#EP308

What if you could slash your community's electricity costs by 40% while achieving true energy independence?

AJ Perkins transformed from business executive to renewable energy pioneer, building 3.8 gigawatts of microgrid projects worldwide. In this Clean Power Hour episode, he reveals how community-scale solar and battery systems are revolutionizing energy economics.

The breakthrough: AJ's team reduced payback periods from 7-11 years to just 18 months by combining solar, batteries, and grid services revenue. This creates a financial model that makes renewable energy irresistible to entire communities.

Real-world results include:

• A 3,000-home Hawaii development using the "Utility Light" model where communities own their energy infrastructure
• An Orange County mobile home park cutting electricity costs from 38¢ to 24¢ per kWh while adding AC for just 2¢ per kWh
• Why thinking in clusters of 50-1,000+ homes creates economies of scale impossible with individual installations

Tim and AJ explore the convergence of microgrids, Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), and infrastructure-as-a-service models that solve multiple municipal challenges simultaneously. They discuss California's public safety power shutoffs, utility partnerships, manufacturing reshoring, and practical strategies for scaling community energy projects.

Key insight: Instead of protecting one family, AJ protects entire communities. His approach prevents the dangerous scenario where only one house has power during blackouts while neighbors remain in the dark.

Whether you're a solar installer, utility professional, community leader, or clean energy investor, this episode provides actionable insights for building distributed energy infrastructure. AJ shares his complete playbook and offers to help others replicate these community-scale successes.

Connect with AJ Perkins

AJ Perkins

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The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com

Corporate sponsors who share our mission to speed the energy transition are invited to check out https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/support/

The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America’s number one 3-phase string inverter, with over 6GW shipped in the US. With a focus on commercial and utility-scale solar and energy storage, the company partners with customers to provide unparalleled performance and service. The CPS America product lineup includes 3-phase string inverters from 25kW to 275kW, exceptional data communication and controls, and energy storage solutions designed for seamless integration with CPS America systems. Learn more at www.chintpowersystems.com

The electric grid faces its biggest transformation in decades. Data center demand is set to triple in five years, capacity prices in PJM just hit $329 per megawatt-day, and grid operators are scrambling to prevent blackouts as massive AI facilities pull offline during disturbances.

Today on the Clean Power Hour, grid expert Peter Kelly-Detwiler reveals how microgrids and artificial intelligence are creating a "fractal grid" that could solve our mounting reliability crisis. Peter explains the critical difference between traditional microgrids and the emerging "macrogrids" - 500+ megawatt data center installations that function like inverse power plants.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Why NERC is concerned about data centers causing grid failures
• The Dominion Virginia incident, where 1,500MW of data center load was instantly disconnected
• How PJM capacity prices jumped from $30 to $329 per megawatt-day
• AI-driven grid controls and their role in managing thousands of distributed resources
• Virtual power plants dispatching 535MW from 100,000+ home batteries in California
• The economics of microgrids in high-cost regions like PJM and California
• Brooklyn/Queens Demand Management Project: $150M solution vs $1.2B infrastructure upgrade
• State incentive programs driving storage deployment
• The "bring your own capacity" trend accelerating data center interconnections

Peter Kelly-Detwiler, author of "Energy Switch" and principal at Northbridge Energy Partners, provides insider analysis on where developers should focus their efforts and how utilities can leverage microgrids to avoid costly infrastructure upgrades.

Whether you're an energy professional, developer, or simply curious about the future of electricity, this episode reveals why microgrids are no longer optional, they're essential infrastructure for our digital economy.

Connect with Peter Kelly-Detwiler

Website: https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkellydetwiler

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Tim on Twitter
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Email tim@cleanpowerhour.com

Review Clean Power Hour on Apple Podcasts

The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com

Corporate sponsors who share our mission to speed the energy transition are invited to check out https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/support/

The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America’s number one 3-phase string inverter, with over 6GW shipped in the US. With a focus on commercial and utility-scale solar and energy storage, the company partners with customers to provide unparalleled performance and service. The CPS America product lineup includes 3-phase string inverters from 25kW to 275kW, exceptional data communication and controls, and energy storage solutions designed for seamless integration with CPS America systems. Learn more at www.chintpowersystems.com

#EP306

Texas has quietly become America's renewable energy powerhouse, with solar and wind now generating over 70 gigawatts of capacity. Raina Hornaday, founder and CEO of Caprock Renewables, reveals how this transformation happened and why rural communities are driving the next wave of clean energy growth.

In this episode of the Clean Power Hour, we explore the explosive growth of Texas renewables, where solar and wind now exceed 70 gigawatts of capacity. Raina takes us through her family's history with the first utility-scale wind project in New Mexico and reveals how Texas has become America's renewable energy powerhouse.

Key topics covered include

• The fascinating ERCOT dashboard showing real-time energy generation
• The Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance (TREIA) is celebrating its 40th anniversary
• The emerging agrivoltaics revolution that is helping farmers add revenue streams while maintaining agricultural productivity.
• The recent legislative battles, where over 100 renewable advocates testified against anti-renewable bills
• The growing role of battery storage in grid stability
• How oil and gas companies are increasingly turning to renewables for their operations.

Raina also discusses her work with American Farmland Trust on educating farmers about agrivoltaics, the importance of responsible development in rural communities, and why microgrids are becoming essential for energy independence.

Whether you're interested in renewable energy development, agricultural innovation, or Texas energy policy, this episode offers valuable insights from someone who's been at the forefront of the industry for over a decade.

Connect with Raina Tillman Hornaday

Raina Tillman LinkedIn

Caprock Renewables

Support the show

Connect with Tim

Clean Power Hour
Clean Power Hour on YouTube
Tim on Twitter
Tim on LinkedIn

Email tim@cleanpowerhour.com

Review Clean Power Hour on Apple Podcasts

The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com

Corporate sponsors who share our mission to speed the energy transition are invited to check out https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/support/

The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America’s number one 3-phase string inverter, with over 6GW shipped in the US. With a focus on commercial and utility-scale solar and energy storage, the company partners with customers to provide unparalleled performance and service. The CPS America product lineup includes 3-phase string inverters from 25kW to 275kW, exceptional data communication and controls, and energy storage solutions designed for seamless integration with CPS America systems. Learn more at www.chintpowersystems.com