The Green Blueprint

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The urgent need to simplify clean energy finance [partner content] Mar 12, 2024

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Early in her career, Amanda Li worked on many deals in solar and storage as part of a billion-dollar sustainable infrastructure fund. And she discovered a problem that often hinders deployment: the underwriting process is cumbersome and slow.

“All of it was in spreadsheets, word documents, emails. When you look at a solar deal, there's a lot of documentation, a lot of counterparties to deal with, and that information needs to be processed somehow. It felt like we were spending a lot of time just trying to process the information,” explained Li.

This problem has only grown over time as more distributed assets need financing, and policies like the Inflation Reduction Act support smaller clean energy projects at the community level. These small- to mid-sized projects often require as much diligence and paperwork as much larger deals.

So in 2018, Amanda co-founded Banyan Infrastructure, a software platform that simplifies transactions for a wide range of sustainable infrastructure projects – replacing spreadsheets, email, and PDFs with digitized loans and workflows.

The company has raised more than $42 million and works with green banks, Wall Street firms, and local lenders to make deals simpler.

“If at every single layer there aren't standards, there aren't connected processes, it's going to move really slowly,” said Li.

In this episode, produced in partnership with Banyan Infrastructure, we explore the shifting world of sustainable finance.

Stephen Lacey talks with Banyan COO Amanda Li about solving financial bottlenecks, how the IRA is bringing in new players to the market, and what it will take to unlock trillions of new dollars per year for the energy transition.

Banyan Infrastructure is simplifying and accelerating the financing of sustainable infrastructure. Read the company’s white paper on unlocking the full potential of sustainable finance, or request a demo to learn how the software works.

New demand is straining the grid. Here’s how to tackle it. Mar 06, 2024

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When Brian Janous took charge of Microsoft’s clean energy strategy in 2011, the company’s data center demand was modest. He was measuring new demand in the tens of megawatts.

Over the years, that grew to hundreds of megawatts of new demand as hyperscale computing expanded. And then everything changed in the spring of 2023, with the public launch of ChatGPT 3.5, which ran on Microsoft’s data centers.

“That was the moment that I realized we were going to need a bigger boat. This is a massive leap in a period of like six months – and the amount of time that it takes to actually build infrastructure was measured in years,” said Janous.

Projections show data center energy demand could double in the next couple of years, driven by artificial intelligence. Janous saw the hockey stick growth coming, and he realized the disconnect between how fast AI is moving and how the core input to data centers – electricity supply – is struggling to keep pace.

After decades of flat demand, load forecasts are doubling because of data centers, expanding ports, new manufacturing plants supported by the IRA, and electric cars.

Janous recently co-founded a company, Cloverleaf Infrastructure, to help utilities unlock grid capacity with grid-enhancing technologies, batteries, and other flexible resources to meet the onslaught of new demand. He also advises LineVision, a dynamic line rating company that is helping expand transmission capacity.

This week: we talk with Janous about why we don't need energy miracles – we need to think creatively about planning, and squeezing more out of the system.

This episode is brought to you by The Big Switch. In a new 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization? Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

The right way to recycle batteries [partner content] Mar 05, 2024

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In the early 2000s, Steve Cotton ran a company serving the fast-growing data center industry with backup battery systems.

And when those systems reached the end of their lives, the company monetized kilotons of lead-acid batteries by sending them to recycling facilities – industrial plants that break down and burn the components.

“It's very dangerous. You've got lead dust all over the floor. You've got a bunch of people wearing hot suits, literally chucking batteries into high temperature furnaces. And it is not a healthy environment,” said Cotton.

Two decades later, the technology has shifted – and lithium-ion batteries are now the dominant form of storage. But recycling hasn't changed a lot.

Today, there are two types of dominant battery recycling methods. One is using high heat, similar to the process that Steve witnessed at the lead-acid facilities. The other is giving batteries a chemical bath, in a process known as hydrometallurgy. Both create a lot of waste.

Steve saw how big the battery recycling waste problem could become. And in 2015, he invested in a company called Aqua Metals. And he became so convinced by Aqua Metals' novel approach to recycling, he became the CEO.

“We're using electricity to drive the process and the electricity itself comes from renewable resources. And that can produce this metal supply chain with a true opportunity to have a net zero environmental impact,” said Cotton.

The battery recycling industry is experiencing rapid growth, as companies and countries look to build secure, circular supply chains for critical minerals.

In this episode, produced in partnership with Aqua Metals, Steve Cotton sits down with Stephen Lacey to talk about the growing battery waste problem, and the urgency to invest in recycling techniques that don't lock in new sources of waste.

This is a partner episode, brought to you by AquaMetals. Aqua Metals is pioneering cleaner and safer battery metals recycling through innovation. The company is building the first sustainable battery recycling operation in North America in Tahoe-Reno. Watch a tour of the company’s pilot facility, and learn more by reading the company’s recyclopedia.

A view of the $1.8 trillion clean energy economy Feb 22, 2024

Show notes

Can a couple trillion dollars feel small?

Global investments in the energy transition – from the buildout of factories and power projects to project finance and government debt – hit nearly $1.8 trillion last year.

That’s almost as big as the GDP of South Korea. It’s nearly 20% more than the year before, and nearly eight times more than a decade ago. But even with those record levels of spending, we are astonishingly behind what’s needed to stay on a net-zero trajectory this decade.

This week, we’ll talk about what’s growing, what’s lagging, and what the trillion-dollar scale means at the ground level.

Then, geoengineering is nudging closer to the mainstream of scientific and environmental discourse. Are we giving up, or just being realistic?

Katherine Hamilton of 38 North and Shalini Ramanathan of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners join us this week to sift through these trends.

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Virtual power plants: the ‘sandwich’ for the grid Feb 15, 2024

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If we want any chance of affordably and reliably building a grid powered 100% by zero-carbon resources, we need to triple the capacity of virtual power plants.

That’s the conclusion of a report released last fall by the Department of Energy, which examined the different business models and integration approaches for tying solar, batteries, thermostats, electric cars, water heaters, and other distributed assets into dispatchable power plants.

The US already has tens of gigawatts of VPP capacity, mostly in the form of “bring your own device” programs that harness thermostats or water heaters for demand response services. But there are new models emerging that harness rooftop solar, batteries, and EV charging to enable bigger, longer-lasting load shifts.

“I like to say that the term VPP is kind of like the term sandwich. There are lots of different kinds, they're full of different ingredients, and they serve lots of different purposes,” said Jen Downing, an engagement officer at the DOE, who leads the agency’s work on the space.

The concept of VPPs has been around for nearly 30 years. But as the US faces a dramatic increase in peak demand by 2030 – and with distributed resource capacity set to double – the urgency for deploying them has increased.

“We're going to need clean, firm [power]. We're going to need more transmission capacity to transport that electricity. But one way to address that increase in peak is to use distributed energy resources to either serve that peak locally or to shift that peak outside of peak hours. And so that's where VPPs come in,” said Downing.

This week on The Carbon Copy, we spoke with DOE’s Jen Downing about the different ways that virtual power plants are getting built – and the need to build many more.

Read our show notes and all our industry coverage at Latitudemedia.com.

Pricing and tech trends shaping the global battery storage market Feb 08, 2024

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The storage market is full of surprises. Last year, global storage installations were a third higher than expected, driven mostly by Chinese policy to attach batteries to renewables.

Meanwhile, a ramp-up in manufacturing is causing oversupply – and a potential shakeout for smaller battery makers.

By 2030, the world could see 1.8 terawatt-hours of storage capacity installed, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Rapid manufacturing expansion, a shift in chemistries and designs, and increases in duration for grid-connected systems are making battery storage one of the most dynamic sectors of the clean energy economy.

“We do have to constantly be reconsidering our assumptions,” said Yayoi Sekine, head of energy storage at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “I think now we're currently in an environment where the industry is actually able to sustain itself in terms of its own battery manufacturing and supply chains. That's a pretty big shift and that's happened very recently.”

This week on The Carbon Copy, we feature a conversation with Yayoi Sekine pricing, tech, manufacturing, and deployment trends that are shaping battery storage.

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US power demand is set to boom. How will we meet it? Feb 01, 2024

Show notes

As President Biden’s green industrial policies reignite the US manufacturing base, AI computing workloads soar, and machines across the economy turn electric, the power grid is facing an historic increase in demand.

After almost two decades of flat electricity consumption, suddenly America’s grid planners are doubling their forecasts for demand – raising the urgency for new infrastructure.

This week, we’ll ask: what’s needed, and what happens if we can’t build it?

Then, some major changes in the world of tax finance. We’ll look at how transferable tax credits are opening up new kinds of deals for clean energy – and take a deeper dive into the long-awaited and controversial details of hydrogen tax credits.

Katherine Hamilton of 38 North and Shalini Ramanathan of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners join us this week to sift through these trends.

Subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter to get weekly updates on tech, markets, and deals across clean energy and climate tech.

How AI is rapidly advancing new materials for clean energy Jan 23, 2024

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Artificial intelligence is quickly accelerating drug discovery, healthcare services, product design, and manufacturing efficiency. Now it's here for materials development – and it could be one of the most influential uses of AI in energy.

A decade ago, Greg Mulholland started playing around with machine learning as a way to accelerate product development of materials inside LEDs. After seeing its potential – and witnessing the rapid evolution of AI – he co-founded Citrine Informatics. Citrine built an AI platform that helps researchers advance cutting-edge materials for use in solar cells, batteries, electric cars, and more.

“It allows us to move through generations of materials discovery so much faster that we're not just incrementally improving things, but we're actually driving forward the whole industry and raising the bar on ourselves in a pretty exciting way,” says Greg.

This week: Greg Mulholland, CEO of Citrine Informatics, describes the many ways that artificial intelligence is pushing the performance of clean energy and climate technologies – and helping clean up the materials that make up the world around us.

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Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 31, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.

Venture investors riff on headwinds, hype, and wildcards of 2023 Jan 17, 2024

Show notes

Turbulent. Equilibrating. Those are the words that investors Gabriel Kra and Carly Anderson use to describe the last year for venture capital in climate tech.

We now have a full picture of the year for climate tech venture investing in 2023. Fresh data from Sightline Climate shows a decline in deal counts, round sizes, and a dropoff in repeat investors.

It was a year of rising interest rates, declining valuations, a bank collapse, and falling exits. But it was also when many companies started building factories, and forging a path toward a green industrial economy.

“If rates go up and IPO markets dry up, we all suffer from that just like everybody else does,” said Kra. “But when we look back, we're going to realize, that's when products started rolling off the lines.”

“I think it was a year of looking around and figuring out, ‘hey, what's real and we, where is, where is the ground?’ And I think we're at a pretty solid place now to go forward, “ said Anderson.

This week: we feature perspectives from two investors on the mixed environment for fundraising, the impact on different sectors, and why we may actually look back on 2023 in a positive light.

The terawatt era of PV: ‘Solar will be the gas of today’ Jan 09, 2024

Show notes

When the numbers for 2023 are finalized, there could be another 320 to 413 gigawatts of solar installed around the world – bringing global capacity to nearly 1.5 terawatts.

Solar is now on track to surpass coal and fossil gas capacity in the next few years, bringing generation to 10% of global electricity supply.

There's universal recognition that we're firmly in the solar era. But outlooks on how fast the technology will grow are mixed. And that's because a mix of constraints – market design, trade barriers, and grid capacity – could cap yearly growth.

This week on The Carbon Copy, we talk with Wood Mackenzie's Michelle Davis about the tech and deployment trends that will shape the next decade of solar PV expansion.

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