Scaling Clean: Marco Krapels, Chief Marketing Officer at Enphase Energy

For years, the clean energy industry has focused on generation.

How do we build more solar? More wind? More storage?

But what if one of the biggest energy opportunities is already sitting in our driveways?

My latest Scaling Clean guest, Marco Krapels, Chief Marketing Officer at Enphase Energy, believes we're entering a new chapter in the energy transition. One where EVs, batteries, rooftop solar, and VPPs work together to provide the flexible capacity our grid increasingly needs.

Marco has spent more than a decade helping shape the solar industry, from the early days of EV charging infrastructure to some of the industry's most important net metering battles.

Today, he's focused on a much bigger opportunity.

Here are three takeaways from our conversation.

The Parked EV Economy Is Coming

Most cars spend the vast majority of their lives parked.

Marco believes that is about to become a huge opportunity.

Enphase is preparing to launch a bidirectional EV charger that allows EVs to do more than simply charge. In the future, EVs could help power homes during outages, provide backup energy, and even participate in VPP programs.

That means your vehicle could become an energy asset.

Instead of simply consuming electricity, EVs could help store it, manage it, and potentially generate value for homeowners when connected to the grid.

Utilities and Distributed Energy Can Become Partners

Marco spent years fighting utility battles over net metering.

Looking back, he sees the industry moving toward a different relationship.

Rather than competing with utilities, distributed energy resources can help solve some of their biggest challenges.

Utilities across the country are facing growing electricity demand from electrification, population growth, and increasingly, AI-driven data centers. At the same time, traditional generation projects can take years to permit and build.

VPPs offer another option.

By aggregating residential batteries, solar systems, EV chargers, and other distributed energy resources, utilities can access flexible capacity exactly when and where it is needed.

The challenge now is scaling these programs beyond pilot projects. That requires trust, reliable technology, and business models that create value for utilities, homeowners, and grid operators.

We Have a Deployment Problem

One of Marco's comments during our conversation was:

"We don't have an energy problem. We have a deployment problem."

He pointed to what he sees as one of the largest untapped energy opportunities in the country.

The United States has roughly 87 million homes with rooftops.

Fewer than 7 million currently have solar.

Marco said that 10 million homes with 10 kW of solar and 10 kWh of storage could unlock roughly 100 GW of dispatchable capacity.

At a time when utilities, policymakers, and hyperscalers are all searching for new sources of electricity, that is a remarkable number.

Why This Conversation Matters

The clean energy industry is entering a period of enormous demand growth. AI data centers are driving unprecedented electricity needs.

Utilities are searching for new capacity and homeowners are gaining access to technologies that allow them to become active participants in the energy system.

Marco believes future capacity might come from millions of distributed assets that already exist or can be deployed quickly.

A few reflections from our conversation:

• America's largest untapped energy resource may already be sitting on rooftops and in driveways.

• VPPs could strengthen partnerships between utilities and distributed energy providers.

• The future of grid reliability may depend as much on deployment as generation.

As Marco sees it, the opportunity is already here. The challenge is just putting it to work.

Listen to this episode on your favorite podcast platform: Apple, Spotify, Radio Public, Amazon Music, iHeart and YouTube.