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by Energy Empire
A once-in-a-generation shift is underway in how the world is powered. Across the United States, clean energy now makes up more than 90% of new electricity added to the grid — not because of politics or ideology, but because these technologies simply work better. They’re cheaper to build, faster to deploy, and easier to scale than anything that came before. The technology is ready. Now the race is on to build it…everywhere. Energy Empire is a podcast about the people and ideas driving this transformation. We explore how abundant, affordable energy is reshaping the global economy, creating new industries, and unlocking what may be the greatest wealth-creation opportunity of our generation. Hosted by Jigar Shah — TIME100 honoree, serial entrepreneur, investor, and former U.S. Department of Energy leader — the show pulls back the curtain on the decisions, innovations, and power struggles shaping the future of energy. Whether you’re curious about where the economy is headed, how energy affects your daily life, or who’s really building the future behind the scenes, Energy Empire is your guide to what comes next.
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- 2 weeks ago30 min
Who Benefits From $6 Diesel? Sen. Tina Smith Says Follow the Money | Energy on the Ballot
Gas is up more than a dollar a gallon since the Iran war began, and diesel set an all-time record in September. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) says the president’s donors are profiting while everyone else pays more.Smith explains what voters should listen for when a candidate promises to bring energy costs down, and why she voted against a data center bill Republicans are now campaigning on.Part of Energy on the Ballot, our series on energy and the 2026 midterms.In this episode:The heating aid program the White House wants to eliminate, and the St. Paul man it kept in his home“Don’t do data centers the dumb way,” and why nondisclosure agreements make neighbors so angryWhy a senator from a mining state fought a Chilean-owned copper-nickel mine near the Boundary WatersWhat former Fed Chair Jerome Powell predicted about getting a mortgage in 10 or 15 yearsThe campaign word Smith calls “a weird focus group word”Why Smith wants Democrats to show more “boldness” if they win back powerLinks:Our website: https://www.energyempire.fmSen. Smith’s request for a cost estimate of the 2025 tax law’s data center breaks: https://www.smith.senate.gov/u-s-senator-tina-smith-requests-cost-estimate-of-big-beautiful-bills-data-center-tax-incentives/Sen. Smith’s report on the home insurance crisis: https://www.smith.senate.gov/u-s-senator-tina-smith-releases-new-report-on-solutions-to-the-home-insurance-crisis/The Klobuchar-Smith letter on heating aid: https://www.smith.senate.gov/u-s-senators-amy-klobuchar-tina-smith-push-the-trump-administration-to-release-heating-assistance-funds-before-winter/Gov. Spanberger on Making Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/gov-spanberger-on-making-data-centers-pay-their-fair-share-energy-on-the-ballot
- 3 weeks ago32 min
Is Venture Capital the Wrong Tool for Clean Energy?
In the first half of this year, 86% of U.S. venture money went to AI. Climate venture funds have raised less than $1 billion, down from more than $10 billion in 2021.This week’s guest, Andrew Beebe, is more optimistic than those numbers suggest. The generalist funds that piled into climate a few years ago drove up the price of startups, and now they’ve left. The investors and founders still here understand the market, and he thinks that makes this one of the best times yet to invest.Andrew is a managing director at Obvious Ventures, which Twitter co-founder Ev Williams helped start in 2014. The firm has raised more than $1.3 billion across five main funds. Before joining, Andrew spent more than a decade in solar: his team built the array at Google’s headquarters, and he went on to become chief commercial officer at Suntech, then the world’s largest solar manufacturer.In this episode:Andrew’s don’t-go-there list: battery chemistry, fusion, hydrogen, and sustainable aviation fuelContainer ships that could cross the Pacific on battery alone, and how Maersk changed its mindWhy a $200 million business is too small for a venture fund like ObviousWhat Andrew would have told Sheldon Kimber about Google’s offer for IntersectSolar robots that take a four-person crew from 200 panels a day to 900The board that told Andrew he was doing great when he asked to be replaced as CEOLinksOur website: https://www.energyempire.fmSubmit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigarS2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowdsOctopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faasOur merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products
- 3 weeks ago26 min
A Third of Australian Homes Have Solar. Why Is the U.S. So Far Behind? | Energy on the Ballot
About one in three homes and businesses in Australia have solar on the roof. The state governments there made it simple, with incentives, certified installers, and quick approvals. In the U.S., permits and inspections can add weeks or months before a system is switched on.This episode’s guest, Audrey Zibelman, has held top energy jobs in both countries. She chaired New York’s Public Service Commission, then ran Australia’s power grid as CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator.Now she’s back in New York as its energy czar, chairing the board of NYSERDA, the state energy authority. The job comes with some of the highest home electricity prices in the country and a freeze on the biggest new data centers.In this episode:The conservative prime minister who backed Australia’s grid plan with three words: “Electrons don’t vote”How Australia got homeowners to trust a government website to find a solar installerThe adoption rate at which Australia’s government could stop pushing solarWhat Texas figured out about grid connections while other states keep running pilotsWhy utilities build the grid around its 25 worst hours a yearThe case for data centers small enough to fit on the gridLinks:Our website: https://www.energyempire.fmPew’s distributed energy playbook: https://www.pew.org/-/media/assets/2026/04/distributed-energy-can-unleash-the-resilient-affordable-grid-of-the-future.pdfNew York’s data center Community Investment Framework: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-strongest-community-investment-framework-nation-protect-communitiesGov. Spanberger on Making Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/gov-spanberger-on-making-data-centers-pay-their-fair-share-energy-on-the-ballotBalcony Solar Costs $285. Why Is It Still So Hard to Get?: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/balcony-solar-costs-285-why-is-it-still-so-hard-to-get
- 3 weeks ago42 min
The Utility CEO Who Wants to Cut Your Bill | Recorded Live at Future Currence
Demand on ComEd’s grid barely moved from 2009 to 2022. Now the utility expects about 10 gigawatts of data centers to connect by around 2030, against an all-time peak of 23 gigawatts.ComEd’s CEO, Gil Quiniones, wants to connect those data centers without raising everyone else’s bills. Rooftop solar and batteries, which many utilities have fought, are part of his plan.Gil spent 16 years at Con Edison and more than a decade running the New York Power Authority. While he ran the Power Authority, he and Jigar worked on the state’s push to build the grid around energy that customers make and store at home.In Chicago, he’s starting with the families who can least afford their bills. A pilot this winter will put solar and batteries in about 50 of their homes with no money down.Gil thinks the setup could take about $70 off a monthly bill that typically runs $100 to $120.Recorded live at Future Currence during Climate Week NYC.In this episode:How deposits and letters of credit shrank ComEd’s list of serious data center requests from about 18 gigawatts to 10Why Jigar says a data center’s voluntary promise to power down in an emergency isn’t good enoughWhat ComEd has to prove to regulators before it can build a new substationThe 100 hours a year the grid is built for, and what using the rest of the year could do for billsWhether other utilities need a new state law to do what ComEd is doingLinks:Future Currence: https://future.currence.aiComEd: https://www.comed.comThe Untapped Grid (Brattle Group): https://www.brattle.com/the-untapped-grid/Illinois Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act: https://gov-pritzker-newsroom.prezly.com/gov-pritzker-signs-historic-clean-and-reliable-grid-affordability-actMore from Energy Empire:The Cheapest Grid Is the One We Already Paid For: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/the-cheapest-grid-is-the-one-we-already-paid-forInside California’s Plan to Fix the Utility Business Model with Senator Josh Becker: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/inside-california-s-plan-to-fix-the-utility-business-model-with-senator-josh-beckerNVIDIA on Whether AI Can Fix Its Own Power Problem: https://www.energyempire.fm/episodes/nvidia-on-whether-ai-can-fix-its-own-power-problem-recorded-live-at-climate-week-nycOur merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products
- 4 weeks ago36 min
Semafor’s Tim McDonnell on Covering Russia’s Energy War From Kyiv
Ukraine has learned how to keep a power grid running while someone is trying to destroy it. Every country that imports oil now needs the same lessons.Last winter Russia blew up power plants and substations, and Kyiv lost power every day. The fixes were concrete bunkers that let a substation take a direct hit, home batteries, a nuclear fleet kept running, and new wind and solar built in the middle of a war.The Iran war has since shown every oil importer the same vulnerability. Countries won’t go back to sleep after this, and the map of who buys energy from whom is being redrawn.Tim McDonnell is Semafor’s climate and energy editor and writes Semafor Energy, its twice-weekly newsletter. He lives in Kyiv, where the sirens go off all the time and some nights are spent in the metro. Getting out to report starts with an overnight train to Poland, because Ukraine still has no working airport.The interview was recorded at Climate Week NYC on September 21. The intro and outro were recorded before the energy ceasefire Trump announced on October 11.In this episode:The sirens, the metro at night, and why the air war over Kyiv is back to early-2022 levelsHow a substation wrapped in concrete takes a cruise missile and keeps workingWhy the free flow of oil through Hormuz that existed before February is probably gone for goodThe case that oil importers won’t “go back to sleep” once the Iran war endsEgypt’s six-month sprint into wind and solar after Iran sent gas prices upThe “tourists” arriving in cleantech funding rounds, and whether that’s a bubbleSubmit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigarS2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowdsOctopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faasOur merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products
- Oct 12, 202649 min
Gov. Spanberger on Making Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share | Energy on the Ballot
Northern Virginia is the biggest data center market in the world, and pushback is growing.So are power bills. A typical Dominion bill is now about $180 a month, $20 more than a year ago.Rising bills put energy on the ballot in Virginia’s 2025 governor’s race. Abigail Spanberger won it by 15 points, and now she wants data centers to pay for the grid built to serve them.Recorded live at the Virginia Clean Energy Summit in Richmond for Energy on the Ballot, our series on energy and the midterms.In this episode:The breakfast in Norton, Virginia, where nearly everyone in the room wanted to talk about their power billWhy Virginia’s new energy plan puts a price on asthma and rising seasA proposal to make new data centers in Virginia face a local voteHow everyone’s bill changes when data centers choose batteries over gas generatorsVirginia’s first-of-its-kind tax on data center electricity, and the case for the industry’s sales tax breakWhat candidates should run on this November, and why state and federal races need different answers
- Oct 8, 202648 min
Voltus Just Raised $225 Million to Pay You to Use Less Electricity
When a warehouse turns its freezers down for two hours, it looks to the grid like a power plant switching on. Voltus pays thousands of businesses to do exactly that, every day of the year.Voltus, the largest demand-flexibility company in North America, just announced a $225 million Series D led by Al Gore's Generation Investment Management. Today's guest, co-founder and CEO Dana Guernsey, plans to use it to grow from 8.5 gigawatts of flexible capacity to 20 by 2030, a quarter of the Department of Energy's target for the whole country.Google is already a customer, paying Voltus to line up as much as 100 megawatts of that flexibility in PJM, the grid that runs from Illinois to Virginia, so its data centers can connect faster. It's the first deal of its kind, and Dana's argument is that "do no harm" is too low a bar for a company with Google's balance sheet; a data center can leave the grid better than it found it.In this episode:What a Walmart, a winery, a glass factory, and a sewage plant each do when Voltus callsThe church that stayed open and the factory that kept a whole shift, both because of Voltus checksFrom $25 a year for a thermostat to $11 million for a data center, who gets paid what for turning things downHow 50,000 homes become 100 megawatts, and the PJM rule that kept them out until AugustThe year governors and the White House learned what PJM isWhy Google is paying its neighbors to flex instead of building a gas plant that runs 25 hours a yearSubmit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigarS2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowdsOctopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faasOur merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products
- Oct 5, 202624 min
Senator Whitehouse on Why Democrats Need a Climate Villain | Energy on the Ballot
"Little Red Riding Hood is kind of a dumb story without the wolf."That's how Senator Sheldon Whitehouse thinks Democrats have been telling the climate story. His wolf is the fossil fuel industry, and it shows up on your electric bill.When the Trump administration blocks cheap clean power, the grid falls back on pricier fossil plants and families pay the difference. He calls it a "ginormous money pump."Whitehouse represents Rhode Island and is the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He is also one of four senators behind the bipartisan permitting bill released shortly after this conversation was recorded.Part of Energy on the Ballot, our series on energy and the 2026 midterms.In this episode:The half-price offshore wind power for Rhode Island that drew two federal stop-work orders"Have you ever seen anything go from zero to everybody hates you faster than data centers?"Why he hates, loathes, and despises one stage of federal review, and his fix for itWhat a plumber in Orlando loses when nobody will insure their homeRussia as "a gas station run by gangsters who have an army," and the sanctions law he wants the president to useThe dark money bill he wants Democrats to pass and dare the president to vetoLearn more at energyempire.fm
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About Energy Empire
A once-in-a-generation shift is underway in how the world is powered. Across the United States, clean energy now makes up more than 90% of new electricity added to the grid — not because of politics or ideology, but because these technologies simply work better. They’re cheaper to build, faster to deploy, and easier to scale than anything that came before. The technology is ready. Now the race is on to build it…everywhere. Energy Empire is a podcast about the people and ideas driving this transformation. We explore how abundant, affordable energy is reshaping the global economy, creating new industries, and unlocking what may be the greatest wealth-creation opportunity of our generation. Hosted by Jigar Shah — TIME100 honoree, serial entrepreneur, investor, and former U.S. Department of Energy leader — the show pulls back the curtain on the decisions, innovations, and power struggles shaping the future of energy. Whether you’re curious about where the economy is headed, how energy affects your daily life, or who’s really building the future behind the scenes, Energy Empire is your guide to what comes next.
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