Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy Podcast

The renewable energy industry is entering a new phase. Solar alone is no longer the story.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Chris Williamson, Director of Business Development at Polaron Solar Energy, to explore how the energy transition is evolving from simple generation to intelligent, integrated systems.
Chris has spent decades working across the renewable energy landscape, from early off-grid solar installations to shaping national solar training standards and leading global energy projects. His career spans technical design, workforce education, international development, and commercial energy strategy. 
Today, he helps guide Polaron’s expansion as a vertically integrated energy company focused on solar, energy storage systems, EV charging, and advanced grid technologies.
This conversation dives deep into how renewables are maturing and why the next chapter of the energy transition will be defined by intelligence, flexibility, and system design rather than just generation capacity.
Chris explains why energy storage is becoming essential infrastructure, how artificial intelligence is transforming energy management, and why solar is evolving into what he calls modular power. 
The discussion also explores the real-world challenges of building renewable energy systems globally. Having worked across Canada, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Chris shares how energy access means very different things depending on the market, from reducing electricity costs in developed countries to enabling education, water access, and economic growth in developing regions. 
The episode also challenges conventional thinking around incentives and policy. Chris argues that the renewable industry has matured to the point where technology and economics can increasingly stand on their own, and that the next focus should be smarter grid design, decentralized energy systems, and resilient infrastructure.
Looking ahead, Chris sees enormous opportunity in the convergence of solar, batteries, artificial intelligence, EV charging, and decentralized power networks. Together, these technologies are transforming energy from a centralized commodity into a flexible, intelligent service delivered closer to where it is consumed.
For anyone working in clean energy, grid innovation, or energy infrastructure, this episode offers a clear look at how the industry is evolving and what it will take to design systems that actually work in the real world.
In This Episode We Discuss:
How Chris transitioned from electrician to global clean energy leader
The creation of Canada’s first national solar training standards
Why solar companies are evolving into full energy companies
The growing role of battery storage in modern energy systems
How AI and machine learning are optimizing energy production and consumption
The future of decentralized grids and modular power systems
Why renewable incentives may become less necessary as the industry matures
Emerging technologies that could reshape global electricity infrastructure
If you want to understand where renewable energy is headed next, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.
Links: 
Chris Williamson on LinkedIn
Polaron's Website
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: [email protected]
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

The clean energy transition is creating one of the greatest economic opportunities of our time. But unlocking its full potential requires expanding access to the financial tools that make participation possible.
In this powerful episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Doug Coward, Founder and Director of National Expansion and Partnerships at the Solar and Energy Loan Fund, known as SELF. As one of the first nonprofit green banks and Community Development Financial Institutions in the United States, SELF is helping ensure that energy efficiency, resilience, and solar power are accessible to working families and underserved communities.
Doug’s journey began in Florida public service, where he served 12 years as a county commissioner. A proposed coal plant in the Sunshine State became the catalyst for a bigger vision. Rather than waiting for top-down change, Doug focused on building a new financing model from the ground up.
Today, nearly half of Americans who apply for loans are denied. That financing gap affects everything from hurricane recovery to home efficiency upgrades. SELF addresses this challenge with a different underwriting approach based on ability to pay, not credit scores.
The impact is measurable and meaningful:
$63 million deployed in clean energy and resilience loans
Nearly 4,500 homes retrofitted
13,000+ people positively impacted
70 percent of borrowers from low and moderate income households
Default rate under 2 percent
Doug shares powerful stories of homeowners rebuilding after hurricanes, seniors accessing affordable roof repairs, and global crowdfunding efforts that mobilized support in hours rather than weeks.
We also explore:
How green banks function as implementation tools for local governments
Why financial inclusion is essential to scaling clean energy adoption
The role of contractor vetting and consumer protection in building trust
The economic opportunity of domestic solar manufacturing
SELF’s plug and play national expansion model now active in 17 states
This conversation highlights how thoughtful financing structures can strengthen communities, create local jobs, reduce energy burdens, and build long-term resilience.
If you care about practical climate solutions that work at the household level, this episode offers both inspiration and a proven model.
Learn more about SELF
Explore Kiva’s impact investing platform
Doug Coward on LinkedIn

Subscribe to Green Giants for more conversations with the leaders building the renewable energy economy from the ground up.
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: [email protected]
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Canada has the resources. It has the talent. It has global demand knocking at the door.
So why does so much potential stall before projects reach final investment decision (FID)?
In Episode 91 of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Jay Khosla and Yiota Kokkinos of the Public Policy Forum to unpack what it actually takes to build large-scale energy, infrastructure, and critical mineral projects in Canada.
Drawing from decades of leadership inside Natural Resources Canada, the Privy Council Office, and global energy forums, Jay and Yiota bring rare, insider clarity to one pressing question:
How does Canada move from ambition to execution?
Their report, Build Big Things, outlines a practical, four-pillar framework to get major projects across the finish line:
Coordinated financing that aligns public capital and private investment
 Regulatory certainty with clear timelines and disciplined execution
 Indigenous economic partnership built on ownership and trust
 Enabling infrastructure planned as integrated systems, not afterthoughts
They explore why final investment decision is the real battleground for global capital, how fragmented financing slows progress, and why certainty is Canada’s greatest competitive advantage.
The conversation also tackles:
Canada’s declining productivity and GDP per capita growth
 The geopolitical urgency created by shifting U.S. trade dynamics
 Why perception matters in global investment markets
 How culture change inside public institutions can unlock outcomes
 Why small modular reactors may be Canada’s defining test case
Canada exports over 90 percent of its energy. The world wants what Canada has. But capital is mobile, and investors move where projects move.
If Canada can streamline governance, align federal and provincial leadership, modernize regulatory execution, and build meaningful Indigenous economic participation, the upside is enormous. Modeling suggests the country could add trillions in economic value over the next decade.
This episode is not about theory. It is about implementation.
If Canada gets this right, it does not just build projects. It reshapes its economic future.
Links: 
Public Policy Forum's website
Build Big Things Playbook
Yiota Kokkinos - LinkedIn
Jay Khosla - LinkedIn
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: [email protected]
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Clean energy doesn’t scale on ambition alone. It scales on trust, data, and systems most people never see.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Ben Gerber, President and CEO of CleanCounts, the nonprofit organization operating one of the most critical yet least visible pieces of clean energy infrastructure in North America.
CleanCounts serves as the system of record behind clean energy markets, ensuring renewable electricity and clean fuels are tracked accurately, transparently, and without double counting. While few people ever interact with a clean energy registry directly, nearly every clean energy transaction depends on one.
Ben shares how CleanCounts grew from a small, compliance-focused nonprofit into North America’s largest clean energy registry by volume, supporting both regulated markets and the rapidly expanding voluntary market. Over the past decade, the organization scaled by solving hard, unglamorous problems that others overlooked, building credibility through audited financials, customer-first service, and a relentless focus on data integrity.
The conversation explores why registries function as invisible infrastructure, underpinning corporate climate commitments, state policies, and emerging 24/7 carbon-free energy goals. Ben explains why clean energy attributes exist in the first place, what critics often misunderstand about them, and why abandoning accounting systems in favor of simplistic grid averages would have serious consequences for renewable development, jobs, and investment.
A pivotal moment in CleanCounts’ evolution came when the organization brought software development in-house. That decision allowed CleanCounts to innovate faster, lower costs, and prepare for market changes years before they became mainstream, including hourly energy tracking, hydrogen and nuclear certificates, pollinator-friendly solar credits, and future clean ammonia registries.
Ben also unpacks the growing complexity of climate accounting as corporate buyers move beyond procurement toward measurable emissions impact. From hourly matching to emissionality models, he explains why no single framework is a silver bullet and why flexibility, optionality, and validated data matter more than ideology.
The episode closes with a forward-looking view of the clean energy transition, where electrons and molecules increasingly intersect, data transparency becomes embedded in everyday decision-making, and trust remains the foundation that makes scale possible.
If you want to understand how clean energy markets actually function and why counting correctly matters as much as building fast, this conversation provides rare clarity.
Links:
Ben Gerber on LinkedIn
CleanCounts Website
CleanCounts expands clean energy tracking 
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: [email protected]
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Nuclear energy is having a long-overdue moment. Electricity demand is rising rapidly, advanced reactors are moving closer to deployment, and the United States is sitting on a massive stockpile of spent nuclear fuel with no scalable solution in place.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Ed McGinnis, President and CEO of Curio, to challenge one of the most entrenched assumptions in clean energy: that nuclear waste is an unsolvable problem.
With more than three decades of experience across the U.S. Department of Energy, the White House, and national security institutions, McGinnis brings a rare, systems-level perspective to the conversation. Today, he leads Curio, a company working to recycle spent nuclear fuel, dramatically reduce long-term waste volumes, and fuel the next generation of advanced reactors.
The discussion reframes spent nuclear fuel as a largely untapped national asset. McGinnis explains how U.S. policy decisions dating back decades sidelined recycling, why only a small fraction of nuclear fuel’s energy is ever used, and how modern recycling approaches could strengthen energy security, decarbonization, and supply chain independence at the same time.
Key themes include:
Why spent nuclear fuel still contains enormous energy and economic value
How Curio’s NuCycle® process differs from legacy recycling methods
The role nuclear recycling can play in advanced reactors and AI-driven electricity demand
How recycling can reduce long-term storage requirements from hundreds of thousands of years to centuries
Why vertical integration across recycling, fuel supply, and reactors matters for nuclear’s future
McGinnis also discusses Curio’s recent milestones, including national laboratory validation of its technology, strategic partnerships, and progress toward commercial-scale deployment.
This episode offers a grounded, pragmatic look at how nuclear energy can move beyond stalled policy and legacy assumptions to become a cornerstone of a resilient, clean, and secure energy system.
Links:
Ed McGinnis on LinkedIn
Curio's Website

To book this guest on your podcast or news program, please contact Brian Hyland at Cricket Public Relations:
www.cricketpr.com
[email protected] 
(201) 410-4563
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: [email protected]
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/