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We are in Anaheim!
Start each day with the Daily Roundup as we bring you the trends and conversations unfolding in Anaheim at the RE+ 2022 conference formerly known as SPI.
If you are in Anaheim, visit us at booth 438.
You can also watch the show stream live from the PowerUp Media Zone at www.suncast.live.
TRANSCRIPT:
Nico Johnson
The sound you hear in the background is the sound of progress. That is the sound of the exhibit hall at the annual renewable energy conference known as RE+.
Julia Pyper
We're really here
Nico Johnson
Hey there solar warriors. I'm Nico Johnson, and this is SunCast. Each week, I pull back the veil on the life and business insights of cleantech entrepreneurs building the most noble and impactful companies of our time. I hope what you learn from this conversation is a catalyst for your own growth. So thanks for tuning in. And welcome to our tribe. Hey, welcome Solar warrior. This is a rare and special opportunity for a live and this is almost near real time. Live as we've just produced these daily round up episodes within the last 12 hours. The one that you're going to hear was just produced the evening before and I hope that you are getting ready to enjoy the RE+ show, or if it's already time for the show to have come to a conclusion and you're just sort of catching up. I hope that you are enjoying the conversation that we've had here. These daily roundups give you insight into what is happening at the show. What's the sentiment at the show? How are some of the folks that we think are more tapped in to the happenings at the show? How are they seeing the show unfold? What should you be looking forward to if you happen to be listening to this in time to leverage this information for yourself ahead of planning each day as you go as we'll be publishing these before the day fully gets rolling, but at the very least, it's a view for you into the trends and the conversations unfolding and unfurling before us here in Anaheim at the RE+ 2022 conference, formerly SPI hope that you enjoy these and stick around for more if you are here in Anaheim, please come by and see us at the Media Zone. It is booth 438. It is right across from Hyundai OMMCO and Talesun and really easy to find right in the show right in the main part of the show floor. You can of course, watch us stream live from the PowerUp Media Zone at SunCast.live and you can check out the entire agenda for all the work we're doing at the Media Zone at re-plus.com/mediazone. All right, here we go. Well, once again, we are live here in Anaheim, California. My name is Nico Johnson, host of SunCast but this is not SunCast as you would normally hear it. We are live from the RE+ show and I am joined by some very dear friends this is of course the Daily Roundup. This is the preview show for this year's RE+. Tomorrow, the exhibit hall as you can hear in the background will be open to the public at 10am. I'm joined by my friends Jason Verkaart. Josh Porter and Julia Pyper. I'll go ahead and let them introduce themselves really quickly and we are going to give it to you straight from the show floor. A little preview of what you can expect when you get here and get on to the exhibit hall floor tomorrow. For RE+ Jason
Jason Verkaart
Jason Verkaart from the solar coaster from Maui. I want to say live and we are live here live. Absolutely that first recording I could have missed you kind of cut it off the sound of progress. I love that because that's exactly what we're listening to here. This is the sound of progress happening live around us. So excited to be here. Mr. Porter. Also a low
Josh Porter
Are you plus this Josh Porter with the solar coaster? Radio Show podcast and media company in Maui, Hawaii, Jason's co host and partner in crime. And so happy to be here today with Nico and Julia am super stoked to be back in RE+, I mean Geez. Lily's been a couple of years. Everybody's got a great energy walking just into the entrance hall and everyone's saying hello and got to like, hey, it's time to do this again, folks. So welcome. And I'm so glad to be here and let's do this.
Julia Pyper
We're barely into day one. And I'm already running late, like 30 minutes behind everything. If I booked an appointment with you, I'm sorry. I'm going to be late. It's Julia Pyper here. I'm hosting the political climate podcast supported by the USC Schwarzenegger Institute and produced in partnership with Kinnari media. Super excited to be joining Miko. We are going to be doing a morning show here at RE+ we're going to have some great solar celebrities on we kind of like Live with Regis sorry, not Regis anymore. Kelly and Ryan that will be
Nico Johnson
like at least the star Kelly's the star, which is why it says live with Julia and Nico.
Julia Pyper
You put me first I was so honored. That was really nice touch Not speaking in my good live capacity. But I am officially the Vice President of Public Policy at good Libra financier in the distributed clean energy space and in home improvement and solar and all that good stuff. But I'm just so excited to branch out and talk to other leaders in this space here. Today I come to the show and I feel like a sponge just come and suck up all the latest trends and technology developments. And it's just so inspiring to see how this energy transition works. It is a transition and everyone on this show floor and everyone here today is the they're the folks that are making it happen. One project one installation at a time and we're gonna unpack a lot of stuff. Nikko I know in that morning show including highlighting the greatest panels and sessions of the days everyone knows where they want to spend their time and energy. So I'm really honored to be with you and looking forward to this.
Nico Johnson
It's gonna be a blast. But you have been one of the busiest folks in showbiz. If if we have a showbiz in the solar industry, you just got back from Washington DC did yeah,
Julia Pyper
I did, I had the honor of attending the inflation Reduction Act ceremony where President Biden sort of celebrated signing that major legislation that I think will set this nation on a massive growth trajectory across renewable energy and smart grid and energy storage space. The consistency we will get from this bill is almost unheard of the country has not seen this kind of policy certainty. Everyone knows the solar coaster, you guys more than anybody, we may get to step off of it for just a moment, barring the rides here at Disney. I mean, go get on those. But we get a little break on the policy front, hopefully. But the work is not over. We got to implement it, make sure it works for people. And I'm excited to dig in this weekend until a lot of that as well.
Nico Johnson
Yeah, well, there's gonna be a lot of things to do here on the show for not the least of which of course, the power of media zone where we're broadcasting live from right now. And we have a really exciting, compelling, I would say, lineup. The truth is, there's a compelling lineup at just about every theater, across the show floor. I think it's six or seven theaters just on the show floor this year, along with a very full, very entertaining education track. That is for the full conference attendees, we don't have enough time to go into in this preview show the breadth and depth of opportunity you have for learning on the show floor. Julia and I every morning, the morning show at 9am. We'll do our best to try and highlight what you can expect from your experience here on the show floor. And from the conference at large. There's a lot to take in if you didn't listen to our Know Before You Go episode, I would encourage you to queue that up. Because we really get into all of the details of kind of how to parse the time both from if you're an installer if you're a financier if you are an exhibitor or someone representing one of the exhibits, how to think about your time, but it's showtime. And nobody knows Showtime better than the solar coaster. Guys, you guys definitely cover the show for in a way that is supernatural predator natural for you. I'm sure you have been scouring canvassing the show floor today. I'd love to hear from the two technologically advanced, most technologically advanced podcasters in the industry. What What have you noticed maybe about the show floor or what's got you excited that you'd like help help folks that, you know, this is the most confusing part of the show is how to actually take it all in? Sure. Sure. Well, Jay likes
Josh Porter
to refer to this as day zero, right? Yeah. So it's the day before the show floor technically opens up. And we have an opportunity, we like to jump in and kind of like scour the boots and find out where all the technology is what's happening where and we do see a lot of the old the usual suspects out there. But sometimes there's new boxes on the walls. And there's new things that are offering, right. So we saw there's a tremendous amount, of course, solar plus battery and Evie charging companies. So a lot of the guys that used to be maybe like an optimizer. Now they're a whole company, a whole Solar plus integrated suite of technology company. And we're seeing that across the board. So I think that's what we're probably most excited about. Jay, right. It's like figuring out how many are there at this point. I mean, three years ago, the last time we had already plus, I think there was maybe something like a half a dozen to a dozen legit whole integrators right out there. At this stage of the game, it looks to me like that's quite doubled, quadrupled, or something like that companies I'd never heard of are going for the full the full monty. So that'd
Jason Verkaart
be very nice. And I'm not going to drop names just yet, because we're going to cover them in depth. But are there some big obvious choices that I completely missed? You've already walked by their booth, they're setting up and being getting ready to go so
Julia Pyper
intrigued you guys, this is like so much tension you're building Oh,
Jason Verkaart
so good. Just to be here is great. But to see all this stuff, the innovation that's come over the past couple of years. So so we haven't been really been able to do this. And everybody looks like they're bringing their A game.
Josh Porter
And Jay, you kind of mapped out the floor a bit for me when I was trying to figure out like how to attack this so to speak. We actually in the past, we would schedule a lot more of our interviews, but we found that we were bopping around from like one side of the hall to the other side of the hall sweating like crazy under the legs, right? And so this time we tried to say we're gonna do one kind of zone at a time. And what is it like? Is it a b and c zones? Right J and like on the A section it's kind of more like the traditional so just tell me I'm wrong if I'm wrong, I think it's like this. The solar guys the guys that would be really built are a plus and solar power internet Another form of named party plus, and then in the B section kind of in the middle, that's a lot of that solar plus Evie charge kind of transitional area, right. And then as you get over to the sea, though, the far left section when you're thinking from that perspective, there's a lot of kind of like the startup guys are smaller companies EVs in the hydrogen section, some of the exciting stuff over there, right, like some of the really kind of nuanced things. And those are the categories right, that's how we broke it down.
Jason Verkaart
Yeah, generally speaking, that's that's exactly how it's laid out. So if you're looking for straight, solar, racking, etc, etc, you're definitely going to want to circulate the A section, if you're looking for we're in a section, we are in these sections, on day Correct. Walk right by say hi to Niko, he's here, he's going to be stuck here pretty, pretty well, which leaves it to us to go and canvass the rest of the floor. But if you're if you're in that, in that frame of mind, this is definitely where you want to be. I mean, I see everybody out here. There's so many names. I don't want to
Josh Porter
drop splits. And the lines are very much blurred though now. Right? Like, like, look like traditional PV manufacturers that all of a sudden are like, Hey, we're the whole home guys. Right? And you go, what what are you talking about? And there you see the batteries. The Evie charger, you see the whole thing? The game is definitely changing. Yeah, there's some very cool eye candy out there some great carports.
Jason Verkaart
We saw some interesting partnerships. Yeah, really new partnerships.
Josh Porter
I mean, it's yeah, there's a lot to it's out there. And one of the things this year, I mean, we may have, like 2030 40% More attendees than last record, right. So I'd say I've heard numbers, I don't want to the person that pulls that out of the hat, but big numbers in terms of attendees. And then also in terms of exhibitors. I mean, everyone's pretty much here. Everyone's worn ago. I mean, raring just want to be here, you know, that's where they're at.
Nico Johnson
I think we'll get official numbers for the morning show tomorrow. I'm not. I'm not totally sure. But I know that it was disclosed to me yesterday, and I don't think I think that because this is going to air tomorrow morning on the official first morning, it's, it's officially the largest SPI RE+ ever. So it's definitely the largest RE+, because this is the first one. It's the largest RE+ ever, and it's in excess of 20,000 registered attendees, for sure. And I know that this there was at least one other that had 20,000 Plus registered attendees. And this is the largest. So that puts this into perspective. I mean, it's like we'll get we'll get official numbers kicking off tomorrow for the morning show with Julia. Yeah.
Julia Pyper
So much built up demand, right. We've had a couple of things that were unusual. We had an unfortunate situation in New Orleans with the weather that happened there. And a lot of people were out of power, which was a stark reminder of how important it is all the work everyone does here. We're currently speaking as Puerto Rico has had a massive power
Jason Verkaart
leaders to the day zero tragic, yeah,
Julia Pyper
Alaska got hit by a storm recently. You know, it's just a reminder of just how important energy is in people's lives and the fact that the need for resilience is only increasing. And so these types of cool techie solutions are awesome to think about. They're great for decarbonization. They're also just a lifeline for a lot of people. I think that's a cool thread to think about is how we can provide more solutions for people in need across the country and around the world, this industry will will provide many of those solutions.
Nico Johnson
Yep. I think one of the common threads as well, that we're seeing in registration are the number of people who are new to the industry entirely. I don't know what percentage it is. And something that I'm going to ask for the RE+ staff to give us numbers on for tomorrow. Because we track this stuff. Right. If you've been before, if previous attendee, and it's a staggering number of new attendees have never been to this show before which actually, when you think about how the impact IRA is already having and is going to have on our industry, as already the fastest growing jobs maker the fastest growing source of new power generation, for five plus years now year over year, it is going to be probably the most compelling source of job creation in the United States for the next decade. Yeah. And it's it makes perfect sense. I talked to someone on the airplane over who was essentially coming in to California, on their spare time, covertly looking for a job from another sector. And you just casually get into the conversation that she was coming to the solar show, and that she was job hunting. Right. She would. And she literally, like gave me a pseudonym. She's like, I don't want to tell you my real name. I don't want to. Yeah. And because she's in I think she's in banking, and like she's really trying to be careful about what she's thinking. But a lot of folks right now have their eye on this sector. And I can tell you from from the podcast chair, every single CEO I sit down with the number one challenge they have is among the many challenges we've had through COVID. And all of the issues with logistics, the number one challenge still remains is talent. It is hiring. No one can scale families tell
Jason Verkaart
you it's not the first time I've heard that conversation either. Yeah.
Josh Porter
So I just sent just on the plane that right out here from Maui. I sent Jason an article from an organization called protocol.com. And it says move over Silicon Valley engineers are quitting for climate tech. Yeah. And then it describes a couple of like Headhunter type of people in that environment and how they're they're creating headhunting agency, specifically the alignment tech to capture all this talent out Silicon Valley move out of the, you know, the, I suppose the the web related kind of technology regulated businesses and independent tech and who wouldn't want to do that? Who wouldn't want to be a part of this industry? At this time in history? Yeah. When you know, there's so much movement in front of us. It's such a great trajectory, and to put and here's the Imagine taking that talent, right, that's done so much in that space, and then bring it to bear. Right? Flying? Oh, goodness. Yeah.
Julia Pyper
I mean, there's so many types of jobs, too, like the Department of Energy is hiring 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s of people, the amount of union labor that's going to come out of the inflation reduction, active measures in there that incentivize using union labor for larger scale renewable energy projects, that's going to be a major boon. I know, in the home sector where we work, there's 101 point 4 million direct jobs we expect from the home electrification movement, and then 5 million if you include indirect jobs, and that's just inside the home on things like heat pumps, and windows and doors and the air sealing and things like that. It's really massive. And a quick shout out for the next IQ platform that our company has that trains people to get into the solar sector. It's like a masterclass style program. And we're still building it out. And I know there's plenty of other programs out there that nonprofits offer the government offers other companies offer and it's just a moment I think, to even get into the training of the solar workforce industry, because we got to figure out how to train up that workforce that we need, because to your point, Nico doesn't fully exist today.
Nico Johnson
Yeah, not only training, but the standardization, I was just speaking with Regan Mone from sav. And Rob Andrews from helix, which was acquired by Nova source. And at the residential level, where you all are in good lead, as well as the utility sector, standardization across our industry just doesn't exist the way it does in other industries. So it makes it makes it difficult to difficult to scale, that we're talking about this really interesting phenomenon where we're creating our own inflation. Think about this, because you train someone as a level one tech at solve, and then they go get a job at novice source as a level two tech, and they're doing essentially the same job for now another 234 dollars an hour. Right? It's an internal form of inflation in our industry, because we don't have enough competition for those roles. because there just isn't enough training, or standardization around what it means to be level one, level two, level three tech for Oh nm or for installation at across the board. Right. And as much as NABCEP has tried to sort of standardize what it looks like to be an installer, we have so much work to do. So I think the inbound support from everything from Ira to the the massive tail, when we're going to see from the financial markets saying here, we want to support the growth of smart entrepreneurs who want to build companies around this. Yeah, it's gonna create so much opportunity,
Josh Porter
you know, what occurs to me is that we're not even talking about manufacturing yet. And I would love to know from your perspective, Julie, just coming out of DC and all of the brouhaha there, does it feel like we're going to see real commitments to building domestic manufacturing, in PV or in electric vehicles are in battery storage, or wherever,
Julia Pyper
you know, we already are. I mean, there's been a handful of announcements even since the bill was signed, companies are for sure investing more in America. And this comes across the board. It's in solar, it's in H fac, manufacturing, Evie, manufacturing, there's a Department of Energy website, we can go and actually look at what exact models qualify for that $3,500 tax credit, because as people may know, there are some requirements to be made in America now to qualify for that tax credit. But you can find those those lists, they are out there. And I think the Department of Energy and other agencies will make it more easy to figure out, you know, what qualifies, but honestly, we do not have I think the full capacity today we need to support the growth of this sector. But I think those announcements are coming, we're already seeing them happen. And how cool is that? You got to build it here, make it here and, and even export it, I think around the world, that'll be a massive shift if that happens. But we did mention the word inflation. And I just want to say one is driving all this to is the fact that once these clean energy solutions are installed, especially solar, it's inflation proof that that energy is free from the sun. And that is actually what's driving is this some of the fundamentals as well. The policy is key, it's the it's the guardrails we need it's the consistency and certainty, especially as we get into newer business models. But I think it's also driving this as the sheer economic benefit that these solutions provide. In an inflationary environment, especially we do not have the volatility quite the same way, you know, a global oil and gas market would and that's not to say there's no role for any other type of energy. I'm not trying to, you know, be selective here, but we are to Clean Energy Conference and one major benefit of our sector is the fact that there's some long term contracts and pricing plans that offer the buyers that kind of consistency and guaranteed money savings. I think it's really exciting moment for our industry, despite the inflationary environment we're in.
Nico Johnson
Yeah. Well, we all have many, many other opportunities here tonight to catch up with the solar wars and tribe that have invited us to numerous what dinners etc. are you headed to? Is anyone headed to the reception? Oh, Opening
Julia Pyper
Ceremony ceremony Rata go to that. Of course Jenna be late for it.
Nico Johnson
So Julia well it's it's for protocol so Julia is going to head over to the opening ceremony will look for a full report of the opening ceremonies in the morning at the morning show at the at the way along with Julia ham from SEPA and my call from Borrego. That's right. We'll have them too. Yeah. Solar coaster guys, you got any big plans for the evening?
Josh Porter
Couple of meetings couple of dinners you know who gets to circle back with you a bit. And then I just tried to get
Julia Pyper
dinner so popular. Not one dinner. A couple dinners. Like Hobbit style second Sabha.
Josh Porter
Just trying to get get ready for the big event. Now understand how we want to kind of approach the show floor and
Nico Johnson
how do you and how do you kick the show off tomorrow?
Josh Porter
Well, you know, we've got basically we're going to try to get in early
Jason Verkaart
right, I'm going to sneak in early. We're going to kind of start canvassing the floor, get the real interviews. We'll get the scoop and we'll be back with you. Perfect tomorrow afternoon.
Nico Johnson
Fantastic. Well, this is live from the show floor our daily roundup My name is Nico Johnson, your host here each and every day at RE+. Love it if you are on the show floor to come by the power of media zone presented by fluence and produced by us at SunCast. Media you can also watch if you are not live at the show on SunCast dot live because we will be live streaming for the first time actually, we live streamed in 2019 If you guys remember, but we will be live streaming with legit three camera video from the show floor if all the tech works and we get everything installed in time this evening. And we look forward to welcoming you back tomorrow where we will have our second and very lively daily roundup with Josh Porter, Nico Johnson and lots of other guests. So thank you very much to Julia Pyper, from political climate. The solar coaster guys, Josh and Jason deer. My name is Nico. Thanks for joining us. I hope that you have a wonderful day enjoy the show. Thank you once again for tuning in. This has been the daily roundup segment of our show that is broadcast live from the RE+ 22 Show in Anaheim, California, I hope that you will continue to tune in as we are broadcasting live from the show floor if you're here in Anaheim, once again, I'd remind you to come by and check us out at booth 438. It is right in the middle of the show floor. And we are also live streaming to www dot SunCast dot live. And I hope that you will check out the agenda for the show as well you can check that out at re-plus.com/mediazone. It's a lot of alphabet soup of URL. So I hope that the very least if you're at the show, come by and check us out. But take us on the go. If you can't stop by again, that's SunCast dot live I want to thank those who helped make this show possible and particulars presented by fluence and we have some amazing supporting sponsors. Hope that you all enjoyed this daily roundup and that you'll tune in for the success of daily roundups and for the replays that we have coming of all the live and the wonderful conversations we're having with industry leaders about what's happening not just here on the show floor, but in the industry at large. And if you are new to listening, I would encourage you to check out the more than 500 Amazing founder stories and startup advice throughout our clean tech journey. As I've cataloged at all over the last seven years on our podcast called SunCast. You can find out more about SunCast. And the mini mini founders and C suite and front line folks who are helping build the clean tech comm if you go to my suncast.com And subscribe on whatever podcast player you like, you have a lot of folks that subscribe through Apple, iTunes, and Spotify. But I encourage you to check out the podcast my suncast.com and again watch the live stream to hear and see more of the content that we're producing. Right here from Anna, thank you for joining us. You can find more at SunCast dot live for right here on the show floor. See you next time.
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