June 17, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of Clean Power Hour Live, hosts Tim Montague and John Weaver tackle the elephant in the room - policy uncertainty - while making a compelling case for why now might be the best time to double down on solar. Fresh from the Midwest Solar Expo in Chicago and the ACORE Financial Forum in NYC, they share insights from industry heavyweights who are aggressively pursuing projects despite potential ITC changes. Here is what we discussed:
Industry Outlook & Market Confidence
- Solar industry resilience despite policy uncertainty - Both hosts express optimism that the solar transition will continue despite potential ITC changes, with John noting strong confidence from major industry players at the ACORE Financial Forum in NYC (PV Magazine)
Policy & Legislative Updates
- Texas anti-solar bills defeated - Multiple bills that would have restricted solar deployment in Texas failed to progress in the state House of Representatives (PV Magazine)
Market Data & Economics
- Residential electricity price increases - EIA data shows average 13% increase across US, with some regions seeing up to 26% increases, potentially offsetting reduced solar incentives (Energy Information Administration)
- Solar curtailment in California - 2024 saw 3.4 million MWh curtailed (up 29%), but represents only ~1% of total energy generation (PV Magazine)
Technology & Manufacturing News
- Perovskite efficiency record - New record of 829 watts achieved for utility-scale perovskite modules (PV Tech)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim Montague (00:00):
Tim, welcome to the Clean Power Hour live. I'm
(00:04):
Tim Montague, Today is June 13,2025 and we are here to give you
the latest and greatest insolar, wind and battery news
with my co host, none other thanthe commercial solar guy. John
Weaver, welcome to the show,John. Hey
John Weaver (00:18):
Tim. Thanks for inviting me, and it seems like
your stream yard accounts prettyterrible, because your nice
green color goes nicely withyour blue eyes. Though
Tim Montague (00:28):
I kind of look like a ghost. Um, you look. I
like it.
John Weaver (00:31):
Tim, you could, you could, like, float away, and
there you go. So stream yard,Tim, needs help on the Clean
Power Hour. It's got a
Tim Montague (00:41):
green Halo. I mean, I do have a green screen.
It's seeing the green screen.
Oh, it does. It really a lotaround my hands. But anyway,
life is good. John, it's good.
You know, some people arefreaked out about what's going
on in the United States, but, Imean, in our industry, there's a
(01:01):
lot of stuff going on in theUnited States, but I'm talking
about the solar industry. I justcame off of being in Chicago at
the Midwest solar Expo for twoand a half days, and I've
arrived at a place of it's allgoing to be good. It could be
better or less good, but it'snot going to be horrible. And so
(01:24):
if they pass the bill thatthey're trying to pass the the
you know, the big, great bill,the budget reconciliation bill,
you know, it does reduce thesolar industry by 46 Well, solar
and wind by 46% between now and2030 and that's a bad statistic.
It's not going to help usachieve the energy transition in
(01:46):
a timely manner. But on theother the flip side of that is
that sooner or later, we'regoing to have a 50% solarized
grid. It's unstoppable. So justhang in there. I say ride on.
Give me the solar coaster righton,
John Weaver (02:03):
you know, then actually, that comment, that
thought, actually leads into oneof my articles that I wrote this
week for PV mag. Um, last week,I was in New York City for the a
core financial forum, theAmerican Council on renewable
energy cool for New York City,we had two days of people
speaking and, and if you want toshare one of the articles I
(02:27):
wrote for PV, mag in the roomfor the for review viewers,
that'd be cool. Oh, but yeah,you just got to scroll down that
document a little bit. You'llsee a core and, but the thing
that I heard from the peoplespeaking, and this, I think,
kind of had an impression on me,is that the biggest driver right
(02:49):
now, like a big driver, not thebiggest, but a big driver right
now, is more demand for energy.
So there are, there's lots ofpeople seeking more energy right
now, it seems, and I think it'sa little less than some of the
headlines suggest, and WallStreet thinks it's a little less
than some of the headlines willsuggest, because there's lots of
speculation. There's like,hundreds of gigawatts of demand
(03:12):
of data centers, but only a 10thof that is going to come
through, much like theinterconnection queue, probably.
But nonetheless, there still isgrowth, it seems. And this
growth means that new capacitymeans to build be built. And
everybody at the show wassaying, listen, people just want
capacity. They don't care whereit comes from. They just want it
(03:34):
and they want it now. Andeverybody's saying, listen,
solar and storage is pretty dangcheap, irrelevant of tax
credits, irrelevant of theimport tariffs, it's still
pretty dang cheap. And then thenext layer is that solar and
storage is the fastest to bedeployed. Everybody kept saying
(03:56):
that gas turbines hadchallenges. It might not last
until, might not be gettingdeployed in new volume until the
end of the decade. Likeeverything that's being
installed through the end of theyear is, like, accounted for and
so. So, for instance, these two,Sandia and Jim from Invenergy,
Jim Murphy from Invenergy, like,holy crap. And then EDP
(04:20):
renewables like, so we just had,like, two awesome people to
start off day two. And both ofthese people, if you read in
this section, they're like,listen, more capacity is coming,
and it's going to be solar andstorage. It's going to be driven
by solar and storage. And sofrom their perspectives, first
off, they want to pound gettingprojects started right now. So
(04:40):
if you're an EPC and you haveresources, you might be able to
sign some pretty quick contractswith some pretty big companies
and start construction, just tomake sure stuff is happening.
And these two people who areleaders of some of the largest
renewable companies on Earth. Sowe're like, Hey, this is
happening. We're going forward.
(05:02):
Yeah, we really would like tosee the ITC stay. And no, we
don't like this foreign require,foreign thing. And no, we don't
like the 60 day start. And yes,we should have a construction
start versus constructionFinish, finish for the ITC law.
But the passion, the belief thatthis is just going to go
(05:24):
forward, that we're still goingto be building utility scale
solar and storage, and that itis the number one resource, was
solid and these two, Sean andTaurus. So Taurus and Toland,
Sean Toland from Copenhageninfrastructure partners, again,
one of the world's largestinvestors in renewables. His
(05:44):
perspective was twofold. He itwas really nice to see he's
like, first off, I've been inthe US for a decade, and people
on my team longer, and we'veseen the US grow be a mature
environment or mature renewablesindustry for a decade, and we've
seen the solar coaster, andwe've seen it in the country,
(06:05):
and from tolan's perspective,we've seen it globally. And he
said something really smart,because as a global investor,
and you can see it right there,you have to have a broader
perspective and realize thatthere are challenges everywhere,
and we as Greenfield investorswho are globally conscious.
We're used to taking on theserisks. And so he goes, You know
(06:27):
what the US is rough and tumbleright now, but that's just the
nature of Earth and and we'reokay with it. So this, this
feeling of, I loved it, thisfeeling of effort. We're going
through it, we're building it,and there's going to be
challenges, and we're going todeal with it. Matched what you
said to start the show, and Iheard it over and over from
(06:48):
people on stage, and it was,everybody was questioning
things. They're like, we don'tknow what's coming next. You
know, it's different, and wehope the US doesn't use lose its
leadership position. But theywere all bullish. They were all
aggressive. And it makes me feelabout the 20 megawatt and above
space, very strongly. 20megawatt AC and above space in
(07:09):
the US, very strongly. Yeah.
Tim Montague (07:11):
I think the contraction will be harder on
the residential market if theyend the ITC in 2025 Yeah, that
will be a serious blow toresidential solar. There's no
doubt about it. Will residentialsolar exist? For sure, there are
some people that are going toget solar, whether or not
there's a tax credit, it willreduce their power bill. It just
(07:32):
won't have as quick a paybackperiod. And the states have
levers too, John that they canpull. And I interviewed Doug
Scott, who's the Chair of theICC, that's our PUC here in
Illinois. And we talked aboutthis, and Doug reiterated
something else that youreferenced, and that is that
(07:52):
some of these large data centerprojects have multiple
applications in because they'renot 100% cited in a specific
location. They're they're tryingto figure out where they going
to go to, just like solar farmsdo, and so there's a lot more
congestion in the queue than isactually going to get built.
(08:14):
But, but the levers that thestates have are very important.
Illinois, I think there was astory in PB magazine about the
Midwest solar Expo. Check thatout. It's not on our docket,
but, but it called Illinois atop seven state. I call Illinois
top 10 state. It's a topcommunity solar state the there
(08:37):
was just a report out from ilsr,the Institute for local Self
Reliance out of Minnesota thatranked Illinois number one in
community solar nationally. Wewere the only state that got a
B. No state got an A. It's anABCD. There were several BS,
including New York andMassachusetts, and then there
were a bunch of Cs and Ds, but,um, but for larger solar,
(09:01):
including community solar, forsure, there's there's growth
ahead, and there may beconsolidation, of course, but
it's like we think of us on adiet. Okay, we're going to lose
some fat and gain some muscle,and we'll be stronger and
better, and we are going tocontinue to grow a green grid,
(09:26):
and we're going to 10x theamount of solar on the grid in
the United States, people. Sobuckle up and get serious right.
Start developing projects. Don'trun, don't be don't be afraid.
Don't get distracted by thenoise. This is a good time to
double down if
John Weaver (09:44):
you're going to take that risk. I mean, using
the word double down insinuatesa risk. And there's risk in
everything, yeah. And so this,if you're going to take that
risk and double down, this isthat moment where a lot of
people are, you know, I gotemail. Else. Tim, very
interesting for the first time,with people wanting to sell
assets that they've developedafter 2028 so if you are someone
(10:10):
with a long vision, they'regoing to be assets that may be
valuable post ITC, and thatrepresents change. That
represents people thinking abouthow this is going to evolve. And
maybe those asset
Tim Montague (10:26):
are they assets that have already reached cod or
not? No, no CO,
John Weaver (10:30):
the two emails I've seen, they had co proposed cod
of 2029, both of those. And sothis is an evolving moment where
people are making judgmentcalls, yeah, and if a lot of
people run, I guess this is thatmoment when, uh, Warren Buffett
said, when everybody else isscared, don't be, when everybody
else is greedy, don't be. And,you know, if everybody else is
(10:53):
scared, right now, maybe it's atime to settle yourself, focus,
double down and, you know, be init. If this is your career, be
in it and go, because this isthat, this might be that moment.
So, yeah,
Tim Montague (11:08):
do you want to talk about your project of the
week?
John Weaver (11:11):
Sure. Okay, talk with a nice, little, cute en
phase system that we built. Iwas very happy about it. It was
just clean and nice. So this isour new residential company.
That's not our new residentialcompany. This is whaling city
solar. Us working throughthings. I was very happy with
the quality of this install. Theroof was a little older than we
(11:35):
were happy with, but thecustomer wanted it on his roof,
and he believes in the length ofit. I like, I've been working
with these envoys. So the box onthe right, the end phase box to
the far right, is an in phaseenvoy. That's their kind of
control system. It's funny, theysay they, you know, they have
micro inverters that are on eachmodule, but then they still have
(11:55):
another big box that's almostthe size of an inverter. It is
that you got to put down there.
Yeah, so whatever, such is life,but that's the envoy, and the
envoy is nice, though. It allowsyou a control system, and within
that, I can limit the output ofa system. So for instance, we
have a few residential projectsthat have a grid interconnection
limitation. However, thecustomer's electricity demand is
(12:17):
double, and they have batteries,and they have this, and they
have this. So we recentlysubmitted for 20 kW project,
18.9 actually. And the gridlimitation is 13.05 kilowatts of
solar output max. So using thePSC, the control system that's
within the end phase, we wereable to D rate the maximum
(12:41):
output. And then that means notransformer upgrades, no this,
no that. And we're usingbatteries to capture clipping
feed it back into the houseafter the sun goes down. And so
it's kind of, you know, justkind of nice. And then if you go
through these couple of images,there's just a nice clean I like
(13:02):
to I took the picture of thegrounding just because I like
the look of the nice groundingthat is this is going to be
snapping rack,
Tim Montague (13:15):
hey, I guess, right. Yeah, yeah.
John Weaver (13:17):
I like their so this is a nice splice between
two rails to keep the grounding,those little gold colored clips
for the grounding. And it's justa nice, clean, simple little
project. Oh yeah, I took this.
We took this picture because Iliked this is a heat pump. The
white plastic, they have a heatpump down below, and that's the
(13:38):
path of the heat pump. I lovethat. We snuck our conduit,
tucked it in right next to it,kind of kept it clean.
Tim Montague (13:48):
Good, clean look.
Yeah,
John Weaver (13:50):
yeah. It's just a nice little and if you scroll
down a tiny bit, there's acouple other images, yeah. So
some seg modules, decent price.
That's what the customer wanteda little junction box on the
roof the snap and rack product.
I like how it has space to putthe wiring inside of it. So our
(14:10):
wire management is clean. Sothank you. Snap and rack. Good
product there.
Tim Montague (14:14):
Yeah, I agree. I like wire. Good wire,
integrated. Wire management
Unknown (14:18):
is key. Yes, wire management is great. So modules
Tim Montague (14:22):
for these days, John, I'm just curious, do you
know? Oh, it depends.
John Weaver (14:25):
It ranges. It's been going up, uh, segs were in
the lower 30 cent range. Um,then we have, like, say, Hyundai
and Ginko that are in the upper30. Then we have, um, next level
stuff that can be 3045, to 65you know, if you get the eight,
just depending on the product,you know, if you're, if we're
(14:46):
going with, like the Rex, thealpha pures, those, those can be
a little more expensive, yeah.
But it varies. Like, forinstance, we had a warehouse
that was invaded, I guess, ortwo. Customs, and it was
apparently unrelated to solar,but we lost access to our segs
for two projects, and weswitched to either Hyundais or
(15:07):
jinkos, because that's what wasavailable for, like the two week
window, because we had ascheduled installation for two
resi projects and no modules. So
Tim Montague (15:18):
it's your warehouse was rated by ice or by
who?
John Weaver (15:21):
Customs, I was told customs. But I was also told it
was unrelated to the solarmodules. I was told the the
warehouse raid, you know,someone else may have been
selling something out of thewarehouse. It wasn't solar
panels. So project of the week,yeah,
Tim Montague (15:36):
cool. Thank you.
We got a story here in energystory, storage news, which is
the PV magazine? Is that the PV
John Weaver (15:43):
magazine? No, no.
This is No. This is competing.
This is energy
Tim Montague (15:47):
because their name, this is dv tech. Their
name is also very similar,right?
John Weaver (15:52):
Yeah. So PV mag went with ESS dash news, okay,
their Energy Storage Desk news,but this is the PV tech battery
arm. So,
Tim Montague (16:03):
okay, yeah. So this story hythium, LG es begins
US manufacturing of dedicatedbattery storage projects. Heam
is a joint venture.
John Weaver (16:13):
Hithem is actually, no, it's Chinese manufacturer.
There's they're a really bigcompany, okay, um, the new thing
they're doing here, though, is ajoint venture with LG and
Tim Montague (16:24):
10 gigawatt hour battery module and system
factory in Texas.
John Weaver (16:29):
Yes. So I think it's five gigawatts, each five
gigawatts for modules, and five,five gigawatts for completed
systems. So I think it's a, it'sreally a five gigawatt plan.
What I really thought wasinteresting about this, and the
reason I brought it up is that,first off, they're expecting it
to be finished and completedthis year. And if this building
(16:50):
is able to output five gigawatthours a year of battery storage
systems, so full on systems,yeah, roughly this year, I think
we're estimating 45 to 55gigawatt hours of capacity to be
deployed. So this one facilitycould knock out 10% of US
(17:14):
demand. And I think that'spretty sweet. I would also
though estimate that that 10%number, it's going to go down,
because our capacity that we'regoing to install is going to go
up. So while it may be 10% thatwe need this year, next year,
it's only going to be 8% andthen the year after that, it's
(17:35):
going to be 7% but for now, thisfactory turns out, at the end of
the year, it's pretty awesome.
It's gonna be a big facility.
Now, hit them, being a Chinesemanufacturer, yeah, it might
cause an issue, because we havea lot of challenges going on
and, and I don't know, I don'tknow what that means, but so I
(17:57):
hope we don't lose them or, ormaybe they build the factory,
then they flip it to a USinvestor or something. But I
hope we don't lose it thisfactory
Tim Montague (18:08):
China's on the short list of countries that
that the big, beautiful bill istrying to hurt. Yes, we could
say, but, but, you know, yeah,so I like it big factory. I just
think if you want manufacturingin the US, you have to lean into
(18:33):
the energy transition, becausethat's a big part of the the
opportunity. Batteries forstationary, batteries for cars,
solar panels for rooftop, forutility, obviously. And what
other segment of our globaleconomy is growing as fast?
Okay, AI data centers. But it'sthat. It's that and that. And
(18:55):
what else? What else are wegoing to make in America? John
like we're not going back toclothing manufacturer or
furniture manufacturer, or, youknow, so many things in our
lives, right? We just cannot becompetitive. Tech, high tech
manufacturing, I think, is whereit's at, right? Yep.
John Weaver (19:17):
So, yeah. I mean China, other places around the
world, they look at thisindustry as now as a thing to do
to boost their economy. LikeChina looks at renewables not
only as a thing they have to do,but to boost their economy,
literally for the purpose ofboosting the economy. So yeah,
Tim Montague (19:40):
you see right here in this story, it's talking
about some of the gyrations thatthe manufacturers are going
through. Yeah, LG had originallyplanned to open a dedicated
factory in Arizona for LFP, butinstead opened up the to retool
production lines for EVbatteries at existing plants in
Michigan and a strategic.
Rebalancing of productioncapacity. So many gyrations, so
(20:02):
many gyrations. That's got to bevery painful for the
manufacturers. I feel bad forthem. I feel bad for anybody
impacted by the chaos. But thesemanufacturers are investing
billions of dollars. What wasthe figure SEIA put out like
$350 billion is at stake if we,if we crush the IRA, right? That
(20:26):
means jobs, it means taxes, itmeans the energy transition. I
mean supply chain. We had somany supply chain woes, right
during COVID. Have we forgottenJohn all of a sudden? Like that?
We actually want to make thisstuff on shore so that we don't
(20:46):
have to ship it across theocean. Somehow we forgot that.
John Weaver (20:54):
Well, it's crazy. I mean, there's another little
gorilla sitting on ourshoulders, on our back right
now, and the fact that weliterally a war just kind of
kicked off in the Middle Eastlast night.
Tim Montague (21:09):
Yes, it did.
Israel bombed Iran. Iran, yeah.
And so how do you think thataffects the energy industry?
John Weaver (21:17):
Ice oil shot up 10% maybe so supply chains. You
know, how's China going to reactto one of its close trading
partners, a strategic partner,being attacked by Israel? You
(21:39):
know, that's, that's, that's thething. You know, China buys a
lot of oil direct from Iran,because it benefits China,
because they get cheap oil, andbecause it goes around sanctions
and and that's a close partner.
And you know, Iran isn't withintheir sphere, not their direct
sphere, but their close partner,and so I don't know, you know if
(22:01):
it could affect supply chain,because we already had the
Houthis, who are a direct group,who are supported by the
Iranians, who are shootingmissiles and drones across ships
going into the Red Sea. And Iknow of a company who had solar
modules on a shipping containerthat was shot at or struck or
(22:27):
slowed, and they're like, Yeah,we had a one month, couple week
slowdown because our modulescouldn't go through the Red Sea
or got stopped or something. Sowe're living within a complex
world. There's a lot of peoplewho are working very hard to
work through these challenges asprofessions, professionals like
shipping and getting thingsmoved, because that's their job,
(22:49):
and now they're pushing hard,but that's going to be upward
pressure on pricing. You know,shipping container used to cost
three grand, now it's going tocost 1015, grand.
Tim Montague (23:01):
Shipping Container, just a container, you
mean, or to
John Weaver (23:05):
move a container from China to the United States
use cost three grand, irrelevantof what's in it. That's just
cost of one container. Nowthey're double, triple, 5x you
know, during COVID, they wereover 10k per shipping container
across the sea. So it's, we'regonna have, there's dynamics.
We're in the midst of it, thesolar coaster coasters on, and
(23:27):
we're in the energy industry,you know, we're, there's an
energy war still going on inEurope, or at least the
initiation, it was initiated asan energy war, uh, complex, you
know, we got a lot going on. Soyou
Tim Montague (23:41):
mean the war in Ukraine?
John Weaver (23:42):
Yes, sir, yes, sir, yeah. So, so, yeah. And then,
you know, maybe, funnily enough,the very next article on our
list is an energy war thatdidn't go against us. Texas,
yes, sir, I'm ready
Tim Montague (23:58):
to put that on screen, yeah. This is Rachel
meadows, Mattia. Story Ends PVmagazine, anti solar. Bills die
in Texas House legislation thatwould kill renewable energy in
Texas failed to progress in thestate's House of
Representatives. I'll note thatTexas installed 11 gigawatts, I
(24:19):
think last year just in the onestate. It is the largest solar
market in the United States.
It's pretty awesome. Weinstalled 2.4 gigawatts in
Illinois.
John Weaver (24:33):
That's pretty awesome, too. It's not bad,
yeah. So three bills in Texaswere put out. They had a lot of
restrictions on how solar couldbe deployed. They were requiring
things like solar, like if youbuilt solar, it had to be
coupled with energy with gas, sothat you had guaranteed 24/7,
(24:58):
uptime. Um. Uh, and that waspretty interesting, um, the the
laws, the fact that they alldied, though, was interesting.
And in the interim, while theywere dying, the governor of
Texas multiple times came outwith communication saying, hey,
(25:22):
Texas is an all of the above.
Texas is a renewable plus oilstate now. And so that was
pretty good.
Tim Montague (25:32):
Um, very interesting. Yeah.
John Weaver (25:36):
So I thought, Uh, I thought, you know, I was
surprised. I was like, Ah, thisis gonna hurt, but we're
crossing precipices because ofthe capacities that we're
deploying, because Tim It'scoming down to money, and if
it's coming down to this money,and solar and storage are able
to push the money, then thatsays we're reaching a new
(25:59):
precipice that's similar tothose people at eight core,
they're talking about a postincentive world. They're talking
about a utility scale, demanddriven world, and you gotta have
it now, so we're
Tim Montague (26:11):
moving beyond it.
And ERCOT needs the power this,this, these two sentences say a
lot here, right? Texas would befar more vulnerable to grid
outages if new generation werelimited to a small number of
facilities, the simple fact is,Texas needs every resource on
the grid to keep prices low forconsumers and meet the demands
of future population andbusiness growth. Yeah. I mean
(26:33):
those outages that Texas has hadare the real deal, and they've
come to be, they've come closeto being much worse disasters
than they turned out to be. So Iam not surprised that the
(26:54):
governor is taking a quietstand. He may not say the
world's the word solar andstorage, right? But we can read
between those lines. Anythingelse about this story you want
to say
John Weaver (27:13):
nothing, nothing other than I like to hear that
Texas is going solar and storageand that the politics tilted in
our favor and held. And thatspeaks of the size, capacity and
importance of the industry,yeah. And so that gives me, uh,
that gives me some confidence.
Like it,
Tim Montague (27:33):
we should probably be selective about what else we
we've got a big docket. Whatelse should we talk about?
John Weaver (27:40):
Well, you know, I'll talk about a high level
thing. Let's talk aboutbatteries a tiny bit more, just
because I don't know, you know,I'm really interested in the
volumes of batteries that aregetting deployed. And we have
like three articles right there,but I'm going to start an
article soon on curtailment, andmaybe you could click on that PV
magazine article, 2528 solarpower curtailment rises in
(28:03):
California, and I've done alittle math, and I think that,
uh, I think, I mean, we'reseeing it. But I want to do an I
want to write an article, andwe'll do some math, and I talk
with a professor I work with atOccidental University out in
California, physics professor,and I'm going to do math and
figure out this curtailment,because we're seeing curtailment
(28:24):
go up. However, I think that theamount of curtailment that's
happening in California, thegrowth is much slower than the
amount of new solar and storage,and I believe that batteries are
now lowering the volume ofcurtailment and enabling more
(28:44):
solar to run. And so we mighteven calculate curtailment as
the same amount, but it's alower percentage of overall
generation now. And so I thinkwe get a front row seat, similar
to people in South Australia,the South Australian state which
(29:06):
has a massive volume of solarwe're getting a front row seat
of the energy transitionoccurring. And right now we're
getting the next round of itwith batteries occurring with
California on the grid. And thischart represents something. I
don't know what it representsyet. It's it represents
(29:26):
curtailment. I mean, I knowthat. But what does it represent
in the long game? Does thisrepresent an opportunity?
Because there's not a hugeamount of energy here, like
this, like I did the math. Solast year, 24 Kaiso curtailed
3.4 million megawatt hours. Imean, that sounds like a lot.
(29:48):
It's up 29% but if you run themath the state, let's see what's
the total that they did fortotal energy. It's like 1000
this is like 1% Percent ofenergy. Like I have the math
somewhere I did it and I wantedto show off. But if you then do
the math on the amount ofbatteries that are on the grid,
(30:12):
we actually have enoughbatteries in California to 100%
soak up all of the curtailedelectricity. Yeah, utility scale
alone. So there's some dynamicshappening here. There's growth,
there's batteries, there's thiscurtailment that everybody's
been crying about that really isa trivial issue. And so I'm
(30:34):
having fun watching and learningand reading and and just just
watching the way they work,because a commercial solar guy,
we're going to try and partnerup with somebody and do battery
EPC work. We have good civilexperience. We have good
electrical experience in house,and we now have a new partner.
So, so just watching this stuff,I mean, you've seen me talking
(30:54):
about batteries for the last sixmonths, just something kind of
really interested in them, butjust cool. So So watching
California, watching thiscurtailment, watching how the
batteries go, I think that'svery key thing for us to look
at, and then watching the samething in Texas, because
batteries are now taking over asthe marginal price setter for
(31:15):
many times. And that used to begas, and gas was the thing that
could always come in and buy thenext electricity rounds. But now
batteries are doing it from 5pmto 10pm that means batteries are
taken over the grid. Solar hasalready taken over the grid from
7am 8am until 5pm now batteriesare extending that so we have a
(31:37):
full 12 hour daytime solar plusstorage economy in Texas and
California, coming in Californiaalready, but it's coming in
Texas and so, yeah, so I thinkthat's a big topic, and I'm
gonna try and do some researchand learn better on it.
Tim Montague (31:55):
Can I talk about Gibson City,
John Weaver (31:56):
Illinois? Heck, yeah, that's a big power plant.
Man,
Tim Montague (32:00):
very interesting story. I just stumbled upon it
today. And Gibson City is asmall farm town 40 minutes north
of Champaign, where I live, anda company called Earthrise
energy is developing a 270megawatt AC, which is, I don't
(32:25):
know, 350 DC, something likethat. I gotta get this on
screen. Can't find stream yard.
Share Screen, Earth rise, okay,so the story is that Earth rise
raised six 30 million for its270 megawatt solar plant in
Gibson city. And what they'redoing, that I think is really
(32:48):
cool, is this same company ownsa peaker plant in this vicinity,
and so they have an existingsubstation there, and
interconnection to miso, andthey're using that
interconnection as an on rampfor a bunch of this solar
energy, and thereby expeditingtheir ability to get an
(33:13):
interconnection agreement withmiso, which is notably horrible,
and this was a theme at theMidwest solar Expo. You know,
there's three to five year cuesin miso, both at the
distribution and transmissionlevels. So kudos to Earthrise
for thinking of this. And I justthink there's a lot of subtle
(33:40):
innovation like this. John, Imean, this is not rocket
science, right? They're going,Oh yeah, we've already got this
fleet of peaker plants. They'reonly running 10% of the time. We
could put more juice on thegrid, probably, if we built a
big solar farm which can sellpower to the grid cheaper than
the peaker plant can. Right? Thepeaker the peaker plant juice is
(34:04):
expensive, yep, because it'sonly running 10% of the time.
And so that's it. It's, uh, Idon't know how many acres the
project is, but a lot ofelectricity. Yeah, there's just
a little more there. About theIllinois market, seventh in the
(34:26):
country.
John Weaver (34:30):
So that what they're doing there, and that
that that strategy is supersmart, in my opinion. I saw an
article recently the strategy ofadding new capacities that
complement the existingcapacity. So, for instance,
these peaker plants thatgenerally only run in the
(34:50):
evening period or cold periodswhen they're needed. You know,
again, they have 10% some ofthem have a 5% capacity factor.
Most. Or 15%
Tim Montague (35:01):
but there are. And if you ever wonder, this is what
a peaker plant looks like. Thisthese rectangular buildings.
Here is the peaker. These arenatural gas Yep. These are
natural gas turbine generators.
Their smoke stocks are quite lowto the ground, maybe 20 feet
tops, and then there's asubstation. Now, some of these
(35:22):
peaker plants have many moreturbines. This is a relatively
small one. I don't know how manymegawatts. I'm guessing two
megawatts, but I don't know. Andthere's a ethanol plant next
door, but, and then they'vealready got a plot for a new
substation they're going tobuild here for the solar farm
(35:42):
called out on Google, which Ithought was cool. But who knows
where this I mean, the the solarfarm is obviously going to be
much bigger, uh, several, uh,maybe, maybe around 1000 acres,
I don't know.
John Weaver (35:57):
Well, if you think 350, megawatts,
Tim Montague (36:00):
3456, 1500 acres.
100 acres.
John Weaver (36:04):
Divide that by four, at least, at least that.
Yeah. Cool. Very cool. Yeah. Soagain, as I was saying, though,
in California, they were sayingthat they have 10s of gigawatts,
maybe even hundreds. I don'tthink it's hundreds, but 10s of
gigawatts on interconnectionsthat are underutilized. So great
(36:28):
idea. Super smart.
Tim Montague (36:30):
Okay, we're going to close with China launches
world's first grid formingsodium ion battery storage
John Weaver (36:37):
plant. Nah. I like this one a little better. Across
the United States, residentialelectricity prices are set to
increase, okay, by an average of13% Yuck, and some as much as 26
and I thought that was bothterrible and great. You know,
(37:01):
it's terrible, because this islike real human beings, like
that sucks.
Tim Montague (37:06):
So we're looking at the EIA, the Energy
Information Administration, yep,website in depth analysis.
John Weaver (37:14):
So you notice price of gas nice and flat. Gasoline
is looking down, uh, heating oillooking down, but electricity
moving along, and it's goingabove the CPI, above inflation.
That's that second value. Andthen if you scroll to the bottom
of this article, there's anotherchart that shows us on a state
(37:37):
level, so regionally, you cankind of see, oh, this is a good
one. This shows what people arespending per year. Per year. You
know, gaining on $2,000 a yearof electricity. But then you go
down a little bit further. Nextchart, you can see that it's
very it's varied, highly variedon a state basis.
Tim Montague (37:53):
You can see that dip from COVID, right? That's
where gasoline expenditure wentway down as people weren't
traveling so fascinating. And
John Weaver (38:03):
then here, check this out. Like, first off, you
see Pacific regions alreadyexpensive, and over the last
three years, it's up 26% look atNew England, the most expensive
region, total region in thenation, going to jump another
19% made Atlantic. You know,these are like Delawares,
Washington, Virginia, statesjumping you see right there in
(38:27):
the middle that US average 13%that's pretty big, over three
years. So, so this, if anything,this will support the
residential solar market. Youknow, you knock a year off and
knock two years off your IRA,your ROI. So, yes, we're going
(38:50):
to lose some incentives. Itseems price of electricity will
go up. We're also going to losesome cost competition, maybe
because, hardware costs mightget tariffs, but we'll also lose
some competition in that theselease companies are going under.
Mosaic is gone. Sonova is gonenow. So that's going to be a
(39:13):
different dynamic. And thenwe're going to have to bark at
our distributors and be like,Hey guys, this resi gear. I know
those modules are nice, but I'mnot paying 60 cents for modules
anymore. Friend, you want tosell those, you need to have an
ROI that's going to bereasonable for my customers.
And, you know, I'm just gonna,gonna have to work it that way.
(39:35):
And I think that we as a smallresidential company that is
backed by a commercial companythat has existing
infrastructure. It'll make itwork. I think we can make it
handle. Maybe we can handle itso so that, I thought that was
interesting, that those priceincreases are going to come to
utility scale. Those pricesincreases are going to come to
commercial so price of energy,if it keeps outpacing inflation,
(39:59):
can create. Current with solarand storage, at least holding
flat pricing, if they can keepgoing down, that would be
amazing, and that'll carry us,that'll carry us for decades
out. Yeah, so price increase isterrible for people on average,
good for us, bad for the averagefamily. But maybe it's good that
(40:20):
we pay a little more for energy,because, listen, if we don't
have carbon taxes built in,we're getting away cheap anyway,
and we're stealing from ourkids. So one way or another, we
got to manage this. That's it.
Tim, that's my news. I gotBoatload more. We only got so
much time. Man, no shortage ofnews. We got new perovskite
(40:41):
record. Did you see that one?
The next article, 829 watts fora utility scale module. You
know, got a so much news. Wecould talk about good stuff
going on, challenging, you know,challenging this week, we might
start to see a version of the ofthe document coming from the
Senate this next week, so we'llsee. I'm hearing hopeful that
(41:04):
the House bill, the terribleone, might get pulled back on a
couple of items. So we won'thave this 60 day thing. We might
have 2028, but, but I don'tknow. I don't know anything
anymore. I'm not a not thatpolitically connected, and all
my senators vote a certain way.
So So call your senators, if youlive in a state that has has
Republican senators, and givethem, give them some feedback
(41:30):
about your opinion on the IRAand whether you think it
matters, because that can createvalue for us. And you know,
those are the people votingright now, Republican senators,
54 of them. Give them a phonecall. 54 people,
Tim Montague (41:47):
for sure. Call your senators, let them know you
care about the energytransition. It means jobs and
tax revenue. I did a greatinterview with ser Strategic
Economic Research, small companyhere in Bloomington, normal with
it's the Loomis family. DaveLoomis is the founder. I had
(42:08):
Ethan Loomis, his son on theshow. And we're talking about
how utility, solar and windprojects have economic impacts,
mostly tax revenue for localcounties and for for the school
districts in a rural county, itcan be more than a million
dollars a year just one utilityproject. That's a lot of money
(42:29):
for these school districts thatare generally hurting. So check
it out at clean power hour.comclick on the work with Tim tab.
I am interviewing EPCs who wantto transition into large CNI
solar. If you are on thatjourney, reach out to me. That's
one of the things I do. I amgasoline for that engine. And as
(42:52):
always, John, how can ourlisteners find you
John Weaver (42:55):
commercial solar guy.com that is our home.
508-499-9786, 508-499-9786, butcommercial solar guy.com that's
where I'm always at give us acall. We're located in the
northeast. Mostly. We're an EPCand a developer. So we can build
your project from Greenfield tothe end. You can also find me on
(43:17):
PV magazine USA. It's where Iwrite eight articles a month,
try and teach the world alittle, teach myself and and
that. And Tim, what's yourfavorite sized EPC? Like, what?
Like, what's the what's the key?
Like, what have you found thatyou can help the most?
Tim Montague (43:36):
Yeah, companies that are doing about five to 15
million in sales are a greatsweet spot for me and and up to,
I would say, 50 million. Above50 million, you're going to hire
some big, fancy Consulting Firm.
I'm a solopreneur. I cut myteeth working for Continental
energy solutions in Chicago.
(43:57):
They they're doing about 30megawatts a year. So if you're
in the you know, couple ofmegawatts of RE and light
commercial, and you want to grabonto a couple more megawatts a
year. I'm your guy, John. Wehave a little bit of a
scheduling challenge ahead ofus. So, you know, normally, we
(44:18):
do this every two weeks, but,yeah, I am going to be sailing
in the national flying Scottregatta on June 27 in two weeks.
Awesome, if all goes well, ifthere's wind, it's happening at
a lake in Illinois calledCarlisle, which is three hours
south of us here. And then thefollowing Friday is the fourth
(44:41):
of July holiday, so we can't dothat. So maybe we do one next
Friday, or we are going to waitthree Fridays. I don't know.
It's your call. Oh, I'm
John Weaver (44:49):
gonna make a suggestion that we move it to
Thursday the 26th but we'll talkabout it offline. We don't want
our people bothered too much byour scheduling conflict. Let's
talk about solar panels. Andbatteries and stuff. So, so
cool. I hope you have awonderful time on a lake, doing
sailing stuff that soundsawesome.
Tim Montague (45:10):
With that, I'll say, let's grow solar and
storage. Thanks so much, John,Yep, see ya.
Tim, welcome to the Clean Power Hour live. I'm
(00:04):
Tim Montague, Today is June 13,2025 and we are here to give you
the latest and greatest insolar, wind and battery news
with my co host, none other thanthe commercial solar guy. John
Weaver, welcome to the show,John. Hey
John Weaver (00:18):
Tim. Thanks for inviting me, and it seems like
your stream yard accounts prettyterrible, because your nice
green color goes nicely withyour blue eyes. Though
Tim Montague (00:28):
I kind of look like a ghost. Um, you look. I
like it.
John Weaver (00:31):
Tim, you could, you could, like, float away, and
there you go. So stream yard,Tim, needs help on the Clean
Power Hour. It's got a
Tim Montague (00:41):
green Halo. I mean, I do have a green screen.
It's seeing the green screen.
Oh, it does. It really a lotaround my hands. But anyway,
life is good. John, it's good.
You know, some people arefreaked out about what's going
on in the United States, but, Imean, in our industry, there's a
(01:01):
lot of stuff going on in theUnited States, but I'm talking
about the solar industry. I justcame off of being in Chicago at
the Midwest solar Expo for twoand a half days, and I've
arrived at a place of it's allgoing to be good. It could be
better or less good, but it'snot going to be horrible. And so
(01:24):
if they pass the bill thatthey're trying to pass the the
you know, the big, great bill,the budget reconciliation bill,
you know, it does reduce thesolar industry by 46 Well, solar
and wind by 46% between now and2030 and that's a bad statistic.
It's not going to help usachieve the energy transition in
(01:46):
a timely manner. But on theother the flip side of that is
that sooner or later, we'regoing to have a 50% solarized
grid. It's unstoppable. So justhang in there. I say ride on.
Give me the solar coaster righton,
John Weaver (02:03):
you know, then actually, that comment, that
thought, actually leads into oneof my articles that I wrote this
week for PV mag. Um, last week,I was in New York City for the a
core financial forum, theAmerican Council on renewable
energy cool for New York City,we had two days of people
speaking and, and if you want toshare one of the articles I
(02:27):
wrote for PV, mag in the roomfor the for review viewers,
that'd be cool. Oh, but yeah,you just got to scroll down that
document a little bit. You'llsee a core and, but the thing
that I heard from the peoplespeaking, and this, I think,
kind of had an impression on me,is that the biggest driver right
(02:49):
now, like a big driver, not thebiggest, but a big driver right
now, is more demand for energy.
So there are, there's lots ofpeople seeking more energy right
now, it seems, and I think it'sa little less than some of the
headlines suggest, and WallStreet thinks it's a little less
than some of the headlines willsuggest, because there's lots of
speculation. There's like,hundreds of gigawatts of demand
(03:12):
of data centers, but only a 10thof that is going to come
through, much like theinterconnection queue, probably.
But nonetheless, there still isgrowth, it seems. And this
growth means that new capacitymeans to build be built. And
everybody at the show wassaying, listen, people just want
capacity. They don't care whereit comes from. They just want it
(03:34):
and they want it now. Andeverybody's saying, listen,
solar and storage is pretty dangcheap, irrelevant of tax
credits, irrelevant of theimport tariffs, it's still
pretty dang cheap. And then thenext layer is that solar and
storage is the fastest to bedeployed. Everybody kept saying
(03:56):
that gas turbines hadchallenges. It might not last
until, might not be gettingdeployed in new volume until the
end of the decade. Likeeverything that's being
installed through the end of theyear is, like, accounted for and
so. So, for instance, these two,Sandia and Jim from Invenergy,
Jim Murphy from Invenergy, like,holy crap. And then EDP
(04:20):
renewables like, so we just had,like, two awesome people to
start off day two. And both ofthese people, if you read in
this section, they're like,listen, more capacity is coming,
and it's going to be solar andstorage. It's going to be driven
by solar and storage. And sofrom their perspectives, first
off, they want to pound gettingprojects started right now. So
(04:40):
if you're an EPC and you haveresources, you might be able to
sign some pretty quick contractswith some pretty big companies
and start construction, just tomake sure stuff is happening.
And these two people who areleaders of some of the largest
renewable companies on Earth. Sowe're like, Hey, this is
happening. We're going forward.
(05:02):
Yeah, we really would like tosee the ITC stay. And no, we
don't like this foreign require,foreign thing. And no, we don't
like the 60 day start. And yes,we should have a construction
start versus constructionFinish, finish for the ITC law.
But the passion, the belief thatthis is just going to go
(05:24):
forward, that we're still goingto be building utility scale
solar and storage, and that itis the number one resource, was
solid and these two, Sean andTaurus. So Taurus and Toland,
Sean Toland from Copenhageninfrastructure partners, again,
one of the world's largestinvestors in renewables. His
(05:44):
perspective was twofold. He itwas really nice to see he's
like, first off, I've been inthe US for a decade, and people
on my team longer, and we'veseen the US grow be a mature
environment or mature renewablesindustry for a decade, and we've
seen the solar coaster, andwe've seen it in the country,
(06:05):
and from tolan's perspective,we've seen it globally. And he
said something really smart,because as a global investor,
and you can see it right there,you have to have a broader
perspective and realize thatthere are challenges everywhere,
and we as Greenfield investorswho are globally conscious.
We're used to taking on theserisks. And so he goes, You know
(06:27):
what the US is rough and tumbleright now, but that's just the
nature of Earth and and we'reokay with it. So this, this
feeling of, I loved it, thisfeeling of effort. We're going
through it, we're building it,and there's going to be
challenges, and we're going todeal with it. Matched what you
said to start the show, and Iheard it over and over from
(06:48):
people on stage, and it was,everybody was questioning
things. They're like, we don'tknow what's coming next. You
know, it's different, and wehope the US doesn't use lose its
leadership position. But theywere all bullish. They were all
aggressive. And it makes me feelabout the 20 megawatt and above
space, very strongly. 20megawatt AC and above space in
(07:09):
the US, very strongly. Yeah.
Tim Montague (07:11):
I think the contraction will be harder on
the residential market if theyend the ITC in 2025 Yeah, that
will be a serious blow toresidential solar. There's no
doubt about it. Will residentialsolar exist? For sure, there are
some people that are going toget solar, whether or not
there's a tax credit, it willreduce their power bill. It just
(07:32):
won't have as quick a paybackperiod. And the states have
levers too, John that they canpull. And I interviewed Doug
Scott, who's the Chair of theICC, that's our PUC here in
Illinois. And we talked aboutthis, and Doug reiterated
something else that youreferenced, and that is that
(07:52):
some of these large data centerprojects have multiple
applications in because they'renot 100% cited in a specific
location. They're they're tryingto figure out where they going
to go to, just like solar farmsdo, and so there's a lot more
congestion in the queue than isactually going to get built.
(08:14):
But, but the levers that thestates have are very important.
Illinois, I think there was astory in PB magazine about the
Midwest solar Expo. Check thatout. It's not on our docket,
but, but it called Illinois atop seven state. I call Illinois
top 10 state. It's a topcommunity solar state the there
(08:37):
was just a report out from ilsr,the Institute for local Self
Reliance out of Minnesota thatranked Illinois number one in
community solar nationally. Wewere the only state that got a
B. No state got an A. It's anABCD. There were several BS,
including New York andMassachusetts, and then there
were a bunch of Cs and Ds, but,um, but for larger solar,
(09:01):
including community solar, forsure, there's there's growth
ahead, and there may beconsolidation, of course, but
it's like we think of us on adiet. Okay, we're going to lose
some fat and gain some muscle,and we'll be stronger and
better, and we are going tocontinue to grow a green grid,
(09:26):
and we're going to 10x theamount of solar on the grid in
the United States, people. Sobuckle up and get serious right.
Start developing projects. Don'trun, don't be don't be afraid.
Don't get distracted by thenoise. This is a good time to
double down if
John Weaver (09:44):
you're going to take that risk. I mean, using
the word double down insinuatesa risk. And there's risk in
everything, yeah. And so this,if you're going to take that
risk and double down, this isthat moment where a lot of
people are, you know, I gotemail. Else. Tim, very
interesting for the first time,with people wanting to sell
assets that they've developedafter 2028 so if you are someone
(10:10):
with a long vision, they'regoing to be assets that may be
valuable post ITC, and thatrepresents change. That
represents people thinking abouthow this is going to evolve. And
maybe those asset
Tim Montague (10:26):
are they assets that have already reached cod or
not? No, no CO,
John Weaver (10:30):
the two emails I've seen, they had co proposed cod
of 2029, both of those. And sothis is an evolving moment where
people are making judgmentcalls, yeah, and if a lot of
people run, I guess this is thatmoment when, uh, Warren Buffett
said, when everybody else isscared, don't be, when everybody
else is greedy, don't be. And,you know, if everybody else is
(10:53):
scared, right now, maybe it's atime to settle yourself, focus,
double down and, you know, be init. If this is your career, be
in it and go, because this isthat, this might be that moment.
So, yeah,
Tim Montague (11:08):
do you want to talk about your project of the
week?
John Weaver (11:11):
Sure. Okay, talk with a nice, little, cute en
phase system that we built. Iwas very happy about it. It was
just clean and nice. So this isour new residential company.
That's not our new residentialcompany. This is whaling city
solar. Us working throughthings. I was very happy with
the quality of this install. Theroof was a little older than we
(11:35):
were happy with, but thecustomer wanted it on his roof,
and he believes in the length ofit. I like, I've been working
with these envoys. So the box onthe right, the end phase box to
the far right, is an in phaseenvoy. That's their kind of
control system. It's funny, theysay they, you know, they have
micro inverters that are on eachmodule, but then they still have
(11:55):
another big box that's almostthe size of an inverter. It is
that you got to put down there.
Yeah, so whatever, such is life,but that's the envoy, and the
envoy is nice, though. It allowsyou a control system, and within
that, I can limit the output ofa system. So for instance, we
have a few residential projectsthat have a grid interconnection
limitation. However, thecustomer's electricity demand is
(12:17):
double, and they have batteries,and they have this, and they
have this. So we recentlysubmitted for 20 kW project,
18.9 actually. And the gridlimitation is 13.05 kilowatts of
solar output max. So using thePSC, the control system that's
within the end phase, we wereable to D rate the maximum
(12:41):
output. And then that means notransformer upgrades, no this,
no that. And we're usingbatteries to capture clipping
feed it back into the houseafter the sun goes down. And so
it's kind of, you know, justkind of nice. And then if you go
through these couple of images,there's just a nice clean I like
(13:02):
to I took the picture of thegrounding just because I like
the look of the nice groundingthat is this is going to be
snapping rack,
Tim Montague (13:15):
hey, I guess, right. Yeah, yeah.
John Weaver (13:17):
I like their so this is a nice splice between
two rails to keep the grounding,those little gold colored clips
for the grounding. And it's justa nice, clean, simple little
project. Oh yeah, I took this.
We took this picture because Iliked this is a heat pump. The
white plastic, they have a heatpump down below, and that's the
(13:38):
path of the heat pump. I lovethat. We snuck our conduit,
tucked it in right next to it,kind of kept it clean.
Tim Montague (13:48):
Good, clean look.
Yeah,
John Weaver (13:50):
yeah. It's just a nice little and if you scroll
down a tiny bit, there's acouple other images, yeah. So
some seg modules, decent price.
That's what the customer wanteda little junction box on the
roof the snap and rack product.
I like how it has space to putthe wiring inside of it. So our
(14:10):
wire management is clean. Sothank you. Snap and rack. Good
product there.
Tim Montague (14:14):
Yeah, I agree. I like wire. Good wire,
integrated. Wire management
Unknown (14:18):
is key. Yes, wire management is great. So modules
Tim Montague (14:22):
for these days, John, I'm just curious, do you
know? Oh, it depends.
John Weaver (14:25):
It ranges. It's been going up, uh, segs were in
the lower 30 cent range. Um,then we have, like, say, Hyundai
and Ginko that are in the upper30. Then we have, um, next level
stuff that can be 3045, to 65you know, if you get the eight,
just depending on the product,you know, if you're, if we're
(14:46):
going with, like the Rex, thealpha pures, those, those can be
a little more expensive, yeah.
But it varies. Like, forinstance, we had a warehouse
that was invaded, I guess, ortwo. Customs, and it was
apparently unrelated to solar,but we lost access to our segs
for two projects, and weswitched to either Hyundais or
(15:07):
jinkos, because that's what wasavailable for, like the two week
window, because we had ascheduled installation for two
resi projects and no modules. So
Tim Montague (15:18):
it's your warehouse was rated by ice or by
who?
John Weaver (15:21):
Customs, I was told customs. But I was also told it
was unrelated to the solarmodules. I was told the the
warehouse raid, you know,someone else may have been
selling something out of thewarehouse. It wasn't solar
panels. So project of the week,yeah,
Tim Montague (15:36):
cool. Thank you.
We got a story here in energystory, storage news, which is
the PV magazine? Is that the PV
John Weaver (15:43):
magazine? No, no.
This is No. This is competing.
This is energy
Tim Montague (15:47):
because their name, this is dv tech. Their
name is also very similar,right?
John Weaver (15:52):
Yeah. So PV mag went with ESS dash news, okay,
their Energy Storage Desk news,but this is the PV tech battery
arm. So,
Tim Montague (16:03):
okay, yeah. So this story hythium, LG es begins
US manufacturing of dedicatedbattery storage projects. Heam
is a joint venture.
John Weaver (16:13):
Hithem is actually, no, it's Chinese manufacturer.
There's they're a really bigcompany, okay, um, the new thing
they're doing here, though, is ajoint venture with LG and
Tim Montague (16:24):
10 gigawatt hour battery module and system
factory in Texas.
John Weaver (16:29):
Yes. So I think it's five gigawatts, each five
gigawatts for modules, and five,five gigawatts for completed
systems. So I think it's a, it'sreally a five gigawatt plan.
What I really thought wasinteresting about this, and the
reason I brought it up is that,first off, they're expecting it
to be finished and completedthis year. And if this building
(16:50):
is able to output five gigawatthours a year of battery storage
systems, so full on systems,yeah, roughly this year, I think
we're estimating 45 to 55gigawatt hours of capacity to be
deployed. So this one facilitycould knock out 10% of US
(17:14):
demand. And I think that'spretty sweet. I would also
though estimate that that 10%number, it's going to go down,
because our capacity that we'regoing to install is going to go
up. So while it may be 10% thatwe need this year, next year,
it's only going to be 8% andthen the year after that, it's
(17:35):
going to be 7% but for now, thisfactory turns out, at the end of
the year, it's pretty awesome.
It's gonna be a big facility.
Now, hit them, being a Chinesemanufacturer, yeah, it might
cause an issue, because we havea lot of challenges going on
and, and I don't know, I don'tknow what that means, but so I
(17:57):
hope we don't lose them or, ormaybe they build the factory,
then they flip it to a USinvestor or something. But I
hope we don't lose it thisfactory
Tim Montague (18:08):
China's on the short list of countries that
that the big, beautiful bill istrying to hurt. Yes, we could
say, but, but, you know, yeah,so I like it big factory. I just
think if you want manufacturingin the US, you have to lean into
(18:33):
the energy transition, becausethat's a big part of the the
opportunity. Batteries forstationary, batteries for cars,
solar panels for rooftop, forutility, obviously. And what
other segment of our globaleconomy is growing as fast?
Okay, AI data centers. But it'sthat. It's that and that. And
(18:55):
what else? What else are wegoing to make in America? John
like we're not going back toclothing manufacturer or
furniture manufacturer, or, youknow, so many things in our
lives, right? We just cannot becompetitive. Tech, high tech
manufacturing, I think, is whereit's at, right? Yep.
John Weaver (19:17):
So, yeah. I mean China, other places around the
world, they look at thisindustry as now as a thing to do
to boost their economy. LikeChina looks at renewables not
only as a thing they have to do,but to boost their economy,
literally for the purpose ofboosting the economy. So yeah,
Tim Montague (19:40):
you see right here in this story, it's talking
about some of the gyrations thatthe manufacturers are going
through. Yeah, LG had originallyplanned to open a dedicated
factory in Arizona for LFP, butinstead opened up the to retool
production lines for EVbatteries at existing plants in
Michigan and a strategic.
Rebalancing of productioncapacity. So many gyrations, so
(20:02):
many gyrations. That's got to bevery painful for the
manufacturers. I feel bad forthem. I feel bad for anybody
impacted by the chaos. But thesemanufacturers are investing
billions of dollars. What wasthe figure SEIA put out like
$350 billion is at stake if we,if we crush the IRA, right? That
(20:26):
means jobs, it means taxes, itmeans the energy transition. I
mean supply chain. We had somany supply chain woes, right
during COVID. Have we forgottenJohn all of a sudden? Like that?
We actually want to make thisstuff on shore so that we don't
(20:46):
have to ship it across theocean. Somehow we forgot that.
John Weaver (20:54):
Well, it's crazy. I mean, there's another little
gorilla sitting on ourshoulders, on our back right
now, and the fact that weliterally a war just kind of
kicked off in the Middle Eastlast night.
Tim Montague (21:09):
Yes, it did.
Israel bombed Iran. Iran, yeah.
And so how do you think thataffects the energy industry?
John Weaver (21:17):
Ice oil shot up 10% maybe so supply chains. You
know, how's China going to reactto one of its close trading
partners, a strategic partner,being attacked by Israel? You
(21:39):
know, that's, that's, that's thething. You know, China buys a
lot of oil direct from Iran,because it benefits China,
because they get cheap oil, andbecause it goes around sanctions
and and that's a close partner.
And you know, Iran isn't withintheir sphere, not their direct
sphere, but their close partner,and so I don't know, you know if
(22:01):
it could affect supply chain,because we already had the
Houthis, who are a direct group,who are supported by the
Iranians, who are shootingmissiles and drones across ships
going into the Red Sea. And Iknow of a company who had solar
modules on a shipping containerthat was shot at or struck or
(22:27):
slowed, and they're like, Yeah,we had a one month, couple week
slowdown because our modulescouldn't go through the Red Sea
or got stopped or something. Sowe're living within a complex
world. There's a lot of peoplewho are working very hard to
work through these challenges asprofessions, professionals like
shipping and getting thingsmoved, because that's their job,
(22:49):
and now they're pushing hard,but that's going to be upward
pressure on pricing. You know,shipping container used to cost
three grand, now it's going tocost 1015, grand.
Tim Montague (23:01):
Shipping Container, just a container, you
mean, or to
John Weaver (23:05):
move a container from China to the United States
use cost three grand, irrelevantof what's in it. That's just
cost of one container. Nowthey're double, triple, 5x you
know, during COVID, they wereover 10k per shipping container
across the sea. So it's, we'regonna have, there's dynamics.
We're in the midst of it, thesolar coaster coasters on, and
(23:27):
we're in the energy industry,you know, we're, there's an
energy war still going on inEurope, or at least the
initiation, it was initiated asan energy war, uh, complex, you
know, we got a lot going on. Soyou
Tim Montague (23:41):
mean the war in Ukraine?
John Weaver (23:42):
Yes, sir, yes, sir, yeah. So, so, yeah. And then,
you know, maybe, funnily enough,the very next article on our
list is an energy war thatdidn't go against us. Texas,
yes, sir, I'm ready
Tim Montague (23:58):
to put that on screen, yeah. This is Rachel
meadows, Mattia. Story Ends PVmagazine, anti solar. Bills die
in Texas House legislation thatwould kill renewable energy in
Texas failed to progress in thestate's House of
Representatives. I'll note thatTexas installed 11 gigawatts, I
(24:19):
think last year just in the onestate. It is the largest solar
market in the United States.
It's pretty awesome. Weinstalled 2.4 gigawatts in
Illinois.
John Weaver (24:33):
That's pretty awesome, too. It's not bad,
yeah. So three bills in Texaswere put out. They had a lot of
restrictions on how solar couldbe deployed. They were requiring
things like solar, like if youbuilt solar, it had to be
coupled with energy with gas, sothat you had guaranteed 24/7,
(24:58):
uptime. Um. Uh, and that waspretty interesting, um, the the
laws, the fact that they alldied, though, was interesting.
And in the interim, while theywere dying, the governor of
Texas multiple times came outwith communication saying, hey,
(25:22):
Texas is an all of the above.
Texas is a renewable plus oilstate now. And so that was
pretty good.
Tim Montague (25:32):
Um, very interesting. Yeah.
John Weaver (25:36):
So I thought, Uh, I thought, you know, I was
surprised. I was like, Ah, thisis gonna hurt, but we're
crossing precipices because ofthe capacities that we're
deploying, because Tim It'scoming down to money, and if
it's coming down to this money,and solar and storage are able
to push the money, then thatsays we're reaching a new
(25:59):
precipice that's similar tothose people at eight core,
they're talking about a postincentive world. They're talking
about a utility scale, demanddriven world, and you gotta have
it now, so we're
Tim Montague (26:11):
moving beyond it.
And ERCOT needs the power this,this, these two sentences say a
lot here, right? Texas would befar more vulnerable to grid
outages if new generation werelimited to a small number of
facilities, the simple fact is,Texas needs every resource on
the grid to keep prices low forconsumers and meet the demands
of future population andbusiness growth. Yeah. I mean
(26:33):
those outages that Texas has hadare the real deal, and they've
come to be, they've come closeto being much worse disasters
than they turned out to be. So Iam not surprised that the
(26:54):
governor is taking a quietstand. He may not say the
world's the word solar andstorage, right? But we can read
between those lines. Anythingelse about this story you want
to say
John Weaver (27:13):
nothing, nothing other than I like to hear that
Texas is going solar and storageand that the politics tilted in
our favor and held. And thatspeaks of the size, capacity and
importance of the industry,yeah. And so that gives me, uh,
that gives me some confidence.
Like it,
Tim Montague (27:33):
we should probably be selective about what else we
we've got a big docket. Whatelse should we talk about?
John Weaver (27:40):
Well, you know, I'll talk about a high level
thing. Let's talk aboutbatteries a tiny bit more, just
because I don't know, you know,I'm really interested in the
volumes of batteries that aregetting deployed. And we have
like three articles right there,but I'm going to start an
article soon on curtailment, andmaybe you could click on that PV
magazine article, 2528 solarpower curtailment rises in
(28:03):
California, and I've done alittle math, and I think that,
uh, I think, I mean, we'reseeing it. But I want to do an I
want to write an article, andwe'll do some math, and I talk
with a professor I work with atOccidental University out in
California, physics professor,and I'm going to do math and
figure out this curtailment,because we're seeing curtailment
(28:24):
go up. However, I think that theamount of curtailment that's
happening in California, thegrowth is much slower than the
amount of new solar and storage,and I believe that batteries are
now lowering the volume ofcurtailment and enabling more
(28:44):
solar to run. And so we mighteven calculate curtailment as
the same amount, but it's alower percentage of overall
generation now. And so I thinkwe get a front row seat, similar
to people in South Australia,the South Australian state which
(29:06):
has a massive volume of solarwe're getting a front row seat
of the energy transitionoccurring. And right now we're
getting the next round of itwith batteries occurring with
California on the grid. And thischart represents something. I
don't know what it representsyet. It's it represents
(29:26):
curtailment. I mean, I knowthat. But what does it represent
in the long game? Does thisrepresent an opportunity?
Because there's not a hugeamount of energy here, like
this, like I did the math. Solast year, 24 Kaiso curtailed
3.4 million megawatt hours. Imean, that sounds like a lot.
(29:48):
It's up 29% but if you run themath the state, let's see what's
the total that they did fortotal energy. It's like 1000
this is like 1% Percent ofenergy. Like I have the math
somewhere I did it and I wantedto show off. But if you then do
the math on the amount ofbatteries that are on the grid,
(30:12):
we actually have enoughbatteries in California to 100%
soak up all of the curtailedelectricity. Yeah, utility scale
alone. So there's some dynamicshappening here. There's growth,
there's batteries, there's thiscurtailment that everybody's
been crying about that really isa trivial issue. And so I'm
(30:34):
having fun watching and learningand reading and and just just
watching the way they work,because a commercial solar guy,
we're going to try and partnerup with somebody and do battery
EPC work. We have good civilexperience. We have good
electrical experience in house,and we now have a new partner.
So, so just watching this stuff,I mean, you've seen me talking
(30:54):
about batteries for the last sixmonths, just something kind of
really interested in them, butjust cool. So So watching
California, watching thiscurtailment, watching how the
batteries go, I think that'svery key thing for us to look
at, and then watching the samething in Texas, because
batteries are now taking over asthe marginal price setter for
(31:15):
many times. And that used to begas, and gas was the thing that
could always come in and buy thenext electricity rounds. But now
batteries are doing it from 5pmto 10pm that means batteries are
taken over the grid. Solar hasalready taken over the grid from
7am 8am until 5pm now batteriesare extending that so we have a
(31:37):
full 12 hour daytime solar plusstorage economy in Texas and
California, coming in Californiaalready, but it's coming in
Texas and so, yeah, so I thinkthat's a big topic, and I'm
gonna try and do some researchand learn better on it.
Tim Montague (31:55):
Can I talk about Gibson City,
John Weaver (31:56):
Illinois? Heck, yeah, that's a big power plant.
Man,
Tim Montague (32:00):
very interesting story. I just stumbled upon it
today. And Gibson City is asmall farm town 40 minutes north
of Champaign, where I live, anda company called Earthrise
energy is developing a 270megawatt AC, which is, I don't
(32:25):
know, 350 DC, something likethat. I gotta get this on
screen. Can't find stream yard.
Share Screen, Earth rise, okay,so the story is that Earth rise
raised six 30 million for its270 megawatt solar plant in
Gibson city. And what they'redoing, that I think is really
(32:48):
cool, is this same company ownsa peaker plant in this vicinity,
and so they have an existingsubstation there, and
interconnection to miso, andthey're using that
interconnection as an on rampfor a bunch of this solar
energy, and thereby expeditingtheir ability to get an
(33:13):
interconnection agreement withmiso, which is notably horrible,
and this was a theme at theMidwest solar Expo. You know,
there's three to five year cuesin miso, both at the
distribution and transmissionlevels. So kudos to Earthrise
for thinking of this. And I justthink there's a lot of subtle
(33:40):
innovation like this. John, Imean, this is not rocket
science, right? They're going,Oh yeah, we've already got this
fleet of peaker plants. They'reonly running 10% of the time. We
could put more juice on thegrid, probably, if we built a
big solar farm which can sellpower to the grid cheaper than
the peaker plant can. Right? Thepeaker the peaker plant juice is
(34:04):
expensive, yep, because it'sonly running 10% of the time.
And so that's it. It's, uh, Idon't know how many acres the
project is, but a lot ofelectricity. Yeah, there's just
a little more there. About theIllinois market, seventh in the
(34:26):
country.
John Weaver (34:30):
So that what they're doing there, and that
that that strategy is supersmart, in my opinion. I saw an
article recently the strategy ofadding new capacities that
complement the existingcapacity. So, for instance,
these peaker plants thatgenerally only run in the
(34:50):
evening period or cold periodswhen they're needed. You know,
again, they have 10% some ofthem have a 5% capacity factor.
Most. Or 15%
Tim Montague (35:01):
but there are. And if you ever wonder, this is what
a peaker plant looks like. Thisthese rectangular buildings.
Here is the peaker. These arenatural gas Yep. These are
natural gas turbine generators.
Their smoke stocks are quite lowto the ground, maybe 20 feet
tops, and then there's asubstation. Now, some of these
(35:22):
peaker plants have many moreturbines. This is a relatively
small one. I don't know how manymegawatts. I'm guessing two
megawatts, but I don't know. Andthere's a ethanol plant next
door, but, and then they'vealready got a plot for a new
substation they're going tobuild here for the solar farm
(35:42):
called out on Google, which Ithought was cool. But who knows
where this I mean, the the solarfarm is obviously going to be
much bigger, uh, several, uh,maybe, maybe around 1000 acres,
I don't know.
John Weaver (35:57):
Well, if you think 350, megawatts,
Tim Montague (36:00):
3456, 1500 acres.
100 acres.
John Weaver (36:04):
Divide that by four, at least, at least that.
Yeah. Cool. Very cool. Yeah. Soagain, as I was saying, though,
in California, they were sayingthat they have 10s of gigawatts,
maybe even hundreds. I don'tthink it's hundreds, but 10s of
gigawatts on interconnectionsthat are underutilized. So great
(36:28):
idea. Super smart.
Tim Montague (36:30):
Okay, we're going to close with China launches
world's first grid formingsodium ion battery storage
John Weaver (36:37):
plant. Nah. I like this one a little better. Across
the United States, residentialelectricity prices are set to
increase, okay, by an average of13% Yuck, and some as much as 26
and I thought that was bothterrible and great. You know,
(37:01):
it's terrible, because this islike real human beings, like
that sucks.
Tim Montague (37:06):
So we're looking at the EIA, the Energy
Information Administration, yep,website in depth analysis.
John Weaver (37:14):
So you notice price of gas nice and flat. Gasoline
is looking down, uh, heating oillooking down, but electricity
moving along, and it's goingabove the CPI, above inflation.
That's that second value. Andthen if you scroll to the bottom
of this article, there's anotherchart that shows us on a state
(37:37):
level, so regionally, you cankind of see, oh, this is a good
one. This shows what people arespending per year. Per year. You
know, gaining on $2,000 a yearof electricity. But then you go
down a little bit further. Nextchart, you can see that it's
very it's varied, highly variedon a state basis.
Tim Montague (37:53):
You can see that dip from COVID, right? That's
where gasoline expenditure wentway down as people weren't
traveling so fascinating. And
John Weaver (38:03):
then here, check this out. Like, first off, you
see Pacific regions alreadyexpensive, and over the last
three years, it's up 26% look atNew England, the most expensive
region, total region in thenation, going to jump another
19% made Atlantic. You know,these are like Delawares,
Washington, Virginia, statesjumping you see right there in
(38:27):
the middle that US average 13%that's pretty big, over three
years. So, so this, if anything,this will support the
residential solar market. Youknow, you knock a year off and
knock two years off your IRA,your ROI. So, yes, we're going
(38:50):
to lose some incentives. Itseems price of electricity will
go up. We're also going to losesome cost competition, maybe
because, hardware costs mightget tariffs, but we'll also lose
some competition in that theselease companies are going under.
Mosaic is gone. Sonova is gonenow. So that's going to be a
(39:13):
different dynamic. And thenwe're going to have to bark at
our distributors and be like,Hey guys, this resi gear. I know
those modules are nice, but I'mnot paying 60 cents for modules
anymore. Friend, you want tosell those, you need to have an
ROI that's going to bereasonable for my customers.
And, you know, I'm just gonna,gonna have to work it that way.
(39:35):
And I think that we as a smallresidential company that is
backed by a commercial companythat has existing
infrastructure. It'll make itwork. I think we can make it
handle. Maybe we can handle itso so that, I thought that was
interesting, that those priceincreases are going to come to
utility scale. Those pricesincreases are going to come to
commercial so price of energy,if it keeps outpacing inflation,
(39:59):
can create. Current with solarand storage, at least holding
flat pricing, if they can keepgoing down, that would be
amazing, and that'll carry us,that'll carry us for decades
out. Yeah, so price increase isterrible for people on average,
good for us, bad for the averagefamily. But maybe it's good that
(40:20):
we pay a little more for energy,because, listen, if we don't
have carbon taxes built in,we're getting away cheap anyway,
and we're stealing from ourkids. So one way or another, we
got to manage this. That's it.
Tim, that's my news. I gotBoatload more. We only got so
much time. Man, no shortage ofnews. We got new perovskite
(40:41):
record. Did you see that one?
The next article, 829 watts fora utility scale module. You
know, got a so much news. Wecould talk about good stuff
going on, challenging, you know,challenging this week, we might
start to see a version of the ofthe document coming from the
Senate this next week, so we'llsee. I'm hearing hopeful that
(41:04):
the House bill, the terribleone, might get pulled back on a
couple of items. So we won'thave this 60 day thing. We might
have 2028, but, but I don'tknow. I don't know anything
anymore. I'm not a not thatpolitically connected, and all
my senators vote a certain way.
So So call your senators, if youlive in a state that has has
Republican senators, and givethem, give them some feedback
(41:30):
about your opinion on the IRAand whether you think it
matters, because that can createvalue for us. And you know,
those are the people votingright now, Republican senators,
54 of them. Give them a phonecall. 54 people,
Tim Montague (41:47):
for sure. Call your senators, let them know you
care about the energytransition. It means jobs and
tax revenue. I did a greatinterview with ser Strategic
Economic Research, small companyhere in Bloomington, normal with
it's the Loomis family. DaveLoomis is the founder. I had
(42:08):
Ethan Loomis, his son on theshow. And we're talking about
how utility, solar and windprojects have economic impacts,
mostly tax revenue for localcounties and for for the school
districts in a rural county, itcan be more than a million
dollars a year just one utilityproject. That's a lot of money
(42:29):
for these school districts thatare generally hurting. So check
it out at clean power hour.comclick on the work with Tim tab.
I am interviewing EPCs who wantto transition into large CNI
solar. If you are on thatjourney, reach out to me. That's
one of the things I do. I amgasoline for that engine. And as
(42:52):
always, John, how can ourlisteners find you
John Weaver (42:55):
commercial solar guy.com that is our home.
508-499-9786, 508-499-9786, butcommercial solar guy.com that's
where I'm always at give us acall. We're located in the
northeast. Mostly. We're an EPCand a developer. So we can build
your project from Greenfield tothe end. You can also find me on
(43:17):
PV magazine USA. It's where Iwrite eight articles a month,
try and teach the world alittle, teach myself and and
that. And Tim, what's yourfavorite sized EPC? Like, what?
Like, what's the what's the key?
Like, what have you found thatyou can help the most?
Tim Montague (43:36):
Yeah, companies that are doing about five to 15
million in sales are a greatsweet spot for me and and up to,
I would say, 50 million. Above50 million, you're going to hire
some big, fancy Consulting Firm.
I'm a solopreneur. I cut myteeth working for Continental
energy solutions in Chicago.
(43:57):
They they're doing about 30megawatts a year. So if you're
in the you know, couple ofmegawatts of RE and light
commercial, and you want to grabonto a couple more megawatts a
year. I'm your guy, John. Wehave a little bit of a
scheduling challenge ahead ofus. So, you know, normally, we
(44:18):
do this every two weeks, but,yeah, I am going to be sailing
in the national flying Scottregatta on June 27 in two weeks.
Awesome, if all goes well, ifthere's wind, it's happening at
a lake in Illinois calledCarlisle, which is three hours
south of us here. And then thefollowing Friday is the fourth
(44:41):
of July holiday, so we can't dothat. So maybe we do one next
Friday, or we are going to waitthree Fridays. I don't know.
It's your call. Oh, I'm
John Weaver (44:49):
gonna make a suggestion that we move it to
Thursday the 26th but we'll talkabout it offline. We don't want
our people bothered too much byour scheduling conflict. Let's
talk about solar panels. Andbatteries and stuff. So, so
cool. I hope you have awonderful time on a lake, doing
sailing stuff that soundsawesome.
Tim Montague (45:10):
With that, I'll say, let's grow solar and
storage. Thanks so much, John,Yep, see ya.
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