Soliverse | The Future of Solar
Soliverse is a solar and renewable energy podcast for professionals who want clarity in an industry that keeps shifting under their feet.
The energy transition is moving fast, but the real story is not in press releases or policy headlines. It is in how projects get financed, permitted, connected to the grid, and built in the real world. Soliverse focuses on solar, storage, and the broader energy ecosystem, with a strong emphasis on utility scale projects in the EU and the US.
Through in depth conversations with developers, operators, investors, engineers, and industry leaders, the podcast explores how successful teams navigate changing regulation, political risk, grid constraints, and volatile capital markets. The goal is simple, to cut through noise and hype and replace it with practical, execution focused insight.
Listening to Soliverse will help you:
• Understand where solar, storage, grids, and capital are really going
• Learn directly from people building and financing real projects
• Connect the dots between technology, policy, finance, and execution
• Avoid common and costly mistakes by learning from experienced operators
• Stay relevant and competitive as the solar industry matures and consolidates
Soliverse is for anyone working in solar and renewables who wants to think more clearly, move faster, and lead with confidence as the energy transition accelerates.
Episodes
49 episodes
Bonus Episode: Even J. Kvelland, from GlintSolar, live at Intersolar Europe 2026 - Spotlight
🎙️ In this episode, Peter Pongracz sits down with Even J. Kvelland, Co-Founder & CCO of @GlintSolar, live at Intersolar Europe 2026, fresh off parental leave and straight back into back-to-back customer meetings. They dig into what it actua...
Why Solar Developers Pay a Gate Fee When They Could Profit Instead ft. Dr. Jan-Philipp Mai | Soliverse Ep. 45
Solar panel recycling is about to flip from liability to profit center, and Dr. Jan-Philipp Mai explains exactly why.Solar developers and asset owners who treat end-of-life panels as a future disposal cost are sitting on roughly 110 bil...
Bonus Episode: Stanislas Van Der Vaeren from Sitemark, live at Intersolar Europe 2026 - Spotlight
This is a Soliverse Spotlight — a bonus, on-the-ground conversation recorded live at Intersolar Europe 2026.Peter Pongracz catches up with Stanislas Van Der Vaeren, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Sitemark, on day three of the sho...
The Hidden Cost of Too Many Tools in Solar Development Today ft. Douglas Geist | Soliverse Ep. 44
Solar developers and EPCs who assume more tools means better coverage are paying a hidden cost in wasted hours and lost data. Douglas Geist, Co-founder and CCO of PVcase, quantified the problem after surveying 400-plus industry professionals: t...
Bonus episode: Christophe Lits on Global Market Outlook 2030
In this episode, Peter Pongracz sits down with Christophe Lits, Senior Market Analyst at @SolarPowerEurope, live at Intersolar Europe 2026 to unpack the freshly launched Global Market Outlook for Solar Power. They dig into the slowdown in globa...
The Soft Costs and Permits Keeping US Rooftop Solar Unaffordable | Soliverse Ep. 43
Rooftop solar costs seven times more in the US than in Australia, and most energy professionals don't know why.Gavin Mooney, energy and utilities software expert based in Australia, breaks down how a 7-kilowatt system runs around 4,000 ...
Your Electricity Supplier Knows What You're Watching on TV | Soliverse Ep. 42
In this episode, Peter Pongracz sits down with Bradley Mundt, CEO and Co-Founder of PLAN-B NET ZERO AG, to explore why a renewable energy company is building something that looks a lot more like a tech lifestyle brand than a traditional electri...
How Sand Batteries Are Quietly Solving Industrial Heat Emissions | Soliverse Ep. 41
Most discussions around energy storage focus on electricity. But what if the bigger opportunity is heat?In this episode of Soliverse, Peter Pongracz speaks with Tommi Eronen, CEO and Co-Founder of Polar Night Energy, the company behind t...
How Robots and AI Are Rebuilding Solar Construction From Scratch | Soliverse Ep. 40
What does it take to build utility-scale solar at the speed the energy transition actually needs?In this episode of Soliverse | The Future of Solar, Peter Pongracz speaks with Matt Campbell, CEO and Co-Founder at Terabase Energy Inc., a...
Why Simplicity May Be Solar’s Biggest Advantage Right Now ft. Aaron Nichols & Jacob Yang | Soliverse Ep. 39
What if solar’s biggest advantage right now is not more complexity, but simpler communication? In this episode of Soliverse l The Future of Solar Episode 39, host Peter Pongracz is joined by Aaron Nichols, host of This Week In Solar and Marketi...
Understanding How Regulation, Politics, & Markets Actually Impact Solar and BESS Projects in the EU | Soliverse Ep. 38
Is Europe’s solar market hitting a wall, or entering its next phase? In this episode of Soliverse | The Future of Solar, host Peter Pongracz speaks with Antonio Arruebo Lacleta, Market Analyst at SolarPower Europe and the Battery Storage Europe...
What Happens When Energy Policy Ignores Storage ft. Dr. Radovan Kopecek | Soliverse Ep. 37
What happens when energy policy plans the future grid, but leaves storage out of the equation? In this episode of Soliverse | The Future of Solar, host Peter Pongracz sits down with Dr Radovan Kopecek, Co-Founder and Direct...
Navigating EU vs. US Solar Regulation ft. Benoy Thanjan | Soliverse Ep. 36
What does it really take to build, finance, and scale solar projects when policy keeps shifting, capital is more cautious, and grid constraints are getting harder to ignore? In this episode of Soliverse | The Future of Solar, host Peter Pongrac...
How Top Solar Teams Handle Red Tape | Soliverse Ep. 35
What really slows down utility-scale solar projects, bad engineering, weak execution, or the red tape nobody budgets for early enough? In this episode of Soliverse, Peter Pongracz sits down with Phil Horwitch, co-founder of AMH Hold...
How Romania is Beating Western Europe on Solar & Storage
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Gijsbert Huijink, co-founder of SOL Romania, to unpack why Romania might just be Europe’s most underrated solar and battery market.Gijsbert sh...
David Spieldenner on PVsyst, 3D Modeling, and What It Really Takes to Scale Solar
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with David Spieldenner from Terabase Energy, to expose the massive bottlenecks holding solar back—and why smarter performance modeling might be the key to unlocking ...
15 Years in EPC: Andreas Bach on Solar Construction Mistakes, MC4 & Grid Bottlenecks...
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Andreas Bach, a senior EPC executive and advisor with 15+ years of solar and storage experience, working across Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa.From burned MC4 pl...
Geospatial AI for Solar Developers: Planno.io's Blueprint for Smarter C&I Pipelines with Daniel Domingues
About This EpisodeOn this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Daniel Domingues, Founder & CEO of Planno.io, the Geospatial AI platform that’s fixing one of distributed solar’s bigg...
Joshua Feinberg on Sales, AI, Talent in Clean Infrastructure and Data Centers
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Joshua Feinberg, Founder of the Data Center Sales & Marketing Institute (DCSMI), to unpack the evolving sales landscape in energy, data centers, and clean tech.
Genna Boyle of Gridcog.com on Flexibility, Grid Chaos, and the Future of Energy Modeling
In this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Genna Boyle, CCO at Gridcog, to unpack one of the most important—and misunderstood—forces shaping energy today: flexibility.As the grid gets m...
Dr. Marek Kubik on BESS, AI, and Scaling a Billion-Dollar Energy Company
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Marek Kubik—battery expert, energy futurist, and co-founder of Fluence—to explore what’s next for battery energy storage systems (BESS), AI in energy<...
Tim Montague on AI, Solar Economics, and Why Batteries Are Just the Beginning
In this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Tim Montague, founder of Clean Power Hour and Clean Power Consulting, to unpack how AI, batteries, and grid modernization are reshaping the economics...
Joachim Rupp on Scale, Storage, and Solar’s Missing Link: Systems Thinking
In this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Joachim Rupp—solar veteran, investor, and advisor—to explore what’s really holding the clean energy transition back: fragmented systems, missing ta...
Guillaume Burstert (Sunwise) on Containerized Solar, Supply Chains, and Lighting Up 300M Lives
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Guillaume Burstert, founder of Sunwise, who’s on a mission to replace diesel generators with plug-and-play solar containers—and br...
Martin Lips (Fusebox) on Flexibility, Grid Chaos, and Building the Software Layer Europe Desperately Needs
On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Martin Lips, Chief Commercial Officer at Fusebox, to explore one of the most overlooked—and powerful—levers in Europe’s energy tra...
