70 episodes

Featuring candid conversations with the leaders, innovators,
and changemakers driving our climate positive future. Hosted by Chad Reed, Gil Jenkins, and Hilary Langer.

Climate Positive HASI

    • News
    • 5.0 • 70 Ratings

Featuring candid conversations with the leaders, innovators,
and changemakers driving our climate positive future. Hosted by Chad Reed, Gil Jenkins, and Hilary Langer.

    Lisa Jacobson and Tom Rowlands-Rees | 2024 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook

    Lisa Jacobson and Tom Rowlands-Rees | 2024 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook

    The Sustainable Energy in America Factbook serves as a key reference for the state of renewables in the United States. To mark the release of the 12th edition, Gil Jenkins and Hilary Langer talked to the people behind the annual report: Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Tom Rowlands-Rees, Head of Research for North America at BloombergNEF. Despite significant headwinds in 2023, including high interest rates and supply chain challenges, the factbook is full of record-shattering figures that reveal momentum toward a more sustainable energy future. Lisa and Tom discuss the importance of stable federal policies, the optimism they find in reduced emissions, and how America will need to accelerate sustainable energy development to meet carbon reduction targets.

    • 46 min
    Jacob Mansfield, Emma Konet and Adam Reeve | Not every battery is created equal

    Jacob Mansfield, Emma Konet and Adam Reeve | Not every battery is created equal

    As the energy density of batteries continues to increase even as costs keep declining, the stationary energy storage market is booming, with investment growing by over 7x over the last few years – from $5 billion in 2020 to over $35 billion in 2023 – and with battery installations tripling just last year alone.

    While an influx of storage is certainly needed to integrate the vast amount of renewables we need to fully decarbonize the grid, the storage we are adding to the grid is not always or even usually reducing overall carbon emissions. In fact, too often new batteries are resulting in positive net new emissions – an outcome almost no one wants.

    In this episode, Chad Reed chats with Jacob Mansfield and Emma Konet of Tierra Climate and Adam Reeve of REsurety to learn more about the efforts of the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (ESSC), which seeks to align the economic incentives of the storage market with truly accelerating grid decarbonization.

    • 33 min
    Steve Raeder | Leading the charge in commercial solar

    Steve Raeder | Leading the charge in commercial solar

    In this week's episode, Gil Jenkins sits down with Steve Raeder, the founder and CEO of Summit Ridge Energy. As a leading player in the community solar market, Summit Ridge Energy (SRE) has made significant strides since its inception in 2017, deploying over $1.6 billion into clean energy assets. With a robust development pipeline of more than 2 GW, SRE will have more than 400 MW of solar PV online by the end of 2024, powering 50,000 homes and businesses. During the conversation, Steve opens up about his journey from SunEdison to founding Summit SRE. He breaks down the incredible value proposition for community solar, which offers guaranteed savings to both residential and small commercial customers while underscoring its pivotal role in the broader energy transition. Steve also discusses SRE’s growth strategy. Giving his outlook on the future of the community solar market, he details how the company is positioning itself to capitalize on this sector's continued growth. Additionally, Steve talks about the company’s solar panel supply partnership with Qcells, which was announced last year and is the largest domestic community solar purchase ever. He also shares insights into their innovative sustainability apprenticeship program in Chicago. Note: Summit Ridge Energy is a client of HASI.

    • 26 min
    Tim Male and Ryan Sarsfield | Markets for valuing biodiversity

    Tim Male and Ryan Sarsfield | Markets for valuing biodiversity

    At the end of 2022, 200 countries signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – what some have called the “Paris Agreement for Nature”. It calls on signatories to work together to enhance the resilience of natural ecosystems and to turn the tide on species extinction rates through the setting of national targets, the establishment of disclosure regimes and the creation of innovative financing mechanisms – such as biodiversity credits. While there has been some subsequent positive international progress on this front driven by the UK and others, most biodiversity credit markets remain in very nascent stages.

    In this episode, HASI’s investment team lead for nature-based solutions Tim Mooradd speaks with Tim Male and Ryan Sarsfield of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC). They discuss the imperative of protecting and valuing biodiversity, the existing and potential buyers for biodiversity credits, lessons learned from other environmental markets and much more.

    Note also that the HASI Foundation recently provided a grant to EPIC for its work at the intersection of climate action and social justice.

    • 46 min
    Julia Selker | Speeding GETs for a clean and reliable grid

    Julia Selker | Speeding GETs for a clean and reliable grid

    America’s dramatic shift towards renewable energy generation in remote areas will require a substantial transmission build-out in the years ahead, potentially doubling or tripling the current grid. In other words, there is no transition without transmission. While it's crucial that we expedite the construction of large power lines at a much faster clip, there's another technology solution that demands equal attention. This parallel approach involves the use of Grid-Enhancing Technologies (GETs). GETs offer a modular, cost-effective path to enhancing our existing infrastructure while also significantly amplifying the efficacy of new transmission investments. To gain deeper insights into how GETs can help us meet the needs of the 21st-century electric grid, accelerate the clean energy transition, and lower energy costs, Gil Jenkins and Manish Chaturvedi spoke with Julia Selker, Executive Director of WATT Coalition.

    • 30 min
    Dan Shugar | Tracking our solar-powered future

    Dan Shugar | Tracking our solar-powered future

    In our final episode of 2023, we sit down with Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXT), a leading provider of intelligent, integrated solar tracker and software solutions used in utility-scale and distributed generation solar projects globally. With over 30 years of experience in the field, Dan has been a driving force in advancing climate tech solutions in the U.S. and around the world.

    In the conversation with Gil, Dan reflects on Nextracker's incredible success over the past ten years, including its successful IPO earlier this year; they talked at length about the company's steadfast customer-focused mindset and how that has driven so many industry-first solar tracker innovations in their mission to transition the world to affordable, renewable power. Dan also talked about Nextracker's remarkable initiatives with U.S. manufacturing expansions over the past three years and the importance of public policy engagement for our industry. He also touched on a few non-U.S. markets that are key to his optimism for the future of solar power. We even found time at the end to have fun talking about great guitar music and his new musical products venture, AmpMojo.

    • 41 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
70 Ratings

70 Ratings

Dave Bates, Hailstone Comms ,

Focused on inspiring clean energy solutions

This is a really well-produced, entertaining podcast featuring interviews with the foremost leaders from the clean energy industry. Instead of emphasizing despair, Climate Positive discusses the real world solutions available right now through clean, renewable power.

BethBaff16392629472 ,

Real, productive & hopeful

Great conversations with industry leaders who are working on real solutions to real problems in search of a climate positive future. Good blend of high level trends and strategies with deep dives into technologies or practices. Thank you for this great show!

A.P. Harris ,

Highly engaging and informative

Serious and highly relevant discussions but unpacked in an approachable way with first rate SME guests. I enjoy learning about the nuances from the business side of this space, it’s actually quite encouraging to see the progress being made from all dimensions. Overall, great podcast.

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