Over the last year, I have had the privilege of hosting a quarterly online debate series with my dear friend and fellow #SolarWarrior, longtime industry veteran journalist and marketing pro, Tor "Solar Fred" Valenza. When he brought me the idea to produce a Debate-style podcast episode in the Fall of 2020, I was both intrigued and nervous. What would the debate center around? Will people join the discussion? Would any of our media partners help support and distribute it?
I'm grateful that all of those worries were put to bed. Solar Power Events (the company behind Solar Power International) agreed to host the first debate as part of the 2020 live content for the Virtual SPI. And Hundreds of #SolarWarriors turned out to watch it live and in replay on YouTube, and left us dozens of comments on Linkedin and Twitter encouraging the series to continue.
So, in 2021 we partnered again with Solar Power Events to produce 3 more debates in what originally billed as part of the "Road to New Orleans" leading to our much-anticipated live debate from the Conference Center Atrium on Day 1 of the in-person show.
Sadly, the in-person event was once again cancelled due to extenuating circumstances, but the show must go on! Solar Power Events allowed the Debate to feature again as part of the Live Broadcast of SPI Virtual in late September, and this conversation is the podcast episode that we are publishing today on the SunCast Podcast. Hope you enjoy this re-broadcast as much as we enjoyed putting it all together.
These discussions are so important as we grow and scale the solar industry. While we may all agree that we’re going to need some combination of distributed and large scale renewable energy, precisely how much of each and how will it be integrated into the grid is still a hotly contested topic. And that’s our debate for this Final Great Debate of the year.
We aim to address the following in the debate:
To get to 100% clean power our 100-plus-year-old grid will need to be reinvented for renewable energy resources as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible, but how are we going to do it?
Will it be a mainly centralized grid or more of a distributed grid, or will it be a combination of both?
With the FERC 2222 order that allows distributed resources to participate in wholesale markets, will millions pf power plants be cost effective and more secure?
How will transmission be addressed?
What about jobs and training for all these renewable energy workers?
To tackle these tough questions, we invited four super-knowledgeable industry veterans, pairing two advocating for a more centralized grid and two advocating for a more distributed grid.
For Central Generation:
Emilie Wangerman leads Lightsource BP’s business development organization in the Americas with responsibility for customer origination, mergers, and acquisitions, wholesale power marketing, and corporate strategy. Emilie’s team has closed over 3GW of utility-scale solar contracts across fifteen states and acquired over 13GW of early to mid-stage assets across twenty-two states.
You can listen to Emilie's SunCast podcast here:
Barbara Lockwood is senior vice president of public policy for Arizona Public Service (APS), Arizona’s largest electric company serving 1.3 million homes and businesses across the state. Lockwood oversees the company’s federal and state regulatory affairs, federal, state and local public affairs, community affairs, corporate giving and sustainability functions.
And for Distributed Generation:
Barry Cinnamon is CEO of Cinnamon Energy Systems (CES), a Silicon Valley solar and energy storage contractor. He is a licensed California C-46 Solar and C-10 Electrical Contractor, NABCEP Emeritus solar installer, host of the weekly Energy Show, and former CALSSA President and SEIA Board Member. He's also the founder of one of the first Publicly Traded solar companies, Akeena Solar, and architected the merger of Akeena's IP into Westinghouse Solar.
You can listen to Barry on SunCast here:
Meredith McClintock is the Director of Business Development at Aurora Solar, provider of the solar industry’s leading solar design and sales software. Solar professionals have designed over 6 million projects in Aurora, and Aurora-designed systems are installed on six continents. McClintock is a former solar entrepreneur herself and is now responsible for building partnerships at Aurora to reduce the cost of deploying solar.
The 5 Questions we addressed in the Debate are:
Question 1:
Let's discuss the Current U.S. grid design; it's based upon Centuries-old technology & frameworks for delivering power to consumers.
Is the current grid capable of integrating 100% Renewable Energy? What’s working & what’s not about the current grid?
Question 2:
Let's talk about the current grid challenges.
What about the future?
Give us your vision of a 21st century, future-proofed grid with 100% renewable energy.
Question 3:
Let’s talk about urgency. I’m sure you’ve all seen the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change report of 2021. It’s dire.
What policies and resources are needed to make your ideal grid a reality ASAP?
Question 4:
Let’s talk about jobs and businesses.
How could we maximize jobs & economic benefits in this energy transition?
What’s the balance between DG & utility scale jobs?
And How do we take care of communities?
Question 5:
For our final question, we’re going to turn the tables.
For Emilie & Barbara, how can a more centralized renewable grid incorporate decentralized resources?
And to Barry and Meredith, let’s say the new distributed energy grid is chosen as the way forward. How will utilities be supporting that vision?
We had such a good time putting together this and the other 3 debates in the series, and really learned a Ton...and many of you did as well judging by the comments & feedback we received.
Tor & Nico look forward to bringing this debate series back for 2022, and would Love your participation. What do YOU believe are the topics to be debated in 2022? Who do you think are worthy panelists to carry the flag for one of the sides of the debate?
You can nominate them by joining the discussion with us on Twitter or Linkedin, tagging @Nicomeo or @SolarFred (Twitter) with the hashtag #GreatSolarDebate.
And don't forget to VOTE for who You think won this final debate by heading to Tor's Twitter feed before Oct 30th and entering the Twitter poll. Feel free to leave a comment as well!
Thanks for contributing to the Great Debate, and we look forward to bringing you another series next year.
(If you'd like to partner with us as a Sponsor of the series, reach out to Nico, Nico@mysuncast.com, with "Great Debate Sponsor Inquiry" in the title and we'll get you the information you need to get it into your budget.)
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Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links, and more than 400 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com.
Or, start a conversation with Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email
Resources:
Watch this Great Debate on Youtube
Connect with our guests on LinkedIn:
Emilie Wangerman of Lightsource bp
Barbara Lockwood of Arizona Public Service - APS
Barry Cinnamon of Cinnamon Energy Systems
Meredith McClintock of Aurora Solar
Follow Tor Valenza on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email