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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 the PowerUp Media Zone booth 438.
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TRANSCRIPT:
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.
Welcome to the Power Up Media Zone produced by SunCast media and presented by fluence. We're also live streaming at SunCast dot live thanks to our streaming partners, sungrow and Tyco. If you're watching this on our live stream, I just want to say thank you for joining us, be sure to bookmark SunCast dot live so you can watch it every day. As you walk around the show floor. I just did that actually to test and make sure that it actually works. You can watch it from the show floor suite. Yeah. And it's actually in many cases, cleaner audio, because we've got a nice feed going out of the mixer. We are back again yesterday. We were here from the show floor. And none of this was really all that set up. I'm here with my co pilot Josh Porter and our CO co pilot, Mr. Andy Rettinger is back. Andy is the Managing Director of grouphead for utility power, renewable energy at Key Bank. Good to see you again. Good to see you. Well, it's good to see you and I've got you. Good to see you. There we go. Perfect. Josh, how you doing? Excellent man. I mean, she's it's the first day of RE+ 2022. We're back here after a couple of years. And there's you know, unbelievable energy out there. Awesome tech cool people seeing everybody again, it's yeah, it's couldn't, couldn't be better. There is an incredible energy on the show floor. I just came back from a couple of the happy hours. And all of the booths that are doing happy hours have a line out around the corner around the block. Andy, did you get a chance to make a round make your rounds after our interview earlier? I have not had a chance. But I plan to quickly do that right after we finish here. But I echo your thoughts are on the energy. This is kind of like the the pregame party, if you will to the solar Super Bowl, which I think will last at least 10 years. So the energy level is crazy. And it seems like and this has been going on for several years. I know but this year especially seems different. And given the all of the tail winds in the space. It does feel like a big tailgate party that's going to kick off this, as I said the solar Super Bowl, which I think is going to last at least 10 years. It's great way to look at it like a launch. Right? Yeah. Especially given all the things that are happening right now. How's the audio working out? Okay. Yeah, I think we're good. Yeah, I think I had it soloing. So. We're good now. Excellent. Can you Okay, can you hear us? I can hear you. Yeah. Oh, we can hear you now. Perfect. I'm still learning to jockey this thing with more than one chain of audio, which is my voice and zoom call. So this is uh, this is fun. I'm glad to have people real humans to talk to on the stage. So you know, Andy, one of the things that I learned a lot in our previous conversations, and we know you are a finance expert. And part of that leads you down a different path of conversations when you're walking around the trade show floor, then perhaps I would get into I'd love to hear, from your perspective, as someone coming from the capital markets, as you're walking the tradeshow floor or as you're booking meetings. What are you hearing here on day one? That is the prevailing conversation among the folks that, you know, I know, folks are excited about IRA, but what are you seeing as the trending conversations that you're trying to respond to? Oh, it's, it's clearly around the the incentives, the new incentives that I think I mentioned earlier, it really is throwing gasoline on an already roaring bonfire, and really talking about how to best monetize those incentives to get more projects built. And, you know, as I always mentioned that there was plenty of capital available in the marketplace prior to the IRA. But now with the IRA, there's even more capital flowing in and people are just trying to figure out how to best access. The capital was always there, but it's going to end up being more attractive. I think, in the long run, there'll be more of it. And people are trying to kind of figure out what those incentives ultimately mean, to them under this new under this new legislation. You know, it's great to have a finance guy here, because there's, that's an area that I always kind of wonder about, right. So I am hearing about like new attacks, like opportunities on commercial, like small commercial, for example, that seems to be a white space, of course, a low to moderate income that in the past has been difficult to work in. But now that's probably going to be a huge space, right with a specifically designed incentives for that. Absolutely. I mean, there's there's situations where between the the incentives available and the investment tax credit and the leverage available, there may be situations where you can build and own a project without putting any equity in
Josh Porter
it, it's a day simple payback period.
Andy Redinger
Absolutely. And I know if you have no money in a project, that's called an infinite return. Yeah. So there's plenty of plenty of opportunity, especially in solidarity you just mentioned. So I mean, the legislations, I think, ultimately going to do what it was supposed to do, which was increase the number of projects here in the US to help decarbonize our environment, and it will certainly solve that. But there's certainly going to be a lot of opportunity for people. I think, everybody, I honestly think if you're not even a developer in the solar business, you can get in this business and actually make some money because it's, it's incented. Everybody to to basically go out and figure out how to build solar projects.
Josh Porter
That's fantastic. You know, I earlier days, I remember those areas being particularly difficult, you know, LTM, and then small use called doughnut holes, you know, that term, the doughnut hole. Yeah. And now I'm seeing companies emerge and like one after the other go after that market right away. It has to and they're coming out of their kind of stealth modes, and boom, they're hitting it right now. Like today, yesterday. So it's it's so dynamic.
Andy Redinger
Absolutely. I think where I mean, there's so much incentive now to go out and get these projects operating built. The only headwind that I've heard even today is probably this is probably somewhat of a headwind is around supply, panel supply and that type of thing. But I think the marketplace will figure that out. I know there are certain panel manufacturers looking to add capacity here in the US. So I think, you know, we may hit a couple speed bumps here in the near term, but we're going to figure it out. And I think this industry is headed for, as I said to solar Super Bowl over the next decade.
Nico Johnson
I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Well, Andy, I'm so glad that you had a chance to stop by I know you've got a busy, busy evening planned. And I really want to thank you once again, for taking the time to come by and share from your deep well of experience, the trends that you're hearing on the show floor.
Andy Redinger
I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, thanks.
Nico Johnson
Thank you. We'll see you soon. As we transition to our friend mo Abdallah, we're gonna I'm gonna ask Josh, Josh, you and Jay walked around. You did a lot of interviews with electrification and really home electrification, focus today, you got did you get through any of the 30 or so there?
Josh Porter
You know, it's always I talked to Jay before the shows, and it's like J Veracode. Over there, my co host on the solar coaster. And then we tried to figure out how to capture all of the new innovations in the most economical way possible. And we get out here and we're like, Oh, my goodness, because each one of those interviews is so interesting, right. So we were able to sit down with some some fine folks out on the entrance area. We saw the the the daily the morning. Yes, you guys did a look right on the Jumbo. Yeah, it was awesome. Fantastic. And we met some great people, a crew out of Argentina doing some amazing stuff in the southern most regions of whoosh. WIAA was Antarctica super cool. microgrid stuff and then we met some other fellows that were just you know, really neat spaces. Then we got in here we actually got a chance to sit down with Canadian In solar Of course, they got their new solar plus battery integrated system some interesting innovation steps there. We did talk to Generac one of our favorites. Gen X doing some radical stuff. DC Jenny DC Gen Z going direct to battery to like recharge the battery for example. They got a whole bunch of things too much to cover in here. Who else we talked about the Panasonic Yeah, and a lot of other great guys I can your I can't lip read Jason but this is yet
Nico Johnson
this on and shirt is in the air. Oh,
Josh Porter
well, let's go ahead and bring out tomorrow. We're gonna get much more.
Nico Johnson
Let's go ahead and bring up Mohammed Abdullah is the founder and CEO of good faith energy. Fun fact. Mohammed, and good faith are the Lord. Is it the Welcome, brother? Is that are you the largest installer of solar roof and span in the US? Is that right? Whoa,
what's up, y'all? Hey, man, hey,
is that fun fact accurate at all?
Mohammed Abdala
So I believe we're number one in terms of volume for solar roof. Wow. And we're we're in the top 10 For span.
Nico Johnson
How about that? So I'm curious, when you are clearly targeting the higher value products and the higher end products in terms of the cost point? How do you navigate the show floor? Are you looking for ways for cost savings? You're looking for competitors to the products you're currently offering? Or hey, are you thinking of just expansion of the product offering the end?
Mohammed Abdala
Yeah, I think it's expansion. Number one, I mean, there's only so much cost that you can cut, you can't really pay people any less money. You know, products don't just magically drop in price, either there, they really tended to go up in the last 24 months. But for me, it's really about expansion and understanding, you know, how are others successfully selling this product and making it a sustainable vertical within their business? You know, really with solar roof? It's, it's a luxury product. And it's not, I don't sell it as a solar power generating system. And I think the first time I really had that eye opener was I went out and hung out with a couple of roofers that sold luxury roofs. Yeah. And I would hear them talk about, you know, the product in a very meticulous way, right, they'd be lying there, it'd be like laying the ceiling, tiles or baked in an oven in Chicago for three weeks and our seasonal product. But I think that when you approach that same customer base with a product that's beautiful, but also generates power and has a purpose, and can send that power to a battery to backup the home in the event of an outage, and has a tax credit. A lot of those clients, you know, will will choose a solar roof over a premium, you know, slate or concrete or something like that.
Josh Porter
Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, you know, it kudos you to be doing like high volume and Tesla. That's a challenging area. And there's some guys out in the in Hawaii, and Inquirer, in particular. And they were talking about it in similar context, city, for example, saying that we've got a lot of competitive spending in Koi, that's an area that's fertile ground for something like the Tesla solar roof. Right? I have my Tesla solar roof. What about you? Yeah. And then, of course, you know, the load control panel world's really interesting too, because there are some variations in that, right, we see more variations in that. So you might be able to find, I can imagine I have a Span system in my home. But you might find that someone says I'm okay with that two or three dedicated loads. And maybe you move to a different product for that particular person. I imagined rights by checking that stuff out now. But yeah, man, there's, we're spoilt for choice these days,
Mohammed Abdala
we really are. And I really think that, you know, span in particular, and other energy load management devices are going to be not only like a nice to have, but they're going to be a requirement in the future to meet national electric code. So you know, even with the 2020, National Electric Code, some of the jurisdictions have started to adopt and enforce it. And in the past, you know, we could just size a battery system to the largest breaker, now we have to size it to the total output of the total load calculation and to make sure that the total output of the battery can meet that so in the past, you could do a whole home backup with let's just say two Tesla Powerwalls. Now, it's like four or five in less, you install a span, there you go. And that's kind of like your your, your big loophole to be able to meet this code. And I just think that it's going to become a bigger and bigger issue as the years come
Nico Johnson
along. What surprises you as you walk around the show floor today, I mean, Josh, and I talked about how it feels like even the tracker companies are coming out with with electric vehicle chargers, what what do you see as you walk on the show floor that maybe you didn't expect or that is at a scale you didn't expect?
Mohammed Abdala
Great question. I think that you know, most of the manufacturers have been talking about full ecosystem lineups for so long, but this is the first time that I've kind of walked around and been like, Wow, these guys have, you know, a battery smart panel, a generator and Evie charger. You're like, what's going on? And I think it's pretty cool. Powerful the energy in general, you guys have been talking about it probably all day, the energy in this place is unbelievable. I've been attending SPI or RA+, since 2015. And then then obviously, we had the three year gap, but this year just feels like it's not just a solar show, it really feels like there's, uh, you know, this whole distributed energy, there's like distributed energy, you know, diversified energy show, which is pretty incredible to be a part of, and I think, you know, seeing Sivan and some of these other companies here, you know, these companies typically were at CDs of the world, right, but now they're attending RE+. And they're, they're releasing products that will help meet some of these new codes. It's just very exciting. Now.
Josh Porter
100%. So one of the things that occurs to me when you talk about, like, these higher price point products, maybe that are sold to, you know, a certain kind of demographic, and then but how does that transition to become going from a luxury to a necessity? And you just described it perfectly, I actually sat down with a finance guy, Brian Thomas, back in Maui before he came out here, I was like, How do I kind of distill down the value of some of these technologies to people across the country, and he said, a scatterplot. And I want to see luxury, and I want to see necessity, and I want to see ROI on the other axis. And I was like, Whoa, man, that's a good idea. Right? With something like span, right? That's an investment. I have it, I look at the thing constantly, right, basically stopped using social media, cuz I look at my energy stuff all the time. And I'm just geeking out on like, my dishwasher does 12 153 Watts, right, I know that I'm gonna self supply system, and then going across all the loads. Now, that's just fun for an energy geek, but then what you just described in terms of how it impacts what kind of solar you can get, what kind of batteries you can get, how it impacts meter meter upgrades, potentially, right? Especially in an environment where like, you might have underground wires, God forbid, you imagine the cost of doing something like that. So slowly becomes prohibitively expensive in certain scenarios. And something like span and other technologies actually deals with that issue entirely. So it's no longer a luxury good. Now, it's a complete necessity, right?
Mohammed Abdala
100%? I mean, I couldn't have said it any better. But, you know, spans number one value proposition is battery optimization. And now it's become even more imperative. You know, it's like, you can't install now in the city of Dallas. Yeah. Because there are they have adopted this code, and they're forcing it. So we have to go back to probably two dozen customers and tell them, hey, the code changed. And you can either buy three more batteries or one span to that's, you know, it's a lot of money. And but yeah, I think I think the company's like spans and others, their innovation, their innovation and their forward thinking, and it really does empower you to understand because you and I both know, like, if you buy a battery today, or you're pitching a battery to a customer, the first thing they're going to ask you is, so I'm spending all this money, how long will my battery last? And you know, the answer, you know, it's almost impossible to not dance around, right? It's, well, it depends on how hard you run it, you know? But now the answer can be well, it's as long as the span tells you, right, it's right there in front of you, it tells you you know, it's got historical data knows how much power you're pulling, it knows how big your battery bank is, it knows what you've tagged, as what a nice to have a must have are non essential.
Josh Porter
So it's wild, you know, I tend to think about this kind of thing across the industry itself. So when we think about other technologies, you know, like, like you said, span is one thing. It's great company, we're not here to pitch and span we're just talking about so we love it, right? But there's probably out there on the show floor right now, a company that has product X that does a thing. And then it's got some huge latent value sitting right there. This sometimes the CEO doesn't even know it, he thinks he knows it. Right. And then you get into the conversation. It's like, hang on a second gonna be utilized this way. Oh, yeah. I think that's monetizable. Man, you know, that's what's so cool about this industry, all this latent value kind of waiting to be discovered. And a lot of the times when it's EQ comes together to write like to silo, Jay likes to say siloed kind of environments coming together. And then new things are birthed out of that. That's what's cool about it, you know, renewable energies.
Nico Johnson
I think that's what happens on the trade show as well. You get a lot of folks that come in and they're thinking differently. Maybe they're coming from separate different sectors, and they see a technology and they can blow your mind with what's possible, but
100% Yeah, well, Mohamed,
I know that you've got a busy evening, and I don't want to keep you from all
Josh Porter
started getting warmed up.
Nico Johnson
You want to stick around and rock the rest of the show for us. We're gonna invite one more up onto the stage. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Good to see you. Are you going to block party?
Mohammed Abdala
I am yeah. All right. I
Nico Johnson
will see you there brother. Oh, it's cool party. Alright. Thanks for joining us.
Josh Porter
All right, Nick goes next.
Nico Johnson
We got Jen. Alison. Jen is the product manager at fluence. Jen is also our copilot here. She's just gonna come up and rock the mic with us have a little have some conversations. I'm curious. What Hey, Jen, how you doing? Hello. Hi, Jen. Hi. Jen has been what her experience has been here today on day one of the shows and you've been in a lot of SPs.
Jennifer Alfsen
I have actually that question has come up a number of times, and I don't know the number of days I've been to, I should probably
Nico Johnson
should be like 15 years, though. A long time now.
Jennifer Alfsen
11 I think we're at I think it'll be 11 Actually, right now, my first my very first SPI was in Dallas, it was just 20 laps in. I was fresh into the solar industry didn't know what I was doing. And they just threw me in the booth. And they're like, good luck go for. It was honestly the best way to learn. I learned so much in that first my first SPI and it was just hearing other people learning from other people hearing how they're talking about. And then I also just caught the caught the I don't know what it is that that that bug that I fell in love with the industry immediately. Yeah, I realized you're an engineer by training. Amazing. It is.
Nico Johnson
I am Yes. What kind of engineer mechanical, electrical, mechanical engineering
Jennifer Alfsen
went to UC San Diego.
Nico Johnson
Yeah. What was it? Did you get any fun solar projects than UC San Diego?
Jennifer Alfsen
No solar projects. We did have like a wind one kind of the what was it? The one department on campus wanted to put up a wind turbine for educational purposes. And so one of my projects was to actually set up and measure how much wind speed there was to figure out where to put the thing. And then from my from my research, it was basically like, great, put it out in the ocean. And that was not an option. So
Josh Porter
you in college, but
Jennifer Alfsen
this one was like right up on a cliff. So it was like a cliff all this protected land right up, up up to the up to the actual ocean in the ocean. It was like the most ideal place
Nico Johnson
for this is if you'd been in college three years from now, that might be an option.
Jennifer Alfsen
It might have been but yeah, that wasn't an option for that. And so we basically had to go back and tell them like, yeah, you can put one in here. It's just not going to spin.
Nico Johnson
Gender you are you are you what is there anything you're most looking forward to, as today wraps up,
Jennifer Alfsen
I'm looking forward to just connecting with more people this this last, you know, 24 hours has been amazing already. And I've seen so many familiar faces a ton of unfamiliar faces. And I've been to so many SPI so seeing a lot of people I know. But one thing that I've been really impressed with is, I mean, I think a lot of people have talked about how big this conferences, but there's also just so many new people in it. And it's exciting because it is I feel like we've been those of us that have been in the industry for a decade more. I mean, there's so many people who've been in it way longer than I have. And all this hard work. It's like our life's work finally being recognized by the general public. That's a cool way to look at it. It's so wonderful and to have, you know, people talking about it, and to turn on the news and see it in the headlines. And it's a common point of conversation now. And that's really exciting.
Nico Johnson
Yeah, Josh and I spoke on a panel a little earlier with a friend Mike Casey, and he asked the question, Are you a climate optimist, or a climate pessimist? I'm wondering with all the tailwinds that we're seeing in all, I mean, your influence, which is growing gangbusters. Are you a climate optimist, or climate pessimist about where we're headed?
Jennifer Alfsen
I have to say, I'm both I oscillate between the two. I mean, there's days where I'm like, you know, it's all ruined. We're never gonna, you know, we're never gonna get it back. We're never gonna be able to restore what we've destroyed. And then on the flip side, I come to conferences like these, and I realized how much progress we've made, how much we're growing, how quickly we're coming up with these new solutions, and, and realizing that there's so many people across across the globe that are just as passionate as the folks here at SBI. Today, that really inspires me and makes me optimistic.
Josh Porter
It's good news, right? I mean, if there's that kind of influx of talent, to the industry that we've been, you know, hanging around with for the last decade and change, then it's like, well, there's all that new talent coming in all those new ideas coming in all that new potential for innovation, right. So it makes me feel a little bit more optimistic. See, that's great. And then of course, it's kind of our responsibility to be welcoming to this, the other industries and say, Hey, come on. We could use your talent, you know, we could use your especially I saw an article I was telling Nico earlier today, I think it was a quarter call or something but they were talking about how Silicon Valley now we're seeing a migration of talent. And this is of course, you know, like super Cayambe I suppose down or whatever, we don't want to say it but to the to the clean energy coming to clean tech. And that's exciting, right? So you can people are saying, hey, I want to be a part of an industry where I can, you know, feel good about what I'm doing may make a difference. has made me be a part of the camaraderie that we have here. There's a lot of positive things in that, you know, and then we, we reap the benefits of that. Absolutely. Now we have these like powerhouses that are saying, I just want to make a website, I want to actually help develop whatever this thing is, you know. So that's, that's the timeline.
Jennifer Alfsen
Yeah. And that brings up a good point. I mean, I think people do their best work when they're passionate about what they do when they really care about what they do. And, you know, I started as Nico mentioned, my background is as an engineer, and that first I graduated in the middle of the recession back in 2009. And so the, the, I guess, sentiment, then when I graduated was like, Good luck getting a job. And thankfully, I did get one because I had an internship, so but most of the jobs available, it's not like you had a huge selection. It was like, you're lucky if you get anything. And so I started my career in defense contracting, because that was, that's the job. I got straight out of college. And it was a really good job. I learned so much. I don't regret working in defense contracting at all, if anything, I think it set me up to be successful in the solar industry, because defense contracting is so, so regulated. So there's all these processes, there's all this quality control, I mean, talk about quality control, I was working in a cleanroom manufacturing environment. So to go from that to then go into the solar industry. The reason I brought up that was because I realized one day I was like this is you know, I look up from my cubicle, the cubicle walls were six feet high, because it's defense contracting, so you're not allowed to see your coworkers computer screens. I'm five two, so I can't like I'm I'm way below the eyeline of being able to see weather. And everything was just like this really depressing. 70s Brown. And like when you walk into the office, and there was this, I distinctly remember this poster up on the wall, and it was like this missile with a skull and bones on it. And I was like, this is not why I went to college. This is not why I got an engineering degree. And then and then my next job was in solar. And I'm like this, this is what I'm
Nico Johnson
rescuing folks from rescuing folks on miseria department department events that we've I just met someone new the lady that runs comps for solar edge now came from defense. Oh, wow. Yeah, no kidding. So we're, you know, the thing I like, one of the one of the issues that we have in the industry so far is that we have this Miss misconception that you need to know a ton about solar to get a job in solar. And so you're gonna get training or whatever. And so the job req will say something ridiculous, like you need five years of experience in solar. And even for engineers, that's not generally true. If you have three or four years of petroleum engineering experience, you're more than qualified for a lot of jobs in the solar industry. But for whatever reason, right, people get disqualified. And we've got this carousel where people jump off of one ride the jump on the on the other ride in the state in the industry, we hire within the industry, I think one of the greatest things that we're gonna see here and the trend that I'm seeing happening is more folks coming in from tech more folks coming across the aisle from oil and gas, if you will, from fossil fuels. And even in even the media industry folks are folks are moving into climate as it as a category right? You've got lots of folks focus on evey it's like one of the hottest channel focuses or foci is that the word on YouTube? Right so I think you're gonna see even on even even in places like media, we're gonna see a lot more focus and that's a good thing because consumers as mo in the in the good faith energy team know, consumers are looking for comfort and they're looking for there a lot of their media channels and a lot of the the training options to show them that the technology is prime time, and that they can trust in it. And to show them good examples of people they can trust their neighbor, the neighbor next door, right? Follow up keeping up with the Joneses,
Josh Porter
you know, when you have a technology that's so widely applicable to our lives, right, it really, and we're in an environment that's pretty, you know, the United States today can be pretty desperate, desperate, right? Like we have these sections of these groups and these ideas that are kind of separate, right. But I mean, I'll tell you a quick story. And Nico actually heard this, but I went over to a wahoo to test drive the f150 not because I have the extra duckets to buy that that beautiful truck right now. But because I wanted to put it into a little film project I was working on. And I went in and we you know, I kind of hustled my way in and brought over the cameras and we did we had drones going and everything and they're like are you test drive the are you shooting a film? And then it was great, but the guy that walks out, it was test driving before me. He's wearing a maga hat. And I was like, whoa, this guy right here. He may be on a politically divergent completely different kind of perspective in mind, perhaps, but he and I want the same truck. And he No one's going to tell that guy you can see it. He was like yeah, I got my my God. No one's going to tell that guy that I can't have the fastest best truck there is in the world. I don't care if that happens to be powered by whatever right? So it's this unifying this this common interest. I think this car Common Sense technology is such a common value for everybody. It's you It's potentially unifying. That's really exciting for the country.
Jennifer Alfsen
Absolutely. And it just like, you know, talking, speaking to the point of, of it being, you know, universally unifying everyone, and then also just the transfer of, of skill sets from one industry at another. I mean, that's another thing that I'm excited about is just the amount of jobs or industries meeting. I mean, we've been talking a lot about solar right now. But there's also energy storage, the wind, and as a whole, you know, on Isay industry, like our industry, I tend to lump all three of those together in one bucket, because most of us kind of work, all work with each other. And I think what was the last night at the keynote, they said something like 250,000 people in the United States are employed by solar are that number. Yeah, I'm curious what the number is if we put energy storage and wind into that, into that as well. I mean, that's amazing. And it's only going to grow. So I'm excited for that. It benefits everyone, not just from a climate perspective, but also from a, you know, being able to do work that you truly love and feel good about.
Nico Johnson
Well, there's a lot of people out there doing work that we truly love and feel good about. And the speed of this show, is also moving at a breakneck pace. It's the end of day one. We have, we have tomorrow a pretty packed schedule, I would encourage folks to go and check out if you haven't download the app. If you haven't, the app is a really tremendous resource. Our dash plus.com has a full schedule of all of the activities including the Media Zone, you can check it out at re-plus.com/mediazone. We'll be right back here tomorrow morning with my co host, Julia Piper, and Jeff Peck from i Son. And that is a great way to kick off the day. Apparently they're broadcasting it from the Jumbotron. I think that might be where John Brecker is right now out looking at the Jumbotron. I gotta get I want to get out there and see that thing. And then we have one cool thing that's happening tomorrow. They I guess they just announced and I haven't heard who won, but the American made challenge. Prizes were awarded today. That's a million dollars in prize money. I think it's like, well, it's a million across each category. So that's like two and a half million, they had five winners, or two and a quarter million or some like that. It's pretty, pretty incredible. They offer See you guys later Thanks, good faith. They offer a tremendous opportunity for folks that have an idea and wanted to get it funded. And so the sixth round, I think was awarded today. And we're gonna have the winners here at 9:30am tomorrow, so encourage folks to come and check that out. And with that, we've got to wrap on day one of our daily Roundup. Thank you Jen Allison, Product Manager of fluids for joining us. Thanks Josh Porter, my esteemed co host and my name is Nico Johnson from SunCast. Thank you. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
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.
RESOURCES:
Connect with Mohammed Abdala on LinkedIn and on the Good Faith Energy website
Connect with Andrew Redinger on LinkedIn
Connect with Jennifer Alfsen on LinkedIn and on the Fluence website
Connect with Josh Porter on LinkedIn and on the Solar Coaster website
Connect with Nico Johnson on LinkedIn
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Nico is an Investor, Executive Coach, and 16-year veteran of the solar industry, having led development in the US and Latin America for global companies like Trina Solar and Conergy.
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