Following a string of successes over the last few years, the clean energy landscape looks extremely bright. Last December in Paris, 196 countries, working with major corporations, agreed to a historic deal to address the challenges of climate disruption by limiting carbon pollution to 2 degrees C or less.

Congress also recently passed a five-year extension of both the wind Production Tax Credit and the solar Investment Tax Credit, which will create a reliable and predictable market environment that encourages growth and investment.

By Melissa Baldwin and Mike Casey

Most clean economy businesses need to build profiles for both their company and individual members of their executive teams. Their reasons vary, often by where the company is in the business life cycle. We find a lot of our clients’ profile building needs clusters at these points: 

As a lot of you know, we convene quarterly roundtables for podcasters, journalists, and investors in the cleantech space. Today, I get the privilege of talking to Tim Montague, who has achieved some serious milestones in his cleantech coverage.

This article was originally published on CleanTechnica.

#Cleantechers, The New York Times’ David Wallace Wells is out with a fascinating piece, “Clean Energy Is Suddenly Less Polarizing Than You Think.” The headline writer should have swapped in “Surprisingly” for “Suddenly,” to better reflect the writer's views. But I quibble.

I think Mr. Wallace-Wells is correctly spotting the trend line, but I fear he sees it as longer than it really is. We're still a long way from pulling clean energy back from the culture wars into apolitical, mainstream business. Then again, 10 years of working on this frustrating problem might have infected me with too much skepticism. Only time will tell. 

Mixing both insights from the piece and some personal observations, here’s what seems certain in the home stretch of Q1 ’23: 

1.) The party-line vote on the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was not heavily weaponized in the 2022 election cycle.

2.) Much of the IRA’s spending is in the form of tax credits, designed to resist unwinding by hostile, headline-seeking politicians carrying water for the fossil fuel lobby.

3.) Despite some early chest pounding by now-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, House conservatives have not gone after the IRA via the DOE Loan Guarantee Program – at least not yet.

4.) #Renewableenergy factories and power plants are being largely built in politically conservative, “red” areas. People in those communities heavily associate clean energy with President Biden, whom they despise.

5.) Building #wind and #solar farms is increasingly difficult.

6.) A handful of anti-clean energy operatives are working to stoke local opposition. They're a significant but supplemental factor. Each has past and/or present ties to the fossil fuel lobby.

7.) Clean energy has spent the last 10 years under-investing in its public case making, particularly in rural communities.

There’s a growing recognition that we have to change that last point. Speed and scale will go a long way in determining our collective fate.

The good news is that more and more, it’s our hands on the steering wheel. Let’s drive forward, and fast.

https://lnkd.in/eD7ngWyV

#Cleantechers, one of the best things about my job is getting a close look at technologies with world-changing potential. Rondo Energy's "Heat Battery" is one of them.

The Heat Battery is the brainchild of past and current client, John O'Donnell. For a decade, this brilliant inventor has patiently evangelized that the world can store #renewableenergy-generated heat much more cost effectively than electricity from wind and solar.

By using basic bricks to store heat, Rondo's opened a path to rapidly decarbonizing heavy industries that traditionally require lots of heat, steam and power – creating a massive carbon pollution footprint.

As John told David R. Baker of Bloomberg in this story: "If you want to get to scale fast, it had better be boring — you’d better not have material science to prove.... We’ve combined stuff the world knows how to make at scale.”

Let's roll.

#Cleantechers - Few electrons in the universe will move differently because I'm named as a finalist with honorable mention for the Cleanies' "Trailblazer" award.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I got that far. My mom will be thrilled. My kids might nod their heads (Ashlyn Casey). Maybe my wife will say "good job" this weekend before telling me to clean out the dog run.

But I think there's bigger significance here that's worth pointing out. I remember when clean economy was so nascent that an awards program would have been laughable.

We know times have changed because:
1.) This award program actually exists.
2.) There's enough momentum and growth in our sectors that companies and people apply/submit others for consideration. Lots of them.
3.) People actively compete to win.

It's super gratifying to see clean economy continue to expand. Bigger trade shows, increased association budgets and award programs are all leading indicators. That is what's worth celebrating.

Congrats to winners Marion Hill, Chris Perron, Michael Eckhart and co-honorable mention Janani Ramkumar.

Also, John Engel and Julia Pyper for winning their respective categories.

In our podcast, Scaling Clean, we seek usable insights on building and running successful companies from the cleantech CEOs, investors and the people who advise them. Our RE+ interview with EDPR’s Tom Weirich didn’t fit our usual format (only 15 mins), but it sure was fun. Tom’s written what I’m confident is the first history of cleantech history. “We Took the Risk” profiles “OCs,” (“Original Cleantechers”), men and women who were real pioneers whose shoulders we’re all standing on in our work today. For us, though, the book’s subtitle is key: “The stories behind the early risk takers in the U.S. Renewable energy industry and the leadership traits that made them a success.” [Emphasis added]. 
 
Here are the qualities Tom noticed these OCs shared:
 
- Be the First
- Audacity
- Curiosity
- Connector
- Adventurous
- Foresight
- Adaptable
- Grit
- Enterprising
- Social entrepreneurship
- Servant leadership
- Innovation
- Persistence

Zachary Shahan of CleanTechnica honored us by running our recent white paper, “We’re the people we’re waiting for,” and interviewed us for his CleanTech Talk podcast. 

Before publishing this paper, I had to change its subhead from “Angry about Joe Manchin? Take a number,” to what you read above.

Many working for the clean economy transition are now relieved by the senator from West Virginia because his change of mind has enabled the hugely significant climate bill to become a reality. 

It would be a tragic mistake for us to put our feet up, figuring all’s well that ended well. Let’s be clear: This climate reconciliation bill almost didn’t happen. It’s smaller than it could have been.

We’re honored to be named among The Manifest’s most recommended B2B leaders in D.C. For 17 years, we’ve served some of the top clean economy companies who are scaling a more sustainable U.S. economy.  

Here’s to 17 more years.

It was fun to talk with Adam Torres of Mission Matters Media about how public relations is both serving and changing the way businesses interact with consumers.

We're honored to be mentioned as one of the 65 most innovative U.S. #cleanenergy companies that are based in Virginia by Futurology Life.

That work's easier when you have the best #team in the business: Melissa Baldwin, John Shaw, Phoebe Lease, Jamie Meckley, Bridgette Borst Ombres, Nathaniel Schub, Sera Mahdavi, MA, Gretchen Casey and Dylan Gasperik (for one more day!)

September 24th marked our 2nd ever Cleantech Podcasters Roundtable, and it was full of great insights from our seven guests. In case you missed it, here are our "B3Ps," or Big Three Points we took away from the conversation. And a bonus: each podcaster shares their dream interview + favorite episode of his/her show.

• Marie Burgquist, Watts Up
• Nico Johnson, SunCast
• Tim Montague, The Solar Podcast
• Bill Nussey, Freeing Energy
• Josh Porter, Solar Coaster
• Jon Powers, Experts Only
• Julia Pyper, Political Climate

We are announcing today that Tigercomm has acquired Chase Media Services and that its principal, Melissa Baldwin, is joining us this week as senior vice president. This is our firm’s first acquisition, and perhaps its biggest prize is Melissa. If we have our way, cleantechers will see a lot of her and her work in the years ahead. 

A Climate Tech Journey

This week, I shift my career from “why” to “how.”  Let me explain.  

My name’s Melissa Baldwin, and as we announced today, Tigercomm’s acquired the Florida-focused climate communication practice I’ve built for the last 10 years. I’m excited that after 17 years of spurring conversations about why we need clean energy in Florida – the state considered “ground zero” for climate impacts – now I’ll be helping clean economy businesses nationwide. 

Thank you DesignRush for ranking Tigercomm in their list of the Top 5 Digital Marketing Agencies In Washington D.C.
 
We are excited to be acknowledged for the extraordinary impact our hard work has on the people we help and communities we serve.

Check out the full list here: Digital Marketing Agencies In Washington D.C.

Let’s get the news out of the way, so we can get to the opining … After 14 years of helping build Tigercomm into the top clean economy marcom and public affairs firm, our Executive Vice President Mark Sokolove is leaving for a can't-refuse job at Hanwha Q CELLS America as Marketing Director. Mark’s last day with us is Friday, July 2.

Nearly every independent analyst is forecasting that during the next three decades cleantech sectors – and solar in particular – will experience double-digit growth. For those who work in or follow these sectors closely, that’s probably not news to them. But for me, it’s been an honor to compete in those arenas for the past two decades – playing a role in getting to this point by serving a host of Tigercomm’s clients across solar, wind, energy storage, EVs and other sustainability-focused industries.

Stranger Than Fiction - A Compelling Story, Missed in Real Time

Our friends at Checks and Balances Project (C&BP) are really effective. With a shoe-string staff and budget, they combine investigative reporting and public watchdog work to make business as usual uncomfortable for entrenched lobbying interests. Those interests – often polluting ones – take great offense that a plucky watchdog blog would dare raise questions about ethically challenged organizations.

Why Steer Into Rough Seas? Interviews With The Experts: Kris Ohleth

As part of our series of interviews with people leading community engagement for the U.S. offshore wind industry, we're delighted to have our friend, Kris Ohleth, join us.

As part of our interview series with Offshore Wind’s (OSW) community engagement leaders, we were thrilled to talk with Ashley McLeod. A former executive with the Virginia Maritime Association, a former school teacher and a past school board member. Ashley’s combination of experience has given her an unusually deep understanding of how a local community makes decisions. That’s serving her well in her current role as Director of Stakeholder Engagement for Avangrid Renewables’ Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind Project.

We have this recent piece in Renewable Energy Magazine speculating on what clean energy trade shows and conferences will look like as the country emerges from COVID. H/T to Editor Dan McCue.

The solid reception to our talk at the 2019 Offshore Wind Conference inspired us to stay focused on the topic of best practices for offshore wind developers in their community engagement efforts. We followed the talk with the first analysis of current and recommended practices: “Why Steer Into Rough Seas? Helping Help Offshore Wind Avoid Community Acceptance Problems.”

Nat Schub and I enjoyed talking with CleanTechnica’s podcast host, Mike Barnard, to discuss the importance of the micromobility (MM) industry and our analysis of its public affairs programs. A year in the making, the analysis was a pre-pandemic snapshot of an exciting sector that’s evolving and growing.

What do these people have in common? Leading light Texas Governor Greg Abbot, Fox News windbag Tucker Carlson, Mensa member (and former DOE Sec.) Rick Perry, corrupt former BLM Director William Perry Pendley, and an anonymous propagandist at the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. 

Nancy Sopko doesn’t currently drive community engagement at an offshore wind company. But we had to include her in this series for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because as the head of the University of Delaware’s Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, Nancy (who is the successor to the legendary Stephanie McClellan) has achieved a unique, sector-wide perspective on how offshore wind development is scaling in this market. Also, Nancy and Stephanie are both veterans of the offshore wind sector and were part of a small group of early players who cleared barriers to aid in the successful launch of U.S. offshore wind development.

Thanks for a fun conversation with Marie Brugquist, Ryan Suchsland and Conner Allen of GRNE Solar. Hat’s off to this regional solar installation company that’s leaning into providing insightful content to its prospects.

Thanks to Bill Nussey of The Freeing Energy Project's podcast. We’re fans of the work Bill’s doing, and he fingered us as advocates for "strategic brevity" and how it can help #cleanenergy scaling through better #marcom. Highlights:

We had a fun talking with Benoy Thanjan of the Solar Maverick Podcast. We covered a huge range of topics, but the highlights of the conversation that clean economy sectors might find useful were:

Nickalus "Nico" Johnson and I had a great conversation about the state of #solar and #cleantech #marcom. His SunCast Podcast is a rising platform in the industry, and I was honored to be on with Nico again.

Returning visitors to the Tigercomm blog will likely notice that something is different here: Tigercomm has rebranded our blog. Previously known as “ScalingGreen,” we are excited to bring you future content and insights from “ScalingClean.”

See below for video of Chris Brown of Vestas, keynoting the opening session on day two of WINDPOWER 2017, concluding today in Anaheim, CA. According to Brown, who is completing his tenure as Chair of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the next five years will be the "best five years of your life" for the wind power industry. Brown adds: "So along with the success that we've been having, if you've become afraid, then I say good! Welcome to life as an energy industry disruptor." And Brown notes that "critics criticize...but ask yourself, why do those critics pay attention to us? Because we're a threat, because we're winning." A few more quotes from Brown's excellent speech:

We recently had a chance to speak with Haruumi Shiode, founder and CEO of a startup called Nature, Inc. This company’s focus is on improving residential demand management, and specifically through the use of smart controls for window-mounted or through-wall air conditioners. These types of A/C units are very common in parts of the United States like the northeast, where 58% of households with air conditioning have them. According to Shiode, Nature’s goal is to make it easy for people to save energy – and money – by allowing them to control their room air conditioners remotely.

The great folks at DeSmogBlog have yet another excellent piece up, this one looking at "How Propaganda (Actually) Works." Here's an excerpt, followed by a few possible lessons for the clean energy industry.

We've been beating the drum for several years about the need for cleantech to play "full contact" against the fossil fuel lobby. Back in December 2010, for instance, Tigercomm Founder and President Mike Casey argued that the growing success of solar and wind power had caused "dirty energy industries [to spend] significant resources to harden the marketing and sales environment against cleantech's success." Casey related key lessons learned from a panel of cleantech communicators convened during the 2010 Solar Power International (SPI) trade show:

Recently, speakers at the Conservative Clean Energy Summit discussed their support for renewable energy, with a particular emphasis on solar power. Important arguments made at the summit by leading conservative voices included:

For years, we've watched as the entrenched, increasingly antiquated, but politically-well-connected and heavily-subsidized dirty energy industry has attempted to slander wind, solar and other clean energy sources as...well, basically lame in every way.  One of the dirty energy folks' implicit themes has been that, somehow, fossil fuels are uniquely suited to fulfilling the American Dream, while clean energy is some sort of alien force that is inherently more suited to "socialist" Europe than to the "capitalist" United States. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, which is why it's great to see articles like the one by Jigar Shah and Raj Pannu in Fortune on how green energy is, in fact, quintessentially "red, white and blue." Here are a few great lines that jumped out at us.

by Mike Casey

By Lowell Feld, Guest Columnist

Reports of 37,000 text messages – Checks & Balances Project's Scott Peterson raises questions about public accountability and cozy links between energy utility and regulators in Arizona

A big development in clean energy advocacy recently took place, and odds are you haven't heard about it.

This past September, Tigercomm President Mike Casey interviewed former “super lobbyist” Jack Abramoff. Whatever else you think about him, the fact is that Abramoff knew the business of Capitol Hill influence peddling inside-out. What Abramoff said to Casey was that the fossil fuel industry is deadly serious about this game, and that the clean energy industry needs to fully understand that. Case in point? A new analysis on The Great Energy Challenge blog by Bill Chameides, Dean of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. The key takeaways?