Transcript
Intro
Jamie Nolan: Hey, Jigar. I am really excited about today's guest.
Jigar Shah: Well, it's one of those things where we're heading right into summer, and when you're heading into summer, what you think about is the representative from Florida.
Jamie Nolan: Absolutely. I wouldn't describe myself as a single-issue voter, but I very much am a climate and environment voter first. That is the weightiest thing for me. And because of that, the members of Congress who have done the most on climate and clean energy have a little bit of rockstar status. So I was nervous going into today's recording with Representative Kathy Castor from Florida's 14th district — she represents the Tampa Bay area — because I've been following her work and read so many interviews with her. She's just been a very effective advocate for the issues that matter to us. This is our first episode featuring a member of Congress, and I'm so glad it was her.
Jigar Shah: Well, we're obviously good friends with Sean Casten and other representatives in the House, but the thing about Kathy Castor is that she's in her 20th year. She was really close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and as a result, she ran the select committee in the House. And if you remember back then, it was really politically charged — AOC and Senator Markey came out with the Green New Deal, and there was this protest. Do you remember the Sunrise Movement locking themselves into Speaker Pelosi's office and saying, "You will do something on climate or else"? She really trusted Representative Castor to run that process for her. So part of this is a recognition not just of her expertise around climate issues and her passion for them, but also the respect she has from leadership — her ability to actually shape something that leadership will get behind and turn into a law. And in this case, she did all of that work so that in 2021, when you and I went back in to the Department of Energy, there was actually a body of work that the Speaker of the House pushed through, which became the Inflation Reduction Act.
Jamie Nolan: Yes, and we're so thankful for that and all of her hard work on this issue — very hard-fought wins over decades. One thing I think is really interesting about speaking to her as a representative from Florida at this moment is the disconnect between her work at the federal level and what's happening at the state level in Florida. That must be so frustrating for her. Of course, there are monopolistic utilities there. The grid mostly runs on gas, not on renewables, and they have incredible solar resources.
Jigar Shah: Well, also, as you know, Florida Republicans are famously against oil drilling off of their own coast, while they're famously for oil drilling off of Santa Barbara.
Jamie Nolan: Of course, because that makes so much sense.
Jigar Shah: The other thing is that I am excited because I'm going to the Reindustrialized Conference June 16th and 17th in Detroit, which is the center-right group of people who want to do big things in the United States and build manufacturing facilities. Part of what excites me about her work is I think it's actually resonating a lot with folks who want to build big things in this country, because they recognize that she's critical to permitting reform and critical to a lot of the other things they need to be able to get permission to move faster.
Jamie Nolan: Well, I can't wait to hear more about that conference. Maybe we need to rustle up some guests and see who you can talk to while you're there.
Jigar Shah: It'll be awesome.
Interview
Jamie Nolan: Thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited for this conversation. You've been in Congress nearly 20 years. You chaired the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis under Speaker Pelosi, and you've been one of the loudest voices on climate in the House for as long as the House has had a climate fight — which is why I'm starstruck having you here. And now DeSantis has redrawn your district to make that feel like perhaps a liability. Can you walk us through what just happened?
Kathy Castor: Wow, what just happened? Folks who are watching the democracy crisis we have going on in America will understand that many of the GOP policies are very unpopular. Inflation is high. Gas prices are high. Housing prices are very high, and they're afraid they're going to lose this election big time. The party in power always loses congressional seats in the midterm elections, so they wanted to rig the game. What's different in Florida, though, is in our state constitution, we have language — Republicans, Democrats, Independents put it in — that says you're not allowed to gerrymander for partisan purposes. But they did it anyway. And the courts now, unfortunately, we can't rely on them. So people are very outraged. They took a Tampa Bay area district that I've had the privilege of representing and spun it out into five different districts. But right now, it doesn't matter how they draw the lines on the map. We have to draw the line for people, so I'm in the fight. It's a tougher district, but I have a strong record of delivering for my neighbors — across the aisle, doesn't matter. But this is a tougher district. I think the affordability crisis, high electric bills, what's happening with the heating climate, and these very intense weather events — droughts, floods, even freezes — people are awake to what that means in their own lives.
Jamie Nolan: Absolutely. And you touched on this a little bit in mentioning the hurricanes that have hit your district in the last few years, and Florida's certainly one of the hardest hit climate states in the country. The state legislature, nonetheless, has been stripping climate change out of the state's energy laws. So how does that disconnect actually feel on the ground? Do people seem aware of it?
Kathy Castor: Jamie, no, they don't really know what's happening in Tallahassee. But our local communities, mayors and county commissioners understand this. They know it's going to be much more expensive if they can't do some things to make their communities more resilient — if they can't build roads and bridges and communities with an eye towards climate resiliency so that they can withstand the next flood that comes along, or the next freeze. There's just a general frustration, though, with the cost of living in Florida and the fact that the GOP that has been firmly in control for decades hasn't had any solutions to lower electric bills or property insurance costs. If you follow along, this feels like insult to injury. Things are already so expensive, and it feels like a gift to the electric utility monopolies in our state that do not want people to save money on their electric bills. They don't want them to put solar panels on their homes. They even rolled back our energy efficiency goals in Florida years back. So there's just a general frustration in our state, and people are pretty upset by it.
Jigar Shah: One thing I was going to ask you about here is that with the work you're doing with the Thriving Economy Project, there does seem to be a disconnect where a lot of folks have talked about solar panels or battery storage or EVs, et cetera, but a lot of these solutions don't seem like they're speaking directly to the electorate. Have you thought about what you're doing differently within the Thriving Economy Project this time around to really solicit ideas that speak directly to voters who might feel like they're left behind by heat pumps and other technologies?
Kathy Castor: Yeah. And Jigar and Jamie, I'm so appreciative for all of your hard work to help speed a lot of these cost-saving, innovative technologies to the grid. It just feels like the rug was ripped out from under us with this new administration — everything they've done to throw a wrench into progress. It kind of reminds me of the moment in time before there was a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis that helped develop policies after listening to people across the country — scientists and entrepreneurs, innovators, folks from the faith community, farmers, advocates — where we listened and we were able to build a coalition for progress to help lower energy bills and unleash this clean energy revolution. And it feels like, okay, now we're at a different moment in time where costs are even higher for the average person. The solutions are there to help people save money, but there is a disconnect. I don't think that the average person or even the average member of Congress understands the technological advancements on clean energy. One of my colleagues, Jared Huffman, who's the ranking member on the Natural Resources Committee, the other day in committee actually entered into the record a battery — because so much of the discussion is divorced from the fact that with clean energy technologies now, we can store that energy and get it onto the grid. So Thriving Economy is about developing the solutions for the here and now, to help answer a lot of these questions for people. What can we do, even while Trump is still in the White House, to help lower electric bills and build more resilient communities? And a lot of this has to do with building those coalitions again. We've already received about 1,200 policy proposals, about 140 submittals for the request for information. There are so many great ideas out there across America. So let's gather them, and let's unleash some of these innovators and these community leaders to educate the Congress on how you move forward and help people save money.
Jigar Shah: Now, the folks at Zillow and Redfin and others are saying that Floridians are quietly moving inland, or talking about moving, because of hurricanes and flooding. That doesn't seem like a climate change voter conversation. It's more of a real estate agent conversation, right? Are you hearing that from voters when you have a conversation about how they're adapting?
Kathy Castor: They are. There is a little bit of a housing downturn, but Florida has higher highs and lower lows over the last 100 years when it comes to real estate, and it's just natural after some devastating hurricane seasons that folks are stuck. We're a high-risk state. We have over 1,300 miles of coastline. We're the most hurricane-prone state. The damage from Helene and Milton — we're not even going back to Ian or Irma — just Helene and Milton was $4 billion. And then when you add in the flood insurance claims, another $6 billion, I think. So it's very difficult for people to rebuild. They are kind of looking for another refuge, and that comes at a time when the cost of housing is very high because of tariffs and insurance. Even if you move inland somewhat, you're not going to get that much of a break on your property insurance, and you're sure not going to get a break on your electric bills, because Florida is really stuck in the past. What would you guess in the Sunshine State our energy mix is?
Jigar Shah: Oh, I know.
Kathy Castor: You may know.
Jigar Shah: It's mostly dual fuel — natural gas units. It's crazy, especially when NextEra is the largest owner of solar and wind farms in the country. It's just not in Florida.
Kathy Castor: 75% of our electric generation comes from gas in the Sunshine State. A lot of folks comment to me when they travel to Florida — they say, "We really expected to see more solar panels on industrial sites, on large warehouses, on homes." And unfortunately, our utility monopolies and the politicians in our state capital have a stranglehold on cleaner, cheaper energy for our state. And now, as we electrify everything and data centers move in, people are just kind of choking on what the future holds. That's why we think through this Thriving Economy Project, we can build the coalitions, the political power necessary to educate folks on some real practical solutions. I saw what we did with the Select Committee on Climate. It didn't happen overnight, but you build those coalitions, and you educate folks, and you bring people into the political process, and speak to their hopes that they can live the American Dream and not be priced out of the neighborhood their parents grew up in — or a job in the clean energy economy.
Jamie Nolan: I want to talk about the war in Iran. Obviously gas prices are up. Your district is home to Central Command for a significant swath of the US military. Does that change the energy conversation that you're having there with constituents?
Kathy Castor: No, not at all. Those outstanding service members who serve at MacDill Air Force Base — that's home to Central Command, which has the Middle East area of responsibility, and it's also home to Special Operations Command and an air refueling wing. But MacDill is a low-lying Air Force base, and after the hurricanes, they were flooded out. Every time a storm approaches, they have to relocate the operation to another place. So they know that it's important to build resilient housing, to build resilient command centers. They have big and growing energy needs — they're going to need the cleaner, cheaper power, more resilient systems. So they're fairly educated on this. This experience goes back to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What I hear from the outstanding service members and their families is just like what I hear from my other neighbors. The cost of healthcare is high. They worry about getting access to the doctor's office. Where are they going to live? It's very expensive in the Tampa Bay area. And then how are they going to afford their electric bills? They're very similar to everyone else, but they are proud, service-oriented folks that so believe in this country, and I think they may understand the innovative technologies that are available to us now that a lot of folks don't really understand.
Jigar Shah: But it does feel like there are no clean energy wars, right? No one's invading another country over sunlight or wind power. But at least in my lifetime, we started with protecting Kuwait from Iraq, then invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and now Iran. We keep getting into oil-related wars in the Middle East, causing ripples through gasoline prices and American politics. Does that make the case for clean energy and energy independence easier to sell in Florida now?
Kathy Castor: I think it does. I think it makes it easier to sell everywhere. People are so tired of spending money on foreign wars over oil and gas. Really, Americans deserve to have their tax dollars spent on good schools and a college education, or lowering the cost of housing, or taking care of our veterans. They're angry that all of the promises were made to lower the cost of living — that was going to be job one. And at every turn, whether it's tariffs or the cost of groceries or ignoring the cost of the heating climate, and now this war, it just feels like those promises have been broken. People feel betrayed. There are solutions, and I think it's up to us to communicate the fact that you don't have to be hooked up to a gas plant. You can tap into cleaner, cheaper energy through solar technology. Your local parks and rec center and fire stations, like we've done in Tampa, can run on solar. You can begin to ride cleaner transit systems, like we've done in St. Petersburg through the SunRunner, and try to electrify things that are going to save taxpayers money and your community's money. So we've got to break through a lot of the issues that tend to drive people's emotions and take them off on these tangents, and talk about what's really possible in their lives. That's why I'm hopeful this Thriving Economy Project that we're going to release in September will capture some of those hopes and aspirations.
Jigar Shah: Yeah, something I was talking about with my cousin this last weekend was how frustrated I am as somebody who buys health insurance on the exchange. We had that big fight last year. Healthcare costs are way up, and now we're talking about increasing the military budget to $1.5 trillion and somehow figuring out how to do reparations or whatever in Iran, and we can't find the money to make healthcare more efficient. How does one have these conversations right now in DC when we're just going from crazy to crazy to crazy?
Kathy Castor: Unfortunately, a lot of my Republican colleagues are scared to take on the president. Even when you have states that were benefiting from new clean energy projects that were fully permitted — you all know better than I do, fully permitted and about to begin construction to help keep electric bills low — and the Trump administration cancels those projects for political reasons. I confronted the current energy secretary with the fact that they went into blue states and arbitrarily canceled projects, and a court said he was wrong, and he still wouldn't admit that there was a problem. All of this is just fueling the higher cost of living, and they're going to pay a price for it. You hate to think that they have to go through paying that high of a price before they change and work on real solutions that will help our neighbors back home.
Jigar Shah: One thing I was curious about, though, before diving into your Thriving Economy Project: it does seem like for a long time people got used to demand staying flat because of LED lighting and that kind of stuff. But now with AI and electrification of electric vehicles and heat pumps, we really do seem to have a big surge in power demand — the biggest surge maybe in a generation. Are we entering an era where energy abundance itself becomes the central political issue?
Kathy Castor: I think so. I really do. How are we going to power our lives unless we have abundant new resources? And we're more efficient too. A lot of this year in Congress has just been the GOP war on energy-efficient appliances. A lot of floor time in the House of Representatives has been spent on the GOP rollback. What a colossal waste of time and resources, at a time when, of course, our neighbors back home need as much energy efficiency as possible, and you don't want to complicate that. And then to power communities and businesses, we need enormous amounts of new power, and the power that's ready to come onto the grid is clean — solar and wind. Plus we have these new technologies, virtual power plants, and being able to do more there. My GOP friends are just now kind of learning about this. And we really need folks across the country with the knowledge and know-how to communicate to these members and make sure they understand what is possible. We want America to live up to everyone's expectations. We're celebrating 250 years — what better way to celebrate it than to work together to lower people's electric bills and boost American innovation and global competitiveness. That's what a lot of the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act were all about. We need to get back there. But even since the IRA passed, there are so many new opportunities, so many smart people, so many folks who desire a better economy for everybody, who are ready to get to work. So we all have a stake in this.
Jamie Nolan: Okay, so we've spoken a lot about the Thriving Economy Project, which is the House Democrats' attempt to write the next big energy and climate bill before they're in power to pass it. But can you give us the context from the beginning? What is the project, and what are you trying to accomplish?
Kathy Castor: The Thriving Economy Project is an ambitious project to help bring lower-cost energy onto the grid and make people's lives more resilient. We see a future where folks can live the American Dream, find a good job in the clean energy economy or related, and bring on some of these technologies that will give America a boost in global competitiveness. We can't let China eat our lunch, and I'm afraid that they are capturing a lot of the global market right now. We can't cede that market to China. We have to get back to working with our partners and allies to lift lives here in America, but also our partners across the globe. I'm also working specifically on a chapter relating to community resilience with Samantha Medlock, who leads up a group called Climate Risk. She was a high-ranking official at FEMA and understands the importance of making sure that local communities have the tools they need to build more resilient infrastructure, to make sure we're upgrading codes and standards, doing this in an affordable way. Because what I learned when Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit my community: it's very expensive to try to build back. So let's build infrastructure in a more resilient way to begin with. Local communities have a lot of know-how. Let's give them the resources to do this. And some of the changes to FEMA that are being proposed here in the House are already bipartisan. Let's enact some of those into law quickly, so that we're saving money and we're building in a more resilient way.
Jigar Shah: So you covered some of this already, but just to ask it in a slightly different way: if the Democrats take over the House and you're in the majority again in Energy and Commerce, what are some things that you could move while Trump is president? It feels like geothermal is currently having a moment. Weatherization programs probably continue to need to be expanded. You talked a little bit about FEMA. Are there other priorities that you think could pass while President Trump is in office?
Kathy Castor: There may just be, on permitting reform. A lot of the Democrats and some Republicans are interested in building an electric grid that meets the needs for the next century. You all know our grid is disjointed, it's aging. We don't do well passing energy across regions. We have got to get to a modern electric grid. Now, a lot of Republicans want smoother permitting reform when it comes to pipelines and things, so maybe there is something to work on there in the near term as well.
Jamie Nolan: So just setting climate aside for our final question: say a voter in your district doesn't believe in — AKA does not understand — the science around climate change. Why should they vote for you anyway?
Kathy Castor: They're going to vote for me because I stand up and fight for them and their pocketbooks — whether it's their healthcare, their housing, but their electric bills. I stood with my neighbors a few months ago as they were burning their electric bills. They were actually taking them, throwing them into a garbage can lit on fire. We have solutions for that. The incentives are totally wrong — for electric utility monopolies to have you use as much power as possible, not save on your electric bill or use some of the solar clean energy technologies that are available. We've got to change the incentives here, and I think if we can do that, we will be able to power people's lives in a cheaper, much more affordable way.
Jigar Shah: Well, I have just been so inspired by your leadership. As you know, I did a lot of work with the Hillsborough School District before I served in the Biden administration. I do think that so much has changed since you ran the select committee in 2018. The cost of solar panels and battery storage are way down. The cost of electric vehicles is way down. A lot of the technology around virtual power plants is in the bill that you sponsored, and it seems like even Representative Fedorchak has a great utilization bill. And so it does feel like there is a moment here where folks are going to allow the great American technologies that we've invented and researched here to get deployed at scale. But I frankly can't imagine it happening without your leadership, so I very much appreciate you continuing to fight the fight.
Kathy Castor: Well, Jigar and Jamie, I'm really indebted to you. You took the baton and ran with it, and America is a better place for it. Now we're going to reset again. We're going to keep going. People are inspired by the possible, and I think there is a lot right now that is possible that will improve people's lives. But you all were hard at work at it, and we're going to need your voices and your know-how in the coming years.
Jamie Nolan: Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for joining us. It's been an honor having you.
Kathy Castor: Hey, thanks so much.
Debrief
Jigar Shah: Wow. She didn't disappoint. She stays so busy. It is amazing to me how much detail she really understands and is able to relay to her voters and her constituents.
Jamie Nolan: Absolutely. I think she's really committed to furthering American ingenuity and innovation, and I also loved how passionately she spoke about the military service members that live in her district. We've spoken to Tim Hade, and you and I just know a lot of veterans that work in this industry. If anyone understands the benefits of these technologies in terms of military readiness and reducing casualties from refueling and all of the various benefits associated with clean power that directly relate to our military, she really gets that. Her constituents get it, and so I hope she gets reelected. She mentioned she's in a really tough district down there in Florida since they've rewritten all of the lines with gerrymandering. But she's an important advocate for our solutions, and so I'm pulling for her, and I'm honored that she joined us. It was just such a treat.
Jigar Shah: Well, things are getting nuts. I mean, gasoline I think is $5 a gallon for half of the country already, and beef prices I think have tripled. It's just nuts what's happening with the Strait of Hormuz and how it's impacting affordability across the country. I thought she was really eloquent about it, and I agree with you. She's in an uphill battle. I think she's in a plus-10 Trump district now with the redistricting. She mentioned that there might be some relief from the Supreme Court of Florida, but I'm not holding my breath. It does feel like things are just getting worse and worse with what's happening in Iran. So I'm hopeful that the work she's doing on the Thriving Economy Project really brings the best ideas to the table to bring some relief.
Jamie Nolan: More immediately, I'm excited about the Thriving Economy Project. I don't know if I think it's going to be relevant in this election cycle, but I do know that there's no denying the impacts of climate — whether or not you call it that — on your life and on your expenses and on, frankly, your stability, because of these hurricanes in Florida. And so I really just hope that despite her being in a plus-10 Trump district, her constituents are really looking at the broken promises from the Trump administration, particularly in terms of affordability, cost of living, and electricity affordability specifically. There's no way they can turn themselves inside out to say that they have met their promises on just what it takes to live in this country and afford a life in this country. And I hope they see that Democrats really are the party coming with the solutions at this moment in time, particularly on energy. And I was happy to hear her say that if the Democrats do win, she thinks they'll take up permitting reform, because I think that was a real lost opportunity for us during the Biden years that we didn't get that done.
Jigar Shah: Yeah, Manchin-Barrasso turned out to be a pretty good deal that we probably should've gotten across the finish line.
Ask Jigar
Jamie Nolan: Welcome to Ask Jigar, our weekly segment where our listeners send in their questions for Jigar, and we read them live. If you have a question for Jigar, the link is in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. Our first question is from David Schmidt, who asks: "Where should one person put their effort? You've argued that individuals can't slow climate change by counting their own carbon — scale is what matters. So for someone who doesn't run an energy company, doesn't have millions to deploy, and isn't an elected official, where should they actually put their time and energy?"
Jigar Shah: Yeah, it's a good question, and one that I think has a lot of answers. In general, you start with the fact that every single town and city in the United States is its own jurisdiction. The fact that solar is easy to install in one town doesn't mean it's easier to install in the next town. So each person can be helpful with their city council or their mayor or county commissioner to say, "Hey, there's this huge opportunity. You're slowing us down." If you want to convert your local police force to electric vehicles — police cars generally get like three miles a gallon, because they're generally just idling on the side of the road most of the time — electric vehicles are a really fast payback for police forces. A lot of that is local lobbying, but hopefully it's with people you went to high school with. It's people that trust you and that you trust. If you want to step up from that, we need a million new small businesses in this country to sell the last mile. People need to do sales. They need to do maintenance. They need to do lots of other things. So if you want to start your own business, this is a great industry to start a small local business and really become almost a franchisee of some of the large players. And then there are obviously investment opportunities locally as well.
Jamie Nolan: Great. Our next question is from Julian Smith, and Julian is headed to college in fall of 2026, majoring in construction management, minoring in sustainability. They want to know how AI changes the calculus. Is a four-year degree still the right path for someone aiming at the built environment and clean energy, or is there a better route?
Jigar Shah: Well, I have worked with so many construction companies. Some of my really good friends are the folks at Mortenson Construction. They hire a lot of people, and they are so busy building data centers, building solar and wind farms, et cetera. A lot of their construction managers have gone to college, so it's certainly great to go to college if that's the career that you want to focus on. There are clearly a lot of tools that they use to do the project management. There's a lot of AI, I'm sure, going into those tools, and so hopefully you'll learn about them in your degree program. But I also think it's important to turn wrenches in the summers. I turned wrenches all summer when I was in engineering school at the University of Illinois, and I think it's valuable to actually try to be in the shoes of the people that you're going to be managing in the future. It pays pretty well in the summer, but it also makes you a better manager in the future.
Jamie Nolan: Love that. Turning wrenches — never heard that turn of phrase. I like it. All right, our next question is from Justin Brodie-Comett. On Volts with David Roberts, you said you expect 50 climate tech IPOs this year. That's a much bigger number than most people are forecasting. Can you go deeper? What's driving it, and which categories are leading?
Jigar Shah: Well, I certainly believe that there are 50 companies that should be going public right now. It's been fantastic so far when you see folks like Solve Energy and Fervo, and most recently, I think there's a SPAC that features a battery company called Factorial Energy. So there are a lot of folks going public, which is wonderful, but there are so many more that need to go public faster. There are a lot of companies that are already cash flow positive. They don't need to raise a lot of money, but they need the currency of going public — because then they can acquire other companies, et cetera. That's a lot of what I do in my day job with my partner, Jonathan Silver, at Multiplier. We help these companies go faster, go public faster, and get exits faster. I may have been slightly hyperbolic on the 50, but not really. I think there are 50 that are ready to go public. We'll see whether they decide to go public. But for instance, if you're in the geothermal space right now, you should most certainly be going public.
Jamie Nolan: Okay, that's kind of a spicy take, I feel like. If you have a geothermal company, you should go public. We want to hear from the geothermal companies about that. Okay, our final question is from Tim Fu in Massachusetts. Tim has solar, batteries, and an EV, and he's envious of Texans who get paid for sending power back during peak events. Two parts: What would have to change for homeowners in Massachusetts and other states to get access to programs like Texas's? And why are so few EVs enabled for vehicle-to-grid? Are the automakers deliberately slow-walking it?
Jigar Shah: Yeah, great questions. So one, it sounds like you're in Massachusetts, and Massachusetts has a fantastic program called ConnectedSolutions. That program extends into Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and it actually is quite lucrative. They pay you a little bit upfront, but then they pay you more over time for five years. So a lot of folks are installing batteries, putting in smart water heaters, putting in smart thermostats, putting in EV chargers that are programmable, and taking advantage of a lot of demand flexibility programs that are championed within the Massachusetts utility companies. On the V2G side, it's proving to be a lot harder than people expected, because they didn't plan for their cars to be V2G. Interestingly enough, Tesla did plan for their cars to be V2G, and so they have inverters actually on the car. You can use a very simple plug to have a Tesla go vehicle-to-grid. Whereas for all of the rest of the vehicles, you need to install a separate inverter, you need to connect it directly into the subpanel, and so it can easily cost $8,000 or $9,000 to put in a vehicle-to-grid system. A lot of auto companies are unlocking the vehicle-to-grid feature, but they're also looking to redesign their vehicles to figure out how to make that process a lot simpler and easier. So I think it's going to take a few years, because vehicle-to-grid costs a lot of money right now — but the rest of those VPP programs are just as lucrative, if not more lucrative, than Texas.
Jamie Nolan: Wow, more lucrative than Texas? I don't know about that, Jigar. Okay, throw out some examples. What are some states where, if our listeners are located there, they should definitely look into what VPP programs are available?
Jigar Shah: So definitely Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts — those programs are some of the most lucrative programs that are around. Duke Energy, Colorado, and Xcel in Minnesota. Our friends in South Carolina as well as North Carolina, for Duke, have good programs. Our friends at Rocky Mountain Power have their Wattsmart program in Salt Lake City, and I think that extends into Wyoming and other places. So very exciting.
Jamie Nolan: Awesome. I did not hear you mention Virginia. I guess I'll have to keep waiting.
Jigar Shah: Not yet. But it's coming — it's coming any day now.
Jamie Nolan: Is it? Come on. Well, we heard our new friend will be working on energy policy there in the State House, so I'll look forward to following up with Louise White about that. We're very excited for her.