When you think about generation, we're doing great — it's 25% cheaper today on an inflation-adjusted basis than it was in 2010. At this moment, how do we get more out of the stuff that we've already paid for?
What feels different today from where you stand now versus your time that ended in January?
The Department of Energy today is not providing the leadership that we provided when we were there.
We need more power. We need more power for electrification, for data centers, for hyperscalers, for all of this AI that we're excited to use. What's your perspective on the big demand problem right now?
I don't think that the general audience, even people in our industry, actually understand. One of the big challenges that we have is that...
Hey there and welcome to Power Perspectives. You are about to hear a truly insightful conversation with one of the biggest names in our industry, Jigar Shah, former director of the DOE's Loan Programs Office and serial energy entrepreneur. But before we roll the tape on my conversation with Jigar, one that touched on the ways funding determines the future of energy innovation, the reality of how loans are distributed under Trump 2.0, and the one thing we keep getting wrong about solutions to our collective demand spike problem, I want to introduce myself. I'm a newish voice for a lot of you. I'm Kinsey Grant Baker, head of content here at Energy Central and the new host of Power Perspectives. I've got a long resume in all kinds of journalism and digital media and startups. I've been described by several bosses and teachers and friends as wonky. I love asking people questions. I love data. I love hearing passionate innovators talk about why they do what they do. But what's most important for the two of us here, I am so excited about the future of energy. That hype is really only outdone by my excitement for the chance to talk to the people determining what that shared future looks like. We are all power hungry, but we've got so many smart people joining our show to tell us how we meet this moment. The future of energy is bright, and so is the future of Power Perspectives. I'm thrilled to bring you some really cool conversations in the coming weeks and months. You're going to hear from people like Jigar today, also renowned energy analyst Nat Bullard, the CEOs and COOs of some of the biggest utilities in the country, experts on things like capacity markets and local transmission, and so much more. I do have one ask for you, though. If you want to hear from someone, tell us. Matt and I are standing by, ready to chase down some big guests. You can email me anytime with ideas or suggestions at kinseymedia.co. Once again, my email is kinsey, k-i-n-s-e-y, at kinseymedia.co, and that's just .co. Don't forget to subscribe to Energy Central wherever you're listening in. Send our episodes to friends and co-workers and get excited about what's to come. We've got momentum on our side in this industry and I for one cannot wait to see how these wildly intelligent and successful people behind our mics are going to put it all to good use. So now without further ado, let's roll the interview with Jigar. Enjoy.
So Jigar Shah is certainly a name many of our listeners will recognize, but if you don't mind, can you tell us who you are, what you do, and why you do it.
Sure, thanks for having me. My name is Jigar Shah. I've been working in the clean energy sector for over 25 years, starting my career at BP Solar, but then after that starting a company called SunEdison, which I sold in 2009 and is credited for popularizing the power purchase agreement. And then joined Richard Branson to found the Carbon War Room, which we merged into the Rocky Mountain Institute, and they've continued to do fantastic work. And then started Generate Capital, which is today the leading provider of capital to next-generation ideas. And then most recently served in the Department of Energy running the Loan Programs Office, and so super excited about that service. But all along the way, I've just been a huge fan of commercializing technology and figuring out how to make all these solutions affordable.
Figuring out how to make these solutions affordable is no small task. You say it so casually like it is your everyday, but it is certainly a tall order. And today we're going to talk a lot specifically about your time at the LPO, at the Loan Programs Office. I want to just give a quick run-through for anybody who is not keeping tabs at home here. You were the director of the LPO from March 2021 to January 2025. You approved over $107 billion of loan authority with another $300 billion of applications received for processing. Going to need to take a breath here. The LPO more than tripled its staff under your leadership following the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The funds to the LPO increased tenfold from $40 billion to $400 billion. Lot of stuff going on during your tenure at the LPO. If you had to describe that tenure in one word, what would it be?
There has been a big uptick in investment into clean tech companies since 2017. And so when we got into office in 2021, there were a lot of companies that were ready to swing for the fences and we were there to help them, right? I mean, and that is inspiring, right? Because I mean, the thing about the government is that we can't want something more than the private sector wants it, right? That's how people get into trouble. But what we can do is help people who have big dreams make them come true. And that was pretty inspiring.
Yeah, it's interesting you bring up this idea of listening to what the market dictates, what people want. The government can't necessarily lead that horse to water. The LPO is obviously important for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest being supporting this next-gen kind of technology that might be too risky for Wall Street or have a different kind of return structure than venture capital is used to. But another thing I think that a lot of people perceive when we think about the LPO is signals. It's interesting to hear that you kind of take signals from market, but I think there's also a reputation for the LPO that you signal to the market where innovation is headed, where the industry might be headed. Can you walk me through a little bit how that works? You know, what kind of signals can loan activity provide about the current state or the future direction of the energy industry?
Yeah, it's a great question and one that is obviously more art than science, right? I mean, so you start with saying we're equally enthusiastic about all 20 sectors that qualify for the Loan Programs Office, right? Whether it's clean steel and clean cement or whether it's new nuclear, new geothermal, right? We're equally enthusiastic about all of it. But then you look at who shows up and sometimes the people that you're enthusiastic about don't show up, right? They don't have a loan application in front of you. So no matter how much I want to help that industry, if they don't apply for loans, right, then I can't help them. And then even after they apply for loans, sometimes they're not ready, right? So a lot of the virtual power plant applications that we received took over a year of coaching to get those folks to a place where they actually met our standard, right? So we were really good at describing our standard, right — a reasonable prospect of repayment — but a lot of people didn't meet it. And so we said, 'Sorry, we can't process you until you meet it.' And so, you know, a good example is nuclear power, which, you know, I think there's been a lot of headlines about, but when we were in office, they were a train wreck. The entire industry had no idea what it was doing, right? And we were in the middle of getting Vogtle completed. And so we engaged in a big way. We finally got Holtec to agree to restart the Palisades nuclear plant, which they were not interested in doing. And then they did that. And then we had to rewrite the rules at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission because we had never turned back on a nuclear reactor in the United States' history. So the rule set had to be created. But we also got, you know, the other two plants to turn back on, right? So Three Mile Island and now you saw Duane Arnold agree that they wanted to turn back on. And we got a whole bunch of people the rules necessary to build a new nuclear plant. And so now you see a bunch of those projects starting to get announced, which I'm so proud to see. We didn't have as much success in, for instance, the clean hydrogen sector or in some of the sectors that are around like clean steel or clean cement, not because we didn't try, but because, you know, they didn't show up to the game.
It's interesting to square that with this idea that the LPO is an entity that might have priorities. A lot of it seems like what your job entailed is waiting for industry to get to the point where you can say, 'Okay, now go forth and prosper,' right? I'm curious whether that's true. You know, does the Loan Programs Office have its own priorities? Are there certain industries that might get priority? You know, how does that work? And how do those priorities shift from administration to administration? It seems like the LPO today is different from that under your leadership. Can you talk to me a little bit about how that works?
Well, we certainly didn't have priorities in terms of favorites while I was at the Loan Programs Office. We really did love all of our applicants equally, but you could imagine that there were some areas where we staffed up business development more than other areas, right? So we certainly had a larger team on virtual power plants. We had a larger team on tribal energy loans. We had a larger team on getting electric utilities to use the 1706 Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program, right? And so there's some areas where we actually had additional people that were making additional outreach phone calls to say, 'Hey, just wanted to tell you that this program is here for you and you should use it,' right? And so there's some of that that obviously you do, and this administration clearly has pivoted to other sectors that they want to try to attract applicants into, which I think is wonderful. But I do think it's important for all American innovators and entrepreneurs to feel like if they wanted to use the office, that they would get a fair shake.
Yeah, that makes a good amount of sense. And I think it's — I imagine a big challenge of the job is ensuring that you can make contact with those potential innovators. And we'll talk a little bit more in this conversation, I imagine, too, about who those innovators are, where it's exciting, where there feels like there's a lot of momentum right now. I'm curious though, just before we get into some of those more specifics about the problems being solved today by those innovators, how would you characterize today's LPO versus the one that you led? Obviously it's, you know, different teams, different structures. They love all their innovators the same, right? But, you know, what feels different today from where you stand now versus your time that ended in January?
