Next Generation Battery Storage with David Florenz | EP282 - Clean Power Hour

Episode Transcript
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David Florenz (00:00):
But yeah, so what I've been doing is just
basically explaining thedifference, and a lot of the
difference is really how we haveit modular, how it's each of our
PCs is they're 200 kilowatt.
Each of them is tied to abattery rack, so it gives the
project more resiliency. Andwe've been seeing more from
IPPS, or any, anybody that'sgoing to end up owning the

(00:21):
project. Their interest levelincreases when they realize that
it's not a centralizedtransformer skid, it's, it's
decentralized, right,distributed. And so basically,
when you have, when it comes todifferent parts too, and I'm
thinking just about O and M.

(00:42):
That's another thing that theyreally like, because it makes O
and M super simple.

intro (00:46):
Are you speeding the energy transition here at the
Clean Power Hour, our host, TimMontague, bring you the best in
solar, batteries and cleantechnologies every week. Want to
go deeper into decarbonization.
We do too. We're here to helpyou understand and command the
commercial, residential andutility, solar, wind and storage
industries. So let's get to ittogether. We can speed the

(01:08):
energy transition.

Tim Montague (01:12):
We're here at inner solar San Diego, and I'm
with David Florenz in the CPSbooth. Welcome to the Clean
Power Hour, David, thank you.
Thank you. Tim, it's great tohave you on the show. Yeah,
great to be here. How did youget into the solar industry?
Well,

it was about 12 years ago. Now, I started on the
residential side and worked forsome companies that, you know,
people know Vivint and then Sunrun and all that. And so I did
do civil engineering back in theday, and that's what kind of
ended up getting me interestedinto the renewable sector and

(01:47):
but yeah, I, I, I've been on thesales side. I've helped with
with, you know, some design andall that, but very, very light.
And now I'm at CPS, and I loveit.

I mean, you really could, with your experience, you
could work at any number ofsolar manufacturing companies.
Why did you choose to come toCPS and sell three phase string
inverters and grid scalestorage?

I guess, I guess it's the relationship that I
built. I we met back when I wasat, runnergy here at these trade
shows. But then I made a move toastronergy, which is our sister
company. And from there, I gotthe opportunity to meet Brian,
the president of the company,Brian Wagner, and just seeing

(02:35):
the team, and just, you know,seeing how they were, how
they're, just the culture there,I could tell there was something
different, something special,and and then learning more and
more about them. Because, like,like I said, I came from the
residential and I feel, likemany residential installers,
they actually don't know muchabout CPS right now more and

(02:57):
more. But really, there's a lotof them that just don't know the
brand

sure, because they're not dealing with three
phase string. They're dealingwith single phase you do, and
now have a single phase product,but it's kind of apples and
oranges, right? But what is itthat you do? What is your niche
within CPS? Within

CPS, I'm focused on what I've been focused on for
for a few years now, with on theon the PV module side, which is
the utility utility scale. Andso I'm doing utility scale, but
on the ESS battery side, sothat's that's mainly been the
focus, plus the PV utilityproducts that we have for the

(03:35):
inverters the with thecentralized wire boxes and
distributed wire boxes as well.

So CPS has a five megawatt hour battery. Now we're
looking at that, a model of thatcontainer here. One of the cool
things, I think, is that you area soup to nuts, manufacturer and
integrator, everything, but thecell is a CPS product, and
that's pretty unusual. But whathas the reception been so far in

(04:05):
the market

with our product?
As you know, utility takes time.
All right, we have some reallygreat opportunities, some that
were designed into but like Isaid, I started about six months
ago. So two, three years to, youknow, really three years until
we'll see, you know, some ofthese start landing in the

(04:26):
market, some ERCOT, differentplace, California, different
utilities there, but, but, yeah.
So what I've been doing is justbasically explaining the
difference. And a lot of thedifference is really how we have
it modular. How it's each of ourPCs is they're 200 kilowatt.
Each of them is tied to abattery rack, so it gives the

(04:46):
project more resiliency. Andwe've been seeing more from
IPPS, or any, anybody that'sgoing to end up owning the
project, their interest levelincreases when they realize that
it's not a. Centralizedtransformer skid, it's, it's
decentralized, right,distributed. And so basically,
when you have, when it comes todifferent parts too, and I'm

(05:12):
thinking it's just about O andM, that's another thing that
they really like, because itmakes O M super simple, where,
if there is an issue, you cantake out just one of these,
right? That's bad. One of thePCS is and then swap it out. And
a lot of times you'll just haveit on site. But going back to
the resiliency, if one goes out,you just have one rack down. And

(05:34):
that's very different thanwhat's been out there, what's
been installed, especially it'sa big difference, especially if
you're doing a four hourduration, because this this
right here, as you see, it is atwo hour duration. You would
take this other battery, packthis five megawatt hour, put
another one right here, or youcan do it side to side, right
and then that becomes a fourhour duration. And so if your

(05:56):
transformer, centralized skidgoes out, you have two
batteries, two containers,that's 10 megawatt hours
decommissioned, not, notworking, right? And so, so we
see importance in that. Again,going back to resiliency of the
project, it's just somethingthat we see the owners of these
projects really, really seeingthe value of it, but Right? It

(06:19):
takes time. It's not like, oh,let's, let's do it tomorrow,
right? Sure. I

mean, we're talking about a multi million
dollar sale for one thing andbut I'm curious, the grid, scale
storage market is certainly wellknown in California, Hawaii,
Texas. What are you seeing interms of uptake and quotes for
projects at the grid, scale,storage,

those, those are the states you're absolutely
right. Hawaii, I sharebasically. So there's, there's
someone else that helped.
Obviously, everybody wants towork Hawaii, right? But
California, but Texas isdefinitely the one that the
quotes come in. You know,basically week after week
there's, you know, smaller,smaller projects, right? Lots of

(07:10):
standalone battery projects.
There's, there's some that areDC only, where we would only
offer our five megawatt hour sothat those still we have the an
opportunity there.

But yeah, explain that to me. How does that work?
A DC only battery, yeah, so it'snot grid tied at all.

Basically, like I was saying with the centralized
skid, they're wanting it to be adc, dc to dc, connected this.
This is AC to DC. So basically,where, where it'll tie in,
straight into the PB as well onthe project, right?

But is it a behind the meter application, then, or
front of the meter?

It's, it's behind the meter, most of them, yeah,
from what I'm seeing. And, likeI said, I'm still relatively new
so and those, those are theprojects that I I don't end up
getting too, too in the weedswith, because we're only
offering our our five megawatthour. The ones that I do,
though, are the ones where we'redoing the AC, where they're

(08:20):
looking for AC couple, and a lotof those are our projects where
the PV has already, you know,been installed, or standalone.
That's where we see thebasically retrofit, where
they're adding storage theproject to an existing project,
or or just the standalone, yeah,I

think we're going to see a lot of retrofitting in
storage to existing solar farmsfrom anything, you know, two
megawatts and up. But David inour last minute together, what
else should our listeners knowabout you and CPS? I,

my title is utility, but with ESS and with
CPS being so so focused in C&Ifor so many years, eight years
in a row now, number one marketshare in the US. We have a lot
of customers, lot of repeatcustomers, that are interested
in storage for C&I. And that'sbeen especially here, and you've

(09:16):
seen it in inner solar. It'sthere's been a lot of interest
in our C&I, our new one. This isbrand new. I just saw yesterday,
right? 125, 261, kilowatt hourC&I solution. It could be also
for a four hour duration. Youcan go to a 62.5, but that's
something that if you have anyprojects interested in, for C&I,

(09:41):
not only will we be able toobviously offer you the unit,
but we have great expertise withour engineering team, also our
software side for the energymanagement system, EMS, we're
helping, helping, basicallyteach anybody that needs help
with proposals, with understand.
And how, how your end customercan really find savings and

(10:02):
really make sense of why theyshould or could right benefit
from our C&I that solution,

yeah, thank you.
Check out all of our content atcleanpowerhour.com Give us a
rating and review on Apple andSpotify and follow us on
YouTube. David, how can ourlisteners find you? I'm

on LinkedIn.
David Florenz, you can, you canemail me as well. I believe I
have it on there, but David dotFlorenz, F, l, O, R, E, N, Z,
at, Chintpower.com. Yeah, reachout and I'm happy to help. I'm

Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. I.

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Next Generation Battery Storage with David Florenz | EP282

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