On this episode of Big Blend Radio’s “Nature Connection” Podcast, host/producer Lisa D. Smith talks with clean energy executive and author Jared Schoch, founder and chairman of TurningPoint Energy, about how solar power went from an underdog energy source to a major force on the U.S. grid, and about his new book, Solar Coaster: The Untold Story of the Solar Industry, One Man’s Journey Leading with Soul (Regalo Press, November 10, 2026). Jared has managed more than 3 gigawatts of projects representing over $5 billion in solar and energy efficiency investments, and he opens by putting a gigawatt in human terms: roughly half a million to a million homes.

Lisa asks why it took so long for solar to take hold in the U.S., and Jared traces the history. Hydropower and coal built the country’s electricity system, and solar only began to matter after the energy-independence push of the 1970s led to the creation of the Department of Energy. Federal labs, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, set up weather stations that gave the country decades of data on how much sun and wind each place gets, and that data gave investors the confidence to build solar at scale. Europe, and Germany in particular, led the way, California followed, and the rest of the U.S. followed California.

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Lisa shares her own experience with brownouts and outages where data centers have moved in, and asks why solar can’t do more. Jared explains that for decades U.S. electricity demand grew only one to two percent a year, and that AI data centers have turned that on its head, leaving the country with more demand than supply. He says solar and wind can reach the grid in one to three years, compared with four to five for new natural gas and closer to ten for new nuclear, and that pairing solar with battery storage lets the sun fill a battery that then delivers power when the grid needs it most. He adds that over half of the large-scale new electricity planned for the next three or four years is solar, that only about a quarter of the data centers now being planned will actually come online because of grid limits, and that crypto and data center companies have asked his company to build solar plants for them.

The conversation also covers solar closer to home: solar windows, shingles, and plug-in blankets, and the roughly 40 small solar plants Jared’s company is developing around Chicago, built where the power is needed instead of on thousands of rural acres. He explains why the U.S. has about 150 different energy markets (three kinds of utilities across 50 states), which makes change slow and local, and why good developers listen to communities and walk away when a project doesn’t fit. Lisa brings up a desert solar project that drew opposition over endangered species, and Jared describes agrivoltaics, where raising the panels lets crops that need shade grow beneath them, as a win for farmers, ranchers, and solar.

They also tackle the hard questions. Jared says somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of batteries are recyclable, and that the industry needs better recycling solutions within the next 10 to 20 years. He points to a U.S. Department of Energy analysis finding that solar is cheaper than new natural gas on average, even without tax credits, says the U.S. is behind much of the world on solar, and explains why he sees carbon capture as important for hard-to-clean industries like cement and steel.

Jared compares today’s AI investment surge to the dot-com crash of 2000 to 2001, when a job he had lined up disappeared, and says growth kept going afterward, just more slowly. He describes solar as an industry where something dramatically changes every two to four years, where the companies that survive are adaptive and scrappy, and where you have to believe in what you’re doing with your whole heart and your whole soul. That leads to Solar Coaster, and to a chapter his wife said was missing: whether the juice was worth the squeeze. After looking back over 20 years, his answer is yes. Jared also shares that he isn’t making money from the book. Every dollar goes to charity, supporting environmental causes, fighting poverty, education, and spiritual growth. Lisa and Jared close on giving back, and on why access to electricity matters for health and opportunity in communities around the world. Jared will be back on Big Blend Radio in November to go deeper into the book.

Solar Coaster is an insider’s account of the U.S. solar industry and the constant cycles of risk, policy shifts, and reinvention that Jared calls the “Solar Coaster.” Tracing his path from the high-tech boom of the 1990s through the rise of companies like SunEdison and the creation of TurningPoint Energy, it pairs practical business lessons with a call to lead with purpose, what Jared describes as a “soul-based” approach.

Publisher: Regalo Press | Publication date: November 10, 2026 | Format: Hardcover, 272 pages | ISBN: 979-8895657256

Jared Schoch is the founder and chairman of TurningPoint Energy, a national solar development company building community and utility-scale solar power plants across the United States. He served as its president from 2014 to 2023. Before founding TurningPoint, he was vice president and general manager of the U.S. power plants business at SOLON Corporation, spent nearly five years building SunEdison’s U.S. utility-scale solar development platform, and held energy efficiency business development roles at Johnson Controls. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University New Orleans and an MBA from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business.

📚 Learn more about the book and pre-order: SolarCoasterProject.com

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