June 3, 2025 • 42 mins
The solar industry faces unprecedented challenges as Congress advances budget reconciliation legislation targeting clean energy incentives. In this episode, hosts Tim Montague and John Weaver discuss survival strategies, market adaptations, and breakthrough developments amid policy uncertainty.
🚨 MAJOR POLICY DEVELOPMENTS
Budget Reconciliation Bill Impact
- Residential solar tax credits under threat - House passes bill targeting clean energy incentives
- SEIA projects massive industry impact: 330,000 jobs lost, 331 factories closed, $286 billion in investments erased
- Mosaic's struggle: Major solar lease company reportedly facing financial difficulties [SEIA analysis and industry reports]
🔋 CALIFORNIA BREAKING RECORDS
Solar & Storage Milestones
- Solar output record: California hits 21+ GW peak solar generation
- Growth trajectory: Current pace could reach 30 GW storage in 5 years vs. 2045 target [PV Magazine]
🤖 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
Solar Installation Automation
- Rosendin's robot system: Dual-robot setup with carrier and lifting units for panel installation
- Efficiency gains: Two-person teams per row with continuous pallet feeding capability
[Rosendin automation announcement]
🚗 EV CHARGING EXPANSION
Waffle House Partnership
- BP strategic relationship: British oil giant bringing DC fast charging to Waffle House locations [Electrek]
📊 PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
Massachusetts Residential Installation
- Pricing achievement: Under $3/watt for residential systems without premium components
- Visual appeal: Red house installation showcasing professional workmanship [Commercial Solar Guy]
Connect with Tim
Clean Power Hour
Clean Power Hour on YouTube
Tim on Twitter
Tim on LinkedIn
Email tim@cleanpowerhour.com
Review Clean Power Hour on Apple Podcasts
The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com
Corporate sponsors who share our mission to speed the energy transition are invited to check out https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/support/
The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America’s number one 3-phase string inverter, with over 6GW shipped in the US. With a focus on commercial and utility-scale solar and energy storage, the company partners with customers to provide unparalleled performance and service. The CPS America product lineup includes 3-phase string inverters from 25kW to 275kW, exceptional data communication and controls, and energy storage solutions designed for seamless integration with CPS America systems. Learn more at www.chintpowersystems.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim Montague (00:00):
Welcome to the Clean Power Hour live. I'm Tim
(00:02):
Montague. Your host today is Maythe 30th. 2020, 2020 2025, and
we're bringing you the latestsolar, storage and other
renewable energy News. Welcometo the show. My co host John
Weaver,
John Weaver (00:17):
Hey, Tim, 2025 Yes, that is today's year. It was
funny.
Very nice. See you. See youtoday, enjoying building solar
every day and keeping up withit, interconnection stuff flying
around.
Tim Montague (00:36):
How are you? How are you rolling with the solar
coaster? That's what I want toknow emotionally,
psychologically. It's been avery tumultuous year, and it's
it got even more tumultuous withthe announcement of the big bad
bill, otherwise known as abudget reconciliation bill,
which could really be painfulfor residential solar and
(00:59):
commercial solar. How are youreacting to that so far?
John Weaver (01:04):
Well, it's challenging. The residential
industry is no longerpotentially going to have a tax
credit, and that means the priceof everything is sort of kind of
gone up 30% but in reality,people were taking that full
payment out of pocket anyway, soyes, and then what's the
discount that they get? Youknow, hamburger today versus a
hamburger tomorrow? Is it 10% intheir hearts? Is it 20% to tax
(01:28):
credit? Maybe it's spread over acouple of years. So maybe we can
drop our price 10 15% and putpressure on everyone else and
say, Listen, guys, you want usto be able to still sell you
need to give us better pricing.
So I'm, uh, I'm actually hopefulfor my company, particularly
because we don't do leaseproducts. We do straight cash.
So, you know, with the leasestuff, um, that's taken a lot of
(01:50):
hits. Mosaic, it looks likethey're going under as a lease
company, yep. And that was a bigproduct. Hearing that from PV
magazine, saw it on Reddit acouple of days ago. And so, you
know, I feel like we'll be okayas a company, but my company
does, like, I don't know, aninstallation every week, you
(02:13):
know, that type of thing. Sowe're not the market. There's
gonna be a lot of pain in themarket. There's gonna be a lot
of margins tightening, becausepeople are going to figure that
out. Because now it's going tobe a different price. You have
to be somewhere in between 30% Ithink, I don't think the prices
have to drop 30% to keep up, butsomething, I gotta drop
(02:33):
something. Yeah,
Tim Montague (02:35):
I wanted to talk a little bit about this, because
it is the gorilla in the room,and everyone's thinking about
it, and this is how I see it.
And we're not done yet. Congresspassed this bill. I mean, the
The House passed the bill. Itgo, it's now in the Senate, and
that could take several monthsfor them to grind on it. They
two things are present. For me,the industry has ups and downs.
(02:58):
2025 was already a tumultuousyear. And so, you know,
potentially a down year. Andthen, and then this, and we
thought, you know, the Trumpadministration might take a
scalpel to the IRA. It currentlyis a sledgehammer. That's the
(03:20):
expression. I like SEIA, SolarEnergy Industries Association
has done an analysis, and theythink that this bill could mean
the loss of 330,000 jobs. 331factories closed or canceled,
and $286 billion in localinvestments erased. So this is
(03:45):
non trivial. Clean energy is abig part of the US economy now,
and a lot of these projects arein red states. So that's what I
don't quite gather is whomasterminded this, knowing full
well that this was going to hurtmany, many of their core
(04:07):
constituents. But good companieswill survive. The industry has
gone through ups and downsbefore good companies will
survive. There's a lot of badcompanies in the solar industry,
and they give the industry a badname. So I would love to see
more of those companies go bye,bye. I don't know if mosaic was
a bad company, but I don't knowmany people that are super fond
(04:33):
of mosaic. On the other hand,either,
John Weaver (04:38):
I didn't know that.
I don't know much about mosaic.
We've never really done leaseproducts for a residential
company. Yeah, I know ingeneral, the lease companies
with the dealer fees, have neverhad a great general support, but
that's just what the market wasmade of.
Tim Montague (04:58):
Yeah? So. So stay tuned the the the advice I give
my EPC clients is diversify,lean heavily into storage, check
out companies like electricity.
They were on a webinar withmyself and CPS and a company
called Freedom solar out ofColorado earlier this year,
(05:21):
electricity manages thebuilding, HVAC system and other
systems. So it's kind of liketurning your building into a
battery. I think the solar plusplus world is the future of the
solar industry. If you're asolar only installer, you're in
(05:42):
for a world of hurt. If you're asolar battery and other
installer slash consultant, Ithink that there's hope. And you
know, you can add a lot ofvalue. There's a lot of low
hanging fruit in the builtenvironment, if we get savvy and
use the technology that we have.
(06:03):
Check out electricity, E, L, E,X, i, t, y, that is my new
favorite building managementsystem company. And
John Weaver (06:13):
have you had them on the show recently? I'm
guessing
Tim Montague (06:15):
we did a webinar with Casey Miller, the CEO, back
in March, so he'll be back atsome point. I interviewed their
founder some years ago, but, butyeah, just been learning more
and more about electricity, andI think that they're on to
(06:36):
something
John Weaver (06:38):
I would like at some point to learn more about
Home Energy Management. Thefirst system I really learned
about was from my favoritebattery manufacturer, or
residential Sonnen. Sonnen, Idon't know exactly how to say
the name, but they had a greatproduct that they put out. I
think it's the Eco the Eco line,I can't remember, and it has
(06:59):
home management software builtinto it. It continues, contains
connections with, I believe itwas smart meter switches. So
smart breakers, smart breakersfrom Eaton, I believe the
article I wrote, and it's just anice piece of hardware, and I
(07:21):
just like this on a battery. Ilike their VPP, etc. It's just
so, so, yeah, I want to learnmore about resi stuff. I'm doing
a nice residential system rightnow. I'll have some pictures of
it soon, once we install it, butit's going to integrate a nice a
Generac and a Generac generator,a End Phase battery and phase
(07:46):
output management, a few otherthings to make a nice system for
this customer, and it just tiestogether nicely. So, you know, a
little more than just solar, asyou were saying, that's I was
thinking about that as you saidit, it's solar plus, because
we're tying in two or threepieces of hardware and so
anyway, coincidentally,
Tim Montague (08:07):
I'm interviewing norm Taff at the Midwest Expo in
two weeks on on June the 10th.
If you don't know about theMidwest Expo, check it out.
Midwest solar Expo. It's now aninner solar show. Inner solar
bought the show from the founderJake rosemary, but norm tough is
the executive in charge ofgenerax storage division, and
they bought eco be the smartthermostat company, right? And
(08:32):
so now they are leaning heavilyinto the smart home energy space
as well. They're well known, ofcourse, in the backup generator
space. And then they bought, Ican't remember the battery
company they bought, but theybought a good battery company.
And are, you know, very activein the resi and now expanding
(08:55):
into the CNI storage space aswell. But electricity, just to,
just to be clear, electricity isa CNI service company. See, I
call it a software as a service.
But,
John Weaver (09:12):
okay, okay, so that's commercial, not so I
didn't even know, I don't knowvery many on the or no, too much
on the commercial side. Sothat'd be interesting to listen
to. All right, I got good news.
Okay,
Tim Montague (09:25):
good news. What's that? Just
John Weaver (09:29):
because there's so many, like, terrible things that
are, like, ah, stressful. Thefirst item, actually, I guess
now the second item that's onour list over here, waffle
house, it's getting fastchargers. Yeah,
Tim Montague (09:43):
I love Waffle House. I wish we had Waffle
House in Illinois. Maybe inSouthern Illinois, they do, but
Waffle House is a southernthing. Where do you have waffle
house near you? Nowhere
John Weaver (09:57):
near me? It's just when I go south to visit my
family and go home. Once I hitNorth Carolina, roughly, maybe
probably Virginia too. I bet youPennsylvania as well. Maybe out
west in New York, upstate NewYork. We'll have to see. I don't
know if there's too many inMassachusetts, yeah, I think
it's a southern thing. Itdefinitely, definitely a lot
more southern. There's theWaffle House hurricane index.
(10:17):
Are you familiar with that byany chance? Timothy, no. So I
waffle houses. No, you know,Waffle House management. They're
conscious of hurricanes quiteand they prepare for them. And
FEMA, it was a joke that FEMAwould watch waffle houses for
when they opened, for how torate areas, or something like
(10:39):
that, and say, okay, the WaffleHouse is open. It's now safe for
general populations to go backbecause there's food available.
But the Waffle House was likethe first one, and they always
open quickly and aggressively.
And so there's something aboutthe hurricane Waffle House
index. So just you know, ifWaffle House is open, it's okay.
Tim, everything is going to beokay.
Tim Montague (11:01):
Apparently, they think EV charging is is
important.
John Weaver (11:06):
Think about that hurricane hits, you get waffles,
you get eggs, and your carcharges
Tim Montague (11:13):
fast DC, fast charging. Interesting. So who is
the Okay? It says EV charging,arm of British oil giant BP,
just announced the strategicrelationship with American diner
chain to bring DC fast chargingto a network of Waffle House
locations. This story comes tous from electric. Michelle
(11:37):
Lewis, May 20, 2025, waffleoffice is getting DC fast
chargers. This is cool. Are theygonna do it at all their stores?
Do you think?
John Weaver (11:51):
Probably not. I mean, there's so many waffle
houses, like there's wafflehouses in some places every
other stop. So you don't want DCfast charges that often, but no,
yeah, probably not.
Tim Montague (12:04):
Oh, it mentions this waffle house index too.
That's funny. Oh yeah, there itis. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah.
So BP is into fast charging.
That's, that's that. That'sgood. That makes sense.
John Weaver (12:17):
Makes absolute logical sense. You know, you
gotta figure out the money.
Gotta figure out the revenue offof vehicles. That's where they
made their money. Yeah,different form of energy sale,
the different form of sale, yep.
So waffles, that was my goodnews. I wanted to start off good
news just because, you know,everything else is rough. And I
got other good news post too, soyou can be entertained by all
(12:37):
the cool records in California,if you really like that kind of
stuff.
Tim Montague (12:43):
Yeah. So what's the read us the headline, and
then I'll get the story up.
John Weaver (12:51):
Solar and battery output records. Solar and
battery output records set asCalifornia continues aggressive
ramp, and the records that arebeing set right now are kind of
fun, concurrently, intertwined,solar is peaking just over 21
gigs recently, and batteryoutput just last weekend or two
(13:15):
weekends ago went over 10 gigsfor the first time. As well, the
state announced that they brokethrough 15 point something,
gigawatts in April of totalcapacity deployed, which is a
healthy chunk. So,
Tim Montague (13:29):
yeah, the key of installed energy storage
capacity, yeah,
John Weaver (13:33):
that's good. And there's, this is probably
greater than 3.75 hours of orgreater, definitely greater than
three so it's definitely greaterthan 45 gigawatt hours of
capacity. I would put money it'sgreater than 54 gigawatts,
because a whole bunch of it allthe utility scale is four hours
stuff. So like 80, 90% of thecapacity is four hours, and then
(13:59):
10% is two to four two to fourhours. Maybe some of it's six,
you know, but it's gaining on anaverage of four. So it's really
close to 60 gigawatt hours.
That's what I want, a salespitch. That's a sales guy in me,
yeah. Engineer, yeah.
Tim Montague (14:12):
So John is just saying, if the capacity is 15
gigawatts, that translates into60 gigawatt hours. Potentially,
if it's a 4l battery,
John Weaver (14:23):
yeah, like, we break, I, this is my article. So
like, near the bottom, and Ibreak into the percentage of
hours per capacity, type,residential, commercial and and
utility, and all the utilityscales, the big stuff. So, but,
um, but, yeah. So anyway, justCalifornia is growing. What's
really interesting is that thepeak of the solar number is now
(14:48):
going up, partially because thebatteries are absorbing up to
eight gigawatts in the middle ofthe day. Eight, and that eight
gigawatts of capacity would havebeen curtailed solar. So now
we're seeing solar growth as aresult of battery growth.
(15:12):
Batteries are now enabling solarpower. Yeah, and I think that's
Tim Montague (15:19):
yeah. Batteries are a great way to attack the
duck curve. I mean, on thisgraph, that's on screen right
now, you see the battery curve.
The Purple Line has somewhat ofa duck curve shape, but this is
just the generation curves. Thisis not the demand curves. The
demand curves is would show usthe true duck well, you
John Weaver (15:39):
can see it. You can see it. Look back, you can see
the purple during the daytime,how deep it goes? Yeah,
Tim Montague (15:45):
right here. This is where the battery's charging,
right? Yes, yes, when the solaris cranking, and that's why
batteries are great, right? Youcan store energy when the
photons are free, and thenrelease the energy when the kWh
is expensive in the evening, andthat's how you create value with
(16:05):
the battery
John Weaver (16:08):
load shift, though, so solar powered evening peak
battery records being set. Thisis the capacity thing, where
they show how much capacity fromeach product utility scale is,
Tim Montague (16:32):
I lost your audio.
You're muted. You You are muted,
John Weaver (16:55):
right? Maybe I'm unmuted. Now,
Tim Montague (16:58):
that's good. I don't know how that happened.
Sorry.
John Weaver (17:00):
Well, it goes to do to do so anyway, on and off. So
that utility scale, that 13.2that is probably 98% four hours.
The commercial is probably threeto three and a half hours, maybe
two and a half to three and ahalf. The residential, probably
similar ish two and a half tothree and a half. So that's, you
(17:21):
know, that ratio probably comesup to like 55 gigawatt hours.
And then on the right side,that's the goal by 2020, 2045,
right? Now, what's interestingis that the rate of growth here
is that we could blast through30 gigawatt hours or 30
gigawatts in like five years. Infact, there's a scientist who
(17:45):
says the rate of growth that'sbeen going on would suggest,
like a year and a half more 1.2or 1.5 years. So we're growing
really fast. Our own ambitionsat this point are now. What
would stop California fromdeploying enough batteries?
Because we can do 30 gigawatts.
We have the costs, we have thetechnology. It's really about
(18:09):
optimizing the deployment. Ithink we're in a different phase
now, I think with the collapseof battery pricing, as long as
these stupid tariffs, and wecould talk about stair tariffs
after this, but as long as thesestupid tariffs don't say don't
stay stupid, we should be ableto whip California's solar plus
storage question like, right nowwe could do it. We're now at
(18:33):
that stage. It's going to keepgetting better as we deploy it
for 10 to 15 years. But rightnow we have the technology done,
like, you know, whatever coolsoundtrack we can do it. We have
the batteries, we have thesolar. We're done. How do we how
we do it? That's the nextquestion. That's the real
question, I guess, becausethat's the one that's going to
(18:53):
be answered.
Tim Montague (18:57):
Yeah, the technology adoption curve really
does work. You know, I think thestat is, as you double the
adoption of a technology, theprice falls by, I don't know,
40% or something, some bigamount. And so it's a good
thing, and we're going to see alot more storage on the grid in
(19:24):
CNI and residential right now, alot of it is utility, as you
could see there in that graph inJohn's story. But that's
changing. Also. What's next?
John Weaver (19:40):
Tariffs? We talk about the whipsaw tariffs that
are ongoing,
Tim Montague (19:46):
so brutal. This is an article,
John Weaver (19:48):
yeah, this first article is about two weeks ish
old, and then the second one islike yesterday and still being
updated, like it's live, ongoingentertainment. Timothy, yeah,
yeah. If politics is now fun. Sothe first articles shows China
and Trump, which is the majorsource of batteries. So my mind
(20:10):
has a lot of batteries on itthese days as having a 90 day
tariff pause. And so the tarifffor batteries fell to 30 or for
to China in general, fell to 30%and that means to tariff on
batteries is somewhere in the 40to 60% range, which is
reasonable. If batteries are nowgoing to cost 100 bucks per
(20:33):
kilowatt hour, we can manage it.
We'd like it lower. This wouldput it back to 2023 prices. We
prefer it in 2026 pricing. Butit doesn't it means California
can keep going with theirrevolution. Is really what I
would want to say. I don't knowexactly, though, because I'm not
in the battery world, the bigbattery world, but I think,
(20:53):
based on some math I've done, at40 to 60% tariffs, batteries in
California can make it happenwith their expensive ass grid is
really the key. We'd love to seeit go much lower, though. We'd
love to be buying some shippingcontainers at 70 bucks, 60 bucks
from China, and then doing 40 to60 on that. But we'll see.
Tim Montague (21:15):
Yeah. So the US and China have announced a 90
day pause on their hugereciprocal tariffs while they
continue negotiations with theeffect of terrorists on
batteries more than having toaround 60% you know, there's
also emerging news, John thatthe courts have started to
(21:36):
conclude that Trump's executingtariffs without Congress is not
legal, and that's
John Weaver (21:46):
the second article that's right here is exactly
that, and it's whipsawing. Sothe court has, as of yesterday,
said, Hey, Trump, you're notallowed to do this. This is not
your purvey. And specificallywith this one, it wasn't the
court thing. What they said isthat the executive order, the
enemy Act, or whichever thing hepicked to use as a logic wasn't
(22:08):
allowable. So a trade court, theInternational Trade court, said,
Hey, you can't use that law todo this. And so they said, You
got to pause it. Trump then wentto the next level, appeals court
and said, Hey, we're changingour reason, or something that
(22:28):
appeals court said, All right,you can continue. So this is now
the current status Trump'stariffs. Can continue for now.
Appeals Court says, so this isthat ongoing thing, the next
layer of the whipsaw. So they'regoing to come up with some
logic, maybe to say, Hey, thisis why we're going to do it. And
then it's going to continue ornot, or at some point, it will
(22:49):
hit the 60 day window, or, Idon't know exactly, but this is
our ongoing question, for me,for my financial model, what all
this means in the real world isthat if I'm really going to do a
battery, I'm going to have toput it at 60% tariff on top of
(23:10):
it, because all this stuffthat's below it. I have no idea
what all this stuff means. It'smoving so fast, it's so nutty.
Even the experts have differenttariff ranges. I don't know. You
know, can I buy this componenthere and buy this one here? And
is there a combo tariff if Iassemble it here versus there?
I'm just, you know, I'm justwatching and having fun,
(23:31):
reading, posting stuff on bluesky, because all kinds of
terrible entertainment. Yeah.
Okay, so this video is half cooland half annoying. Okay, it's
half annoying because it's liketwo minutes of fading in and
out, of barely showing anything.
But then once it gets going,it's not bad. It's just another
(23:53):
panel, pair of panel robots.
It's a combo. Rosen has builtsomething similar to the group
that you work with. Their nameluminous Rosen has developed
something similar to luminous.
They have a two combo robot, onefor carrying and one for
lifting. Yeah. So you'll startto see it come into place, but
(24:13):
it's just kind of annoying. Likeplay this at double speed or
triple speed or something. So wecan get through this till we get
to the good stuff. So there yougo again. Nice robot there,
going on. There we go. Good todo. Pretty cool. That's your
panel there. Now you're startingto see the arm robot, just, just
gonna lift the modules, put itright up there. You go,
(24:36):
wonderful. Up down. And it'sjust a nice combo. So the key
is, with Rosen, if they're usingit, there's they're doing it
scientifically. They're a bigcompany. They have a lot of
labor, they have a lot of data.
They have a lot of professionalswho know how to do the science
and the math to determine howthese numbers actually work.
(24:58):
Work out what kind of labor itmeans, attachment, breaking
stuff, you know, what's the workthat these people are doing, and
how's it going to turn out? So Ilike the fact that Rosen and is
doing it. There you go. Nice,clear image of the whole
Tim Montague (25:13):
structure.
Finally, some good lighting.
John Weaver (25:15):
See, told you, it wasn't just me who was
complaining, right? I, you know,I like to complain. There we go.
Look at that. That's the bestview right there. It's like,
don't do left, right, left,right. You know, there's a lot
of guys watching. So you don'tknow how many people there to
actually work, but I think youneed two people per row for one
machine, and it seems like theycan just blast through it. Now,
(25:36):
all you need is a third personwho's dropping the pallets on
the back of that back machine soit never runs out, sure, and
just now the article, thepurpose of this article is not
actually this, well, I guess itwas to show off the robot, but
it was specifically to say thatRosen is thinking about selling
(25:56):
rights to it or something, andthey want to share it with the
industry, and maybe they thinkthey, you know, they can only
save so much money, and theythink they can make more by
selling to all their partners.
But I thought that wasinteresting is that Rosen is
going to put it out there. I wasreally more so interested in
just seeing the unit. I don'treally care if they sell it,
because I know other people aredoing it so, but awesome if
(26:18):
they're doing it. But I likethat Rosen thinks they have it
because that rosendin thinksthey have it because that's just
a big company who I alwaysthought was pretty awesome,
Tim Montague (26:29):
big electrical contractor in California. Like
when you're in California, yousee the Rosen offices around,
but I don't know if, if they'reworking across the country, I
don't see a much in the Midwest.
I
John Weaver (26:46):
think they're all across the Southwest, probably
into Texas, and they're probablygoing to do projects bigger than
25 megawatts, yeah, AC, ifthere's not a if there's not a
substation included in theproject. Don't call them,
Tim Montague (27:05):
yeah, exactly, utility scale. Only should we
talk about cold to solar?
John Weaver (27:13):
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been listening to VISTA
claim a lot of stuff for solong, cold solar and they but
what is this? Is this a becauseyou know this better than me, so
you're gonna have to talk aboutthis. This is local to you.
VISTA is a big Southern Illinoiscompany.
Tim Montague (27:28):
Well, vistra is, I think, headquartered in Texas,
all right, but they operate,they operate power plants out
west. Also, they've done some ofthe largest storage projects in
the country period. They
John Weaver (27:43):
have the battery that's that caught on fire
recently, that one that's atMoss Landing,
Tim Montague (27:48):
that's landing is a VISTA project, yep. But
anyway, Southern Illinois,
John Weaver (27:53):
they have a lot of coal and a lot of solar. In
southern Illinois, they're bigtime there.
Tim Montague (27:57):
Yeah. Illinois is a coal state. And, you know, we,
we got this legislation in 2021called Seija, the climate and
equitable JOBS Act. Sandwichedinside of that was what I think
many of our colleagues wouldrefer to as an astroturf bill
for vistra, which operates afleet of coal plants, which
(28:20):
gives them really juicyincentives to convert these coal
plants from coal to solar andbatteries. And so anyway, this
is a story about those projects.
They are actually coming tofruition now. They're getting
built, but they're hittingdelays because vistra cannot
acquire transformers and switchgear. There's a huge backlog
(28:41):
globally for transformers. Gofigure John. You know, here we
are. We're tripling the grid.
We're electrifying everything,and somehow we can't build
transformers fast enough. Idon't know why. We haven't
figured this out, but it's athing. So we've got a photo here
of a 700 megawatt, 780 megawattcoal fired Edwards power plant
(29:05):
in Bartonville, Illinois. And onTuesday, they asked the Feds for
a two year extension on theinterconnection deadline,
because they want tointerconnect this 546, megawatt
solar and battery farm to theinfrastructure there, but they
(29:28):
need new gear, and they don'thave the gear. So it's a
problem. I didn't expect to seethis story, but here it is. I
guess I should have expected tosee it. This is a reason to be
very careful about where yousource your transformers if
you're doing utility scale work,I guess because some companies
(29:50):
have better supply than others.
So just be careful.
John Weaver (29:57):
Wow, man. Two. Year interconnection extension for a
pretty big facility, a lot ofbatteries, 833, megawatts. Total
interconnection of looks like546 megawatts. 106 batteries, 44
solar, big plant, lot of solar.
Tim Montague (30:19):
Yeah. I mean, I've been watching these projects,
and I don't chase utilityanything anymore. I was, at one
time, trying to be a utilityscale EPC business developer. I
failed miserably. But these wereon my radar, and they're, it's a
good story, you know, it's thecoal industry is pretty much
(30:44):
struggling because it can'tcompete with natural gas or
solar, batteries and and socoal, you know, coal companies
are coal companies are going outof business, and The utilities
are shutting down the coalplants, and it's just not
economic. We you know, Illinoisis a coal state. My grandpa ran
(31:09):
the Black Diamond in Chicago. Itwas a coal industry magazine.
Literally, my family was in thecoal industry because Illinois
is a coal state, and now it's asolar, wind and battery state,
it's okay. This is, this islife, right? We go through these
energy transitions. We used oil,we used whale oil. Sorry, we
(31:30):
used wood, we use coal, we usewhalo, we use fossil oil. Now we
use wind, solar batteries. Justso
John Weaver (31:38):
I thought, I thought, an interesting thing
about this is that their theirinterconnection agreement is set
to August of 2028 so it's stillthree plus years out. They're
asking for the extension on thatby two years. So they're asking
for 2030 so it's not even likeit's a nearby issue. They're
(31:58):
saying it's they're specificallytalking about certain breakers,
instead of them being 12 to 18months. Now it's gonna take
three plus years. So then threeyears would get you to the
August, and then you need alittle chance to turn that
system on and make sure theywork. So wow, man, that's an
expensive breaker, and I get it.
I mean, I get it because I havechallenges, but, uh, yes, as a
(32:18):
supplier, cannot it be expectedto deliver them until the fourth
quarter of 2029 for one of thetransformers. So that's still a
fast turnaround, taking thattransformative and flipping the
system on. They're gonna have tohave everything in place just
sitting there accruing intereston a loan. Oh, that kind of
hurts a little bit. Sointeresting. Man, maybe I should
(32:42):
cover this. I should research alittle bit and cover it for PV
magazine, good source in theretoo. Yeah, that's a risk. That's
a big risk.
Tim Montague (32:53):
Should we talk about? Longy, yeah,
John Weaver (32:55):
well, you know, it's, it's really, it's just a
retirement of a famous person ora person that should be famous,
um, Lee, Zen,
Tim Montague (33:04):
wow. Good job.
Zen. Guo, I'm not sure I
John Weaver (33:08):
have no idea. I don't try to say names, man. I
mess up everything from everylanguage. It
Tim Montague (33:12):
doesn't matter.
Why is he famous? He
John Weaver (33:15):
is the CEO of long G like he's the one that brought
them from whatever to being thecoolest. Like, if I were to buy
some panels, it might be fromthem, like they're just up
there. They are the thirdlargest, second largest, maybe
the largest solar company. It'sthem, it's tongway, it's Ginko.
You know, they're doing allkinds of super research. This
(33:37):
guy's an engineer CEO, and he'sbrought the company to being,
you know, they're, they're maybeas consequential. They're not as
consequential as an oil companyyet. But I remember reading
something that said the amountof energy they now produce is
more than oil companies withtheir hardware, and that their
annual production is getting sobig that it has a significant
(34:00):
effect. And so I just wantedeverybody to know that long G's
president. He's no longer goingto be the day to day CEO type,
but he's going to be focusing onthe CTO type of stuff, how to
run the r, d, how to develop newprojects, products. He wants to
stay in that side of the arm.
And I also wanted to point outthat He kind of broke my heart a
(34:20):
little bit. And he saidperovskite silicon is still an
immature product and itsfeasibility remains technically
unproven. Yep, and I don't likereality sometimes. Tim so
whatever.
Tim Montague (34:37):
And he also the story also references back
contact products, yeah, as beingsuperior. So their long G is not
long on top con i gather, no,
John Weaver (34:53):
no, they're not.
They do have top con product,but that's not really where they
went. They went to a backcontact and they are the
efficiencies are greater. Herethe front side, they're starting
to do by facial that thatcontact as well. They've been
able to take the sun powertechnology that kind of
languish, I guess, with notenough R D, and bring it to the
next level. Yeah. So I'm happy,happy to see that having
(35:15):
happened. I
Tim Montague (35:19):
think we have too many stories here to cover. But
do you want to always do Tim?
You want to do one or two more?
What do you want to do? What?
John Weaver (35:25):
All right, let's do one or two. I'll do the fast.
Let's do project of the week,because this is an awesome
little system. Oh,
Tim Montague (35:32):
I don't know if I'll be able to get it, because
John Weaver (35:35):
this guy, we don't like blue sky. It
Tim Montague (35:37):
shows there. It showed up here. All right, high
tech. All right, what's theproject?
John Weaver (35:43):
It's a, well, it says 16. It's actually 11.6
kilowatt residentialinstallation in south coast here
of Massachusetts. And I justwanted to show off my little
residential company, and just toclean, clean looking modules.
The just the system. It was anice one. We'll get through the
(36:06):
final picture. It's really cool.
But there we got a nice tie inthe photo. Or, oh sure, we don't
have to. Now we can see these.
These, you can click on thisshows just some details of the
racking. I like seeing this.
This is solar edge optimizer.
You can see the distance fromvarious from our flashing feet,
about four feet, 48 inches,this. This is a snap and rack.
(36:31):
We use snap and rack flashing.
Oh, well, no, it's a quick mountflashing with snap and rack. You
could probably click on it andtell click on that third image.
Maybe zoom in on it, or go tothe prior image, one to the
left. Let's see if it, uh, youcan't really see, but this is,
you know, just a nice, cleanresidential system. You know,
(36:52):
you can see the degrees we theroof is tilted at. And then the
final picture just looks nice.
We fit up his roof reallynicely, and the setup was just
clean. I like the look of itjust because the house was red
and the tree behind it had alittle red color, but it's just
(37:15):
a nice clean, yeah, Southlooking system. Our pricing is
in the mid to upper twos rightnow, but we're getting a little
bit better and a little tighter.
Yeah, we're
Tim Montague (37:24):
$3 resi solar in Massachusetts. Where is this?
Rhode Island? No
John Weaver (37:29):
mass. We're all mass. South Coast, definitely,
definitely under three bucks.
All of our proposals, unless youhave a premium module and en
phase, we're holding them belowthree. So that's a project of
the week. So I liked it. It'sjust kind of interesting to
learn getting a little we'regetting a little better as a
team, moving through residentialas we relaunch whaling city, and
it's kind of nice. So we get ina sad note, or we could end on
(37:53):
that beautiful note we get. Wecould end on a happy technology
note, a sad note, you're talking
Tim Montague (38:01):
about Meyer burger,
John Weaver (38:03):
damn it. Tim, you brought it up. Well, we've,
we've always
Tim Montague (38:07):
been fanboys of Meyer burger. No, I don't, I
don't think it's the end ofMeyer burger in the US, but
it's, it's, it's, it is a sadday. They announced that they're
going to close their solar panelfactory in the US. You
John Weaver (38:21):
want to go take it over, Tim, maybe they'll let us
do it. Yeah, right. I mean,they, they got Meyer burger
hardware there for make firstassembly modules. We got trained
staff. They've been deployingsome modules, I believe, got 100
million bucks.
Tim Montague (38:42):
Yeah, right. And no, yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it
is sad to think about all themoney that's getting invested in
the United States, in the solarpanel factories, battery
factories, and a lot of it maynot see the light of day, or may
get shut down after it'sproducing, yeah, because
(39:03):
Congress kills the IRA. I mean,it's very good industrial
policy. We want manufacturingback, and the solar and storage
industries are a way to getmanufacturing back in the US. I
don't, I don't understand that.
It boggles the mind. So we'llbe, we'll be back with our live
(39:27):
news roundup on the 13th ofJune. Mid June. It's, it's
starting to be middle of summer.
And with that, I want to say,check out all of our content at
cleanpowerhour.com Tell a friendabout the show. By all means,
(39:47):
there are so few people, in thegreater scheme of things, who
know the Clean Power Hourexists. So tell a friend. Oh, we
now have merch on our website.
So if you go tocleanpowerhour.com you can go to
a shop or. Link, you can get anice Nike polo, all kinds of
shirts, hats, jackets, bags witha clean power hour logo. How can
(40:08):
I listeners find you? John
John Weaver (40:13):
commercialguy.com, that's our main website. That's
where all the good stuff mostlygets shared. Then there's our
cell phone numbers, which youcan call us any time of the day,
because we like to hang outlisten to our cell phones
constantly. Yeah, you know, I'mon blue sky all the time on
(40:34):
LinkedIn. You know, we have anoffice in New Bedford,
commercialsolarguy.com, that'sthe easiest, easiest, quickest
place. I'm John atcommercialsolarguy.com
Tim Montague (40:44):
There you go. And
John Weaver (40:45):
you know, that's it. So we like to build stuff.
It's really nice. We like tobuild solar carports where we
just know the process, you know,pieces of it, big pieces of it.
So,
Tim Montague (40:58):
all right, we'll see you in two weeks. I'm Tim
Montague, let's grow solar andstorage. Take care. John Yep.
Welcome to the Clean Power Hour live. I'm Tim
(00:02):
Montague. Your host today is Maythe 30th. 2020, 2020 2025, and
we're bringing you the latestsolar, storage and other
renewable energy News. Welcometo the show. My co host John
Weaver,
John Weaver (00:17):
Hey, Tim, 2025 Yes, that is today's year. It was
funny.
Very nice. See you. See youtoday, enjoying building solar
every day and keeping up withit, interconnection stuff flying
around.
Tim Montague (00:36):
How are you? How are you rolling with the solar
coaster? That's what I want toknow emotionally,
psychologically. It's been avery tumultuous year, and it's
it got even more tumultuous withthe announcement of the big bad
bill, otherwise known as abudget reconciliation bill,
which could really be painfulfor residential solar and
(00:59):
commercial solar. How are youreacting to that so far?
John Weaver (01:04):
Well, it's challenging. The residential
industry is no longerpotentially going to have a tax
credit, and that means the priceof everything is sort of kind of
gone up 30% but in reality,people were taking that full
payment out of pocket anyway, soyes, and then what's the
discount that they get? Youknow, hamburger today versus a
hamburger tomorrow? Is it 10% intheir hearts? Is it 20% to tax
(01:28):
credit? Maybe it's spread over acouple of years. So maybe we can
drop our price 10 15% and putpressure on everyone else and
say, Listen, guys, you want usto be able to still sell you
need to give us better pricing.
So I'm, uh, I'm actually hopefulfor my company, particularly
because we don't do leaseproducts. We do straight cash.
So, you know, with the leasestuff, um, that's taken a lot of
(01:50):
hits. Mosaic, it looks likethey're going under as a lease
company, yep. And that was a bigproduct. Hearing that from PV
magazine, saw it on Reddit acouple of days ago. And so, you
know, I feel like we'll be okayas a company, but my company
does, like, I don't know, aninstallation every week, you
(02:13):
know, that type of thing. Sowe're not the market. There's
gonna be a lot of pain in themarket. There's gonna be a lot
of margins tightening, becausepeople are going to figure that
out. Because now it's going tobe a different price. You have
to be somewhere in between 30% Ithink, I don't think the prices
have to drop 30% to keep up, butsomething, I gotta drop
(02:33):
something. Yeah,
Tim Montague (02:35):
I wanted to talk a little bit about this, because
it is the gorilla in the room,and everyone's thinking about
it, and this is how I see it.
And we're not done yet. Congresspassed this bill. I mean, the
The House passed the bill. Itgo, it's now in the Senate, and
that could take several monthsfor them to grind on it. They
two things are present. For me,the industry has ups and downs.
(02:58):
2025 was already a tumultuousyear. And so, you know,
potentially a down year. Andthen, and then this, and we
thought, you know, the Trumpadministration might take a
scalpel to the IRA. It currentlyis a sledgehammer. That's the
(03:20):
expression. I like SEIA, SolarEnergy Industries Association
has done an analysis, and theythink that this bill could mean
the loss of 330,000 jobs. 331factories closed or canceled,
and $286 billion in localinvestments erased. So this is
(03:45):
non trivial. Clean energy is abig part of the US economy now,
and a lot of these projects arein red states. So that's what I
don't quite gather is whomasterminded this, knowing full
well that this was going to hurtmany, many of their core
(04:07):
constituents. But good companieswill survive. The industry has
gone through ups and downsbefore good companies will
survive. There's a lot of badcompanies in the solar industry,
and they give the industry a badname. So I would love to see
more of those companies go bye,bye. I don't know if mosaic was
a bad company, but I don't knowmany people that are super fond
(04:33):
of mosaic. On the other hand,either,
John Weaver (04:38):
I didn't know that.
I don't know much about mosaic.
We've never really done leaseproducts for a residential
company. Yeah, I know ingeneral, the lease companies
with the dealer fees, have neverhad a great general support, but
that's just what the market wasmade of.
Tim Montague (04:58):
Yeah? So. So stay tuned the the the advice I give
my EPC clients is diversify,lean heavily into storage, check
out companies like electricity.
They were on a webinar withmyself and CPS and a company
called Freedom solar out ofColorado earlier this year,
(05:21):
electricity manages thebuilding, HVAC system and other
systems. So it's kind of liketurning your building into a
battery. I think the solar plusplus world is the future of the
solar industry. If you're asolar only installer, you're in
(05:42):
for a world of hurt. If you're asolar battery and other
installer slash consultant, Ithink that there's hope. And you
know, you can add a lot ofvalue. There's a lot of low
hanging fruit in the builtenvironment, if we get savvy and
use the technology that we have.
(06:03):
Check out electricity, E, L, E,X, i, t, y, that is my new
favorite building managementsystem company. And
John Weaver (06:13):
have you had them on the show recently? I'm
guessing
Tim Montague (06:15):
we did a webinar with Casey Miller, the CEO, back
in March, so he'll be back atsome point. I interviewed their
founder some years ago, but, butyeah, just been learning more
and more about electricity, andI think that they're on to
(06:36):
something
John Weaver (06:38):
I would like at some point to learn more about
Home Energy Management. Thefirst system I really learned
about was from my favoritebattery manufacturer, or
residential Sonnen. Sonnen, Idon't know exactly how to say
the name, but they had a greatproduct that they put out. I
think it's the Eco the Eco line,I can't remember, and it has
(06:59):
home management software builtinto it. It continues, contains
connections with, I believe itwas smart meter switches. So
smart breakers, smart breakersfrom Eaton, I believe the
article I wrote, and it's just anice piece of hardware, and I
(07:21):
just like this on a battery. Ilike their VPP, etc. It's just
so, so, yeah, I want to learnmore about resi stuff. I'm doing
a nice residential system rightnow. I'll have some pictures of
it soon, once we install it, butit's going to integrate a nice a
Generac and a Generac generator,a End Phase battery and phase
(07:46):
output management, a few otherthings to make a nice system for
this customer, and it just tiestogether nicely. So, you know, a
little more than just solar, asyou were saying, that's I was
thinking about that as you saidit, it's solar plus, because
we're tying in two or threepieces of hardware and so
anyway, coincidentally,
Tim Montague (08:07):
I'm interviewing norm Taff at the Midwest Expo in
two weeks on on June the 10th.
If you don't know about theMidwest Expo, check it out.
Midwest solar Expo. It's now aninner solar show. Inner solar
bought the show from the founderJake rosemary, but norm tough is
the executive in charge ofgenerax storage division, and
they bought eco be the smartthermostat company, right? And
(08:32):
so now they are leaning heavilyinto the smart home energy space
as well. They're well known, ofcourse, in the backup generator
space. And then they bought, Ican't remember the battery
company they bought, but theybought a good battery company.
And are, you know, very activein the resi and now expanding
(08:55):
into the CNI storage space aswell. But electricity, just to,
just to be clear, electricity isa CNI service company. See, I
call it a software as a service.
But,
John Weaver (09:12):
okay, okay, so that's commercial, not so I
didn't even know, I don't knowvery many on the or no, too much
on the commercial side. Sothat'd be interesting to listen
to. All right, I got good news.
Okay,
Tim Montague (09:25):
good news. What's that? Just
John Weaver (09:29):
because there's so many, like, terrible things that
are, like, ah, stressful. Thefirst item, actually, I guess
now the second item that's onour list over here, waffle
house, it's getting fastchargers. Yeah,
Tim Montague (09:43):
I love Waffle House. I wish we had Waffle
House in Illinois. Maybe inSouthern Illinois, they do, but
Waffle House is a southernthing. Where do you have waffle
house near you? Nowhere
John Weaver (09:57):
near me? It's just when I go south to visit my
family and go home. Once I hitNorth Carolina, roughly, maybe
probably Virginia too. I bet youPennsylvania as well. Maybe out
west in New York, upstate NewYork. We'll have to see. I don't
know if there's too many inMassachusetts, yeah, I think
it's a southern thing. Itdefinitely, definitely a lot
more southern. There's theWaffle House hurricane index.
(10:17):
Are you familiar with that byany chance? Timothy, no. So I
waffle houses. No, you know,Waffle House management. They're
conscious of hurricanes quiteand they prepare for them. And
FEMA, it was a joke that FEMAwould watch waffle houses for
when they opened, for how torate areas, or something like
(10:39):
that, and say, okay, the WaffleHouse is open. It's now safe for
general populations to go backbecause there's food available.
But the Waffle House was likethe first one, and they always
open quickly and aggressively.
And so there's something aboutthe hurricane Waffle House
index. So just you know, ifWaffle House is open, it's okay.
Tim, everything is going to beokay.
Tim Montague (11:01):
Apparently, they think EV charging is is
important.
John Weaver (11:06):
Think about that hurricane hits, you get waffles,
you get eggs, and your carcharges
Tim Montague (11:13):
fast DC, fast charging. Interesting. So who is
the Okay? It says EV charging,arm of British oil giant BP,
just announced the strategicrelationship with American diner
chain to bring DC fast chargingto a network of Waffle House
locations. This story comes tous from electric. Michelle
(11:37):
Lewis, May 20, 2025, waffleoffice is getting DC fast
chargers. This is cool. Are theygonna do it at all their stores?
Do you think?
John Weaver (11:51):
Probably not. I mean, there's so many waffle
houses, like there's wafflehouses in some places every
other stop. So you don't want DCfast charges that often, but no,
yeah, probably not.
Tim Montague (12:04):
Oh, it mentions this waffle house index too.
That's funny. Oh yeah, there itis. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah.
So BP is into fast charging.
That's, that's that. That'sgood. That makes sense.
John Weaver (12:17):
Makes absolute logical sense. You know, you
gotta figure out the money.
Gotta figure out the revenue offof vehicles. That's where they
made their money. Yeah,different form of energy sale,
the different form of sale, yep.
So waffles, that was my goodnews. I wanted to start off good
news just because, you know,everything else is rough. And I
got other good news post too, soyou can be entertained by all
(12:37):
the cool records in California,if you really like that kind of
stuff.
Tim Montague (12:43):
Yeah. So what's the read us the headline, and
then I'll get the story up.
John Weaver (12:51):
Solar and battery output records. Solar and
battery output records set asCalifornia continues aggressive
ramp, and the records that arebeing set right now are kind of
fun, concurrently, intertwined,solar is peaking just over 21
gigs recently, and batteryoutput just last weekend or two
(13:15):
weekends ago went over 10 gigsfor the first time. As well, the
state announced that they brokethrough 15 point something,
gigawatts in April of totalcapacity deployed, which is a
healthy chunk. So,
Tim Montague (13:29):
yeah, the key of installed energy storage
capacity, yeah,
John Weaver (13:33):
that's good. And there's, this is probably
greater than 3.75 hours of orgreater, definitely greater than
three so it's definitely greaterthan 45 gigawatt hours of
capacity. I would put money it'sgreater than 54 gigawatts,
because a whole bunch of it allthe utility scale is four hours
stuff. So like 80, 90% of thecapacity is four hours, and then
(13:59):
10% is two to four two to fourhours. Maybe some of it's six,
you know, but it's gaining on anaverage of four. So it's really
close to 60 gigawatt hours.
That's what I want, a salespitch. That's a sales guy in me,
yeah. Engineer, yeah.
Tim Montague (14:12):
So John is just saying, if the capacity is 15
gigawatts, that translates into60 gigawatt hours. Potentially,
if it's a 4l battery,
John Weaver (14:23):
yeah, like, we break, I, this is my article. So
like, near the bottom, and Ibreak into the percentage of
hours per capacity, type,residential, commercial and and
utility, and all the utilityscales, the big stuff. So, but,
um, but, yeah. So anyway, justCalifornia is growing. What's
really interesting is that thepeak of the solar number is now
(14:48):
going up, partially because thebatteries are absorbing up to
eight gigawatts in the middle ofthe day. Eight, and that eight
gigawatts of capacity would havebeen curtailed solar. So now
we're seeing solar growth as aresult of battery growth.
(15:12):
Batteries are now enabling solarpower. Yeah, and I think that's
Tim Montague (15:19):
yeah. Batteries are a great way to attack the
duck curve. I mean, on thisgraph, that's on screen right
now, you see the battery curve.
The Purple Line has somewhat ofa duck curve shape, but this is
just the generation curves. Thisis not the demand curves. The
demand curves is would show usthe true duck well, you
John Weaver (15:39):
can see it. You can see it. Look back, you can see
the purple during the daytime,how deep it goes? Yeah,
Tim Montague (15:45):
right here. This is where the battery's charging,
right? Yes, yes, when the solaris cranking, and that's why
batteries are great, right? Youcan store energy when the
photons are free, and thenrelease the energy when the kWh
is expensive in the evening, andthat's how you create value with
(16:05):
the battery
John Weaver (16:08):
load shift, though, so solar powered evening peak
battery records being set. Thisis the capacity thing, where
they show how much capacity fromeach product utility scale is,
Tim Montague (16:32):
I lost your audio.
You're muted. You You are muted,
John Weaver (16:55):
right? Maybe I'm unmuted. Now,
Tim Montague (16:58):
that's good. I don't know how that happened.
Sorry.
John Weaver (17:00):
Well, it goes to do to do so anyway, on and off. So
that utility scale, that 13.2that is probably 98% four hours.
The commercial is probably threeto three and a half hours, maybe
two and a half to three and ahalf. The residential, probably
similar ish two and a half tothree and a half. So that's, you
(17:21):
know, that ratio probably comesup to like 55 gigawatt hours.
And then on the right side,that's the goal by 2020, 2045,
right? Now, what's interestingis that the rate of growth here
is that we could blast through30 gigawatt hours or 30
gigawatts in like five years. Infact, there's a scientist who
(17:45):
says the rate of growth that'sbeen going on would suggest,
like a year and a half more 1.2or 1.5 years. So we're growing
really fast. Our own ambitionsat this point are now. What
would stop California fromdeploying enough batteries?
Because we can do 30 gigawatts.
We have the costs, we have thetechnology. It's really about
(18:09):
optimizing the deployment. Ithink we're in a different phase
now, I think with the collapseof battery pricing, as long as
these stupid tariffs, and wecould talk about stair tariffs
after this, but as long as thesestupid tariffs don't say don't
stay stupid, we should be ableto whip California's solar plus
storage question like, right nowwe could do it. We're now at
(18:33):
that stage. It's going to keepgetting better as we deploy it
for 10 to 15 years. But rightnow we have the technology done,
like, you know, whatever coolsoundtrack we can do it. We have
the batteries, we have thesolar. We're done. How do we how
we do it? That's the nextquestion. That's the real
question, I guess, becausethat's the one that's going to
(18:53):
be answered.
Tim Montague (18:57):
Yeah, the technology adoption curve really
does work. You know, I think thestat is, as you double the
adoption of a technology, theprice falls by, I don't know,
40% or something, some bigamount. And so it's a good
thing, and we're going to see alot more storage on the grid in
(19:24):
CNI and residential right now, alot of it is utility, as you
could see there in that graph inJohn's story. But that's
changing. Also. What's next?
John Weaver (19:40):
Tariffs? We talk about the whipsaw tariffs that
are ongoing,
Tim Montague (19:46):
so brutal. This is an article,
John Weaver (19:48):
yeah, this first article is about two weeks ish
old, and then the second one islike yesterday and still being
updated, like it's live, ongoingentertainment. Timothy, yeah,
yeah. If politics is now fun. Sothe first articles shows China
and Trump, which is the majorsource of batteries. So my mind
(20:10):
has a lot of batteries on itthese days as having a 90 day
tariff pause. And so the tarifffor batteries fell to 30 or for
to China in general, fell to 30%and that means to tariff on
batteries is somewhere in the 40to 60% range, which is
reasonable. If batteries are nowgoing to cost 100 bucks per
(20:33):
kilowatt hour, we can manage it.
We'd like it lower. This wouldput it back to 2023 prices. We
prefer it in 2026 pricing. Butit doesn't it means California
can keep going with theirrevolution. Is really what I
would want to say. I don't knowexactly, though, because I'm not
in the battery world, the bigbattery world, but I think,
(20:53):
based on some math I've done, at40 to 60% tariffs, batteries in
California can make it happenwith their expensive ass grid is
really the key. We'd love to seeit go much lower, though. We'd
love to be buying some shippingcontainers at 70 bucks, 60 bucks
from China, and then doing 40 to60 on that. But we'll see.
Tim Montague (21:15):
Yeah. So the US and China have announced a 90
day pause on their hugereciprocal tariffs while they
continue negotiations with theeffect of terrorists on
batteries more than having toaround 60% you know, there's
also emerging news, John thatthe courts have started to
(21:36):
conclude that Trump's executingtariffs without Congress is not
legal, and that's
John Weaver (21:46):
the second article that's right here is exactly
that, and it's whipsawing. Sothe court has, as of yesterday,
said, Hey, Trump, you're notallowed to do this. This is not
your purvey. And specificallywith this one, it wasn't the
court thing. What they said isthat the executive order, the
enemy Act, or whichever thing hepicked to use as a logic wasn't
(22:08):
allowable. So a trade court, theInternational Trade court, said,
Hey, you can't use that law todo this. And so they said, You
got to pause it. Trump then wentto the next level, appeals court
and said, Hey, we're changingour reason, or something that
(22:28):
appeals court said, All right,you can continue. So this is now
the current status Trump'stariffs. Can continue for now.
Appeals Court says, so this isthat ongoing thing, the next
layer of the whipsaw. So they'regoing to come up with some
logic, maybe to say, Hey, thisis why we're going to do it. And
then it's going to continue ornot, or at some point, it will
(22:49):
hit the 60 day window, or, Idon't know exactly, but this is
our ongoing question, for me,for my financial model, what all
this means in the real world isthat if I'm really going to do a
battery, I'm going to have toput it at 60% tariff on top of
(23:10):
it, because all this stuffthat's below it. I have no idea
what all this stuff means. It'smoving so fast, it's so nutty.
Even the experts have differenttariff ranges. I don't know. You
know, can I buy this componenthere and buy this one here? And
is there a combo tariff if Iassemble it here versus there?
I'm just, you know, I'm justwatching and having fun,
(23:31):
reading, posting stuff on bluesky, because all kinds of
terrible entertainment. Yeah.
Okay, so this video is half cooland half annoying. Okay, it's
half annoying because it's liketwo minutes of fading in and
out, of barely showing anything.
But then once it gets going,it's not bad. It's just another
(23:53):
panel, pair of panel robots.
It's a combo. Rosen has builtsomething similar to the group
that you work with. Their nameluminous Rosen has developed
something similar to luminous.
They have a two combo robot, onefor carrying and one for
lifting. Yeah. So you'll startto see it come into place, but
(24:13):
it's just kind of annoying. Likeplay this at double speed or
triple speed or something. So wecan get through this till we get
to the good stuff. So there yougo again. Nice robot there,
going on. There we go. Good todo. Pretty cool. That's your
panel there. Now you're startingto see the arm robot, just, just
gonna lift the modules, put itright up there. You go,
(24:36):
wonderful. Up down. And it'sjust a nice combo. So the key
is, with Rosen, if they're usingit, there's they're doing it
scientifically. They're a bigcompany. They have a lot of
labor, they have a lot of data.
They have a lot of professionalswho know how to do the science
and the math to determine howthese numbers actually work.
(24:58):
Work out what kind of labor itmeans, attachment, breaking
stuff, you know, what's the workthat these people are doing, and
how's it going to turn out? So Ilike the fact that Rosen and is
doing it. There you go. Nice,clear image of the whole
Tim Montague (25:13):
structure.
Finally, some good lighting.
John Weaver (25:15):
See, told you, it wasn't just me who was
complaining, right? I, you know,I like to complain. There we go.
Look at that. That's the bestview right there. It's like,
don't do left, right, left,right. You know, there's a lot
of guys watching. So you don'tknow how many people there to
actually work, but I think youneed two people per row for one
machine, and it seems like theycan just blast through it. Now,
(25:36):
all you need is a third personwho's dropping the pallets on
the back of that back machine soit never runs out, sure, and
just now the article, thepurpose of this article is not
actually this, well, I guess itwas to show off the robot, but
it was specifically to say thatRosen is thinking about selling
(25:56):
rights to it or something, andthey want to share it with the
industry, and maybe they thinkthey, you know, they can only
save so much money, and theythink they can make more by
selling to all their partners.
But I thought that wasinteresting is that Rosen is
going to put it out there. I wasreally more so interested in
just seeing the unit. I don'treally care if they sell it,
because I know other people aredoing it so, but awesome if
(26:18):
they're doing it. But I likethat Rosen thinks they have it
because that rosendin thinksthey have it because that's just
a big company who I alwaysthought was pretty awesome,
Tim Montague (26:29):
big electrical contractor in California. Like
when you're in California, yousee the Rosen offices around,
but I don't know if, if they'reworking across the country, I
don't see a much in the Midwest.
I
John Weaver (26:46):
think they're all across the Southwest, probably
into Texas, and they're probablygoing to do projects bigger than
25 megawatts, yeah, AC, ifthere's not a if there's not a
substation included in theproject. Don't call them,
Tim Montague (27:05):
yeah, exactly, utility scale. Only should we
talk about cold to solar?
John Weaver (27:13):
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been listening to VISTA
claim a lot of stuff for solong, cold solar and they but
what is this? Is this a becauseyou know this better than me, so
you're gonna have to talk aboutthis. This is local to you.
VISTA is a big Southern Illinoiscompany.
Tim Montague (27:28):
Well, vistra is, I think, headquartered in Texas,
all right, but they operate,they operate power plants out
west. Also, they've done some ofthe largest storage projects in
the country period. They
John Weaver (27:43):
have the battery that's that caught on fire
recently, that one that's atMoss Landing,
Tim Montague (27:48):
that's landing is a VISTA project, yep. But
anyway, Southern Illinois,
John Weaver (27:53):
they have a lot of coal and a lot of solar. In
southern Illinois, they're bigtime there.
Tim Montague (27:57):
Yeah. Illinois is a coal state. And, you know, we,
we got this legislation in 2021called Seija, the climate and
equitable JOBS Act. Sandwichedinside of that was what I think
many of our colleagues wouldrefer to as an astroturf bill
for vistra, which operates afleet of coal plants, which
(28:20):
gives them really juicyincentives to convert these coal
plants from coal to solar andbatteries. And so anyway, this
is a story about those projects.
They are actually coming tofruition now. They're getting
built, but they're hittingdelays because vistra cannot
acquire transformers and switchgear. There's a huge backlog
(28:41):
globally for transformers. Gofigure John. You know, here we
are. We're tripling the grid.
We're electrifying everything,and somehow we can't build
transformers fast enough. Idon't know why. We haven't
figured this out, but it's athing. So we've got a photo here
of a 700 megawatt, 780 megawattcoal fired Edwards power plant
(29:05):
in Bartonville, Illinois. And onTuesday, they asked the Feds for
a two year extension on theinterconnection deadline,
because they want tointerconnect this 546, megawatt
solar and battery farm to theinfrastructure there, but they
(29:28):
need new gear, and they don'thave the gear. So it's a
problem. I didn't expect to seethis story, but here it is. I
guess I should have expected tosee it. This is a reason to be
very careful about where yousource your transformers if
you're doing utility scale work,I guess because some companies
(29:50):
have better supply than others.
So just be careful.
John Weaver (29:57):
Wow, man. Two. Year interconnection extension for a
pretty big facility, a lot ofbatteries, 833, megawatts. Total
interconnection of looks like546 megawatts. 106 batteries, 44
solar, big plant, lot of solar.
Tim Montague (30:19):
Yeah. I mean, I've been watching these projects,
and I don't chase utilityanything anymore. I was, at one
time, trying to be a utilityscale EPC business developer. I
failed miserably. But these wereon my radar, and they're, it's a
good story, you know, it's thecoal industry is pretty much
(30:44):
struggling because it can'tcompete with natural gas or
solar, batteries and and socoal, you know, coal companies
are coal companies are going outof business, and The utilities
are shutting down the coalplants, and it's just not
economic. We you know, Illinoisis a coal state. My grandpa ran
(31:09):
the Black Diamond in Chicago. Itwas a coal industry magazine.
Literally, my family was in thecoal industry because Illinois
is a coal state, and now it's asolar, wind and battery state,
it's okay. This is, this islife, right? We go through these
energy transitions. We used oil,we used whale oil. Sorry, we
(31:30):
used wood, we use coal, we usewhalo, we use fossil oil. Now we
use wind, solar batteries. Justso
John Weaver (31:38):
I thought, I thought, an interesting thing
about this is that their theirinterconnection agreement is set
to August of 2028 so it's stillthree plus years out. They're
asking for the extension on thatby two years. So they're asking
for 2030 so it's not even likeit's a nearby issue. They're
(31:58):
saying it's they're specificallytalking about certain breakers,
instead of them being 12 to 18months. Now it's gonna take
three plus years. So then threeyears would get you to the
August, and then you need alittle chance to turn that
system on and make sure theywork. So wow, man, that's an
expensive breaker, and I get it.
I mean, I get it because I havechallenges, but, uh, yes, as a
(32:18):
supplier, cannot it be expectedto deliver them until the fourth
quarter of 2029 for one of thetransformers. So that's still a
fast turnaround, taking thattransformative and flipping the
system on. They're gonna have tohave everything in place just
sitting there accruing intereston a loan. Oh, that kind of
hurts a little bit. Sointeresting. Man, maybe I should
(32:42):
cover this. I should research alittle bit and cover it for PV
magazine, good source in theretoo. Yeah, that's a risk. That's
a big risk.
Tim Montague (32:53):
Should we talk about? Longy, yeah,
John Weaver (32:55):
well, you know, it's, it's really, it's just a
retirement of a famous person ora person that should be famous,
um, Lee, Zen,
Tim Montague (33:04):
wow. Good job.
Zen. Guo, I'm not sure I
John Weaver (33:08):
have no idea. I don't try to say names, man. I
mess up everything from everylanguage. It
Tim Montague (33:12):
doesn't matter.
Why is he famous? He
John Weaver (33:15):
is the CEO of long G like he's the one that brought
them from whatever to being thecoolest. Like, if I were to buy
some panels, it might be fromthem, like they're just up
there. They are the thirdlargest, second largest, maybe
the largest solar company. It'sthem, it's tongway, it's Ginko.
You know, they're doing allkinds of super research. This
(33:37):
guy's an engineer CEO, and he'sbrought the company to being,
you know, they're, they're maybeas consequential. They're not as
consequential as an oil companyyet. But I remember reading
something that said the amountof energy they now produce is
more than oil companies withtheir hardware, and that their
annual production is getting sobig that it has a significant
(34:00):
effect. And so I just wantedeverybody to know that long G's
president. He's no longer goingto be the day to day CEO type,
but he's going to be focusing onthe CTO type of stuff, how to
run the r, d, how to develop newprojects, products. He wants to
stay in that side of the arm.
And I also wanted to point outthat He kind of broke my heart a
(34:20):
little bit. And he saidperovskite silicon is still an
immature product and itsfeasibility remains technically
unproven. Yep, and I don't likereality sometimes. Tim so
whatever.
Tim Montague (34:37):
And he also the story also references back
contact products, yeah, as beingsuperior. So their long G is not
long on top con i gather, no,
John Weaver (34:53):
no, they're not.
They do have top con product,but that's not really where they
went. They went to a backcontact and they are the
efficiencies are greater. Herethe front side, they're starting
to do by facial that thatcontact as well. They've been
able to take the sun powertechnology that kind of
languish, I guess, with notenough R D, and bring it to the
next level. Yeah. So I'm happy,happy to see that having
(35:15):
happened. I
Tim Montague (35:19):
think we have too many stories here to cover. But
do you want to always do Tim?
You want to do one or two more?
What do you want to do? What?
John Weaver (35:25):
All right, let's do one or two. I'll do the fast.
Let's do project of the week,because this is an awesome
little system. Oh,
Tim Montague (35:32):
I don't know if I'll be able to get it, because
John Weaver (35:35):
this guy, we don't like blue sky. It
Tim Montague (35:37):
shows there. It showed up here. All right, high
tech. All right, what's theproject?
John Weaver (35:43):
It's a, well, it says 16. It's actually 11.6
kilowatt residentialinstallation in south coast here
of Massachusetts. And I justwanted to show off my little
residential company, and just toclean, clean looking modules.
The just the system. It was anice one. We'll get through the
(36:06):
final picture. It's really cool.
But there we got a nice tie inthe photo. Or, oh sure, we don't
have to. Now we can see these.
These, you can click on thisshows just some details of the
racking. I like seeing this.
This is solar edge optimizer.
You can see the distance fromvarious from our flashing feet,
about four feet, 48 inches,this. This is a snap and rack.
(36:31):
We use snap and rack flashing.
Oh, well, no, it's a quick mountflashing with snap and rack. You
could probably click on it andtell click on that third image.
Maybe zoom in on it, or go tothe prior image, one to the
left. Let's see if it, uh, youcan't really see, but this is,
you know, just a nice, cleanresidential system. You know,
(36:52):
you can see the degrees we theroof is tilted at. And then the
final picture just looks nice.
We fit up his roof reallynicely, and the setup was just
clean. I like the look of itjust because the house was red
and the tree behind it had alittle red color, but it's just
(37:15):
a nice clean, yeah, Southlooking system. Our pricing is
in the mid to upper twos rightnow, but we're getting a little
bit better and a little tighter.
Yeah, we're
Tim Montague (37:24):
$3 resi solar in Massachusetts. Where is this?
Rhode Island? No
John Weaver (37:29):
mass. We're all mass. South Coast, definitely,
definitely under three bucks.
All of our proposals, unless youhave a premium module and en
phase, we're holding them belowthree. So that's a project of
the week. So I liked it. It'sjust kind of interesting to
learn getting a little we'regetting a little better as a
team, moving through residentialas we relaunch whaling city, and
it's kind of nice. So we get ina sad note, or we could end on
(37:53):
that beautiful note we get. Wecould end on a happy technology
note, a sad note, you're talking
Tim Montague (38:01):
about Meyer burger,
John Weaver (38:03):
damn it. Tim, you brought it up. Well, we've,
we've always
Tim Montague (38:07):
been fanboys of Meyer burger. No, I don't, I
don't think it's the end ofMeyer burger in the US, but
it's, it's, it's, it is a sadday. They announced that they're
going to close their solar panelfactory in the US. You
John Weaver (38:21):
want to go take it over, Tim, maybe they'll let us
do it. Yeah, right. I mean,they, they got Meyer burger
hardware there for make firstassembly modules. We got trained
staff. They've been deployingsome modules, I believe, got 100
million bucks.
Tim Montague (38:42):
Yeah, right. And no, yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it
is sad to think about all themoney that's getting invested in
the United States, in the solarpanel factories, battery
factories, and a lot of it maynot see the light of day, or may
get shut down after it'sproducing, yeah, because
(39:03):
Congress kills the IRA. I mean,it's very good industrial
policy. We want manufacturingback, and the solar and storage
industries are a way to getmanufacturing back in the US. I
don't, I don't understand that.
It boggles the mind. So we'llbe, we'll be back with our live
(39:27):
news roundup on the 13th ofJune. Mid June. It's, it's
starting to be middle of summer.
And with that, I want to say,check out all of our content at
cleanpowerhour.com Tell a friendabout the show. By all means,
(39:47):
there are so few people, in thegreater scheme of things, who
know the Clean Power Hourexists. So tell a friend. Oh, we
now have merch on our website.
So if you go tocleanpowerhour.com you can go to
a shop or. Link, you can get anice Nike polo, all kinds of
shirts, hats, jackets, bags witha clean power hour logo. How can
(40:08):
I listeners find you? John
John Weaver (40:13):
commercialguy.com, that's our main website. That's
where all the good stuff mostlygets shared. Then there's our
cell phone numbers, which youcan call us any time of the day,
because we like to hang outlisten to our cell phones
constantly. Yeah, you know, I'mon blue sky all the time on
(40:34):
LinkedIn. You know, we have anoffice in New Bedford,
commercialsolarguy.com, that'sthe easiest, easiest, quickest
place. I'm John atcommercialsolarguy.com
Tim Montague (40:44):
There you go. And
John Weaver (40:45):
you know, that's it. So we like to build stuff.
It's really nice. We like tobuild solar carports where we
just know the process, you know,pieces of it, big pieces of it.
So,
Tim Montague (40:58):
all right, we'll see you in two weeks. I'm Tim
Montague, let's grow solar andstorage. Take care. John Yep.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.