I am often surprised just how far this platform has come and the reach it has. After my announcement about SolarWakeup Live! yesterday, so many of you reached out with kind words of encouragement. We are sending well over a million emails this year and the network is bigger than ever. I did get a few questions about the event and the reasons for it.
Why 1 on 1 Interviews? Solar conferences are broken. In this format, we are going to do a deep dive with 4 speakers on their domain expertise that has value to the local market. I will be doing the interviews from a perspective of someone that has been there and done that. I don’t like at the questions as a reporter or a theoretical exercise but does it grow the market, can it be financed and does it make the industry money. My aim is to ask the question that a solar CEO or developer wants and needs to hear the answer to.
Why Only A Half Day? Events don’t need to be multiple days to drive value and if the goal is to bring a community closer together, then a half day is sufficient. Folks from out of town can plan a trip to the markets and include an afternoon of learning and networking into a bigger trip, justifying the travel expense. Most importantly, I want to bring this to at least 10 cities next year and longer events just take too much logistical planning to make that work.
How Do I Fund This? Unlike SolarWakeup, these events will be paid for by sponsors because events are not cheap! To make the sponsorships better than anything available in the conference market, you will see sponsors for the entire month leading up to and after the event on the daily newsletter. Because of this, there will be limited sponsorships sold to cover the costs of event and hopefully bring more information in a relevant format to you.
- Time: France’s Macron Says the Paris Climate Deal Is Not Up for Debate
- Bloomberg: MIT Venture Fund Backs Startups in Biotech, Renewable Energy
- Mother Jones: These Companies Support the Paris Agreement. They Also Support Climate Deniers.
- GreenBiz: Corporate renewable energy buyers remain undeterred
- PV-Magazine: U.S. mayors plan funding for distributed energy, smart grids and more
- Renew Economy: Rooftop solar and storage – cheaper than subsidising old coal
- NC Policy Watch: NC appeals court rules against NC WARN in Greensboro solar power case
- New York Times: Quiet Energy Revolution Underway in Japan as Dozens of Towns Go Off the Grid
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann