Things You MUST KNOW About RE+ 2025

Episode Transcript
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Tim Montague (00:01):
Welcome to the Clean Power Hour live bringing
you the latest in solar, windand battery news with Tim
Montague and none other than thecommercial solar guy. Welcome to
the show. John Weaver, hey Timbrother, we're going to Vegas.
We're going to Vegas. John goingto ru plus, it's very exciting

John Weaver (00:20):
in let's see, it's Friday, so two, two nights. I
leave Sunday at least morning.

Oh, cool. I leave Monday morning. So we'll be in
Vegas, September 8. Well, Johnwill be there on the seventh
through the 11th. I leave on theafternoon of the 11th. And this
is, if you don't know what replus is, it's the largest trade
show conference for clean energyin the United States. There are

(00:50):
larger conferences elsewhere.
But anyway, it's a greatconvening of, what, 50,000
people maybe this year.

No, it's gonna be more than that. You think,
absolutely.

And I spend most of my time on the trade show
floor in Booth V, 8470, V is forVenetian with my friends at Chin
power systems, doing interviewswith their customers. But I'll
also be running around the tradeshow when I can grab a minute
here and there, visiting otherbooths, always looking for cool,

(01:27):
racking modules, software, otherpower, electronic solutions,
building management systems. Youknow, the thing that really is
on my mind, John, is that wehave to put it all together. We
have to become energyconsultants, not just solar

(01:48):
professionals, right? And and soyou've got, you know, smart
devices and turning yourbuilding into a battery,
controlling the HVAC system,controlling the battery,
controlling the solar, to attackyour power bill and hopefully
offer some level of resiliency.
That's that's the dream. Butwhat are you looking forward to

(02:13):
about re plus

walking around the floor for the first time I'm
going as a buyer of hardware formy company.

What kind of hardware you looking for?

Well, just like we have a portfolio of about four
megawatts of rooftop and 600 KWground mount, that's going to be
agrovoltague, so I need rackingI might be using Helene modules.
Really like them. They have gooddomestic content product, the

(02:50):
inverters, I'm not 100% whichdirection on. I'm thinking about
using the end phase, but that'sa little expensive for big
rooftop projects. However, toget me domestic content that I
want without a risk. Need someracking product. I've been
thinking about this interestingconcrete product, Sun ballast
based at least a manufacturer upin New Hampshire, got to see

(03:12):
their their facility where theymake the product. So it's kind
of neat. So just looking atstuff, I mean, I know all the
names, KB racking. We use a lotuni rack. We use a lot
agrovoltaic stuff. I've neverreally purchased a thing yet,
but,

well, when you say agrivoltaics, there's so many
options there. So what do youthink, though, that you're
looking for? I did interviewsolar geek, or solar geek at
they've quoted this project atthe solar fire Summit, they've
got an elevated tracker. I likedit,

and that's what I want, specifically elevated
tracker, okay? Because withinthe Massachusetts SMART program,
to be agvoltague, you have to beelevated, I think, 10 feet
above. And there's an adder forusing a tracker. So I'll pay
more for a tracker and maximizeit and get some good revenue out
of the system. So that's, uh, sothat that's so we're just, you

(04:09):
know, we're at the verybeginning of it, working through
finance, putting together aportfolio teaser of the project.

And what is the dual use? Is that known what the
dual use will be?

Uh, well, currently, they grow corn and
then various gourds at this atthis particular portion of the
farm. So there's two differentfields. We specified that we
were going to use one chunk ofthe field. They say they're
going to probably move thegourds there and not do the corn
there, and they'll have the cornat the upper field. But that's
actually part of the discussion.
To start having a little morecomplexly right now, we're we're

(04:42):
working toward it so and thenalso, I want to be there as
somebody who's not only ahardware buyer for our own
projects, but I want to salespitch my own company for the
first time. You know, if I see adeveloper, hey, you're looking
for a small EPC, you. In massRhode Island, we have, we have
the ability to get a few morebodies consistent in the field.

(05:04):
So, yeah, you know, working thisis the first time I've done that
as my own company. I mean, I'mstill writing for PV mag, and
there's so much cool gear, and Ijust want to walk around and see
new stuff, thinking about doinga five minute interview format
where I just like do a quickrecording, say, Hey, what's up?
And then go back and forth. AndI don't know, I just want to

(05:25):
talk to the people on the floor.
There's so much going on. It'scomplex time. So all right, plus
cool. And you know what, you'reright, you I was, I looked it
up. It is 40 to 50. G's 40 to50,000 people. So that's a lot
of people.

It's a lot of people, and it's a little
overwhelming, but, but, youknow, just be curious, be open
minded. You know, plan somemeetings, but leave some
unscheduled time to walk theshow. The show is really the
show floor is reallyinteresting, and I'm looking
forward to seeing, of course,many people that I already know,

(06:03):
I want to give a shout out tocelesca in Booth V 3020,
Venetian level one. That is asoftware design tool that I
heard the commercial solar guysusing. Have you heard of Have
you heard of Celestica?

I've been using celesca for at least a year. I
know this because I just had toread and I have to send them a
document back. I know thisbecause I just had to re up for
my second year. And maybe, maybewe had a first year, so maybe
even two years, but at least onefull year we've been using them
for for their product.

So if you don't know about Celestia, that's a
design tool, and so it's acompetitor of helioscopes, but
they're doing a lot more, andthey're they're taking on PB
Assist. They have a bigannouncement on the eighth or
ninth, so look for that, andcheck them out in Booth V 3020,

(06:59):
but I want to give a shout outto a couple other clients of
mine and sponsors of the show,om co solar for all your racking
needs, they have trackers. Theyhave fixed tilt. They're very
good friends with suns onanother sponsor of the show that
makes vertical by facialracking, which I'm sure John
Weaver's familiar with, althoughI don't know have you ever

(07:19):
gotten a quote on a son's onproject. I have

not but I do know them. I have written about their
product before with PV mag as aproduct project or two. Yeah,
that I got to cover, but I'venever quoted a vertical. I so
totally do want to that.

Yeah, I too, wrote a story about sons on and
strawberry farming recently forPV magazine, and I read that
Helga biernath is the CEO. He'snot, he's not exhibiting, so you
have to reach out to me or Johnto find Helga, but he'll be
walking around. And he's a jollyguy. He's a great guy to know.

(07:54):
He also has a installationcompany called Sun stall that
does DG ground mountinstallations all over the
place. I think he's worked in 40states now. But some other
people I'm looking forward toseeing Mark Palmer and Aaron
James with conductor solar,that's a solar finance
marketplace, and they're justwalking the show. Wattch.io V

(08:17):
3525 on level one. That's aperformance monitoring platform
yourself. John Weaver, how arewe going to find John Weaver if
you're just wandering around?

John, well, there is a booth for PV magazine, and
so you might see me there, butno, you won't. If you want to
find me, just message on bluesky or, you know, look for the
large shiny head that'll becruising around.

Because I love that. Look for the large shiny
head that is awesome. Well, ifyou message John on blue sky or
me on LinkedIn, I will help youfind John too. I am officially
John's concierge.

So, perfect, perfect. Oh yeah. So it'd be
cool show. I'm looking forwardto it. I just it's, it's kind of
neat this year to go with threedifferent hats, instead of
mostly just a PV mad guy, who's,who's an industry guy learning
stuff, but not really doingbusiness there. But this year, I
might make a handshake. That's areal business opportunity.

So cool, right on.
And then one last shout out,this company is exhibiting in v3
648, on level one. Denowatts,another performance monitoring
platform, Dan, Leary OG in theindustry, I know you know Dan,
and he's just a great guy, buthe's also got a wonderful
technology for monitoring yourasset. If you're an asset owner,

(09:44):
this is really your cup of tea,so check it out at re plus. And
with that, we should move on tothe news. Maybe there's

all kinds of news, dude, I put up like 20 things
just for. The sake of it. So youcould, like, delete a bunch, but
there's, like, all kinds ofstuff always going on, always
going, Yeah, you pick the firstone

though. Well, yeah, I want to talk about this.
This story out of Germany.
German scientists createesthetic solar facades achieving
80% efficiency. I'll get this onscreen. And so as you know, as
our listeners know, by buildingintegrated or VIP v is the bee's
knees, right? It's an awesomething, because we have lots of

(10:31):
buildings, and if you could cladthem, whether it's a high rise
glass building or just anapartment building that stucco
today and tomorrow is solarpanels. BIPV is the bee's knees.
And so they've developed atechnology for screen printing
on top of solar panels so thatyou can give it color and

(10:53):
texture. And that's it's allabout making things more
pleasing to the human eye.
Because some people don't thinksolar panels are the prettiest
thing. They're pretty cool, Ithink. But I get it. You know,
the architects want moreflexibility to color and texture
things, and that's what they'redoing here. And Fraunhofer, this

(11:15):
big Tech Institute out ofGermany, Fraunhofer Institute
for electron beam and plasmatechnology. There's a mouthful.
Has reached a major milestone indesigning. In design PV, they
call it, okay, I like that. Likethat language. John, design PV,
yes, yeah, that's pretty hip.

I really like colored modules. There's a few
companies that have tried,there's a few companies that
make, like, custom modules. AndI want to see more bi PV. The
only negative I have in myemotions is that we don't build
enough buildings. I guess we do,if we really could overthrow the

(12:00):
building retrofit and workthat's going on, then we could
really get some volume outthere. Like, for instance,
there's 5 million residentialroofs changed every year. Was a
number that was always thrownaround. We could get rooftop
building integrated product, ifwe could get stuck facades done.

(12:20):
I'm working on a really bigsolar project right now in a
residential and multi housing,multi family, and the whole
building siding. All 1418,structures are being redone.
Man, that'd be a whole bunch ofcool solar to add there. We'd be
overpowering the site. We'd bebeyond 100% now we're in the 80

(12:41):
90% range. So I totally downwith it. I just wish we were,
you know, like in Singapore orsomething, they rebuild their
buildings every 30 or 40 years.
If we were doing that, that'd bepretty awesome. Then, then
building integrated, I think,would be much more massive,
interesting.

Yeah. I mean, I agree, eventually every building
is going to have PV integrated,because the sun shines
everywhere, you know, except forthe extreme latitudes, you know,
Antarctica or the Arctic in thewinter, then you've gotten very
little sunlight in the winter,right? It's dark. But other than
that,

that's the issue.
If the issue is that we can'tpower Antarctica or the Arctic
and their respective winners,then we have won. If that is our
only issue that we cannotoverpower, I will accept fossil
fuels in those locations. How'sthat?
Yeah, we can do it.

Um, all right, well, let's move on to this
perovskite story

project of the week. Tim, give it it's due
credit.

So this China landing unveils five megawatt
commercial perovskite,perovskite photovoltague
demonstration base, yes. Allright, what's the story?

So, this is the biggest perovskite project I've
seen. I saw one megawatt before.
This is now five megawatts. Itdoesn't explicitly state which
module This is which technology.

Yeah. I found that a little frustrating, honestly?

Well, yeah, I mean, the company has made a 26%
tandem sell, so they do have aperovskite silicon tandem within
their business line. But, youknow, this is what comes out.
Sometimes it just says,perovskite.

There's an ad here for a perovskite focused trade
show. Perovskite connect

this whole website.
It's literally perovskite. Dashinfo,

oh, cool. It's a perovskite news site. I didn't
know this existed. Yeah, thisis,

this is one of my favorites. I see all the solar
stuff there, and they link backconstantly, like PV. Magazine
and other stuff. So they're justperovskite folks, which is kind
of neat, which, you know,there's perovskite people. They
exist. So I'm just excited tosee perovskite moving. It's it's
still coming. The machines arestill being developed. It seems
to be getting better. It seemslike we can deal with the

(15:22):
degradation, because, literally,sunlight makes perovskites break
down. So that's an issue,because these are solar panels,
but it seems like it's coming,and all the big companies have
all the cool kids on the blockhave a big perovskite module,
and so, yeah, there's aperovskite book. I didn't even

(15:43):
know that. So one reason I'mkind of inter I'm I'm also
positive on perovskites, yeah,is you see that long list of
items across the bottom thataren't perovskite solar, you
know, LEDs,

yeah, yeah, on the website, yeah, all that stuff.
Props got graphene, props gotlasers, props get qds, whatever
qds. Props get LEDs, yeah. Whatis quantum so? The quantum dots,
yeah, maybe, yeah, the

LEDs and the quantum dots, those are really
interesting because those are inTVs. And TVs are made in a
similar manner as solar panels.
They're flat panels, lots ofspraying of stuff, and that's a
big industry, and it's parallelto perovskites, just like
lithium ion had laptops and cellphones to help move the

(16:34):
technology along, a secondaryrevenue stream, perovskites has
multiple layers of intelligentbeings staring at rocks. I mean,
you know, our lightning rocks,the rocks that we hold to the
sky, and they make power, we'reall, I guess we're all just sort

(16:56):
of kind of witch doctors. Tim,you and I

and well, we're bot Wranglers, is what we are.
John, I like it before we beforewe get wrangled by the bot.
We're bot Wranglers. But those,the clock is ticking. We have
about five years. I venture fivebefore, before we get wrangled.
All right. But so what do I I'm

excited looking at perovskites. I like that. This
potential it's developing.
There's, there's concurrentresearch from different experts
all around the world looking atperovskites and, okay, five,
that's the project that week,project of the half week, two
weeks, whatever. Cool.

All right. Well, let's talk about drones and wind
farms, drone deliveries, hitspot for Orsted. Cool, cool
photo there. Yeah, you know myfirst question, right? Predict
my first question,

John, is that a real picture?

Uh, no, that was not my first question. My first
question was, what is thecarrying capacity of this sky
lift, or heavy lift drone.

Scroll down tiny bit. I think 400 kilograms.
Okay, I think it's right inthere is that 700

weighing up to 70 kilograms of oh, 70.

There we go. So, a lot smaller.

So that's like a human being, right? 2.2 pounds
per kg, yep, 150 I guess. Yeah,a smaller human, yeah?

154 Okay, so there you go. That's cool. Yeah, I
thought what was neat is thatone is that the turbines stay
on. Two that you don't havepeople loading things on and off
into this elevator. Yeah? And Ithought it was really neat that
they had 550 flights plannedduring a trip,

yeah, 75 miles offshore. That's crazy.

Well, there's a boat that goes out. It's not the
boat.

Is the platform that they launch from. I get it.
Yeah, that's cool.

And this, I've been seeing this ongoing. They've
been doing this for a while, sonow it's, but now it's actually,
you know, doing stuff, yeah?

So I just want them to 10x the capacity, right?
Because then they could, theycould lift, like, pallets of
modules or racking, orinverters, or, like, really,
like construction gradematerials, not just like some
little, I mean,

well, actually, so, you know, maybe by the time we
move along, I shared a, I'm bluesky, not, not here, but a an
article within the past coupleof weeks about China. Let's,
let's do a quick search China.

Unknown (19:44):
From there it is, blue sky again, calm.

Heck, yeah, that's where I put my news. Man, that's
how I track the knowledge that Idispersed to the world. I gotta
post it somewhere first, andthen slowly go back and see
what's cool. Yeah. So there's aproject in China where they
moved stuff up a mountainsideand use drones. And here it is,
bam, getting it into thedocument real fast for you. And

(20:13):
it had some serious volume, andthere's actually a little video
in there. So with this project,they had 16 large drones, okay,
100 tons of steel and concreteup roads. Drones carry up to 420
kilograms, which is 925 pounds,yeah, and 1.3 kilograms or

(20:36):
kilometers at a time. That's, Ithink, what you're talking about
this is the level that you needto do what you want. Oh, and
this big stuff that's big drone,man, look at that thing.

Are those? Uh,

those are turbines and helicopters.

What are the poles that they're carrying?

Oh, well, I think it's for building wind. Let's
see. Oh, no, solar farms. No,this is racking. Solar racking.
Okay, yep, yeah, that's that'sgonna be it. Maybe those are
foundation maybe those are pilesgoing into the ground, those
first big ones, those longer,heavy poles. Look at that.
They're building solar on thetop of a mountain. How much

(21:22):
cheaper is that than building aroad? Only that that's just
racking gear, man,

that's not your mom's drone. That's that's a
beefy drone.

Yes, big drone. You are right, but that's it.

So, yeah, why are they showing the fixed the fixed
wing aircraft?

Just to let you know that they'll blow you up.
Yeah? Just a reminder, and wecan put some

solar panels up here. There isn't there is a
dark side to the drones forsure. Hey, you. You said it like

30 seconds ago, man, five years they're coming
for us, yeah? So become friendswith the drones. Be nice. Say
thank you to chat.

GPT, yeah, I was wondering the other day if they,
if they like, have some kind ofdashboard at open AI, or, you
know, these other LLM companiesabout how humans are treating
the chat bots, right? Like, arethey being kind, or are they

(22:24):
being abusive and that kind ofthing.

They pay attention.
They actually comment that wesay, thank you so much that it
costs 10s of millions of dollarsin electricity to respond to it.

Oh, so Yeah, certainly, I've certainly
trimmed down my language. Idon't put question marks anymore
on my question. Questions,because I know it, knows it's a
question. There you go. But Idon't know if I'm saving
millions of dollars inelectricity by doing that, but
you're helping. You're helping.
I'm saving my fingers from fromcarpal tunnel, I guess.

All right, that's what I thought was cool.

Starry stone energy.

Starry stone and energy, well, starry stone
energy storage product that issuper cheap at a small capacity
because it's buried underground.
And so their thought is, youdon't need the same cost. You
don't need the same fireprotection. It's a battery
that's buried. It buried there.

(23:24):
So here's a showing of it.
Pretty much burying anything isexpensive. John labor is cutting
some ground is, you know,digging a hole, a little bit of
excavation, you know, 10 grand,10 grand to build a hole. All
right, the

story is ultra low cost. Battery storage launch
provokes price war discussion atShanghai trade show, August 21
Okay, so I I'm still notfollowing what's the story?

The story is, somebody's got a cheap battery.

$53 is lithium iron phosphate, yes.

And it's, it's just underground, and that's what the
story is. The story iscreativity. The story is
somebody has an idea they wantto drop the price. I like the
idea of putting batteriesunderground. I don't know if
that's good idea, though. I justlike

the idea. What is what? Why? Why did it trigger a
price war?

Well, the discussion is, how did you get
to such a low price with such alow product and

a low product,

a small product, like 53 bucks per kilowatt hour,
that's smaller than the largestprocurements for two, three
years out, that are gigawatthours, 10s of gigawatt hours in
size. Yeah. So this is thelowest battery price that's been
out there for lithium phosphate,by far. And it's and this guy's

(24:49):
response is, listen, it's justbecause I've innovated. I have
this battery two metersunderground, low temp, it's not
going to catch fire.

So the. There's no, like, space conditioning
system, and that's how they'remaking it cheaper. It's not
actually the cells, it's the

no correct, the full wrap.
It's the wrap correct. We aresaving on rap Correct, yeah,
that's the innovation that'soccurring here. That's the
creativity.

I mean, that that stuff can still catch fire
underground,

yeah, but it's underground. Who cares?

I mean, I guess I'm just completely starved for
oxygen. Maybe it can't, I don'tknow.

It's interesting.
Maybe it can't go too far. Sointeresting idea. I was just
just thought it was creative. Iwas like, All right, I like that
idea. Keep thinking, man, soheat battery if you want to go
underground. An idea that I'vealways thought should come about
is that every cul de sac shouldhave a little battery, have a
little control system, and everyhouse, not every house, but

(25:48):
everybody that can gets a littlebit of solar on their house,
yeah, make yourself cul de saclevel micro grids with the
battery underneath the cul desac seems kind of cool. Yeah?
So, oh, so I like this idea.
Battery underground,

all right. Well, you found a story about t1
energy, one of my favoritecompanies. They formerly known
as fryer battery. Their theirorigins are in Norway, and I
had, I had their former CEO onthe show, but they were still,
at that time, they were stillplanning a battery factory in
Georgia. They've since scrappedthat plan. Yep, they bought a

(26:28):
five gigawatt solar panelfactory from Trina. I believe,
right?

I think, yes, I think it was Trina. Let's,
let's.

So they're, they're all in on on solar
modules. Now, yep, I don't knowif they've given up the ghost on
batteries or not, but

Well, in the US, I think they have.

The story says, t1, energy sells out 2025,
module solar module capacityafter 437, megawatt deal,
increased interest post OB, BBAdrives, t1 energy's new
agreements.

Okay, it looks like for the year, they're aiming to
be in the 2.6 to three gigawattof modules sold, and they say
they're sold out. And I justthought that was cool, yeah,
that they're sold out. I haven'teven seen their product in the
market, so they're probablyselling straight to utility

(27:26):
scale people or something.

They're claiming 50% non FEOC Billa materials,

all right, well, they're also working on cells to
do some work. I believethey're, they're going to start
producing cells. Well, you know,actually, I have a cell, solar.
It says solar cell, fab,yeah, there we go. Yes, I knew
that they had something. So fivegigawatt solar cell, fab, yeah,

(27:54):
so that, I'm sure

that have pushed her. Oh, yeah. And they're,
they've been in the news fortheir deal with Corning.
Corning.

That's who I was thinking. Yes, there it is. It's
right there on the page. Geez.
So I just thought it was cool tosee that they were sold out. I
was happy to see it, and goodluck. I hope they rock on. Um,
that. I'm annoyed that Trina hadto sell their factory, but I get
the politics. Trina got out asthey did it fast, and that was
good. It allowed this to movefast. And so, oh, good luck with

(28:21):
fryer. Hope they get to thatfive gigawatt number. I want to
see what kind of modules theysell. Man, I don't really know
what they sell, so be kind ofneat. I guess we could. We could
look it up, yeah,

go to their website. I'm sure it says, I'm
sure it says,

t1 energy. So it's just neat. It's just nice to
see. And selling out. And goodjob. So they got some cool
robots on their site. They got atop con module here, 600 and a
400 Ooh, 600 watt. I like that.
Nice black, all black. Niceresidential frame, 430 been
looking around 23% efficiency,all right, pretty solid. Good

(29:05):
looking gear.

Oh yeah, I mean, it's basically a Trina Solar
module, right?

So, yeah, good product. So, yeah, there you go.
T1 energy. They're sold out, sothere's no point calling them
for this year, folks. But I'msure next year they'll take some
phone calls, but you got to buyabout 100 megawatts at a time.
That's not true. I don't knowthat at all. Good job. Good job.

(29:32):
T1 and keep going. And so I kindof stuck on the US solar module
line because I thought this wasalso really interesting. This is
Fraunhofer again. So we get totalk about Fraunhofer. They're
not just some research agency.
Mr. Timothy Montague, there theyare. The NREL of Europe is who
Fraunhofer is. They arewonderfulness. If I go to next

(29:54):
time I'm nearby, I'm gonna golike, lay up against. Are
building. They might like callthe cops on me or something, but
they're awesome.

Oh yeah, very storied organization. Yes,

they, they did the first article I ever remember on
agrivoltaics and and it's cool.
So, so here,

so you've got a story avoiding patent disputes.
Fraunhofer ISC establishestopcom pilot line targeting four
gigawatt us factory. It's funny,the

article didn't really talk about the patent
disputes that much I, or atleast maybe I ignored them
because I didn't care, but Ijust thought it was cool to see
Fraunhofer and Tom Talon puttingtogether a four gigawatt cell
factory, because we need cells.
We need solar cells. It's goodto have the whole line, you
know, especially with the waythe fiox stuff and all those
things go, I'm happy to see thiswork ongoing, even with

(30:49):
manufacturing credits anddomestic tax credits kind of
getting hacked up a bit. So themotivation to buy domestically
produced product that's a littlemore expensive goes away
soonish. You know, 2007 27 forshort term buyers. Maybe long

(31:11):
term buyers can secure stuffbefore that. I don't know. Maybe
there's some strategy where youcan do that continuous
construction thing. So So I'minterested in it. I like seeing
this new company showing up. Idon't know much about them, but,
oh yeah, by the way, very, veryat the end, they threw in a
perovskite silicon tandem. Sothat made me really happy. Just,

(31:32):
you know, always like to seethat slip into stuff. So just
interesting, very, veryinteresting to me, that that
there's still people growing,still stuff going out. And so
this is a good announcement.

Yeah, it's this is factories underway. When I was
talking to jigger recently,jigger Shah, we dropped an
interview with jigger just thisthis past Tuesday. So check that
out. cleanpowerhour.com. Hecommented, you know, I pushed
back a little bit. He said,Well, all the 45x incentives
remain in place. That's themanufacturing incentives. Yes,

(32:13):
in the IRA. And I was like,well, jigger, there's been just
a boatload of cancelationannouncements. And he's like,
Well, yeah, if they didn't havesteel in the ground, then
they're having trouble raisingmoney. But those factories that
were already broken ground, thenthey're probably moving forward.
But I don't know how true thatis. It's an interesting

(32:35):
perspective.

Well, I'm going to meet with Abby Hopper from sia
when I go to Ari plus. And onething I wanted to talk about is
firming up a better list ofavailable domestic product,
because they do a pretty solidjob of tracking it. I'd love for
them also to supply a contactname for a salesperson with

(32:58):
their list on their website thatwe can say, hey, here's the
modules. I want to go buy some

modules. Hasn't solar power world been very good
about this tracking?

They have a good map. Maybe that's the place
where I should look and get mybut I want a salespersons name
on a list, so maybe I could gobother solar power world. Yeah,
they definitely had a map too.

So and to answer my question, it says here that I
so I went to perplexity. That'smy new Google. I just perplexity
everything now I don't googleanymore, and it says they're
building a factory in Houston,Texas. Smart place to build a
factory. All the solar companiesare based there, all the big
ones anyway, right? And otherenergy companies. It's the

(33:38):
energy capital of the US. Sothat's cool, interesting. All
right, Houston, Texas, I'm doinga lot of work in Texas, John,
it's a hot it's a hot market.

It's one of the biggest. It's the
biggest, Let's rephrase that,it's a very, very hot market in
the US, yes, and it's literallyhot and getting hotter.
So, all right, so that's,that's, you know, actually, that
last thing that you said justkind of triggered a good thought
in me, um, they're, they'regoing to Houston. They're
surrounded by solar panelmakers. They're surrounded by

(34:14):
this, surrounded by that. Are weseeing, are we beginning to see
a hub of solar modulemanufacturing that's going to
start to arise, in which we thenstart to see the natural arising
of the sub component suppliersbeing in nearby regions.

There's definitely a lot of manufacturing going on
in Texas when it comes to solarand batteries. Now it's not just
Houston, it's Dallas, it's ElPaso.

That's that big highway thing they got going on
there, right? Go 90 miles anhour in Texas. That's legal,
right? Yeah.

I mean, having driven across Texas, it is a
freaking big place.

Things a day, takes a day to go east to west.

So, but, but, yeah, there. Is definitely a lot
of manufacturing going on there.
And, yeah, I mean, if I was, ifI was going to do manufacturing
in solar, I would definitelytake a close look at Texas, but
also Georgia. You know, theywant Georgia. Yes, these factory
owners, they want quick ways toget things done building a

(35:21):
factory, right? They don't wanttoo much regulation. They want
low wages for the factoryworkers, ready access cheap
energy. It's a combination ofthings, right? Cheap land, cheap
energy. I don't know how cheapthe land is in Houston, but it's
probably on the outskirts ofHouston. Houston is the third
largest city in America now,

pretty good city. I

wouldn't want to live there because of
hurricanes, but and thehumidity. It has really high
humidity. I'm not fond ofhumidity. Do we don't want to
talk? Do we want to talk aboutNew Mexico.

Uh, that's, it's a good energy storage story. So I
like, I like the concept of it.

Did you know I grew up in New Mexico, John, I
did not know that. You didn'tknow. Did you know about green
chile? Oh, yeah, I know allabout hatch. Green Chili.

Hatch. That's layers, layers beyond my
knowledge.

You know, I grew up eating these sandwiches that
my dad made with cheddar cheese,mayonnaise and hatch green
chilies, and they're delicious.
It's a great combination. It'snot really traditional New
Mexico food. It's just somethinghe made up. But sopapias, you
can get a good SOPA Pia, NewMexico, which is really comes
from the Native Americans, butthe Nate, you see this blending

(36:44):
of Native American and andHispanic culture, right? And
it's a unique it's a uniquecuisine. It's good, good food.
Beautiful place, aka the Land ofEnchantment. Have you been to
New Mexico? John, come on, bro,I

don't think I've been to New Mexico. I think
I've, like, touched it, becauseI've been to four corners. So I
know I've like, Oh, you havenext to it, yeah. But I don't
know if I've actually been toNew Mexico. The day I

went to four corners, it was closed. I
couldn't get into I couldn't getinto the park there, but

it was for me too, but then I camped out, went the
next day.

All right, I'll put this on screen. New Mexico
utility picks batteries overfossil fuels. It says ordering
best retrofits for solar PVplants.

Interesting. They had the opportunity to pick a
small gas plant as a peakerplant, and they were
specifically looking forpeakers. And instead, they chose
to deploy five, six megawatt 24,megawatt hour batteries. So I'm
guessing three to four shippingcontainers spread across three

(38:01):
to four shipping containers atfive different sites. And so I'm
just watching battery stuff,different capacities, different
way they do things. And thereason this caught my attention
because I'm trying to get intobatteries, and I'm installing
smaller size batteries. And sothese batteries six megawatts,
24 megawatt hours lined up witha portfolio that I'm looking at

(38:24):
and trying to get in, helping todevelop and then maybe
constructing. So I am excited tosee small distributed batteries.
And it also triggers a differentthought of, how should solar
plus storage, or solar andstorage be installed and
deployed. I pay for the premiumversion here, so I get to read

(38:47):
the whole thing. Sorry. Andshould it be dc coupled solar
with, like, massive, oversizedDC to AC ratios, or should it
just be a bunch of solar plantsdistributed anywhere randomly,
and then a bunch of batteriesdistributed anywhere randomly,
and they're all charging in thedaytime because they have

(39:07):
capacity and output requirementsovernight. Or, like, how should
the how is this going to be laidout? Or is it going to be a mix?
And so with this one, we see abunch of batteries being hooked
up to solar plants using thesame interconnection, I think,
and just kind of, I don't know,rolling around in small little
chunks.

So, so they're retrofitting batteries into
existing solar projects, yes,okay,

instead of adding gas peakers, and they're
distributing them. And that'show they looked at it. They
looked at this as a distributedpeaker plant, yeah, that's just,
it just triggered so many like,oh man, cool. And I, you know,
they're just so Massachusettsand Rhode Island, along with

(39:55):
Connecticut, all have adistributed battery. And. A
clean, peak type of program,where, if the state is allowed,
and also Vermont, and I thinkNew York, and I think it's
growing, but it's a VPP, butit's on a distributed asset,
like a five megawatt hour orfive megawatt chunk, yeah, so
not like what you have behindyour house, which is also a cool

(40:18):
VPP. You know, Sun runs at fivekW each. Are awesome, but I'm
the commercial solar guy, so, soI look at people's parking lots,
and I want to put, you know, twoor three shipping containers,
and that's what's starting tohappen. And I kind of like
seeing this. This is, this isthe commercial solar guy, scale,
distributed, level, energystorage. And I don't know it's

(40:41):
cool. Yeah.

So alright, should we do one more? Last one of the
day? I wrote this one Timothythe onion of FEOC, Safe Harbor
and tax credits in PB magazineby John Weaver. What's the story
while I get this on screen?

So I spoke to really smart lawyers who I think
were in Houston as well, in themiddle of it, and in a cool
building that had a nice view.
But I spoke to Jenny speck, andshe's an attorney who focuses on
tax credits and all energy taxcredits. I came to learn because
I at first was, I jokingly said,Ah, you must not do residential

(41:18):
that's going away. And she says,Nope, I have some very big
residential customers. My brainwent toward thinking it was Sun
run, but I didn't really. Wedidn't talk about any specific
customers. In fact, when Ijokingly asked about, uh, fervo,
because they do work withgeothermal, I said, Hey, do you
work with fervo? I said, I knowyou can't tell me. She goes, No
comment, but she works withgeothermal as well. So I do know

(41:40):
that.

So what is the what is the onion reference?

So the onion is how there are layers in FEOC of the
verification you have to do tomake sure that everybody in the
transaction is not influenceableby foreign entities of concern.
So before, here's a comparison.
And I brought it up when I wasasking questions. You know, we
used to have to check out whereour poly silicon was coming from

(42:07):
for the Uyghur Protection Act. Isaid, Hey, so is this Fiat sort
of like that? She goes, Yes, buttimes about five or 10, because
now you have to look at the bankthat's giving you loans, you
have to look at who's going tobuy your tax credits, who's
going to buy your depreciation,who owns the land that you're

(42:28):
leasing from, you know as what,who within the project, what
stakeholder could have influenceand affect This? And so people
who are doing $100 million taxcredits, they are doing due
diligence, Layer, Layer, Layer,Layer. And so in this, if we
scroll down a tiny bit, you cansee the quote where Jenny speck

(42:49):
actually called it an onion. Andthen she goes into, what is it?
So I think a little bit lowerthan that. And but, but it's
that, it's that we have thesedifferent layers of verification
of things. So for tax creditbuyers, you have to do, you have
to look at who's buying thecredits, and, yeah, ownership,

(43:11):
debt board, lots of layers. Soit's, it's just that you have to
look so much deeper and so muchfurther to verify who is running
this in order to get throughFEOC and and that was, you know,
one of two big interestingthings. I mean, there were a
bunch of stuff, but FEOC was thebig discussion.

So this question you posed, how painful could
Fiat compliance become? What's,what's the answer to that
question?

Well, you know what? Click on that link for the
for an example, actually, thatlink is from Bloomberg. Scroll
down there. I'm gonna show you achart. We're going to visually
show you what painful FEOC isprojected to potentially be. And
this comes from Bloomberg.
That's painful FEOC, rightthere, buddy. This is the

(44:06):
deployment of clean energy tech,so wind, solar, storage,
everything that's that's apainful tech, and that's heavily
because of solar. The painfulFEOC is showing utility scale
going from or going from solar,going from about 50 to 60 down
to 20 to 30, 50% drop if FEOC ispainful. So that's that's that.

(44:29):
So if FEOCis painful, expect alot of people to get fired.
150,000 people will lose theirjobs if that chart comes to be
maybe 100 because these aregoing to be a lot of utility
scale associated people, but,but that's what that chart
that's, that's a six figure jobloss if that chart comes to be

(44:53):
so she says. Lot of people areworking on it really smartly,
um, you know, we'll see, we'llsee what feox bands. But at the
same time, we see, uh, verystrong solar through the end of
27 and because of certainthings, it's actually in this
article by Jenny, another item,this will be the last one,

(45:16):
continuing construction, a newconcept I learned, and then I
saw a manufacturer, salespitching, Game Change, solar
racking. So really, really,really, just intelligent people.
I actually have a friend whoworks at Game Change, so in
essence, if you start makingcustomized parts that are

(45:39):
specific for your factory, thatis the beginning of
construction, you have startedyour project, yeah, and as long
as you can show that you havepieced together. And Jenny,
Jenny taught me this during thatconversation. So now we have
Jenny Chase from BNEF, and JennySpeck, I can't say her law firm

(46:02):
name yet, but whatever. So shesaid, as long as you can show
concurrent, ongoing third partySarah certified, if you really
need it construction, you havefour years to finish your
project, get it done, and so ifit takes you two years before
you break ground because you gotdevelopment stuff going on,

(46:26):
that's fine, but put down yourmoney, sign a contract. That's
the key. She said, documentyourself. She's talking about
from a lawyer in which there maybe an aggressive IRS, that's the
wording I added. She's a lawyer,and so document. It work, it do
your construction. That's howyou can have your

sign a contract by wind.

Well, you missed one date. One date was July 4
this past summer. Another datewas September 2. That dates
gone. Now the next date is goingto be December 31 the date after
that's going to be July 3, 2026so there's different dates of
construction, start stuff andbut I think the last date, I'm

(47:18):
not positive because I'm butit's in that email. But I do
have lawyers now who who havepaid to teach me this stuff. But
right now, my shorter mytimeframe is end of this year
for my starts. I know there's atleast one or two other deadlines
after but I think the big one isgoing to be July, 4. July, 3,

(47:41):
2026, that's going to be likethe last special deadline. So
you can see a lot of stuffhappen before then on documents
get signed or not. You know,then we have that FEOC cliff of
2028, so

I think the industry is going to adapt to
the post ITC world. And youknow, utilities are faced with
this onslaught of demand, theywant to build the cheapest form
of grid power, and that's solar,wind and batteries, and yeah,

(48:21):
the ITC has helped a lot, but Ithink that when you when you
compare the speed at which youcan deploy solar, wind and
batteries, and the cost tonatural gas or nuclear, you're
going to go, Yeah, we might gothere, But then we're going to
come back. So only time willtell, only time and tell the

(48:44):
only, the only for sure thing isthat eventually we will have a
50% powered, solar powered grid.
And so don't, don't shy awayfrom the solar industry. It's
good to have somediversification of the services
that you offer, as we havetalked about many times on this
show, but don't stop doing solarand batteries. All right, John,
I'll see you in Vegas. Anychance you can come to beer Park

(49:09):
Monday evening.

There's chance I've made zero plants. I have like,
two or three, four thingsscheduled total. So yeah, but
Yeah, where is that so, yeah,well, we could talk about it. Is
there a chance we do a show inVegas, maybe a 30 minute? Oh,
you're, you're booked becauseyou're a busy guy. Hey,
everybody. Tim Montague, there's

a possibility, but I don't know that I'll have the
gear. Oh, all right. I'm justlike recording with a with a
video crew, so in the Chintbooth, and if you come by the
Chint booth, we could record,

well, maybe that's what we'll do, or something so
good re plus is coming. I'll bearound the floor. Yeah, I'm

looking forward to it. We could also record on our
phone.

I was thinking the same thing too. It's from the
floor. It's already plus it'slive stuff, man. People are
interested.

I have two I have two portable mics. I'll have
with me. So all right, I'll seeyou in Vegas. John, let's grow
solar. I'm Tim Montague. Checkus out on Clean Power Hour and
John, how on earth can ourlisteners find you

John We (50:21):
commercialsolarguy.com, that's the easiest way. And then
I got an email address, got aphone number,

all those little ways to get or go to blue sky,
if you know what that is.
Commercial solar

guy on blue sky, that's me. All

right, thanks everybody. We'll see you next on
the 19th. That's our next.
That's our next live.

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