Bonus Episode: Dan Shugar on Reshoring Solar Manufacturing (recorded at UNC Clean Tech Summit)

When COVID broke global logistics in 2020, Dan Shugar made a call most of his peers didn't. Nextpower absorbed over $100 million honoring existing contracts, then built the manufacturing it needed at home. Today the company has 35+ US factories — including a former Bethlehem Steel mill in Pittsburgh now shipping hundreds of trucks a week — and a backlog north of $5 billion.Jigar joins SunCast's Nico Johnson to talk with Dan about onshoring through the chaos, why solar and storage are no longer "alternative" energy when they made up 83% of new US power capacity last year, and how Nextpower's culture has kept its team intact across cycles.Along the way: why the industry's biggest enemy is its own narrative, the $10 million bet ACP made to fix it, and the wedding-guest argument that turned into a video series.Recorded at the UNC Clean Tech Summit.Learn more at energyempire.fm