About this episode

Monika Gerhart discusses the unexpected growth of clean energy in red states and the local factors influencing energy policy and resilience planning.

A solar moratorium nearly shut down Alabama’s emerging solar market before most of the industry even saw it coming. For years, the prevailing assumption has been that clean energy growth would be concentrated in politically progressive states while places like Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi lagged behind. But that’s not what Monika Gerhart is seeing (and doing!) on the ground. As Executive Director of the Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association (GSREIA), Monika operates at the intersection of policy, infrastructure, resilience, and market development across some of the most politically and operationally complex energy markets in America. And increasingly, she says the future of clean energy growth is being shaped locally — through trust, coalition-building, reliability concerns, and resilience planning. In this conversation, Nico and Monika unpack the fight that nearly derailed Alabama’s solar market before most of the industry even noticed, how Hurricane Ida transformed the conversation around distributed energy and microgrids in Louisiana, and why resilience infrastructure is rapidly becoming a life-safety issue across the Gulf Coast. They also explore: why…

People in this episode

Host: Nico Johnson

Guest: Monika Gerhart

Topics covered

• clean energy
• solar market
• political dynamics
• resilience planning
• local advocacy
• energy policy

Keywords

• clean energy
• solar market
• Alabama
• Hurricane Ida
• resilience
• energy policy
• microgrids
• local advocacy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association

Places: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi

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