Catalyst with Shayle Kann

As the utility-scale solar market collides with an era defined by massive load growth, EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) firms are rethinking their strategy to meet the moment.

In this episode, Shayle speaks to George Hershman, CEO of SOLV Energy, one of the largest solar and storage construction firms in the US. George offers a unique perspective into the state of the market as well as the logistics of building gigawatt-scale projects and insights into how automation is changing the EPC game.

Shayle and George discuss:

Why George believes rising demand can help solar move past boom-and-bust cycles

How SOLV is taking on larger projects without needing to increase its workforce proportionally

How automation helps SOLV build and install utility-scale solar faster

The logistics bottleneck impacting EPCs’ ability to scale

How AI-driven simulations can help optimize installations


Catalyst: Can AI revolutionize EPC?


Catalyst: 2026 trends: Gas turbines, Texas’ load queue, and China electrifies


Catalyst: Scaling America’s domestic solar supply chain


Latitude Media: Can the US bring solar installation to below $2 per watt? 


Latitude Media: This former solar installer is all-in on software-only sales

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

As the race to build out artificial intelligence accelerates, the infrastructure required to support it is undergoing a remarkable transformation. In February, Google announced a plan to spend $175 billion to $185 billion in CapEx for 2026— a figure roughly equivalent to the GDP of Hungary.

In this special live episode, recorded at Transition-AI 2026 in San Francisco, Shayle sits down with Amin Vahdat, Google’s chief technologist for AI infrastructure. Amin pulls back the curtain on how the hyperscaler is rethinking everything from data center reliability and behind-the-meter power generation to real-time inference.

Shayle and Amin discuss:

How Google’s shift from focusing on training to inference can enable more distributed, smaller-scale data center deployments

Why Google is moving away from traditional "five nines" reliability for certain workloads in exchange for doubling compute capacity

How on-site generation can serve as a "bridge" to manage interconnection latency

Google’s milestone agreement with utilities for one gigawatt of demand response

How software can co-optimize chip design, building cooling and power generation to create superefficient and flexible "AI factories"


Catalyst: The rise of flexible data centers


Catalyst: Will inference move to the edge?


Catalyst: The mechanics of data center flexibility


Open Circuit: The natural gas ‘bridge’ becomes a highway


Open Circuit: Are investors losing faith in the AI infrastructure frenzy?


Latitude Media: Energy Vault is expanding into infrastructure for AI


Latitude Media: The rise of the AI infrastructure asset class

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

[This episode is a re-run from October 2025. Look out for a new episode of Catalyst on Thursday, April 23.]

Yesterday, Base Power announced a ⁠$1 billion series C⁠, giving the residential battery company an eye-popping $4 billion post-money valuation. Base manufactures, installs, owns, and operates residential batteries — a vertical integration strategy that CEO ⁠Zach Dell⁠ says is the “magic” to beating utility-scale batteries on CapEx. The company also acts as an electricity retailer and sells generation capacity.

So how does Base’s business model work? And what will it do with its new fundraise? 

In this episode, Shayle talks to Zach about Base’s business model, the vertical integration strategy, and the challenges ahead. They cover topics like:

The customer value proposition: how customers pay for backup power and Base uses the batteries for grid services

Bases’s “gentailer” business model in ERCOT, earning revenue from monthly customer fees, retail electricity sales, and battery arbitrage

The regulated market approach, where Base sells capacity directly to utilities

Base’s vertical integration strategy: from ground-mounted designs to decoupled installation processes

Challenges like managing a fixed workforce amid fluctuating demand and the declining price volatility in ERCOT

Resources:

⁠New York Times⁠: Base Power, a Battery-Focused Power Company, Raises $1 Billion

⁠Open Circuit⁠: Is this moment for distributed energy different?  

⁠Catalyst⁠: Is now the time for DERs to scale? 

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting ⁠fischtankpr.com⁠.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting ⁠energyhub.com⁠.

As the buildout of data centers accelerates on a dramatic trajectory,its strain on the electric grid has increased in turn; forecasts suggest they could consume up to 17% of all US power by 2030. To avoid higher rates and slower AI growth, the industry has embraced a promising solution: data center flexibility.

In this episode, Shayle speaks with Varun Sivaram, the CEO of Emerald AI. Coming on the heels of a $25 million investment round led by Energy Impact Partners, Varun returns to the show to provide an update on the "wickedly complicated" challenge of aligning utilities, cloud providers, and the grid. 

Shayle and Varun explore topics like:

Tapping into the 100+ gigawatts of unused grid capacity

Why the "Watt-Bit spread" is shifting to make power flexibility profitable

The differences between training and inference flexibility, including Google’s new "flex" and "priority" tiers

The "mini dispatch curve" for data centers created by batteries, gas turbines and fuel cells

Emerald’s plans to collaborate with NVIDIA and other partners on the world’s first 100-megawatt, truly power-flexible AI factory

Resources


Catalyst: The mechanics of data center flexibility


Catalyst: The potential for flexible data centers


Latitude Media: How the world’s first flexible AI factory will work in tandem with the grid


Latitude Media: Nvidia and Oracle tapped this startup to flex a Phoenix data center


Latitude Media: A reality check on flexible data centers


Latitude Media: Can VPPs unlock grid capacity for data centers? 

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

In 2025, the clean energy market navigated a mix of shifting tariffs, evolving FEOC compliance rules, and uncertainty around tax policy. On the surface, it looked like a year defined by instability.

And yet, capital continued to move.

Total capital expenditures across the clean economy reached roughly $120 billion, with total financing activity exceeding $200 billion across the full stack of project capital. The transferable tax credit market scaled to about $42 billion, growing rapidly in just a few years.

So why are the underlying dynamics so strong?

In this episode, recorded live as part of a Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey speaks with Alfred Johnson, CEO of Crux, and Katie Bays, Managing Director and Head of Research at Crux, about what actually happened beneath the surface of the market.

They discuss how developers and investors navigated uncertainty, how financing structures evolved to provide more flexibility, and why underlying demand continued to pull capital into the sector.

Read the full Crux market intelligence report. And watch the full video of the Frontier Forum here, which features even more depth on tax credit pricing, safe harbor strategies, evolving deal structures.