Latest / Clean Power Hour / Democratizing Solar: Inside a Worker-Owned Cooperative with Josh Stolzenburg and Jordan Kaiser, Northwind Solar | EP152

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Democratizing Solar: Inside a Worker-Owned Cooperative with Josh Stolzenburg and Jordan Kaiser, Northwind Solar | EP152 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Tim Montague: Today's show is a real treat. It's a very unique company that is a worker owned cooperative. We don't hear a lot about worker owned cooperatives in the United States, they're more popular in Spain, for example. But they're a great way to incentivize employees to do high quality, dedicated work, and to share the profits with them. So it's good for workers, it's good for the company, it's great for customers, it really creates a very stable platform for growing a sustainable company. That's good for the local economy. And one that's not going to burn out in any way. Hey, listeners, this is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you, I do this for you, twice a week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey.
• 2:08
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• 2:08
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• 2:27
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• 3:37
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• 4:12
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• 4:26
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• 4:32
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• 4:40
  Tim Montague: Today on the Clean Power Hour, worker owned cooperatives in the solar industry. My guest today are two gentleman from North wind solar, the founder, Josh Stolzenberg, who is also the CEO of the company, and Jordan Kaiser, who is the design consultant and member owner of north wind solar, I met these gentlemen at the energy fair. This is an event. Now I think in its 22nd year, held by Midwest Renewable Energy Association. I'm super grateful for mrea for hosting so many events and trainings here in the upper Great Lakes. And check out mrea if you're not familiar, and you're in the Midwest, a powerhouse for all of us in the solar PV and other renewable spaces. And the the trajectory of mrea I think parallels that of north wind, solar. So we're going to learn some of the history of mrea as well as the company but welcome to the show, Josh and Jordan.
• 5:45
  Josh Stolzenberg: Thanks very much.
• 5:46
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• 6:02
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• 6:09
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• 6:16
  Tim Montague: Now back to the show.
• 6:18
  Tim Montague: Looking forward to bringing your story to our listeners. As I was saying in the pre show, I think worker owned cooperatives don't garner a whole lot of attention in the United States, but are a very important economic tool.
• 6:30
  Tim Montague: And so I look forward to sharing this with our listeners and other entrepreneurs and business owners out there who might find some light bulbs going off for them. So Josh, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you come to found Northwind? And yeah, give us a little cliff notes version, if you would, of the history of the company.
• 6:56
  Josh Stolzenberg: Sure. I, as you mentioned, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association actually worked there from 2003 to 2006. In Energy Education, programming, and I went through all of their, their, their workshops on all the various renewable energy technologies.
• 7:14
  Josh Stolzenberg: And that's kind of where I got my, my start. And when I wanted to go on my own and work for work in the industry, installing solar getting clean kilowatt hours on the grid, I didn't really have much option here in central Wisconsin. So I, you know, it's like, alright, well, let's see if I can do this myself. I quickly realised that I couldn't do it myself. And so he brought on a few partners and eventually hired more employees.
• 7:44
  Josh Stolzenberg: And we started doing sales and installation of small wind systems, solar thermal systems, PV systems, we eventually added wood gasification boilers and home performance improvements to that suite. And at some point, were like this is way too much.
• 8:07
  Josh Stolzenberg: A lot of this is vested in only like one or two people in the company, the expertise in those areas. And other considerations were that the market was was changing pretty rapidly and PB was becoming the clear winner in the marketplace. And that was where the most of our expertise was. And so we ended in 2016 or so sort of paired everything back to just doing solar electric installations. And since then, expanded that out to other electrical technologies, batteries and smart panels and EVS and that sort of thing. But it's all within the related system, tech realm. Yeah, that's what we do. And that's what we do today.
• 8:55
  Tim Montague: It's interesting that, you know, you're a PV professional today, all of us PV professionals are going to be PV and battery professionals tomorrow, if we're not already right storages is coming on very strong. It's, you know, it's still maybe 10 years behind PV in terms of the cost adoption curve. But there's just no doubt right, that that batteries are a key part of of the renewable scene, and then Evie, charging infrastructure as well as we electrify transportation. So, Jordan, welcome to the show, as well give us a little background on yourself and how you came to Northwind.
• 9:36
  Jordan Kaiser: Yeah, thanks, Tim. Similar to Josh, my first introduction to renewable energy was also via the mrea. I was an attendee at the fair, early 2000s. So it was definitely aware of the event itself and what it provided our community not only central Wisconsin, but throughout the Midwest, fast forward through the 2000s, up to about 2010, where I hit kind of a career transition part of my life, and I wanted to look forward and find something that was both fulfilling in my personal life as well as my professional life. And knowing I had friends and people I knew and peers up in central Wisconsin, I was living in southern Wisconsin at this time, decided to pursue renewable energy and specifically solar.
• 10:26
  Jordan Kaiser: So that summer as I was living in Madison, I walked down the streets and asked the local solar installer, Madison nificant learned to instal solar and I said I'd work for free and they said, Sure. They ended up paying me a little bit that summer, but I got my first taste of what it was to instal a solar PV system on a few sites over that summer. And then I made the decision to move back to the central Wisconsin area and purchase to an associate's degree programme through a local tech college. So I attended their mid State Technical College for a couple years and graduated with a couple degrees in renewable energy. During that time, it was actually interning for Northwind. I had known I first met Josh many years ago and early about, I think 2002 ish is where I first met Josh.
• 11:13
  Jordan Kaiser: But I was aware of what he was doing with Northwind. So I was able to come on with Northwind as an as an intern while I was going to school. As I was finishing up school, I asked him, if I get gained full time employment, and the industry is very different than this is 2013. Things were very slow and developing in our state and our area, and at that time, couldn't come out with the company just because because business was a little slow. So I ended up taking another job with a different company on the east side of Wisconsin. That company went out of business after about six months of being in there.
• 11:45
  Jordan Kaiser: And at that, at that time, I said, Hey, Josh, can I come out with a company now and he said, Yeah, and so this is the winter of 2013 to 2014. So initially started both in sort of hybrid role of sales and design, as well as working on installations. And so I'd be in the field, a little bit of doing some front end work at the same time. And then we got to be about 2016 2017. I got out of the field full time and just focus all my efforts on sales and designs and consultations.
• 12:17
  Jordan Kaiser: And then here we are, since then, so as mentioned, I've worked in both residential systems, as well as mid to large commercial projects as well.
• 12:27
  Jordan Kaiser: We're, we're working in everything under a megawatt we're not working in terribly large systems, but 100 kilowatt, 300 kilowatt, 500 kilowatt systems are sort of our wheelhouse at this point, based on the size of the company and how much capacity we have. So as we became a member owner, cooperative, became a member owner a few years back through that as well, again, to my NABCEP, certification, OSHA 10, all those sorts of things as well. And here we are today.
• 12:56
  Tim Montague: Awesome. Well, one of the things that we energy professionals or aspiring energy professionals know well is that change is the only constant. And it's not just the technology, but society, right markets, ebb and flow. And so just be fleet of foot. And I think you guys are a great demonstration of that. So I would love to hear from both of you, though, about this worker owned, cooperative business. Josh, why don't you start, you know, how did you glom on to the concept of becoming a worker owned Co Op?
• 13:32
  Tim Montague: And how did that play out tangibly for yourself and for the other employees?
• 13:43
  Josh Stolzenberg: Yeah, well, I think as I mentioned, I had a few business partners early on, we had our organisational structure was an LLC, so we are members that LLC in all generally inclined towards profit sharing or more economic democracy embedded into the into the company so that we could share success with a longtime committed employees. We started so we started looking at worker ownership as a as a possibility around 2015. Actually, there's a an excellent resource at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, they have a the UW Centre for coops, they're really supports coops of all types and with with education and research, and I got connected through them with them. And in went to a conference they were holding on worker ownership. And they had a panel of I think four different company representatives, one of which was late Jones, who co founded namaste solar in Boulder, and eventually transitioned that company to a worker owned Co Op.
• 14:57
  Josh Stolzenberg: So it was a perfect sort of story to hear about how he did that and what was involved and, and how to get buy in buy in is actually not an easy thing to do. And, and I subsequently kept in touch with him and he shared a lot of information, a lot of documentation that they use in their cooperative. And so we're able to model a lot of that and probably save a lot of legal fees in the process. But yeah, so So that was the starting point. And the UW Centre for coops was was there like sort of consulting us all along the way.
• 15:34
  Josh Stolzenberg: There one of their employees at the time came up and facilitated the conversation among the LLC members and the few employees that we were considering. Long enough term to found the new entity, Co Op after we transitioned from an LLC and established the first member base for the Co Op, the USDA local employee in Stevens Point here is a is a whiz with cooperatives of all types, and tends to focus on agricultural coops because of the USDA work, but she knows all sorts of things. So she was an excellent resource as well. And so it's getting this sort of team of people together to help us do it right. Legal, we had a lawyer at the time that was a co op specialist as well helped us write our bylaws and the other founding documents with then just having a lot of internal conversations about how this would look how how equity is, is distributed or allocated to membership out of the company's profit, like what the mechanism of that is to start with, for us, that's ours worked in a year. So it doesn't matter what role you have at the company, the district, if we decide that$100,000 Out of the company's profit for the years going to membership, that will get distributed. As a percentage of the total based on the number of hours in a member owner works in that year. So it doesn't favour favour you by anything else other than the fact that you're contributing your labour to the co op. That's, that's, like, somewhat common, also somewhat unique, because you know, you could choose to do that in a different way based on some sort of perceived contribution to the company. But we that was a strong value that the first members wanted to embed in the in the structure of, of equity allocation. So that's, that's how we do that. And we have an eligibility requirement of a minimum of two years at the company before you're eligible.
• 17:59
  Josh Stolzenberg: That's generally the threshold that it takes. And once you've, you've hit that mark, provided there's no red flags, then you're allowed to join membership to purchase stock in the cooperative. And then you have full voting rights as a member to elect the board and make any other major decisions that all membership we deem all membership needs to make, then you are so eligible to start accruing equity from an annual company profits and receiving that over time.
• 18:34
  Tim Montague: I have a few clarifying questions about worker owned cooperatives. And it's great that you mentioned nama stay, very well known solar company in Colorado, and the West in general. And I also want to talk about Amica. You're you're a member of the amicus buying cooperative, which is I think, also a wonderful resource. But what is the difference between? Well, a couple things. I'm more familiar with member owned coops, is there a distinction between a member owned Co Op and a worker owned Co Op?
• 19:14
  Josh Stolzenberg: Well, they're both members, there's, I think there's four fundamental types of coops. And I think the member Co Op you're talking about, it's probably a buying Co Op, like a food Co Op. So that they're members of that Co Op are member owners, or employees are members of our Co Op, they just have different relationships with the co op right there. In the in the food Co Op, scenario, members or purchasers, they're contributing their buying power to try to lower the prices for everybody.
• 20:37
  Josh Stolzenberg: In our case, the members are contributing labour to towards the success of the cooperative.
• 20:41
  Josh Stolzenberg: And that gets written and both get a return for what the purpose of membership is. That makes sense. Yeah.
• 20:51
  Tim Montague: But can you be a member of your co op but not be an owner?
• 20:57
  Josh Stolzenberg: No, but you cannot be a member of our co op if you don't work here. Right.
• 21:00
  Josh Stolzenberg: Yeah.
• 21:04
  Tim Montague: So they're wondering the same members are owners, members or owners? Yes.
• 21:06
  Tim Montague: And employees are not necessarily members. They have to earn the privilege by staying with the company for a few years. Right? Correct. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And then Aesop's are another, you know, popular form of employee ownership. For corporations.
• 21:27
  Tim Montague: What are they? How do you distinguish an ESOP from a worker owned Co Op?
• 21:33
  Josh Stolzenberg: There are different types of legal entities and there's a different mechanism for allocating and distributing equity or profit From the company, and Aesop's tend to be a lot more complex structurally, that is a managed fund, I believe. And we looked at it a little bit and talk through it with the UW Centre for COAB, consultant, and others. And it just seemed like there was there's just too much of administrative burden placed on top of entity for the size that it was. It seems like Aesop's are more appropriate for much larger companies, and worker owned Co Op as a ownership structure or a mechanism for distributing economic benefit is better for smaller companies. Maybe? Maybe it probably depends on the industry, but I would say maybe 100 employees might be a cut off. There.
• 22:29
  Tim Montague: Okay. Yeah, we did have a, an ESOP on the show recently, New Mexico solar group. So check out that episode. I'll look for that episode. Oh, it's from May of 2023, Nick, Cadillac CEO of New Mexico solar group, but and I would venture they're similar sized company. So anyway, Jordan, tell us a little bit about, you know, as a as a member owner, how that has, you know, been an appeal or we're not for you as a as an employee.
• 23:10
  Jordan Kaiser: Yes, it's kind of interesting. At least with my background, my familiarity came from being a member of our local food Co Op, as many people are.
• 23:18
  Jordan Kaiser: So I was aware of cooperatives.
• 23:24
  Jordan Kaiser: But that expanded considerably, when when Josh brought up the notion of, hey, let's let's think about transitioning this company to a worker owned cooperative and, and I didn't know sort of how that was implemented, and what the mechanisms internally were. And I'm glad he was the captain of that ship, because he did a great job in navigating us through that process and bringing us where we are now.
• 23:52
  Jordan Kaiser: But the concept that even today, I think empowerment is the biggest thing that I see that it really serves us to be a more democratic way to do business gives everyone a voice. And, at least with our company, people very much take advantage of that. And, you know, as humans, we all like to be heard. It really leads us to be better listeners than speakers in our company, making sure we're taking into account as many ideas as we can, making sure we have a shared vision moving forward. And I think through that makes us a stronger company. It brings about a new level of accountability, and the willingness and drive to do well by our clients. Many times, especially residential, really well, I should say residents and commercially, the systems we're installing are designed and installed and powered up and serviced by owners of our company. So along each point of the installation, that system is being brought online by an older company, and certainly the owner of the company wants to be successful. So at every point within that process, we want to be strong in providing quality work and service. And I believe we achieve that on most every project we're doing small and large. So it really incentivizes folks to go the extra mile be thorough in our work, provide quality service, and the way we're seeing in our community and really, the longevity of this company is fortified by those principles, in great part by the worker owned cooperative that we that we are so again, I think it's a lot having to do with empowerment, I think it creates a stronger it makes us stronger individuals within the company and thusly makes us a stronger company overall.
• 25:52
  Tim Montague: And, you know, presumably this creates a a general levelling of the playing field and sharing of the profits of the company. But, but Josh, tell us a little bit about how this plays out for both the company and the employee owners over time. I think of I think of worker on coops as entities that are unlikely to for example, be acquired and move to some far flung place. They're kind of a place based organisation, but what are some of the advantages and potential disadvantages of of this model as you've experienced that now? You know, you're going on you're in your seat Next year, I think as a as a workaround, co op. So you've got quite a bit of experience now under your belt.
• 26:47
  Josh Stolzenberg: Yeah, they're definitely placed based, I don't, I don't know how we would outsource what we do. I think, you know, going a little bit through what Jordan was saying.
• 26:57
  Josh Stolzenberg: And keeping it with the place based pieces were really rooted in our community and known as a, an actor and a proactive actor in in our community in a positive way. And that, combined with how Jordan describes a customer's experience with us and knowing that they're interacting every step of the way through a project with an owner or likely an owner. That really, I mean, that's a very strong marketing piece, if you want to just put it in your business terms. I mean, that's very helpful in my mind. And the other thing is, has allowed us worker coops are also or I should say, cooperatives are generally unique in a couple of ways one, and how they could take investment into the company from outside investors, and to how they're treated for tax purposes, in very advantageous ways. The first is we can have as long as the investor is a Wisconsin resident, any any type of investor in the company doesn't have to be an accredited investor. It's a special circumstance. Another thing I learned from namaste and to the how we distribute equity at the end of each year to members versus retaining it in the coop, as a corporation for tax purposes, is very flexible. And so depending on how well we do that year, we can think somewhat strategically about what we want to retain on the company's books, versus what we want to allocate to members. What gets allocated to members is like a pass through entities situation flows to their personal taxes.
• 28:53
  Josh Stolzenberg: So we can sort of raise and lower our profitability based on on that if there's reason to do so.
• 29:02
  Tim Montague: And so let me just understand this. There's the the the owners are shareholders, presumably, right.
• 29:11
  Josh Stolzenberg: Their shareholders have a special class. Yes, yeah.
• 29:14
  Tim Montague: And then you're suggesting that at the end of each year, you're, you're distributing the profits to the, to all of the owners or some of the profits, and then some remain with the mothership?
• 29:32
  Josh Stolzenberg: Great, right?
• 29:32
  Josh Stolzenberg: Correct. So we not we retained some business net income, distribute the balance to members. Yep. And then the way that we actually distribute the cash version of that equity allocation is on a kind of a four year revolve meant, we, we put out a portion of it, you know, in the first three months of the following the end of the tax year to members in cash, say it's 30 to 50%, and then retain the rest on our books just to use in business operations. But then after four years, three tax years have elapsed past that point, then we revolve the balance from that original year to members in cash. So it just it creates a sort of a pool of business operation money to keep going. But it's it's rotated out every four years to try to keep it current. It's sort of a in the weeds detail. But
• 30:38
  Tim Montague: But here's my ownership as an employee growing over time, or is it being distributed over time? Let's say I work in the company for 20 years. Am i i will have received more payouts. I understand that but But am I in some way? A greater owner?
• 30:57
  Josh Stolzenberg: No, in fact, you could probably argue the opposite that membership value gets diluted over time as more members come on. Okay. But you're you're stuck holding in the company is unchanged through that period.
• 31:13
  Tim Montague: Okay. Cool.
• 31:13
  Tim Montague: Jordan, do you want to add anything on this particular theme?
• 31:22
  Jordan Kaiser: None those themes? Those are the mechanisms within the cooperative that Josh is best to lay out and explain how they how they work, and I just trust Him on it.
• 31:32
  Tim Montague: I mean, there's four, I guess. Let's talk about two spheres here. There's the recruitment and retention of employees, which is a challenge for any any company in America today. or, or any place on Earth, frankly. And then, and then there's the the recruitment and retention of customers. And I would love to hear from both of you. But let's start with you, Jordan. Since you're more in the sales realm, how does this impact the the ability of the company to attract talent and retain talent? And then the same for customers?
• 32:07
  Jordan Kaiser: It's good question. It's as far as attracting and retaining. Josh, I touched on it earlier. And we're, we're very much sharing and explaining. And even educating to a degree during the interview process is about the fact that we're working on cooperative. And the fact that we're very present in our community, lets everyone know, especially if you're looking for a job as a cooperative, there's additional value to your position within the company. So that gives the you know, anybody looking to come in and work with us a little more substance to their position, you know, you're not just coming in as a nine to five and punching a clock and out you go. At the end of the day, you there's really a resilience in a long term investment built into your position, you know, your work into something greater than just yourself even working for something more than just your paycheck. And people, many people at least really are into that concept. You know, you can find a job many places, but are you truly satisfied? Is there a balance both professionally, and personally, maybe there is maybe there isn't. But with our company, that's part of our drive, work life balance is huge within our company, the cooperative really sort of sets that in place for us and establishes that, you know, we're doing a lot, not only in our day to day work with what we do in our individual positions, but also in and around, you know, as a cooperative encapsulates our day to day business. We're trying to build something more than that, whether it's investments financially in equity shares coming back, and bonuses, that sort of thing. But also building a new building. And with a showroom that we know house or workout of investments in new assets coming to the company, we can see almost in real time about how the cooperative is playing a part in the day to day work. And that relationship is really important. And again, I think it helps get us through those those harder times. You know, we always like to refer to the solar industry in our state, and really our country as the solar coaster, you know, things ebb and flow on incentives and utilities. And there's a lot of external factors to how we do business, which is very different than other businesses and industries. So the cooperative helps us weather those maybe even tough times, and maybe businesses low, maybe there's something on the horizon from a big utility that's not going to play in our favour.
• 34:40
  Jordan Kaiser: Maybe an incentive is going out, or has a horizon setting on it.
• 34:43
  Jordan Kaiser: The cooperative helps us weather those challenges, brings us together, and ultimately makes us a stronger company in the end. So somebody coming in to work with us sees that and likes the idea and really that security that it provides. And then Josh touched on, you know, how that makes us look with our clients. They see very favourably you know, I think customers get the idea as to what we're doing. And they see the value and what we are as member owners that we want to make sure your your your projects is successful through through this isn't a sign a contract hand is a check, we're out the door. You know, there's other companies that sort of operate and fast paced like that. And that, look, the level of services is many times lower than what we provide. So I think it really gives us more of a backbone and as a company, and lets people know that, hey, we're invested in you. We're invested in your project, because we're equally invested us and as a company, our plan is to be here for the long term.
• 35:48
  Jordan Kaiser: And this is how we're doing I think the cooperative demonstrates our long term commitment to ourselves as a company, which enables us to better serve our community.
• 35:58
  Tim Montague: Well said Well said, I, you know, I'm painfully aware of how brittle our economy is. And we saw this with the COVID pandemic, which really, in the greater scheme of things, it was not that serious in terms of how serious these pandemics could be. You know, the Black Plague killed 30% of the population that it impacted. It was it was it was it was devastating still but but our economy is very brutal. And I think that giving workers ownership in their craft in the profit motive in the quality of the work that we do is just a very good thing and Something that most American companies totally neglect then, and we see the results. You know, we're in a industry that is very fast growing, it is a bit of a gold rush. And there's good, bad and ugly happening, there are there, you know, entrepreneurs and investors who are strictly bottom dollar oriented and trying to make a profit, and there is money to be made in clean energy and the energy transition, and we want that.
• 37:10
  Tim Montague: But we also want consumers to have a positive experience consumers and business owners to have a positive experience of this phenomenon, because it is so good for humanity in the in the greater scheme of things, we are creating a healthier, safer future for humanity when we make the energy transition. So it is vital for a for for the security of future generations. And it just irks me to no end when there are companies that have bad practices, whether that's not doing what they say they're going to do, or gouging customers or whatever the the practices and, you know, those companies that do right by their customers and their employees will last longer. Anyway, in our last few minutes together, gentlemen, I would love to hear you speak to what differentiates north wind from other solar companies that you're familiar with. They could be companies in, in your region in central Wisconsin, or companies that you've experienced elsewhere.
• 38:18
  Tim Montague: It's just what if if I'm a consumer, and I'm and I'm dealing with Northwind? If I'm a business owner, and I'm, you know, wanting to upgrade my facility with a solar facility?
• 38:31
  Tim Montague: What is it in your mind that is a game changer about Northwind?
• 38:37
  Josh Stolzenberg: Traders, you want to stay go for that one, you probably know a little better perspective on the customer mindset.
• 38:44
  Jordan Kaiser: Yeah, I think I think the maybe a good way to sort of lay it out is that really where we started as a company, and a lot of the employees and member owners and people have worked for this company over the years who may or may not even be with the company, all of us have always maintained the vision and objective of designing and installing quality, high performing solar power systems.
• 39:16
  Jordan Kaiser: And we've always paid iguana attention to detail. Everything from how the solar array looks on a rooftop to how the placards are levelled out identifying equipment and metre pedestals and services panels, that attention to detail and that quality of installation. I touched on that before has gotten us through some hard times and made us successful made us a profitable company.
• 39:44
  Jordan Kaiser: And those sorts of details will serve us long term, what will help us get help us get through future tough times. And allow us to be here for the long haul when we're installing a system that we're sharing with customers is designed to create energy for 2025 30 plus years, you need a company that's around to help watch that. To help maintain to maintain it, answer questions about it, maybe even service it. But you need a company that's going to be around for that amount of time as well. And we are and we have built ourselves to be just that you touched on it earlier about the solar industry in our country sort of being a gold mine or gold rush. And it is it's interesting to see where it is the last couple of years, as opposed to where it was a 10 years ago, very much is that so you can have bad players come in. And we've seen a number of companies come into the space quickly. And they're out as maybe as quickly as they came in. And they do it because they aren't focused on the same details we are with quality on the installation, attention to detail when we're installing equipment to being thorough in their work, and having a positive influence and presence in the community. Those are the things that we started the company on that have gotten us through to where we are now.
• 41:14
  Jordan Kaiser: There's other companies that are more focused on maybe a financing model more than a quality installation. Those are the companies that maybe there's some questions as to how long they're going to be around. But we take a gradual approach to growth. We invest a lot into our employees and thought through that investment makes us confident that we're going to be around a long, long time. Hard to say where other companies may end up but we check A lot of the right boxes in terms of how we're going to be as a company, how we're going to serve our community, and how are we going to maintain ourselves and providing these services long term, those seeds were planted a long time ago. And we're confident saying that we'll be able to be here in the next 1020 30 plus years down the road.
• 42:05
  Tim Montague: And I totally resonate with that and, and couldn't agree more, you're, you know, when you're a customer, installing something that's, you know, going to last 30 years, you want to know that the company doing the installation is going to be around to see, you know, fix things that go wrong, things are inevitably going to need operation and maintenance. And so I love that.
• 42:29
  Tim Montague: But, John, Josh, if you would tell us a little bit about your long term vision for the company. And, and, you know, we humans were temporary phenomenon here on Earth, we, we have 100 year run at it, so to speak, if we're lucky. But what is the future for Northwind in your mind?
• 42:56
  Josh Stolzenberg: Think I mean, the future certainly bright, both because of who works here and, and how this company is currently built. But certainly the market itself and the and all of the federal support that that's come online is going to really be a boon. But one of the just going back to the worker, Co Op, just as a as a structure, and having members being vested in the success of the company is at some point I'll be gone. But the motive to carry on will not not require me at all, it'll just continue and I and all the people that have been working here, over longer and longer periods of time new people that come on and get vested themselves will have a motivation to carry on and carry on the same values that the company was founded on. So that I mean, that's very optimistic for me.
• 43:56
  Tim Montague: And is there anything about the solar industry, writ large, any trends that you guys would like to put a finger on or call out for our listeners?
• 44:09
  Jordan Kaiser: I think, sorry.
• 44:09
  Jordan Kaiser: The transition to the electrification society's just daily, more and more interesting. Almost untapped.
• 44:20
  Jordan Kaiser: You know, we've we've discovered a lot of things as to how solar plays a part in this and how energy storage is going to play a part in all this and the electrification of our automotive industry. We're just, we're just getting started, I think there's so much opportunity out there. And there's so much benefit to what this provides, and not to say solar or electric vehicles, it's it's not the silver bullet, it's not solving solving all of our climate problems. But it's it's a, it's many big steps in the right direction, I believe. And it's the best technology and the best solution we have at the moment. And I, you know, the widespread adoption of it really shows that one of the recent stats, somewhere around 75% of Americans view solar energy favourably. That's huge in a day and age, when, you know, most of us can't get on the same page with nearly anything. Renewable energy is one of those things, and that's something I share with my clients. Often, you know, if we can agree on one thing, we can agree that we need a better way of generating electricity for for our society for our world. And by way of solar PV is maybe the best singular way to do so. And so you along with that it appeases to that, you know, both sides of that proverbial aisle, right, clean energy appealing to more liberal leaning folks and the ecological benefits of solar.
• 45:56
  Jordan Kaiser: And then the more conservative side of the aisle appealing to those free market folks, where we're pushing back against what is one of the only natural monopolies in our world being in utilities. This is a way to achieve your choice as a customer truly as a customer, and achieving energy independence, which again, those free market folks speak to commonly. So it's an issue in a day and age where we can't find common ground. It's maybe the only issue where we all should be on board with this because of how it plays in the favour of everybody.
• 46:30
  Josh Stolzenberg: Yeah, jump off the utility piece of that and say, I think I think the technology advancements are coming so rapidly that that isn't really a concern. It's it's more of the regulatory environment and the erosion of favourable rates like net metering. Nem 3.0. In California, we've got a couple of utilities that have presented changes in their upcoming rate cases to net metering that is very unhelpful. And and I think we really need as citizens to advocate both at the legislature and Public Service Commission's for good regulation and standard policies that create a fairer marketplace for businesses like ours to operate. And for for customers to be able to understand what the financial benefits of going solar is.
• 47:23
  Tim Montague: Yeah, we really need to reimagine our relationship with utilities in this country. The model that we invented 100 plus years ago, worked back then it did create a stable grid, we have an amazing grid. But the the business model is flawed. We see that every day, right? There's just so much friction between the utilities, between what consumers want, consumers want the energy transition, and, and of course, between what the renewables developers and installers want to give consumers. So one last note is that you're a member of a member owned cooperative called Amicus, which is well known in some circles and not so well known in other circles, they do cover many parts of the United States. But tell us, give us a real quick soundbite on why you joined Amicus, and what are the benefits for installers to be part of the amicus Co Op?
• 48:26
  Josh Stolzenberg: Yeah, well, now I'm gonna stay in Boulder was one of the founding members of amicus, and so I had heard about it, after speaking with them about the worker ownership transition. And in 2019, we applied to join and had had a sponsor, that's one of the pieces typically of joining, I think it's still a condition, but you have to be sponsored by a member company. So to sort of, say, These people do good work, stand up company. So we were able to join in 2019. And that that allowed us to join, I think it was about 50. Other companies at the time in aggregating our buying power to just negotiate with manufacturers and lower prices for everybody, which is, you know, within Amicus, there's a very wide range of size of companies. So there's, there's people that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars business and people that are doing millions may be on the low end.
• 49:24
  Josh Stolzenberg: And so we get as a smaller, on the smaller side of those companies, we get almost an outsized benefit of being able to take advantage of the large companies buying power within the aggregating of buying power itself. And not only as an MC is a purchasing Co Op, but it's an incredibly interactive community. The the staff have set up this really great online Clearinghouse where we can we can talk through anything from business decisions to product choices, design, sales, operations, anything and there's a there's there's always a robust exchange, they also put on annual events for different constituencies within the company, principles, sales and marketing, ops and engineering, etc. And it's just, it's just a it's a very non competitive space for people in the solar industries to exchange ideas and and improve their businesses. So it's wonderful. And I think there's now 78 members doing more than a billion in revenue, more than 10,000 employees, something like that. I always forget those numbers. But yeah, it's grown into a pretty impressive entity in itself.
• 50:48
  Tim Montague: Yeah, it's amazing what Amicus has done. And I love that the dual benefits there.
• 50:54
  Tim Montague: They're providing installers collective buying power, so you can buy solar panels, racking inverters at more competitive rates, but then also tapping into that collective knowledge base of of these other companies. So if you're not familiar with Amicus, check it out.
• 51:14
  Tim Montague: The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by Denowatts. If you're a solar PV asset manager or performance engineer, you need better data and better business intelligence. With Denowatts digital twin benchmarking technology you get more accurate, efficient, and faster performance measurement results.
• 51:32
  Tim Montague: The fourth generation Deno recently completed a technical review by DNV you can download the report at Denowatts.com That's D E N O W A T T S.com.
• 51:40
  Tim Montague: Now back to the show. And with that, I want to say thank you to Josh Stolzenberg and Jordan Kaiser of Northwind. Solar for coming on the show, check out their website at Northwind re Northwind r e.com. And with that, I will say, let's grow solar and storage. I'm Tim Montague. Take care, guys.
• 52:06
  Tim Montague: Thanks, Tim. Hey, listeners.
• 52:10
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• 52:42
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• 52:42
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• 53:01
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• 53:48
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• 53:48
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• 53:53
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• 54:28
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