SunCast

“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 three different fronts of the climate fight:

• Robin Swanhuyser — Twende Solar

Electrifying community hubs in places like rural Ghana, turning schools and clinics into resilience engines for entire villages.

• Will Heegaard — Footprint Project

Deploying portable solar microgrids after hurricanes and wildfires, from Jamaica to Western North Carolina.

• Jack Hanson — Run on Climate

Empowering local leaders to pass real climate policy—proving the most effective climate action often starts at your city council.

These are tangible, hopeful, boots-on-the-ground solutions you can support today.

Expect to learn:

🔹 Why “being connected to the grid” doesn’t always mean having reliable energy

🔹 How solar-powered microgrids restore communication, water, and medical services after disasters

🔹 Why local elections and city-level policies are quiet climate superpowers

🔹 How small actions—like a $50 donation or even buying a solar-themed puzzle—can create outsized impact

Hope this episode is more than a way to pass the time; pay it forward by donating or sharing w/your community!

Listen in, get inspired, and consider giving where it matters most.

Support all three organizations here:

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, he’s leading a quiet revolution that helps installers skip the paperwork and get to work faster with instant, automated approvals.

In this episode, we dive into Matthew’s journey from the West Wing to the frontlines of the clean energy transition. With a background in government technology and big public wins like launching Colorado’s universal preschool platform, he knows what it takes to move bureaucracy at startup speed. Now he’s using that know-how to help solar installers and local governments solve one of the industry’s oldest problems.

We explore how SolarAPP grew from a small NREL pilot into a platform adopted by more than 525 jurisdictions across the country. But the real innovation isn't just instant permits — it's about creating consistency, clarity, and confidence on both sides of the table.

Expect to learn:

🔹 Which soft costs are killing solar’s ability to scale and how SolarAPP is tackling them

🔹 How standardizing permitting helps both installers and local governments

🔹 What public sector trust-building looks like behind the scenes

🔹 Why installers should take another look at SolarAPP’s expanded capabilities

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to streamline solar deployment and scale with confidence.

And for those of you in the USA who are listening to this when it publishes,

Happy Thanksgiving!

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 defense future.  Why?  Because the energy and defense sectors are dangerously dependent on China’s refining power; but, what if we could change that without opening a single new mine? 

We recently covered a company that’s rethinking rare earth and critical mineral supply chains from the ground up. Mark LaVerghetta, VP at ReElement Technologies, explained that their secret weapon is a closed-loop chromatography-based refining system that can extract and purify vital materials from recycled batteries, magnets, and even coal waste, all on U.S. soil. 

Mark shares how the leadership team pivoted from distressed coal assets to inventing a modular, small-footprint solution that could rewrite the rules of critical mineral processing and eliminate America’s reliance on toxic, capital-intensive Chinese methods and imports.  It can also liberate us from the supply constraints imposed by the ever-growing trade war between the two countries for materials that are critical path to our clean energy future.

Expect to learn:

🔹 How chromatography replaces hundreds of toxic chemical stages in rare earths refining

🔹 What rare minerals are hidden in EV batteries, coal waste, and wind turbines

🔹 Why ReElement's tech is scalable in the nation’s abandoned strip malls, not megafactories

🔹 How they’re restoring U.S. supply chain independence through innovation

This is more than a conversation about minerals. It’s about resilience, security, and a cleaner future built right here at home.

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 Zahurancik, now President of Fluence Americas, has spent nearly two decades pushing the storage industry from “interesting pilot projects” to critical grid infrastructure. The last time he was on SunCast, he said domestic content would happen.

This year, Fluence started shipping it.

In this episode, John breaks down how storage has quietly become the backbone of the power system—independent of renewables—and why the next wave of deployments will be bigger, faster, and more strategically important than anything we’ve seen.

We dig into:

🔹 What true U.S.-made battery content means for developers and grid operators

🔹 How AI and hyperscale data centers are reshaping grid architecture

🔹 The fire-safety testing Fluence spearheaded that is now industry standard

🔹 Why batteries are becoming the “shock absorbers” of the modern grid

If you care about project execution, energy security, or the future of grid reliability, this conversation is essential.