Factor This

Marking 100,000 downloads: Counting down the Top 5 episodes of the “Factor This!” podcast

Marking 100,000 downloads: Counting down the Top 5 episodes of the “Factor This!” podcast

Since launching last May, the Factor This! podcast from Renewable Energy World has achieved yet another exciting milestone: 100,000 downloads!

Every Monday, Factor This! tackles the biggest stories facing the clean energy industry, featuring in-depth and technical conversations not heard anywhere else. You can find the full episode catalog here.

To celebrate the success, we’re counting down the Top 5 most-downloaded episodes in the history of the Factor This! podcast. What were your favorites, and which executive should we feature next? Email the show.

5. Green hydrogen: What’s next for the energy transition’s secret weapon?

Aired Aug. 19, 2022

In this bonus episode of Factor This!™, we introduce you to the RENWABLE+ Series™from Renewable Energy World®. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to tackling solar’s biggest stories on Monday.

In this +Series discussion, panelists from EDP Renewables, Generate Capital, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory break down what’s next for green hydrogen— the energy transition’s secret weapon. 

  • Bryan Pivovar, Senior Research Fellow I-Materials Science, NREL
  • Ana Quelhas, Managing Director for Hydrogen, EDP Renewables (EDPR)
  • Brandon Moffatt, VP, Generate Capital

While green hydrogen’s versatility offers potential answers to some of the energy transition’s most challenging questions, factors such as scale, scope, and affordability remain daunting challenges. 

4. Form Energy’s 100-hour battery is almost here

Aired July 24, 2023

Battery storage deployment is surging to fill the gaps left by intermittent renewable energy resources. And, sometimes, those gaps extend days beyond what lithium-ion can handle.

For the past six years, Form Energy has positioned itself as the company to solve for the multi-day challenge. What started with splashy renderings and nearly $1 billion in fundraising announcements has evolved into real contracts with utilities like Xcel and Southern Company, and a commercial-scale iron-air battery plant under construction in West Virginia.

Episode 54 of the Factor This! podcast features Form Energy CEO Mateo Jaramillo, a former Tesla executive pushing for deep decarbonization on the grid.

Jaramillo breaks down the technology behind Form Energy’s 100-hour battery, how the company was able to convince risk-averse utilities to buy in, and the challenges still ahead for multi-day energy storage.

3. Battery storage is booming. Now what do we do with it?

Aired June 19, 2023

In the spring of 2016, Jeff Bishop was developing wind projects when he came across an analyst chart that caught his eye.

Battery storage, the analysts forecasted, would follow a similar cost curve as solar. Costs would plummet as deployment ramped up to support a grid ever more dependent on intermittent renewable energy resources.

Bishop quit his job by the summer, and launched Key Capture Energy, a developer, owner, and operator of grid-scale battery storage projects.

Turns out, the analysts were right. Seven years later, battery storage deployment is booming.

But the industry is still finding its way. Developers and regulators face questions around how to best use batteries, and what policy structures are needed to facilitate deployment. Moreover, the industry is learning on the fly about how these assets will perform under various state and utility demands.

Bishop joined Episode 50 of the Factor This! podcast to break down how states should, and shouldn’t, go about procuring battery storage, and why software is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Plus, stick around for the inside story of how Key Capture went from thebrink of insolvency to raising $100 million.

2. The long-duration energy storage dilemma

Aired April 24, 2023

A decarbonized grid, powered primarily by solar and wind, will require a lot of energy storage. Lithium-ion batteries, while the technology du jour, won’t come close to solving the impending problem on their own. 

The long-duration energy storage dilemma is multi-pronged: today’s market structures don’t adequately reward energy storage of longer than four hours, and potential solutions are mired in technical challenges and steep capex costs. 

But one company may have cracked the code.

Episode 45 of Factor This! features Robert Piconi, CEO of Energy Vault, a company well on its way to deploying long-duration gravity storage systems at scale. 

Energy Vault first made its splash with towering cranes lifting and lowering blocks under the guiding principles that have made pumped hydro the world’s most significant energy storage resource. 

Now, with a redesigned concept, the company is deploying its systems in partnership with major players like Enel… and even landed a green hydrogen deal with Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest utility. 

Can long-duration energy storage finally break through?

1. Solar’s biggest risk? Too few workers to deliver the massive project pipeline

Aired May 22, 2023

Praise for the solar industry’s meteoric growth often shines on developers and their multi-gigawatt pipelines and portfolios. Seldom does the limelight extend to the construction crews putting steel in the ground.

But clean electrons aren’t generated by hope, targets, and schematics. It’s the engineering, procurement, and construction firms that are executing the vision for a clean energy transition.

Therein lies an overlooked hurdle on the horizon: There simply aren’t enough qualified EPCs, and workers, to meet the booming demand for solar projects. And rich incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act only stand to magnify the glut in supply.

Episode 49 of the Factor This! podcast features Chris Dunbar, CEO of Blue Ridge Power, for an inside look at how one of the industry’s leading utility-scale solar and storage EPCs is navigating a chronic labor shortage and a tumultuous market plagued by supply chain constraints, trade disputes, and the interconnection slog.

Sure, gigawatts of solar projects are in motion. But who’s going to build them?