Boots on the Ground with Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper

About Boots on the Ground with Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper

What's really happening in solar and storage — beyond the headlines? Boots on the Ground goes straight to the people who've run the industry from both sides: Yann Brandt, former President and CEO of a public solar company, and Abby Hopper, former President and CEO of SEIA. Weekly conversations on the policy and business shaping the energy transition.

Publisher

SolarWakeup

Category

business · government

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Aug 2026

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

10 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   No Password Required, DOJ Jams Whitehouse, and 2.4 Million Modules

   A German security firm found it could log into Sungrow’s cloud platform by not entering a password. That was the whole trick, and it opened the door to gigawatts of capacity. Sungrow says it has patched the flaw, logs show nobody else walked through it, and firmware sits behind separate authentication. The part that should worry you is how small a story this became. Yann’s take: the industry did this to itself. Twenty years of driving hardware cost down has left procurement teams who can recite module specs cold and have no idea what software runs the asset. Twenty gigawatt hours of batteries went in globally last month — ask the buyers what controls stack came with them. Then the scenario he can’t shake: a peak grid event where every battery gets hacked and told to charge at once, a reverse virtual power plant, tens of gigawatts of load where the grid expected supply. Abby’s warning: this gets painted as a China story when it’s structural, and after the Supreme Court gutted agency deference, nobody is sure who can still write the rule. Then the permitting deal took a hit. The handshake was that the White House frees roughly 30 wind farms stuck in Pentagon review and returns to regular order. Last week DOJ asked a court to reevaluate the Revolution Wind permit — 700 MW, nearly built, partially operational, in Senator Whitehouse’s home state. Abby ran the agency that issues those permits, and she explains why the “routine filing” story doesn’t hold: this permit sits layers below the final decision, and you don’t get down to it by accident. Yann’s contrarian read, flack expected: this bill isn’t for solar. Our permitting problems are at the state level, and what we get out of it is the VPP language. Also in this episode. Swift Current is suing First Solar over 2.4 million modules it says underperformed, including at the 800 MW Double Black Diamond project, on more than $360 million of purchases. Lightsource BP alleged roughly 6% below spec across 17 projects. Is the fight about the modules or the warranty test? NERC’s standards for large loads cleared their final ballot on October 15, covering 50 MW and up. The reason: 3.8 GW of Northern Virginia data center load dropped offline after one transmission fault in July. Grid utilization. The grid runs at about half capacity and we pay for all of it. Dominion’s first-in-the-nation metrics: 41% at distribution, 78% on transformers at peak. Plus Base Power putting 50 MW of home batteries into a Georgia co-op, where the homeowner pays about a hundred bucks and the utility gets the asset. The election: Cook moved 11 more House races toward Democrats, Kansas is a toss-up, and half the Senate field is apparently registered in Florida. Wins and fails: women’s sports; Elon Musk’s $366 million; leadership change at Vote Solar; and a sell-side analyst crossing over to run investor relations at SolarEdge. Solar Sisters is in San Francisco on November 9 with RISE, Women in Cleantech and Sustainability, and Permission to Bloom: solar-sisters.org (https://solar-sisters.org) Find the hosts on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt (https://linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt) and linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper (https://linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper). SolarWakeup is on Instagram at solar.wakeup Send us your questions about solar, storage, policy or business: solarwakeup.com/boots (https://solarwakeup.com/boots) Get the daily brief. Join the leaders who start their morning with the SolarWakeup Daily Brief: solarwakeup.com/join (https://solarwakeup.com/join) Boots on the Ground is produced by SolarWakeup and sponsored by CIR. Like and subscribe on YouTube, follow us on your podcast app, and leave a review.

2. 

   13 Oct 2026

   Storage Beats Peakers By 65%, Permitting Gets Juicy, and How Large Loads Pay And Play

   New storage coming online this year is 65 to 75% cheaper than a new gas peaker. Gas turbines are headed for $600 a kilowatt by end of 2027, nearly triple 2019, and the big three turbine makers hold backlogs of 35 to 116 gigawatts — against an entire ERCOT grid that peaks around 90. Abby’s read: the market is finally outvoting the policy. Yann’s: the attack on this industry was never about clean energy or jobs. It was that solar and storage got too cheap, and tariffs and credit repeal were how you make gas competitive again. Then the permitting bill, which got juicy. Two weeks ago Yann said no way it passes. He’s 180 on that now. It’s being pushed hard in Washington, and not by solar — the reporting points at API. Wind developers are holding out for assurances from the president. EEI and IBEW haven’t said a word, which is itself a position. And Yann floats a theory on why nobody from the power sector sat at the AI dinner: the large loads have beef with the utilities. The wonky part, with purpose. Section 2107 makes large loads — defined down at 20 MW — pay full freight for the grid, and lets state regulators charge them above cost to offset everyone else’s bill. Abby, as a lawyer, thinks that last part may be illegal. Section 2108 forces grid operators to open their markets to batteries and behind-the-meter resources inside 18 months, which is what FERC Order 2222 was supposed to do six years ago. Together they put utilities and tech companies in competition for the same revenue — and if regulators move too slowly, large loads just build behind the meter and the grid doubling stops being the boon utility shareholders are modeling. Also in this episode. SEIA stepped in it — a quote to a political reporter saying the assurances Senate Democrats want aren’t necessary. Yann calls it an unforced error: negotiating against ourselves before the other side has even spoken. Abby recuses herself. Voltus raised $225 million ahead of a planned IPO, chasing 20 GW of aggregated behind-the-meter capacity. They call it bring your own capacity, and Section 2108 is worth a lot to them. Earnings season: why Yann would rush to report before November 3 if he still ran a public company, and what every analyst will ask about 232. Wins and fails: Ukraine taking out Russian bot farms; the FERC chair saying in public she won’t be forced into a “deeply flawed 11th hour procurement mechanism” from PJM; and a good week for everything behind the meter. Predictions. Abby on managers’ amendments and the flood of floor amendments behind them. Yann on the deal-making coming to Wall Street — tax-loss selling, depressed valuations, and an IPO window shut until Anthropic goes. Plus Virginia’s lieutenant governor comes out against NextEra–Dominion, and the governor is “deeply skeptical.” Solar Sisters book group meets Monday October 26 at 8pm ET, with Leah Stokes joining to discuss The Carbon Wave: solar-sisters.org SolarWakeup is now on Instagram at solar.wakeup. Find both hosts on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt (https://linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt) and linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper (https://linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper) Send us your questions about solar, storage, policy, or whatever you’re deeply skeptical about: solarwakeup.com/boots (https://solarwakeup.com/boots) Get the daily brief. Join the leaders who start their morning with the SolarWakeup Daily Brief: solarwakeup.com/join (https://solarwakeup.com/join) Boots on the Ground is produced by SolarWakeup. Like and subscribe on YouTube, follow us on your podcast app, and leave a review.

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   The Permitting Bill Lands, Newsom Picks VPPs Over Community Solar, and the Grid's 97% Problem

   After four years and two administrations, four senators finally put a permitting deal on paper. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act runs 417 pages: it narrows NEPA, gives litigants 150 days to sue, lets FERC approve interstate transmission when states sit on a project for a year, forces grid operators to let VPPs into their markets, and bars agencies from revoking permits in effect on or after September 16. One lobbyist called it the biggest expansion of FERC authority since dereg. SEIA backed it on day one. API called it a generational opportunity. Huffman says Senate Democrats negotiated from weakness and the industry should wait for the next Congress. Yann and Abby get into why it landed a month before the midterms, whether the national security carve-out swallows the new protections against disparate treatment, and the part nobody says out loud — people in solar are lobbying against this bill right now. Policy is a marathon, and this isn't the bill to burn relationships over. Then the stat that stopped the conversation. In 2024 the US spent $330 billion on roads, $150 billion of it from gas taxes and tolls. Transmission got $100 billion, with under $3 billion from government — 97% on the ratepayer. No economy works without roads. None works without the grid. Why fund them so differently? Also in this episode. California said yes and no on the same day. Newsom signed SB 913 and SB 905 after vetoing three VPP bills last year, legalized balcony solar up to 1,200 W AC with no interconnection agreement, and vetoed AB 1813 on community solar. CALSSA's read: the veto rests on flawed Avoided Cost Calculator math, and the way forward is community storage. Invest in Tomorrow is putting $15 million against seven Republican House seats — Boebert, Perry, Spartz and others — without running a single pro-solar ad. Is "punish your enemies" the right posture for an industry that needs bipartisan votes on permitting next month? Wins and fails: DERs and grid utilization as the bill's unsung story; the White House AI dinner with nobody from GE Vernova, Invenergy or EDPR at the table; and K Street's best quarter in years. Predictions. Abby on why we may not know who controls Congress for a while after November 3. Yann on rack power density — Supermicro's 230 kW rack, 1 MW racks on the roadmap, and the shift to 800-volt DC that forces every data center to retool. Solar Sisters book group meets October 26, with Leah Stokes joining to discuss The Carbon Wave: solar-sisters.org (https://solar-sisters.org) Sources: heatmap.news, woodmac.com/blogs/energy-pulse, canarymedia.com, and nytimes.com on the super PAC Find the hosts on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt (https://linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt) and linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper (https://linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper) This show is supported by CleanTech Industry Resources. CIR has diligenced 334 GW across more than 17,000 projects and runs the world's only fully integrated Development-as-a-Service model for energy projects. Let them know you heard about them from Boots on the Ground: cleantechir.com Send us your questions about solar, storage, policy or business: solarwakeup.com/boots (https://solarwakeup.com/boots) Get the daily brief. Join the leaders who start their morning with the SolarWakeup Daily Brief: solarwakeup.com/join Boots on the Ground is produced by SolarWakeup and sponsored by CIR, cleantechir.com (https://cleantechir.com). Like and subscribe on YouTube, follow us on your podcast app, and leave a review.

4. 

   29 Sept 2026

   Speed to Power, The Permitting Deal, and How Lame the Duck Will Be

   Washington says the structure of a permitting deal is done, and the White House put 300 stalled wind and solar projects on the table to get there. Whether any of it happens depends on how lame the [lame] duck turns out to be — the House is gone until November, and a majority that may be about to lose a chamber has to decide whether to spend its last weeks on permitting reform at all. Yann and Abby work the odds, Martin Heinrich's proposed ITC for transmission lines as a marker for next Congress, and the $1.9 billion released for reconductoring. The number underneath it all: the US is building about 400 miles of high-voltage transmission a year, down from nearly 4,000 in 2013. Then Oracle sends a force majeure notice on Project Jupiter, a 2.48 GW AI campus in New Mexico, because the power isn't there. The stock fell 4% and dragged Nvidia down with it. The chips are ready; the air permit and the gas pipeline are not. Yann's take: our industry is badly undervaluing itself, because the first percentage of GDP has to be energy. Plus a harder question — should data centers just be built smaller? Abby flags the New Mexico governor's race, where permit deadlines land between election day and inauguration. Also in this episode. Nobody calls it Climate Week anymore. Abby reports from New York, where the phrase was "speed to power" and the real conversation was about institutions never designed to move fast. Her pet project: AI-run interconnection studies. Who's working the halls while Congress is gone: the DOE bulk power emergency order, FCC conditional approvals on foreign-made inverters, and Section 232 with a December 4 deadline. Staff do their best work when members are away, and these surprises are knowable. Xi Jinping came to Washington and AI regulation never came up. Why decoupling your supply chain from China stays the most important strategic move through year end. King tide season in Fort Lauderdale: streets closed by water with no rain, and how you explain that to a ten-year-old. Wins and fails: a bipartisan fusion bill with a $10 billion price tag; domestic inverters, with Power Electronics opening a 40 GW factory in Houston and Heron Power landing a pilot order from RWE; and Yann's case against drone delivery. Predictions: oversight hearings into circular dealings between chipmakers and their customers if the House flips, and Yann on energy efficiency making a comeback under a new name, load flexibility. Solar Sisters has a book club, fourth Monday of every month, with authors joining: solar-sisters.org Find the hosts on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt and linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper This show is supported by CleanTech Industry Resources. CIR is the world's only fully integrated Development-as-a-Service model for energy projects, uniting every silo from siting through financing and program management — 334 GW diligenced across 17,000+ projects. Let them know you heard about them on Boots on the Ground: cleantechir.com Send us your questions about solar, storage, policy or business: solarwakeup.com/boots Get the daily brief. Join the leaders who start their morning with the SolarWakeup Daily Brief: solarwakeup.com/join Boots on the Ground is produced by SolarWakeup and sponsored by CIR. Like and subscribe on YouTube, follow us on your podcast app, and leave a review.

5. 

   22 Sept 2026

   NextEra–Dominion, Generac's $8B Amazon Deal, and the Farmer Vote

   The biggest utility transaction our sector has ever seen is now a political negotiation, and the first half of this episode is about who has leverage. NextEra's acquisition of Dominion has shareholder approval. What it doesn't have is Virginia. Governor Spanberger entered the proceeding directly — a first for a Virginia governor in a deal like this — with three conditions: no rate increases, data centers pay their own way, long-term value for the Commonwealth. NextEra and Dominion answered with bill relief, 1,000 Virginia jobs, accelerated clean energy, shareholder-funded co-headquarters in Richmond, and an annual global energy summit. Abby ran mergers as a regulator at the Maryland PSC, and her read is that this settles before any hearing. Yann's numbers on why this closes where HECO didn't: both utilities sit at 88–89% residential, and the average 1,000 kWh bill is $137 at FPL versus $140.90 at Dominion. Florida gets no sweetener, because Florida doesn't have to approve anything. And the question nobody has answered: not one clean energy group has intervened in the biggest deal in the sector's history. Abby lays out what she'd extract — gigawatt commitments with "will," not "may." Also in this episode. Diesel is the whole election: Yann called it last week, now it's every headline. Cost of living tops both parties' polling, the DCCC is targeting ~40 seats, and an independent in Nebraska is running on one word. Data centers get a roadmap. New NYT/Siena numbers: net 61% oppose AI data center construction, top reason environment and water at 32%. Yann's argument — run data center community engagement through solar and storage teams, because the relationships that get a solar farm approved now carry billions in value. Generac's $8B AWS deal: the stock popped 35% and Amazon took warrants for roughly 3% of the company. Why warrants are underused and what dilution really costs. Forgent's 3.3x book-to-bill vs. Fluence's guidance cut: one beat and raised, the other revised mid-quarter and went from $25 to $7. Good or bad: is polling broken, prediction markets, a climate week in every city, the Fed raising rates. Wins and fails: the AI Energy Management Alliance and AI as flexible load, Arch Manning and Holly Rowe, and the erosion of DC norms. Predictions: Xi Jinping in Washington, and Yann on the American farmer — squeezed by diesel, fertilizer and rates — deciding November. Solar Sisters returns to Puerto Rico for International Women's Day 2027 — apply or sponsor at solar-sisters.org (http://solar-sisters.org) Connect with the hosts: Yann Brandt at linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt (http://linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt) and Abby Hopper at linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper (http://linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper) Thank you to CleanTech Industry Resources for supporting this episode. CIR is the world's only fully integrated Development-as-a-Service model for energy projects, uniting every silo from siting through financing and program management — 334 GW diligenced across 17,000+ projects. Tell them Boots sent you: cleantechir.com (http://cleantechir.com) Send us your questions: solarwakeup.com/boots (http://solarwakeup.com/boots) Get the daily brief. Join the leaders who start their morning with SolarWakeup's intelligence briefing: solarwakeup.com/join (http://solarwakeup.com/join) Boots on the Ground is produced by SolarWakeup and sponsored by CleanTech Industry Resources. Like and subscribe on YouTube, and follow the show on your favorite podcast platform.

6. 

   15 Sept 2026

   Solar's Record Quarter, Section 232 Cost Math, and Why Red States Build the Most Solar

   Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper are in the same room for the first time — same table, same mics, real microphone flags — working through the three storylines defining the fall: a record quarter for solar, an AI industry suddenly asking to be regulated, and a nuclear renaissance with lots of headlines and few answers. Solar posted 11.4 GW of new generation in Q2 alongside 20 GWh of storage, and everyone knows why: the ITC deadline pulled projects forward. The more interesting number is 75 GW of U.S. module assembly with another 15 GW under construction. Does America become a module exporter, at what price, and who are the domestic winners and losers? Plus a prediction: over the next two quarters, analysts will ask every public solar CEO whether higher costs have hit their backlog, and the honest answers won't be pretty for projects with PPAs already signed. Then the politics that don't add up: 71% of Q2 installations happened in states that voted for Trump, and most module factories sit in deep-red districts. So why does solar arrive in Washington polling 98% blue? On AI: Amodei, Altman, and Musk have all spoken up, and Abby admits to going down the terror hole over the weekend. The energy tie-in is direct — AI is roughly 3% of GDP and climbing, energy was 7% before AI existed, and how much solar gets built depends on how much data center growth gets permitted. Also in this episode: Good or bad: conference season, the nuclear renaissance (Duane Arnold's $2B loan guarantee, the Crane restart at Three Mile Island, SMRs on barges to power ports), and vehicle-to-grid. Heat and affordability: the hottest summer on record, and why California hasn't called a flex alert since 2022 (storage). Plus brutal heating oil projections heading into contested Senate races in Maine and New Hampshire. Wins and fails: the court ruling against the must-run order for the J.H. Campbell coal plant; a 32-year-old retired Air Force prosecutor knocking on 15,000 doors in Florida House District 100; the House leaving town until November 9th; and diesel as the headline cost behind every EPC and battery delivery. Predictions: EY's $100M bonus pool for human skills, and why battery cells still don't get the flash-test-and-bin treatment solar modules have had for years. Connect with the hosts: Yann Brandt — https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt/) Abby Hopper — https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper/) This episode is brought to you by CleanTech Industry Resources, the world's only fully integrated Development-as-a-Service model for energy projects — siting, diligence, interconnection, financing, engineering, legal, and program management, with 334 GW diligenced across more than 17,000 projects: https://www.cleantechir.com (https://www.cleantechir.com) Send us your questions about solar, storage, policy, or business: https://www.solarwakeup.com/boots (https://www.solarwakeup.com/boots) Get the daily brief. Join leaders in the solar energy market who start their morning with SolarWakeup's intelligence briefing: https://www.solarwakeup.com/join (https://www.solarwakeup.com/join) Boots on the Ground is produced by SolarWakeup and sponsored by CleanTech Industry Resources. Like and subscribe on YouTube, and follow the show on your favorite podcast platform.

7. 

   9 Sept 2026

   The $4.4B Inverter Deal, Local Opposition, and Storage's Escape from Trade Wars

   Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper are back with a Labor Day episode packed with big numbers and bigger questions. This week: the $4.4 billion Flex acquisition of EPC Power and what it says about the data center-fueled M&A and IPO wave sweeping solar and storage. SB Energy's IPO filing revealed a staggering $460 billion backlog, UIG was acquired by Vertiv for $1.4 billion plus earnout, and Hecate Energy is pushing forward with its SPAC. Yann and Abby dig into why regulatory strategy — from the FCC's new inverter rule to the bulk power executive order — has become a core lever for company valuations, not just a compliance afterthought, and what it means that companies are now actively lobbying to shape the rules that determine who wins and loses. From there, the conversation turns to the friction points slowing the industry down. Yann and Abby unpack the growing local opposition to data centers and solar projects, the difference between organic land-use concerns and organized misinformation campaigns, and Florida's Live Local Act, which strips cities of the power to block certain developments. They also make the case that the industry needs to stop avoiding an honest, unified conversation about the future of the ITC before Washington has it without them. Energy storage gets its own deep dive: Yann argues the sector could skip the 15 years of trade drama that defined solar, thanks to the auto industry's head start on battery manufacturing and its built-in demand for cells. The episode wraps with wins and fails — Dominion's rate-case miscalculation, CISA's cybersecurity budget cuts, an all-time F1 upset in Monza, and a viral duct-taped airline passenger — plus predictions for where the capital markets go from here. Links: Watch and subscribe: solarwakeup.com/boots (http://solarwakeup.com/boots) Also on YouTube: SolarWakeup YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/solarwakeup) Follow Yann (https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannbrandt/) and Abby (https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigailhopper/) on LinkedIn — tag them to help share the episode Sponsored by CleanTech Industry Resources (CIR): cleantechir.com (http://cleantechir.com) Interested in sponsoring Boots on the Ground? Reach out to Yann or Abby on LinkedIn Join Solarwakeup Premium Want deeper analysis on the deals, policy, and trends shaping solar and storage — before everyone else? Solarwakeup Premium gets you exclusive market intelligence, extended commentary, and ad-free access to the newsletter that started it all. Subscribe at solarwakeup.com/join (http://solarwakeup.com/premium)

8. 

   2 Sept 2026

   "Is This a Carrot or a Stick?" Talking about FCC, 232 and Bulk Power Systems

   Boots on the Ground, Episode 2: Three Executive Orders, One Tailspin Solar and storage just got hit with a one-two-three punch — an FCC inverter rule, a Section 232 tariff proclamation, and a national emergency executive order on bulk power cybersecurity, all inside five weeks. Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper break down what each order actually does, why the rollout has been a mess for procurement teams, and what it means for domestic manufacturing, pricing, and risk. Then they zoom out to the money question of the year: data centers. Between Anthropic's multi-billion-dollar compute deal, exploding utility rate cases in Maine, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina, and a midterm election where six Senate races are true toss-ups, Yann and Abby map out exactly how the balance of power in Washington could reshape the ITC, 45X, and permitting reform — and why solar's "purple" politics make it so hard to pass anything as a standalone bill. Plus: predictions for energy storage's next big market, the week's biggest wins and fails, and Abby's new tattoo. In This Episode [00:01] Cold Open & Catch-Up — Abby debuts a new wrist tattoo, Yann celebrates his youngest son's 10th birthday, and the two set up the whiplash five weeks the industry just had. [02:37] Sponsor Break: Cleantech Industry Resources (CIR) [03:54] The Big Three: FCC Rule, Section 232 & the Bulk Power EO — A rundown of the July 28th FCC inverter rule, the Section 232 proclamation, and the August 26th national emergency executive order on grid cybersecurity. [07:02] What Should Procurement Teams Actually Do? — Reading the intent behind the rules, the Sun Grow inverter carve-out, and why durability (or lack of it) is the real problem for business planning. [16:27] Section 232, 45X, and the Case for Domestic Manufacturing — EBOS, FEOC rules, the ITC extension, and why Yann thinks the US total-cost-of-solar conversation needs to include national security. [26:08] Capital, Risk, and Who Gets Squeezed — Quarterly earnings pressure, de-risking, and why uncertainty tends to help big companies and hurt small ones. [27:43] Data Centers, Anthropic's Big Compute Deal & the New Cost of Energy — The economics behind a 460MW data center, why "compute doesn't exist without solar," and the politics of data center backlash — including Florida's governor's race. [39:43] Data Center Politics: Before and After November 3rd — Super PAC ad spending, moratorium politics, and what changes once the election pressure lifts. [44:02] Six Toss-Up Senate Races & What's at Stake for Solar — Why control of the Senate matters for confirmations, oversight, and the path to extending the ITC and 45X. [47:45] Scenario Planning: Divided vs. Unified Government — How the solar industry's ask list changes depending on who controls the House and Senate. [51:17] Solar's Bipartisan Problem — Why solar polls well on both sides of the aisle but almost never passes as a standalone bill — and the "purple room" reality inside the industry itself. [1:03:05] Wins of the Week — Domestic manufacturers' big month, and a tribute to Tim Cook's exit as Apple CEO. [1:06:02] Fails of the Week — Abby calls out the Callaway Golf/Good Good ad controversy, and Yann takes the White House to task for the confusing, timeline-free rollout of its executive orders. This episode is sponsored by Cleantech Industry Resources (CIR). Their team has diligenced 334 gigawatts across more than 17,000 projects globally. Visit cleantechir.com (http://cleantechir.com) or connect with Daniel on LinkedIn — and let him know Yann and Abby from Boots on the Ground sent you.

9. 

   26 Aug 2026

   Data Centers, Storage and 232 plus the main job for elected officials. BOTG Episode 1

   DATA CENTER BACKLASH Texas Gov. Abbott says data centers "dug their own grave" for ignoring local communities; 61% of Americans now oppose a nearby data center, up from 49% in March. https://www.axios.com/2026/08/23/greg-abbott-texas-data-centers-ai-backlash (https://www.axios.com/2026/08/23/greg-abbott-texas-data-centers-ai-backlash) PA Gov. Shapiro signs order requiring data centers to cover their own power/water costs, use clean energy, and win local approval before building. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/08/18/pennsylvania-gov-josh-shapiro-set-order-new-limits-data-center-development/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/08/18/pennsylvania-gov-josh-shapiro-set-order-new-limits-data-center-development/) MAHA coalition urges Trump not to use AI power demand to justify more coal, pushing solar-plus-storage instead. https://www.axios.com/2026/08/21/ai-data-centers-coal-trump-rfk-maga-warning (https://www.axios.com/2026/08/21/ai-data-centers-coal-trump-rfk-maga-warning) POLICY & MANUFACTURING FCC expands foreign inverter ban to hardwired devices, but adds a safe harbor for manufacturers eligible for Section 45X tax credits. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/08/21/fcc-updates-foreign-inverter-ban-to-include-wired-devices-adds-45x-safe-harbor/ (https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/08/21/fcc-updates-foreign-inverter-ban-to-include-wired-devices-adds-45x-safe-harbor/) SEIA: US solar supply chain now fully reshored, module capacity up 37% since 2024; warns 100+ factories and $31B at risk without policy certainty. https://seia.org/news/domestic-solar-manufacturing-booms-during-trump-administration-with-entire-solar-supply-chain-reshored/ (https://seia.org/news/domestic-solar-manufacturing-booms-during-trump-administration-with-entire-solar-supply-chain-reshored/) DOE redirects $500M clean-steel grant to upgrade Cleveland-Cliffs' coal furnace instead of the original hydrogen-ready plan. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/green-steel/trump-clean-steel-grant-coal (https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/green-steel/trump-clean-steel-grant-coal) MARKETS Batteries now displacing gas peakers as the price-setter in wholesale power markets; CAISO batteries provide 53% of grid-balancing services. https://qz.com/batteries-set-electricity-prices-wholesale-markets-081726 (https://qz.com/batteries-set-electricity-prices-wholesale-markets-081726) Subscribe to SolarWakeup Premium: solarwakeup.memberful.com/join (http://solarwakeup.memberful.com/join) Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts!

10. 

    23 Aug 2026

    Teaser - Boots on the Ground with Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper

    Boots on the Ground — the news you need, straight talk you won't get anywhere else. Solar and storage industry vets Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper are done just texting each other about it — now they're putting it on mic. Each week, Yann Brandt (former President & CEO of FTC Solar, founder of SolarWakeup) and Abby Hopper (former CEO of SEIA) cut through the noise on the headlines shaping solar, storage, and energy: policy fights in DC, what's really moving in Congress, data centers, the governors' races that'll decide state energy policy, and everything in between. No fluff, no filler — just two people who've been in the rooms where it happens, telling you what actually matters and why. First episode drops Tuesday, August 25th. Subscribe now so you don't miss it. Got a question, topic suggestion, or a tip? Send it our way at podcast@solarwakeup.com (mailto:podcast@solarwakeup.com) — we'll cover the best ones on air. Want more? Subscribe to Wakeup Premium at solarwakeup.com (http://solarwakeup.com) for deeper industry coverage. Follow along: Connect with Yann and Abby on LinkedIn for updates between episodes. Help us grow: Subscribe, rate, and review on your podcast platform of choice — and tell a colleague. Word of mouth is how this industry runs, so put us in the group chat.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

180 ratings

Contact Boots on the Ground with Yann Brandt and Abby Hopper

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.