Innovation’s North Star: Policy’s Impact on Domestic Manufacturing and R&D

In this episode of The Raptor Report, hosts Avery Black and Don Nista sit down with Scott Moskowitz, VP of Market Strategy and Industry Affairs at Qcells North America, to discuss the current "inflection point" of the U.S. solar industry. With a decade of experience in solar policy and market research, Scott provides a high-level look at why domestic manufacturing has evolved from a niche goal to a "national economic security imperative" in the face of massive load growth from AI and data centers. Episode Highlights: The Grid Maintenance Trap: Why an aging, 100-year-old grid is driving up electricity rates and how scalable, fast-to-deploy solar is the primary lever to maintain consumer affordability. Domestic Manufacturing as an R&D Engine: A look at the Qcells Solar Hub in Georgia and why co-locating R&D with manufacturing is critical for accelerating the commercialization of high-efficiency tandem perovskite cells. The Policy Lever: Why demand-side incentives like the Domestic Content Bonus are just as vital as supply-side credits (45X) for sustaining long-term manufacturing investments and scaling the U.S. supply chain. Smart Orchestration of "Dumb" Panels: Why manual monitoring is no longer sufficient for utility-scale assets and how visual analytics are providing the "digital foundation" required to spot voltage and heat anomalies before they impact ROI. The Power of Collaboration: Insights into how manufacturers, policymakers, and operators must integrate education to ensure the industry can scale to meet 2030 demand targets efficiently. Who's Raptor Maps? Raptor Maps is a solar management platform at the intersection of AI and robotics. Our services combine the industry's most comprehensive visual analytics suite with the ability to orchestrate solar management, construction, and operations work by people and robotics. In turn, Raptor Maps provides the digital foundation teams need to scale their capabilities without straining their budgets and to ultimately increase the reliability and return of their solar assets.