SMP 279: Using AI-enabled Tools to Accelerate Renewable Energy Development
From Solar Maverick Podcast by Benoy Thanjan
May 4, 2026 · 59 min · Season 1 · Episode 279
About this episode
The episode discusses how AI is accelerating solar development and addressing industry challenges.
In this special live episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast, host Benoy Thanjan moderates a panel discussion from the MSSIA(“Mid-Atlantic Solar and Storage Industries Association”) Solar and Storage Conference focused on one of the most important topics in renewable energy today: how AI is accelerating solar development, asset management, and O&M. The panel explores how AI is both creating new energy challenges through data center-driven load growth and helping solve some of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, including permitting, local opposition, distributed energy resource coordination, asset management, O&M, and post-COD performance. Benoy is joined by Anuj Saigal from Spark AI, Anna Gusel from enSights.ai, and Joel Santisteban from EcoSuite. Together, they discuss where AI is actually delivering value today, where the hype still exists, and how renewable energy companies can use AI-enabled tools to move faster, reduce risk, and make better decisions.
People in this episode
Host: Benoy Thanjan
Guests: Anuj Saigal, Anna Gusel, Joel Santisteban
Topics covered
- AI in renewable energy
- solar development
- asset management
- O&M
- data challenges
- energy bottlenecks
Keywords
- AI tools
- renewable energy
- solar development
- asset management
- O&M
- data center
- permitting
- local opposition
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: MSSIA, Spark AI, enSights.ai, EcoSuite
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