Solar Inverter Technology with Evan Upshur, CPS America | EP284 - Clean Power Hour

Episode Transcript
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Evan Upshur (00:00):
Yeah, I think it just comes down to versatility.
You know, a product like this,and a lot of the other inverters
in the that we offer, they'reversatile. Like, for instance,
the inverters can tie in fordelta or y interconnections. A
lot of them, the neutral isoptional, so it's just expanding
your versatility. So you couldhave 10 different projects, and

(00:24):
our product line will work forall of them, just because the
product is so versatile.

intro (00:30):
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

(00:52):
energy transition.

Tim Montague (00:56):
We're here at inner solar San Diego in the CPS
booth, and I'm with Evan Upshur,who is out of the Detroit area,
and he's repeat guests on theshow. Welcome back. Evan, yeah,
thank you for having me. Alwaysgood to see you. And so much
action here in the CPS booth,you have a very popular booth.
Evan, why is that?

Man, I think it's because we got a great team,
everyone on all ends, you know,from, you know, the upfront
sales, obviously, to theservice, to the marketing. I
mean, we're firing on allcylinders. Yeah,

the team is amazing. Yeah, you're so
friendly, you're very serviceoriented. The technology is
great. You got to have goodtech, right, yeah, and it's, but
it's a both end, right?

Yeah. I mean, all these systems that people are
talking about all week and, youknow, throughout the year, as
they grow their businesses, youknow, they're meant to produce
power for 25 years. So, youknow, it's great, if
everything's good on the frontend, you got a good price and
all that. But really, thatservice end, on the back end.
And, I mean, it's key, you know,there has to be that foundation
there, from a customer serviceperspective, in order to, you

(02:02):
know, grow the business. Yeah,

so we were just talking about your, you know, a
customer you were talking tothat you've worked with for
several years. I'm curious, whatdo you think brings customers
coming back?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a little bit of what
I just mentioned about thecustomer service, but I gotta
hand it to like, our researchand development team and our
application engineering team,because they're finding, you
know, products that work, andthey're refining them more.
They're not trying to reinventthe wheel. They're refining the
product, but also, you know,continuously analyzing the

(02:40):
market, just to make sure that,you know, there's a good mix of
what works well and what hasworked well, and then kind of
sprinkling in the new stuff thathelps these systems become just
more efficient and more easy tobuild. Yeah,

there's a constant evolution of the technology.
Let's talk about the tech alittle bit. We're standing here
by the 100 KW 480 inverter withthe quote, unquote, distributed
wire box, and then the 200 witha centralized wire box. Why is
this an important product? Yeah,

it's an important product because the utility
scale, or really community solarmarket is, you know, developing
rapidly. I mean, it's been, it'sworked very well. And
essentially, you know, theutility, a lot of times in a
community solar project, willprovide the transformer, and the

(03:31):
transformer is 480 volt. So youdon't want to have redundancy
and have multiple transformers.
So to have an inverter thatoutputs 480 volts directly, it
just makes for a really seamlesstie in. So this particular
inverter, the 100 KW 480 didreally well in the community
solar market, and this is ournew inverter. So it's basically
an evolution of the 100 kWinverter, double the size,

(03:53):
though we're seeing energydensity now that, you know, is
hard to believe say five yearsago. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

It is amazing that you can get twice as much power
out of a box that's one and ahalf times the size. Yeah. So
I'm curious, when you talk tocustomers here at inner solar,
what are some of the things thatare top of mind for them?

I think it is just ease of use and just knowing
that the product is actuallythere. You know, there are a lot
of products out here, you know,maybe newer companies, maybe not
as, you know, established yetthat, you know, they have
products that just aren'tavailable yet. I mean, this
stuff is actually real. It's,you it's got UL listing, it's,
it's, it's available to ship.
You know, if you have a project,we can get it to you in a matter

(04:43):
of weeks, not, you know, months,or hopefully not years and
stuff. This is, this is, youknow, our bread and butter, you
know, goes back to our team, youknow, the supply chain. Huge
part of of what folks arelooking for someone they can
depend on, because you can goout and sell a project. And
develop a new cool solarproject, but if you can't build
it, or you have those roadblocksstopping you from getting that

(05:04):
final interconnection, it justreally becomes hard to make
money and continue a sustainablebusiness.

Tell us a little bit about your trajectory with
the company. How long have youbeen with Chint?

Yeah, I think it's just over three years now. So I
think probably later this year,it'll mark the four years. So
just really excited about ourmission in terms of just making
projects easier to build withour equipment. And we're
diversifying quite a bit too. Soyou know, not only is it just
the inverters, but we have theAC combiners now, medium voltage

(05:39):
transformers and energy storage,so we can kind of cover the
whole DC to AC conversion,whether it's energy storage or
or PV. Now, it's pretty sweet.

What else should our listeners know about your
technology or the company ingeneral? Yeah, I

think, um, it just comes down to versatility. You
know, a product like this and alot of the other inverters in
them that we offer. They'reversatile. Like, for instance,
the inverters can tie in fordelta or y interconnections. A
lot of them, the neutral isoptional, so it's just expanding
your versatility. So you couldhave 10 different projects, and

(06:18):
our product line will work forall of them, just because the
product is So, you know,versatile.

I love it, yeah.
Well, check out all of ourcontent at cleanpowerhour.com
Give us a rating and review onApple or Spotify and follow us
on YouTube. Evan, how can ourlisteners find you?

I'm obviously on LinkedIn, always glad to connect
and meet new people and anytrade show hope to be at and see
you there.

I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage.
The Clean Power Hour is broughtto you by CPS America, maker of
North America's number one threephase string inverter with over
eight gigawatts shipped in theUS. The CPS product lineup
includes string invertersranging from 25 kW to 350 kW,

(07:08):
their flagship inverter, the CPS350 KW is designed to work with
solar plants ranging from twomegawatts to two gigawatts. CPS
is the world's most bankableinverter brand and is America's
number one choice for solarplants now offering solutions
for commercial utility ESS andBalance of System Requirements,

(07:31):
go to chintpowersystems.com orcall 855-584-7168, to find out
more, you.

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Solar Inverter Technology with Evan Upshur, CPS America | EP284

Episode Transcript

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Solar Inverter Technology with Evan Upshur, CPS America | EP284