Energy Changemakers Podcast

Distributed wind has long played third wheel to solar and storage — but new market conditions may be opening the door to a comeback.
In this bonus episode, Elisa Wood speaks with analyst Peter Asmus about whether distributed wind can find new life in microgrids, virtual power plants (VPPs), and rural energy systems. They explore wind’s surprising early dominance in microgrids, why it lost ground to solar, and how rural co-ops, farm policy, and complementary generation profiles could bring it back into the mix.
While unlikely to compete head-to-head with solar, distributed wind may play a valuable supporting role in hybrid, distributed energy systems.

According to Markus Virta, Co-Founder of Cascadia Renewables, the answer has almost nothing to do with solar panels and batteries—and everything to do with listening.
In this episode, Markus—who has spent 16 years at the intersection of clean energy and Pacific Northwest policy—explains why microgrids fail when engineers lead and communities follow, and how inverting that paradigm leads to faster projects, fewer change orders, and infrastructure that communities actually use.
Markus offers a template for community microgrid development and provides examples of how it has worked in real-world projects. He tells the story of the Orcas Center Microgrid (Solar Builder Magazine’s Microgrid Project of the Year): a solar-plus-storage system built for a performing arts center on Orcas Island that turned out to be the community’s real resilience hub—not the fire station, not the school, but the place where people actually gather when things go wrong.
You’ll also hear about: a tribal nation moving to higher ground ahead of a looming earthquake, a rural fire district running almost entirely on diesel for 30 years, and a national museum doubling as an emergency medical equipment hub. Each project started with a community conversation, not a technical spec.
Markus also breaks down Washington State’s unique policy and funding ecosystem, including its cap-and-invest program, Commerce technical assistance grants, and the emerging day-ahead market that could finally make community microgrids economically self-sustaining. And he makes the case for FERC Order 2222 as the regulatory lever that could unlock real revenue for community-owned energy assets.
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In Episode 40, host Elisa Wood sits down with Ben Brown, CEO of Renew Home, to explore how millions of ordinary homes are being quietly transformed into virtual power plants (VPPs) — aggregated, AI-coordinated, and capable of delivering what a gas-fired peaker plant once did, at a fraction of the cost and with zero emissions.
From Jimmy Carter's thermostat appeals to today's invisible, personalized energy shifting, Ben and Elisa talk about why the future of grid stability runs directly through your living room.
What you'll learn:
What a virtual power plant actually is, and why it's different from old-school demand response

How Renew Home manages nearly 6 gigawatts of flexible load across 7.5 million households

Why being distributed makes a VPP more valuable than a centralized power plant

The policy gap holding back the next wave of VPP growth (and which markets are leading)

How Ben's team achieves an 80% opt-in rate — without customers feeling a thing

What role EVs, heat pumps, and home batteries will play in the grid of 2035

Ben Brown built the Nest Learning Thermostat and Google Home devices before spinning out Renew Home — now North America's largest residential VPP platform — from Google in 2023. In November 2024, Renew Home announced a partnership with NRG Energy to build a 1-gigawatt AI-powered VPP in Texas.
This episode is for anyone who pays an electric bill, cares about the clean energy transition, or wants to understand how the grid is actually going to keep up with exploding demand from data centers, EVs, and electrification.
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Jigar Shah is one of clean energy's most influential — and outspoken — figures. In this episode, he takes a surprising stand on a utility battery program that has the distributed energy world divided, makes the case that the solar industry is now the battery industry, and lays out a policy blueprint for new governors that starts with one bold number: cut electricity bills 20% by 2030.
In this episode:
Why Shah is defending Xcel Energy's controversial utility-owned battery program in Minnesota — and why he thinks the critics are fighting the wrong battle

The $50 billion math: how strategically placed batteries could meet all U.S. load growth through 2030 at a fraction of the cost of new utility infrastructure

His blunt advice for half the clean energy industry: adapt your cost structure or shut your doors

The "controlled experiment" between Xcel Minnesota and Xcel Colorado that could settle the utility ownership debate

A three-point energy platform for governors, anchored in grid-enhancing technologies and massive battery deployment

Shah's personal journey from a village in India with barely any electricity to overseeing the largest clean energy lending program in U.S. history

Key quote: "This solution is 90% cheaper than upgrading all the wires in Minnesota. Now we're arguing about whether this could have been 10% cheaper than the private sector solution."
People and organizations discussed: Sparkfund, Xcel Energy, Generate Capital, SunEdison, Common Charge, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Tesla, Atmos Financial, DOE Loan Programs Office
Resources: DOE VPP Liftoff Report (January 2025) · DOE Grid-Enhancing Technologies Liftoff Report · IEA World Energy Outlook · commoncharge.org · energychangemakers.com

Eliot Assimakopoulos, CEO of Realizse and former GE microgrid pioneer, discusses a critical barrier to clean energy deployment: "stranded abundance." Despite available capital and valuable incentives, friction in finance prevents these resources from connecting, limiting microgrid and DER project development.
Eliot Assimakopoulos
CEO, Realizse

Former Marine Corps Captain

20 years at General Electric leading microgrid solution development

Early pioneer in the microgrid space

The Stranded Abundance Problem
Valuable incentive programs (ITC, 179D, state incentives) exist but remain underutilized

Capital exists but doesn't trust complex value streams

Example: Heat pump programs can access 50% ITC but developers avoid it due to complexity and risk

Historical Parallels
Printing press and the democratization of knowledge

Gold rush: connecting stranded gold with stranded capital through infrastructure (Wells Fargo)

The Solution: Web3 and Decentralized Finance
Using blockchain, smart contracts, and automation to create trusted data frameworks

Integrating compliance data with insurance (similar to telematics in fleet vehicles)

Removing ITC recapture risk through data-driven insurance products

Creating investible assets from energy data

Two Sides of Abundance
Removing friction to build (permits, interconnection, supply chain)

Removing friction to finance (trust, complexity, risk management)

Energy abundance requires both reducing building barriers AND financing barriers

Trusted data infrastructure can unlock stranded capital pools

Tokenization and alternative investments are creating new opportunities

The shift toward private markets and granular asset transparency enables liquidity

Democratization of both energy AND finance is the ultimate goal

Ezra Klein's work on abundance agenda

Larry Fink's 2025 investor letter on tokenization

Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentives

179D building energy efficiency tax incentive

For more information, visit energychangemakers.com