In the latest Clean Power Hour Live Episode on May 2nd, Tim Montague and John Weaver dive into the latest developments in the renewable energy sector. The conversation kicks off with an analysis of the recent major power outage in Spain and France, exploring how solar inverter technology may have contributed to the grid collapse and how battery storage solutions could prevent similar events in the future.
The hosts also discuss exciting technological advancements in solid-state batteries, exploring Narada Power's new 783 amp-hour cell that packs 8.3 megawatt-hours of storage into a single shipping container.
Episode Highlights:
- Spanish Grid Collapse Analysis (https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/09/24/odessa-disturbance-highlights-troubling-gaps-in-solar-reliability/)
- Double Black Diamond Solar Farm (https://wirepoints.org/first-look-at-massive-illinois-solar-farm-powering-chicago-abc7-chicago/)
- Rooftop Innovation in DC (https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/1k8hxx7/our_panels_arrived/)
- Utility-Scale Automation (https://bsky.app/profile/commercialsolarguy.com/post/3lnsryrkkts25)
- Solid State Battery Breakthrough (https://www.ess-news.com/2025/04/25/narada-power-launches-783-ah-cell-8-3-mwh-solid-state-battery/)
- Balcony Solar Revolution (https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/04/25/balcony-solar-comes-to-california/)
- Solar Tariff Impacts (https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/nextera-beats-profit-expectations-rate-hikes-robust-power-demand-2025-04-23/)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim Montague (00:00):
Welcome to the Clean Power Hour. Live. Today is
May the second 2025 bringing youthe latest in solar, wind and
battery storage news with my cohost, John Weaver, welcome to
the show.
John Weaver (00:13):
Hello, Tim. I hope you're having a good day. Like
your picture in the background.
That's cool solar project. Iwant to have a cool solar
project like that one of thesedays
Tim Montague (00:22):
that's parking College, just a college, very a
mile and a half from my house. Ibid that project, but did not
get to build it, but it's alovely project, and my drone ate
it up a couple years ago on alovely, I think it was a fall
day, but it was one of the firstlarge behind the meter projects
(00:44):
in Illinois. This was like 2018,
John Weaver (00:48):
megawatts. See, two megawatts,
Tim Montague (00:51):
two megawatts AC, it's a PPA. So didn't cost the
college anything. You know, theysaved 10% on their energy. It's
a good thing.
John Weaver (01:03):
Nice project. But
Tim Montague (01:05):
it is, it is. So I hear you're going to Iceland,
John Weaver (01:14):
yes. So this week, I will, tomorrow, I will be
flying to Europe. I was planningon flying, and I didn't realize
something was going on. I didn'tknow this was in a solar week,
Tim next week. So I was planningon flying to PV magazines 10th
anniversary event, which is onTuesday, because they invited me
(01:35):
and in Munich, on a littleisland that they're having a
little party. And then on theway back, I was going to stop in
Iceland and do something coolinstead, I just realized,
because you told me, Tim, thatthe second half of the trip is
actually into solar Europe. Sonow I'm going to try and go to
the airport a little early andsee if, instead of tonight,
(02:01):
switching and going to Europe, Ijust stop and stay in Iceland
today. So yeah, so there we go.
I think you just changed myvacation for the positive, and I
owe you beer, Timothy, and Ithink that means I'll be at
inner solar next week, whichwould be sweet. Well,
Tim Montague (02:15):
it kind of explains why PV magazine is
doing their Shindig, yes, atthis time. Also, right?
John Weaver (02:22):
Absolutely. I assume that inner solar was in
the in the summer months, Juneish, but they also had that big
festival, the biggest one, theworld's biggest show, that's in
Shanghai, I believe Beijing.
It's the S N, E, C, proud show.
So, so maybe they moved in. Allright, so, yeah, so I'll be at
(02:44):
inner solar next week. Thanks,Tim, appreciate that.
Tim Montague (02:49):
That's so that's so funny. Yes, yes, yes, but
it's good to be able to beflexible. Yeah, absolutely.
John Weaver (02:58):
All right, so you got new giant project, 800
megawatts. I think it's thelargest east of the Mississippi
or eastern US. I know
Tim Montague (03:07):
that claim, that claim, is a good claim, but
it's, I don't think it'saccurate, because, but, but
anyway, this is what you see onscreen. Is a solar farm just
east of Springfield, Illinois,30 miles east of Springfield,
called double black diamond.
It's an 800 megawatt solarproject. It's a very unique
(03:28):
project John because it's builtin Ameren territory, okay, in
central Illinois, but the poweris being purchased by the city
of Chicago and several other offtakers, but the city is buying a
large percent of the power topower their municipal
facilities. So now the city, Ithink, can claim that, and this
includes the airports, MidwayAirport and O'Hare Airport are
(03:51):
now solar powered with this Icall it a sleeve through PPA.
I'm not sure if that's accurate,but the project is in Ameren,
but the off takers are in comed.
And so this is, this is, this isa great example of what you
know, utilities can do when theycooperate with solar developers
(04:15):
and municipalities like the cityof Chicago.
John Weaver (04:21):
Is this a trick this? But this is a pure
transmission project, right?
Tim Montague (04:26):
No, this is a, it's a, so it's a solar project,
but the it's a front of themeter solar project, right? So
the power is just going on thegrid and getting used wherever
it's getting used, but it'sbeing metered and then through
virtual PPAs, they're sellingthe power to the city of
Chicago.
John Weaver (04:46):
So if this is a transmission level project and
they're connecting it to thewholesale market, they can sign
wholesale agreements and wheelthe electricity through various
regions pretty easily. I. Um,the you'd be, you know, it's
probably not being managed byAmeren at all. In fact, it's
(05:08):
probably just going straight. Isthat peak? Well, it's,
Tim Montague (05:11):
it's unique. Think about it, though, because Ameren
is in miso and comed is in PJM,
John Weaver (05:18):
oh, well, see that's more interesting. Yeah,
so it's over. That's twodifferent, two
Tim Montague (05:23):
different RTOS or ISOs,
John Weaver (05:26):
because emeralds probably not messing with it,
though, because they're adistribution level, they don't
really, they buy and manage fromWholesale, but they don't really
deal with the wholesale same asnow comed might help the company
purchase theirs through thewholesale market, but, but I get
it crossing over the ISOterritories, that's pretty cool.
(05:49):
Yeah. So 800 megawatts, that's abig project. Were you? Do you
know any groups thatparticipated in the construction
of this? Because you're prettyclose to this site,
Tim Montague (05:58):
yeah, you know it's only it's about two hours
from my house, I have not gottento visit the site yet. Swift
Current is the Swift Current.
Energy is the developer. I thinkMcCarthy was the EPC. And you
know this, this, these pressreleases claim that it's the
largest project east of theMississippi. But they forget
about mammoth solar in Indiana,which is a 1.2 gigawatt solar
(06:21):
farm, which I think may be stillunder construction. Yeah, that's
not gonna have to go with that.
It's not complete yet. Okay, somaybe that's how they make that
claim. But it's, it's going tobe nipping at their heels and
eclipsing them here prettyquickly, but, but anyway, it's
nothing to sneeze at. It's notevery day you get an 800
(06:43):
megawatt DC solar farm in yourbackyard, and they're using
first solar solar panels. Sodomestic solar panels, I believe
it's next tracker racking and,yeah, it's just a good it's a
good thing. I love it that thecity of Chicago is buying so
(07:05):
much clean energy. And, youknow, I mean this, this solar
farm could power something like40,000 homes. I think it's a lot
of juice. So, good story.
John Weaver (07:19):
We like it. So, I'm sure you're paying attention to
what happened in Spain, to somedegree, I
Tim Montague (07:27):
am, and I'm so confused. Okay, so everybody
listening to this knows therewas a major outage this week in
power outage in Spain andFrance, um, but nobody seems to
know what happened,
John Weaver (07:45):
right? So technically, I still don't know
why. The only thing I've beenhearing about is that there were
voltage variations going backthree hours, back to 9am plus or
minus, a really big number. Andit's been said for a while that
the HVDC, the high voltageconnection that's coming across
(08:08):
from France, might have hadsomething to do with this, the
fact that they only had one, andthey've been getting a lot of
attention about this. This isbringing up the wrong story,
though. Somehow, nope, nope.
This is the right story? Oh, itis right, yes. Um, so this event
started early in the morning,then in the middle of the day,
something bigger happened. Andsome there were two events.
(08:31):
There were two grid collapseevents. The first grid collapse
is really small, lasted amillisecond, but, you know, a
couple of power plants fell offthe power grid, and it was
probably because of this voltageharmonics thing. Someone else
said a power line might havegotten too hot, and that can
happen, and this triggered acouple of power plants to drop,
(08:52):
and that messed up the gridvoltage a whole bunch then. And
this is the key that matters,and that's why this,
Tim Montague (09:01):
Article matters.
This is a legacy story aboutTexas, right? 2021
John Weaver (09:07):
yes, there's the Odessa disturbance. Then 13
gigawatts of solar capacitydropped out, and we might know
why, and that's in my opinion,even though I'm the solar
evangelist, that's actually thebiggest piece of thing to deal
with in this piece of news, atleast for us, because the solar
(09:32):
piece, the solar hypothetically,should have been able to what's
called ride through Thedisturbance. However,
apparently, back in the day,this is now starting to get
above my head. But if you readthis article and go to the
sources of the NERC reportthat's associated with this, you
can get really nerdy. Tim, like,totally like words that I don't
(09:55):
even know exist. Yes, so there'sthese timers. Instead of riding
through the event that lastsmilliseconds, that's getting
repaired by big spinningthermals, a lot of solar
inverters from back in the day,I guess, to protect themselves,
would shut off and say, okay,when the grid comes back up in
(10:15):
five minutes, we'll be good. Andin Odessa, that's what happened
most inverters, like a, assert,like a, I believe, a gas power
plant switched off. And if youscroll up, you can see where the
gas power plant switched off inthe image, that red dot right in
the middle, and all those plantsaround had a reaction, and they
(10:35):
all flickered. The red ones shutdown, and they didn't come back
up. I believe in Spain, whichhas an older fleet than Texas, a
larger percentage fell down. Andin fact, 50% of the grids
generating capacity disappeared.
And I think that led to acumulative effect, and at the
end of it, I think that leadsto, like, 0% of the Spanish grid
(10:58):
being up and not because ofsolar. However, a nuance of
solar may have extended it andmade it worse, and and one of
the solutions is batteries, youknow, that's, you know, you got
to flicker. And so that Odessaarticle is about it. We think
(11:18):
the Tesla battery in 2017 mayhave stopped Australia from
having an event like this, andso, because it reacts to these
grid fluctuations, these this
Tim Montague (11:35):
is the latest theory on the Spanish outage.
John Weaver (11:39):
This is not necessarily. It may be the
latest. Yeah, it may be. It'swhat I got. How's that? I don't
know what the latest is. I'mpretty cool, Tim, but I don't
always know what's going on.
Tim Montague (11:50):
I think it's the Russians myself, but I don't
know.
John Weaver (11:57):
You know what? You know. Put it this way, all I
know is I don't know where theoscillation started, but I know
I painted a picture of whathappened afterwards. And yeah,
and I think the solar has some,some of some quality checking to
do. It's my opinion, and alittle piece of nuance that's
(12:19):
being latched on to and we gotto manage it. And this is the
key reason you gotta good. Thisis the key reason we gotta stay
on top of this and really knowwhat happened is that a lot of
folks are now latching on torenewables being the cause of
this. And it's not it's otherstuff on the grid. But batteries
(12:42):
that have the ability to do gridfor me, they fix the issue.
General batteries can fix theissue. And there's something
else I wanted to say on thisone, but we'll get there. It's
it's a big thing. The grids backup. It's working. We need to be
conscious of it. We need to stayon top of these issues and fix
them. Part of our it's part ofour responsibility now that we
(13:03):
run the big grid, yeah.
Tim Montague (13:06):
Should we talk about robots? We
John Weaver (13:08):
like robots.
Timothy, I just wanted to playthis one so that this one was
just another live luminous robotthat looked really cool, and it
was also, it was associated withan article underneath it. Yeah?
So this is, I just play thisvideo, but then we can also
scroll to the article below. ButI just love seeing how smoothly,
maybe you have to go to thebeginning, where they're not
(13:30):
showing the people, yeah, therewe go. Just
Tim Montague (13:34):
so we're looking at, we're looking at the Lumi
three luminous robot. Well, thatyou and I got to see, well, you
and I got to see this in Bostonat re plus Boston. But
John Weaver (13:46):
we saw the big one.
We with the bigger battery. Thatwas the smaller one. Oh, this is
the older battery. Yeah, I just,I just saw them again on the
internet. Yeah, there we go. Ijust wanted to see him swoosh.
Ah, look at that. Look how cool.
That is. Cool to watch, cool towatch on the very Alright. So
now scroll down a tiny bit, andI just wanted to point out this
(14:07):
one, another company, anothertechnique, similar piece of
hardware. There's some I didn'thave any good videos on them,
but if you scroll up just a tinybit, they had some nice data
that's on the system. It did a10,000 module install, standard
height single access tracker. Asyou can see, it does 480 modules
(14:27):
a day. No, that's, that's theirpitch. That's good number.
Tim Montague (14:32):
What is, what does a team of humans do?
John Weaver (14:37):
100 okay? I mean, I don't know about doing them on
single, single access trackers.
But I know with my companies,when we do a bid, we got a team
of four with a manager trollingaround doing other stuff and
helping. And team of four does75 to 100 modules in a tough
place. We do 75 in a normalplace, we do 100 so for that so
so the robots are coming. Thatled me to a question, Tim, and
(15:00):
I'd love to hear Chris and othersmart people, what are the big
opportunities for saving moneyand solar utility scale? Maybe
home in the future. And the twothat come to my mind are utility
scale, it's installation andthen module efficiency. And I
say that because I'm alwaysexcited about perovskites.
(15:21):
Perovskites, perovskites, youknow, we're gonna have a 34%
module and a 45% module, maybefor regular folks, and that's
gonna drop the priceeffectively, because you have
more wattage for the samematerial, by like 20% by like
30% and another 15 so we mightsee, like, the price drop by 50%
(15:45):
total. Just just from those two,or just from efficiency, that's
it. Not even installationtechniques or life length, or
anything. So I don't know thoseare. Those are the two I came up
with high voltage. I hear abouthigh voltage stuff, and then I
hear about medium voltage goingstraight to 13,000 KV, and so
skipping, skipping a transformerlevel. That must be some really
(16:10):
long solar strings or something,I don't know, maybe combiner
boxes, 13 combines of 13 stringsof 1000 volts or but, uh, 2000
volt systems are coming now.
Well,
Tim Montague (16:23):
Dean Solan, Dean Solon, you know who was at that
event that we were at in inBoston, is inventing a 3000 volt
333, 1000 volt solar module.
He's going to skip too right?
Today, they're 1500 volt forground mount, and tomorrow
(16:43):
they're going to be 2000 voltbut he's just skipping it and
going to three.
John Weaver (16:48):
There's two in the field. I think one company like
jinko, like jinko, has a 2000volt line because they're, you
know, they have the whole supplychain or something. But at least
that's all that I've heardabout. So, so 3000 so I guess
that's just really long stringsand less line loss, thicker
(17:10):
copper, though, on the DC side.
So more cost and copper, butlong strings, fewer combiners,
fewer inverters. I can seethat's a couple of pennies. You
know that's pennies you'redropping off. It's pretty neat.
3000 volts. Chris, Chris, yougot to tell us some ideas.
Tim Montague (17:30):
I think we lost Chris.
John Weaver (17:32):
He's working. He's got a job. He's probably on the
call with the boss, selling somemodules. Chris sells solar
modules, everybody. So we everneed some modules? Chris,
letman, he's good at it. Some
Tim Montague (17:41):
very nice solar modules from Imperial Star. We
like the Imperial Star, solarmodules made in Texas, and using
American made solar cells too,right? And
John Weaver (17:56):
by the way, everybody Chris doesn't pay us
to say that. We just like Chris.
So that's why it's
Tim Montague (18:01):
good to have a solar panel Guru in your midst.
John Weaver (18:05):
Sure,
Tim Montague (18:07):
that's true. I mean, you're pretty much a guru
yourself, John, but Chris makeshis living selling solar
modules. So it's kind of nextlevel, yep. Should we talk about
NextEra
John Weaver (18:20):
terrace and next era. Man, absolutely, tariffs.
Tim Montague (18:25):
I'm so sick of tariffs. I think, I think we all
are, and we're only gettingstarted.
John Weaver (18:33):
So we got a project with a battery being installed
up here in Boston, $300,000tariff on a 1.5 megawatt hour
battery. Effectively, 200kilowatt hours is what the cost
of that tariff is on our batteryand and that so that really is
(18:53):
like, Oh, it hurts. It'spainful. I don't know what's
gonna happen with it, but that'sour new price. 300 G's, man,
that's, that's, that's ourreality. And so it brought me
about this company, next era,and and I was just really
interested when I read thisarticle on them, because they're
(19:13):
just, you know, seven stepsahead, ahead of us. I mean,
that's what you can do whenyou're worth X, hundreds of
billions of dollars, you know,the largest utility, I guess, in
the US, by far in terms ofmarket cap. And they said they
believe by properly doingcontracting and setting
documentation up, they've cuttheir trade risk from 150 to 150
(19:40):
million out of $75 billion incapital expenditures. And so
yes, they could have issues withimport tariffs on their goods.
However they expect of those $75billion only, point. Point 2% of
(20:02):
their stuff might get hit. Theysaid, You see, there's a chance
of getting zero. As we know,they have a factory with
modules. I'm sure they haveother module factories that
they're partnering within theUnited States. I'm sure they
have massive volume with
Tim Montague (20:18):
first, their solar panel partner. At
John Weaver (20:21):
one point, they had a module factory with jinko in
Jacksonville, Florida, okay, butwho knows? I mean, they probably
white label stuff from whomeverthey want. You know, their next
era, um, they, they wanted thesefactories. There's, like,
apparently, there's 50 megawattsof module assembly capacity in
the United States. Tim, ifthat's the case, we have enough
(20:45):
to cover all of our modules, andthat'd be cool. I mean, we don't
have all the cells yet. We don'thave all the wafers, but people
like NextEra, they're fightinghard, and what that also tells
me is that next era is not goingto be on our side when it comes
to fighting back against thetariffs, because they don't have
to worry about it. They're notgoing to lobby for tariffs now.
What they will lobby for is theinflation Reduction Act, and
(21:10):
there's ongoing negotiationsright now. I'm starting to see
headlines. Tim, yeah, and sothis is the week where you start
drinking, and next week is whenit's really going to start to
hit the fan. So I'm glad I'mgoing to be traveling somewhere
else, and I guess I'm going toguess I'm going to in a inner
solar I
Tim Montague (21:28):
think you'll be able to get a beer. Yeah,
John Weaver (21:31):
definitely.
Alright, flipping my triparound. Gotta call. Gotta call
the Iceland people, see ifthey'll let me do that. That
should work. All I gotta do isjust get off the plane, you
know, and I don't have to getback on, but I need to get a
hotel room in Iceland fortonight, Tim or tomorrow,
Tim Montague (21:49):
or you can stay right at the airport. There's
hotels right by the airport,alright, cool. There's also
volcanos. Watch out, yes, yes.
John Weaver (21:59):
Don't fall in them.
You uh,
Tim Montague (22:05):
your solar panels arrived. What kind of solar
panels Did you buy?
John Weaver (22:09):
So technically, I didn't buy these. Customer did,
um, I think there's a Zn, Oh,yeah. So both. Go back again. Go
back. You just clicking throughsome real important stuff there.
Tim,
Tim Montague (22:22):
it's a boring pilot of modules. Come on,
brother.
John Weaver (22:25):
Tim, what's that thing off to the right, though,
that's a parapet wall. No.
Timothy, up one inch. Oh, thecapital of the United States.
There you go. That's it. This isdowntown DC. Oh, cool. It's on
top of a 3040, story building,20 No, 26 story building, FBI
building is nearby. They had toget clearance from the FBI. I
(22:45):
think if you click on the image,you can still float to the next
let's see if we can get a bigone. Yeah, there we go. So
that's the US capital buildingin the background. That's pretty
cool picture. All right,
Tim Montague (22:58):
so building a project in DC,
John Weaver (23:00):
yeah? Well, no, we're a consultant support
feasibility. We help findcontractors. We help bring it
forward. Actually, a very goodfriend of ours, Tim, it's Mark
at Universal renewables. Is itmark? It is Mark. I think Mark
at Universal renewables. Arethey the
Tim Montague (23:19):
guys that do that funky
John Weaver (23:22):
rooftop carports.
Yeah. Mark Valentin, I know MarkValentine. We all know Mark. So
Mark is building this project.
This is his. We help bring himin on it. Help move it forward.
He's been putting a lot of hardwork. Man. He got the town, the
town, the town of DC, to givehim some code changes because he
(23:43):
had to be set back four feet.
But as we go through theseimages, we're going to see a
cool picture or two of how he'sattaching this rooftop covered
pathway, so a carportessentially on the roof. And so
check out that picture that isthe Washington Monument in the
background. So another coolangle from downtown, so solar
plus DC. Man, all right, so nowyou get your Zn shine nozzles.
(24:06):
What's next? So we're going todo a partial system that's going
to lay flat on the roof, on thismaterial, and then the other is
going to be on the coveredParkway. And I, I think these
two silver pieces coming up arethe foundation pieces, steel
beams going up. Yeah,
Tim Montague (24:25):
these guys are real. Are real experts at
attached it's, it's like acarport, but it's, it's not as
tall as a carport, obviously,now just tall enough to go over
all that equipment, so that youcan actually solarize that roof,
which usually would, you know,be able to get very little solar
because there's so manyobstructions. So that's why
these guys have carved out aniche for themselves. And I
(24:50):
think there's generousincentives in DC right now,
right? Yeah,
John Weaver (24:54):
they get a really strong s rack, really strong s
correct? Like, like, 40. Like440
Tim Montague (25:01):
you need that. You need that to do this kind of
solar, right? Because this isnot cheap.
John Weaver (25:05):
No, sir, no, this, this took a lot of work. I think
you're gonna see some lifts. Imean, they had to shut down
streets in Washington, DC. Ithink the President had to come
by and sign off himself. Yeah.
So, you know, there's themonument again, there's the
gear, some of the some of thesteel. You can see the hardware
that's going into the roof rightnow. You can start to see how
(25:27):
close they are to the edge ofthe roof. This is one of the
challenges. This is a walkway.
So this is going to be coveredwalkway. They're gonna, maybe
they'll do something with thosebricks. I'm not sure. I saw some
markups earlier that made itlook pretty. But this is where
it took a lot of time to get thecity to approve the design,
because we're within four feetof the edge. And from a visual
(25:49):
standpoint, they didn't wantanything hanging over and, you
know, also, from a riskstandpoint, you don't want stuff
hanging over the edge of your
Tim Montague (25:57):
building. Yeah, is that the high edge or the low
edge. Do you think
John Weaver (26:02):
it's, well, it's either flat or that's the low
edge, but I think it's flat. Isthe
Tim Montague (26:09):
building north of the Capitol?
John Weaver (26:13):
No, but it super close. I think it's, it might
be, actually, as
Tim Montague (26:18):
if we're looking south and that's the low edge.
Yeah,
John Weaver (26:22):
I think that's the South. I think we're looking
west southwest right here. So Ithink we're looking toward like,
I think the main building, theWhite House, would be to your
right, or right south, right,whatever. Yeah, all right, so
that, so that's the coveredpathway that we're going to
(26:44):
cover, because people go upthere and hang out. Yeah? So
there's going to be solar that'sgoing to connect on top of the
wall to the right, and that's, Ithink it's four panels across.
And then you could,
Tim Montague (26:57):
you get a, oh, yeah, some bird's eye view. But
you, you didn't get any dronephotos.
John Weaver (27:03):
Well, these weren't my pictures, but I'm there.
Might be there. I'm I, you knowwhat? I doubt you're allowed to
fly too many drones. Yeah, nextto the FBI, right? A few blocks
from the White House. Tim,that's a cool show. If you do,
yeah, and if you do Fly Dronethere. It's gonna be found very
quickly.
Tim Montague (27:25):
Yeah, it's probably the no fly zone. The
drone probably won't even takeoff.
John Weaver (27:31):
That's good point.
Yeah, so I'm not on site. Thisis being taken by the site
manager. His name is Mark Lyons,really smart guy, very
determined to move this through,yeah, shutting down roads in DC.
Man, do
Tim Montague (27:46):
you know how many kW the project is? 193 nice.
Yeah,
John Weaver (27:51):
so I was really happy to be part of that. Met
Valentine. He's a smart guy. Heknows his stuff.
Tim Montague (27:56):
Yeah? I mean, if they didn't do that unique,
attached carport style racking,it would be less than half of
that, right? There's, there'sjust no way you could get even
100 KW on that roof. So manyobstructions. We call that
obstructionosity. I think
John Weaver (28:16):
it's cool. I haven't done one of those
projects directly, but now I'mgetting to see it, and it's just
kind of neat to that they'redoing that kind of solution.
State of Massachusetts isoffering a potential incentive
for that product in their nextsmart three program. So roof,
what's the terminology they havefor it? It's the different
(28:38):
thing. It's not carport. Theyuse a different word, but roof,
roof something. So anyway, neatproject downtown DC, project of
the week mark, Valentine. USrenewable, universal renewables,
nice.
Tim Montague (28:55):
Yeah, I remember.
I remember, I took a photo oftheir booth for you at the RE
plus
John Weaver (29:00):
Boston. Yeah, I was really happy you did.
Tim Montague (29:03):
So should we, should we talk about solid state
batteries?
John Weaver (29:07):
Big, solid state battery cells. You found a
Tim Montague (29:11):
story in ESS news, ESS news, that's not the PV
magazine. It is. It is, okay.
It's
John Weaver (29:20):
yeah, it's within the TV Magazine. They recently
launched. Yes, recently launchedabsolutely
Tim Montague (29:27):
all right, I'll get this on screen. We've been
hearing a lot about solid statebatteries. It's like we heard a
lot about them back in 2020during the pandemic, like
Volkswagen was all in and thenthey kind of went quiet, right?
But now sounds like they'regetting traction, because I know
some of the automakers are areinvesting in them now.
John Weaver (29:48):
So Solid State did the technology curve, like a lot
of things, it's like, oh my god,we got this new idea. This is
coming. Oh, it's so beautiful.
Amazing, amazing. Okay, oh. Wegotta figure out how to do it.
All right, let's do it. Let's doit. Let's do it. Okay, okay,
okay. Oh my god, this sucks.
It's terrible. What happened toall the wonderful Okay, now
we're gonna slowly progress.
That's called, like, the troughof disillusionment, yeah, where
(30:10):
people are like, Oh, that'strash, the headlines, where's
the real thing. But now it'sstarting to come out of it. This
might be the first solid stateutility scale product I've seen.
I don't know if it's a truesolid state the way people
believe it's going to beeventually. It could be early.
(30:31):
But the fact that it was onesolid state and two, well, I
guess three things, but two andthree are the same. The cell
it's a 783 Empire amp hour cell,which is like two it's 2000
volts, I guess, and it's like1.5 kilowatt hours. I mean, that
thing could run your house onebattery cell for, like, I don't
(30:54):
know, an hour or something,maybe. And then it's 8.3
megawatt hours for a single 20foot shipping container volume.
Tim Montague (31:05):
Yeah, that's a lot of storage in a single 20 foot
container. Yes,
John Weaver (31:09):
all those things coming together. It's like, holy
crap. What a cool, big utilityscale battery. And I hope we get
to build some. So
Tim Montague (31:17):
this story is called Narada power launches
783, amp hour cell, 8.3 megawatthour solid state battery. Ess
news, that's the PB magazine,news site by Marija mish. But
where is this project?
John Weaver (31:35):
Now this is just a product launch. Product Launch.
Product launch, yes, so scrolldown. Show us that big, pretty
cell. That thing is huge. Idon't know if this represents
what the actual cell size is.
How big is
Tim Montague (31:47):
that? Do you think? Uh, it's
John Weaver (31:49):
probably about a foot across, four inches wide,
six inches tall. And that's acell I see him on, yeah, that's
a cell that is a single cell.
They're getting huge.
Tim Montague (32:00):
That's as big as a module in a lithium ion, Ion
battery. Absolutely
John Weaver (32:06):
like back in the day, you know, where you said
cells that look like nine voltbatteries, right? You know,
double A, triple A batteries.
This is the modern cell in a ina battery. So this is what's
called a blade cell. And this, Ibelieve, I'm not 100% on it, but
I believe BYD was the first oneto move blade cells into cars,
(32:27):
maybe, C, A T L. There was arecent conversation, apparently,
between the CEO of Catal, C, A TL, and Tesla uh, Elon. And
apparently the ATL told Tesla,uh, hey, you're going the wrong
way with your 4860 batteries.
(32:49):
You just can't fit the samecapacity as us. Here's why. So
there's some tit tat back andforth. Oh, by the way, 10,000
cycles. So let's do a quick10,000 cycles. That's like
10,000 123, divided by 365, 27,years at one cycle a day divided
(33:10):
by two for 13.7 years at twocycles a day. So long, lasting
product that's dense, that'sbig, cutting edge. And these
utility scale batteries, I thinkare cool. So I'm following this
topic a lot because batterystorage is next. I mean, you saw
the biggest the best solution towhat happened in Spain is
(33:33):
batteries. And everybody's beenyelling at Spain, hey, you need
a little more responsibility foryour grid right now. They just
got a little busted in the news.
Type of event needs to bemanaged. Big grid batteries are
going to be it, and they'repriced. Well now,
Tim Montague (33:50):
Narada sounds in, uh, Indian, but it's a Chinese
company. Um,
John Weaver (33:58):
oh, no, I just saw another company with the same
size battery cell. So it's astandard that's coming. They're
all going to be like that. Ilike big batteries too.
Tim Montague (34:10):
Yeah, there's lot to like about big batteries. Um,
oh, they have an office in NorthAmerica too, in Newton,
Massachusetts, in Newton.
John Weaver (34:20):
Oh, I gotta go knock on the door. Okay, so 8.83
megawatt hours. So times one, Iknow how to price in kilowatt
hours. Now, let's say delivered.
It'd be 120 bucks. That's amillion dollar shipping
container. And then what's thethat's a million dollar shipping
container. I don't know what thetariff is. It's probably a
(34:41):
million dollars. Million dollartariff. So there you go. Instead
of, instead of being under $100per kilowatt hour for that unit,
it's gonna probably be somewherearound two, yeah, that's, uh,
we'll get there. Tim, keepfighting. Keep fighting. Yeah,
Tim Montague (35:00):
should we talk about balcony solar? Maybe we'll
close on that.
John Weaver (35:04):
That's good idea. I like that. Okay,
Tim Montague (35:07):
balcony solar comes to California by John
Fitzgerald Weaver in PVmagazine. What's the story,
John? We've talked about balconysolar not too long ago. I want
some balcony solar. I can't dorooftop solar because I have a
huge tree over my house, but Icould do some balcony solar off
my patio.
John Weaver (35:27):
You should interview these guys and ask
them questions on your show.
They like to do stuff, makethem, make them. They want to
get their gear out there too.
Not this company, but the onethey buy from. So let me tell
you about this. So
Tim Montague (35:41):
this company is brightsaver. Yes,
John Weaver (35:44):
brightsaver was founded in California right
around the start of the year,and it's a couple of guys who
had the idea to bring balconysolar to the United States. And
they started looking at thelaws, and they came up with the
idea that if they install asolar system that never exports
to the grid, then it's okay. Itdoesn't need permits
(36:07):
necessarily, right? And itdefinitely doesn't need
interconnection. That's whatthey're going with. And so they
found a company called craftstrong, I think it is, and I put
them on the document so we canlook at them next. But craft
strong, they they manufacturethis kit that has a little code
that hopefully reads the gridand says, up the house demand is
(36:29):
lower than the solar generation.
Let's fiddle with the PowerPointsettings in the inverter, and it
makes sure it never exports. Andthat's what they're building in
California. And so they've donelike 3040, 50. Of these systems
apparently think to like 1800ish dollars, and they do make
them have a unique circuit inthe electric panel, so that
(36:54):
there's no way to do this thingwhere you can have a lot of draw
on a circuit and a lot of energycoming in and potentially
overpower stuff. So this istheir way of managing it. And so
balcony solar is being installedin the greater San Francisco
(37:16):
region by brightsaver, and insome cities, two or three, they
have been told you don't need apermit, because it's an A an
appliance. It's movable. Youplug it in, you remove it very
easy, not an issue. All right,in some places, they still said
(37:36):
you had to plug it in, maybe,but they're doing it without
interconnection. Is the way I'mhearing it. Everything is you,
but it's
Tim Montague (37:45):
plugging into a wall outlet, right? Yep,
John Weaver (37:49):
yeah, with it on a dedicated circuit. But yes,
Tim Montague (37:53):
oh, dedicated circuit. Okay, yeah. That
John Weaver (37:56):
one adds a little complexity to it. They have to
get a an electrician in there todo a dedicated circuit, yeah,
and that's the that's thecomplexity now, but it's
Tim Montague (38:05):
just a 30 amp circuit.
John Weaver (38:08):
It could be 10, I don't know, but it could be 10.
I mean, if they just do one bigmodule, 189 amp module, but I
don't know exactly 10 or 20.
It's probably less than 30, ismy guess tonight. I haven't done
any engineering. I don't knowthat answer. But in Utah, it's
different. In Utah, there is alaw that states you can back
feed to the power grid just alittle bit, up to 1.2 kilowatts,
(38:31):
and we'll let you go withoutpermits and interconnections.
And so now brightsaver, now thatthe Utah law has come. And we
talked about this a couplemonths ago when the Utah law
came to be not a bright saver issee what's happened to Utah.
They're trying to start somebusiness there. So, so it's
pretty cool. It's, it's balconysolar, and this company maybe
(38:53):
bring them up. Yeah,
Tim Montague (38:55):
I gotta put this on screen. It's so sexy.
John Weaver (38:58):
Yeah, yeah. So first off, this company has been
hammering me to talk about sothey're getting it, but they are
the manufacturer, the supplierto bright singer. They also got
a story in like two or threedifferent places. Now they're
arguing with me and saying theUtah legislation doesn't allow
(39:23):
export to the grid, and they'realso saying craft strong is
saying that this system can beinstalled today in all 50
states. Balcony solar, fromtheir perspective, with their
technology and their pitch, isthat balcony solar is legal 100%
across the US today. So that'stheir pitch. You know
Tim Montague (39:46):
what crafts? Drum means, right? No. Craft means
power. Strum means electricity.
Oh, there you go. Power,electricity, solar.
John Weaver (39:58):
Well, if you go to craftstrom.com, Wow, that's also
their website. So they got tothis is for their plug and play
solar products, yeah,
Tim Montague (40:06):
but so they're selling, they're selling the
racking, or the panels, or both.
They're
John Weaver (40:12):
selling a control unit, inverters, panels, maybe
the racking, I don't knowexactly. And they also have a
battery kit that can go with it,because this control unit, and I
think that's the picture of itright there in the middle.
That's the inverter there, thecontrol units right there, the
power meter. Think that's anintegral piece, because what
(40:34):
that does, it looks at thehouse. It hooks up, you know,
CT, clamps onto the onto theelectric panel so it can see how
much house demand there is. Thenit looks at the solar system to
see how much is generated. Andif the solar system starts to
get close to what the house isat, it cuts out. It says, oh,
(40:56):
solar go off, and it measures.
And it measures, oh, there heis. The power meter measures how
much electricity from theutility and the panels, and it
matches, because it doesn't wantyou to export. That's the key.
It keeps you from exporting,yeah, and so they believe that
allows you to be plugged inanywhere in the United States.
Tim Montague (41:15):
But what from a, from a from an AHA perspective,
John, do you think it's like atwo kW limit? Or what is the KW
limit for a project like this?
John Weaver (41:26):
Well, if it's a movable thing that you can just
throw out in your front yard orhang on your you know, yeah. I
mean, I don't know two kW Max.
You know, the Utah law is abouttwo kW DC, four modules because
they allow 1.2 kW AC, and that'sa nice DC to AC number. So maybe
it's two kW before you startgetting a little pressure from
(41:51):
the ah. It depends how visibleyour thing is. If it's in your
backyard and nobody can see it,you can deploy all you want. If
it's hanging out in your frontyard, right down the corner, and
it's a nice corner. You bettermake sure you got some nice all
black nozzles, and don't have analuminum frame, and make sure
your wires are, you know, atleast manageable. The fact that
(42:11):
they're movable might help. Youknow, you bring them in at
night, otherwise the kids aregoing to throw rocks at them.
Tim Montague (42:25):
Oh, well, those panels in there, in their photo
look like they're not even glasspanels. I don't know. Yeah,
John Weaver (42:33):
they did look like.
They may have been frameless, ordid you think Matt Tay or
something like that, some mattepanels? Yeah,
Tim Montague (42:40):
I just, I just, they didn't look like glass. Oh,
we'll see. We'll see good stuff,man, I like it. Balcony, solar
coming to the US. It's abouttime. We gotta catch up, man,
we'll have a great trip toIceland and Germany, say hi to
(43:02):
Helga beer. Nath, for me, have abeer with Helga beer. Nath, do
you know Helga? Nope. He is theowner of Sun stall. They're a
mechanical installer, and he'sthe owner of suns on which is a
vertical racking company coolthat is competing with next to
sun, right? Next to Sun isEuropean company. Son is an
(43:24):
American company with a Germanname,
John Weaver (43:28):
but they're from Colorado, right? No,
Tim Montague (43:31):
they're from the Bay Area. Oh, okay, of course,
Marin County. Nice. Alright.
Well, they're doing a and justso our listeners know we're
doing a webinar with them onJuly 15, so you can look forward
to that on agrivoltaics, we'regoing to have sandbox solar on
that. Professor, Professor Majdfrom UC Davis and John Langdon
of muddy creek solar farm. He'sa farmer out in Oregon, so good
(43:58):
crew assembling for agrivoltaicson July 15. Are you going to
come to the agrivoltaicsconference? John, I'm thinking
about it. You should. What isit? I think it's in August.
August.
John Weaver (44:13):
I could take the train to that one, and that's in
Chicago, right?
Tim Montague (44:17):
Take the train to anyone. It's just a question of,
how long do you want to how muchof your life do you want to
dedicate to riding on a train?
It's true,
John Weaver (44:27):
that might be the show I get. So I'm going to go
to re plus, of course, but thatmight be another show for me to
go to, because I don't have tofly. So I like that idea,
Tim Montague (44:35):
all right. Well, check out all of our content at
cleanpowerhour.com Give us arating and review on Apple or
Spotify. Follow us on YouTubeand tell a friend about the
show. That's the best thing youcan do to help spread the word.
Where can our listeners findyou? John
commercialsolarguy.com,
John Weaver (44:55):
our website works.
LinkedIn. I'm on blue sky.
Commercial solar guy, are wesharing good news and give us a
ring? We want to build stuff foryou in Massachusetts and Rhode
Island or consult and, you know,talk to you about Tim and me and
all the weird news stuff that weknow. Tim and I have been in
(45:15):
done a lot of solar, so if youneed any help with it, we can
build it. That's what we like todo, like to build, develop,
that's it.
Commercialsolarguy.com Thanks,Tim, I see you
Tim Montague (45:25):
all right. Rock on. Take care. See you. John,
you.
Welcome to the Clean Power Hour. Live. Today is
May the second 2025 bringing youthe latest in solar, wind and
battery storage news with my cohost, John Weaver, welcome to
the show.
John Weaver (00:13):
Hello, Tim. I hope you're having a good day. Like
your picture in the background.
That's cool solar project. Iwant to have a cool solar
project like that one of thesedays
Tim Montague (00:22):
that's parking College, just a college, very a
mile and a half from my house. Ibid that project, but did not
get to build it, but it's alovely project, and my drone ate
it up a couple years ago on alovely, I think it was a fall
day, but it was one of the firstlarge behind the meter projects
(00:44):
in Illinois. This was like 2018,
John Weaver (00:48):
megawatts. See, two megawatts,
Tim Montague (00:51):
two megawatts AC, it's a PPA. So didn't cost the
college anything. You know, theysaved 10% on their energy. It's
a good thing.
John Weaver (01:03):
Nice project. But
Tim Montague (01:05):
it is, it is. So I hear you're going to Iceland,
John Weaver (01:14):
yes. So this week, I will, tomorrow, I will be
flying to Europe. I was planningon flying, and I didn't realize
something was going on. I didn'tknow this was in a solar week,
Tim next week. So I was planningon flying to PV magazines 10th
anniversary event, which is onTuesday, because they invited me
(01:35):
and in Munich, on a littleisland that they're having a
little party. And then on theway back, I was going to stop in
Iceland and do something coolinstead, I just realized,
because you told me, Tim, thatthe second half of the trip is
actually into solar Europe. Sonow I'm going to try and go to
the airport a little early andsee if, instead of tonight,
(02:01):
switching and going to Europe, Ijust stop and stay in Iceland
today. So yeah, so there we go.
I think you just changed myvacation for the positive, and I
owe you beer, Timothy, and Ithink that means I'll be at
inner solar next week, whichwould be sweet. Well,
Tim Montague (02:15):
it kind of explains why PV magazine is
doing their Shindig, yes, atthis time. Also, right?
John Weaver (02:22):
Absolutely. I assume that inner solar was in
the in the summer months, Juneish, but they also had that big
festival, the biggest one, theworld's biggest show, that's in
Shanghai, I believe Beijing.
It's the S N, E, C, proud show.
So, so maybe they moved in. Allright, so, yeah, so I'll be at
(02:44):
inner solar next week. Thanks,Tim, appreciate that.
Tim Montague (02:49):
That's so that's so funny. Yes, yes, yes, but
it's good to be able to beflexible. Yeah, absolutely.
John Weaver (02:58):
All right, so you got new giant project, 800
megawatts. I think it's thelargest east of the Mississippi
or eastern US. I know
Tim Montague (03:07):
that claim, that claim, is a good claim, but
it's, I don't think it'saccurate, because, but, but
anyway, this is what you see onscreen. Is a solar farm just
east of Springfield, Illinois,30 miles east of Springfield,
called double black diamond.
It's an 800 megawatt solarproject. It's a very unique
(03:28):
project John because it's builtin Ameren territory, okay, in
central Illinois, but the poweris being purchased by the city
of Chicago and several other offtakers, but the city is buying a
large percent of the power topower their municipal
facilities. So now the city, Ithink, can claim that, and this
includes the airports, MidwayAirport and O'Hare Airport are
(03:51):
now solar powered with this Icall it a sleeve through PPA.
I'm not sure if that's accurate,but the project is in Ameren,
but the off takers are in comed.
And so this is, this is, this isa great example of what you
know, utilities can do when theycooperate with solar developers
(04:15):
and municipalities like the cityof Chicago.
John Weaver (04:21):
Is this a trick this? But this is a pure
transmission project, right?
Tim Montague (04:26):
No, this is a, it's a, so it's a solar project,
but the it's a front of themeter solar project, right? So
the power is just going on thegrid and getting used wherever
it's getting used, but it'sbeing metered and then through
virtual PPAs, they're sellingthe power to the city of
Chicago.
John Weaver (04:46):
So if this is a transmission level project and
they're connecting it to thewholesale market, they can sign
wholesale agreements and wheelthe electricity through various
regions pretty easily. I. Um,the you'd be, you know, it's
probably not being managed byAmeren at all. In fact, it's
(05:08):
probably just going straight. Isthat peak? Well, it's,
Tim Montague (05:11):
it's unique. Think about it, though, because Ameren
is in miso and comed is in PJM,
John Weaver (05:18):
oh, well, see that's more interesting. Yeah,
so it's over. That's twodifferent, two
Tim Montague (05:23):
different RTOS or ISOs,
John Weaver (05:26):
because emeralds probably not messing with it,
though, because they're adistribution level, they don't
really, they buy and manage fromWholesale, but they don't really
deal with the wholesale same asnow comed might help the company
purchase theirs through thewholesale market, but, but I get
it crossing over the ISOterritories, that's pretty cool.
(05:49):
Yeah. So 800 megawatts, that's abig project. Were you? Do you
know any groups thatparticipated in the construction
of this? Because you're prettyclose to this site,
Tim Montague (05:58):
yeah, you know it's only it's about two hours
from my house, I have not gottento visit the site yet. Swift
Current is the Swift Current.
Energy is the developer. I thinkMcCarthy was the EPC. And you
know this, this, these pressreleases claim that it's the
largest project east of theMississippi. But they forget
about mammoth solar in Indiana,which is a 1.2 gigawatt solar
(06:21):
farm, which I think may be stillunder construction. Yeah, that's
not gonna have to go with that.
It's not complete yet. Okay, somaybe that's how they make that
claim. But it's, it's going tobe nipping at their heels and
eclipsing them here prettyquickly, but, but anyway, it's
nothing to sneeze at. It's notevery day you get an 800
(06:43):
megawatt DC solar farm in yourbackyard, and they're using
first solar solar panels. Sodomestic solar panels, I believe
it's next tracker racking and,yeah, it's just a good it's a
good thing. I love it that thecity of Chicago is buying so
(07:05):
much clean energy. And, youknow, I mean this, this solar
farm could power something like40,000 homes. I think it's a lot
of juice. So, good story.
John Weaver (07:19):
We like it. So, I'm sure you're paying attention to
what happened in Spain, to somedegree, I
Tim Montague (07:27):
am, and I'm so confused. Okay, so everybody
listening to this knows therewas a major outage this week in
power outage in Spain andFrance, um, but nobody seems to
know what happened,
John Weaver (07:45):
right? So technically, I still don't know
why. The only thing I've beenhearing about is that there were
voltage variations going backthree hours, back to 9am plus or
minus, a really big number. Andit's been said for a while that
the HVDC, the high voltageconnection that's coming across
(08:08):
from France, might have hadsomething to do with this, the
fact that they only had one, andthey've been getting a lot of
attention about this. This isbringing up the wrong story,
though. Somehow, nope, nope.
This is the right story? Oh, itis right, yes. Um, so this event
started early in the morning,then in the middle of the day,
something bigger happened. Andsome there were two events.
(08:31):
There were two grid collapseevents. The first grid collapse
is really small, lasted amillisecond, but, you know, a
couple of power plants fell offthe power grid, and it was
probably because of this voltageharmonics thing. Someone else
said a power line might havegotten too hot, and that can
happen, and this triggered acouple of power plants to drop,
(08:52):
and that messed up the gridvoltage a whole bunch then. And
this is the key that matters,and that's why this,
Tim Montague (09:01):
Article matters.
This is a legacy story aboutTexas, right? 2021
John Weaver (09:07):
yes, there's the Odessa disturbance. Then 13
gigawatts of solar capacitydropped out, and we might know
why, and that's in my opinion,even though I'm the solar
evangelist, that's actually thebiggest piece of thing to deal
with in this piece of news, atleast for us, because the solar
(09:32):
piece, the solar hypothetically,should have been able to what's
called ride through Thedisturbance. However,
apparently, back in the day,this is now starting to get
above my head. But if you readthis article and go to the
sources of the NERC reportthat's associated with this, you
can get really nerdy. Tim, like,totally like words that I don't
(09:55):
even know exist. Yes, so there'sthese timers. Instead of riding
through the event that lastsmilliseconds, that's getting
repaired by big spinningthermals, a lot of solar
inverters from back in the day,I guess, to protect themselves,
would shut off and say, okay,when the grid comes back up in
(10:15):
five minutes, we'll be good. Andin Odessa, that's what happened
most inverters, like a, assert,like a, I believe, a gas power
plant switched off. And if youscroll up, you can see where the
gas power plant switched off inthe image, that red dot right in
the middle, and all those plantsaround had a reaction, and they
(10:35):
all flickered. The red ones shutdown, and they didn't come back
up. I believe in Spain, whichhas an older fleet than Texas, a
larger percentage fell down. Andin fact, 50% of the grids
generating capacity disappeared.
And I think that led to acumulative effect, and at the
end of it, I think that leadsto, like, 0% of the Spanish grid
(10:58):
being up and not because ofsolar. However, a nuance of
solar may have extended it andmade it worse, and and one of
the solutions is batteries, youknow, that's, you know, you got
to flicker. And so that Odessaarticle is about it. We think
(11:18):
the Tesla battery in 2017 mayhave stopped Australia from
having an event like this, andso, because it reacts to these
grid fluctuations, these this
Tim Montague (11:35):
is the latest theory on the Spanish outage.
John Weaver (11:39):
This is not necessarily. It may be the
latest. Yeah, it may be. It'swhat I got. How's that? I don't
know what the latest is. I'mpretty cool, Tim, but I don't
always know what's going on.
Tim Montague (11:50):
I think it's the Russians myself, but I don't
know.
John Weaver (11:57):
You know what? You know. Put it this way, all I
know is I don't know where theoscillation started, but I know
I painted a picture of whathappened afterwards. And yeah,
and I think the solar has some,some of some quality checking to
do. It's my opinion, and alittle piece of nuance that's
(12:19):
being latched on to and we gotto manage it. And this is the
key reason you gotta good. Thisis the key reason we gotta stay
on top of this and really knowwhat happened is that a lot of
folks are now latching on torenewables being the cause of
this. And it's not it's otherstuff on the grid. But batteries
(12:42):
that have the ability to do gridfor me, they fix the issue.
General batteries can fix theissue. And there's something
else I wanted to say on thisone, but we'll get there. It's
it's a big thing. The grids backup. It's working. We need to be
conscious of it. We need to stayon top of these issues and fix
them. Part of our it's part ofour responsibility now that we
(13:03):
run the big grid, yeah.
Tim Montague (13:06):
Should we talk about robots? We
John Weaver (13:08):
like robots.
Timothy, I just wanted to playthis one so that this one was
just another live luminous robotthat looked really cool, and it
was also, it was associated withan article underneath it. Yeah?
So this is, I just play thisvideo, but then we can also
scroll to the article below. ButI just love seeing how smoothly,
maybe you have to go to thebeginning, where they're not
(13:30):
showing the people, yeah, therewe go. Just
Tim Montague (13:34):
so we're looking at, we're looking at the Lumi
three luminous robot. Well, thatyou and I got to see, well, you
and I got to see this in Bostonat re plus Boston. But
John Weaver (13:46):
we saw the big one.
We with the bigger battery. Thatwas the smaller one. Oh, this is
the older battery. Yeah, I just,I just saw them again on the
internet. Yeah, there we go. Ijust wanted to see him swoosh.
Ah, look at that. Look how cool.
That is. Cool to watch, cool towatch on the very Alright. So
now scroll down a tiny bit, andI just wanted to point out this
(14:07):
one, another company, anothertechnique, similar piece of
hardware. There's some I didn'thave any good videos on them,
but if you scroll up just a tinybit, they had some nice data
that's on the system. It did a10,000 module install, standard
height single access tracker. Asyou can see, it does 480 modules
(14:27):
a day. No, that's, that's theirpitch. That's good number.
Tim Montague (14:32):
What is, what does a team of humans do?
John Weaver (14:37):
100 okay? I mean, I don't know about doing them on
single, single access trackers.
But I know with my companies,when we do a bid, we got a team
of four with a manager trollingaround doing other stuff and
helping. And team of four does75 to 100 modules in a tough
place. We do 75 in a normalplace, we do 100 so for that so
so the robots are coming. Thatled me to a question, Tim, and
(15:00):
I'd love to hear Chris and othersmart people, what are the big
opportunities for saving moneyand solar utility scale? Maybe
home in the future. And the twothat come to my mind are utility
scale, it's installation andthen module efficiency. And I
say that because I'm alwaysexcited about perovskites.
(15:21):
Perovskites, perovskites, youknow, we're gonna have a 34%
module and a 45% module, maybefor regular folks, and that's
gonna drop the priceeffectively, because you have
more wattage for the samematerial, by like 20% by like
30% and another 15 so we mightsee, like, the price drop by 50%
(15:45):
total. Just just from those two,or just from efficiency, that's
it. Not even installationtechniques or life length, or
anything. So I don't know thoseare. Those are the two I came up
with high voltage. I hear abouthigh voltage stuff, and then I
hear about medium voltage goingstraight to 13,000 KV, and so
skipping, skipping a transformerlevel. That must be some really
(16:10):
long solar strings or something,I don't know, maybe combiner
boxes, 13 combines of 13 stringsof 1000 volts or but, uh, 2000
volt systems are coming now.
Well,
Tim Montague (16:23):
Dean Solan, Dean Solon, you know who was at that
event that we were at in inBoston, is inventing a 3000 volt
333, 1000 volt solar module.
He's going to skip too right?
Today, they're 1500 volt forground mount, and tomorrow
(16:43):
they're going to be 2000 voltbut he's just skipping it and
going to three.
John Weaver (16:48):
There's two in the field. I think one company like
jinko, like jinko, has a 2000volt line because they're, you
know, they have the whole supplychain or something. But at least
that's all that I've heardabout. So, so 3000 so I guess
that's just really long stringsand less line loss, thicker
(17:10):
copper, though, on the DC side.
So more cost and copper, butlong strings, fewer combiners,
fewer inverters. I can seethat's a couple of pennies. You
know that's pennies you'redropping off. It's pretty neat.
3000 volts. Chris, Chris, yougot to tell us some ideas.
Tim Montague (17:30):
I think we lost Chris.
John Weaver (17:32):
He's working. He's got a job. He's probably on the
call with the boss, selling somemodules. Chris sells solar
modules, everybody. So we everneed some modules? Chris,
letman, he's good at it. Some
Tim Montague (17:41):
very nice solar modules from Imperial Star. We
like the Imperial Star, solarmodules made in Texas, and using
American made solar cells too,right? And
John Weaver (17:56):
by the way, everybody Chris doesn't pay us
to say that. We just like Chris.
So that's why it's
Tim Montague (18:01):
good to have a solar panel Guru in your midst.
John Weaver (18:05):
Sure,
Tim Montague (18:07):
that's true. I mean, you're pretty much a guru
yourself, John, but Chris makeshis living selling solar
modules. So it's kind of nextlevel, yep. Should we talk about
NextEra
John Weaver (18:20):
terrace and next era. Man, absolutely, tariffs.
Tim Montague (18:25):
I'm so sick of tariffs. I think, I think we all
are, and we're only gettingstarted.
John Weaver (18:33):
So we got a project with a battery being installed
up here in Boston, $300,000tariff on a 1.5 megawatt hour
battery. Effectively, 200kilowatt hours is what the cost
of that tariff is on our batteryand and that so that really is
(18:53):
like, Oh, it hurts. It'spainful. I don't know what's
gonna happen with it, but that'sour new price. 300 G's, man,
that's, that's, that's ourreality. And so it brought me
about this company, next era,and and I was just really
interested when I read thisarticle on them, because they're
(19:13):
just, you know, seven stepsahead, ahead of us. I mean,
that's what you can do whenyou're worth X, hundreds of
billions of dollars, you know,the largest utility, I guess, in
the US, by far in terms ofmarket cap. And they said they
believe by properly doingcontracting and setting
documentation up, they've cuttheir trade risk from 150 to 150
(19:40):
million out of $75 billion incapital expenditures. And so
yes, they could have issues withimport tariffs on their goods.
However they expect of those $75billion only, point. Point 2% of
(20:02):
their stuff might get hit. Theysaid, You see, there's a chance
of getting zero. As we know,they have a factory with
modules. I'm sure they haveother module factories that
they're partnering within theUnited States. I'm sure they
have massive volume with
Tim Montague (20:18):
first, their solar panel partner. At
John Weaver (20:21):
one point, they had a module factory with jinko in
Jacksonville, Florida, okay, butwho knows? I mean, they probably
white label stuff from whomeverthey want. You know, their next
era, um, they, they wanted thesefactories. There's, like,
apparently, there's 50 megawattsof module assembly capacity in
the United States. Tim, ifthat's the case, we have enough
(20:45):
to cover all of our modules, andthat'd be cool. I mean, we don't
have all the cells yet. We don'thave all the wafers, but people
like NextEra, they're fightinghard, and what that also tells
me is that next era is not goingto be on our side when it comes
to fighting back against thetariffs, because they don't have
to worry about it. They're notgoing to lobby for tariffs now.
What they will lobby for is theinflation Reduction Act, and
(21:10):
there's ongoing negotiationsright now. I'm starting to see
headlines. Tim, yeah, and sothis is the week where you start
drinking, and next week is whenit's really going to start to
hit the fan. So I'm glad I'mgoing to be traveling somewhere
else, and I guess I'm going toguess I'm going to in a inner
solar I
Tim Montague (21:28):
think you'll be able to get a beer. Yeah,
John Weaver (21:31):
definitely.
Alright, flipping my triparound. Gotta call. Gotta call
the Iceland people, see ifthey'll let me do that. That
should work. All I gotta do isjust get off the plane, you
know, and I don't have to getback on, but I need to get a
hotel room in Iceland fortonight, Tim or tomorrow,
Tim Montague (21:49):
or you can stay right at the airport. There's
hotels right by the airport,alright, cool. There's also
volcanos. Watch out, yes, yes.
John Weaver (21:59):
Don't fall in them.
You uh,
Tim Montague (22:05):
your solar panels arrived. What kind of solar
panels Did you buy?
John Weaver (22:09):
So technically, I didn't buy these. Customer did,
um, I think there's a Zn, Oh,yeah. So both. Go back again. Go
back. You just clicking throughsome real important stuff there.
Tim,
Tim Montague (22:22):
it's a boring pilot of modules. Come on,
brother.
John Weaver (22:25):
Tim, what's that thing off to the right, though,
that's a parapet wall. No.
Timothy, up one inch. Oh, thecapital of the United States.
There you go. That's it. This isdowntown DC. Oh, cool. It's on
top of a 3040, story building,20 No, 26 story building, FBI
building is nearby. They had toget clearance from the FBI. I
(22:45):
think if you click on the image,you can still float to the next
let's see if we can get a bigone. Yeah, there we go. So
that's the US capital buildingin the background. That's pretty
cool picture. All right,
Tim Montague (22:58):
so building a project in DC,
John Weaver (23:00):
yeah? Well, no, we're a consultant support
feasibility. We help findcontractors. We help bring it
forward. Actually, a very goodfriend of ours, Tim, it's Mark
at Universal renewables. Is itmark? It is Mark. I think Mark
at Universal renewables. Arethey the
Tim Montague (23:19):
guys that do that funky
John Weaver (23:22):
rooftop carports.
Yeah. Mark Valentin, I know MarkValentine. We all know Mark. So
Mark is building this project.
This is his. We help bring himin on it. Help move it forward.
He's been putting a lot of hardwork. Man. He got the town, the
town, the town of DC, to givehim some code changes because he
(23:43):
had to be set back four feet.
But as we go through theseimages, we're going to see a
cool picture or two of how he'sattaching this rooftop covered
pathway, so a carportessentially on the roof. And so
check out that picture that isthe Washington Monument in the
background. So another coolangle from downtown, so solar
plus DC. Man, all right, so nowyou get your Zn shine nozzles.
(24:06):
What's next? So we're going todo a partial system that's going
to lay flat on the roof, on thismaterial, and then the other is
going to be on the coveredParkway. And I, I think these
two silver pieces coming up arethe foundation pieces, steel
beams going up. Yeah,
Tim Montague (24:25):
these guys are real. Are real experts at
attached it's, it's like acarport, but it's, it's not as
tall as a carport, obviously,now just tall enough to go over
all that equipment, so that youcan actually solarize that roof,
which usually would, you know,be able to get very little solar
because there's so manyobstructions. So that's why
these guys have carved out aniche for themselves. And I
(24:50):
think there's generousincentives in DC right now,
right? Yeah,
John Weaver (24:54):
they get a really strong s rack, really strong s
correct? Like, like, 40. Like440
Tim Montague (25:01):
you need that. You need that to do this kind of
solar, right? Because this isnot cheap.
John Weaver (25:05):
No, sir, no, this, this took a lot of work. I think
you're gonna see some lifts. Imean, they had to shut down
streets in Washington, DC. Ithink the President had to come
by and sign off himself. Yeah.
So, you know, there's themonument again, there's the
gear, some of the some of thesteel. You can see the hardware
that's going into the roof rightnow. You can start to see how
(25:27):
close they are to the edge ofthe roof. This is one of the
challenges. This is a walkway.
So this is going to be coveredwalkway. They're gonna, maybe
they'll do something with thosebricks. I'm not sure. I saw some
markups earlier that made itlook pretty. But this is where
it took a lot of time to get thecity to approve the design,
because we're within four feetof the edge. And from a visual
(25:49):
standpoint, they didn't wantanything hanging over and, you
know, also, from a riskstandpoint, you don't want stuff
hanging over the edge of your
Tim Montague (25:57):
building. Yeah, is that the high edge or the low
edge. Do you think
John Weaver (26:02):
it's, well, it's either flat or that's the low
edge, but I think it's flat. Isthe
Tim Montague (26:09):
building north of the Capitol?
John Weaver (26:13):
No, but it super close. I think it's, it might
be, actually, as
Tim Montague (26:18):
if we're looking south and that's the low edge.
Yeah,
John Weaver (26:22):
I think that's the South. I think we're looking
west southwest right here. So Ithink we're looking toward like,
I think the main building, theWhite House, would be to your
right, or right south, right,whatever. Yeah, all right, so
that, so that's the coveredpathway that we're going to
(26:44):
cover, because people go upthere and hang out. Yeah? So
there's going to be solar that'sgoing to connect on top of the
wall to the right, and that's, Ithink it's four panels across.
And then you could,
Tim Montague (26:57):
you get a, oh, yeah, some bird's eye view. But
you, you didn't get any dronephotos.
John Weaver (27:03):
Well, these weren't my pictures, but I'm there.
Might be there. I'm I, you knowwhat? I doubt you're allowed to
fly too many drones. Yeah, nextto the FBI, right? A few blocks
from the White House. Tim,that's a cool show. If you do,
yeah, and if you do Fly Dronethere. It's gonna be found very
quickly.
Tim Montague (27:25):
Yeah, it's probably the no fly zone. The
drone probably won't even takeoff.
John Weaver (27:31):
That's good point.
Yeah, so I'm not on site. Thisis being taken by the site
manager. His name is Mark Lyons,really smart guy, very
determined to move this through,yeah, shutting down roads in DC.
Man, do
Tim Montague (27:46):
you know how many kW the project is? 193 nice.
Yeah,
John Weaver (27:51):
so I was really happy to be part of that. Met
Valentine. He's a smart guy. Heknows his stuff.
Tim Montague (27:56):
Yeah? I mean, if they didn't do that unique,
attached carport style racking,it would be less than half of
that, right? There's, there'sjust no way you could get even
100 KW on that roof. So manyobstructions. We call that
obstructionosity. I think
John Weaver (28:16):
it's cool. I haven't done one of those
projects directly, but now I'mgetting to see it, and it's just
kind of neat to that they'redoing that kind of solution.
State of Massachusetts isoffering a potential incentive
for that product in their nextsmart three program. So roof,
what's the terminology they havefor it? It's the different
(28:38):
thing. It's not carport. Theyuse a different word, but roof,
roof something. So anyway, neatproject downtown DC, project of
the week mark, Valentine. USrenewable, universal renewables,
nice.
Tim Montague (28:55):
Yeah, I remember.
I remember, I took a photo oftheir booth for you at the RE
plus
John Weaver (29:00):
Boston. Yeah, I was really happy you did.
Tim Montague (29:03):
So should we, should we talk about solid state
batteries?
John Weaver (29:07):
Big, solid state battery cells. You found a
Tim Montague (29:11):
story in ESS news, ESS news, that's not the PV
magazine. It is. It is, okay.
It's
John Weaver (29:20):
yeah, it's within the TV Magazine. They recently
launched. Yes, recently launchedabsolutely
Tim Montague (29:27):
all right, I'll get this on screen. We've been
hearing a lot about solid statebatteries. It's like we heard a
lot about them back in 2020during the pandemic, like
Volkswagen was all in and thenthey kind of went quiet, right?
But now sounds like they'regetting traction, because I know
some of the automakers are areinvesting in them now.
John Weaver (29:48):
So Solid State did the technology curve, like a lot
of things, it's like, oh my god,we got this new idea. This is
coming. Oh, it's so beautiful.
Amazing, amazing. Okay, oh. Wegotta figure out how to do it.
All right, let's do it. Let's doit. Let's do it. Okay, okay,
okay. Oh my god, this sucks.
It's terrible. What happened toall the wonderful Okay, now
we're gonna slowly progress.
That's called, like, the troughof disillusionment, yeah, where
(30:10):
people are like, Oh, that'strash, the headlines, where's
the real thing. But now it'sstarting to come out of it. This
might be the first solid stateutility scale product I've seen.
I don't know if it's a truesolid state the way people
believe it's going to beeventually. It could be early.
(30:31):
But the fact that it was onesolid state and two, well, I
guess three things, but two andthree are the same. The cell
it's a 783 Empire amp hour cell,which is like two it's 2000
volts, I guess, and it's like1.5 kilowatt hours. I mean, that
thing could run your house onebattery cell for, like, I don't
(30:54):
know, an hour or something,maybe. And then it's 8.3
megawatt hours for a single 20foot shipping container volume.
Tim Montague (31:05):
Yeah, that's a lot of storage in a single 20 foot
container. Yes,
John Weaver (31:09):
all those things coming together. It's like, holy
crap. What a cool, big utilityscale battery. And I hope we get
to build some. So
Tim Montague (31:17):
this story is called Narada power launches
783, amp hour cell, 8.3 megawatthour solid state battery. Ess
news, that's the PB magazine,news site by Marija mish. But
where is this project?
John Weaver (31:35):
Now this is just a product launch. Product Launch.
Product launch, yes, so scrolldown. Show us that big, pretty
cell. That thing is huge. Idon't know if this represents
what the actual cell size is.
How big is
Tim Montague (31:47):
that? Do you think? Uh, it's
John Weaver (31:49):
probably about a foot across, four inches wide,
six inches tall. And that's acell I see him on, yeah, that's
a cell that is a single cell.
They're getting huge.
Tim Montague (32:00):
That's as big as a module in a lithium ion, Ion
battery. Absolutely
John Weaver (32:06):
like back in the day, you know, where you said
cells that look like nine voltbatteries, right? You know,
double A, triple A batteries.
This is the modern cell in a ina battery. So this is what's
called a blade cell. And this, Ibelieve, I'm not 100% on it, but
I believe BYD was the first oneto move blade cells into cars,
(32:27):
maybe, C, A T L. There was arecent conversation, apparently,
between the CEO of Catal, C, A TL, and Tesla uh, Elon. And
apparently the ATL told Tesla,uh, hey, you're going the wrong
way with your 4860 batteries.
(32:49):
You just can't fit the samecapacity as us. Here's why. So
there's some tit tat back andforth. Oh, by the way, 10,000
cycles. So let's do a quick10,000 cycles. That's like
10,000 123, divided by 365, 27,years at one cycle a day divided
(33:10):
by two for 13.7 years at twocycles a day. So long, lasting
product that's dense, that'sbig, cutting edge. And these
utility scale batteries, I thinkare cool. So I'm following this
topic a lot because batterystorage is next. I mean, you saw
the biggest the best solution towhat happened in Spain is
(33:33):
batteries. And everybody's beenyelling at Spain, hey, you need
a little more responsibility foryour grid right now. They just
got a little busted in the news.
Type of event needs to bemanaged. Big grid batteries are
going to be it, and they'repriced. Well now,
Tim Montague (33:50):
Narada sounds in, uh, Indian, but it's a Chinese
company. Um,
John Weaver (33:58):
oh, no, I just saw another company with the same
size battery cell. So it's astandard that's coming. They're
all going to be like that. Ilike big batteries too.
Tim Montague (34:10):
Yeah, there's lot to like about big batteries. Um,
oh, they have an office in NorthAmerica too, in Newton,
Massachusetts, in Newton.
John Weaver (34:20):
Oh, I gotta go knock on the door. Okay, so 8.83
megawatt hours. So times one, Iknow how to price in kilowatt
hours. Now, let's say delivered.
It'd be 120 bucks. That's amillion dollar shipping
container. And then what's thethat's a million dollar shipping
container. I don't know what thetariff is. It's probably a
(34:41):
million dollars. Million dollartariff. So there you go. Instead
of, instead of being under $100per kilowatt hour for that unit,
it's gonna probably be somewherearound two, yeah, that's, uh,
we'll get there. Tim, keepfighting. Keep fighting. Yeah,
Tim Montague (35:00):
should we talk about balcony solar? Maybe we'll
close on that.
John Weaver (35:04):
That's good idea. I like that. Okay,
Tim Montague (35:07):
balcony solar comes to California by John
Fitzgerald Weaver in PVmagazine. What's the story,
John? We've talked about balconysolar not too long ago. I want
some balcony solar. I can't dorooftop solar because I have a
huge tree over my house, but Icould do some balcony solar off
my patio.
John Weaver (35:27):
You should interview these guys and ask
them questions on your show.
They like to do stuff, makethem, make them. They want to
get their gear out there too.
Not this company, but the onethey buy from. So let me tell
you about this. So
Tim Montague (35:41):
this company is brightsaver. Yes,
John Weaver (35:44):
brightsaver was founded in California right
around the start of the year,and it's a couple of guys who
had the idea to bring balconysolar to the United States. And
they started looking at thelaws, and they came up with the
idea that if they install asolar system that never exports
to the grid, then it's okay. Itdoesn't need permits
(36:07):
necessarily, right? And itdefinitely doesn't need
interconnection. That's whatthey're going with. And so they
found a company called craftstrong, I think it is, and I put
them on the document so we canlook at them next. But craft
strong, they they manufacturethis kit that has a little code
that hopefully reads the gridand says, up the house demand is
(36:29):
lower than the solar generation.
Let's fiddle with the PowerPointsettings in the inverter, and it
makes sure it never exports. Andthat's what they're building in
California. And so they've donelike 3040, 50. Of these systems
apparently think to like 1800ish dollars, and they do make
them have a unique circuit inthe electric panel, so that
(36:54):
there's no way to do this thingwhere you can have a lot of draw
on a circuit and a lot of energycoming in and potentially
overpower stuff. So this istheir way of managing it. And so
balcony solar is being installedin the greater San Francisco
(37:16):
region by brightsaver, and insome cities, two or three, they
have been told you don't need apermit, because it's an A an
appliance. It's movable. Youplug it in, you remove it very
easy, not an issue. All right,in some places, they still said
(37:36):
you had to plug it in, maybe,but they're doing it without
interconnection. Is the way I'mhearing it. Everything is you,
but it's
Tim Montague (37:45):
plugging into a wall outlet, right? Yep,
John Weaver (37:49):
yeah, with it on a dedicated circuit. But yes,
Tim Montague (37:53):
oh, dedicated circuit. Okay, yeah. That
John Weaver (37:56):
one adds a little complexity to it. They have to
get a an electrician in there todo a dedicated circuit, yeah,
and that's the that's thecomplexity now, but it's
Tim Montague (38:05):
just a 30 amp circuit.
John Weaver (38:08):
It could be 10, I don't know, but it could be 10.
I mean, if they just do one bigmodule, 189 amp module, but I
don't know exactly 10 or 20.
It's probably less than 30, ismy guess tonight. I haven't done
any engineering. I don't knowthat answer. But in Utah, it's
different. In Utah, there is alaw that states you can back
feed to the power grid just alittle bit, up to 1.2 kilowatts,
(38:31):
and we'll let you go withoutpermits and interconnections.
And so now brightsaver, now thatthe Utah law has come. And we
talked about this a couplemonths ago when the Utah law
came to be not a bright saver issee what's happened to Utah.
They're trying to start somebusiness there. So, so it's
pretty cool. It's, it's balconysolar, and this company maybe
(38:53):
bring them up. Yeah,
Tim Montague (38:55):
I gotta put this on screen. It's so sexy.
John Weaver (38:58):
Yeah, yeah. So first off, this company has been
hammering me to talk about sothey're getting it, but they are
the manufacturer, the supplierto bright singer. They also got
a story in like two or threedifferent places. Now they're
arguing with me and saying theUtah legislation doesn't allow
(39:23):
export to the grid, and they'realso saying craft strong is
saying that this system can beinstalled today in all 50
states. Balcony solar, fromtheir perspective, with their
technology and their pitch, isthat balcony solar is legal 100%
across the US today. So that'stheir pitch. You know
Tim Montague (39:46):
what crafts? Drum means, right? No. Craft means
power. Strum means electricity.
Oh, there you go. Power,electricity, solar.
John Weaver (39:58):
Well, if you go to craftstrom.com, Wow, that's also
their website. So they got tothis is for their plug and play
solar products, yeah,
Tim Montague (40:06):
but so they're selling, they're selling the
racking, or the panels, or both.
They're
John Weaver (40:12):
selling a control unit, inverters, panels, maybe
the racking, I don't knowexactly. And they also have a
battery kit that can go with it,because this control unit, and I
think that's the picture of itright there in the middle.
That's the inverter there, thecontrol units right there, the
power meter. Think that's anintegral piece, because what
(40:34):
that does, it looks at thehouse. It hooks up, you know,
CT, clamps onto the onto theelectric panel so it can see how
much house demand there is. Thenit looks at the solar system to
see how much is generated. Andif the solar system starts to
get close to what the house isat, it cuts out. It says, oh,
(40:56):
solar go off, and it measures.
And it measures, oh, there heis. The power meter measures how
much electricity from theutility and the panels, and it
matches, because it doesn't wantyou to export. That's the key.
It keeps you from exporting,yeah, and so they believe that
allows you to be plugged inanywhere in the United States.
Tim Montague (41:15):
But what from a, from a from an AHA perspective,
John, do you think it's like atwo kW limit? Or what is the KW
limit for a project like this?
John Weaver (41:26):
Well, if it's a movable thing that you can just
throw out in your front yard orhang on your you know, yeah. I
mean, I don't know two kW Max.
You know, the Utah law is abouttwo kW DC, four modules because
they allow 1.2 kW AC, and that'sa nice DC to AC number. So maybe
it's two kW before you startgetting a little pressure from
(41:51):
the ah. It depends how visibleyour thing is. If it's in your
backyard and nobody can see it,you can deploy all you want. If
it's hanging out in your frontyard, right down the corner, and
it's a nice corner. You bettermake sure you got some nice all
black nozzles, and don't have analuminum frame, and make sure
your wires are, you know, atleast manageable. The fact that
(42:11):
they're movable might help. Youknow, you bring them in at
night, otherwise the kids aregoing to throw rocks at them.
Tim Montague (42:25):
Oh, well, those panels in there, in their photo
look like they're not even glasspanels. I don't know. Yeah,
John Weaver (42:33):
they did look like.
They may have been frameless, ordid you think Matt Tay or
something like that, some mattepanels? Yeah,
Tim Montague (42:40):
I just, I just, they didn't look like glass. Oh,
we'll see. We'll see good stuff,man, I like it. Balcony, solar
coming to the US. It's abouttime. We gotta catch up, man,
we'll have a great trip toIceland and Germany, say hi to
(43:02):
Helga beer. Nath, for me, have abeer with Helga beer. Nath, do
you know Helga? Nope. He is theowner of Sun stall. They're a
mechanical installer, and he'sthe owner of suns on which is a
vertical racking company coolthat is competing with next to
sun, right? Next to Sun isEuropean company. Son is an
(43:24):
American company with a Germanname,
John Weaver (43:28):
but they're from Colorado, right? No,
Tim Montague (43:31):
they're from the Bay Area. Oh, okay, of course,
Marin County. Nice. Alright.
Well, they're doing a and justso our listeners know we're
doing a webinar with them onJuly 15, so you can look forward
to that on agrivoltaics, we'regoing to have sandbox solar on
that. Professor, Professor Majdfrom UC Davis and John Langdon
of muddy creek solar farm. He'sa farmer out in Oregon, so good
(43:58):
crew assembling for agrivoltaicson July 15. Are you going to
come to the agrivoltaicsconference? John, I'm thinking
about it. You should. What isit? I think it's in August.
August.
John Weaver (44:13):
I could take the train to that one, and that's in
Chicago, right?
Tim Montague (44:17):
Take the train to anyone. It's just a question of,
how long do you want to how muchof your life do you want to
dedicate to riding on a train?
It's true,
John Weaver (44:27):
that might be the show I get. So I'm going to go
to re plus, of course, but thatmight be another show for me to
go to, because I don't have tofly. So I like that idea,
Tim Montague (44:35):
all right. Well, check out all of our content at
cleanpowerhour.com Give us arating and review on Apple or
Spotify. Follow us on YouTubeand tell a friend about the
show. That's the best thing youcan do to help spread the word.
Where can our listeners findyou? John
commercialsolarguy.com,
John Weaver (44:55):
our website works.
LinkedIn. I'm on blue sky.
Commercial solar guy, are wesharing good news and give us a
ring? We want to build stuff foryou in Massachusetts and Rhode
Island or consult and, you know,talk to you about Tim and me and
all the weird news stuff that weknow. Tim and I have been in
(45:15):
done a lot of solar, so if youneed any help with it, we can
build it. That's what we like todo, like to build, develop,
that's it.
Commercialsolarguy.com Thanks,Tim, I see you
Tim Montague (45:25):
all right. Rock on. Take care. See you. John,
you.
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