are refusing to buy from a company whose CEO has become so closely aligned with Donald Trump.   With the Cybertruck underperforming and no affordable model in sight, is Tesla setting itself up for a painful reckoning? Or will AI and robotics justify the company’s trillion dollar valuation? Get tickets for Transition-AI: Boston to see Open Circuit live, with Google’s Caroline Golin. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The Department of Energy is losing talent at an alarming rate. Described by insiders as a "hostile takeover," the agency's transformation under Trump has pushed out thousands of scientists, engineers, and policy experts. What's left behind are gutted offices, stalled infrastructure projects, and billions in funding commitments thrown into question.  This isn't a typical government transition — it's a systematic dismantling of America's energy brain trust. This week, we're joined by Latitude Media founding reporter Maeve Allsup, who has been breaking news on the transformation underway at DOE. Together with Jigar Shah, who ran the DOE's Loan Programs Office during the Biden administration, and policy expert Katherine Hamilton, we examine the real-world consequences of this agency-wide upheaval. The chaotic transition has left companies in the dark about billions in committed funding. Meanwhile, career civil servants with decades of technical expertise find themselves reporting to appointees with little relevant experience — in one case, a 21-year-old former SpaceX intern with no energy background. Energy Secretary Chris Wright outlines nine pillars for "American energy dominance" including nuclear expansion, grid strengthening, and critical minerals development. Yet the offices responsible for executing these priorities are being decimated.  The long-term consequences could be severe: manufacturing investments delayed or canceled, critical scientific talent fleeing to other countries, and a fundamental erosion of trust in government as a reliable partner for energy development. We examine what this means for America's ability to compete globally in energy innovation and infrastructure development. Get tickets for Transition-AI: Boston to see Open Circuit live, with Google’s Caroline Golin. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Alan Cooper and Ricardo de Azevedo have been business partners since they were teenagers. Today, they're tackling one of the most critical infrastructure challenges of the AI revolution: how to manage the massive, volatile power demands of modern data centers. Founded in 2016, On.Energy has grown into an integrated energy storage company that designs, builds, and manages battery systems for customers across six countries. The company deploys batteries ranging from behind-the-meter commercial installations to utility-scale projects, specializing in what they call "distribution-level storage."  As co-founders of On.Energy, Cooper and de Azevedo have developed a medium voltage uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that acts as a buffer between power-hungry AI data centers and the electrical grid.  "We're discussing with a client that is developing a thousand-megawatt facility, and they were telling us the load swings are going to be 400 megawatts every 10 seconds," says Azevedo, CTO of On.Energy. "The grid is just not designed to handle that." Their innovation takes traditional UPS technology, typically used for backup power, and transforms it into an active grid asset that can both protect sensitive computing equipment and provide grid services. "From the utilities' perspective, you have a data center who is a dream customer 98% of the time, and an absolute nightmare in the 2% of the time when the grid is at its maximum strain," explains Alan Cooper, the company’s CEO. "If you have a dispatchable data center, then they become the perfect customer." In this episode, produced in partnership with On.Energy, Stephen Lacey talks with Cooper and de Azevedo about the company's approach to enabling resilient, grid-interactive data centers with storage. They discuss how their technology could solve power quality issues, while also creating new revenue opportunities through grid services. This is a partner episode, brought to you by On.Energy. Learn more about how On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers at on.energy.

This week, we’re asking the central question of the energy transition: How fast are we going? Clean energy is bringing in $2 trillion of investment annually. Wind and solar now account for the vast majority of new electricity capacity globally. And we may already be at “peak trade” of fossil fuels. And yet, when we look at the share of renewables in final energy consumption, they’re increasing only incrementally around the world. At the current linear pace, meaningful decarbonization may take decades longer than needed. This week, we’re joined by one of the most prolific and respected market analysts for a 360-degree view of how the transition is playing out. In this episode, Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy for J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management and author of the influential "Eye on the Market" newsletter, walks us through his annual energy analysis – a comprehensive assessment that covers dozens of economic and financial trends in energy. This conversation has a little bit of everything. Cembalest walks us through his "scorpion bowl chart" that shows the gap between clean energy deployment and impact. We also dig into the transmission crisis, rising costs, equipment delays, and tariffs. And we cover the data center challenge, Europe’s economic challenges, and China’s rise. But it’s not all gloomy. Cembalest also identifies where real progress is happening, and what a realistic path forward might look like.  Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

When tech giants build massive data centers to power AI, they're often negotiating confidential deals with utilities that few people will ever see — but that everyone might pay for.  Harvard legal expert Ari Peskoe has uncovered a pattern across 40 state regulatory proceedings: special contracts between utilities and data centers being approved with minimal public scrutiny, potentially shifting billions in infrastructure costs to regular ratepayers. With tech companies planning up to $1 trillion in spending on AI infrastructure, some utilities project their energy sales could nearly double by 2030. Are state regulators allowing utilities and tech companies to ink billion-dollar contracts, and pass the costs on to ratepayers without transparently proving the system-wide benefits? This week, Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, joins us to talk about the new report he co-authored, “How Utility Customers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power.” This hidden cost transfer is just one front in a broader battle over energy regulation. At the federal level, the White House is making an unprecedented grab for control over FERC, the independent commission governing interstate energy markets. Meanwhile, another executive order gives the Department of Energy extraordinary authority to force struggling coal plants to stay open regardless of economics — creating what critics describe as a consumer-funded bailout for uneconomic generation. We talk with Ari about how these regulatory battles are shaping up, and why they could be so damaging. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The business world is facing a tsunami of uncertainty. Across nearly every industry, investment is seizing up amid unpredictable tariffs and contradictory domestic policies.  In this week’s episode of Open Circuit, we examine how this compounding uncertainty is impacting clean energy during a critical moment of spiking demand and rising costs. We dissect the signals from the market, revealing that despite the chaos, certain sectors are finding unexpected advantages. While utility-scale projects face delays, distributed generation is experiencing renewed interest as companies seek certainty through on-site solutions. Virtual power plants and grid-enhancing technologies may emerge as clear winners in an environment where traditional infrastructure planning has become extremely difficult. Plus, we play a round of "Transmission Lines," testing our hosts' knowledge of the news through provocative energy quotes, and take live audience questions about the volatile landscape. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

President Trump promised energy dominance. But his sweeping new tariffs are delivering the opposite – creating unprecedented uncertainty for every sector of the energy economy. Faced with a market in revolt, the president blinked. Just hours after his tariffs went into effect, he put a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs, keeping a 10% baseline tariff and a 125% tariff on China.  In this episode of Open Circuit, we examine the contradictions at the heart of the administration's economic agenda. With trade expert John Smirnow, we explore how the "biggest trade shock in history" is upending global supply chains, raising costs, and complicating America's energy future. We dive into the philosophy driving trade populism — a growing intellectual movement now reaching the height of power. Smirnow explains the three-part strategy behind these tariffs: rebuilding domestic manufacturing, enhancing national security, and containing China's influence on global supply chains. We unpack the mechanics of how these tariffs will impact clean energy specifically. Plus, we examine whether these tariffs signal a temporary disruption or the beginning of long-term U.S. policy. Will they accelerate reshoring of production or simply raise costs while slowing deployment? And how do businesses make investment decisions when policy signals are deeply contradictory and unstable? Sign up for our live virtual show on April 16 at 1:00 PM Eastern.  We'll also be live in person at Latitude's Transition-AI conference on June 12th in Boston with special guest Caroline Golin of Google. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

It's fair to say the last decade was the climate era of the energy transition. From the Paris Agreement to corporate net zero pledges, reducing carbon emissions dominated the global framework for deploying clean energy. But something profound is shifting. In this episode of Open Circuit, we explore how a new security-driven paradigm is replacing climate as the primary driver of energy investments. As supply chains fractured during the pandemic, Russia weaponized natural gas to Europe, and America's role in global trade changes, countries everywhere are asking: not just "how clean is our energy," but "how secure is it?" We dissect a new investment thesis, called The New Joule Order, arguing energy security could accelerate clean energy adoption faster than the net-zero framework ever could. We examine the historical context of America's changing role in global energy security since World War II, and how the current fracturing of global trade is forcing all countries to think differently about energy systems. We also examine whether investors are replacing "green versus brown" investment strategies with "tolling versus trading" strategies. Understanding how these assets generate revenue and respond to economic conditions may provide investors with a clearer roadmap during this transition — where certainty is increasingly hard to find. Plus, we examine the growing chaos in Washington as the Trump administration targets billions in clean energy programs. Multiple "hit lists" circulating through federal agencies are aimed at canceling grants and loans to hydrogen, storage, and transmission projects — mostly in blue states. We explore what this means for America's role in the security-focused energy future. Sign up for our live virtual show on April 16 at 1:00 PM Eastern.  We'll also be live in person at Latitude's Transition-AI conference on June 12th in Boston with special guest Caroline Golin of Google. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy.

Five years ago, as lockdowns swept the globe, we witnessed an energy shock that destroyed oil demand, upended electricity demand patterns, and dropped global emissions by staggering levels overnight.  In this episode of Open Circuit, we revisit predictions made during those early uncertain days and examine three major paradoxes that emerged.  First, how staying home rewired our physical and digital lives in ways that created surprising energy impacts. While transportation emissions initially plummeted, the widely predicted "death of cities" never materialized. Instead, we saw a complex reshuffling of urban populations, longer but less frequent commutes, and a data center boom that transformed tech companies into sophisticated energy players. Then we explore how renewables defied expectations, growing 45% in 2020 despite supply chain chaos and project delays. As oil prices whipsawed, the volatility demonstrated the appeal of zero-fuel-cost clean energy, sparking the biggest investment boom in history. Yet public renewable companies have since been hammered in markets, revealing a disconnect between deployment reality and investor sentiment. Finally, we analyze how the pandemic fractured the global policy response. While the EU embedded climate into its recovery, the US passed landmark clean energy legislation, and China accelerated both renewables and coal, the crisis also sparked deeper resistance to government intervention that continues to shape politics worldwide. Will the massive investments in decarbonization outweigh the policy whiplash we're now seeing? Sign up for our merch sweepstakes here. And sign up for our live episode on April 16 here. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The residential solar industry is facing its most challenging period in years. High interest rates, sweeping policy change, and stubbornly high customer acquisition costs are all causing a contraction after years of rapid growth. In this episode of Open Circuit, we examine this market transition. We’ll look at how the industry may emerge from the current downturn — through cost reduction, community-driven models, and evolving beyond a “bad product” to something that provides real grid services. We’ll also talk about troubles at Sunnova, and what it means for the company’s $3 billion DOE loan guarantee.  Plus, as data centers get creative about sourcing power, a novel solution: off-grid solar microgrids that could bypass grid constraints entirely. Recent analysis shows hybrid solar-gas systems could deliver power at costs competitive with conventional options. Is this an answer to the AI power crunch? Sign up for our merch sweepstakes here. And sign up for our live episode on April 16 here. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Major U.S. financial institutions are backing away from climate commitments – all six largest American banks have exited the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, BlackRock has quit comparable initiatives, and the Federal Reserve has withdrawn from climate risk assessment networks. Is this merely rebranding for the Trump era, or a fundamental shift in how finance approaches sustainable investments? In this episode of Open Circuit, we examine what's driving this retreat — from political and legal pressures to economic realities. Despite the public pullback, investment data shows a more nuanced picture, even as institutions shift from decarbonizing portfolios to "de-risking” portfolios. We’ll also take a look at the market correction for private equity investments in clean energy. Then, we dive into the ongoing debate about Bidenomics, sparked by economist Jason Furman's recent Foreign Affairs critique. Did the Inflation Reduction Act's climate provisions represent inefficient economic policy? Co-hosts Jigar Shah and Katherine Hamilton, who helped craft and implement the IRA, provide perspectives on design, implementation, and early results. For transcripts and more on the stories we discuss in the show, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter. Open Circuit is supported by Kraken, the only proven, AI-powered operating system for utilities. Learn how Kraken helps unlock excellent customer experiences, increased innovation and reduced operational costs at kraken.tech. Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

Elon Musk built Tesla with help from government loans and carbon credits. Today, he's swinging a chainsaw at the very agencies that launched his empire — while directly undermining President Trump's "energy dominance" agenda. In this episode of Open Circuit, we examine the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency's indiscriminate cuts. When these cuts hit nuclear security teams and grid operators at the Bonneville Power Administration, officials had to hastily reverse course. What are the real-world impacts to critical infrastructure? We also explore how a sweeping executive order could restructure federal energy regulation. FERC — traditionally an independent, technical body — will now require White House approval for decisions. How could it slow down decisions and impact electricity markets? And at EPA, officials are attempting to claw back $20 billion in legally committed green bank funding, prompting a federal prosecutor to resign rather than pursue what she saw as a baseless investigation. What does the EPA's approach tell us about the administration's lack of strategy? Then we turn to Texas, where market forces are telling a different story. Despite a $5 billion subsidy program for gas plants, developers are walking away. French energy giant Engie recently abandoned two projects, citing equipment shortages and rising costs.  Meanwhile, clean energy is thriving without subsidies. Solar and batteries set new performance records last year, with zero-carbon power now providing 47% of Texas electricity. What does Texas tell us about the role of gas in the new era of load growth? Open Circuit is brought to you by On.Energy. As one of the fastest-growing battery storage IPPs, On.Energy delivers turnkey resiliency solutions for utilities and enterprise customers. Whether you’re managing data centers or local grids, we help bring storage to your fleet. Learn more at on.energy. For transcripts and more on the stories we discuss in the show, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The tech industry is pouring $1.3 trillion into data centers globally over the next five years. While efficiency breakthroughs like the launch of DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model might reduce computing needs, the sheer scale of AI deployment means we're still facing historic demand growth. Data center electricity consumption doubled under Biden — and it's projected to triple by 2030. In this episode, we examine how utilities, tech companies, and policymakers are grappling with the wave of data center development. We explore why the "mega-campus" model is giving way to smaller building blocks, how grid constraints are reshaping data center deployment, and why all new generation — whether it's solar, nuclear, gas, or geothermal — converges at $100 per megawatt-hour. Then, we sit down with Peter Freed, Meta's former director of energy strategy, who explains how tech companies evolved from building single data centers to managing massive power portfolios. He shares insights about the critical window between 2027-2032 when data center load will hit the grid alongside broader electrification, and why that's driving new interest in nuclear, geothermal, and grid-enhancing technologies. Along the way, we tackle some big questions: How are utilities handling the flood of speculative interconnection requests? What does Trump's $500 billion Stargate project mean for grid infrastructure? And most importantly: who's going to pay for all of this? For transcripts and more on the stories we discuss in the show, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter. Plus, get your tickets to Transition-AI: Boston on June 12. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Katherine Hamilton. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The Trump administration wants energy abundance. But it just declared war on the fastest and cheapest ways to achieve it. That's the central paradox emerging from the administration's first weeks in office, where a flood of executive orders, permit freezes, and funding delays are creating precisely the kind of uncertainty that could thwart its own energy goals. In our first episode of Open Circuit, we sort through it all. We examine which threats are real, which ones are noise, and how to think strategically about this moment.  For more on the stories we discuss in the show, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter. Credits: Co-hosted and produced by Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand.

The greatest industrial transformation in history is well underway — but it's going to be messy, contentious, and certainly not linear. In the midst of a volatile political and economic era, Jigar Shah, Katherine Hamilton, and Stephen Lacey are reuniting to launch Open Circuit, a show that decodes the technology, business, and policy trends shaping clean energy and climate technologies. You might recognize these voices — they were the original co-hosts of The Energy Gang. Open Circuit brings together these three industry veterans to explain what's really accelerating the energy transition, from technological leaps and supply chain shifts, to market upheavals and policy setbacks.  Through sharp analysis and firsthand experience, they’ll break down how major projects come together, how deals and policies get structured, and what it takes to build critical infrastructure at scale. Episodes drop on Fridays, starting February 14. Subscribe to Open Circuit wherever you get podcasts, or listen at Latitude Media.