Risk looks different depending on where you're standing.

In Episode 936 (Jason Kaminsky & 2026 The Solar Risk Assessment), we explored risk through the lens of data, operations, and asset performance.

Today’s episode looks at it through the eyes of someone who spent four decades preparing organizations for uncertainty, disruption, and worst-case scenarios.

General Robert Neller served as the 37th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, leading one of the world's most respected organizations through an era of rapid technological change, evolving threats, and global instability.

In this conversation, General Neller joins Nico to discuss how great leaders think about risk before it becomes a crisis, why resilience is more than a buzzword, and what the energy industry can learn from organizations that operate where failure is not an option.

Along the way, the conversation explores cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, energy resilience, military innovation, entrepreneurship, and the leadership principles that matter when the stakes are high.

Expect to learn:

🔹 What a 4-star general sees differently about risk and preparedness

🔹 Why resilience starts long before a disruption occurs

🔹 How military thinking applies to energy infrastructure and cybersecurity

🔹 Why veterans often make exceptional founders and business leaders

🔹 The leadership traits that help organizations navigate uncertainty

Whether you're developing projects, leading teams, investing capital, or building companies, this episode offers a rare look inside the mindset of someone who spent a career preparing for challenges most people hope never arrive.

Listen now to hear what a 4-star general knows about risk that most leaders don't.

Are there other technologies you’ve scouted on the frontlines of the Clean Energy Revolution that you think we should be covering here on SunCast?

Hit us up - team@suncast.me with your feedback & recommendations.

If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.

Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!

SunCast is also sponsored by Nextpower!

You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.

Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:

Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeo

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

Solar projects are increasingly being financed and operated as long-life infrastructure assets. That means the industry can no longer rely on assumptions about risk—we need evidence.

In this episode, Jason Kaminsky, CEO of kWh Analytics, walks us through what the latest Solar Risk Assessment reveals, and answers a deceptively simple question: Which solar risks actually matter?

Drawing on dozens of partners’ fleet-scale operational and underwriting data, Jason explains how the industry is moving beyond anecdotes to identify the risks that have a measurable impact on long-term performance, resilience, and project finance.

Expect to learn:

🔹 Why the solar industry finally has enough data to challenge long-held assumptions

🔹 What recent findings say about fire risk, bio-soiling, tracker performance, and equipment failures

🔹 How seemingly minor operational issues can become major financial variables at portfolio scale

🔹 Why insurers, lenders, and asset owners are paying closer attention to resilience

🔹 How the best operators are turning better data into stronger long-term outcomes

If you've seen the latest Solar Risk Assessment was released, but haven't had time to dig into it, this conversation is your guided tour through the findings that matter most.

Listen now to learn how the industry is turning better data into more resilient power.

Are there other technologies you’ve scouted on the frontlines of the Clean Energy Revolution that you think we should be covering here on SunCast?

Hit us up - team@suncast.me with your feedback & recommendations.

If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.

Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!

SunCast is also sponsored by Nextpower!

You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.

Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:

Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeo

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus

A solar moratorium nearly shut down Alabama’s emerging solar market before most of the industry even saw it coming.

For years, the prevailing assumption has been that clean energy growth would be concentrated in politically progressive states while places like Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi lagged behind.

But that’s not what Monika Gerhart is seeing (and doing!) on the ground.

As Executive Director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association (GSREIA), Monika operates at the intersection of policy, infrastructure, resilience, and market development across some of the most politically and operationally complex energy markets in America. And increasingly, she says the future of clean energy growth is being shaped locally — through trust, coalition-building, reliability concerns, and resilience planning.

In this conversation, Nico and Monika unpack the fight that nearly derailed Alabama’s solar market before most of the industry even noticed, how Hurricane Ida transformed the conversation around distributed energy and microgrids in Louisiana, and why resilience infrastructure is rapidly becoming a life-safety issue across the Gulf Coast.

They also explore:

• why state-level advocacy increasingly determines whether markets survive long enough to mature
• how local relationships shape energy policy more than national narratives
• the emerging role of neighborhood-scale resilience planning and community microgrids
• why lawmakers are becoming more open to renewables as electricity demand accelerates
• and what developers, manufacturers, investors, and operators should understand about building durable markets in politically complicated regions

This is a conversation about far more than solar policy.

It’s about how energy markets are actually built — and why some of the industry’s most important battles are happening far from the headlines.

Are there other technologies you’ve scouted on the frontlines of the Clean Energy Revolution that you think we should be covering here on SunCast?

Hit us up - team@suncast.me with your feedback & recommendations.

If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to their contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://suncast.media/episodes/.

Our Platinum Presenting Sponsor for SunCast is CPS America!

SunCast is also sponsored by Nextpower!

You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you at www.suncast.media/sponsors.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and more than 875 other founder stories and startup advice at www.suncast.media.

Subscribe to Valence, our weekly LinkedIn Newsletter, and learn the elements of compelling storytelling: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/valence-content-that-connects-7145928995363049472/

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on:

Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/nicomeo

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickalus