Currents

The episode contains a handful of genuinely useful technical specifics - 40% material-assistance threshold for solar, 1.5 MW cut-off for the physical work test, 10-year recapture window - but is padded with high-level advice ('start early,' 'documentation') and runs only 17 minutes, limiting density. Practitioners already in the space will learn little new.

“for solar, 40% of the supply must come from non prohibited foreign entities”

“for projects above, uh, 1.5 megawatts last year is no longer a requirement. Now those projects have to rely on the physical work test”

There are no contrarian or counterintuitive arguments; every piece of advice ('bring us in early,' 'treat compliance as an ongoing process,' 'documentation, documentation, documentation') is exactly what any compliance vendor would say. The three-part FIAC taxonomy is useful framing but not novel.

“start early, understand the regulations that are on the table”

“treat compliance as an ongoing process. It's just an ongoing part, much like construction project management or O and M”

Alan Cordova is a genuine practitioner - head of strategy at a compliance software firm, self-described 'longtime project developer' - with real scale behind him ('millions of wage hours, billions of tax credits'). However, he is effectively a vendor on a law-firm podcast, which introduces commercial framing and limits candour about deal failures.

“across the millions of wage hours we've covered, billions of tax credits”

“as a longtime project developer I and most of my peers are very familiar with the 5% safe harbor”

The episode offers a few concrete thresholds (40% non-FEOC supply, 5% safe harbor, 1.5 MW, 4-year continuity, 10-year recapture) and an industry-level observation about bimonthly rule changes in 2025, but there are zero named projects, named clients, or dollar outcomes from specific failures - hampering real evidential weight.

“in 2025 you had almost every two months the requirements changed from pre OBB 48e to June to August to post August”

“make sure that 5% is spent uh, on eligible uh, applications prior to your beginning of construction date. And then as long as that ratio is maintained within a continuity of four years”

The host is a practising lawyer with genuine domain knowledge and does attempt one productive push ('there has to be many instances where that's not the case'), but most questions are leading or agenda-setting rather than probing, and the guest's vague answer about 'commercial solutions' goes unchallenged. No productive disagreement occurs.

“But there has to be many instances where that's not the case. Right? I mean the world's not perfect.”

“what have you seen done, um, in practice where people just either forgot, made a mistake, the rules were unclear”