April 15, 2024 • 30 mins
Ever wondered how batteries are revolutionizing the solar industry and your energy bills? Cue the energy-packed dialogue with Ralph and Ben as we peel back the layers on the world of solar batteries. From backup power essentials to the shrewd art of peak shaving, we're letting you in on all the electric details. With a pinch of humor we swiftly segue into why batteries are more than just power reserves; they're your ticket to managing those skyrocketing energy costs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to another episode of the Harman Solar
Podcast.
I'm Rob Romano, VP of Sales andMarketing at Harman Solar.
With me, as always, is myco-host, Ben Walschlager.
You guys know him as MrEverything Ben, how are you
doing?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
A little hungry, but I'm here I'm a little hungry too
.
I know I didn't get to eatbefore the show.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, our chef is out of the country, unfortunately,
so we didn't have food today.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I only do this for one reason it's the food.
So you're going to be grumpytoday.
I'm going to be grumpy, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Today is the grumpy podcast.
Let's make it a quick one, allright?
Well, today what we're going todo is we're going to tackle
batteries.
We're going to talk aboutbatteries, we they work, how
they can benefit you.
It's a hot topic.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
People do call in a lot and say I want a battery, I
want a battery, I want a battery.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
How the technology has gotten better in the last
few years and batteries are likeyou said.
They're getting very, verypopular, yeah, and we're on the
forefront of that, thankgoodness, and we'll talk about
that as we get.
So let's just get started withbatteries.
Um, I think we should probablystart talking about how people
use batteries sure and then wecan kind of get into detail and
(01:31):
have some slides.
I've had slides in a long timereally.
When's the last time I hadslides?
I don't really watch thepodcast.
Wow, okay, this is the hungryBen yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Hungry Ben.
But yeah, batteries are kind ofpopular.
I don't know if it's because alot of people are out there
thinking the world's going toend and you know they want that
backward backup power, a lot ofuncertainty in times and I think
we do get those customers whocall in and say I want batteries
, just in case you know the gridgoes out.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, and I'd say in arizona, probably one of the
biggest things is our grid'sreally good.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
yeah, it doesn't go down very often right because we
can buy power from other placesright.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So we probably have one of the most stable grids in
the country, which so, thankgoodness, considering that we
live in well, we live on the sunbasically for about four months
a year do you remember that, um, that snowstorm, that blizzard
that hit in tex, the whole?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
you know, everyone was out of power.
We got so many calls for peoplewanting batteries and I had to
kind of educate them.
I was like, first of all, welive in Phoenix, a blizzard
happening, probably not going tohappen, and you know Texas, you
know utilities in Texas andutilities in Arizona very, very
different you know, as far asregulations and things like that
.
(02:50):
So you didn't have much toconcern.
But yeah, because of nationalyou know things that were going
on in the country, people wereconcerned and they were talking
about do I need a battery?
So yeah, this is a good podcastto kind of educate you on
whether it's a good idea for youor not if it makes sense for
you and they have.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
The pricing has come down over the past.
I would say five years,dramatically yeah and the
technology has gotten better.
So, like everything else, right, right.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So think about that.
Pricing has gone down,technology has gotten better.
Makes no sense.
Makes no sense, makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And so probably the two most common ways you're
going to use a battery.
I would say the first one isespecially in Phoenix, so you
have a lot of retired peoplethat live in Phoenix and you'll
have people that maybe needoxygen running all the time or
whatever critical things theyhave that needs to be plugged in
somewhere.
So they need a battery as abackup so if something does go
down, that battery can handlethat critical load and keep it
going.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, that's probably the most common thing you'll
see in arizona, I think yeahbecause of the community that we
are yeah, that, and you knowpeople who work from home.
They have their computerstations, things like that, and
like I can't you know, I have towork from home i't have my
computer go down.
So if the grid goes down for anhour or two or whatever you
know day or whatever, they needto still be able to work.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So I would just take a nap, pto, and probably the
other most common thing would bepeak shaving, which we'll get
us.
I have a slide for that so wecan talk about peak shaving,
what that means.
But it's really important inyour bill, really important in
your bill, yeah.
So with that, let's, let's goto that slide, okay, all right.
So peak shaving what's peakshaving?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
well, as we know, we have on and off peak uh times in
your utility company.
On peak, yep, on peak is moreexpensive and off peak is
cheaper.
It's utilities way to kind ofpeople to transfer energy,
because they know a lot ofpeople when they come home from
work and they cook and dinnerand run their ac all that stuff.
So they want to kind ofencourage you, so to speak, to
shift your energy to theoff-peak times.
(04:28):
It's cheaper, to less strain onthe grid and things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So, like in APS, the most common peak time, I think,
is 4 to 7.
That's when they're chargingyou the most for the power.
In SRP, I would believe it is 3to 8.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
2 to 8.
It depends on yeah, there's asummer, or like spring and
summer, then there's fall.
Five to nine.
Five to nine.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So there's changes up .
Yeah, so I mean, the idea islike just Ben said, and I'll
read my slide Go ahead.
Peak shaving is a strategy usedto minimize electricity costs
by strategically managing energyconsumption during peak hours,
which is what you just said.
Yeah, you just said it.
And during those periods,utility companies do charge more
, and they do that because ofincreased demand, right?
(05:12):
That's why they charge more, soit's a justifiable charge.
I don't want you to think, hey,let's just pick this time and
charge more, to be mean, there'sa reason they do that.
So the goal of peak shaving isit's to reduce or eliminate the
need to draw power from the gridduring those hours, right?
So how can we do that?
Well, there's a couple ways.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, well, we did it a long time ago with solar.
Yeah, we used to sell peaksystems.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
If people couldn't have, you know, maximize their
whole roof or offset all theirpower, we would look at well,
what's just your peak power?
We can just shave off just thepeak time so you can still buy
power from the grid during offpeak times where it's cheaper.
But then, when on peak timehits, now your, your solar
system is generating that power,so it's getting rid of the most
expensive part, because thewhole goal of this is save money
(05:56):
aps used to have that 12, 12 to7 rate remember that I have
that rate.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
still, I'm grandfathered to that rate.
So from 12 to 7 7, and I have apeak system, yeah, so it's
ideal.
From 12 to 7, I'm relying on mysolar system.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah.
And it covers all my peak, yeah.
And then you buy your poweroff-peak from APS.
Yes, it's cheaper power.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It's cheaper yeah, because that's how it was done
back in the day.
The interesting thing about ifit's four to seven, we're dark
by 435 yeah, you're not gettinga whole lot of peak time during
(06:32):
that right for solar production,so batteries as the solar
production comes down and thepeak goes up.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
We need something here yeah, like that circle here
right there great visuals, Lowbudget graphics.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So so that's where a battery would come in, right, if
your battery is charging duringthe morning hours, especially
getting charged back up, yeah,as soon as you hit four o'clock,
let's say an APS, now yourbattery kicks in and it's
helping as your solar is comingdown.
It's helping to bring morepower as um solar goes down,
that goes up.
It helps to cover thatexpensive demand rate that you
(07:08):
would get from aps.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Not demand, it's not demand, but it's a usage rate,
yeah, that you would get fromaps yeah, um, just like we
talked about many, many timesbefore on the podcast, when your
solar system is producing power, that power has to go somewhere
.
Is it going to your home?
Is it going to the grid?
Well, now, if you have abattery, you know if it's going
to there, it's going to becharging that battery.
So when it gets to the point of, okay, I'm going to start
drawing more power, um, becauseI'm using more.
(07:31):
But now we're getting to thaton peak time, where it's more
expensive, I don't want to buyit from the grid, I want to get
it from a cheaper source.
So that's why I have my battery.
It's going to start drawingthat extra power from the
battery during that small windowof peak time.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
That's peak shaving.
I mean, in a nutshell, that'sexactly what it is.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Because the solar system production went down, but
I still need power.
Where is it going to come from?
Is it coming from the grid ormy battery Coming from the
battery?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Right, and I'll just restate the benefit per the
slide Cost savings, right.
So by avoiding peak rates, whatonly is it benefiting you as a
customer and helping you savemoney, but it benefits the grid
because it takes some of thestress off it.
(08:13):
So it's twofold, it's a win-win, right.
So battery is the way to dothat.
All right, so we can go to ournext slide.
Next slide, battery options.
There's a ton.
I went to a show I want to sayit was beginning of last year,
out in San Diego was a solarshow, and there was this whole
area of all these manufacturersand all they had was batteries.
(08:34):
There was like 150manufacturers of batteries.
It was ridiculous Justbatteries, just batteries.
Everybody's got a battery.
Yeah, you know, I mean I shouldmake a battery, we should do a
battery and call it the Harmonpodcast battery.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The Harmon podcast battery.
Yeah, we could do it.
The Ralph Romano double abattery.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Everyone has batteries, like here.
I'm showing you the.
The.
The Generac has a battery and Iknow they're more known for
their generators, but they dohave batteries.
They're not great in Arizonaright now, but the new stuff
coming out at the end of thisyear is actually going to be
really good for Arizona.
Enphase, who doesmicroinverters, has batteries.
We sell those.
And then Tesla, of course, isthe king of the battery world in
(09:13):
my opinion, in our opinion, andHarmon Sure Franklin's, another
company that's been coming onmore and more lately.
I showed one of yours.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So Franklin's been doing more batteries more of a
little bit.
Lower cost, maybe not as greattechnically, but not a bad
battery.
So there's a ton of batteryoptions out there, yeah, and I
think what we do as responsiblepeople at Harman is we take a
look at all these batteries andsolar panels and inverters and
we go what's going to be goodfor our customers?
You know our customers right.
You know we don't want to offerevery single battery because
(09:47):
there might be batteries thatare just not very cost effective
, um, or don't fit in ourutilities or our climate,
environment, things like that.
So we take a look at I'm sureyou know Dan and Julie take a
look at everything and go what'sgoing to be good for our
customers and in our, in ourbusiness.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
So to that point.
That that out, that's a greatpoint.
So I'm going to give an example.
So, like this is not.
California, lg had a batterycalled the LG Chem.
This is probably three, fouryears ago, really popular
battery.
Everybody was installing thesebatteries in Arizona as well.
Well, they don't like heat,yeah, so people were putting
them in garages which a lot ofpeople put batteries in garages
(10:21):
or they were putting them indirect line of sun or whatever.
But again, it's hot here, sowhen they hit a certain
temperature, they start deratingand turning off.
They don't work, yeah, and so alot of people and I'll say this
Harman never installed an LGcam because we researched and
went whoa, these are going to bean issue down the road.
Yeah, well, the companies thatare at that did install them and
(10:47):
we know a few of them.
They're having to deal withthese customers now because
these batteries are not doingwell in the summer.
They're derating, they're goingdown fast.
I mean they don't do what it'sdesigned a battery to do,
because they just can't, becauseit's just too hot.
So saying that we startedreally researching batteries,
going what makes sense for ourcustomer in our climate that we
can deal with, that makes sense.
And somebody said it's teslawhy?
I'll give you a reason numberone tesla is the only liquid
(11:10):
cooled battery out there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, and that's huge in this environment yeah,
people don't realize thatelectronics and heat don't like
each other.
If you have solar and you lookat your solar production and we
kind of get these calls from newcustomers too, they go hey,
it's you know middle of july oryou know august and I noticed my
solar production isn't as highas it was in like may or june.
Right, because I tell people,well, and they're like oh good,
(11:32):
it's 120 degrees outside, itshould be producing the most.
Like solar works off a light,not heat.
Right, you know, I'll send themthe uh, you know data sheets of
you like your solar systempanels and optimal temperature
is like what, like 85 degrees.
Yeah, after 85 degrees theystart to produce less, the
hotter it gets.
So that's why you see a spikein your production in like may
(11:53):
and june, because may and juneit's not hot yet but you're
still having a lot of sunlight.
So that's when you get, youknow, the most production and
then after that it starts totaper off because it gets hotter
.
Same thing with these batteriesthey don't hold up well in the
heat.
So that's why we, you know, welook at the Tesla option.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What you're saying is the panel coefficient heat
rating used to be an X percent.
We can get into that.
There are customers that we getthat want to get into that.
They're engineers always.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
They go to me.
I'm going to transfer you toBen.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So this next slide is basically the Powerwall
Evolution.
So I don't have the Powerwall 1on here.
That was the first one thatcame out, but I'm starting at
the Powerwall 2.
Because up to recently we werestill selling the Powerwall 2.
Yeah, but they're no longermaking the Powerwall 2.
But just to give you an idea,the Powerwall 2 has the energy
capacity of 13.5 kilowatt hours.
Right, that's what it couldstore that you could use On-grid
(12:41):
power that's 5K continuous andbackup of 7k peak.
So those are its limitations,right?
Great battery.
We've installed a ton of thesebatteries.
They were especially popular inretrofit situations where
people already had solar andthey wanted to put a battery on
it.
This is a great battery forthat, because it's just a
standalone battery.
That's what it is.
Liquid cooled works fantastic,right yeah that's the one that.
(13:05):
That's one our boss actually hasyes, dan has three of those in
his garage.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Find that YouTube video.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, you can find that YouTube video.
We're actually going to do amore detailed one and we're
going to put it on the podcast,where he's going to go ahead and
see how far he can go, andwe're going to look at all the
details of his app andeverything else and we're going
to kind of experience it withhim and, for those who don't
know, our owner has a YouTubevideo out there of the
Powerwalls on his home.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He basically cuts it off for what's like three days.
I think he ran three days Likethree days to see.
Can I live off just solar andbattery and no grid for three
days?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I'll put the link on here.
You'll see it right here on thescreen.
There's the link and we'll usethat for anybody that wants to
take a look at that video.
It's actually a really goodvideo.
Yeah, it's a good educational.
Secondarily, now the PowerwallPlus.
So the Powerwall Plus came outand it changed a little bit.
So what happened is, notice howyou look at it on that picture
there it's two pieces.
You got the battery below andthen now you have an inverter.
(13:59):
It's a 7.6K inverter.
That's part of the setup andit's liquid cooled inverter,
which is kind of neat.
So the liquid cool battery,liquid cooled inverter yeah,
very important in ourenvironment.
Um, you'll see that it has thesame 13.5 um capacity, 76 um
on-grid power, because it's gota 76 inverter, 5k continuous and
(14:20):
the backup is 9.6k or 7kcontinuous.
All that wonderful technicalinformation what?
What does it really mean?
I don't know.
What it means is the differencebetween the Powerwall 2 and the
Powerwall Plus is now they'veadded an inverter as part of the
gig, right, so you're no longer.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
You don't have to have your end phase inverters,
solar edge inverters, thingslike that.
You can have your.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
It all goes through the Tesla battery inverter yeah,
which is really kind of cool.
It's all integrated, integratedinto one yep um.
The bad part about that is, ifyou have, if you have a system
already up with inverters, youcan't retrofit it with this
because it has to run off thisinverter.
Yeah, so we don't do that.
But very, very neat, um, howthey did this?
And then they've now these,these two right here, the two
and the two and the plus havebeen discontinued.
(15:03):
They don't make them anymore.
They just stopped making themin december.
Um, so we don't sell themanymore?
Yep, they're done.
They've all evolved.
Now to the powerwall.
Three dun, dun, dun thebeautiful powerwall three which
you see there on the right.
what do you think is the nextone?
Powerwall four.
Oh geez, so the three has justcome out.
Um, we were the first, um, wewere the first installer in
(15:24):
arizona to actually have I'm notsure the availability for other
installers, but we're sellingit and it's a 13.5 battery.
Here's the difference with thisone it's got an 11.5K inverter
in it.
So you don't see it broken intotwo pieces.
It's actually just inside of it, so the inverter is in there.
11.5 allows you to do a lotmore.
You can put a bigger system onit.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It allows you to do a lot more.
Yeah, you can put a biggersystem on it.
Um, it's just, it's just better.
Yeah, because in the in the olddays, people would call in and
they would say, hey, I want abattery.
And then we take a look attheir solar system and you know,
depending on the size of thesolar system, we would say you
can't just get one batterybecause your system is so large,
you actually need two or threebatteries, right?
So you know you can't.
It was a linear relationshipthe bigger your system you had,
the more batteries that youwould be required to get right.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So for an example, on that, with the older batteries,
especially if you have an acthat you want started up on an
older battery, it can't do itright, it doesn't have the power
to do it.
Power wall three can, yeah, butwe'll talk about that in a
second too.
But anyway it has the abilityto do that.
And here's a couple differencesas well, from the Powerwall 2
to the Plus and the 3.
You had to do back and we'regoing to get in the next slides.
We're going to talk aboutbackup loads versus a backup
(16:33):
switch.
That's another big differenceon these batteries, huge
difference that you don't see onthis slide, but we'll get to
the next slide.
But those are the threePowerwalls that have kind of
evolved.
And the Powerwall 3 is where weare as a company right right
now.
So backup load setup is what Iwas talking about.
So this is typically like a subpanel.
So on the older batteries forinstance, a Powerwall 2, you
have your battery set up andthen we would run critical loads
(16:55):
.
So what I mean by criticalloads is things that are
critical that you need whenthere's a power outage, right.
So you need your fridge running, you need a wall, a couple of
wall sockets.
You have to have your internetplugged in, your computer
plugged in.
You need some lights in somerooms, so not everywhere, but
you're.
You would pick typically six toeight loads that you wanted,
backed up by the battery.
If the grid went down, yeah,the battery would kick on, this
(17:17):
panel would kick on and any loadin those pan, that panel would
go that was a huge misconceptionwe had.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
when people call in, they would, you know, fear that
the grid go down.
They want to back battery andwe'd have to tell them it's not
backing up your entire home,it's only backing up a few
things.
So people are like what?
No, I want my whole home.
It doesn't work like that.
You have to pick what'simportant to you and there was
kind of weird things.
People would find out what wasimportant, like, well, I want my
garbage disposal backed up, Iwant that's important.
(17:48):
You know, I want my landscapelighting backed up in my pool.
I'm like, okay, well, I thinkthere might be more important
things backed up, but we can getthere.
But yeah, it was a huge changeof what was before and what we
have now, of just what's beingbacked up.
Backed up because a lot ofpeople again, they didn't, they
didn't, they thought the wholehome was going to be backed up.
Nope, that's not the case notat all, so all.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So I think that Tesla recognized this as an issue.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And they said what are we going to do about it?
It turned a lot of people offtoo.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
actually no pun intended.
People are like, oh, I don'twant a battery.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
then and when we start talking about, I want to
go to the next thing first.
Then we'll talk about loads.
So the next slide was whatTesla did to solve that problem
they.
So the next slide was whatTesla did to solve that problem.
They created what's called thebackup switch.
Yep, it basically is this blackcollar you can kind of see it
in the picture here but it goesonto your main meter on your SES
(18:39):
, on your panel, and it backs upthat entire panel.
Yeah, it's one connection.
It goes from the battery tothis collar on there and it
backs up the entire panel.
So there's no critical load subpanel, none of that stuff.
It all goes away.
So this is the new way thatthey're doing it.
They started doing this withthe plus and now it's even a
bigger deal.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
On the three, yeah, so those people who called in
and didn't want batteries beforebecause it was only backed up a
couple of things, this is thebattery you wanted now.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Right.
So they've listened to whatpeople were saying and they've
created this backup switch.
And this backup switch is agame changer in the battery
industry.
No doubt about it.
Less upgrades to be done.
It does the whole home backup.
But let's talk about a wholehome backup for a second.
So we are Phoenix, yeah, andwe've said this before, and we
have to keep pounding this.
If you want to.
Just I got a backup, I want my.
All my AC is going to be backedup.
(19:26):
If you turn your AC on whenyou're running off the battery,
you're going to see that batterygo pretty quick yeah.
I'd say an hour, hour and a halfat the most, depending on the
size of your air conditioningsystem, how many units you have,
it'll go quick.
So probably not the smartestthing to want to back up.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I've told people this before too, that
when you do have a backupbattery, you're like, yeah, we
could back up your AC, but assoon as you turn that thing on,
you now have like what 30, 45minutes power and then what?
That's it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So yeah, so to that point, ac.
Yeah, you can't.
You're gonna drain everythingdown and you're not gonna have
to back up, so you got to besmart, so great you got your
whole home.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Now it's all backed up, but you better be smart
about what you do.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, so just saying could be scary, could be scary,
but very cool that teslalistened and they have this now
and it makes it the, my opinion,the best product out there.
Yeah, so so that's the.
That's the end of the slides.
I mean just wanted to give youa quick couple slides to kind of
show you some of the key thingsthat what we're talking about
here.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Let's, let's get into um aps with a battery yeah, and
aps is a giant utility companyright all over arizona and it
also depends on where you are inaps because there are more
reliable spots than others,right.
Um, if you think about ifyou're in a, you know, major
congested area, you know phoenix, peoria, glendale, scottsdale,
(20:47):
whatever a lot of your, yourhomes in that area, when the
grid goes down, it goes down forlike what?
maybe a couple minutes yeah hourat the most because of a storm
or something like that, but kindof on the outskirts, like when
you get like north of anthem ornew river stuff like that, where
there's not a whole lot ofhomes.
I've talked to homeowners outthere and you know, and I've
asked how long does it?
you know when the power goes out, how long does it last?
(21:08):
And for them they sometimes sayyou know it'll go out for three
, four, five, six hours.
Wow, so it depends too.
So for those people out in the,you know, kind of in the
outskirts of the valley,batteries could make more sense
because of you know theirlifestyles and what they want,
right.
But like for like you and I,when we live in the city, boys
(21:29):
over here, you know the gridgoes down for a couple of
minutes and then back up, soit's a flicker of the lights and
that's it.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Maybe in APS what we were thinking more about is
doing peak shaving.
Yeah, so that's probably thebenefit in APS.
Is you really want to use itfor peak shaving?
Right it?
Let's say that in the, in themajor areas at least, where the
grid's really really reliable,that makes a lot more sense, and
there is you just talked aboutthen.
Yeah, it makes sense becauseyou want to use it for critical.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
It's kind of on the outskirts peak shaving.
Yeah, sure is important becausewe're all changed, charge the
same rate, but then you alsohave to consider reliability
emergency backup stuff,emergency backup yeah and then
in srp, so that all applies tosrp as well.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, the difference in srp and I shouldn't say it's
a difference, but but it seemslike the demand rate in SRP is
more popular than the demandrate in APS.
Yeah, so the demand rate in SRPright now, if you watched our
SRP podcast, we talk a lot abouta demand manager and we
actually had Steven here fromEnergy Demand that he kind of
showed it how it worked and allthat, and it's very critical
when you're on that rate.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
While with a battery it can act as technically a
demand manager.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Well, yeah, a demand manager.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
It has the technology built into it.
Yeah, yeah, um, the the mainthing with srp and I know this
is crazy to think about when yougo solar on srp we want you to
buy power from srp.
It's cheaper than solar, it's alot.
We're getting you solar so thatyou can get on those great low
rates.
But now we want you to buypower from srp.
Just the power aspect, not thedemand aspect.
We want just the power to buyfrom srp.
(23:06):
So then the battery, yeah, willhelp kind of shave off the
demand.
It's kind of like a peakshaving of demand right so that
you don't have to rely too muchon demand from srp.
So it's still good as a peakshaver in srp.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, it works in all aspects and APS has a demand
rate too, so it can help keepthat demand down as you're using
.
It's all about how you set itup.
So there's an app that comeswith the batteries and you can
basically adjust it to dowhatever you need it to do
Whether you want it to charge atcertain times, just let out at
certain times.
Whatever you want it to do, youcan make that work and even the
(23:40):
capabilities are just insane.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Like it's not just a, oh, I want to charge it and
discharge it here.
You could do it by percentagesand everything too.
Like I want to discharge it,but I want to keep about 20%
reserve, just in case.
So it'll know, okay, I'm goingto discharge only to that
threshold and then I'm keepingtheir extra and that's what
you'll see a lot of.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I've noticed in some of the stuff I've looked at
where they'll use their batteryduring the peak shaving time and
then they get it down to about20% by the evening and then it
recharges in the, you know, inthe morning hours and stuff in
the early afternoon hours andthen they're ready to go to 100%
or close to again right as theyhit the peak shaving time so
it's that continuous cycle ofhow it works yeah, so you can
set your battery up like I neverwant it to go below 50%.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I want to keep at least 50%, just in case the grid
goes down, you can do that, orkeep it down to 5% or 0%,
whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
All custom, all personalized to.
However, you use power Justlike everything else that we
talk about Right Right Now, thepricing of batteries has come
down quite a bit, actually inthe last, I would say, three to
four years it's come down and,like we said earlier, the
technology has gotten better andthere's more that you can do
with it now.
Yeah, it just depends on yoursituation.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
You know is this are you the person that you're?
Just, you can't afford to payyour bill and you need to save
today, and if you add more moneyto the system, it's going to
impact your ability to save asfar as your margins and saving.
So you really can't afford toput a battery in right now.
Yeah, let's just say, becausethere is a return on the battery
depending on I can't give you anumber I know, it all depends
(25:06):
on how you use it, how you setit up and things like that, I
know there's a lot of companiesout there that'll tell you it
has one year, two year return.
Yeah, I'll call BS on that allday long.
Uh, it's more like a 10 yearbenefit to it.
And this is where we're going.
People, especially as APS'sbuyback rate continues to drop,
(25:26):
it'll make more and more senseto, instead of giving them that
power at you know, let's say,three or four cents, like you
have to do, an SRP 2.81 centsthat you fill that battery up
and you keep that power and useit when you need to use it to
keep your bill down.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, get those customers calling who have solar
and they're like you know I'msaving money with the solar
system.
It's great.
I still have, you know, like aten dollar bill with aps right,
can I get a battery so I can getthat bill down lower like no
come on, just be happy with yourten dollar like it.
We might be able to shave a fewcents or a dollar here or there,
but the battery isn't free.
You still have to take intoaccount how much am I paying for
(26:02):
this battery and what benefitam I getting from my savings?
So in those special cases itdoesn't make sense and we'll
tell people no, it doesn't makesense for you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
On the battery.
You have to remember too,there's a 30% tax credit on it,
so that's good.
There's usually rebates.
I know that I think APS isgetting ready to roll a rebate
out for the batteries as well.
They'll give you a few thousanddollars back.
I think Tesla even does its ownrebate here and there.
So you have to check at thetime when you're going to buy a
battery what are the availablerebates, tax credits and all
that.
But it definitely helps bringthe cost down and make the
return better.
(26:32):
And as we move more and moreforward into the future, we're
starting to hear more and moreabout different incentives and
different things they want to dobecause they want people
putting batteries on thesesystems.
And it helps the utility yeah,because, like I said before, it
takes the stress off of the grid.
The more we can take the stressoff the grid, the better.
In Hawaii right now, the gridis stressed out to 100%.
Yeah, right, so you can't getsolar on your house without
(26:53):
having a battery, because thegrid doesn't want your excess
power.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It to go into the battery.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
It's a requirement, um, and it's not a requirement
in Arizona yet at this time.
Yeah, it might be on.
Some days it might become arequirement.
I'm not sure.
I would say probably will oneday, um, but as of right now
we're good to go.
But I would say, keep your eyeon batteries, um, if it's not,
you know, maybe it's for you,maybe it's not for you.
Just, we wanted to educate youon kind of what they are and
(27:19):
what they do and why they'reimportant yeah um, are they good
for everybody?
absolutely not.
Um, if you just there's a lotof people that want to buy it
just because it's cool yeah,give us a call, we'll be, honest
with you.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
We'll tell you whether it's a good fit or not.
You know our as we mentionedmany times on podcasts, our job
isn't just to sell you batteriesand sell you solar.
We want to figure out is this agood fit for you?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
because we for you.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Because we want to take care of our customers.
So if you're sitting therewondering, like, should I get a
battery, well, give us a call.
We'll kind of go through ittogether and figure out what's
best for you and your needs.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, because it works for a lot of people.
We sell systems that have threeor four batteries on them.
I mean it makes a lot of sensefor a lot of people, but some of
you guys make any sense back inthe old days with the earlier
power walls.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Man, I don't know, I don't think the company liked me
because I was turning peopleaway left and right for
batteries just because you knowI don't luck of the draw people
that were calling in I wouldtake a look at and go.
You know it doesn't make sensefor you.
Yeah well, other companies buyand sell you one, sure, but I
don't want to sell you onebecause I remember those
financially I'm looking at thenumbers doesn't make sense for
you in your situation.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I remember people would call in and say I want a
battery.
Those Teslas look cool, they'regreat, I can use car paint on
them and change the color andall this stuff.
That's fantastic.
How much do they cost?
And I told them well, why wouldI do that?
Exactly, exactly there you go,why would you do that?
But now has gone up, so I woulddefinitely take a look.
So if you, when you give us acall and you're looking to go
(28:41):
solar, ask the question, say,hey, what does a battery look
like?
Does it make sense for me?
And honestly, we will help youto determine if it makes sense
for you or not.
We're not going to try to sellyou a battery if you don't need
it, if it doesn't make any sense.
But be careful of the peoplethat come in and just push
battery, battery, battery, greattechnology there is a cost to
it that will impact your savingssituation.
Very important that you look atthat.
(29:02):
They're not free.
So always I would say, when youget proposals, look at one with
and look at one without and youwill see the impact of what it
does to you.
Take a hard look, trustyourself, trust your gut.
Don't trust the sales guy.
What if I'm?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
the sales guy Trust yourself, trust your gut, don't
trust.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
No, I would trust you but definitely do your research
.
So I mean that's really, that'sreally it.
I mean there's not, I don'twant to go into.
I'm not going to sit here andget into coefficient
temperatures and you know,lithium and this, that'll be
next week.
Yeah, we're not going to.
We're not going to do that kindof a dive.
We just wanted to give you abasic overview, quick podcast,
on batteries and what they cando for you and how they've
changed over the years.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
So Sounds good.
Make sure you like andsubscribe and follow us on all
the socials and everything.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, and we'll be back again next, probably the
next week or two, with the nexttopic.
I'm hoping we get Neil and Amyback and that they got some
proposals from somebody else,because I really want to have
that conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I would love to pick apart other proposals from other
companies.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I think that'd be fun .
We should show them on the airlike oh, this company look at
this company, but hopefully wecan do that next.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
If not, we've got some other things we're going to
do, so we just wanted to getthis one out of the way in a
sense, because I really feellike we've needed to do this and
we just kind of skipped over it.
So thanks for your time andwe'll see you soon.
Thank you.
Welcome to another episode of the Harman Solar
Podcast.
I'm Rob Romano, VP of Sales andMarketing at Harman Solar.
With me, as always, is myco-host, Ben Walschlager.
You guys know him as MrEverything Ben, how are you
doing?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
A little hungry, but I'm here I'm a little hungry too
.
I know I didn't get to eatbefore the show.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, our chef is out of the country, unfortunately,
so we didn't have food today.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I only do this for one reason it's the food.
So you're going to be grumpytoday.
I'm going to be grumpy, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Today is the grumpy podcast.
Let's make it a quick one, allright?
Well, today what we're going todo is we're going to tackle
batteries.
We're going to talk aboutbatteries, we they work, how
they can benefit you.
It's a hot topic.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
People do call in a lot and say I want a battery, I
want a battery, I want a battery.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
How the technology has gotten better in the last
few years and batteries are likeyou said.
They're getting very, verypopular, yeah, and we're on the
forefront of that, thankgoodness, and we'll talk about
that as we get.
So let's just get started withbatteries.
Um, I think we should probablystart talking about how people
use batteries sure and then wecan kind of get into detail and
(01:31):
have some slides.
I've had slides in a long timereally.
When's the last time I hadslides?
I don't really watch thepodcast.
Wow, okay, this is the hungryBen yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Hungry Ben.
But yeah, batteries are kind ofpopular.
I don't know if it's because alot of people are out there
thinking the world's going toend and you know they want that
backward backup power, a lot ofuncertainty in times and I think
we do get those customers whocall in and say I want batteries
, just in case you know the gridgoes out.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, and I'd say in arizona, probably one of the
biggest things is our grid'sreally good.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
yeah, it doesn't go down very often right because we
can buy power from other placesright.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So we probably have one of the most stable grids in
the country, which so, thankgoodness, considering that we
live in well, we live on the sunbasically for about four months
a year do you remember that, um, that snowstorm, that blizzard
that hit in tex, the whole?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
you know, everyone was out of power.
We got so many calls for peoplewanting batteries and I had to
kind of educate them.
I was like, first of all, welive in Phoenix, a blizzard
happening, probably not going tohappen, and you know Texas, you
know utilities in Texas andutilities in Arizona very, very
different you know, as far asregulations and things like that
.
(02:50):
So you didn't have much toconcern.
But yeah, because of nationalyou know things that were going
on in the country, people wereconcerned and they were talking
about do I need a battery?
So yeah, this is a good podcastto kind of educate you on
whether it's a good idea for youor not if it makes sense for
you and they have.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
The pricing has come down over the past.
I would say five years,dramatically yeah and the
technology has gotten better.
So, like everything else, right, right.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So think about that.
Pricing has gone down,technology has gotten better.
Makes no sense.
Makes no sense, makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And so probably the two most common ways you're
going to use a battery.
I would say the first one isespecially in Phoenix, so you
have a lot of retired peoplethat live in Phoenix and you'll
have people that maybe needoxygen running all the time or
whatever critical things theyhave that needs to be plugged in
somewhere.
So they need a battery as abackup so if something does go
down, that battery can handlethat critical load and keep it
going.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, that's probably the most common thing you'll
see in arizona, I think yeahbecause of the community that we
are yeah, that, and you knowpeople who work from home.
They have their computerstations, things like that, and
like I can't you know, I have towork from home i't have my
computer go down.
So if the grid goes down for anhour or two or whatever you
know day or whatever, they needto still be able to work.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So I would just take a nap, pto, and probably the
other most common thing would bepeak shaving, which we'll get
us.
I have a slide for that so wecan talk about peak shaving,
what that means.
But it's really important inyour bill, really important in
your bill, yeah.
So with that, let's, let's goto that slide, okay, all right.
So peak shaving what's peakshaving?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
well, as we know, we have on and off peak uh times in
your utility company.
On peak, yep, on peak is moreexpensive and off peak is
cheaper.
It's utilities way to kind ofpeople to transfer energy,
because they know a lot ofpeople when they come home from
work and they cook and dinnerand run their ac all that stuff.
So they want to kind ofencourage you, so to speak, to
shift your energy to theoff-peak times.
(04:28):
It's cheaper, to less strain onthe grid and things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So, like in APS, the most common peak time, I think,
is 4 to 7.
That's when they're chargingyou the most for the power.
In SRP, I would believe it is 3to 8.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
2 to 8.
It depends on yeah, there's asummer, or like spring and
summer, then there's fall.
Five to nine.
Five to nine.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So there's changes up .
Yeah, so I mean, the idea islike just Ben said, and I'll
read my slide Go ahead.
Peak shaving is a strategy usedto minimize electricity costs
by strategically managing energyconsumption during peak hours,
which is what you just said.
Yeah, you just said it.
And during those periods,utility companies do charge more
, and they do that because ofincreased demand, right?
(05:12):
That's why they charge more, soit's a justifiable charge.
I don't want you to think, hey,let's just pick this time and
charge more, to be mean, there'sa reason they do that.
So the goal of peak shaving isit's to reduce or eliminate the
need to draw power from the gridduring those hours, right?
So how can we do that?
Well, there's a couple ways.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, well, we did it a long time ago with solar.
Yeah, we used to sell peaksystems.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
If people couldn't have, you know, maximize their
whole roof or offset all theirpower, we would look at well,
what's just your peak power?
We can just shave off just thepeak time so you can still buy
power from the grid during offpeak times where it's cheaper.
But then, when on peak timehits, now your, your solar
system is generating that power,so it's getting rid of the most
expensive part, because thewhole goal of this is save money
(05:56):
aps used to have that 12, 12 to7 rate remember that I have
that rate.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
still, I'm grandfathered to that rate.
So from 12 to 7 7, and I have apeak system, yeah, so it's
ideal.
From 12 to 7, I'm relying on mysolar system.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah.
And it covers all my peak, yeah.
And then you buy your poweroff-peak from APS.
Yes, it's cheaper power.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It's cheaper yeah, because that's how it was done
back in the day.
The interesting thing about ifit's four to seven, we're dark
by 435 yeah, you're not gettinga whole lot of peak time during
(06:32):
that right for solar production,so batteries as the solar
production comes down and thepeak goes up.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
We need something here yeah, like that circle here
right there great visuals, Lowbudget graphics.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So so that's where a battery would come in, right, if
your battery is charging duringthe morning hours, especially
getting charged back up, yeah,as soon as you hit four o'clock,
let's say an APS, now yourbattery kicks in and it's
helping as your solar is comingdown.
It's helping to bring morepower as um solar goes down,
that goes up.
It helps to cover thatexpensive demand rate that you
(07:08):
would get from aps.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Not demand, it's not demand, but it's a usage rate,
yeah, that you would get fromaps yeah, um, just like we
talked about many, many timesbefore on the podcast, when your
solar system is producing power, that power has to go somewhere
.
Is it going to your home?
Is it going to the grid?
Well, now, if you have abattery, you know if it's going
to there, it's going to becharging that battery.
So when it gets to the point of, okay, I'm going to start
drawing more power, um, becauseI'm using more.
(07:31):
But now we're getting to thaton peak time, where it's more
expensive, I don't want to buyit from the grid, I want to get
it from a cheaper source.
So that's why I have my battery.
It's going to start drawingthat extra power from the
battery during that small windowof peak time.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
That's peak shaving.
I mean, in a nutshell, that'sexactly what it is.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Because the solar system production went down, but
I still need power.
Where is it going to come from?
Is it coming from the grid ormy battery Coming from the
battery?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Right, and I'll just restate the benefit per the
slide Cost savings, right.
So by avoiding peak rates, whatonly is it benefiting you as a
customer and helping you savemoney, but it benefits the grid
because it takes some of thestress off it.
(08:13):
So it's twofold, it's a win-win, right.
So battery is the way to dothat.
All right, so we can go to ournext slide.
Next slide, battery options.
There's a ton.
I went to a show I want to sayit was beginning of last year,
out in San Diego was a solarshow, and there was this whole
area of all these manufacturersand all they had was batteries.
(08:34):
There was like 150manufacturers of batteries.
It was ridiculous Justbatteries, just batteries.
Everybody's got a battery.
Yeah, you know, I mean I shouldmake a battery, we should do a
battery and call it the Harmonpodcast battery.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The Harmon podcast battery.
Yeah, we could do it.
The Ralph Romano double abattery.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Everyone has batteries, like here.
I'm showing you the.
The.
The Generac has a battery and Iknow they're more known for
their generators, but they dohave batteries.
They're not great in Arizonaright now, but the new stuff
coming out at the end of thisyear is actually going to be
really good for Arizona.
Enphase, who doesmicroinverters, has batteries.
We sell those.
And then Tesla, of course, isthe king of the battery world in
(09:13):
my opinion, in our opinion, andHarmon Sure Franklin's, another
company that's been coming onmore and more lately.
I showed one of yours.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So Franklin's been doing more batteries more of a
little bit.
Lower cost, maybe not as greattechnically, but not a bad
battery.
So there's a ton of batteryoptions out there, yeah, and I
think what we do as responsiblepeople at Harman is we take a
look at all these batteries andsolar panels and inverters and
we go what's going to be goodfor our customers?
You know our customers right.
You know we don't want to offerevery single battery because
(09:47):
there might be batteries thatare just not very cost effective
, um, or don't fit in ourutilities or our climate,
environment, things like that.
So we take a look at I'm sureyou know Dan and Julie take a
look at everything and go what'sgoing to be good for our
customers and in our, in ourbusiness.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
So to that point.
That that out, that's a greatpoint.
So I'm going to give an example.
So, like this is not.
California, lg had a batterycalled the LG Chem.
This is probably three, fouryears ago, really popular
battery.
Everybody was installing thesebatteries in Arizona as well.
Well, they don't like heat,yeah, so people were putting
them in garages which a lot ofpeople put batteries in garages
(10:21):
or they were putting them indirect line of sun or whatever.
But again, it's hot here, sowhen they hit a certain
temperature, they start deratingand turning off.
They don't work, yeah, and so alot of people and I'll say this
Harman never installed an LGcam because we researched and
went whoa, these are going to bean issue down the road.
Yeah, well, the companies thatare at that did install them and
(10:47):
we know a few of them.
They're having to deal withthese customers now because
these batteries are not doingwell in the summer.
They're derating, they're goingdown fast.
I mean they don't do what it'sdesigned a battery to do,
because they just can't, becauseit's just too hot.
So saying that we startedreally researching batteries,
going what makes sense for ourcustomer in our climate that we
can deal with, that makes sense.
And somebody said it's teslawhy?
I'll give you a reason numberone tesla is the only liquid
(11:10):
cooled battery out there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, and that's huge in this environment yeah,
people don't realize thatelectronics and heat don't like
each other.
If you have solar and you lookat your solar production and we
kind of get these calls from newcustomers too, they go hey,
it's you know middle of july oryou know august and I noticed my
solar production isn't as highas it was in like may or june.
Right, because I tell people,well, and they're like oh good,
(11:32):
it's 120 degrees outside, itshould be producing the most.
Like solar works off a light,not heat.
Right, you know, I'll send themthe uh, you know data sheets of
you like your solar systempanels and optimal temperature
is like what, like 85 degrees.
Yeah, after 85 degrees theystart to produce less, the
hotter it gets.
So that's why you see a spikein your production in like may
(11:53):
and june, because may and juneit's not hot yet but you're
still having a lot of sunlight.
So that's when you get, youknow, the most production and
then after that it starts totaper off because it gets hotter
.
Same thing with these batteriesthey don't hold up well in the
heat.
So that's why we, you know, welook at the Tesla option.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What you're saying is the panel coefficient heat
rating used to be an X percent.
We can get into that.
There are customers that we getthat want to get into that.
They're engineers always.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
They go to me.
I'm going to transfer you toBen.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So this next slide is basically the Powerwall
Evolution.
So I don't have the Powerwall 1on here.
That was the first one thatcame out, but I'm starting at
the Powerwall 2.
Because up to recently we werestill selling the Powerwall 2.
Yeah, but they're no longermaking the Powerwall 2.
But just to give you an idea,the Powerwall 2 has the energy
capacity of 13.5 kilowatt hours.
Right, that's what it couldstore that you could use On-grid
(12:41):
power that's 5K continuous andbackup of 7k peak.
So those are its limitations,right?
Great battery.
We've installed a ton of thesebatteries.
They were especially popular inretrofit situations where
people already had solar andthey wanted to put a battery on
it.
This is a great battery forthat, because it's just a
standalone battery.
That's what it is.
Liquid cooled works fantastic,right yeah that's the one that.
(13:05):
That's one our boss actually hasyes, dan has three of those in
his garage.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Find that YouTube video.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, you can find that YouTube video.
We're actually going to do amore detailed one and we're
going to put it on the podcast,where he's going to go ahead and
see how far he can go, andwe're going to look at all the
details of his app andeverything else and we're going
to kind of experience it withhim and, for those who don't
know, our owner has a YouTubevideo out there of the
Powerwalls on his home.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He basically cuts it off for what's like three days.
I think he ran three days Likethree days to see.
Can I live off just solar andbattery and no grid for three
days?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I'll put the link on here.
You'll see it right here on thescreen.
There's the link and we'll usethat for anybody that wants to
take a look at that video.
It's actually a really goodvideo.
Yeah, it's a good educational.
Secondarily, now the PowerwallPlus.
So the Powerwall Plus came outand it changed a little bit.
So what happened is, notice howyou look at it on that picture
there it's two pieces.
You got the battery below andthen now you have an inverter.
(13:59):
It's a 7.6K inverter.
That's part of the setup andit's liquid cooled inverter,
which is kind of neat.
So the liquid cool battery,liquid cooled inverter yeah,
very important in ourenvironment.
Um, you'll see that it has thesame 13.5 um capacity, 76 um
on-grid power, because it's gota 76 inverter, 5k continuous and
(14:20):
the backup is 9.6k or 7kcontinuous.
All that wonderful technicalinformation what?
What does it really mean?
I don't know.
What it means is the differencebetween the Powerwall 2 and the
Powerwall Plus is now they'veadded an inverter as part of the
gig, right, so you're no longer.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
You don't have to have your end phase inverters,
solar edge inverters, thingslike that.
You can have your.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
It all goes through the Tesla battery inverter yeah,
which is really kind of cool.
It's all integrated, integratedinto one yep um.
The bad part about that is, ifyou have, if you have a system
already up with inverters, youcan't retrofit it with this
because it has to run off thisinverter.
Yeah, so we don't do that.
But very, very neat, um, howthey did this?
And then they've now these,these two right here, the two
and the two and the plus havebeen discontinued.
(15:03):
They don't make them anymore.
They just stopped making themin december.
Um, so we don't sell themanymore?
Yep, they're done.
They've all evolved.
Now to the powerwall.
Three dun, dun, dun thebeautiful powerwall three which
you see there on the right.
what do you think is the nextone?
Powerwall four.
Oh geez, so the three has justcome out.
Um, we were the first, um, wewere the first installer in
(15:24):
arizona to actually have I'm notsure the availability for other
installers, but we're sellingit and it's a 13.5 battery.
Here's the difference with thisone it's got an 11.5K inverter
in it.
So you don't see it broken intotwo pieces.
It's actually just inside of it, so the inverter is in there.
11.5 allows you to do a lotmore.
You can put a bigger system onit.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It allows you to do a lot more.
Yeah, you can put a biggersystem on it.
Um, it's just, it's just better.
Yeah, because in the in the olddays, people would call in and
they would say, hey, I want abattery.
And then we take a look attheir solar system and you know,
depending on the size of thesolar system, we would say you
can't just get one batterybecause your system is so large,
you actually need two or threebatteries, right?
So you know you can't.
It was a linear relationshipthe bigger your system you had,
the more batteries that youwould be required to get right.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So for an example, on that, with the older batteries,
especially if you have an acthat you want started up on an
older battery, it can't do itright, it doesn't have the power
to do it.
Power wall three can, yeah, butwe'll talk about that in a
second too.
But anyway it has the abilityto do that.
And here's a couple differencesas well, from the Powerwall 2
to the Plus and the 3.
You had to do back and we'regoing to get in the next slides.
We're going to talk aboutbackup loads versus a backup
(16:33):
switch.
That's another big differenceon these batteries, huge
difference that you don't see onthis slide, but we'll get to
the next slide.
But those are the threePowerwalls that have kind of
evolved.
And the Powerwall 3 is where weare as a company right right
now.
So backup load setup is what Iwas talking about.
So this is typically like a subpanel.
So on the older batteries forinstance, a Powerwall 2, you
have your battery set up andthen we would run critical loads
(16:55):
.
So what I mean by criticalloads is things that are
critical that you need whenthere's a power outage, right.
So you need your fridge running, you need a wall, a couple of
wall sockets.
You have to have your internetplugged in, your computer
plugged in.
You need some lights in somerooms, so not everywhere, but
you're.
You would pick typically six toeight loads that you wanted,
backed up by the battery.
If the grid went down, yeah,the battery would kick on, this
(17:17):
panel would kick on and any loadin those pan, that panel would
go that was a huge misconceptionwe had.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
when people call in, they would, you know, fear that
the grid go down.
They want to back battery andwe'd have to tell them it's not
backing up your entire home,it's only backing up a few
things.
So people are like what?
No, I want my whole home.
It doesn't work like that.
You have to pick what'simportant to you and there was
kind of weird things.
People would find out what wasimportant, like, well, I want my
garbage disposal backed up, Iwant that's important.
(17:48):
You know, I want my landscapelighting backed up in my pool.
I'm like, okay, well, I thinkthere might be more important
things backed up, but we can getthere.
But yeah, it was a huge changeof what was before and what we
have now, of just what's beingbacked up.
Backed up because a lot ofpeople again, they didn't, they
didn't, they thought the wholehome was going to be backed up.
Nope, that's not the case notat all, so all.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So I think that Tesla recognized this as an issue.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And they said what are we going to do about it?
It turned a lot of people offtoo.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
actually no pun intended.
People are like, oh, I don'twant a battery.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
then and when we start talking about, I want to
go to the next thing first.
Then we'll talk about loads.
So the next slide was whatTesla did to solve that problem
they.
So the next slide was whatTesla did to solve that problem.
They created what's called thebackup switch.
Yep, it basically is this blackcollar you can kind of see it
in the picture here but it goesonto your main meter on your SES
(18:39):
, on your panel, and it backs upthat entire panel.
Yeah, it's one connection.
It goes from the battery tothis collar on there and it
backs up the entire panel.
So there's no critical load subpanel, none of that stuff.
It all goes away.
So this is the new way thatthey're doing it.
They started doing this withthe plus and now it's even a
bigger deal.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
On the three, yeah, so those people who called in
and didn't want batteries beforebecause it was only backed up a
couple of things, this is thebattery you wanted now.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Right.
So they've listened to whatpeople were saying and they've
created this backup switch.
And this backup switch is agame changer in the battery
industry.
No doubt about it.
Less upgrades to be done.
It does the whole home backup.
But let's talk about a wholehome backup for a second.
So we are Phoenix, yeah, andwe've said this before, and we
have to keep pounding this.
If you want to.
Just I got a backup, I want my.
All my AC is going to be backedup.
(19:26):
If you turn your AC on whenyou're running off the battery,
you're going to see that batterygo pretty quick yeah.
I'd say an hour, hour and a halfat the most, depending on the
size of your air conditioningsystem, how many units you have,
it'll go quick.
So probably not the smartestthing to want to back up.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I've told people this before too, that
when you do have a backupbattery, you're like, yeah, we
could back up your AC, but assoon as you turn that thing on,
you now have like what 30, 45minutes power and then what?
That's it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So yeah, so to that point, ac.
Yeah, you can't.
You're gonna drain everythingdown and you're not gonna have
to back up, so you got to besmart, so great you got your
whole home.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Now it's all backed up, but you better be smart
about what you do.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, so just saying could be scary, could be scary,
but very cool that teslalistened and they have this now
and it makes it the, my opinion,the best product out there.
Yeah, so so that's the.
That's the end of the slides.
I mean just wanted to give youa quick couple slides to kind of
show you some of the key thingsthat what we're talking about
here.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Let's, let's get into um aps with a battery yeah, and
aps is a giant utility companyright all over arizona and it
also depends on where you are inaps because there are more
reliable spots than others,right.
Um, if you think about ifyou're in a, you know, major
congested area, you know phoenix, peoria, glendale, scottsdale,
(20:47):
whatever a lot of your, yourhomes in that area, when the
grid goes down, it goes down forlike what?
maybe a couple minutes yeah hourat the most because of a storm
or something like that, but kindof on the outskirts, like when
you get like north of anthem ornew river stuff like that, where
there's not a whole lot ofhomes.
I've talked to homeowners outthere and you know, and I've
asked how long does it?
you know when the power goes out, how long does it last?
(21:08):
And for them they sometimes sayyou know it'll go out for three
, four, five, six hours.
Wow, so it depends too.
So for those people out in the,you know, kind of in the
outskirts of the valley,batteries could make more sense
because of you know theirlifestyles and what they want,
right.
But like for like you and I,when we live in the city, boys
(21:29):
over here, you know the gridgoes down for a couple of
minutes and then back up, soit's a flicker of the lights and
that's it.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Maybe in APS what we were thinking more about is
doing peak shaving.
Yeah, so that's probably thebenefit in APS.
Is you really want to use itfor peak shaving?
Right it?
Let's say that in the, in themajor areas at least, where the
grid's really really reliable,that makes a lot more sense, and
there is you just talked aboutthen.
Yeah, it makes sense becauseyou want to use it for critical.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
It's kind of on the outskirts peak shaving.
Yeah, sure is important becausewe're all changed, charge the
same rate, but then you alsohave to consider reliability
emergency backup stuff,emergency backup yeah and then
in srp, so that all applies tosrp as well.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, the difference in srp and I shouldn't say it's
a difference, but but it seemslike the demand rate in SRP is
more popular than the demandrate in APS.
Yeah, so the demand rate in SRPright now, if you watched our
SRP podcast, we talk a lot abouta demand manager and we
actually had Steven here fromEnergy Demand that he kind of
showed it how it worked and allthat, and it's very critical
when you're on that rate.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
While with a battery it can act as technically a
demand manager.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Well, yeah, a demand manager.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
It has the technology built into it.
Yeah, yeah, um, the the mainthing with srp and I know this
is crazy to think about when yougo solar on srp we want you to
buy power from srp.
It's cheaper than solar, it's alot.
We're getting you solar so thatyou can get on those great low
rates.
But now we want you to buypower from srp.
Just the power aspect, not thedemand aspect.
We want just the power to buyfrom srp.
(23:06):
So then the battery, yeah, willhelp kind of shave off the
demand.
It's kind of like a peakshaving of demand right so that
you don't have to rely too muchon demand from srp.
So it's still good as a peakshaver in srp.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, it works in all aspects and APS has a demand
rate too, so it can help keepthat demand down as you're using
.
It's all about how you set itup.
So there's an app that comeswith the batteries and you can
basically adjust it to dowhatever you need it to do
Whether you want it to charge atcertain times, just let out at
certain times.
Whatever you want it to do, youcan make that work and even the
(23:40):
capabilities are just insane.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Like it's not just a, oh, I want to charge it and
discharge it here.
You could do it by percentagesand everything too.
Like I want to discharge it,but I want to keep about 20%
reserve, just in case.
So it'll know, okay, I'm goingto discharge only to that
threshold and then I'm keepingtheir extra and that's what
you'll see a lot of.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I've noticed in some of the stuff I've looked at
where they'll use their batteryduring the peak shaving time and
then they get it down to about20% by the evening and then it
recharges in the, you know, inthe morning hours and stuff in
the early afternoon hours andthen they're ready to go to 100%
or close to again right as theyhit the peak shaving time so
it's that continuous cycle ofhow it works yeah, so you can
set your battery up like I neverwant it to go below 50%.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I want to keep at least 50%, just in case the grid
goes down, you can do that, orkeep it down to 5% or 0%,
whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
All custom, all personalized to.
However, you use power Justlike everything else that we
talk about Right Right Now, thepricing of batteries has come
down quite a bit, actually inthe last, I would say, three to
four years it's come down and,like we said earlier, the
technology has gotten better andthere's more that you can do
with it now.
Yeah, it just depends on yoursituation.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
You know is this are you the person that you're?
Just, you can't afford to payyour bill and you need to save
today, and if you add more moneyto the system, it's going to
impact your ability to save asfar as your margins and saving.
So you really can't afford toput a battery in right now.
Yeah, let's just say, becausethere is a return on the battery
depending on I can't give you anumber I know, it all depends
(25:06):
on how you use it, how you setit up and things like that, I
know there's a lot of companiesout there that'll tell you it
has one year, two year return.
Yeah, I'll call BS on that allday long.
Uh, it's more like a 10 yearbenefit to it.
And this is where we're going.
People, especially as APS'sbuyback rate continues to drop,
(25:26):
it'll make more and more senseto, instead of giving them that
power at you know, let's say,three or four cents, like you
have to do, an SRP 2.81 centsthat you fill that battery up
and you keep that power and useit when you need to use it to
keep your bill down.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, get those customers calling who have solar
and they're like you know I'msaving money with the solar
system.
It's great.
I still have, you know, like aten dollar bill with aps right,
can I get a battery so I can getthat bill down lower like no
come on, just be happy with yourten dollar like it.
We might be able to shave a fewcents or a dollar here or there,
but the battery isn't free.
You still have to take intoaccount how much am I paying for
(26:02):
this battery and what benefitam I getting from my savings?
So in those special cases itdoesn't make sense and we'll
tell people no, it doesn't makesense for you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
On the battery.
You have to remember too,there's a 30% tax credit on it,
so that's good.
There's usually rebates.
I know that I think APS isgetting ready to roll a rebate
out for the batteries as well.
They'll give you a few thousanddollars back.
I think Tesla even does its ownrebate here and there.
So you have to check at thetime when you're going to buy a
battery what are the availablerebates, tax credits and all
that.
But it definitely helps bringthe cost down and make the
return better.
(26:32):
And as we move more and moreforward into the future, we're
starting to hear more and moreabout different incentives and
different things they want to dobecause they want people
putting batteries on thesesystems.
And it helps the utility yeah,because, like I said before, it
takes the stress off of the grid.
The more we can take the stressoff the grid, the better.
In Hawaii right now, the gridis stressed out to 100%.
Yeah, right, so you can't getsolar on your house without
(26:53):
having a battery, because thegrid doesn't want your excess
power.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It to go into the battery.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
It's a requirement, um, and it's not a requirement
in Arizona yet at this time.
Yeah, it might be on.
Some days it might become arequirement.
I'm not sure.
I would say probably will oneday, um, but as of right now
we're good to go.
But I would say, keep your eyeon batteries, um, if it's not,
you know, maybe it's for you,maybe it's not for you.
Just, we wanted to educate youon kind of what they are and
(27:19):
what they do and why they'reimportant yeah um, are they good
for everybody?
absolutely not.
Um, if you just there's a lotof people that want to buy it
just because it's cool yeah,give us a call, we'll be, honest
with you.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
We'll tell you whether it's a good fit or not.
You know our as we mentionedmany times on podcasts, our job
isn't just to sell you batteriesand sell you solar.
We want to figure out is this agood fit for you?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
because we for you.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Because we want to take care of our customers.
So if you're sitting therewondering, like, should I get a
battery, well, give us a call.
We'll kind of go through ittogether and figure out what's
best for you and your needs.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, because it works for a lot of people.
We sell systems that have threeor four batteries on them.
I mean it makes a lot of sensefor a lot of people, but some of
you guys make any sense back inthe old days with the earlier
power walls.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Man, I don't know, I don't think the company liked me
because I was turning peopleaway left and right for
batteries just because you knowI don't luck of the draw people
that were calling in I wouldtake a look at and go.
You know it doesn't make sensefor you.
Yeah well, other companies buyand sell you one, sure, but I
don't want to sell you onebecause I remember those
financially I'm looking at thenumbers doesn't make sense for
you in your situation.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I remember people would call in and say I want a
battery.
Those Teslas look cool, they'regreat, I can use car paint on
them and change the color andall this stuff.
That's fantastic.
How much do they cost?
And I told them well, why wouldI do that?
Exactly, exactly there you go,why would you do that?
But now has gone up, so I woulddefinitely take a look.
So if you, when you give us acall and you're looking to go
(28:41):
solar, ask the question, say,hey, what does a battery look
like?
Does it make sense for me?
And honestly, we will help youto determine if it makes sense
for you or not.
We're not going to try to sellyou a battery if you don't need
it, if it doesn't make any sense.
But be careful of the peoplethat come in and just push
battery, battery, battery, greattechnology there is a cost to
it that will impact your savingssituation.
Very important that you look atthat.
(29:02):
They're not free.
So always I would say, when youget proposals, look at one with
and look at one without and youwill see the impact of what it
does to you.
Take a hard look, trustyourself, trust your gut.
Don't trust the sales guy.
What if I'm?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
the sales guy Trust yourself, trust your gut, don't
trust.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
No, I would trust you but definitely do your research
.
So I mean that's really, that'sreally it.
I mean there's not, I don'twant to go into.
I'm not going to sit here andget into coefficient
temperatures and you know,lithium and this, that'll be
next week.
Yeah, we're not going to.
We're not going to do that kindof a dive.
We just wanted to give you abasic overview, quick podcast,
on batteries and what they cando for you and how they've
changed over the years.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
So Sounds good.
Make sure you like andsubscribe and follow us on all
the socials and everything.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, and we'll be back again next, probably the
next week or two, with the nexttopic.
I'm hoping we get Neil and Amyback and that they got some
proposals from somebody else,because I really want to have
that conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I would love to pick apart other proposals from other
companies.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I think that'd be fun .
We should show them on the airlike oh, this company look at
this company, but hopefully wecan do that next.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
If not, we've got some other things we're going to
do, so we just wanted to getthis one out of the way in a
sense, because I really feellike we've needed to do this and
we just kind of skipped over it.
So thanks for your time andwe'll see you soon.
Thank you.
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