527: Rnd 5 American Made Challenge Winners Announced! Live from RE+ Media Zone

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The American-Made program is your fast track to the clean energy revolution. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, it incentivizes innovation through prizes, training, teaming, and mentoring, connecting the nation’s entrepreneurs and innovators to America’s national labs and the private sector. The prize, now in its 6th round, recently awarded the 5th round of innovators with millions of dollars to help bring their startup ideas to the world.

James Nagel and David Penalva, Co-Founders of HelioVolta were two of the American-Made Solar Prize winners. They joined Nico Johnson and Sarah Gomach on the PowerUp Media Zone stage at RE+ in Anaheim, CA on September 21st. The founders discussed the purpose of HelioVolta and how they plan to use the cash award (and non-cash prizes) to continue building their company. SolarGrade, developed by HelioVolta, is a field work management software that helps decrease downtime and increase uptime. They plan to grow the team and continue to implement their technology in the field.

Two hardware teams, Origami Solar, represented by Eric Hafter and TECSI Solar represented by Samuel Truthseeker joined the stage as well to talk about their technologies and growing companies. Origami Solar intends to reverse the solar industry’s reliance on aluminum, unlocking dramatic cost savings and reducing environmental impact (GHG) with an innovative and patent pending design for steel module frames. TECSI Solar was established with the single purpose of advancing the engineering capabilities of companies in the solar space, with competency in all aspects of product development.

Sierra Fan, founder of illu and another prize winner, joins Nico and Sarah as well. illu is software for field teams deploying, operating, and maintaining distributed power assets. She discusses how to increase quality during the install process.

Do you have a start-up that could benefit from AMC prize funding?

ACT FAST, the 6th round is open till Tomorrow, October 6th! 

You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you, here: www.mysuncast.com/sponsors

And you can see the Entire Lineup from the PowerUp Media Zone (along w/the list of all those who sponsored the event) at www.re-plus.com/mediazone


RESOURCES:

Connect with Sarah Gomach on LinkedIn.

Follow National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and its website.


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

526: SMA on the Future of Home, Nhan Pimentel & Jan Van Laethem, Live from RE+ PowerUp Media Zone

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


SMA has been a cornerstone of renewables for nearly four decades. While their counterparts, like Tesla, didn’t have solar divisions until much more recently, SMA has gradually built one of the largest install-bases of solar customers in the world. With all those installs come hundreds of thousands of satisfied homeowners, many of whom are now eager to embrace the future of the electrified home. How do they remain relevant in this new modern solar+ economy where every manufacturer is tempted to expand its offerings, in an effort to increase share of wallet, extend brand value, and keep up in an ever-changing industry? This and more are part of the discussion in today’s RE+ PowerUp Media Zone replay, which was recorded live from the Anaheim show floor only a couple of weeks ago on September 21st, 2022. 

In Jan Van Laethem’s own words, it all started in 1981 with three university students who wanted to do things differently. They wanted to do electronics with a good cause. The mission of protecting and serving Planet Earth has been embedded in SMA’s DNA since its founding. 

After a few years of trying different technologies out, the three university students decided to go all in on solar, specifically solar inverters. They gained momentum with the Hundred Roofs and Thousand Roofs programs in Germany (many of you remember similar programs in the US in the 00’s.) Around the turn of the century, SMA became the key player in photovoltaic (PV) power conditioning (through a technology known as a solar inverter). 

How do you remain a key player over the long haul? Laethem gives a few tips: 1. Be in it for the long run; 2. Deliver quality; 3. Ensure your production is energy neutral. Tune in to the episode to understand the rest of the SMA backstory with Nhan Pimentel, VP of Home Solutions,  & Jan Van Laethem, Executive Vice President, Business Unit Home Solutions. In particular, how Nhan and Jan translate their corporate learning from the global markets like Europe and Australia to the burgeoning market here Stateside.

You can learn more about all the sponsors who help make this show free for you, here: www.mysuncast.com/sponsors

And you can see the Entire Lineup from the PowerUp Media Zone (along w/the list of all those who sponsored the event) at www.re-plus.com/mediazone


RESOURCES:

Connect with Nhan Pimentel on LinkedIn.

Connect with Jan Van Laethem on LinkedIn.

Follow SMA America on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and its website.


NOTEWORTHY QUOTES:

we can actually not predict what will happen, it’s going so fast these days, that we just need to be prepared for an ecosystem of energy management, as announced that there’s a lot of talk about smart homes, and that’s all great, but Smart Energy Homes, that’s the thing we still need to do.
— Jan Van Laethem
It’s who can develop the best digital platforms, who can really make it easy and simple. Right? Because simplicity is what homeowners want. No one wants an app that’s complicated, that is hard to utilize.
— Nhan Pimentel

Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 525: Andrew Chester & the rest of the Greenskies story, Plus How to Grow Companies, Negotiate Strategically & Raise Millions

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Entrepreneur Andrew Chester has some simple advice for anyone trying to navigate the challenges of startup life. "Surround yourself with a good team," he said.

He said he learned the value of the right team through the rapid growth of his first company and integrated it into the framework of his second. "You can say all the cliche things — you need people who are driven and smart and all that. But honestly, when we meet with people, it's more about their energy and how passionate they are about the space," he said.

Andrew spent nine years growing Greenskies Renewable Energy into one of the country's largest commercial and industrial solar companies, taking it from a team of two to more than 100 before bringing it to a very successful nine-figure exit in 2017.

After a brief hiatus from the renewable space, Andrew set out to repeat his success by partnering with a Greenskies alum and a global bank to create another solar energy development company. 

Telyon — the brand name for Telos Clean Energy — is a clean energy solutions provider supporting project management and ongoing community, industrial, and commercial solar operations. It owns and operates solar energy assets and assists companies worldwide with their clean energy initiatives through developing solar, battery storage, EV charging and energy efficiency measures. 

It's already an industry-leading platform, and Andrew is still young enough to earn 40 under 40 accolades. He, did, afterall start his first company at 23.

Telyon is a joint venture partnership between Andrew, his former Greenskies colleague, Michael Daly, and the alternative energy investing group at Goldman Sachs. 

The partnership enables Goldman Sachs to invest up to $275 million to finance the joint venture's activities and own assets, combining financing provided by several parties via tax equity, debt and sponsor investments into a single capital source. Telyon provides the joint venture and portfolio development, execution and management.

Telyon is a play on the Greek term telos, which refers to what we might call a purpose, goal, end or actual final function of an object. "What we're doing here is trying to reach the end goal of a clean energy future," he said.

Unlike the days at Greenskies where Andrew spent most of his time in origination & business development, today Andrew wears the CEO hat, and it fits him well.  Andrew touches all corners of the business, including finance, business development, construction execution, and asset management. Michael, EVP of Business Development, is responsible for deal origination, strategic corporate partnerships and brand development initiatives nationwide.

Andrew is not only an accomplished solar industry veteran. He's a longtime friend who impresses me with his passion, perseverance, and tenacity to build the perfect portfolio of clients — ones that the business can best serve and reciprocally serve the business's best interests.

In today's podcast, we also reflect on his experiences at Greenskies. (You can get some add’l perspective of Greenskies from co-founder and CEO Mike Silvestrini in Episode 85 & Episode 400). 

We'll also explore Andrew's backstory to learn how he's accomplished so much so soon and consider his predictions for both Telyon and the broader renewables arena.

Andrew has long-been on my podcast bucket list, so I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to bring this one to life here today.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Andrew Chester on LinkedIn.

Follow Telyon on LinkedIn and check out its website.


BOOKS MENTIONED AND RECOMMENDATIONS:


NOTEWORTHY QUOTES:

You can say all the cliche things — you need people who are driven and smart and all that. But honestly, when we meet with people, it’s more about their energy and how passionate they are about the space
— Andrew Chester

Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 524: How solar got below $20/mwh and why we’re moving too slow! w/Dr. Gregory Nemet

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Gregory Nemet went to grad school to understand how to stimulate energy-related innovation. Twenty years later, he remains convinced the success of a niche solution like solar could be a catalyst for innovation around the massive problem of climate change.

Gregory is an author and a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison's La Follette School of Public Affairs, where he teaches courses in energy systems analysis, policy analysis, and international environmental policy. His research focuses on understanding the process of technological change and how public policy can affect it. 

Today's Tactical Tuesday explores takeaways from Gregory's decades of research to understand how solar prices dropped dramatically and spurred an energy revolution. 

He majored in geography with economics at Dartmouth College, where he took energy and meteorology courses that included climate change. "I worked in the private sector for seven years," he recalled, comparing innovation in consumer products, IT, healthcare, and energy. 

"Energy was lower by every measure, and we looked at research and development spending, patenting, and employment of scientists and engineers. So I went to grad school to work on the question of stimulating energy innovation," he said.

"Once I got there, one of the technologies I looked at was changing the most: solar. It was on the margins and had these elegant physics behind it. But it had always been an interesting novelty, definitely not something that would be serious for dealing with energy problems. Because energy problems are big — climate change is a big problem, and you can't do something small to deal with a big problem. 

"And that turned out to be exactly the wrong advice and knowledge, and that changed my thinking that small technologies might be better at going big than the big ones," he said.

Gregory earned two advanced degrees in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley — a master's in 2004 and a doctorate in 2007. They set the stage for an academic career and a focus that has endured the past 15 years on how solar became inexpensive.

Gregory joined UW–Madison as an assistant professor in 2007. From 2013-18 he chaired the institution's Energy Analysis and Policy certificate program, and in 2015, he received the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship for outstanding research contributions. 

He was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow in 2017, which particularly calls to me as I'm a big fan of Andrew Carnegie. The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program supports high-caliber scholarship in the social sciences and humanities that ideally results in the publication of a book or major study. 

Gregory turned his research into his first book, How Solar Became Cheap: A Model for Low-Carbon Innovation. Published in June 2019, it makes the case that other low-carbon technologies with similar properties can benefit by understanding the drivers behind solar energy's success. 

"The first thing I always tell people, probably more outside the solar industry, but even inside, is how cheap solar is today and then how far it's come. It's been a factor of 10,000 from the first commercial sale of a solar system on a satellite in 1958, when it was $300,000 per megawatt hour, to today, where we have power purchase agreements below $20 per megawatt hour," he said. "And so how did that happen?"

First, no country maintained its technological lead for more than a few years, and no company that was the world's most prominent solar producer retained the title. "The US created the technology, Germany developed a market, and the Chinese made it cheap. And it was that sequence that worked so well," he said.

It was people, capital, knowledge and production moving around the world. "It was cells made in one place being put into modules in another place and installed in houses in centralized locations and other places. So those international flows are absolutely crucial," he explained.

But it all went too slowly — a critical lesson he suggests we should extrapolate to climate mitigation innovation. "The real question now is how do we go faster?" he said.

I asked Gregory to identify the properties and technologies on the edge of decarbonization that he believes hold the most promise in applying these learnings. He said he's drawn to innovation around production technology rather than design technology. "That seems interesting, and the real crucial connector is iterations," he said.

"If you make many of the same or slightly different things, you can learn to apply new technologies and techniques and figure out how to do it better."

Technologies that involve many repetitive tasks can incrementally improve. "That's why batteries for electric vehicles look almost exactly like the solar playbook. And for nearly the same reasons, they've come down in cost. 

"Looking forward, think about other small-scale distributed technologies with massive iterations. Those are ones where you could learn from solar," Gregory said.

Want examples? In addition to batteries for electric vehicles, think LED lighting and heat pumps. "The other area where it's more of an open question, but potentially really interesting, is removing CO2 that's already in the atmosphere because we probably will need to do some of that. Could you do direct air capture with a small-scale approach like solar, and some companies are trying to do that," he said. "We'll see if the playbook works well for them."

Gregory explores multiple critical issues in today's podcast, including the changing global economic landscape and the limitations of the Biden Administration's executive orders to drive climate action.

He considers whether innovation could stall and prices rise if domestic production eliminates the importation of inexpensive Chinese technologies — and he warns the United States will need legislation within two to four years to maintain its climate mitigation momentum.


We also dive into his work as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report (AR6). While there is good news — the cost of solar is falling as adoption climbs. But he acknowledges that "almost everything else in the report is bad news about emissions continuing to rise."

TIMESTAMPS:

0:36 Introduction
3:30 Why Greg choose the solar industry as a central focus
5:54 Some of the thesis on how solar became inexpensive
8:35 Technologies on the edge of decarbonization
10:14 Examples of small scale distributed technology 
12:00 How changing global economic landscape affect climate change
16:12 Advice to policymakers about robust market options
20:27 States that are winners in terms of policy change
22:41 Creating alliances with vector like glass & steel 
25:05 Thoughts on IPCC report & takeaways
27:27 Where to find Dr. Gregory Nemet
27:51 Wrap up


RESOURCES:

Connect with Gregory Nemet on LinkedIn and his website.

University of Wisconsin-Madison website


BOOKS MENTIONED AND RECOMMENDATIONS:


NOTEWORTHY QUOTES:

If you make many of the same or slightly different things, you can learn to apply new technologies and techniques and figure out how to do it better.
— Gregory Nemet

Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 523: RE+ Daily Roundup, Day 3

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


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.

You can also watch the show stream live at www.suncast.live.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Mohammad Shehadeh on LinkedIn and on Philadelphia Solar website

Connect with Nate Jovanelly on LinkedIn and on Enerflo website

Connect with Josh Porter on LinkedIn and on Solar Coaster website

Connect with Nico Johnson on LinkedIn

Follow RE+ on LinkedIn and check out its website.


Episode 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.

    Thank goodness. For the last three days Graham Whitley has kept us on track to start and stop the recordings to keep the levels right round of applause to our operations team. I'd like to but as we start here, I would like to give a round of applause to the real life crew, the video crew that made our livestream possible thanks as well to sungrow and Tiago who also supported so that we could bring the live stream to life, it cost three times more than we thought it would when we originally said hey, this would be a good idea. And I really, really appreciate the real life team. You guys are super pro. If anybody needs video work to livestream at your offense, contact Andre servicios. At real life, he did not ask me to give that commercial but it is a hearty endorsement. These guys are super pro you guys are amazing. Thank you also want to give a round of thanks for the SunCast team that behind the scenes has helped to make this whole thing possible. Jenny Smith is our show manager she kept the trains on time. So like just none of this would have really happened if Jenny wasn't so diligent in helping plan and scan schedule and organize. Sophie McNamara was our guest reception and marketing specialist. Thank you, Sophie. She really helped to amplify on the social. If you see anything happening right now in any of my social channels. It is not me I'll just full disclosure say that Sophie has learned to effectively clone herself as Nico and I think then any good company right now any good team that has thought leadership has to figure out how to do that. Right.

    Josh Porter

    Yeah, I mean, I candidly, I think you're doing a fantastic it's not something that I'm able to do really with like a lot of people but you know, the Yeah, it's I can see that you're growing in a way that's really awesome. So I'm really happy for

    Nico Johnson

    that. It's amazing the difference in audio. And sound, isn't it? The blade from that from that microphone? Yeah, yeah, we just turned we just muted one of the channels and it's unbelievable the difference in sound that it makes. So we're gonna we're gonna bring that channel back up and just a moment. I just wanted to say also, thanks to Nate Giovanelli for hosting our industry. Paul's, he's gonna come up in a few moments time. So help us finish the round up. And last but not least, once again, thanks to our presenting sponsor Fluance, who really did kick in and help make all of this possible. So the dream of the podcast Lounge, which is now the Media Zone could come to life. I mean, Josh and I sort of noodle on this idea three and a half, four years ago, and it's and it really has come to life and it It's I'm really excited that we've been able to do it. I want to dig into something that's very interesting. And that is local manufacturing. Oh, cool local manufacturing here in the United States. And there's a company that I've recently met that has been working for the last four years to bring local manufacturing to the United States. They've they're actually the largest manufacturer in is it it's Europe and SME, right. Mohamed by Shadi from is the Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Development Officer of Philadelphia solar.

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    Hi, Nicole. Hi, Josh. My name is Mohammad Shehadeh. I'm the Chief Commercial Officer of Philadelphia solar.

    Nico Johnson

    Yeah. Well, Josh, I'm probably going to ask you some really geeky questions. Sure. But first of all, I wanted to for those who perhaps are unfamiliar with Philadelphia solar, generally, it's a company from Jordan that has a huge presence in Europe. And because of the nature of our scent of xenophobia here and the domestic markets, we aren't as familiar with the brands that don't have a presence already in this market. Right. So tell us a little bit about Philadelphia solo, and then we'll talk about the work that you've been doing to stand up a physical presence in the United States. Sure.

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    So Philadelphia solid established in 2007, we established as a PV panel manufacturer, but today we have a little bit different structure, we are more like a holding company that have several revenue streams. One of them is the manufacturing. So we have a 500 megawatt manufacturing line that exported to 52 countries, we have a 300 megawatt mounting system manufacturing line that exported 14 countries, we have our EPC team as a second revenue stream, and we have almost 400 megawatt as an EPC. Team reference total. And we also have our development arm. So we develop projects, some electricity, and we build it on our own. So we have around 158 megawatt projects that is developed in Middle

    Nico Johnson

    East. Fascinating,

    Josh Porter

    whoa, there's a lot of different streams in that true

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    puzzle. Different streams actually helped us survive the ups and downs of the market, and that several types of business carry each on each other and help us to grow the whole, the whole profile.

    Josh Porter

    Right. And they're organized into separate actual teams of people. Exactly,

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    exactly. We have around 500 person working in the company.

    Nico Johnson

    Amazing. So I mentioned in the lead up that you've spent about four years working to get manufacturing here domestically, can you I mean, we're all not we're all but many of us here are entrepreneurs that are listening. Can you talk to me a bit about the struggle, the journey of just trying to stand up manufacturing here in the United States, especially given that the IRA presumably, is meant to help make this easier? So what's been your experience? And how do you expect it now sort of that demarcation line with inflation Reduction Act, it's going to become a fulfilled prophecy.

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    So I'll start where the whole idea come from. I mean, it was like almost four or five years ago, there was a RE+ or SPI show in Vegas. And when we attend that show, and we saw the domestic market demand, that was huge, and we thought seriously, to start the production and USA and we start our due diligence process. We found some several, let's say obstacles in the regulations. After section 201301, it was obvious that manufacturing in the US might work because it's protected against let's say, anti dumping, right? When we started the process, we started due diligence, we start to interview a lot of videos and the states less down the states, we decide the location, we almost bought the location that we want to start production and then section 201 was cancelled, who really dig deep and in the production process, we'll know that there is seven out of 11 raw materials that's used to produce the PV panel is under customs and the CBP, that's regardless the source of materials. And if you get it from China, you will pay another 25%. More on that on top of that. So without clear protection or subsidy, subsidy, it will not work. And that's why we stopped the plans. We canceled the whole the whole plan and all this at least we freeze it. With the IRA now in place, I think, of course I need to go back to the board and to explain the whole process, but I think that the project might be alive again, and not at the same even size that we decided to start with each one gigawatt it might be either bigger or we can go up or downstream more maybe we'll go to the cells to all that will depends on on the on the financial side. We have to do some studies in the next one month but I think we will come up with a decision very soon because who come first?

    Josh Porter

    That's really encouraging because you had those other revenue streams and you were able to kind of freeze one at Then when the legislation became like where it needed to be now you could say, Okay, let's turn this back on potentially exactly

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    the best, the different revenue streams always help us to be really flexible company,

    Nico Johnson

    you I didn't realize how just how close your booth was to us on the show floor. We had a lot of traffic coming through and going past here. So I know that they were going right. Right by your booth. What were what was the general sentiment of conversations like at your booth now, like after, you know, the full three days is complete? Did it meet your expectations? And what was the what was the common theme of the conversation you were hearing?

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    So the first thing you mentioned was right, I mean, to work with a company that don't have an existence in the US is not an easy decision for a lot of US companies, especially, let's say, the local distributors or even some developers, and that one of the points that will encourage us to have at least a local office here in the US, but I will prefer to push for the manufacturing. In general, the feedback was great. The demand is there. We are competitive in general. I mean, I can say that because I could read the market reaction. And I think that we can really do a great job in the next two years in the US, I believe, if we do try it, you will find the name. I mean, let's say it will show up more than the market.

    Josh Porter

    Yeah, I wonder I mean, you know, you're in a position where you're looking at this new legislation, and you're saying we can take another go at domestic manufacturing, you know, and it's like, do you see that there's going to be a ramp up of domestic manufacturing across the country right now? Are you hearing that kind of discussion? On the on the show floor? Are you think it's going to be like really aggressive kind of move? And also, how long does it take to go from point A, through to the point where you're actually delivering product? Given? No, we're so dependent on his legislations?

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    I believe there will be a huge move. There is a lot of talking many big names. Now he's talking about starting manufacturing in the US. It is easy, but not that easy. I mean, you need to know the tricks, you need to understand the industry very well. Some companies can really do it very fast. I mean, if we want to move fast, we can do it within less than one year. I can say nine month, other companies might need more time, there is a learning curve that that you need to be through with I mean, for new for new comers. It's not easy. I mean, we took 15 years and you're still learning.

    Josh Porter

    I wonder if you know, and there are different types of manufacturing lines for the different types of PV right. I wonder if it's obvious, given the state of affairs right now, which type of product you're going to develop the manufacturing line for? If it's like premium, you know, multi 20 Step Process type of manufacturing, or if it's another area that may be more for utility scale, or, you know, have you got a sense of where that was,

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    I believe we can start with residential with a blank panels, which did like niche panels, I think this is the start. We can we can work on the utility scale, if we start to be two gigawatts and above I mean, because the demand is high, you can just book the whole capacity for one client. So we will focus on the small panels first, which was used mostly mainly for the rooftops, maybe some commercial, industrial, but utility scale will be the next step. Interesting. Yeah.

    Nico Johnson

    It's not easy, scaling anything. So my hat is off to anyone who takes on the endeavor of standing up a manufacturing process. And in particular, moving out of your home country moving out of your home region, into a large market, like the United States, were really thinking about your brand presence. And your partnerships is, is quite a change. It's quite a bit different from the way that you would do it in the Middle East or, or in Europe. But clearly, you've got experience moving from one market to another so we wish you success. Did you Q Did you go ahead and book your booth for Vegas?

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    Yes, actually, we'll do that. We'll do that today.

    Nico Johnson

    Yes, I would encourage you go do that. For us.

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    We'll do it. I miss Vegas.

    Nico Johnson

    Oh, Muhammad, I'll let you go. And so you can you and your team can go ahead and go lockdown.

    Mohammad Shehadeh

    Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

    Nico Johnson

    Thank you for taking care. All right. Last but certainly not least, we're gonna have a little roundtable here with our buddy Nate Jovanelly, the co host of our industry pulse, he's going to join us and we're just gonna have a little we're gonna talk shop about how the week went. We're gonna dig in a little bit on what how Nate's conversations went and have a little fun. Thanks, Nico.

    Nate Jovanelly

    Good to see everybody excited to be back up here.

    Nico Johnson

    It's weird, how uncomfortable you are in the microphones.

    Nate Jovanelly

    The whole week. The headset was way better. And this is the first time I sitting but it's also the first time I've been on stage with you. It is so how about that capturing this moment? It's the first time that that we've been on stage together. I

    Nico Johnson

    love it. I wanted to ask. You've been over the last year, you have essentially positioned yourself in the industry as a thought leader. What's cool about that is that you actually thought leaders do have to realize at a certain point that they have thoughts worth communicating. Right one, and two have to have had experience from which to cultivate deep thought. For those who are unfamiliar, can you give like the two minute bio of the sort of the development experience and expertise you have in the solar industry?

    Nate Jovanelly

    Sure, no, I really appreciate that. And I appreciate that, that you think that I'm positioning myself as a thought leader, so that's great, I must be doing something right. I would say that, you know, the, the short version is that I saw an opportunity with a large energy company to come in with a new TPO product, which would be a lease or a power purchase agreement. And I got my started about nine years ago started doing, you know, with nonprofits and just forging partnerships with some people might think are non traditional, I know I was on your podcast. And isn't that a competitor I get, I still get that all the time. Even in my current position, there isn't that competitor, I don't see anyone as a competitor. Love it. I think no matter what you're doing, there's always an opportunity to work together to continue to grow your business. So it's been a great nine years. And now as you know, I'm with with airflow. And we are streamlining the process from from lead to PTO and having a lot of fun doing it. Yeah,

    Nico Johnson

    you bought a lot of you've done a lot of projects over the years and brought a lot of people opportunities that they weren't otherwise afforded to get their projects into reality, like bring them into life. So I love that you have such a deep expertise, I thought it was great that you did something that I advocate a lot, which is if you're going to try and start a piece of of media content, try to do something that is tangential, something else that you love. Can you talk for a second about the motivation Mondays that originally were where you and I sort of cultivated this friendship and relationship around creating content? It's like

    Nate Jovanelly

    all things, you know, first of all, I believe there's opportunity everywhere. Yeah, like I said, and it's just keeping your eyes open. And most people just watch it pass by. And what started as the simplest of concepts, which was really again, somebody said earlier, I was sort of remote working before remote working was cool. And it's working for a company based in Ohio, we had these executive meetings, and I noticed that they could read this whiteboard behind me, I started off just with simple, whimsical quotes, I would say. And that was just to catch their attention, have a good laugh before these meetings started. I'm the only person that's virtual, everyone else has that conference room. It's like a 90 inch television. And from there, it started to get more motivational. And I think it was it was you and some other fellow podcasters. Like, hey, you should turn this into something.

    Nico Johnson

    Yeah, you can give me the credit.

    Nate Jovanelly

    Of course. And, you know, so it went from just posting simple things on a whiteboard to make people laugh to try and give some inspiration. And then ultimately, 100% It's for my kids. And it's funny because I started doing just a short clip, and it's like, oh, man, you gotta turn that into video so that I started videoing it. And he was like, Man, you got to get a better camera. And then once I heard myself on your podcast, like, I need a better microphone, that's for sure. So I started to slowly upgrade, you know, and it's been an amazing journey. And I think what most people don't know, again, it, I'm doing it 100% It's for my kids. So it's always topical, I do it every Monday, I've only missed one Monday. And it's when I was in Disney World this year. And I missed it on purpose, because I'm doing this for my kids. So I'm not going to do it in line as I'm waiting to do the Tower of Terror with my kids. But it's kind of counterproductive. But for almost two years. Now, every Monday, I've been putting out a video which then you said you need to make this into a podcast. So it's like a four to five minute quote that talks about something super relevant to my kid's life. And people it really resonates with people and it's wild. And because I don't do it for any purpose. But my kids take the feedback so much better. In this format, even if it's praise, which I find, you know, it's taught me a lot. Because sometimes when you give praise to children, you know, and a broad range of ages, they they don't know how to take it. And no matter what they have the time to digest this. This is what that thought about that question I asked earlier this week or what's going on like couple of weeks ago, you know, somebody came up to me it's very close in my life personally, he's like, oh, did your oldest son did he break up with his girlfriend I heard your your limitless podcast on Monday motivation as of yet so people close to me know what it's about. And I love that but outside of that, it's amazing how many people stop and then there's days as you you know, I'm sure you had in the beginning like is anyone listening to this? Yes, you know, yes. But then there's days like these conferences and there's just been such an amazing the energy here has been something I didn't realize how much I missed but people come up and they stop you I true story yesterday. I was at one of the At parties that were going on and on a rooftop bar, and one of my colleagues is like, I know that person standing over there, do you want me to go find out who he is? And I'll go up to him. And I said, Hey, I think I might know you. And he goes, You're Nate Giovanelli. I said, I do know you. He said, No, you don't I follow you on LinkedIn, I see your posts. I mean, it never ends. And it just takes that one time, like, so it's awesome. You know, obviously, it's awesome and great, you're doing it for your kids, but takes that one person that reaches out to you. And it doesn't have to be in a comment and a direct message and says, Hey, you know, I needed to hear that today. Or, Hey, I sent that to my cousin, she's going through something in this happens more and more.

    Josh Porter

    I know exactly what you're talking about. And it's so meaningful. When you do hear that type of feedback. You know, from from our, my perspective, having had a radio show back in Maui. I remember like sitting in the bank line, and then someone from the community, like a grandma or something would say, you know, I remember that show you did yesterday. And it really liked the way he talked about that solar panel. And it was, and it was a really sweet and endearing kind of comment. And I thought, well, you know, you do ask yourself the question of people listening to this, right from time to time, and then you hear that, and it's really, really reassuring. Yeah.

    Nate Jovanelly

    Yeah, I think the the other thing is that it Nikko pointed out and this is something that a lot of people I'm sure you both can relate to. It's, it's almost like that imposter syndrome. Like why wouldn't people want to listen to me for right? But I can't tell you again, I have multiple examples from this show where someone said, Hey, I heard you on Nico's podcast, or, Hey, I heard you on this thing. Or do you when you did that? And it's from two years ago? Yeah. They said, You said this one thing. And I have a specific example. I'm thinking I'm right now that happened again, it happened to me two days ago, and somebody stopped by the booth, no idea who they are. I know they are now didn't know them at the time. And they said, I listened to one of your podcasts from I think it was from December. And you said that we need to transition from people being sold solar, to people buying solar. And I've never heard somebody say that I thought it was so cool. And just having that instant connection with a stranger is something that it's hard to explain to someone. So it's like, people ask all the time, like, how do you do it? Like you haven't missed a Monday. That's, that's pretty impressive. But when you get this kind of feedback, even if it's once a year, it's all the motivation, you need to keep doing it. And it's just amazing.

    Josh Porter

    100% I like earlier on you were talking about how sometimes you might have someone on that can be perceived as a competitor? Oh, my goodness, why would you do that? Right. But there's so much to be learned from those types of engage of interactions. You know, there's so many, there's so much there's so much richness that can be discovered in that I remember in the solar days, the other installers that we would touch base with, and he was there's a camaraderie that wants to be formed or something that kind of can't that that this is a great venue for that. Whereas if you're both in the competitive space, it's tough to become friends. Yeah. And

    Nate Jovanelly

    I mean, I know I think I told this story on on Nico's podcast. But there was a time when I was first getting into renewables. When I was with IGS. Energy, I just solar, and I was calling SunEdison. And people are like, why they're your biggest competitor? Do you think the biggest solar company in the world? What are you doing? Well, I'm asking him Hey, guys, like, what projects aren't you taking and why? And you know, what we took? That's how we got into solar. We were, we were doing the nonprofits that people couldn't underwrite, they were scared. How do we get dead? We're gonna do when the fund, you know, how do you look at them, because they're not credit rated? And we part of it was, we didn't know what we didn't know, right? But hey, we'll take them and we'll figure it out. And we'll create a business. And then when SunEdison went away, I think really what elevated my career was, I got this phone call. And I've told this story multiple times today. And I'll never forget, I was in Disney World with my kids. Again, it seems like we go to Disney all the time. We don't. But the other time I was in Disney with my kids. And I'm sitting there by the pool, and I get this phone call. And somebody had said, hey, you know, do you hear the news? Again, I heard well, they had 80 megawatts of projects with Amazon. And we heard you were doing all all the small stuff they didn't want. We'd like to give you a shout out as like, You're kidding, right? Like, you know, I'm at Disney. Who is this? Right? And sure enough, you know, we executed on those, they ended up being one of our largest clients for power purchase agreements. And that's what really, I think, elevated IGS at the time into the stratosphere and put me on the map sort of people started saying hey, maybe this kid's on the salt and he's talking to his competitors.

    Nico Johnson

    His kids definitely on to something I can tell you that and what did he what he's onto is relationship building. And that's what this this whole conference is all about. It's one of the reasons no doubt that Spencer and Pat and the team at interflow hired you. You are a relationship that Building machine and it's what you do best. And, you know, that's why I said it made a whole lot of sense for you to help us and host the industry pulse. And I want to in the in the essence of the fact that we've got about 1015 minutes left here, and we could both we could all three talk for an hour each just finish on one question to the it's the daily Roundup. But really, this is the final roundup of the show. So I'm curious if there's a macro sort of a meta theme through the mini interviews you did. And you did, and I did that we can try to, in a sense distill down a message that we're taking away for our audience, for our clients, about what the about where our industry is, through the lens of the RE+ conference, in our experience over the last three days, Nate, I prompted you a little bit. And Josh is just getting prompted with this question now. So I'll let you go. First of all, he while he marinates, the 17 minute answer.

    Nate Jovanelly

    I mean, for me, it's it's obvious. And yeah, I appreciate the heads up. But I think this is easiest question is the biggest softball I've gotten all week and in the theme that I've seen from the industry Paul's is that labor is going to be an issue if we don't start correcting some of the things in the industry that we can continue to do better. Yes. And there's a few ways you can solve that or augment that through tech and automation. That was kind of the theme if for those that listened or go back and listen, they'll notice this theme that came out in the industry, Paulson, I mean, it was purposeful is thought out, especially through everyone I was talking to prior to having them on. And I think it played out exactly how I anticipated and that, hey, we have all these cool tech companies doing great things that can help you, they can help your customer, they can help your business, they can help you be more successful through streamlining processes through efficiencies through automation. And by the way, this industry is going to struggle hiring enough people. So we need to do you know, you leverage that tech to continue to accelerate our growth. And it's obviously it's an explosive growth. So I think that's the theme. But then on the other side of that is, well, okay, we're still going to need people. And why aren't they flocking here? Right? I think people just assume this is the solar industry or renewables. People are just gonna flock here climate tech. Yeah, right. And that's just not the case. And I think that there were so many good points that the speakers brought up that I've personally learned so much about it and just thinking about, it's one thing to attract Tom, but you gotta keep talent. I think Alex had talked about that for a while already. And she said, You know, it's funny, she was the only one that was like me, there's not a labor shortage yet. But her thing was, it's one thing to attract them. But if you're not, if you're not going to cultivate that, if you have that awesome culture to keep them, then really, what are you doing. And I would say also, the other theme I picked up and especially talking to Abby, today, in the end, and some of the speakers we had on yesterday is just we need, we still have a little bit more work to do with diversity and inclusion in the industry. And if we want to attract more people than again, we have to have cultures and in things in place that enable, we have to go out, we have to pound the streets, we got to get people, we got to put their arm around them and say You're coming with me, we're bringing you into this industry, this is a fun industry, it's growing, there's tons of opportunity, we'll train you, you don't need a college degree. And we need to bring them along so that they see what we see. So that's, that's what I hope the people got out of our segments. I know, that's what I got. That's what I felt. That's the energy. And I hope that you know, it just inspires people to go out there and do just that. You're coming with me. Thank you.

    Josh Porter

    I couldn't agree more. I mean, really, especially that that notion of creating a welcoming industry, for people from other environments to come and be a part of this. I certainly saw some articles talking about movement out of, you know, Silicon Valley, and kind of the current technical scene there and moving into here at that level, but across the entire American kind of society. You know, we want to see that happen. I mean, I tend when you ask the question, just when I thought of the impacts the way that each of the different companies are trying to understand how the IRA is going to impact their business. That's something that was just pretty much ubiquitous, right. So and things that really surprised me, and a lot of it was kind of speculative, like, we kind of think it's gonna go like this. Yeah, but they weren't small pieces. It was like a complete game changing results. Right. You know, like you were looking at load control panels, and we're like, and they're stacking up so many of the incentives, and I go, Wait, hang on, before you get to there. I think it's already free. I mean, that's a really unique way of looking at being at a show and going, Hey, this legislation just passed, and we're not sure but this might actually be free now. I mean, literally, I saw that a handful of times. And then we talked to some other fellas that were you know, they They were like bootstrapping young entrepreneurs creating amazing technology. And then maybe they hadn't really had a chance to read, you know, some of the highlights of that. And I said to them, I think that might be a really special opportunity here for you. Yeah. And I kind of think, for example, one company was a plug and play legit plug and play solar technology. The name is escaping me. Markstrom is the name of it marched. Yeah. So the great guys, and they had a battery, and then these flexible solar modules, and we're like, what is it literally is a plug and play. Like, if you have rent to house, you could put this in it right? And then I started to say, Hey, man, you gotta look at some of these things that are happening with the IRA, I think you're gonna be applicable at this stage. And I'm like, Oh, that's awesome. And unbelieving, allow you to do that, you know. So I saw that across all from every company from the big boys like solar edge and, and phase all the way through to guys like that, that are bootstrapping these awesome innovations. You know, we're in a very dynamic, industry changing time. And they're not small changes to people's businesses that can be really like make it kind of changes. Yeah.

    Nico Johnson

    I'm glad that we left 45 minutes for the final Roundup, because we're gonna need it last, in 2019, when we did the, the podcast lounge, the roundup for 45 minutes to an hour, and it was fun. And we would go on and on like this, I really enjoy it, which is why my podcast is often 60 plus minutes. So I agree on all fronts. And the labor shortage in our industry is not insignificant. And it's high time that we get off of the talent carousel, where we create our own inflation by giving someone the same technical skill and a higher salary every 18 months to two years. And they go to the next company doing the exact same thing for $2 an hour more. And then they go to the next company 16 months later, for $2. Now more do the exact same thing. And there's no standardized metric around what a tech one versus tech two versus tech two or three on the roof or in the field is doing. And there's this confusion and a non standard way that we're that we're growing. And I heard that from people like Reagan Moen, who runs Oh nm for solve the one of the largest open end providers in the in the United States. But at a macro level, when I think about the biggest takeaways that I had through this week, it really comes back to something that you said that it, it really resonates. We're moving from people being sold to people buying solar and the technology innovation around solar, which includes storage and smart home. And I'll amplify that by the fact that if you go around this trade show floor, and if you listen to any of the conversations here, and I think that the SMA conversation is one that really, really well enunciate it. The message is maturing in this industry that attracts a consumer by doing the one thing that consumers care about, which is diminishing their dis comfort, right? We have to think about the nest, the reason that we had, we had Hannah Baskin from Google Talk from nest, talk about how nest is is is growing. And the reason that nest is probably the all time best selling home Smart Home Appliance out that's not a Lexa is because it takes something so simple, the thermostat. And it allows you to make micro adjustments with automation, right algorithmic change in the life without having to think about it, it's literally set it and forget it. And oh, by the way, you can fix it if you want. If it actually makes your house too hot. It's not tied to demand response is not something scary like that. And but it starts to slowly boil the frog right? And get the consumer used to the idea that things are going to change and start catering to my needs without me needing to be a super tech walk all the way on the left side of the change curve. Right being an innovator or an early adopter. We're moving into the early majority and use to use the Crossing the Chasm parlance. And that message maturity, you can see from companies like SMA, and span and and fluence and sungrow. Were even through the booth experience, you can see that they're not treating the installer the same way. They're not treating it as a hyper technical experience. Rather, they're educating both they're educating the consumer now through the installer. And the gaps that we saw are a lack of real, like real training at scale, and a lack of people to take that training and and become the solar army that we all envision. Right. And I think that the other thing, I'll highlight two more things that stood out to me this week that Josh and I were on a panel with Mike Casey and I'll give him all the credit for this because he points out all the time that we are an industry that lacks political action for all of the beautiful the bounty that is coming to us from the IRA, the petroleum industry. outspends is 2002 One, like, stop and think about that 2002 One, the industry that creates enough FUD to drown us fear, uncertainty and doubt is doing so to the tune of $4 billion, you can literally effectively go get a job as a professional, fear creator in the soul in the petroleum industry. And it's easy to compete against our less than half a million dollars that we raise in the two packs that matter for the industry. So the call to arms is more than just create content. It's more which we love, right. And there are great content creators in this industry that are making beautiful content, but it really will amount to nothing. If we don't pull out our wallets. And go tell Congress, what's important to us, not just because the IRA is in existence, will it matter? We have to keep at it. And we have to do it at scale. And the second thing that stood out to me and this I think was like also illustrative of every single booth beyond like everybody wants to be in the home, which is the tail is wagging the dog. Now solar is storage wins in the IRA storage wins is decoupled ITC is separate. And now you're gonna see every developer that was developing solar is now a storage developer that enables solar because you can let's face it, you can get interconnection with storage a whole lot faster and cheaper, because the smaller footprint and then you continuously build out beyond that storage. So those were the macro themes that I saw. And it's really an exciting time to be in this industry. The show is as vibrant as I've ever seen, Abby said and a couple of hours ago, more than 25,000 attendees, and she expects this could be bigger. In next year in Vegas.

    Josh Porter

    You got the 25,000 number. Yeah, it was actually there. Yeah, we were all thinking it was

    Nico Johnson

    1000. And that is the show folks, you heard it they just announced RE+ 2022 is officially over with the crescendo of the daily round up finishing at the same time. I'd like to take a quick moment and again, thank our team thanks to real life team for video streaming. Thanks sungrow And Tiago for sponsoring the livestream, thank Fluence, Sungrow, AES, Aurora, Solare and SMA for being supporting sponsors. And last but certainly certainly not least Leyline Renewable Capital for helping us bring this daily roundup to us since Monday afternoon. Thanks to my co host, Josh Porter, and our standing co host here for our industry. Nate Jovanelly. Thank you for joining us for this show. I'm out.

    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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Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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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Episode 522: RE+ Daily Roundup, Day 2

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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 back to the power up Media Zone. My name is Nico Johnson. I am joined by my illustrious co host Josh Porter for our daily roundup Josh. How you doing?

Josh Porter

Excellent. It's been a great day on the show floor lots of amazing people some crazy technology innovations. I mean we're not Where else would I like to be.

Nico Johnson

I can tell you it's close to the end of the day because our end of show because I'm drinking a beer which is not something I normally do on the job. This power Media Zone is produced by SunCast media presented by fluence we're so grateful for those who helped us make this entire space possible for all of you to inhabit to enjoy. Want to thank Tor and the tweet up for providing beverages for our final or for our middle of the show. Daily round up here is quite tasty.

Josh Porter

Yeah, check that out. It's an IPA something tasty. It's

Nico Johnson

yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. I thought for a second you said it's not that tasty. No,

Josh Porter

I said it's very tasty as an IPA. You know, I mean, yeah, Bud Light or something. You guys went the I

Nico Johnson

tweet UPS high end of science. Josh. Tell me what did you and Jason spend the most time on today on the show floor?

Josh Porter

Yeah, it's been jammin from booth to booth from company to company met some amazing organizations checking out their innovations from Enface, Sonnen into all different great groups were stopped by Emerge Alliance checked out the theater there the grid edge theater, they actually have DC appliances, which is bonkers. I mean, really just some amazing technological innovations out there. Obviously, the energy on the show floor is fantastic. Yeah, I just heard someone say a pent up solar aggression. He's like, people are just dying to let it out. And then of course, there was a lot of innovation over the last three years since we saw each other right last, and some of the things actually. I'm always amazed how I continue to be completely surprised. Yeah, by the innovation steps that are happening in these different companies. So yeah, it's, it's great.

Nico Johnson

I finally got a chance to actually walk around the show floor. And yeah, the vibe is incredible. I mean, I've been really impressed with how the brands have taken a step up. I feel like literally the vertical height of the booths is a lot more you can't see across the show floor. But also there is a step up if you look at like the Longy booth for example. It's It feels very inviting feels. I think the show is starting to feel a lot more consumer friendly and European as it were. Feels a lot more like if you're walking through, you know, InterSolar Munich ah, then then that's nice. Yeah, then SPI is of old.

Josh Porter

It's big. Yeah, I mean, it's big. Is profession. You know, I this industry is, is outside of the teenage zone, we're moving into the to adulthood. And we're kind of you know, we think of ourselves in mature, I think terms, right. So it's like it's definitely growing. There's some, some awesome people and awesome innovations out there, no doubt about it.

Nico Johnson

Let's bring up our first guest. Our first guest today is Mr. Rob Masinter. of Redeux Energy. Let's see if Rob is around. There he is. I didn't tell him he was first but we're gonna bring Rob up first. And while Rob comes up, he's at a company called Redeux Energy, transforming Greenfield brownfield and industrial lands into utility scale, clean energy infrastructure. Check that out. Yeah. utility scale solar development. And he's a, he's a former AES guy. So

Josh Porter

oh, the muscles. Here we go. Rob, it's good to see you, man.

Rob Masinter

Good to see you, Nico.

Nico Johnson

Hey, man, I'm really curious, as a developer, you have a different agenda than other folks. What's the vibe right now, as you walk the show floor, you know, you've now launched Redeux. And you You've definitely walked this show floor, on under other banners. So how have you seen what are you experienced right now, as a developer?

Rob Masinter

That's a great point, it feels so good, actually, to be a developer to be at this point in sort of, value chain of, you know, the creativity of creating projects. This is my eighth SPI show. I've been here a while were you, sorry, RE+ correction. I've been here as a manufacturer in the equipment space. I've been here as an operator with an independent power producer, where, you know, I was procuring and building and owning and operating. And developer is, you know, the creative sort of early started at all. And the buzz is just great,

Nico Johnson

amazing. The developers are I've the I think most of the developers are asking a lot of questions around the IRA, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what it means for a developer that we've got this inflation Reduction Act, especially given that you come from the utility scale side of the business, I've talked to a lot of folks around residential and see, and I'd love to hear your perspective.

Rob Masinter

Fasten your seat belt. I mean, there's a lot of a lot of like, uncertainty and unknowns and what to do in terms of solar and storage. And are they together? Are they separate? But for sure, I mean, this is a huge boost and just very positive outcome for the whole industry. And it's going to definitely drive the volume of deployment. That, you know, was a base case before this thing passed. I mean, solar alone, we're looking at 30 gigawatts. So the annual deployment expectations for the second half of the decade, per year. Yeah. So it's incredible. Amazing.

Josh Porter

Unbelievable. What can we say? He was just pointing to this question with ITC, you know, with the standalone storage, what can we talk about in terms of that? I mean, that really is a game changer, right? You no longer have to pair generation with storage, you actually can go after the storage alone. That's where is that going to fit into the overall, you know,

Rob Masinter

perspective, I think that's why people are scratching their head a little bit I want to do I mean, the the sort of chessboard just changed a little bit, the playbook just changed a little bit. But I mean, the flexibility, right, of not having to pair solar with storage, just to get a financial credit, but instead to have the flexibility to you know, build a solar project where solar alone makes sense, the flexibility to deploy storage into the grid, where it makes sense and still, you know, be able to leverage the the ITC on that, you know, even for solar right now, the concept of a PTC for solar is a game changer. And it's going to be you know, people are gonna look at that and say, Do I do PTC for solar in one market, but ITC and another? Right, right, a lot of decisions. It's

Josh Porter

exciting because you're no longer hamstring. And you're able to actually alleviate some of the pressures on the grid with that kind of strategy. Right?

Rob Masinter

I think it's going to actually in some ways, I mean, clean energy deployment on the grid represents challenges and that is there enough transmission? How will be built out? What will be the bottleneck? Where will the bottleneck shift to? But yeah, being able to put more storage on the grid is very important right to integrate renewables ultimately, and improve power quality, for sure.

Nico Johnson

Where do you fit in the construct of developer kind of like a pure play developer, Greenfield or obviously, brownfield and up to flip the asset to a next era type? But how are you thinking about development right now? And did the IRA change the way that you are? Or maybe going to approach your your market?

Rob Masinter

The Ira just is, it's, you know, some people have used the analogy of gasoline on fire, right? I mean, it's just going to drive a lot more deployment that much faster, because there's that much capital that wants to come into this market. We're a early and mid stage developers Redeux. And I think, you know, one of the things to think about and development is where, where are your core competencies? Where are you really good, what's your differential advantage? And you know, are they potential advantage we think is in picking excellent market citing good projects and moving them forward through a mid stage of development. Yeah. But the cost of capital when it comes to procuring equipment and construction, which I've done as an IPP, it's just a different game. Yeah. So that's where, you know, bigger IPPs come into play. And they're, they're quite interested in pipeline.

Nico Johnson

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, pipeline is going to be ever important. We just saw as by community energy, right. Yep. So it's, and it's all about pipeline, not about contracts.

Josh Porter

Yeah. So we want to talk a little bit about price hikes and about poly silicon and kind of like, where it's all going right now, what are we learning about?

Rob Masinter

That? Is a that's a great question. And one that, you know, I don't have a great answer for. I mean, I think that we got some relief when when Biden put the brakes on, you know, the investigation. Yeah, for two years that was needed, because that really, you know, choke the whole industry right now. I mean, I think the whole supply chain is going to shift from, you know, China centric to other markets, and including the US. Unfortunately, the IRA provides a lot of manufacturing, tax incentives. So we'll see a lot of people pushing to develop manufacturing capacity in the US, that's going to be important.

Josh Porter

So do you think it'll be a substantial percentage of overall kind of global manufacturing here in the US?

Rob Masinter

Yeah, but I think it's going to take like a decade, decade, right. It's a long term shift. And, you know, I don't think that it means price reductions for, you know, materials, right, that get integrated into these projects, and we just need to be prepared for that. Yeah. I mean, that's just a reality. Right. But, you know, the security of having you here in the US is huge.

Josh Porter

The security, right, that's the language that is I mean, when we had to start to think about production of PV from the perspective of a national energy security mindset. I mean, that's just unbelievable. Who would have thought you use that language? You know, five years ago, they'll be talking about? Yeah, right now, that's like, you know, absolutely critical.

Rob Masinter

Yeah. And we have to control it. And we have to know that, you know, increasing electrification, increasing use of the grid is huge. And even on the, you know, like cyber, right? I mean, how protecting the grid from a national security perspective, so is this all kinds of things, things of things to think through in terms of development, quality, and ultimately, operational quality?

Nico Johnson

Rob, really appreciate your opinion. Thank you for taking time out of your busy evening. I know everybody's getting ready to go to dinners and parties, and appreciate being able to dip into the well of wisdom that you provide.

Rob Masinter

Yeah. Thanks, guys for the opportunity to chat. Okay, thank you.

Nico Johnson

All right. Next up, we've got Eric Rubenstein from Leyline. Capital. ley line, renewable capital provides capital for the growing renewable energy markets. And Eric is the EVP and Chief Investment Officer. He's also a fellow fellow during my I'm just gonna call that out. Eric happens to live but practically on my block in Durham, so it's nice to see you all the way over here. Like now he's also tall drink of water.

Eric Rubinstein

Yeah. So am I the closest living guest you've ever had?

Nico Johnson

I think you are all right. Yeah. You're the guests who lives closest? Yeah, yes. Yeah. So

Josh Porter

you guys are from the same tech back in Durham? Yeah. Like, like,

Eric Rubinstein

less than five doors down? Across the street? Up the street.

Nico Johnson

Yeah. Yeah. My buddy Blake was also here. And I hadn't seen him in three or four months. And we have to fly across the country to see each other. That's what happens in Durham, because it's so big. Yeah. And Eric, it's your first SPI.

Eric Rubinstein

It is already plus but yeah, you know, I won't let the new guy correct to you. But yeah, that's right. Yeah, what's that? Yeah.

Nico Johnson

Does it feel a little like a baptism? Yeah, a little

Eric Rubinstein

bit. I, you know, I started at socon ranch. They used to keep me in the back doing tax equity. And one let me out to see the light of day. I'm pretty pumped to be out here. Yeah, all these people all these lights, and I'm on the big stage. So thanks. Thanks for having me.

Nico Johnson

Indeed. Kidney candy store.

Josh Porter

Well, what do you see? And

Nico Johnson

what are you hearing? How's the show feel for you? It's your first time here. I would like to, I'd like to kind of pierce through the lens of someone that's a virgin to RE+.

Josh Porter

That's a unique perspective. Yeah.

Eric Rubinstein

Well, the floor is pretty wild. Today, like the last 10 minutes or my first time on the floor. So really, oh, yeah. We've just been taking meetings upstairs. So but I would say the big themes for us are just, you know, how are we going to get enough greenfield development out there? You know, when you think about the scale of IRA, you know, it's it's, it's pretty massive. And I'm just my worry is just we don't have actually enough development and we also just the ISOs, the RTOS like, I'm just worried about their capacity to handle what's common So it's sort of a two prong problem. Yeah.

Nico Johnson

You know, Eric, for those who might not know, leyline capital, it's not a brand that maybe folks have heard before. Could you tell folks where do you sit in the capital stack? And how do you help facilitate projects?

Eric Rubinstein

Yeah, so we're pre NTP funders. So before start construction, will come in with any development capital, everywhere from, you know, just sort of a business plan, all the way up to fully developed projects that needs deposits, where they go sell it. So we've got a lot of pools of capital, and we're very excited to fund this revolution.

Nico Johnson

What's the trigger point for when someone would call a ley line into a project?

Eric Rubinstein

Yeah, so it kind of depends. But I would say, you know, when you need capital, so will typically come in historically at lands control. And we will fund a portfolio of projects with a credit product. But sometimes it's just folks in a pinch late stage, they need a lot of capital quickly. I like to say we're developer by DNA. So we can quickly underwrite a project and lends, you know, $50 million plus, on pretty quick turnaround. So we did that for our buddy Sheldon at intersect a couple of years ago. We did that for some other folks recently, earlier this year. But it's all about just getting these projects done and getting to NTP.

Josh Porter

So you get a, you get a chance to really look into what it takes to keep a project moving along. I mean, what are some of the biggest obstacles to moving something along quickly?

Eric Rubinstein

I mean, number one is capital. That's why we exist, right? It takes a lot of money to get these projects done, or especially these big utility scale projects. But I would say the number one thing after that is just execution, you know, just just a dedicated team, high quality they've done before, and we can really trust them to know what they're doing along the way. Yeah.

Nico Johnson

Eric, anything surprised you about the conversations you've engaged in over the last couple of days?

Eric Rubinstein

You know, I think for me, just how much activity may be coming down the pike and in like, DGC, and eyes or smaller scale. I think there's been some innovations there to try and scale those and and sort of catch up with resi. And utility. Yeah. And kind of interested in seeing, you know, what, what can happen

Josh Porter

there, you mean on like the, the funding front of CNI.

Eric Rubinstein

Yeah. Yeah. Can we scale the funding? You know, it's it's pretty hand to hand combat down there at sort of that small scale, and they haven't really cracked the code like resi has. And if we can do that, then it's it's another on ramp for sort of trying to get to the scale that we're trying to get to, you know, in the wake of the IRA bill. Well, Eric Rubenstein,

Nico Johnson

I appreciate you joining us. Yeah, Eric is p and Chief Investment Officer for leyline capital. And my compatriot from Durham. Back. Yeah, man, good to meet you. Josh, it's it's fun to talk to these developers and get a sense of like, what they how they're thinking about summing up what's happening.

Josh Porter

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's really interesting to hear him say that the CNI space is an area of particular, you know, movement. I certainly have seen those releases recently about the new organizations going after that, you know, back in the day, we used to call that the doughnut hole, right? You've heard that term, Donut Oh, and it was like, it was just basically not impossible, but darn near impossible. Something funded, you know, sub million dollar kind of territory, you know, multi 100 kilowatt, kind of like this business over here wants to get solar and wind, why can you do it for resi? And guys are doing it on the utility level, but he can't do it at the small business level, which should be a no brainer. Yeah. Couldn't get it funded. You know, it was all really slow bank stuff. Right. So it's happening. Maybe we'll

Nico Johnson

ask ask our next guest how money flows. Mr. Josh back and Rachel are going to come up from BCI and Full Tilt.

Josh Porter

All right, here they are.

Nico Johnson

I love it. I love it. We got the

Josh Beck

beards verse. No beard.

Nico Johnson

It is I'm gonna add a beer. Somebody bring me a beer.

Josh Beck

Beers and beards. Yeah, beer. That's fair.

Nico Johnson

That's fair. Well, I'd love to I can introduce you. But why don't you? You and Rachel, introduce yourselves. Let's start with Rachel.

Rachel Sheridan

Yes. Yeah. So I'm Rachel Sheridan. Rachel Sheridan from I work at Full Tilt. I'm the Vice President of projects there. So I'm focused on the project management side of things. So you know, delivering projects and through installation.

Nico Johnson

Fantastic.

Josh Beck

And I'm Josh Beck. I'm Chief Investment Officer at BCI technology investments in VP of bizdev. At full tilt. Oh, guys, roll out. Next Generation System here.

Nico Johnson

Josh, I'm gonna ask you to treat that microphone like an ice cream cone. Got it in there. You got we can hear you talking back on the mic like

Josh Beck

Yeah, after hours party.

Nico Johnson

I love it. Yeah. All right. So what most people don't know about Josh and Rachel is that they come from steel town.

Josh Beck

That's right, Pittsburgh. So the champion. Absolutely.

Nico Johnson

All right. And what just happened in Pittsburgh? Well, apart from the clean air, clean energy jigger Shaw Fiesta, we got

Josh Beck

quite a clean energy summit going on in Pittsburgh this week. We got 38 different energy ministers in Pittsburgh all talking about the Climate Accords, and how to move forward with a renewable energy future and how that all relates with the inflation Reduction Act, which is really exciting. Yep. There are, a lot of them are at our facility this this week. Yeah, we actually over the last year, I've done some really exciting things at BCI in terms of picking up one of our international manufacturing operations, and moving all the capital equipment to Pittsburgh. So we took over 100 year old Bethlehem steel plants on the same kind of larger complex that used to make landing crafts, or for the D Day invasion and everything. It's so cool to see the history of transformation. Yeah, from from war effort, all the way to the Renewable Energy war effort. Right. Yeah. And so now we're making, we're making tracker products, were making multi gigawatts a year, right off the Ohio River, no faster way to get things into the Midwest. You know, five days be a barge. It's amazing. So, you know, we were really pressured to, to, to get closer to the customers lower logistics costs. And as we know, like, man, no one can afford to have containership stuck in LA Harbor for five months anymore.

Nico Johnson

So what did you have to do? All I want to know is what you do to get grant home to come down a little video and yeah, the

Josh Beck

Secretary of Energy visited us, ya know, that, that definitely, you know, that we poured some dance sugar on on that, which definitely helps. Yeah, which definitely helped the situation a lot. So we're making a lot of next tracker product out of that facility, as you can imagine. You know, I think that the Secretary of Energy and the White House is a really committed to this onshoring process, as we've seen with the IRA, and everything, we're really excited to build this out. And what we're seeing here is the formation of BCI has quickly become the largest manufacturing facility on the East Coast for utility scale solar tracking. And that's just really exciting to take something old, make it new again, it's just such an exciting city story of, of redevelopment across the industry,

Josh Porter

the whole I mean, the whole idea of of manufacturing in the United States. You know, Jay and I were just at the Rouge plant in Detroit. Yeah. And so of course, the launch of the f150 lightning and the and then the all the history, that's they're cool with, you know, that just basically the birth of the middle class and the ability for people to buy these things. I mean, it's, it seems like, we're seeing this again now. So I'm gonna let it legitimately like, whoa,

Nico Johnson

I'm surprised,

Josh Beck

very similar story. You know, that facility that you just mentioned, Josh's, I think it was like, one out of every five bombers was built in that exact facility. You know what I mean? So we're seeing all of this, like rebirth of a war effort. Now, it's a war on the on, you know, like the American recreating the American energy grid, and what an exciting time to be in the energy industry. And I just like to point out one thing with Rachel here, what an amazing time to have these just incredibly talented women joining our industry as well. And it's so great to see these, these talented engineers joining us.

Nico Johnson

Yeah, you mentioned the war effort in the battleground is talent, actually. Yeah, I was watching. I don't know how many No, but the Full Tilt booth is just on the other side of this wall here. So they're buffeted by our wall. They don't have to like the Hyundai folks there. Listen to us all day long. But I was watching Rachel field barrage after barrage. I was talking to Matt. And it's like, she's just like, No stand out, or how you even went to the bathroom all day?

Rachel Sheridan

It's busy. Yeah, we've been hit with lots of, you know, lots of interest in the product. So it's been great. Absolutely.

Nico Johnson

Yeah. You're the infantry over there. What are some of the interesting conversations that you're hearing from folks as they're just I'm really curious, how are folks approaching conversations at a booth, especially one like yours, which is really focused on infrastructure?

Rachel Sheridan

Yeah, so a couple different things that I found really interesting through conversations today. One thing is that, you know, small projects, it seems like, you know, in a similar geographical area, we're starting to talk about grouping them together. Okay, in terms of like manufacturing, supply chain delivery, you know, across across developers or with with one developer. Yeah, yeah. But so instead of, you know, handling them as separate projects will be different timelines, just grouping them together, and delivering those

Nico Johnson

because it's going all the way back to the steel purchase. Not just

Rachel Sheridan

streamlining that. Yeah, grouping that together to you know, get efficiencies throughout the supply chain.

Josh Beck

So much of that ongoing process is who can buy the steel the best Yeah, you can buy in bulk, right. And so like where were in years past that SPI and now RE+, you know, a lot of people said, Oh, I don't do sub one megawatt project So don't do this. Now we're seeing a lot of people more creatively saying like, Hey, I've got, I've got 201 megawatt projects, can I actually get something that's uniform enough with the same kind of wind codes with a with the same kind of tolerances? And let's do this as a package deal. And I think that that's exactly the way to look at this. So everyone's going big. And it's, it's great to see.

Josh Porter

Wow, where does it go from here? I mean, what's it look like in the future? I mean, you just just launched this. So what's the next step?

Josh Beck

Yeah. Rachel, why don't you talk about the tracker and ground mount integration? Yeah. So

Rachel Sheridan

that's another thing that we're Yeah, we're starting to hear about so you know, Tracker sites, a lot of times, you know, maybe on the outside, there's some unusable, you know, steep terrain and things like that. So it's interesting. There's talk of starting to put fixed tilt systems, you know, on the exterior of tracker sites. Yeah. So that could be huge.

Josh Beck

Yeah. And we're seeing a lot of those collaborations and strategic partnerships between ground mount systems and in tracker systems, because they're like, hey, you know, if you can have 200 megawatts in a valley with minimal site prep and earthmoving, well, then the you can supersize that with an extra 50 to 100 megawatts around the barrier where no housing development wants to go in. And that's gravy.

Nico Johnson

Gravy. Indeed, Josh, and Rachel, really glad to have a chance to chat with you guys such energy. I wish I could have gone and sat with you more at your booth. But thank you for coming to share with us, especially about what's happening in Pittsburgh and the rebirth of our steel industry here. reshoring this technology back to the United States.

Rachel Sheridan

Thanks so much for having us. You've

Josh Beck

been up solar warriors. Thank you for all the work you do here.

Nico Johnson

Absolutely. Thanks, guys. You did great on your first podcast, Rachel. Thank you. Well, Josh, we're wrapping up here on day two of the show. There's a what do they call the area outwear, like SMA and span and on Kaitou off

Josh Porter

the front zone. I don't know what the name of it is.

Nico Johnson

Okay, the foot, we'll call it the wall. There is a party in the pavilion today. And that is one thing that folks can go and enjoy. Tomorrow is day three, it kind of feels like day three, everybody comes a little more relaxed.

Josh Porter

You know, I was thinking about it. Actually, today. Because we're out here, we're jam and we're talking with everybody and all all across the floors. And I was I was planning to go out and relax. And I was like, hang on a second. I only got half a day left. Yeah. So I kind of thought to myself, How do I stop?

Nico Johnson

Yeah, actually the thought I had? You know what I thought about? I have no schwag for my children. How am I gonna walk the show floor and get some swag for my kids. I have three little three small kids, right? Yeah. But yeah, we've got another half a day of content here. And we'll see you back at 1pm. Tomorrow, don't be late. J can you help me here at 1245? Tomorrow? 1pm. We've got the last daily Roundup, is there anything? Is there anything else in particular tomorrow? Like, what's the last thing you're going to try to? You're gonna try to cover on the show floor?

Josh Porter

She's Louise. I don't know. I mean, we're just basically trying to we've seen such innovation in in the solar plus battery area. We saw some amazing carports and some really cool, Evie, charging stuff and people kind of pioneering I mean, I don't know, we're just gonna get out there and try to ferret out those little last bits of innovation that we didn't get chance to record yet. So you know, I'm envious

Nico Johnson

that you've got to Jason to follow along and help you stay organized.

Josh Porter

It does a lot more than that. But yeah, it definitely keeps me going.

Nico Johnson

Yeah, I Yeah, well, we've got a, you know, we still have one thing to remind folks is, it's day three, but we still have a full lineup of education, there's some of the like, there's some really interesting education, you can see that RE-plus.com. And look at the schedule, there's a full schedule, not just the power of media zone. But all of the different stages across the expo hall, there is a tremendous amount of knowledge being shared in all of the theaters, and in the full conference that they've saved for the last day. So so as to make it interesting and keep people around. I know that some some folks are going home today. But I would encourage you take a look at the schedule tonight and see where are today and see where you want to expend your energy. But for sure, if you haven't had a chance to really walk the show floor. It's the last day, just pick a grid, pick one area that you're particularly interested in walking, I can tell you, it takes about eight to 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other, especially if you know, folks. And I would suggest that you just pick a place where you want to learn and Go Lean in there. And hopefully it's a place that's got good schwag. So your children will think that you've spent your time wisely. And otherwise, it's the last day of the show, which is today as folks who are listening to this on the podcast, but it's less than a show tomorrow. So make the most of it. Josh, any final thoughts?

Josh Porter

Yeah, no similar to what you were just saying, you know, you sit down you talk maybe there are people that you've known companies, but that you've worked with in the past, but there's been basically three years elapsed since we saw them last. So the innovation that they've kind of realized through that time period can be bonkers. Yeah, I mean, you're like whoa, Oh, in three years, these really brilliant people, passionate people in this industry can do a tremendous amount. Yeah. And and some of the things just surprised me, I was like, Well, I can't believe that that actually.

Nico Johnson

Here's the learning curves, folks who stay long enough to develop a relationship, but short enough that you still have time to go to other places, because it's easy to get caught in a booth and like you're really interested in treatment and technology. But get someone's card, build a relationship, build that bridge, get a hook that you can follow up on, and then set up a call following, right doesn't all have to have, it doesn't all have to happen right in the booth. And I think that's where fix folks make the mistake of they'll stay in one booth for 2030 minutes. And really, as a percentage of your day. That is a huge commitment.

Josh Porter

Now that's a great turnout, homie. It's a great way to look at it because this is a community that you want to you know, be able to extend outwards to and be able to actually touch a lot of people have a lot of companies and then if you spent all your time you know hanging out with your your homeboys that you know from previous years, that's right, you're gonna miss some opportunities. So yeah, do it. I agree.

Nico Johnson

Folks, this is the wrap on our third or our third because we did one on Monday. Our third daily Roundup, this is day two of RE+ 22 here in Anaheim. This is the power of media zone produced by SunCast media presented by fluence I still have to read this little paper that I had. We are also live streaming Thank you, those of you who are watching on SunCast dot live, I'll be bookmarked it so that you can take us on the go. I also want to thank our supporting sponsors, AES Aurora, sma sorry, and sungrow. And certainly thank our media, our streaming sponsor, sungrow and Tygo, for helping us take this around the world and to the the Jumbotron. And which is which blows my mind. I got a picture this morning that I was on the Jumbotron. I've seen your face on the Jumbotron

Josh Porter

this I mean, just the word Jumbotron. I

Nico Johnson

think there's a whole other business in jumbotron media. There is right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we need to figure out how solar jumbotron company. I don't Yeah, exactly. When you leverage the Jumbotron. We're super grateful for all the companies that have supported including leyline capital for the daily roundup and I son for our daily morning show. Don't miss it tomorrow live with Julia and Nico will kick it off at 9am For our final daily morning show presented by eyes and thanks to the folks at leyline capital for helping us put on this daily roundup each and every day. It also comes live to you, as you maybe are hearing right now on the SunCast podcast fresh every morning within 12 hours of recording. That's called Near Time publishing.

Josh Porter

There you go just in time publishing. Yeah. Thanks, everyone.

Nico Johnson

We'll see you tomorrow, folks.

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:

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Connect with Josh Beck on LinkedIn and on Full Tilt website

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Connect with Josh Porter on LinkedIn and on Solar Coaster website

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Follow RE+ on LinkedIn and check out its website.


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Episode 521: RE+ Daily Roundup, Day 1

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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 the PowerUp Media Zone booth 438.

You can also watch the show stream live from the PowerUp Media Zone at www.suncast.live.


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

Follow RE+ on LinkedIn and check out its website.


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Episode 520: Live Show Preview RE+

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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.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Julia Pyper on LinkedIn and on GoodLeap website

Connect with Josh Porter on LinkedIn and on Solar Coaster website

Connect with Nico Johnson on LinkedIn

Follow RE+ on LinkedIn and check out its website.


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


Hey Sunshine! Clouds got you down? SolarAnywhere® is the leading commercial solar data solution for planning, operating and forecasting solar power production. Learn more at mysuncast.com/solaranywhere.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 519: Mark Culpepper On SunEdison, Drones & The Entrepreneurial Spirit

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Mark Culpepper has the uncanny knack — or superpower — of looking around corners to see what the future is bringing. He also has the confidence, tenacity and experience to take leaps of faith on the next big thing.

Mark is general manager, global solar solutions, for DroneBase, the leader in intelligent aerial imaging and data analytics for the entire lifecycle of renewable energy assets. He arrived at DroneBase through acquisition - his own. He foresaw the rise of drone & aerial thermal imaging years before the technology to make it work actually arrived or was cost-effective. But like many entrepreneurs, he positioned himself ahead of the wave, prepared and waited.

Mark already did a deep-dive Tactical Tuesday with us on how DroneBase uses drones and human-crewed aircraft to capture thermal imaging of solar energy systems and turn that into actionable data in Episode 433. Today we'll look at how Mark leveraged his abilities to predict the next big thing to craft a fascinating entrepreneurial role in the industry.

As mentioned briefly a moment ago, Mark landed at DroneBase in 2021 when the company acquired Precision XYZ, a solar-focused drone data services firm Mark founded in 2016. Fresh off a Series C round and an expansion to Europe, DroneBase saw the value in Precision XYZ's analytical and software tools and Mark's intimate knowledge of the solar industry.

Mark designed the industry-leading North American Solar Scan program to scan megaprojects in hours rather than days or weeks and created its first global monitoring operations centers to track power, energy and revenue on solar power plants worldwide.

But how did this preacher's son from coastal California evolve an interest in sustainability to where he is today? His journey hinges in some respects on what he was not — some "Steady Eddie," straight A student as a teen.

"I was not a good student in high school," he said. He believes the best students don't always make the best entrepreneurs, perhaps because they think outside the box.

"I've always been fascinated with strategies and tactics, and I'm a student of history. And if you're a student of history, you're a student of war," he recalled. "As a kid, I was enamored with war games, for whatever reason. I don't know why; it certainly wasn't from my dad or my family. But what those early experiences helped inform was how you can apply detail to strategic initiatives."

Mark transitioned from tech to renewables nearly 20 years ago after shopping for solar for his home. Amazed at the large numbers of companies in the young, maturing industry, he spent about six months researching energy markets. "Everything kept pointing me back to distributed energy resources, specifically solar generation," he said.

He started making cold calls. It was 2004, and PowerLight, a global provider of large-scale solar power systems, was "one of the big dogs," gearing up for its 2007 merger with SunPower. 

Mark said PowerLight didn't have time for a young guy with an itch to enter the industry. So he started culling names of value-added resellers from the PowerLight website. 

"I just started calling, and if someone was available, I'd go and meet with them. My pitch was straightforward. I was like, 'Hey, I work in the tech sector, and I'm looking to transition into the solar industry, and I'd love to get your thoughts on what works for you, what doesn't, and what that looks like,'" he recalled.

Most people hung up. But not Rick and Angela Lavezzo, the founders of Sacramento-based Team Solar. 'Rick heard me for 30 seconds or a minute. And he said, 'Sure, come on by.'"

He said Rick was an "open book" — a 180-degree change from tech, "where everything is very clandestine, nobody wants to share anything, and everybody has some top secret formula that will make them a millionaire."

They talked. Then Mark started showing up at Team Solar every day. "I didn't have a job," he said. " I was working with them on their strategy, specifically how they could grow their business."

At some point, Rick turned the informal arrangement into a job. "I said, 'Look, I don't need a lot right now, just something to get me started,'" Mark said. Less than a year later, SunEdison acquired Team Solar. 

Mark worked at SunEdison for more than five years, first as vice president and then as Chief Technology Officer and general manager of global services. 

Mark credits many influences for his success, from his speech and debating experiences in college to crucial lessons he learned early in his career at Cisco Systems under John Chambers' leadership. His journey is authentic, compelling and well worth your time. I invite you to listen to today's podcast.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Mark Culpepper on LinkedIn.

Follow DroneBase on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and its website.



NOTEWORTHY QUOTES:

I think that one of the things that a good entrepreneur does, is they’ll take an idea, and then they’ll present the idea out there and the idea either flourishes or dies, sometimes it needs a little nurturing to flourish, but you really have to hammer on it, you know, it really is, like steel in the sense that if it’s not exposed to a little heat and pressure, it doesn’t evolve into what you need it to evolve into.
— Mark Culpepper

Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


Hey Sunshine! Clouds got you down? SolarAnywhere® is the leading commercial solar data solution for planning, operating and forecasting solar power production. Learn more at mysuncast.com/solaranywhere.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 518: 2022 RE+ Conference: Know before you go! SIX industry veterans’ Advice & Tips!

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


I fondly remember circa 2018 (when I first debuted the Know before you go episode) I was barely at Episode 112, and I interviewed Andy Klump for the first time in my hotel room at the Hilton Anaheim!  Here we are 4 yrs and >400 episodes later, and this Pre-conference episode feels as important as ever!

Each year, I try to curate the collective wisdom of 5 of my favorite industry thought-leaders (who somehow carve out time before the show to spend 10min with me) and deliver it to you as a sampling of the how/when/why/where and what to do leading up to, during and AFTER the show!

In today’s episode:

  • Danielle Danko, Sr. Director of Marketing for RE+ speaks to the Rebrand (what, it’s not SPI??) and all the fun festivities they have in store for you (yes, they rented out the entire Angels stadium y’all!) 

  • Tom Weirich, Head of Marketing for EDPR North America, shares his Top 10 tips for getting a positive ROI out of a tradeshow when you’re sending a team

  • Michelle Davis & Sylvia Leyva-Martinez, of Woodmac’s N.America solar team, give an update on the recently released Solar Market Insights report, and how their analyst team is preparing for SPI (er, I meant RE+...)

  • Kristan Kirsh, VP Global Marketing at Nextracker, shares her hard-won insights on how to maximize both the Exhibitor experience and the sales team results!

  • And, lastly, I chime in with some tips from Drew Michener, a client who runs a SME in Utah taking much of his leadership team to the show this year - what’s his plan, and how will he optimize the effort? Oh, I also give a brief rundown of the fun after-hours activities I’ll be engaged in.

It’s an insight-packed hour that I hope you’ll queue up BEFORE you go to Anaheim (or at least, on your flight there.Oh, and DON”T forget to order biz cards…even if you have to pay $30 to express ship them to the hotel like I have done every year - yes I keep forgetting till the very last minute!

How do YOU maximize your ROI for one of the largest solar tradeshows on the continent? What will Your strategy be this year?And, perhaps more importantly, have you left time in your schedule for serendipity…like swinging by Booth 438 (the PowerUp Media Zone) to say Hello to ME in person!?  ;-)

See you in a week #SolarWarrior!


RESOURCES:

Connect with Danielle Danko on LinkedIn

Follow RE+ on LinkedIn and check out its website.

Networking & Special Events


Connect with Tom Weirich on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Follow EDPR NA on LinkedIn and check out its website.

Tom’s new book: We Took The Risk


Connect with Michelle Davis on LinkedIn and Twitter

Connect with Sylvia Leyva-Martinez on LinkedIn

Follow Wood Mackenzie on LinkedIn and check out its website.

Download the US Solar Market Insight report Executive Summary: US Solar Market Insight

Request an invitation to Wood Mackenzie’s RE+ Breakfast Briefing: Wood Mackenzie at RE+ 2022


Connect with Kristan Kirsh on LinkedIn and Twitter

Follow Nextracker on LinkedIn, YouTube and check out its website.

We’re hiring in marketing and many other departments globally and in our US offices!
See our career page listings and send me your resume.


Connect with Drew Michener on LinkedIn

Follow Green Box Solar on LinkedIn and check out its website.


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


Hey Sunshine! Clouds got you down? SolarAnywhere® is the leading commercial solar data solution for planning, operating and forecasting solar power production. Learn more at mysuncast.com/solaranywhere.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 517: Build it! — profit will come for renewable energy investors, with Quinbrook co-founder, David Scaysbrook

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


If institutional investors want to make a better return and have an impact, then they need to embrace asset creation as a strategy. 

That's the formula espoused by Australian legend David Scaysbrook has nearly 30 years of experience in energy and renewable infrastructure. He and his partner, Rory Quinlan, co-founded Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners Group — arguably among the industry's most lauded and recognizable renewable energy fund and development platforms. David really is one of the Titan’s of industry helping lead the Clean Energy Revolution. When we say “we’re standing on the shoulders of giants”...David and Rory are in that giant category. 

Headquartered in London with offices in Europe, Australia and North America, Quinbrook is an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) focused, "value add" investment manager specializing in low carbon and renewable energy supply, storage, grid stability and related assets and businesses. And they’ve amassed one of the brightest teams and stellar track records in the marketplace, of that nobody can object. Heck, they’re building THE largest solar+battery storage project in the world!

Smart, innovative institutions get it, he said. They want "value add" opportunities with untapped potential. "They don't want to buy the existing wind farm or solar project because that's now become the riskier asset," David said. "In fact, ESG impact through asset creation is the only way you can get better returns with the attribution of that impact for the utilization of your capital."

And, during the past two years, Quinbrook has won multiple awards for its ESG commitment and innovation. 

It bested 90 finalists in 17 investment fund categories to win Investment Fund of the Year from ESG Investing. It also earned ESG Investing awards in infrastructure and energy transition and an IJ Global ESG award for Technology in Energy.

Fund managers David and Rory and Quinbrook's other senior leaders have collectively invested $8.2 billion (USD) of equity in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990s, representing a total enterprise value of $28.7 billion or 19.5 GW of power supply capacity. Let that sink in…if Quinbrook were a Country, and their enterprise value were their GDP, it would rank them in the Top 100 globally!

David described Quinbrook as developers with a Funds Management license. "the key to our success has always been investing earlier through that asset creation cycle and from an ESG perspective, closing the loop on that. We create assets from scratch, create jobs, build new assets, create benefits for local communities, and reduce emissions because everything we do is additional. It wasn't there before.

"By capturing the whole lifecycle value chain — everything from the early stage development profit, the derisking profit that you get from creating, from turning something from an idea into an actual project to derisking it through construction, and then into the derisked operations phase," he said.

Today's wide-ranging conversation traces David's path from a lawyer to a green energy champion who, as a managing partner, now leads Quinbrook's strategy and chairs its Investment Committee. You'll learn how an Australian landfill gas company taught David to be an entrepreneur and what sparked him to start his own renewable energy company. And you'll hear his prediction about the next significant bottleneck that threatens to hold back the renewable energy transition.

Growing up in Sydney, Australia, David had the support of an overly protective mother who made him "feel invincible." As he recalled, "My upbringing made me feel we could take on the world."

Though he never considered himself particularly entrepreneurial, he gradually veered off the legal footpath to build businesses. After leaving the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, he worked at NRG Energy NRG's Asian Pacific subsidiary; Blake Dawson Waldron; Novera Energy; Gaian Capital; Capital Dynamics; and Private Energy Partners before founding Quinbrook in 2015.

He characterizes being an entrepreneur as staring unflinchingly into the abyss — knowing the only direction is forward. "When I say unflinchingly staring into the abyss, as the leader and the founder, you're the captain of the ship," he said.

He said that modeling your behavior and thinking and showing courage and perseverance to yourself and those working with you enables you to defeat the odds and endure challenges. 

"Those who succeed in entrepreneurship can come through challenging moments and endure. And they probably go on to do more entrepreneurial activities and start more businesses as I have done because I think that the resilience you build gives you the confidence to do it again," he explained.


RESOURCES:

Connect with David Scaysbrook on LinkedIn

Follow Quinbrook on LinkedIn and check out its website.


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


Hey Sunshine! Clouds got you down? SolarAnywhere® is the leading commercial solar data solution for planning, operating and forecasting solar power production. Learn more at mysuncast.com/solaranywhere.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 516: How To Educate Solar Buyers on Ground Screws

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Mike Faraone was on the cusp of a Ph.D. when he realized he preferred industry to academia. Intrigued by solar's potential, he returned to his hometown of Fort Myers, Florida, in 2016 for a job at Terrasmart, which is now the renewable energy arm of Gibraltar Industries.

Terrasmart is a leader in the world of ground screws. And while that might not resonate with all solar warriors, it caught Mike's attention.

With a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a Master's and Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering, he has a deep understanding of what’s lurking under the surface, which makes him the perfect candidate to help me understand why ground screws matter and what factors to consider when evaluating their use.

Within a year at Terrasmart, Mike proved his worth, quickly earning a promotion to engineering director from a geotechnical engineer, and garnering the nickname "Dr. Dirt".

"It's a term of endearment and recognition at the same time," he said, adding he even has a ping-pong jersey with "Dr. Dirt" on the back! 

Dr. Dirt, aka Mike, stands at the intersection of an interesting conundrum: How can the industry balance exponential growth against the demand for fewer and fewer "perfect" commercial and industrial development sites?

Because we're running out of the easy, flat terrain of deserts and fertile farm fields prevalent a decade ago, utility-scale solar developers are turning to rocky, hilly terrain. And, this is where the foundation conversation meets the ground, as it were. Selecting the proper ground-mount foundation will minimize delays, lower costs, and maximize returns on your solar project. 

“But Nico, how do I know what is the appropriate option?”, I hear you say?

Have no fear, Mike and his team have compiled a ton of studies and collateral to support the journey you’re on, and we go into greater depth on the episode. The considerations are many, they also fall into pretty general categories.  Pile foundations are the most common [footing], but they are not the most effective option for rugged or sloped terrain or unpredictable conditions. The alternative is ground screws — and Mike thinks they make a lot of sense for rugged or sloped terrain. He even has specific examples where what might not look like ‘rugged’ terrain actually is (anybody hit caliche yet!?)

"You've got to build on top of something with any of these sites. So you need to understand what's underground — sand, clay, various types of rock, cobbles, boulders, or even bedrock," he said.

Designs are typically based on a pull test that evaluates the character of the development site soil. A pull test, in simple terms, evaluates the strength or friction required to pull the foundation out of the ground.

"There are methods to estimate the capacity of a foundation, and those tend to be conservative, which means more cost to your project. The ideal situation is installing that foundation and trying to pull out the ground to prove its capacity," he said.

Mike takes the conversation exactly where you'd expect a Tactical Tuesday discussion to go: Into a complete technical examination of pile foundations and ground screws and the relative costs of each.

Terrasmart acknowledges ground screws cost about 26% more than pile systems. However, 40% more ground screws can be installed in one day, reducing deployment time. We go in depth looking at the numbers from a recent white paper Mike co-authored that served as part of my foundation for launching into the discussion.

Mike also touches on foundations in a high-refusal environment. "A refusal is when you're trying to drive a pile to a specified embedment depth underground, and you hit something that impedes you from reaching that impediment. Now you have a problem because you're not meeting an engineering requirement," he said.

To ensure that the pile has the required capacity, you can either do a pull test to verify its integrity or move it slightly and drive it again to see if you can reach the necessary depth. "These are all additional costs that we're talking about at the end of the day," he said.

Price and risk appetite are the main drivers for solar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) companies. 

"A ground screw upfront costs more. But then you start assessing the sites and talking about risk and who owns the subsurface risk, and you can quantify that risk in terms of the percent of refusals you might encounter on a project," he said.

There's a lot more in today's discussion, so I hope you listen to the podcast in its entirety. And join us every Tuesday for more great conversations with subject matter experts who can offer you practical tools, tips and advice to build your solar business and career.

And below we list, among the many resources that are available, the whitepapers that Mike and Terrasmart has put together to help developers and EPCs make the best decisions for their specific site conditions. Hope you’ll take the time to review them - it sure helped me prepare for this interview! Plus, who doesn’t love charts and graphs!?


RESOURCES:

Connect with Mike Faraone on LinkedIn

Follow Terrasmart on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo and its website.

Whitepaper:

Solid Foundation Strategies for Mitigating Frost Heave in the Northeast


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 515: Advice From A Serial Solar Entrepreneur: Be Passionate, Make A Difference

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Spencer Oberan is a husband, father, college football fan, and outdoor enthusiast who said he's passionate about the positive changes solar brings to families and the environment.

Spencer — aka "a solar guy" — and Pat Bennett — "a tech guy" — discovered cumbersome and disjointed processes were slowing the growth of solar businesses.

In 2018, they decided to solve the problem by creating Enerflo, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform purpose-built for the solar industry. The Huntington Beach, California-based company promises solar installers and sales dealers "a seamless experience start to finish." 

Enerflo offers robust APIs, webhooks and a growing number of integrations, which enable clients to connect the tools and apps they already use to the platform's homegrown technology.

By automating tasks and bringing everything together in a cohesive sales and installation platform, Spencer said Enerflo helps people work smarter, faster and more efficiently. 

Spencer shared Enerflo's success with us in Suncast Episode 470. He's back today to share more about his journey as a serial entrepreneur — from selling candy door-to-door with his sister as a kid to deciding to "make a difference" as an adult.

"Having money is a byproduct of what you're passionate about, and your success is a byproduct of those passions. I'm blessed, humbled and grateful I get to do something I'm incredibly passionate about. I don't chase money. I chase making a difference," he said.

Spencer traces his interest in renewables to his modest childhood in the Pacific Northwest. He was fascinated with a book that discussed photovoltaics and creating energy from wind. "It was pretty eye-opening," he said. 

He toyed with being a biologist in college but ended dropping all his science classes to take things he enjoyed: acting, singing, history, football coaching — "all kinds of stuff." 

"I realized, 'I'm a conservationist, and I care about the environment and animals and ensuring the planet is clean and usable for my kids. And that it's, you know, and we can even make it better," he said.

Spencer talks about the seven startups he’s been involved with, from one that harvested safflower from the side of freeways for biodiesel to one that made a smart sprinkler controller. "I kept going with these startups. Man, I have such a great education on what not to do," he said.

But mistakes are no match for persistence, Spencer said. So he's persevered, with passion as his North Star. He defines passion as something you think about as you fall asleep, so you can dream about it and all you think about when you're awake.

“How does someone know what they're passionate about? "What do you always think about? What is the thing that you would do for free? Better yet, what is the thing that you would pay someone else to let you do? That's passion," he said.

He said he's always been passionate about energy "and how we consume it, produce it, and interact with it." He named the company for it: "Enerflo" stands for "energy-flow" of anything that touches the production or consumption of home energy.

Where does he want to take the company? What's the one thing he sees happening in the market that nobody else is tracking? What's in his entrepreneurial crystal ball? And what's his favorite book? (Spoiler: It's Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.)

I invite you to listen to the podcast and find the answers to those and many other questions. Spencer is a genuine human being, and our conversation was fun, enjoyable and insightful.


RESOURCES:

Find Spencer Oberan on LinkedIn

Connect with Enerflo on LinkedIn, Facebook and its website.


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


Hey Sunshine! Clouds got you down? SolarAnywhere® is the leading commercial solar data solution for planning, operating and forecasting solar power production. Learn more at mysuncast.com/solaranywhere.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 514: Trust Is the Foundation of Great Experiences, with Mark Liffmann & Brad Davis of Omnidian (Beyond O&M Series, 6 of 6)

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Two solar industry veterans founded Seattle-based Omnidian in 2016. Six years later, the company has evolved into a powerhouse responsible for the oversight of more than 1,500 Megawatts of energy generation.

Today we hear from co-founders Mark Liffmann and Brad Davis, who share the spotlight in this final episode of our six-part Beyond O&M: The Future of Solar series. Omnidian partnered with SunCast to bring you this series.

Mark and Brad, CEO and CMO, respectively, define how solar businesses can maximize growth by delivering custom-centric experiences that align with their company cultures even as they scale. 

Omnidian monitors and remotely diagnoses commercial, industrial and residential solar asset performance problems. It boasts it offers unparalleled excellence through the passionate people it employs, its innovative technology and the most amazing customer experiences it delivers.

"One of the things that I love when speaking with our clients is this whole idea of using a platform to solve this problem called culture," Brad said. "The business purpose of culture, when you think about it, is to overcome the challenge of scale. Right? 

"Our industry will undergo incredible growth as we have never seen in its history. That's what's coming our way. And our partners and this industry will need the capability to scale."

Omnidian promises to help companies scale by carrying some of its load.

As a solar asset management service that can monitor solar systems, remotely diagnose problems and send a technician when necessary, Omnidian takes a heavy weight from installers. Better yet, it offers a performance guarantee.

Mark and Brad said Omnidian is rooted in six core corporate values: delighting clients, trusting teammates, investing in people, rewarding results, treating everyone with dignity and respect, and behaving ethically and honestly.

At the end of a recent team meeting, Mark said half the attendees said, "I love you."

"And, you know, I was like, that's the ethos that we're trying to build — that ethos of trust and real connection — because building a business hard, and you've got to do with people you love and trust," he said.

Omnidian has been named among the Top 100 Places To Work by Seattle Business Magazine for four consecutive years. 

A 15-year solar industry veteran, Mark co-founded SunPower's residential and light commercial business and developed a $500 million global enterprise. He previously held executive leadership positions at

Clean Power Research, enerG2 and Solar Depot (Soligent). 

Brad held executive leadership positions for national brands in retail, financial services, and renewable energy, successfully launching new markets worldwide. In addition to a long tenure at retail giant Target, he was CMO at Washington Mutual which became JP Morgan Chase, SunPower and Opus Bank.

They formed Omnidian to address a misconception they feared could doom the whole solar industry. In the early years of solar, installers told customers they could put panels on their roofs and forget them because their were no moving parts.

"We knew that was not true," Mark said. It's a disservice to our customers to tell them that. And that was the 'aha' moment for us."

He said he knew the solar industry would ultimately fail if customers lost faith in the product.

"If we destroy the trust with the customer because we are not telling them the truth at the moment of sale and not protecting them over the life of the asset, it will undermine our industry," Mark said. He called that realization the impetus for founding Omnidian.

Mark and Brad believe the most successful solar businesses of the future will share one thing in common: a commitment to exceptional customer experiences (CX). CX spans the lifetime of customers' relationships with a brand from pre-purchase through use, service, and potential repeat sales.

"Ultimately, no matter what business we're in, the only thing we sell is trust," Brad said. 

 You can check out the series and the experts who comprise it at www.mysuncast.com/futureofsolar.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Mark Liffman on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Connect with Brad Davis on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and his blog.

Follow Omnidian on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and check out its website

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or by email.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 513: How the Right Service Partner Supercharges Solar Business Growth (Beyond O&M Series, 5 of 6)

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Angela Burke and Julie King are experienced leaders who built installation, customer service, and operations and maintenance teams at multiple solar companies from scratch. 

In this fifth episode of our six-part Beyond O&M: The Future of Solar series, the two women share lessons learned about the scalability of service teams and why it is a critical component to any solar company’s expansion plans. 

Angela was a long-serving core team member at Namaste Solar before joining Pivot Energy to help build its service operations. She now directs Pivot's operations and management (O&M). During her time at the two Colorado-based Certified B Corporations (B Corp), Angela's teams have designed, built and managed more than 15,000 projects.

Angela said the differentiating factor of a B Corp is a genuine triple bottom line. "Profit is one of those three because we need to keep the lights on. But we hold people and the planet as equal stakeholders, and the company is equally responsible for all three of those pieces," she explained.

Julie is CEO of Harmon Electric, one of Arizona's oldest solar installation companies. Julie explains how she and her husband transformed her father's legacy electrical contracting business into one of the state's most recognized solar installation and service organizations. 

In 2005, she said she and her husband were at a crossroads in their business. Her parents were looking for an out after running their electric business for some 30 years. "One day on the drive home, I said to my husband, 'Hey, do you want to take over an electrical business?' We both laughed but then talked to my dad about it. Two weeks later, we were sitting there learning about the business, and it just blossomed from there," she said.

Julie and Angela are linked by their shared commitment to customer experience (CX) excellence — and the way they deliver it. Harmon and Pivot Energy are two of a growing array of businesses that rely on Omnidian to provide the best service to their customers. 

Julie said aligning with businesses with the same values and culture is essential. "The service department wants to make the customer happy and do the right thing for everybody involved, and that's not always the easiest or the cheapest thing," she said.

When Harmon's partners align with the company's goals and mission, the two parties can collectively focus on customer happiness. "If we're at odds with each other, it doesn't work as a partnership," Julie said.

Harmon keeps a step ahead of problems with Omnidian's proactive monitoring. Julie explained that it opens the door to conversation about potential issues "before the customer is angry."

Angela reflected that Pivot spent a lot of time researching the right service partner to take particular time-intensive tasks off her plate and free her to work on team strategy. 

"Through that process, we found a small pool of providers checking the right boxes for us," she said. "As we narrowed it down, we found only one match for cultural and values alignment. We were thrilled to see that the same kind of culture of care, transparency, and commitment to Triple Bottom Line B Corp practices was all living true with Omnidian, and we're very pleased to partner with it."

Angela said there is an assumption in the solar industry that O&M is nothing more than a cost center. But she thinks companies have the opportunity to shift that paradigm and prove and show that there's a value added to each project with a carefully constructed O&M plan and well-executed work.

She's enthused about going beyond O&M at a B Corp, where a values-aligned team supports her. "It's a little scary, sometimes a little overwhelming, perhaps. But I have support for taking a different approach to building out this team," she said.

"Omnidian, one of the key partners supporting our O&M team, completes active monitoring with customized, well-built (artificial intelligence) AI capabilities. That allows us to dispatch more intelligently to sites when we have corrective or reactive issues," Angela said.

Want to hear more? Tune into the whole podcast to learn more about best practices, war stories, and how a Promise Keepers performance guarantee catalyzes solar business growth.

We're bringing you all six parts of this series in partnership with Omnidian. 

You can check out the series and the experts who comprise it at: www.mysuncast.com/futureofsolar

You'll find more resources and learn about SunCast's guests, recommendations, book links, and more than 512 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com.

And, you can learn more about partnering with SunCast here.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Angela Burke on LinkedIn.

Follow Pivot Energy on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and its website

Connect with Julie King on LinkedIn.

Follow Harmon Electric on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and its website

Follow Omnidian on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and check out its website

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or by email.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 512: AI Pushes Battery Technology To New Heights, with Everett Brewer of Storz Power

AI Pushes Battery Technology To New Heights

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


Growing up in a small town, Everett Brewer learned early in life that a person had to create opportunities to keep food on the table — and hustle harder to get some of the niceties of life. 

He didn't realize it then, but it was perfect preparation for the now experienced co-founder with a solid history in the renewables and construction industry. "The word 'entrepreneur' only came into focus in my mid-teens," he said. "I had no idea that's what I was preparing for."

Everett is the CEO of storage player Storz Power and Chief Operating Officer of the solar project matching platform Watthub — companies that aim to reduce dependency on the energy grid and connect players in the renewable energy marketplace, respectively.

Lehi, Utah-based Storz Power has experienced large multiples of growth year-over-year. Scottsdale, Arizona-based Watthub has developed and supported the deployment of more than $1.2 billion in projects. Recently, Energy Tech Review named five-year-old Storz Power a top energy storage provider in 2021 and featured Everett on the cover of its December issue.

From running a crew of 3,300 people at age 21 to dominating the door-to-door alarm business, Everett's remarkable solar journey has seen him navigate successful stints at SunEdison and Evolve Solar before developing nano-printed lithium for OEM applications. Unsure what that is?

“I was approached by a group that just so happened to acquire the patents to nano-printed lithium battery technology.” He was introduced to them as “our solar guy.”

“[They] were not in the solar industry and had no idea what to do with the technology.”

Everett was intrigued — "the geek-out point kept me moving, and I was creating a pathway or proof of concept [and the] potential of the technology as a whole [for residential solar + home energy storage] got me heavily involved."

And while his company eventually gave up on nanotechnology in favor of lithium iron phosphate (LFP), he was now fully committed to solar. Today Storz Power specializes in artificial intelligence (AI) enabled LFP battery technology. 

"We're a technology and software company that happens to manufacture batteries along the way. And so the technology and software enable additional efficiency while enabling us to stay current in whatever format [of storage technology] may happen," he said.

The company's motto is to be sustainable through technology by "building a smarter battery, not a bigger battery." You'll need to tune in to today's podcast for all the details. But in brief, Storz Power manages energy usage automatically and in real-time by deploying a learning algorithm that gets smarter with every use and uses AI to better manage energy, on and off the grid.

Everett's second company, WalletHub, focuses strictly on commercial and industrial utility-scale projects. It's a matchmaking service that connects players of all sorts in the renewable energy industry with projects, companies, and equipment. 

"We have a huge network of manufacturers, and we also have a huge network of installers, all of the procurement, engineering, development, financing — we're the central connective tissue," he said.

I hope you can tune in today to hear what Everett thinks his companies do differently, where the industry is making mistakes and how he juggles multiple "shifts”, after getting his three kids to bed, to bring all his plans to fruition.


RESOURCES:

You can connect with Everett Brewer on LinkedIn

Follow Storz Energy on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and check out its website

Follow WattHub on Twitter, Facebook and its website


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 511: Want to Grow Your Solar Business? Offer Excellent Post-Installation Services. (Beyond O&M Series, 4 of 6) with Trevor Sumner, Sun Badger

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


An enthused and encouraging golf caddie taught a solar business owner everything he needed to know about exceptional customer service.

Trevor Sumner, co-founder and president of Milwaukee-based Sun Badger Solar, said the young man walked alongside him and shared his enthusiasm. "That's the gold standard for customer service," he said. "I was excited to be out on the course and had a good time. But I was more excited because he was also enjoying himself."

It crystallized the experience Trevor aims to provide his customers: one in which they feel supported, heard, and confident about their purchases.

It's working: since Trevor and his brother-in-law started the company in 2018, Sun Badger has evolved into a full-service solar installer offering what customers describe as a "perfect blend of performance, quality, and return on investment."

"The 'set it and forget it' myth is a big one for me," Trevor said. Solar products are no different than anything else, and "stuff breaks."

He said it buys the company credibility to acknowledge that reality and explain its commitment to post-installation excellence. When a problem arises, he said the company's partnership with Seattle-based Omnidian delivers a plan to fix it. 

In this fourth episode of our Beyond O&M: The Future of Solar series, Trevor talks about how Sun Badger leveraged its relationship with Omnidian to grow his company from four employees to 112 in five years.

Omnidian enables Sun Badger to be proactive. "Rather than say 'don't worry about it,' we say, 'Here's what will happen when something breaks, or there are issues. These are the steps Sun Badger will take' or 'This is the process to make things right,'" he explained.

Sun Badger provides solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and "the best customer experience," including education, design, and application for state and federal rebates to commercial and residential customers in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. 

The company got its name from the mascot at Trevor's alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We knew that we would have a Midwest focus. So from a brand recognition perspective, it seemed like a good fit," he said, adding the mammal is also known for its strength and intelligence.

A big part of intelligence is the ability to recognize your weaknesses. "Sun Badger isn't good at service work — not really. It's not our focus, and we'd be doing customers a disservice to try to make it our priority," he said. 

Traditionally, there's a lack of focus on post-installation customer experience in the solar industry. Sun Badger wanted to improve it, so it partnered with Omnidian to provide a structured process with a Performance Guarantee. 

Omnidian operates software platforms that monitor and remotely diagnose problems relating to the performance of solar assets. 

"Omnidian provides consistent, easy-to-digest reports on fleet performance and supports our organizational valuation," Trevor said. The partnership enables Sun Badger to keep its promise to monitor its customers' solar arrays consistently and proactively. 

Trevor said the company didn't have the resources to do it alone. 

"From a process business standpoint, Omnidian provides a buffer between Sun Badger and its customers post-install. If I can be frank, it allows us to separate or gain some distance from the responsibility to provide post-installation service and support," he said.

Sun Badger contracts with the customer and provides a quality solar installation. "That is our primary focus. We want to have a positive customer experience and maintain relationships. What that buffer from Omndian does is allow us to set ourselves off to the side, give ourselves some breathing room or some leverage that if a service issue comes up, we're not the ones who are going to take the flack, so to speak. We're not going to be the first call, and the customer is first going to call Omnidian," Trevor said.

Trevor thinks post-installation services and support will be  

differentiating factors for The Future of Solar. Expanded consumer options will lead to more customers, which he sees as incredibly exciting.

I invite you to listen to the full podcast to learn more about how Sun Badger is leveraging its relationship with Omnidian, which is partnering with SunCast to bring you this six-part series. You can check out the series and the experts who comprise it at: www.mysuncast.com/futureofsolar.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Trevor Sumner on LinkedIn.

Connect with Sun Badger Solar on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and check out its website.

Follow Omnidian on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube and check out its website.

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 510: Creating Remarkable Customer Experience in the Solar Industry, with Kevin Schulte of Greenspark (Beyond O&M Series, 3 of 6)

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


GreenSpark Solar embraces win-win partnerships that benefit the company, the planet and the people it serves — including employees, suppliers, vendors and customers. 

So it's no surprise the New York-based company is committed to remarkable customer experience (CX). It's an essential element of GreenSpark's mission to be profitable, collaborative and a force for good. 

GreenSpark is the largest residential, community and commercial solar provider in Rochester, Central and Western New York. 

For CEO Kevin Schulte, customer-centric experiences revolve around cost-effective, reliable, clean energy projects backed by responsive customer support. "We have to figure out how to delight and surprise the customer like retail did a long time ago and to accelerate consumer movement," he said.

Kevin and two friends — George McConochie and Ernie Pritchard — established GreenSpark as Sustainable Energy Developments in 2002. Named CEO in 2008, Kevin led the company to 11th fastest growing business in Rochester in seven years and moved it to the top spot on the Rochester Chamber of Commerce's Fastest Growing Companies in nine. McConochie is now Chief Operating Officer, and Pritchard is director of customer care.

Kevin credits GreenSpark's success to relationships with partners like Omnidian, which support the company's growth and provide game-changing services like a Performance Guarantee. Seattle-based Omnidian operates software platforms that monitor and remotely diagnose problems relating to the performance of commercial, industrial and residential solar assets. 

In the third episode of our Beyond O&M: The Future of Solar series, Kevin shares his insights about keeping the customer first and how partnering with Omnidian helped the company reach its goals.

The solar industry is crossing the chasm from early adopters to the early mass market. And one thing is clear. What got us here won't enable us to move the goalposts. Today customers expect a proactive customer experience (CX) from first contact through service and support.

Kevin abandoned plans to be a physician after taking an environmental chemistry class early in his college career. Transfixed by a pictograph of the greenhouse gas effect, he changed his major to address what he realized was a "really big problem."

"So I studied in college, went to Malta for two summers, and studied wind for the archipelago. I wrote a thesis and designed a wind farm at Mount Storm, West Virginia, now an operating wind farm owned by Dominion Resources. And then, I wrote a letter and a resume for every company in the United States that was a member of the American Wind Energy Association, and I got a job with RES Americas. 

"I was the fourth us employee, and it's now massive. We built a couple of hundred megawatts of wind farms, and I helped develop a couple of hundred megawatts of wind farms. In a couple of years, the Friday after 911, my co-founders and I were on the phone, and we were like, we're dinosaurs in this business, and we may as well start our own thing."

Kevin said the company "coalesced around the innocence and the youthfulness of wanting "to make the world a better place with your buddies, and we turned it into a career and a beautiful business offering opportunities for employment for a lot of people."

The business started as a utility-scale wind consultant and evolved to solar by 2009 when federal incentives opened a new market in New York State. If you believe in the climate problem, Kevin thinks you're obligated to commit to growing your best business to address it.

I’m tied to the thought that a human-caused problem can be a human-solve problem, and that’s what it feels like is my job. And I had kids somewhere along the way, and I believe in handing them and maybe grandkids one day, like a better world
— Kevin Schulte

Ask Kevin to predict The Future of Solar, and he'll tell you about his conviction that care and compassion are foundational to business success. He argues it's essential to create a sustainable business by owning some of what you're putting into the market — starting with the right products and nurturing an ethos of care for your customers.

I invite you to listen to the full podcast to learn more about how Kevin cares enough about his company: how the systems it installs operate and how the company gives back to the community, creates a positive workplace, impacts climate change, and builds something durable. 

We're bringing you all six parts of this series in partnership with Omnidian. You can check out the series and the experts who comprise it at: www.mysuncast.com/futureofsolar.


RESOURCES:

Connect with Kevin Schulte on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Follow GreenSpark Solar on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and check out its website.

Follow Omnidian on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube and check out its website.

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 509: Why You Should Care About Distributed Energy Resources (DERs); Mathew Sachs of CPower

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


As a child, Mathew Sachs was captivated by environmental issues like the thinning ozone layer over Antarctica. But he never envisioned it as a career path. 

Still, when given the opportunity to take a role scaling one of the early solar panel manufacturing companies’ entry into the US market, he embraced solar for the simplest reason: "I thought it was a good business poised to grow for a lot of the right reasons," he said. "I wish I could tell you I was interested in solar because I wanted to contribute to the cause, but that wasn't the case."

As it turns out, Mathew has contributed quite a bit to the quest for clean energy. Now a seasoned green-tech executive with more than fifteen years of experience in investments, sales and operational strategy, he's exceptionally well versed in all-things-solar, but also in the exciting and booming segment referred to as Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). 

DER has been defined by many entities (including way back in 2002 by NREL!), but I prefer the SEPA definition circa 2017:  DERs are physical and virtual assets that are deployed across the distribution grid, typically close to load, and usually behind the meter, which can be used individually or in aggregate to provide value to the grid, individual customers, or both.

Distributed energy encompasses a range of technologies, including fuel cells, microturbines, reciprocating engines, load reduction, and other energy management technologies. DER also involves power electronic interfaces, communications, and control devices for efficient dispatch and operation of generating units and aggregated power blocks.

Mathew is senior vice president of strategic planning and business development at CPower Energy Management. Better known as CPower, the Baltimore-based company is a leading provider of commercial and industrial demand-side energy management programs.

Last month CPower entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the US demand response division of Centrica Business Solutions, an integrated energy solutions company focused on commercial and industrial load management. The buy positions CPower as the US leader in providing grid flexibility and reliability through customer-powered DER, now with 6.3 GW at over 17,000 sites.

"6.3 GW of clean and green power!" Mathew shared on LinkedIn. "Great things ahead."

For context for those outside the electricity sector, 6.3 GW is about half the power needed to supply the greater New York City area during peak usage.

Matthew has deep experience developing and implementing distributed and renewable growth strategies that leverage technological advances in solar, energy storage, intelligent software and other DERs. 

Before joining CPower in 2019, he held executive roles at National Grid Ventures, KRoad DG and Yingli Green Energy in positions spanning strategy, business development and inorganic growth through investment, partnerships and acquisitions. 

Mathew likes solving puzzles, a skill well aligned with his interest in building and investing in new businesses. His early career "was much more focused on finding something to build and creating than on the environmental part, but that certainly came later."

He traces his career pivot to solar to a long-term friendship with Robert Petrina, a solar industry veteran with nearly two decades of international business development experience in the PV industry. Robert was responsible for GE's global silicon procurement — an essential component of solar cells — before joining Yingli Green Energy Americas in 2007. He brought Mathew into the company in 2009.

"I'm certainly indebted to what he taught me in my early years here. Robert is a name we don't often talk about in solar who's done a lot for our sector. He's brought in a lot of good people and taught a lot of folks the way," Mathew said.

Mathew described "quite a journey" across the past 13 years, solving challenges and forging partnerships with industry leaders like Sunrun.

Make no mistake. In all of these jobs, I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants,
— Mathew Sachs

Mathew said he always tries to focus on the fundamentals by asking, "What are the customer needs, and what problem are we solving?" 

He’s proud of his work at CPower, noting that customer retention rates are “sky high, which is great.” But the most common way the company measures it’s customer experience success is through the Net Promoter Score, a metric that assesses the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to other people.

Today Mathew shares his experiences and explains how CPower monetizes the value of its customers' DER. "What we mean by DER is any device or asset that generates, consumes or stores electricity that can respond to a signal. So, anything could be a DER if enabled with the right technology. Typically, it should be within the distribution network," he said.

CPower focuses behind the meter, that is, on the customer side of the meter. 

Want to hear more? Tune into today's podcast. We’ve put together a really interesting show. Mathew explains his favorite new climate tech product (spoiler alert, it’s blipOne, which plugs into a standard outlet and provides 2.2KWh of backup power in case of an outage).


RESOURCES:

Connect with Mathew Sachs on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Follow CPower on LinkedIn and check out its website.


BOOKS MENTIONED AND RECOMMENDATIONS:


Thanks again to this week's sponsor, helping keep the podcast FREE to you!

SUNGROW focuses on integrated energy storage system solutions, including PCS, lithium-ion batteries and energy management system. Pleae visit https://www.mysuncast.com/sungrow


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.

Episode 508: DSD Makes Lower Energy Costs Accessible To C&I Customers (Beyond O&M Series, 2 of 6)

We'd love if you'd leave us a 5 ⭐ rating & review and it's never been easier: www.ratethispodcast.com/suncast


It's always important to give customers peace of mind about their decisions — and arguably even more so when they're investing in the young, evolving area of solar energy.

Schenectady, New York-based Distributed Solar Development (DSD) masters the challenge with its ability to instill processes and the right teams, tools and technologies to deliver on those processes.

Since 2019, DSD has grown from a stand-alone offshoot of a multinational conglomerate to a powerhouse in its own right. It's notably scaled to become one of the most significant commercial, industrial and community solar developers in the United States.

In the second episode of our Beyond O&M: The Future of Solar series, DSD Asset Management Director Chris Larkin explains how DSD serves as a "one-stop shop" for large-scale, custom solar PV and energy storage solutions. The six-part series is brought to you by Omnidian, whose industry-leading service optimizes solar asset performance for projects of every size, providing end-to-end peace of mind.

Launched as a start-up within GE in 2019, DSD is now fully backed by BlackRock Real Assets, the giant investment firm with trillions in assets under management. 

DSD provides customized solar PV energy and energy storage solutions — from analysis through design and finance to commercial operation — to commercial and industrial customers looking for a hedge against increasing energy costs and kilowatt-hour demand.

It aims to make solar more accessible to commercial, industrial and municipal organizations. You can learn more about its story in SunCast podcasts 338, 363 and 364.

DSD started as an internal solar business inside of GE, developing, designing and constructing solar projects for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers, which it would sell to financiers or directly to C&I customers. It became more sophisticated as it matured and the business grew.

"We realized we wanted to grow our team and company into owning these development assets — generating the revenue, serving our customers and taking care of the assets stem to stern," Chris said.

In 2019, GE spun out DSD, which now takes care of assets from origination, design, construction and commission through asset management, owning and operating assets for their entire useful lives. It has a range of commercial, industrial and municipal customers throughout the United States.

"They're looking for an energy hedge into the future, where energy prices are only going one way — up every year, with more and more demand for kilowatt hours," Chris said. DSD provides that 20- to 30-year hedge with solar arrays built on its customer's property. Customers can use the kilowatt hours directly through net metering to reduce dependence on the grid or through a behind-the-meter scenario where they use the energy in real-time.

Chris refers to himself and his team as "Promise Keepers" who support the delivery of the promises made by sales and other company functions. 

As DSD's director of asset management, Chris manages day-to-day operations and support of the company's solar fleet. The fleet includes more than 150 megawatts, both internally owned by DSD and externally owned by some of its customers. He also handles strategic management of operations and maintenance (O&M) resources, including supplier management, parts planning and sales support.

Chris worked for more than 19 years at GE Power and Water. The group is now part of GE Vernova, which provides technology, solutions and services across the energy value chain from generation to consumption. 

You'll learn more about his journey and thoughts on our energy future in today's podcast — the second in our six-part series on the future of solar, which we are presenting in partnership with Omnidian. You can check out the series and the experts who comprise it at: www.mysuncast.com/futureofsolar


RESOURCES:

Connect with Chris Larkin on LinkedIn.

Follow DSD on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and check out its website.

You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

You can learn more about partnering with SunCast here.


ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:

Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.

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.

You can connect with Nico Johnson on Twitter, LinkedIn or email.

If you’ve been second-guessing your work decisions or maybe trying to reconsider how you "fit" in the renewable energy industry -> grab 20 minutes on Nico's calendar and discuss whether having him as Your personal coach might be the right next step.