Episode 285

285 - Andrew Birch on Digitizing 20 years of solar expertise in OpenSolar

Published on: 13th August, 2020

How did one of the solar industry’s true pioneers take everything he’s learned about solar in the last 20 years and make it Free and open-sourced to the world?

Andrew Birch (Birchy), Co-Founder of the first company to pioneer delivering online solar designs(Sungevity), tells us what his research suggests is the answer to scaling solar by 30% per year through 2050 to address climate change.

  • The 1st barrier - permitting.
  • The 2nd barrier - adding 10M people to the industry in the next 10 years. 

The question is - How could you possibly scale with these structural barriers? The solution is a complete end-to-end software solution that wraps CRM, proposals and financing together, but it’s not just software.

Birchy's software is bringing in service providers to exhibit products and essentially pulls everything into a single place. They make that bundle white-labeled to installers as well as accessible and online and completely free.

That’s Open Solar, but there’s so much more to Birchy’s story. So queue it up!

If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to his contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/.

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About the Podcast

SunCast
Your resource for developing a clean energy or climate tech career
Nico Johnson takes you into conversations with those at the forefront of Renewable Energy.

SunCast gives an inside look into what is happening in renewable energy. From conversations with the biggest Solar Panel manufacturers in the world to the small startups creating the future of renewable energy, such as carbon capture and battery technology breakthroughs.

SunCast is dedicated to providing the knowledge, research, tools and expert guidance you need to understand, grow and be ahead of the curve in the fastest-growing markets in the world.

Featuring over 600 conversations, Nico has interviewed people from Tesla, SolarCity, Trina Solar, Meyer Burger, Conergy, SunEdison, Energy Vault and even the US Government... to name a few. Covering topics such as Solar Power, Wind Energy, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Carbon Capture, Finance, Hydrogen, and more.

You can watch SunCast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SunCastMedia

...or view the full archive of SunCast episodes here: https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes