Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy Podcast

The energy transition is often discussed in terms of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, batteries, and grid infrastructure. But beneath all of that progress sits a harder question: where do the critical minerals come from?
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Erica Ocampo, Chief Sustainability Officer at The Metals Company, for a candid and thought-provoking conversation about deep-sea polymetallic nodules, critical mineral supply chains, recycling limits, ocean ecosystems, and the real-world trade-offs behind clean energy growth.
Erica brings a rare perspective to this debate. Originally from Colombia, she began her academic journey in music before becoming a chemical engineer and sustainability leader. Her career has spanned Dow, Sims Limited, and now The Metals Company, giving her deep experience across chemicals, plastics, packaging, metals recycling, ESG reporting, circular economy strategy, and emerging critical mineral supply. 
At The Metals Company, Erica works at the center of one of the most complex and controversial questions in the energy transition: whether polymetallic nodules found on the deep ocean floor can provide nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese with a lower overall impact than some land-based mining pathways. These metals are essential for batteries, manufacturing, infrastructure, electrification, and energy security. 
This episode does not offer easy answers. Instead, Erica and Wes explore the uncomfortable realities that often get left out of clean energy conversations. Recycling is essential, but it cannot meet near-term demand alone. Mineral supply chains are not just environmental systems, they are geopolitical systems. Land-based mining can carry serious social and ecological costs. Deep-sea mineral collection raises legitimate questions about ocean ecosystems, governance, monitoring, and trust. 
The conversation also dives into The Metals Company’s work in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, the nature of polymetallic nodules, the engineering behind nodule collection, the environmental studies surrounding the NORI-D area, and why Erica believes sustainability leaders must move beyond slogans and engage with evidence, risk, and trade-offs. 
Listeners will hear Erica’s perspective on why discomfort can be productive, why pragmatic sustainability is not the same as compromise, and why building trust may be just as important as building technology. She also shares what it means to build ESG systems before a new industry scales, how to think about guardrails from day one, and why the future of clean energy depends on asking better questions about materials, ecosystems, communities, and accountability.
Topics covered include:
Critical minerals and the physical reality of the energy transition
Deep-sea polymetallic nodules and The Metals Company’s approach
Nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese supply challenges
Why recycling matters but cannot solve the whole problem
China’s role in critical mineral processing and geopolitics
Environmental trade-offs between land-based mining and ocean nodule collection
Social impacts of mineral extraction and Indigenous community concerns
Ocean ecosystem uncertainty, plume impacts, and monitoring
ESG strategy, governance, transparency, and stakeholder trust
Pragmatism, sustainability leadership, and the future of clean energy minerals
This is a must-listen episode for renewable energy leaders, sustainability professionals, battery and EV stakeholders, mining and metals executives, policymakers, investors, and anyone who wants a more honest understanding of what it really takes to build the clean energy economy.
Links:
Erica Ocampo on LinkedIn
The Metals Company Website
The Metals Company Videos
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Transmission may be the most important energy story most people are not talking about.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Frank Tybor, Chief Technology Officer at Infravision, to unpack one of the biggest bottlenecks in the energy transition: how we actually build the grid fast enough to support renewable energy, AI data centers, electrification, industrial growth, and rising power demand.
Frank brings a rare systems engineering perspective to the conversation. His background spans SpaceX, Energy Vault, ThinkOrbital, and now Infravision, where he is helping scale drone-enabled robotics for transmission construction. At Infravision, the mission is not simply to replace helicopters with drones. It is to rethink the full construction workflow, combining heavy-lift drones, intelligent ground equipment, specialty line hardware, software, trained crews, and repeatable field systems.
Wes and Frank explore why traditional transmission construction is so difficult to scale, especially when projects depend on highly specialized helicopter operations, skilled labor, complex terrain, environmental constraints, and tight outage windows. They also dig into why the old timeline for grid buildout no longer works in a world where solar farms, data centers, and new loads can come online far faster than transmission infrastructure.
Frank breaks down how Infravision’s drone-enabled system supports pilot line stringing, tension stringing, emergency response, and challenging construction environments where helicopters may be expensive, constrained, risky, or unavailable. The conversation also covers what utilities actually care about when adopting new technology: safety, reliability, cost, schedule certainty, and confidence that the system works repeatedly in real field conditions.
Key themes include:
Grid expansion as a critical constraint on clean energy deployment
Why transmission construction has lagged behind other areas of energy innovation
How drone-enabled robotics can reduce risk and improve construction scalability
The role of intelligent ground equipment, winches, line hardware, and control systems
What the energy transition, AI growth, and industrial load growth mean for grid infrastructure
Why the next wave of grid innovation may come from better construction systems, not just better generation
This episode is a must-listen for utility leaders, renewable energy developers, grid infrastructure professionals, investors, policymakers, and anyone interested in the physical realities behind the energy transition.
Links:
Frank Tybor on LinkedIn
Infravision's Website
Infravision Videos
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Episode: Sandhya Murali, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Perch Energy
Community solar is often described as a simple promise: sign up, receive credits, save money, and support clean energy. But behind that promise is a complex operating system that determines whether community solar actually works for customers, developers, utilities, and the communities it is meant to serve.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Sandhya Murali, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Perch Energy, to unpack the hidden infrastructure behind one of the most important segments of the clean energy transition.
Sandhya brings a rare combination of capital markets discipline, founder operating experience, and deep commitment to clean energy access. Before joining Perch, she co-founded Solstice, a mission-driven community solar company focused on expanding access for renters, low-to-moderate income households, and others historically left out of rooftop solar. Her earlier career in investment banking at Barclays, along with her MBA from MIT Sloan, gives her a unique lens on how mission, finance, and market design intersect in renewable energy. 
This conversation moves beyond the usual case for community solar and into the work most people never see: subscriber acquisition, billing, crediting, eligibility verification, compliance, customer trust, and retention. Sandhya explains why community solar is not only about generating clean power. It is also about making sure the customer experience is reliable, understandable, and financially meaningful.
A major theme throughout the episode is trust. Many customers still wonder whether community solar is real, whether there is a catch, and whether the savings will actually appear on their utility bill. Sandhya breaks down how clear enrollment, accurate billing, transparent savings, and responsive customer support all shape whether the model can scale.
The episode also explores low-to-moderate income access and why Sandhya believes inclusion cannot be treated as a side initiative. She makes the case that community solar should be designed for the households most burdened by energy costs, while also remaining financeable for developers and investors. That means better program design, simplified enrollment, utility consolidated billing, and practical solutions that reduce friction without increasing risk.
Wes and Sandhya also discuss Perch Energy’s role as a scaled community solar subscriber management platform. After Perch’s acquisition of Solstice, the company manages more than 3 GW across over 1,000 community solar projects in 16 states, serving more than 430,000 residential customer equivalents. 
Key topics covered include:
 Why the hardest part of community solar is often invisible 
 How subscriber management functions like critical infrastructure 
 Why trust is the foundation of customer adoption and retention 
 The importance of utility consolidated billing 
 How self-attestation could simplify low-income enrollment 
 Why community solar markets need stable policy and predictable rules 
 How scale helps, and where local market complexity remains 
 What regulators and utilities can do to improve program design 
 Why community solar matters in a future defined by load growth, affordability, and distributed energy 
For clean energy leaders, developers, policymakers, investors, and anyone working to make the energy transition more inclusive, this episode offers a practical and deeply human look at what it takes to turn clean energy access into reality.

Links:
Sandhya Murali on LinkedIn
Perch Energy's Website
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Energy storage is no longer a future need. It is becoming the backbone of a reliable, renewable grid.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Eugene Beh, Founder and CEO of Quino Energy, to explore one of the most important questions in the energy transition: how do we store renewable power affordably, safely, and for long durations?
Quino Energy is developing water-based organic flow batteries that store electricity in quinone molecules, a fundamentally different approach from lithium-ion batteries and traditional vanadium flow batteries. Instead of relying on expensive mined metals or flammable battery cells, Quino is focused on organic electrolytes that can potentially lower costs, improve safety, and scale through existing flow battery infrastructure.
Eugene breaks down the basics of flow batteries in simple terms, explaining how liquid electrolytes act like fuel tanks and how flow battery stacks function more like an engine. He also explains why Quino’s quinone-based electrolyte can work with existing vanadium flow battery hardware with minimal changes, creating a faster path to deployment.
The conversation goes deep into the real challenges of commercialization: manufacturing, degradation, bankability, safety, and proving performance in the field. Eugene shares how Quino’s continuous, zero-waste production process converts widely available dyestuff materials into battery-ready electrolyte without downstream purification. He also discusses why non-flammable storage matters for hospitals, communities, data centers, islands, military bases, and other critical infrastructure.
Listeners will also hear about Quino’s field demonstration plans, including a project serving a medical center in Lancaster, California, and the company’s strategy to repurpose existing tank storage infrastructure for grid-scale energy storage.
This episode is a clear, practical look at how chemistry, infrastructure, and manufacturing come together to solve one of the grid’s biggest bottlenecks.
Topics covered include:
Why long-duration energy storage is becoming essential
How flow batteries differ from lithium-ion batteries
Why quinone-based electrolytes could reduce flow battery costs
The safety and permitting advantages of non-flammable storage
How existing fuel tank infrastructure could become grid storage
Why data centers and critical facilities are strong early markets
What it takes to move battery chemistry from the lab to the field
How Quino Energy is approaching commercialization through partnerships
If you care about renewable energy, grid reliability, long-duration storage, battery innovation, or the future of clean infrastructure, this episode is a must-listen.
Links:
Eugene Beh on LinkedIn
Quino Energy's Website
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Electricity demand is accelerating from every direction: AI, data centers, transportation, home electrification, industrial load growth, and rising expectations for reliability. But building new grid infrastructure is getting harder, slower, and more expensive. In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth sits down with Vinnie Campo, Co-founder and CEO of Haven Energy, to explore how residential batteries could become one of the most important pieces of the modern grid.
Vinnie returns to the show with a major update on Haven Energy’s evolution. What began as a company helping homeowners access batteries has grown into a broader mission: deploying, owning, and operating distributed energy assets that can provide real, dispatchable capacity for utilities while giving homeowners backup power, lower costs, and a simpler energy experience. 
The conversation explores why the current grid challenge is different from past demand cycles. Vinnie explains how electrification is pushing load growth into millions of homes and neighborhoods, not just large data centers. That creates a localized infrastructure challenge where transformers, substations, and transmission systems are under increasing pressure. Instead of relying only on new centralized generation, Haven is focused on deploying distributed batteries where capacity is needed most. 
Wes and Vinnie also break down Haven’s business model shift from selling batteries to owning and operating them through a low-cost subscription model. By bringing financing, sales, installation, and optimization closer together, Haven is working to reduce soft costs, simplify the customer experience, and make home batteries accessible to a much broader market. 
Key topics covered include:
Grid capacity constraints and why demand growth is different this time
How AI, transportation, and home electrification are reshaping electricity needs
Why utilities are moving from virtual power plant pilots to full-scale deployment
The role of residential batteries as localized grid infrastructure
Haven Energy’s shift toward battery subscriptions starting around $49 per month
Why homeowners want simplicity, backup power, lower bills, and less complexity
How distributed power plants could become as important as centralized assets
The role of AI in reducing permitting, design, installation, and interconnection friction
Why Vinnie believes every home could eventually have a battery
This episode is a clear look at the future of home batteries, distributed power plants, virtual power plants, grid reliability, and the next era of residential energy. If you care about how the grid evolves, how utilities meet new demand, or how homeowners become part of the energy system without becoming energy managers, this conversation is essential listening.
Links: 
Vinnie Campo on LinkedIn
Haven Energy's Website
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/