SunCast

AI is pushing the grid to its limits — and transformers are now the critical path for both data centers and renewable projects. Today’s guest, Doug Banty, EVP at Forgent (and former CEO of MGM Transformers), sits at the...

What’s your plan when the power goes out? If you think a generator is your only option, think again.Today’s conversation, live from our RE+ PowerUp Live stage, Rachel Stotts of Jackery breaks down a new category of home...

“Speed to Power” is the new race — but can the grid keep up? Hyperscalers, AI, and industrial demand are pushing load growth from flat to vertical. Yet most projects still take five to seven years just to interconnect...

This Giving Tuesday, SunCast brings you three powerful stories of how clean energy is transforming communities, saving lives, and unlocking local climate action. Host Nico Johnson sits down with leaders working across...

Can getting a solar permit be as fast as ordering takeout? Permitting may be the most boring part of solar, but it's also the biggest bottleneck. That’s what Matthew McAllister is working to fix. As CEO of SolarAPP...

America’s about to make a big bet on critical minerals and rare earths. In case you missed it, the DOE just reorganized and announced a major initiative around the refining of this critical element in our energy and...

In 2008, Fluence installed one of the first lithium-ion battery systems ever connected to the U.S. grid. Back then, the idea of a domestic battery supply chain felt distant—almost theoretical. Today, it’s real. John...

Most solar projects are still built the hard way—treating structure, electrical, and software as separate scopes that have to be stitched together in the field. But the teams delivering gigawatts today know something...

Batteries aren’t just supporting the grid anymore, they are defending the grid. Chris Finley, CCO of TruGrid, joins Nico on stage at PowerUp Live to explain how battery storage has shifted from a “nice-to-have” to a...

A Powerwall delivery truck flipped. No fire. No smoke. Seemed safe. They tossed those Powerwalls into a landfill. Four days later—explosion! That incident didn’t just make headlines; it changed Tesla’s fire strategy. In...

This episode marks ten years of SunCast - and the return of its very first guest. In 2015, a young GTM Research analyst named Adam James joined host Nico Johnson for the debut episode exploring the rise of solar in...

“Is your project really compliant?” That’s the billion-dollar question developers across the U.S. are asking as Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) rules tighten their grip on clean energy tax credits. If you are(were)...

What happens when a builder and a coder decide to fix solar’s biggest disconnect? In this episode, SunCast host Nico Johnson sits down with Maksim Markevich and Ben Callam, the co-founders of PV Farm —a platform born...

Roofers are entering solar. Solar pros are adding roofing. How are these trades getting the training & resources required to level up and provide the appropriate level of service to homeowners? Is the future of...

Did you know that more than 185,000 solar customers in the US have been abandoned by their installers? How will we take care of these “Orphaned” solar systems? Is this a golden opportunity or fool’s gold? Nick Sherman...

Storage Isn’t Backup—It’s Infrastructure Wildfires, heat waves, and AI-fueled data centers are pushing our grid to the edge. The question is no longer whether we need storage—it's whether we're going to unlock its full...

Why are millions of apartment rooftops still empty while single-family homes cash in on solar savings? Turns out it’s an accounting problem – a technicality known in industry jargon as the “split-incentive” and it’s...

From firehouses to jails to major manufacturing hubs, Cherry Street Energy is redefining what it means to build a distributed power plant —and they’re just getting started. CEO Michael Chanin returns to SunCast to...

Landfill explosions, lithium-ion firestorms, and CIA briefings—today’s guest has seen it all - or so she thought! Kathleen McCaffery’s illustrious firefighting career includes crawling through rubble in Haiti, leading...

More batter density = more value, right? Not so fast. In this episode, we challenge the hype around energy storage density—and reveal what really drives value for battery storage assets. At RE+ 2025, Nico Johnson got to...

1 in 5 solar panels are failing—and it’s not because of hail. A quiet reliability crisis is cracking open across the industry, and it starts with glass. In this eye-opening conversation, Nico Johnson sits down with...

Is the world’s most powerful energy data set hiding in plain sight? Justin Locke, former RMI leader and now Executive Director of Global Energy Monitor, joins Nico to uncover how real data —not just rhetoric—is shaping...

The $2/Watt Challenge: Can We Get There? Is $2/watt solar a pipe dream—or a real target we can hit in the next few years? Patrick Crane, Global Head of Growth at OpenSolar (and solar pioneer since Sungevity), says not...

Why is solar so expensive in the U.S.? Nick Josefowitz has the receipts—and a plan to fix it. In this episode, we dig into one of the largest hidden reasons rooftop solar costs $35,000+ for the average American...

Planning to attend NYC Climate Week? Already there!? When Nico realized he had to make a last-minute trip to NYC this week during climate week, he reached out to two friends who could give him a solid education on what...