May 26, 2025 • 38 mins
Energy is required at every step of the food and beverage industry supply chain, from growing grapes to bottling and delivery, making it a significant source of emissions and a prime target for climate innovation. On this episode of Earth911’s Sustainability in Your Ear, we explore how wineries and other producers are turning to clean, renewable energy to cut costs, reduce emissions, and future-proof their operations. We’re joined by James Presta, Business Development Manager at REC Solar, and Mario Trinchero of Trinchero Family Estates, a storied family-run winery in California’s Sonoma County. REC Solar and Trinchero teamed up to bring solar energy to one of the country’s largest winery operations, showing how collaboration between energy experts and agricultural producers can drive meaningful progress toward a carbon-neutral future.
James explains that a decentralized electric grid is emerging—powered by modular solar installations and guided by power purchase agreements (PPAs) that lock in long-term energy prices. When networked together, these individual installations can form a resilient web of renewable power. Solar, wind, and geothermal systems will provide flexibility and stability in a world of climate extremes—if we act quickly enough to scale them. Mario reflects on the motivations behind his family’s move to solar: sustainability is not just good business, it’s essential to preserving the land and legacy that define the brand. By using solar energy in its winemaking process, Trinchero has cut emissions and operating costs while strengthening its commitment to environmental stewardship.
We also delve into the mechanics of PPAs—a modern-day version of the 1930s rural electrification initiative that brought power to American farms. But now, companies like REC Solar—not government agencies—extend the grid through private partnerships. These agreements offer fixed pricing, shared risk, and maintenance contracts, but it’s critical to understand the provider’s long-term plans. A strong PPA can unlock the potential to electrify entire supply chains, eliminate dependence on diesel generators, and drive innovations where wires have never reached. And the potential for abundant, clean power is growing. What could we build if we end up with more energy than we need? As James and Mario suggest, the answer may be anything we can imagine with the right infrastructure—without the pollution that defined the last century. Learn more about REC Solar at recsolar.com and about Trinchero Family Estates at tfewines.com.
James explains that a decentralized electric grid is emerging—powered by modular solar installations and guided by power purchase agreements (PPAs) that lock in long-term energy prices. When networked together, these individual installations can form a resilient web of renewable power. Solar, wind, and geothermal systems will provide flexibility and stability in a world of climate extremes—if we act quickly enough to scale them. Mario reflects on the motivations behind his family’s move to solar: sustainability is not just good business, it’s essential to preserving the land and legacy that define the brand. By using solar energy in its winemaking process, Trinchero has cut emissions and operating costs while strengthening its commitment to environmental stewardship.
We also delve into the mechanics of PPAs—a modern-day version of the 1930s rural electrification initiative that brought power to American farms. But now, companies like REC Solar—not government agencies—extend the grid through private partnerships. These agreements offer fixed pricing, shared risk, and maintenance contracts, but it’s critical to understand the provider’s long-term plans. A strong PPA can unlock the potential to electrify entire supply chains, eliminate dependence on diesel generators, and drive innovations where wires have never reached. And the potential for abundant, clean power is growing. What could we build if we end up with more energy than we need? As James and Mario suggest, the answer may be anything we can imagine with the right infrastructure—without the pollution that defined the last century. Learn more about REC Solar at recsolar.com and about Trinchero Family Estates at tfewines.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours, Welcome to Sustainability
in your ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation Today.
As business comes to terms with the environmental damage that
(00:30):
usually inflicts more companies are turning to proven, clean energy
solutions that can lower costs and increase their resilience. In
the food and beverage industry, where energy use touches every
step in the value chain, solar energy offers an opportunity
to turn sustainability into a strategic advantage, and today we're
going to hear about that from two companies, ore E
(00:51):
Solar and Trinchero Family Estates. We'll talk about their collaboration
to install solar to support one of the larger winery
operations in the country. So we're going to meet James
presta business development manager at OREC Solar who's led solar
installations for major food and beverage brands like Taylor Farms,
doll and Firestone Walker Brewing. His perspective highlights how solar
(01:14):
can cut operating costs, boost energy independence, and align with
growing consumer demand for climate responsibility. Also joining the conversation
today is Mario Trinchero of Trinchero Family Estates. It's a
family owned winery business based in Healdsburg, California, which partnered
with ore EC Solar to integrate clean energy into its
winemaking processes. The project reduced emissions while preserving the land
(01:38):
and legacy that his family has built as a brand
that's known across the country. We'll explore how solar is
reshaping energy strategy in the food and beverage sector and
what it takes to move from climate intention to climate impact.
You can learn more about r EC Solar's work at
recsolar dot com. That's all one word, no space, no dash,
(01:59):
rcsholar dot com, and about Trincerofamily of States at TFE
wines dot com. Also no space, no dash, TFE wines
dot com. We're going to get to the conversation right
after this brief commercial break. Welcome to the show, James
(02:20):
and Mario. Could you take a moment to introduce yourself
so folks and associate your voice with your identity?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
James, Yeah, absolutely, Thanks for having me on here. My
name is James Prest. I'm a business development manager here
at ore EC solarric Solars and independent power producer providing
GPAs to businesses across the US. I've been in the
solar industry since twenty eleven. It's really a passion of mine,
(02:46):
focusing on what I call behind the meter solar and
storage solutions, where we are helping businesses explore what solar
and storage can do for their business and then go
ahead and implement that system for them. So thanks again
for having.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Me and Mario tell us about Trinchero Family of Stage.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Hi, Mitch flattered to be here. The third generation owner,
family member of Trincaro family estates we've been making wine
here in the Napa Valley at California for seventy five
years and as a family business, wearing it for the
long haul. We're going to be here at least another
seventy five years, if I have something to say about it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
One of your primary labels is Sutterholm and what else
would we associate with TRINCHERA family of Stage.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Oh gosh, We've got something like fifty brands out there.
We do a lot of partnerships with major retailers like
Target sometimes at small short term projects. You may remember
Duck Commander at Walmart for a little while when Duck
Dynasty had its moment in the sunlight that was US.
(03:52):
We are associated with Gosh Managatoa is a big one.
Joel Gottlines is another big one that is a business
partnership with US. Tracy gave S Tequila is another big
one for US. Yeah, and the Traca Gave's organic mixers
as well well.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Thank you for sharing that background, James, I want to
start off by asking what arec shoulders sheeing in terms
of shifts in the food and beverage sector toward sholer
Over the past five or so years, there's been a
lot of activity, the prices they've fallen. What's going on
in that industry?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, Yeah, No, it's a great question. I'd say. You know,
we have seen, you know, really the last five years,
we have seen that industry looking into solar more so
than they had previously. And I think a few of
the reasons that is there is, you know, as solar
continues to be deployed. Number one, it helps kind of
(04:47):
bring that cost curve down. Just continuing to gain efficiencies
in the supply chain of solars. So the more more
it's deployed, generally the lower's cost is. And then the
more and more folks have been businesses start seeing their
their friend, their neighbor, their competitor installing solar and starting
to see some of the success stories hopefully like a
little bit like we're talking about today, it really encourages
(05:10):
them to go and take a look. Well, what we
have found is generally, especially for customers with multiple sites, generally,
once they've taken a look and deployed solar, it's successful
more often than not, and they are going to then
go and look to go ahead and deploy at another site.
So we've seen it continue to grow and really get
a lot more interest from folks looking at Scope one,
(05:32):
two and even Scope three emission reductions.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I'm curious has the tone of the national dialogue about
renewables since the election changed any of these sentiments in
the industry.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, now that's a good question. I mean, I got
into solar back in twenty eleven, and since that first year,
I have seen, you know, people's urgency continue to grow
over time. I'd say regardless of elections results, businesses are
drawn to solar because the benefit it can provide you
can it can lower your emissions, it can lower your
(06:07):
cost of power, it can give you a little bit
more control over what your cost of power is. So
I don't see the demand for renewables slowing down soon.
Kind of irregardless of you know, the election results today,
solar's approven, cost effective source of energy.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Well, that's good to hear. It's a relief that the
political debate isn't changing the direction of the industry as
much as we sometimes fear. What are the typical pain
points in the food and beverage industry, which involves a
lot of refrigeration in particular, that rac Shoulder is finding
applications that reduce costs and improve reliability.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, I would say, you know, number one for
many of the folks, especially the manufacturers in the food
and beverage space, energy is one of the largest costs
and one of the largest operating costs that they have.
And they're so these businesses focus on their operations. They're
experts at what they do. They've been refining it for
(07:06):
a number of years. Solars not what they're good what
necessarily what there where Their expertise lies. So they're generally
looking to find a way to reduce their greatest cost.
If energy is one of the greatest costs on site,
solars a pretty fantastic opportunity to lower that cost. So,
whether it's on a larger refrigeration load, whether it's maybe
(07:28):
a seasonal process. The nice thing about solar is it
ties directly into your infrastructure and your site's switch gear,
so we can really offset power in real time. You're
regardless of the type of power it is, whether it's
a refrigeration or a processing line.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Now, Mario, you've partnered with Ric Shuler at Concero Family
of States to install a lot of solar power. I'm
curious what first drove you to make the decision. Was
a sustainability goal operational goals the lower your costs, were
you hearing from consumers? What was the driver of the decision?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, that starts with our general family values and our
core business philosophy around sustainability, which is not it's about
a variety of things. It's about responsibility and nurturing a
future for our family, for the family of our employees,
for the families of the community at large, doing so
(08:29):
in the long term, and to do that in the
long term you have to pay attention to the cost
because of the business goes under. Well, that's not long term,
so it starts with the values. But yes, the business
decision is made based on cost.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Now you entered into a power purchase agreement and that
dephrase the capital, the upfront capital costs that you would
pay to install the solar yourself. Was that the most
attractive offer you saw on how has it worked out
for it in terms of a return on that investment,
which apparently was them very high to begin with, the.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Power purchase agreement was definitely the way to go. We
bye by going that route, we sidestep the uh the
capital investment requirement, which was always a big hurdle, and
then we start collecting on that on that investment in
a positive way the moment that array goes live. So
(09:28):
that's very attractive from a cash flow perspective. And the
other nice thing is, like James said, we make wine,
we don't We don't maintain inverters, we don't clean panels.
It's it's not our it's not our expertise. So to
have somebody who is an expert in that taking care
(09:50):
of that system and making sure, it's always operating. We're
always getting good clean energy out of it. That is very,
very attractive.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Now, talk a little about the array that you have
or actually arrays. You've got your office in Saint Helena
where you are, and there are other production facilities in
the NAPA and Central Coast areas. Are these rooftop are
they ground based panels? How are they deployed?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
We've got a little bit of everything down on the
Central Coast. Roof structure was capable of holding an array,
so it's pretty much all rooftop solar. There also lots
of sunlight down there, so we were able to almost
completely offset our energy down there. At our west Side facility,
the roofs are a bit tall, it made maintaining them difficult,
(10:36):
but we did have a large space available for a
ground mountain array and so that array went in like that.
And then here at Main Street, Unfortunately, most of our
buildings were so old that the roofs weren't structurally capable
of having a rooftop array, but we did have a
lot of parking lot area that frankly needed shade. It
(10:59):
gets hot here in the summer when our employees are
out working in the heat. They don't have to get
into a car that's been cooking under the sun all day.
So there was some side benefits to that, but yeah,
a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And James, do you find that that's true? Generally the
companies you work with have a very diverse configuration of
solar Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, I like to say, you know, each project can
be a bit of a snowflake, So you're looking at
different operating profiles, different building structures. You know, sometimes it's
one building, sometimes the customer has purchased multiple parcels over
the years. So absolutely, it's a bit of finding the
best solution for each site.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Now, when you're considering going into business with somebody through
a PPA because you've installed your facilities on their locations,
what kind of criteria do you look for in customers
before you consider a relationship.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So generally we are installing the PV system and fine
and providing a power purchase agreement over fifteen to twenty
five years. So what we're generally looking for with a
business with a customer of ours is longevity that they've
been there, they've been operating for a while, they've got
a firm business that's set for the next fifteen to
(12:20):
twenty five years. So we worked with, you know, really
a gamut of customers across the US, big, big and small,
but generally we're looking for folks with a good, strong,
healthy business.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And Mario, I mean, it's not like it's that much
different than plugging into the grid. But was it a
potentially challenging decision to partner with somebody who would have
their infrastructure embedded in your business?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
For me, No, if we were worried about, say whether
or not we wanted to walk away from a site
within a few years, it would have been a more
difficult decision. But as I said before, we're in this
thing for the long haul. The facilities that we chose,
our facilities that we've occupied for a very long time,
(13:10):
in fact here in Saint Helena and in our load
Ie facility, those were let's see Main Street, we acquired
in nineteen ninety three and moved in and we've been
here ever since and grown it and leaps and bounds.
Load Ee was purchased shortly thereafter, and we built that
thing basically from the ground up, and we're not planning
(13:31):
on walking away from that thing anytime soon. And then
TCC we picked up in twenty eighteen to support our
Central Coast programs, and that thing has been a workhorse
ever since, and we had no intention of letting it go.
So really, really it's facilities that we know we're going
to be there in the long haul. It's not a
difficult decision at all.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So what were the measurable outcomes in terms of emissions reductions?
I know you have goals to reduce to fifty percent
by twenty five and net zero in the future. Did
you achieve energy and dependence? Tell us about the outcome
after you've put this into production.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, you're right. We do have these goals of reducing
our emissions by half by twenty thirty and the zero
the net zero goal is twenty forty five. Prior to that,
we were a deep We were a marine Clean Energy
MCE for short deep Green customer, So in theory we
were purchasing clean energy from the grid prior to that,
(14:30):
albeit at the PG and E delivered price which is
nowhere near as attractive as the PPA, the price of
the power purchase agreement from on site generation was very
beneficial compared to the marine clean energy price that we
were getting through PG and E. That said, I mean,
given the constraints of each site, we weren't capable of
achieving full energy dependent independence from the grid. We're down
(14:54):
to thirteen percent PG and E reliance from the grid,
which I mean, and only thirteen percent of your power
is at the mercy of PG and E and the
rest is a nice ppa that you've locked in for gosh,
I forget how many years was it, James? Was it
twenty five years? The bottom line is being able to
insulate yourself from those increases for a long time is
(15:17):
incredibly attractive.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
James. Would you say that's also characteristic of your customers
in general? What are the motivations that bring them to you?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah? Yeah, I would say I agree with what Mario
just said there. It's generally being able to lock in
a known rate of power for a long period of time.
These power purchase agreements standard are generally fifteen to twenty
twenty five years. When a customer is interested in exploring it,
its cost is number one, how can I help improve
(15:51):
our bottom line? And then right behind it is typically
sustainability or carbon reduction. Many many organizations have public facing
goal similar to Mario and Trinchero Family estates here and
they need to make actions on those goals. So it's
a triple bottom line, right, You can save money, you
can lower your carbon and then you can actually have
(16:13):
more control on that cost. Here in California, we were
paying quite a bit more for our energy today than
five years ago, ten to fifteen years ago. And as
Mario said, you lock in a set rate for a
long period of time gives you a lot more comfort
in those operational expenses.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
A very practical answer. I want to take a quick
commercial break. We're going to be right back to continue
the discussion, and let's get back to the conversation with
James Presta. He's business development manager at ore ec Solar
and one of our EC Solar's key partners. Mario Trinchero
(16:51):
of the Trinchero Family estates marioesell wine and wine is
a product that comes with a story. How are you
communicating to your direct customers, retailers, the people who are
considering doing a private labeled brand with you too, your
sustainability goals and the impacts that you're having both in
(17:12):
your community and for the planet.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, we highlight our renewable energy metrics alongside our certifications
and sustainability, water and waste management to ensure that our
customers know it's a long term commitment for Trincaro and
the brands in our portfolio. We also explore how packaging
innovation like lighter bottles, ecofriendly materials, recyclable materials complements our
(17:41):
renewable energy efforts. These initiatives are starting to gain more
traction with customers and consumers in the market. Some of
those customers come to us explicitly asking for something they
can market like this. We do our best to accommodate that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Do you find that you need that kind of message
on the bottle itself? On the label? Does it need
to tell the story of sustainability for it to be
attracted to consumers these days?
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I would say that's very brand reliant. I'm not a
I'm not a marketing expert, more of an engineer. I
could wax for hours on all the different ways I
want to make refrigeration more efficient, the market the marketing piece.
What I can't say it's it's very brand reliant. It
depends on what consumer is being targeted with that brand.
(18:32):
For some, yeah, they absolutely want to see it. Lord knows,
I've seen plenty of marketing data that indicates that especially
younger generations are very very sensitive to that message. They
want to know that this that this brand that they
are supporting and putting their money towards is going to
be a key part of their future in the world.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
James, do you find that your customers are looking for
disclosures about their power use and the decreased carbon impact
of their power use as part of their messaging generally?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, yeah, i'd say I do. I find it really
interesting that consumers are starting to take and exciting that
they're starting to take maybe a closer view on some
of the products they're buying. And absolutely, oftentimes when we
are working with a business, they would like to understand
the carbon reduction that is coming from their PV systems,
from their solar system. So oftentimes it can depend on
(19:34):
kind of where you are in the country our grid.
Certain areas of the grid are cleaner than other areas
of the grid, so overlaying PV, overlaying solar on your facility,
and a state that may be utilizing a lot of
coal will actually even show a greater carbon offset than
maybe a grid like California that while it's still using
(19:55):
a lot of fossil fuels. Luckily has started to adopt
more and more into the mix.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Is a component of the of your platform, a reporting
mechanism so that companies can integrate this information easily.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, so all of our systems, we're tracking the energy
in real time, so you're able to go ahead and
pull that report, whether it be monthly or yearly, and
take that directly, take that production, and then generally we
would apply it in an online tool like an EPA
approved tool, where you can overlay exactly how much energy
(20:28):
you have consumed from solar and it will tell you
how much carbon its offset specific to your location.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And as you mentioned, that varies from state to state
or even from municipality and municipality based on how they
generate their electricity. Do you see as you look across
the country adoption, particularly in the East Coast where there's
a lot of fossil fuels being burned to generate electricity.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, we are seeing, you know, more and more, you know,
customers looking at you know, maybe like our utilities looking
in that like a community solar program. So here at
RC we're an IP and independent power producer. My focus
is working with folks like Mario and dirt Fline behind
the meter solutions, but we also have a small small
(21:14):
utility scale team that's out there focused on generally seventy
five megawattson under and potentially being able to deploy whether
it's a municipality or even tying into a larger a
larger utility. So we solar right now is the lowest
cost of power that can be deployed in the US,
so we are seeing greater interests really across the majority
(21:36):
of the states right now.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Now. We were talking earlier about the cold chain, the
refrigeration network that you have to have in place in
order to move food and beverages around. One of those
one of the obvious gaps in our EV infrastructure is
charging stations. Have you thought about how ARIC might participate
in filling some of those gaps, particularly for commercial customers
(21:59):
like in the food and beverage industry.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, we with my with the focus being behind the meter,
we do certainly run into customers who are looking at
adopting EV, whether that's from you know, a car charger
standpoint for their employees or at these larger shipping facilities.
You know, actually oftentimes electrifying their yard equipment first and
then potentially looking into like a Class eight truck. So
(22:25):
we have certainly seen that if you're installing a PV
system and stall on some chargers along with it is
a good time to do so, as you're you're starting
to tap into your electrical infrastructure. And we have started
to see that a little bit more and more, especially
in southern California, there's a program called the Ware program
that is actually incentivizing customers to a carry and a
(22:47):
stick to add solar and and EV charging.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So, Mario is, as you listen to what we were
just talking about, what kinds of further aspirations do you
have for the deployment of shoal or let's say, renewably
generated energy within your infrastructure?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Boy, this was this was the question where I could
probably go on for hours, but I'm going to try
to keep this because this is a this is a
very near and dear subject to my heart. Well, you're
an engineer, right exactly, I'm always thinking about this. Well,
let's let's let's start at the top of the supply,
at the at the very tar. Let's start in the vineyards.
(23:26):
For instance, a lot of vineyards are remote some some
of them do not have utility access. Some of those
places need irrigation pumps. Well, how do you get an
irrigation pump out in the middle of nowhere? It tends
to be a diesel pump. So right there, if there's
available area where you can consume some sunlight that the
(23:47):
vines aren't using to run your irrigation pump, phenomenal. That's
an immediate, you know, fossil fuel burning offset, and oftentimes
it's going to be lower maintenance because you don't have
to go out and refuel it. So that's a big opportunity.
(24:07):
There's also opportunities monarchs the hot brand, but there's a
few others out there that are producing electrified automated tractors.
So if you have the ability to charge a tractor
on site to do your vineyard work, okay, phenomenal, that's
even less diesel you're using. Then we move into the wineries.
(24:30):
That's where I'm at. This is what the array that
we were just talking about, they benefit from it period.
Being able to offset that PG and E footprint is phenomenal.
It is kind of a case by case basis. Like
I said, sometimes the rooftops can handle it. Sometimes the
sighting is an ideal. Sometimes you got to go with
car ports and in my opinion you never able to
(24:54):
build enough, but you know, get as much as you can.
And I will say, especially what we noticed here at
Main Street, shade is big every year keeps getting hotter
as we know, and people are working outside. The more
shade you can give them, the better they can work,
the safer they can work. That's a lot of innciliary
(25:15):
benefits just from the generator shit, just from getting the
shade off harvest. This is where this is where it
starts to get a little tricky. Wineries have a very
bell shaped power profile and you look at the year
where it tends to be fairly low between November and
(25:37):
August and then September October, those tend to be very
very power intensive months.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Sure you're doing the squeeze, then right.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
When you're building an array to help offset that, you
end up with a lot of unused power in the
off season. So that's where you know, James mentioning the
batteries can come in really handy. Where you can start
load shaping to where you can keep those batteries charged
up and then deplete overnight to stay off the grid overnight.
(26:12):
There's a lot of fancy cool things that you can
do with that, and then a lot of the other
things I can think of warehousing, especially cold warehousing, and
especially if the roofs can handle a rooftop array. We
actually did this at our Green Island Road facility where
we did a large, substantial rooftop array because we had
(26:32):
indoor bottling lines. Bottling lines take power, there's lots of motors,
there's compressed air that takes a lot of power, so
there's a lot of opportunity for solar there. Not to
mention if it's a rooftop load, eh, you're kind of
shading your roof. You're reducing your refrigeration load a little
bit too, so it's a nice double win. Same thing
with barrel rooms, which are typically more refrigeration oriented, because
(26:55):
you've got to keep the barrels cool and barrels don't
have refrigerated jackets there would so got to keep the
room cool. And then of course distribution warehouses, a lot
of it's the warehousing towards the end, and of course
when you finally get to the retailer, when it's there
in a grocery shelf, well, there's a lot of refrigeration
in grocery stores. If you have a lot of solar
(27:17):
on grocery stores, then you could be offsetting that load too.
So the bottom line is that the sky's kind of
the limit, and you're in our imaginations are the limit.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So James, as you listen to the fancy cool things
that Mario is just describing, where is ARIC seeing some
of its greatest opportunity in the coming years, particularly in
the cold chain.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I would say we've seen the cold chain expanding with
our existing customer base and with folks that we're actively
soliciting for new business. So I would say we do
see the growth of the cold chain being really ideal
for solar. Generally, these are larger facilities A lot of
(28:02):
times if they're that they're newer facilities as as Mario
is hitting on, they can be engineered to handle a
very large scale, you know, multi megawatt solar array. So
we we certainly see that as as a use case
that works very very well for for on site solar.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's gonna be a hotter world too, and and air
conditioning is going to be in demand across all of
our lives. How does r c C potential partnerships with
building management companies as another extension of its its partnerships.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
We've worked with building owners to explore even like shopping malls,
to explore the benefits that that solar can't provide. And
like Mario said, it's oftentimes a mix of of deployment types,
whether it's rooftop, whether it's canopy. So you know, really
for the building management, you know, teams they can they
(28:54):
can see it as a way to attract more folks
to that building. Generally, we are are contracting with the
end user for the most part, but there's certainly certainly growth. Again,
as I think I hit on, before the cost cared
for solar goes down and the more and more folks
are looking into it. They get success in one area
(29:14):
and they generally want to look and how can they
kind of double down on that success on other properties.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You've both been very generous with your time. I want
to just ask one more question, and can you put
your futurist Tatch on for me and talk a little
about where you see renewables in your industry ten years
from now? Are we going to be well over the
hump in terms of adoption and will the United States
(29:42):
be on track? Do you think to a net zero potential,
whether we get there to be determined, James, what do
you think?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
It's an interesting question. I think what I'm seeing right
now in our industry is a lot of electrification growth.
So that's coming from evs again across the gamut of
individuals that are homes and larger scale deployments across businesses,
and whether that's electric forklifts, yard trucks, you know, Class
(30:11):
eight trucks, and you know this this greater AI movement.
Right these data centers are consuming huge amounts of energy,
and AI is actually involves more energy than a standard
data center would typically use. So I see the adoption
of solar continuing to grow there and fill in the
(30:34):
need for this for this extra electricity as the US
and and a lot of the world is looking to
move away from fossil fuels and into electricity. So I
certainly hope that the and I'm optimistic that the adoption
is going to continue, and I see a long, a
long road ahead of fulfilling these continued electrification growth.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Following up on AI, do you see AI as a
component in reducing the load as well, can we use
it to manage and optimize the grid?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Well, that's that's for folks maybe like Mario the engineering
brain that I don't have. But yeah, I would say
certainly optimizing how energy is used is going to be
really beneficial in reducing the amount of energy that is
needed to supply the load. So yeah, I'm optimistic that
it's going to help as well in better kind of
(31:26):
load management.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So Murray, you've got the twenty forty five minute zero goal.
How do you feel that the infrastructure will support your
progress toward that goal.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
The beautiful thing about solar and about batteries is that
it is a technology. It is not a finite resource
like fossil fuels, which means there will be opportunities to
refine it. Take, for instance, the transistor. The first transistor
was the size of my fist and cost several hundred dollars.
(31:58):
Now there's literal millions of them on a one hundred
dollars microchip. That's where I see it going, you know, more, more,
more mature, more maturation of the technology, because there is
no way to reach net zero without this. In my opinion,
maybe somebody experimenting with some crazy sci fi stuff might
(32:21):
counter might contradict that, but the Sun's the greatest source
of energy in our solar system, not just the planet.
If we have a if we have a carbon neutral
means of capturing that energy, the the more bountiful and
(32:42):
the cheaper energy is, the more you can do. It's
it's not just imperative to our green goals, it's imperative
to our species. That's kind of where I'm going with it.
I wholeheartedly agree. Tell us how we can keep track
of what Trancero Family Estates is doing. We do try
to keep our website somewhat somewhat updated. Well. The last
(33:05):
update took a little while, but they did just roll
it out this week so it looks nice. Go ahead
and check it out. It's tfe wines dot com. We
do have our sustainability goals outlined there and some of
the ways we plan on reaching it.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Fantastic And James, how can folks get and TOUCHM and
talk with you?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, absolutely so. Our website is a great place to
go rcsolar dot com. You can learn a lot about
our history and our background, and there's a lot of
fun case studies on there from a lot of the
different verticals, so to certainly encourage folks to kind of
go in and take a look, and if you're interested,
go ahead and enter your information in and friend the
(33:45):
RC Solar colleague goal we'll give you a ring.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Well, thank you and thank you both for your time today.
It's been a really interesting conversation. Same to you.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Thanks Mitch, Thank you much, Mitch flatter to be here.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You've been listening to my conversation with James presta business
development manager at r EC Solar, and Mario Trenchero of
the Trenchero family estates the winery behind Sutterholme, jolgott Managetois
and other well known labels, and as you heard, you
can learn more about them at rcsolar dot com. That's
all one word, no space, no dash and tfe wines
(34:25):
dot com also no spaces, no dashes, tfe wines dot com.
You know, a new modular and distributed electric grid is emerging,
one installation and power purchase agreement at a time. These
steps by individual companies and homes that begin to interconnect
their renewable energy generation capacity will eventually ladder up to
(34:46):
produce a resilient infrastructure that can heat cool and provide
the electricity for everyday business and our lives. But of
course we cannot get there fast enough to avoid the
worst impacts of climate change. Yet these pools of solar,
wind and geotha normal energy generation will provide more flexibility
to respond to the rising temperatures in homes and companies
(35:06):
that invest. Now, we're pioneering a sustainable, carbon neutral society
from within the industrial infrastructure, and one that is fighting back,
and as Mario Trinchero suggested, companies are eager to put
this clean tech to use. The power purchase agreement is
an interesting variation on the rural electrification programs that brought
(35:27):
the grid to farms and businesses during the nineteen thirties.
Then it was the Rural Electrification Administration, a government agency
that installed the connection to a home or a farm
or a business. But today it's frequently a private company
like our ec Solar. So with a PPA, you're entering
into a long term agreement, and you need to be
sure that there's a rock solid contract in place that
(35:48):
sets a long term price per kilowatt hour generated, like
we heard in this conversation, as well as clear terms
for price changes, the duration of the contract, maintenance of
the generation infrastructure, and termination clause. Most importantly, take the
time to understand the provider's financial stability and their roadmap
if they plan to sell out in the future. You
(36:09):
need to know your options should the acquirer seek to
change the terms of the agreement. With a solid ppa,
as Mario said, you can begin to dream big about
the potential to cut fossil fuel generated electricity out of
your power supply and explore electric innovations that can be
put in place across your supply chain places where that
was never possible before. The cost of energy will only
(36:32):
continue to fall as solar, the cheapest form of energy
and history propagates across our society. We will be able
to put power to work where wires have never reached,
free from running diesel or propane generators in remote locations.
In fact, we may be headed for an energy glut,
according to the Rocky Mountain Institute's Amory Levens, who projected
(36:52):
in a recent white paper that the nation risks a
twelve fold energy overbuild due to overestimating the future energy
demand of data centers. So what are we going to
do with all that energy? If we get there? Disguise
the limit without the negative impacts that the twentieth century
power infrastructure brought with it. Will stay tuned to this story.
It's going to continue to be an interesting one and
(37:13):
will evolve a lot over the coming years. And I
hope you'll take a moment to share this or any
of the more than five hundred episodes of Sustainability in
your Ear that are available for you to share with
your friends. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform
will help your neighbors find us. You, folks, are the
amplifiers that spread more ideas to create less waste. So
(37:33):
please tell your friends, family, your coworkers, the people you
meet on the street that they can find Sustainability in
your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or any
other purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you,
folks for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is Sustainability in
your Ear and we will be back with another Innovator
(37:55):
interview soon. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take
care of one another, and let's all take care of
this beautiful planet of bars. Have a green day,
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours, Welcome to Sustainability
in your ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation Today.
As business comes to terms with the environmental damage that
(00:30):
usually inflicts more companies are turning to proven, clean energy
solutions that can lower costs and increase their resilience. In
the food and beverage industry, where energy use touches every
step in the value chain, solar energy offers an opportunity
to turn sustainability into a strategic advantage, and today we're
going to hear about that from two companies, ore E
(00:51):
Solar and Trinchero Family Estates. We'll talk about their collaboration
to install solar to support one of the larger winery
operations in the country. So we're going to meet James
presta business development manager at OREC Solar who's led solar
installations for major food and beverage brands like Taylor Farms,
doll and Firestone Walker Brewing. His perspective highlights how solar
(01:14):
can cut operating costs, boost energy independence, and align with
growing consumer demand for climate responsibility. Also joining the conversation
today is Mario Trinchero of Trinchero Family Estates. It's a
family owned winery business based in Healdsburg, California, which partnered
with ore EC Solar to integrate clean energy into its
winemaking processes. The project reduced emissions while preserving the land
(01:38):
and legacy that his family has built as a brand
that's known across the country. We'll explore how solar is
reshaping energy strategy in the food and beverage sector and
what it takes to move from climate intention to climate impact.
You can learn more about r EC Solar's work at
recsolar dot com. That's all one word, no space, no dash,
(01:59):
rcsholar dot com, and about Trincerofamily of States at TFE
wines dot com. Also no space, no dash, TFE wines
dot com. We're going to get to the conversation right
after this brief commercial break. Welcome to the show, James
(02:20):
and Mario. Could you take a moment to introduce yourself
so folks and associate your voice with your identity?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
James, Yeah, absolutely, Thanks for having me on here. My
name is James Prest. I'm a business development manager here
at ore EC solarric Solars and independent power producer providing
GPAs to businesses across the US. I've been in the
solar industry since twenty eleven. It's really a passion of mine,
(02:46):
focusing on what I call behind the meter solar and
storage solutions, where we are helping businesses explore what solar
and storage can do for their business and then go
ahead and implement that system for them. So thanks again
for having.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Me and Mario tell us about Trinchero Family of Stage.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Hi, Mitch flattered to be here. The third generation owner,
family member of Trincaro family estates we've been making wine
here in the Napa Valley at California for seventy five
years and as a family business, wearing it for the
long haul. We're going to be here at least another
seventy five years, if I have something to say about it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
One of your primary labels is Sutterholm and what else
would we associate with TRINCHERA family of Stage.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Oh gosh, We've got something like fifty brands out there.
We do a lot of partnerships with major retailers like
Target sometimes at small short term projects. You may remember
Duck Commander at Walmart for a little while when Duck
Dynasty had its moment in the sunlight that was US.
(03:52):
We are associated with Gosh Managatoa is a big one.
Joel Gottlines is another big one that is a business
partnership with US. Tracy gave S Tequila is another big
one for US. Yeah, and the Traca Gave's organic mixers
as well well.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Thank you for sharing that background, James, I want to
start off by asking what arec shoulders sheeing in terms
of shifts in the food and beverage sector toward sholer
Over the past five or so years, there's been a
lot of activity, the prices they've fallen. What's going on
in that industry?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, Yeah, No, it's a great question. I'd say. You know,
we have seen, you know, really the last five years,
we have seen that industry looking into solar more so
than they had previously. And I think a few of
the reasons that is there is, you know, as solar
continues to be deployed. Number one, it helps kind of
(04:47):
bring that cost curve down. Just continuing to gain efficiencies
in the supply chain of solars. So the more more
it's deployed, generally the lower's cost is. And then the
more and more folks have been businesses start seeing their
their friend, their neighbor, their competitor installing solar and starting
to see some of the success stories hopefully like a
little bit like we're talking about today, it really encourages
(05:10):
them to go and take a look. Well, what we
have found is generally, especially for customers with multiple sites, generally,
once they've taken a look and deployed solar, it's successful
more often than not, and they are going to then
go and look to go ahead and deploy at another site.
So we've seen it continue to grow and really get
a lot more interest from folks looking at Scope one,
(05:32):
two and even Scope three emission reductions.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I'm curious has the tone of the national dialogue about
renewables since the election changed any of these sentiments in
the industry.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, now that's a good question. I mean, I got
into solar back in twenty eleven, and since that first year,
I have seen, you know, people's urgency continue to grow
over time. I'd say regardless of elections results, businesses are
drawn to solar because the benefit it can provide you
can it can lower your emissions, it can lower your
(06:07):
cost of power, it can give you a little bit
more control over what your cost of power is. So
I don't see the demand for renewables slowing down soon.
Kind of irregardless of you know, the election results today,
solar's approven, cost effective source of energy.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Well, that's good to hear. It's a relief that the
political debate isn't changing the direction of the industry as
much as we sometimes fear. What are the typical pain
points in the food and beverage industry, which involves a
lot of refrigeration in particular, that rac Shoulder is finding
applications that reduce costs and improve reliability.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, I would say, you know, number one for
many of the folks, especially the manufacturers in the food
and beverage space, energy is one of the largest costs
and one of the largest operating costs that they have.
And they're so these businesses focus on their operations. They're
experts at what they do. They've been refining it for
(07:06):
a number of years. Solars not what they're good what
necessarily what there where Their expertise lies. So they're generally
looking to find a way to reduce their greatest cost.
If energy is one of the greatest costs on site,
solars a pretty fantastic opportunity to lower that cost. So,
whether it's on a larger refrigeration load, whether it's maybe
(07:28):
a seasonal process. The nice thing about solar is it
ties directly into your infrastructure and your site's switch gear,
so we can really offset power in real time. You're
regardless of the type of power it is, whether it's
a refrigeration or a processing line.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Now, Mario, you've partnered with Ric Shuler at Concero Family
of States to install a lot of solar power. I'm
curious what first drove you to make the decision. Was
a sustainability goal operational goals the lower your costs, were
you hearing from consumers? What was the driver of the decision?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, that starts with our general family values and our
core business philosophy around sustainability, which is not it's about
a variety of things. It's about responsibility and nurturing a
future for our family, for the family of our employees,
for the families of the community at large, doing so
(08:29):
in the long term, and to do that in the
long term you have to pay attention to the cost
because of the business goes under. Well, that's not long term,
so it starts with the values. But yes, the business
decision is made based on cost.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Now you entered into a power purchase agreement and that
dephrase the capital, the upfront capital costs that you would
pay to install the solar yourself. Was that the most
attractive offer you saw on how has it worked out
for it in terms of a return on that investment,
which apparently was them very high to begin with, the.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Power purchase agreement was definitely the way to go. We
bye by going that route, we sidestep the uh the
capital investment requirement, which was always a big hurdle, and
then we start collecting on that on that investment in
a positive way the moment that array goes live. So
(09:28):
that's very attractive from a cash flow perspective. And the
other nice thing is, like James said, we make wine,
we don't We don't maintain inverters, we don't clean panels.
It's it's not our it's not our expertise. So to
have somebody who is an expert in that taking care
(09:50):
of that system and making sure, it's always operating. We're
always getting good clean energy out of it. That is very,
very attractive.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Now, talk a little about the array that you have
or actually arrays. You've got your office in Saint Helena
where you are, and there are other production facilities in
the NAPA and Central Coast areas. Are these rooftop are
they ground based panels? How are they deployed?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
We've got a little bit of everything down on the
Central Coast. Roof structure was capable of holding an array,
so it's pretty much all rooftop solar. There also lots
of sunlight down there, so we were able to almost
completely offset our energy down there. At our west Side facility,
the roofs are a bit tall, it made maintaining them difficult,
(10:36):
but we did have a large space available for a
ground mountain array and so that array went in like that.
And then here at Main Street, Unfortunately, most of our
buildings were so old that the roofs weren't structurally capable
of having a rooftop array, but we did have a
lot of parking lot area that frankly needed shade. It
(10:59):
gets hot here in the summer when our employees are
out working in the heat. They don't have to get
into a car that's been cooking under the sun all day.
So there was some side benefits to that, but yeah,
a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And James, do you find that that's true? Generally the
companies you work with have a very diverse configuration of
solar Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, I like to say, you know, each project can
be a bit of a snowflake, So you're looking at
different operating profiles, different building structures. You know, sometimes it's
one building, sometimes the customer has purchased multiple parcels over
the years. So absolutely, it's a bit of finding the
best solution for each site.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Now, when you're considering going into business with somebody through
a PPA because you've installed your facilities on their locations,
what kind of criteria do you look for in customers
before you consider a relationship.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So generally we are installing the PV system and fine
and providing a power purchase agreement over fifteen to twenty
five years. So what we're generally looking for with a
business with a customer of ours is longevity that they've
been there, they've been operating for a while, they've got
a firm business that's set for the next fifteen to
(12:20):
twenty five years. So we worked with, you know, really
a gamut of customers across the US, big, big and small,
but generally we're looking for folks with a good, strong,
healthy business.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And Mario, I mean, it's not like it's that much
different than plugging into the grid. But was it a
potentially challenging decision to partner with somebody who would have
their infrastructure embedded in your business?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
For me, No, if we were worried about, say whether
or not we wanted to walk away from a site
within a few years, it would have been a more
difficult decision. But as I said before, we're in this
thing for the long haul. The facilities that we chose,
our facilities that we've occupied for a very long time,
(13:10):
in fact here in Saint Helena and in our load
Ie facility, those were let's see Main Street, we acquired
in nineteen ninety three and moved in and we've been
here ever since and grown it and leaps and bounds.
Load Ee was purchased shortly thereafter, and we built that
thing basically from the ground up, and we're not planning
(13:31):
on walking away from that thing anytime soon. And then
TCC we picked up in twenty eighteen to support our
Central Coast programs, and that thing has been a workhorse
ever since, and we had no intention of letting it go.
So really, really it's facilities that we know we're going
to be there in the long haul. It's not a
difficult decision at all.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So what were the measurable outcomes in terms of emissions reductions?
I know you have goals to reduce to fifty percent
by twenty five and net zero in the future. Did
you achieve energy and dependence? Tell us about the outcome
after you've put this into production.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, you're right. We do have these goals of reducing
our emissions by half by twenty thirty and the zero
the net zero goal is twenty forty five. Prior to that,
we were a deep We were a marine Clean Energy
MCE for short deep Green customer, So in theory we
were purchasing clean energy from the grid prior to that,
(14:30):
albeit at the PG and E delivered price which is
nowhere near as attractive as the PPA, the price of
the power purchase agreement from on site generation was very
beneficial compared to the marine clean energy price that we
were getting through PG and E. That said, I mean,
given the constraints of each site, we weren't capable of
achieving full energy dependent independence from the grid. We're down
(14:54):
to thirteen percent PG and E reliance from the grid,
which I mean, and only thirteen percent of your power
is at the mercy of PG and E and the
rest is a nice ppa that you've locked in for gosh,
I forget how many years was it, James? Was it
twenty five years? The bottom line is being able to
insulate yourself from those increases for a long time is
(15:17):
incredibly attractive.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
James. Would you say that's also characteristic of your customers
in general? What are the motivations that bring them to you?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah? Yeah, I would say I agree with what Mario
just said there. It's generally being able to lock in
a known rate of power for a long period of time.
These power purchase agreements standard are generally fifteen to twenty
twenty five years. When a customer is interested in exploring it,
its cost is number one, how can I help improve
(15:51):
our bottom line? And then right behind it is typically
sustainability or carbon reduction. Many many organizations have public facing
goal similar to Mario and Trinchero Family estates here and
they need to make actions on those goals. So it's
a triple bottom line, right, You can save money, you
can lower your carbon and then you can actually have
(16:13):
more control on that cost. Here in California, we were
paying quite a bit more for our energy today than
five years ago, ten to fifteen years ago. And as
Mario said, you lock in a set rate for a
long period of time gives you a lot more comfort
in those operational expenses.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
A very practical answer. I want to take a quick
commercial break. We're going to be right back to continue
the discussion, and let's get back to the conversation with
James Presta. He's business development manager at ore ec Solar
and one of our EC Solar's key partners. Mario Trinchero
(16:51):
of the Trinchero Family estates marioesell wine and wine is
a product that comes with a story. How are you
communicating to your direct customers, retailers, the people who are
considering doing a private labeled brand with you too, your
sustainability goals and the impacts that you're having both in
(17:12):
your community and for the planet.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, we highlight our renewable energy metrics alongside our certifications
and sustainability, water and waste management to ensure that our
customers know it's a long term commitment for Trincaro and
the brands in our portfolio. We also explore how packaging
innovation like lighter bottles, ecofriendly materials, recyclable materials complements our
(17:41):
renewable energy efforts. These initiatives are starting to gain more
traction with customers and consumers in the market. Some of
those customers come to us explicitly asking for something they
can market like this. We do our best to accommodate that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Do you find that you need that kind of message
on the bottle itself? On the label? Does it need
to tell the story of sustainability for it to be
attracted to consumers these days?
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I would say that's very brand reliant. I'm not a
I'm not a marketing expert, more of an engineer. I
could wax for hours on all the different ways I
want to make refrigeration more efficient, the market the marketing piece.
What I can't say it's it's very brand reliant. It
depends on what consumer is being targeted with that brand.
(18:32):
For some, yeah, they absolutely want to see it. Lord knows,
I've seen plenty of marketing data that indicates that especially
younger generations are very very sensitive to that message. They
want to know that this that this brand that they
are supporting and putting their money towards is going to
be a key part of their future in the world.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
James, do you find that your customers are looking for
disclosures about their power use and the decreased carbon impact
of their power use as part of their messaging generally?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, yeah, i'd say I do. I find it really
interesting that consumers are starting to take and exciting that
they're starting to take maybe a closer view on some
of the products they're buying. And absolutely, oftentimes when we
are working with a business, they would like to understand
the carbon reduction that is coming from their PV systems,
from their solar system. So oftentimes it can depend on
(19:34):
kind of where you are in the country our grid.
Certain areas of the grid are cleaner than other areas
of the grid, so overlaying PV, overlaying solar on your facility,
and a state that may be utilizing a lot of
coal will actually even show a greater carbon offset than
maybe a grid like California that while it's still using
(19:55):
a lot of fossil fuels. Luckily has started to adopt
more and more into the mix.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Is a component of the of your platform, a reporting
mechanism so that companies can integrate this information easily.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, so all of our systems, we're tracking the energy
in real time, so you're able to go ahead and
pull that report, whether it be monthly or yearly, and
take that directly, take that production, and then generally we
would apply it in an online tool like an EPA
approved tool, where you can overlay exactly how much energy
(20:28):
you have consumed from solar and it will tell you
how much carbon its offset specific to your location.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
And as you mentioned, that varies from state to state
or even from municipality and municipality based on how they
generate their electricity. Do you see as you look across
the country adoption, particularly in the East Coast where there's
a lot of fossil fuels being burned to generate electricity.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, we are seeing, you know, more and more, you know,
customers looking at you know, maybe like our utilities looking
in that like a community solar program. So here at
RC we're an IP and independent power producer. My focus
is working with folks like Mario and dirt Fline behind
the meter solutions, but we also have a small small
(21:14):
utility scale team that's out there focused on generally seventy
five megawattson under and potentially being able to deploy whether
it's a municipality or even tying into a larger a
larger utility. So we solar right now is the lowest
cost of power that can be deployed in the US,
so we are seeing greater interests really across the majority
(21:36):
of the states right now.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Now. We were talking earlier about the cold chain, the
refrigeration network that you have to have in place in
order to move food and beverages around. One of those
one of the obvious gaps in our EV infrastructure is
charging stations. Have you thought about how ARIC might participate
in filling some of those gaps, particularly for commercial customers
(21:59):
like in the food and beverage industry.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, we with my with the focus being behind the meter,
we do certainly run into customers who are looking at
adopting EV, whether that's from you know, a car charger
standpoint for their employees or at these larger shipping facilities.
You know, actually oftentimes electrifying their yard equipment first and
then potentially looking into like a Class eight truck. So
(22:25):
we have certainly seen that if you're installing a PV
system and stall on some chargers along with it is
a good time to do so, as you're you're starting
to tap into your electrical infrastructure. And we have started
to see that a little bit more and more, especially
in southern California, there's a program called the Ware program
that is actually incentivizing customers to a carry and a
(22:47):
stick to add solar and and EV charging.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So, Mario is, as you listen to what we were
just talking about, what kinds of further aspirations do you
have for the deployment of shoal or let's say, renewably
generated energy within your infrastructure?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Boy, this was this was the question where I could
probably go on for hours, but I'm going to try
to keep this because this is a this is a
very near and dear subject to my heart. Well, you're
an engineer, right exactly, I'm always thinking about this. Well,
let's let's let's start at the top of the supply,
at the at the very tar. Let's start in the vineyards.
(23:26):
For instance, a lot of vineyards are remote some some
of them do not have utility access. Some of those
places need irrigation pumps. Well, how do you get an
irrigation pump out in the middle of nowhere? It tends
to be a diesel pump. So right there, if there's
available area where you can consume some sunlight that the
(23:47):
vines aren't using to run your irrigation pump, phenomenal. That's
an immediate, you know, fossil fuel burning offset, and oftentimes
it's going to be lower maintenance because you don't have
to go out and refuel it. So that's a big opportunity.
(24:07):
There's also opportunities monarchs the hot brand, but there's a
few others out there that are producing electrified automated tractors.
So if you have the ability to charge a tractor
on site to do your vineyard work, okay, phenomenal, that's
even less diesel you're using. Then we move into the wineries.
(24:30):
That's where I'm at. This is what the array that
we were just talking about, they benefit from it period.
Being able to offset that PG and E footprint is phenomenal.
It is kind of a case by case basis. Like
I said, sometimes the rooftops can handle it. Sometimes the
sighting is an ideal. Sometimes you got to go with
car ports and in my opinion you never able to
(24:54):
build enough, but you know, get as much as you can.
And I will say, especially what we noticed here at
Main Street, shade is big every year keeps getting hotter
as we know, and people are working outside. The more
shade you can give them, the better they can work,
the safer they can work. That's a lot of innciliary
(25:15):
benefits just from the generator shit, just from getting the
shade off harvest. This is where this is where it
starts to get a little tricky. Wineries have a very
bell shaped power profile and you look at the year
where it tends to be fairly low between November and
(25:37):
August and then September October, those tend to be very
very power intensive months.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Sure you're doing the squeeze, then right.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
When you're building an array to help offset that, you
end up with a lot of unused power in the
off season. So that's where you know, James mentioning the
batteries can come in really handy. Where you can start
load shaping to where you can keep those batteries charged
up and then deplete overnight to stay off the grid overnight.
(26:12):
There's a lot of fancy cool things that you can
do with that, and then a lot of the other
things I can think of warehousing, especially cold warehousing, and
especially if the roofs can handle a rooftop array. We
actually did this at our Green Island Road facility where
we did a large, substantial rooftop array because we had
(26:32):
indoor bottling lines. Bottling lines take power, there's lots of motors,
there's compressed air that takes a lot of power, so
there's a lot of opportunity for solar there. Not to
mention if it's a rooftop load, eh, you're kind of
shading your roof. You're reducing your refrigeration load a little
bit too, so it's a nice double win. Same thing
with barrel rooms, which are typically more refrigeration oriented, because
(26:55):
you've got to keep the barrels cool and barrels don't
have refrigerated jackets there would so got to keep the
room cool. And then of course distribution warehouses, a lot
of it's the warehousing towards the end, and of course
when you finally get to the retailer, when it's there
in a grocery shelf, well, there's a lot of refrigeration
in grocery stores. If you have a lot of solar
(27:17):
on grocery stores, then you could be offsetting that load too.
So the bottom line is that the sky's kind of
the limit, and you're in our imaginations are the limit.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So James, as you listen to the fancy cool things
that Mario is just describing, where is ARIC seeing some
of its greatest opportunity in the coming years, particularly in
the cold chain.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I would say we've seen the cold chain expanding with
our existing customer base and with folks that we're actively
soliciting for new business. So I would say we do
see the growth of the cold chain being really ideal
for solar. Generally, these are larger facilities A lot of
(28:02):
times if they're that they're newer facilities as as Mario
is hitting on, they can be engineered to handle a
very large scale, you know, multi megawatt solar array. So
we we certainly see that as as a use case
that works very very well for for on site solar.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's gonna be a hotter world too, and and air
conditioning is going to be in demand across all of
our lives. How does r c C potential partnerships with
building management companies as another extension of its its partnerships.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
We've worked with building owners to explore even like shopping malls,
to explore the benefits that that solar can't provide. And
like Mario said, it's oftentimes a mix of of deployment types,
whether it's rooftop, whether it's canopy. So you know, really
for the building management, you know, teams they can they
(28:54):
can see it as a way to attract more folks
to that building. Generally, we are are contracting with the
end user for the most part, but there's certainly certainly growth. Again,
as I think I hit on, before the cost cared
for solar goes down and the more and more folks
are looking into it. They get success in one area
(29:14):
and they generally want to look and how can they
kind of double down on that success on other properties.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You've both been very generous with your time. I want
to just ask one more question, and can you put
your futurist Tatch on for me and talk a little
about where you see renewables in your industry ten years
from now? Are we going to be well over the
hump in terms of adoption and will the United States
(29:42):
be on track? Do you think to a net zero potential,
whether we get there to be determined, James, what do
you think?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
It's an interesting question. I think what I'm seeing right
now in our industry is a lot of electrification growth.
So that's coming from evs again across the gamut of
individuals that are homes and larger scale deployments across businesses,
and whether that's electric forklifts, yard trucks, you know, Class
(30:11):
eight trucks, and you know this this greater AI movement.
Right these data centers are consuming huge amounts of energy,
and AI is actually involves more energy than a standard
data center would typically use. So I see the adoption
of solar continuing to grow there and fill in the
(30:34):
need for this for this extra electricity as the US
and and a lot of the world is looking to
move away from fossil fuels and into electricity. So I
certainly hope that the and I'm optimistic that the adoption
is going to continue, and I see a long, a
long road ahead of fulfilling these continued electrification growth.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Following up on AI, do you see AI as a
component in reducing the load as well, can we use
it to manage and optimize the grid?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Well, that's that's for folks maybe like Mario the engineering
brain that I don't have. But yeah, I would say
certainly optimizing how energy is used is going to be
really beneficial in reducing the amount of energy that is
needed to supply the load. So yeah, I'm optimistic that
it's going to help as well in better kind of
(31:26):
load management.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So Murray, you've got the twenty forty five minute zero goal.
How do you feel that the infrastructure will support your
progress toward that goal.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
The beautiful thing about solar and about batteries is that
it is a technology. It is not a finite resource
like fossil fuels, which means there will be opportunities to
refine it. Take, for instance, the transistor. The first transistor
was the size of my fist and cost several hundred dollars.
(31:58):
Now there's literal millions of them on a one hundred
dollars microchip. That's where I see it going, you know, more, more,
more mature, more maturation of the technology, because there is
no way to reach net zero without this. In my opinion,
maybe somebody experimenting with some crazy sci fi stuff might
(32:21):
counter might contradict that, but the Sun's the greatest source
of energy in our solar system, not just the planet.
If we have a if we have a carbon neutral
means of capturing that energy, the the more bountiful and
(32:42):
the cheaper energy is, the more you can do. It's
it's not just imperative to our green goals, it's imperative
to our species. That's kind of where I'm going with it.
I wholeheartedly agree. Tell us how we can keep track
of what Trancero Family Estates is doing. We do try
to keep our website somewhat somewhat updated. Well. The last
(33:05):
update took a little while, but they did just roll
it out this week so it looks nice. Go ahead
and check it out. It's tfe wines dot com. We
do have our sustainability goals outlined there and some of
the ways we plan on reaching it.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Fantastic And James, how can folks get and TOUCHM and
talk with you?
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, absolutely so. Our website is a great place to
go rcsolar dot com. You can learn a lot about
our history and our background, and there's a lot of
fun case studies on there from a lot of the
different verticals, so to certainly encourage folks to kind of
go in and take a look, and if you're interested,
go ahead and enter your information in and friend the
(33:45):
RC Solar colleague goal we'll give you a ring.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Well, thank you and thank you both for your time today.
It's been a really interesting conversation. Same to you.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Thanks Mitch, Thank you much, Mitch flatter to be here.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You've been listening to my conversation with James presta business
development manager at r EC Solar, and Mario Trenchero of
the Trenchero family estates the winery behind Sutterholme, jolgott Managetois
and other well known labels, and as you heard, you
can learn more about them at rcsolar dot com. That's
all one word, no space, no dash and tfe wines
(34:25):
dot com also no spaces, no dashes, tfe wines dot com.
You know, a new modular and distributed electric grid is emerging,
one installation and power purchase agreement at a time. These
steps by individual companies and homes that begin to interconnect
their renewable energy generation capacity will eventually ladder up to
(34:46):
produce a resilient infrastructure that can heat cool and provide
the electricity for everyday business and our lives. But of
course we cannot get there fast enough to avoid the
worst impacts of climate change. Yet these pools of solar,
wind and geotha normal energy generation will provide more flexibility
to respond to the rising temperatures in homes and companies
(35:06):
that invest. Now, we're pioneering a sustainable, carbon neutral society
from within the industrial infrastructure, and one that is fighting back,
and as Mario Trinchero suggested, companies are eager to put
this clean tech to use. The power purchase agreement is
an interesting variation on the rural electrification programs that brought
(35:27):
the grid to farms and businesses during the nineteen thirties.
Then it was the Rural Electrification Administration, a government agency
that installed the connection to a home or a farm
or a business. But today it's frequently a private company
like our ec Solar. So with a PPA, you're entering
into a long term agreement, and you need to be
sure that there's a rock solid contract in place that
(35:48):
sets a long term price per kilowatt hour generated, like
we heard in this conversation, as well as clear terms
for price changes, the duration of the contract, maintenance of
the generation infrastructure, and termination clause. Most importantly, take the
time to understand the provider's financial stability and their roadmap
if they plan to sell out in the future. You
(36:09):
need to know your options should the acquirer seek to
change the terms of the agreement. With a solid ppa,
as Mario said, you can begin to dream big about
the potential to cut fossil fuel generated electricity out of
your power supply and explore electric innovations that can be
put in place across your supply chain places where that
was never possible before. The cost of energy will only
(36:32):
continue to fall as solar, the cheapest form of energy
and history propagates across our society. We will be able
to put power to work where wires have never reached,
free from running diesel or propane generators in remote locations.
In fact, we may be headed for an energy glut,
according to the Rocky Mountain Institute's Amory Levens, who projected
(36:52):
in a recent white paper that the nation risks a
twelve fold energy overbuild due to overestimating the future energy
demand of data centers. So what are we going to
do with all that energy? If we get there? Disguise
the limit without the negative impacts that the twentieth century
power infrastructure brought with it. Will stay tuned to this story.
It's going to continue to be an interesting one and
(37:13):
will evolve a lot over the coming years. And I
hope you'll take a moment to share this or any
of the more than five hundred episodes of Sustainability in
your Ear that are available for you to share with
your friends. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform
will help your neighbors find us. You, folks, are the
amplifiers that spread more ideas to create less waste. So
(37:33):
please tell your friends, family, your coworkers, the people you
meet on the street that they can find Sustainability in
your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or any
other purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you,
folks for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is Sustainability in
your Ear and we will be back with another Innovator
(37:55):
interview soon. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take
care of one another, and let's all take care of
this beautiful planet of bars. Have a green day,
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