Latest / Clean Power Hour / Rey Holmes and Sean O'Reilly Solar Roof Shingles: The Future of Energy and Roofing | EP146

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Rey Holmes and Sean O'Reilly Solar Roof Shingles: The Future of Energy and Roofing | EP146 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Rey Holmes: More and more solar is better for the world period.
• 0:54
  Rey Holmes: And there is definitely a place for if your roof doesn't need to be replaced. Traditional solar has its place built on or rack mounted solar has its place. I want to see a world where there's just more solar. Right?
• 1:03
  Rey Holmes: Well, we think at GF energy is that that dual value of Timberline solar being not only a roof covering, so there's no shingles underneath it is this shingle, plus an energy generating product. So it's giving value back to you, other than just covering your home is the real key.
• 1:24
  intro: Are you speeding the energy transition? Here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts, Tim Montague and John Weaver bring you the best in solar batteries and clean technologies every week, I want to go deeper into decarbonisation. We do two, we're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get together we can speed the energy transition.
• 1:52
  Tim Montague: Today on the Clean Power Hour building integrated photovoltaics, welcome to the Clean Power Hour, check out all of our content at clean power hour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify. And please tell a friend about the show. That is the best way you can help us speed the energy transition. Today ghf energy GF is a well known building products manufacturer. Famous now for their Timberline solar product. It is a roofing shingle that makes electrons from photons. Welcome to the show Ray Ray Holmes of GAF Energy he is the VP of product. And Sean O'Reilly the CEO of smart roof.
• 2:35
  Tim Montague: Welcome to the show.
• 2:37
  Rey Holmes: Thank you really appreciate it, Tim, for bringing me out super excited for it.
• 2:41
  Tim Montague: I really appreciate you guys working with me on this. I was you know, thrilled to get GAF on the show.
• 2:49
  Tim Montague: But I wanted to have a contractor also present for the interview. Because it really is a game changer to know how a product is received in the market by the installers. And that has been, I think, a real impediment to the spread of building integrated photovoltaics with some of the other products like Tesla, and others, but But you know, Tesla was kind of the shining star and they you know, they launched very, a very flashy launch a few years ago now, maybe five years ago, I don't know Ray knows because he used to work for Tesla. But but they've really gone nowhere fast. And and you guys at GAF Energy launched this this tile, a roofing shingle, excuse me that is installed with a nail gun by roofers. And that is the game changer. So let's give our listeners a little background on yourselves. Why don't we start with you, Sean since you're the installer, and and you can and you can speak to all of our installer listeners out there. What Why did you get into the roofing industry? And tell us a little bit about your experience with GAF Energy?
• 4:07
  Sean O'reilly: Awesome. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks to Jeff energy for inviting me along.
• 4:11
  Sean O'reilly: And, Tim, thanks for having us on. So I've been I've been with smarter for four and a half years, we've been in business about eight, seven or eight years and, you know, fast growth and always with the vision of getting good, we do a good amount of roofing but always with the vision of getting into solar. And how do I get into the business? Well, the smart roof was started by a couple of my childhood friends, good buddies of mine who had some background in the residential roofing sales, and kind of went off on their own and, and got me involved in it. I do have a background in in contracting, my my, my dad was a contractor so I was building houses when I was a kid. So pretty good familiarity with the trades and kind of went went in all in on on roofing and solar in the last in the last four and a half years. And so, you know, just with smart roof, we've had a very strong relationship with GAF on the shingle side. And we you know, so we were kind of in but we always had a vision of innovating one of our core values, and how do we change this, the roofing industry and GAF Energy, sort of, you know, use their contractor network to Hey, who are the people that are like minded in the sense of changing industry growing some, you know, disrupting, so to speak, and looking for new ways to do things. And you know, we were we were growing and looking for new ways to do things. So it was kind of a perfect, a perfect fit. So they approached us and we were thrilled to be able to kind of talk through talk through what, what they had coming down the pipeline and give them a little bit of fun Get back to the whole process and be part of the beta programme. And they've done a great job of, let's say, asking the asking the right questions on how to be successful, who's going to who's who works with the homeowners? Who, who brings the product to market and its contractors. And I think that's what they've done a good job of.
• 6:10
  Sean O'reilly: So hey, how do we work with the contractors to make this something that works for them?
• 6:15
  Sean O'reilly: Not? We got a good idea and everyone else needs to buy into it, hey, what do you guys need to make this work? And talking, talking through it with companies like ourselves, and being able to think through it from the contractors point of view so that we can go and feel confident about providing this product? And obviously, you know, GF has years of service behind them. And you know, Jeff, energy is very similar, you know, service providing customer service and warranties and stuff.
• 6:46
  Tim Montague: Great. Thank you.
• 6:46
  Tim Montague: And Ray, please introduce yourself and how you came to GAF Energy.
• 6:52
  Rey Holmes: Yeah, thanks, Tim.
• 6:52
  Rey Holmes: So I'm Ray Holmes, as you mentioned, VP of product at GF energy. My Solar journey starts, you know, almost 15 years ago now study electro engineering undergrad, with a focus on solar fabrication. So all the way from the solar cell doping, understanding the technology behind it, and just got really enthralled with kind of the magic, I'll say, of solar, right, I think you can share in that passionate, like everything else, burned, something creates the alternative. So it was the only thing or it's I, I don't know how this worked, or who who figured it out first, that this piece of material that hits on electrons flow, but the fact that it's been able to harness energy and generate electricity is kind of a magical thing. Came out the gate at school start off in sales actually saw a huge appreciation for solar selling knocking doors. In California, selling solar door to door, just getting a real feel for kind of the brass tacks of how this gets deployed. And out there. They buy way in a solar city. And that's where you know, this concept of a solar roof, a different way to do solar kind of came up with massive scaling.
• 8:01
  Rey Holmes: And the understanding that, hey, maybe solar roofing is really the future of solar. fast forward through the Tesla days.
• 8:08
  Rey Holmes: I'll get to later to Jeff energy in 2019. And Shawn and I were reminiscing about that, about that experience of truly that the difference maker for Jeff energy is around the focus on the roofing contractor, and being able to harness and leverage the fact that there are 5 million roofs that go up every year. Right, there's 10,000 Plus roofing contractors that have been in business for decades plus that are doing these roofs.
• 8:37
  Rey Holmes: And so how can we take the advantage of GAF and that tight contractor network across that massive national footprint and create a product that can move through that channel? Right, As Sean mentioned, as far as roof, they have a great relationship with GAF do you is responsible for more than a half roofs every year, right? They're a dominant shingle brand, which is the dominant covering for roofs in the residential space in the US.
• 9:04
  Rey Holmes: And so our approach and the principles around solving that solar problem, but through roofing, and really being in tune with our roofing contractors and taking their feedback and prioritising that, and I had a quote at some point in time, around the Timberline solar product of you can have the best product in the world.
• 9:22
  Rey Holmes: But if you have no pathway to market, you're bottlenecked by either the labour, manufacturing, etc. It doesn't matter if you have the best product, it'll never scale up.
• 9:31
  Rey Holmes: And so really focusing on leveraging the scale that our roofing contractors, especially smart roof, bring to the table in terms of the roofs they touch, the expertise they have, and then solving for all the technology features that need to be true to make it approachable for their teams, and then make it manufacturable at high volume, right. And so I think that's been the difference maker and kind of the reason why I've been so passionate about this over the past four years and bringing this product to market, right.
• 10:04
  Tim Montague: Excellent. So you know, I I fully embrace building integrated photovoltaics as the future of solar energy, eventually, we will be cladding all of our buildings soup to nuts, right walls, windows, and of course, the roof in PvE of some form or another. The The only question is what exact form will it take? And you see that VIP V is further along in Europe. There are more products on the market, more experiments being done. And, and it's and it's a wonderful thing. You know, here in the US we're we're ironically, you know, five to 10 years behind our European brothers and sisters. And now we're catching up. And it's game on. And we have wonderful legislation with the, the IRA.
• 10:58
  Tim Montague: And you know, this 10, year 30%, ITC investment tax credit, you know, you can get 30% off of your solar project if you're a homeowner or building owner, or asset owner. And that is a game changer. So, when, when you guys are out there, Shawn, you know, selling, selling roofing projects, whether it's new construction, or were reroofing?
• 11:31
  Tim Montague: What is that conversation? Like?
• 11:31
  Tim Montague: That is something I'm very, very curious about how are homeowners responding to the the ghf?
• 11:44
  Tim Montague: Timberline solar shingle?
• 11:47
  Sean O'reilly: Yeah, good question. You know, it's new. So that's exciting. You know, people are, you know, people want to be, well, certain types of people want to be, you know, leaving the neighbourhood or leaving the community and in tech and innovation, and, but it's also, you know, it's a new look, it's, it's sleeker. But our commerce, you know, so a lot of people it gets, it gets a lot of interest right off the bat.
• 12:11
  Sean O'reilly: And, you know, we just need to be able to talk about it. But the conversation is very much, hey, you need to replace your roof, this is the perfect time to go solar, you know, that's, it's a no brainer, this is the time to do it. Right, we could do it all at the same time. And, you know, you could you could do rack, you could call another company do rack or now, we offer rack, but it's two different products, you know, two different warranties that are competing against each other, it makes sense to just cover it and all you one call, it's the roof is one, one team comes out, knocks it all out. And then you get the warranty packaged in a way that just doesn't exist in the industry up till now. And so the value of that is pretty easy to sell. And people you know, that, that are looking to already go solar need a new roof? It's the timing is usually right on.
• 13:02
  Tim Montague: And how hard a decision is it for a consumer to make, let's say they want to go solar, and they're considering, you know, more traditional solar panels that are attached on top of the roof, versus a solar shingle that is the roof. And that's a big distinction. And, and it's, you know, some trade offs. But if you're going to get a new roof agreed, that's a great time to go solar. But what is the relative cost? Is there a difference in the life span of that roof? If it's a solar shingle versus a just traditional roofing shingle?
• 13:47
  Sean O'reilly: Yeah, it's a it's an interesting conversation. So it's not, it's, you can't really compare apples to apples, in terms of of cost in generalities, because every project is so different. But it really comes down to you know, what the, you know, what value you can bring in on that particular project. So, it's very consultative, and, you know, what, what are you looking for? What do you need, and, you know, the value for this product is really, it's a, it is both right, and so the roof and solar and so it serves both purposes, and you get the warranties behind that, which is peace of mind, and a lot, you know, better better service. And when you add it all together, most of the time, the value is, is pretty comparable, with with the better warranties, you know, it's you know, it's, it's, it's kind of very comparable in terms of cost. And so it comes down to what the homeowner really wants.
• 14:47
  Sean O'reilly: Sometimes people are very specific about what they want.
• 14:50
  Sean O'reilly: And a new product kind of scares them off. But a lot of people you know, it's a cleaner look, it's new, and they're very excited about going with him.
• 14:59
  Tim Montague: So if the cost is comparable, then you know, the aesthetics are definitely better with a solar shingle. There's just no no buts about it. And we'll we'll splice in some, some B roll of of the ghf solar shingle here.
• 16:02
  Tim Montague: What other, I guess considerations? Are there? Ray, do you want to chime in here?
• 16:06
  Tim Montague: From your perspective, obviously, you're biassed because you're the VP of product for GAF Energy. But I mean, what what is the what is the roadmap?
• 16:21
  Tim Montague: What is the adoption curve that you're witnessing? And is the is the day within sight when all roofs you know, all south facing slopes of roofs will be solar shingles?
• 16:38
  Rey Holmes: Yeah. So I think Shawn hit on a bunch of great things related to the value of the product. And one of the things that I'll say just a more solar is better for the world period. And there's definitely a place for if your roof doesn't need to be replaced. Traditional solar has its place built on or rack mounted. Solar has its place, right, I want to see a world where there's just more solar on roofs period, right?
• 17:02
  Rey Holmes: Well, we think at GF energy is that that dual value of Timberline solar being not only a roof covering, so there's no shingles underneath it is this shingle, plus an energy generating product. So it's giving value back to you, other than just covering your home is the real key, right? That's the differentiator, that dual value.
• 17:20
  Rey Holmes: And being able to leverage that single expert, rooftop contractor to instal it. So you're getting that peace of mind, if there's no, you know, two trades that are up on your roof, two companies that are up on your roof, it's one company that can give you a full solution, backed by one company warranting the entirety of the roofing system. And so that total cost of ownership, the long term peace of mind is super important. Right. And I think in the long term, future, what the most interesting thing for that we're seeing from an adoption curve is, is that, you know, we liken it to and this is a lofty example. But it's it's true is, I remember a time where I had my iPod and one hand, and then my Nokia cell phone and another one and I was like, this is the way I need it, maybe I'll do a Zune, or I'll do an iPod, get the next touch version. And now it's crazy to think about, you know, not having one of these that can do both. And so eventually, I think the value of just getting more from that one thing is going to dominate. And that roof replacement cycle, the 5 million roofs that go up every single year, I think just leverages or lends itself to the scale of adoption that we want to see versus, you know, the traditional rock band, it's always probably eclipsing 300k a year, maybe 350 A year or something like that. So the pace is slower. If you're going to all of a sudden transform a market, I think we want to be at the cutting edge of being able to ride the curve of what we think is the future, which is solar roof, that dual purpose that you know, I suppose version of solar.
• 19:01
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I like that analogy. It's, it's, it's it's all about a single product now.
• 19:06
  Tim Montague: Right, the smartphone. And I guess from a, you know, from a from an installation perspective, though, when when roofers start to get their hands on this product, what is their experience? Can they do as many roofs because that's a that's a big thing. Right? The labour costs of of the instal are significant. And installers don't want to be slowed down.
• 19:34
  Tim Montague: Right. They, if anything, they want to be sped up, they want to do more jobs. And I mean, the number of rooftops that are installed in the United States is is staggering. I'm sure you guys know that statistic. I don't know it off the top of my head, but it's a lot. And and only a tiny fraction of those today are our solar roofs or solar facilities, period, right.
• 19:59
  Tim Montague: We're installing about five gigawatts of residential solar a year now in the US. And, and we're gonna, you know, we're going to 10x the industry in the next 2530 years. It's a massive, massive growth opportunity. And of course, if we can invent technology that is quicker to instal and just as reliable, I mean, PV is very reliable, it's very robust. That's one of the beautiful things about these crystalline panels. They are super robust. You know, there are other elements in the system that are weaker links, the inverters, the wiring, the switchgear, etc, etc. But those modules are going to be producing it 80 to 90%. Now after 25 have yours. So from from a speed and ease of use, what comments do you guys have?
• 21:46
  Tim Montague: I think that
• 21:51
  Rey Holmes: what I'll say is that and I'll, I'll let Shawn kind of take over from the contractors perspective. But for us, I think one of the things that we believe in, you're talking about the pie is getting bigger, there's a place for for everyone. But at the same time, we have to understand where the bottlenecks in the ecosystem are going to be. And labour is a critical one for that. Right?
• 22:12
  Rey Holmes: And so by solving how do we make this approachable and solvable by the same crews, same tools that are installing those roofs today, we eliminate that as a potential bottleneck for us. And so the design is very specific about making sure it's approachable by the roof top shingle labour force that exists out there today. So that it doesn't slow down things. I'll let Shawn comment on a Is it working or not? And then secondarily, I think that you're right. PVS, super robust, but there's always a better way to do it. And I think one of the things that has come to light in the decade or a couple of decades now, where you're seeing hundreds of 1000s of rack mounted systems on roofs is a some of the things that are unintended consequences of you know, the attachment mechanism to those roofs are now starting to come to fruition. And so by trying to eliminate those by making it fully integrated, same waterproofing, same methodology has been tried and true and asphalt shingles for 50 years that the laminate shingles been out or 100 years that a roofing shingle has been out, I think it was really critical for for us in the design of that long term reliability durability in the future. But from a labour perspective, like I'll turn it over to Sean and Sean can tell me that we actually hit the mark on that.
• 23:35
  Sean O'reilly: Yeah, I would say they've done a great job of following through on that, that mission of trying to make it simple to instal, I mean, you know, other than small little measuring stick, just check, check the line on the shingles, you don't need any other tools.
• 23:49
  Sean O'reilly: So that's, that's super, super valuable to not have to go make other investments and get people bought, you know, bought in by having them go buy a bunch of extra equipment. But we'd like any changes some resistance, right? People are sceptical, they that's gonna be more work out. And there is more work at first, right? It's new, people have to you have to be, you have to be careful, you don't want to just be throwing it up there and, you know, stomping all over it, and whatever, whatever moving all over the place. Like, you need to take care of to make sure it's aligned very much. So there's there was definitely some some resistance. But for us, it's, you know, as part of our mission and part of part of our core values, it was like, Hey, if you want to work with us, this is the type of stuff we will be doing. We want you to learn, if we, we will invest in you, right, we and we believe that we're giving you opportunities to grow into the future. And so a little bit a little bit slower at first, but I think once adoption sets in and people get the hang of it, there is a lot less friction than people initially initially think. So, you know, you just being able to instal with a nail gun is is goes a long way. And then just kind of getting used to you know, some of the, some of the labour was like, oh, it's gonna take much longer and they're kind of complaining about it's like, Well, how long did the job take after a few of them but how long did the last job take a nice day and it's a well that's what a roof takes you know, it wasn't a big system the bigger you get, obviously the more complex the more you know cut you're making on the on the other shingles and you know, but that's just the nature of a complex a complex roof but simple systems go in but you know, quite simply and once once a team is trained if you're willing to invest in the training and you have an attitude of growth and learning and are excited about innovation it it is you know from from getting the shingles on the roof putting the roof on it is a pretty efficient process. Of course you have the electrical side of it which is which is you know, a different beast but for for a roofer we definitely had resistance we had people that didn't want to do it, but we just you know, we sell them on Hey, you want to be valuable to us it's smarter of these are the things that you should be doing.
• 26:14
  Sean O'reilly: Otherwise you're gonna you know, you won't have a job in 510 years. So and we're excited to be able to do this with you and you know, we'll have the support and training from from from us too for you to get there.
• 26:28
  Tim Montague: The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America. The maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over six gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS America product lineup includes three phase string inverters ranging from 25 to two 175 kW, their flagship inverter, the CPS 252 75, is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts, the 250 to 75 pairs well, with CPS America's exceptional data communication controls and energy storage solutions, go to chin power systems.com To find out more. So what is the what is the adoption? Like how many installers are working with GAF Energy now? And how many markets? Is the product available in?
• 27:15
  Rey Holmes: Yeah, so a big part of the, again, attendance is being tied with GAF. And the quality around the product is, we want to make sure we're always doing things. Right.
• 27:25
  Rey Holmes: Right, not as fast as humanly possible, there is an element of urgency because we want to make sure that we're innovating and being able to provide solutions that will lead to market the market. But our conscious effort is always on trying to make sure or making sure that's the highest quality product, the highest quality experience through and through. And that we learn, we iterate really quickly before we also put stuff out there other companies in the space of potentially just test it out in the wild, we want to make sure we have it ready to go before it ever hits the light of day, right. And so today, we're at 60 markets across the country, all along the east coast, northeast, Mid Atlantic and the Southeast. And then we have the usual suspects across the West California with Texas, Colorado, we're constantly expanding, right? Today, we're probably a little bit under 500 Total contractors that are in the GF energy programme that are moving Timberline solar. But the the opportunity of contractors across the country is much larger, right, there's at 509,000 GF certified contractors across the country. But we want to make sure that we scale that up and have the best experience around the products have the best experience and highest quality around around the product. And so we're doing that in a very measured approach, right, we want to scale quickly.
• 28:45
  Rey Holmes: And we want to be able to meet the demand that's out there, which has been pretty overwhelming. But we also want to make sure we're providing the support and the services to our contractors on smart roof to make the experience seamless, right? The training aspects, the re teaching of roofing contractors with this a product that's familiar, but a product that still is new, right has all the same trappings, you know, looks like a shingle smells like a shingle style is like a shingle. But it's still slightly different. There's something some things that are unique about it because of its energy generating properties. But that's really been the focus for us is making sure that we do this in the right way to be around for a long time versus short blip. And all of a sudden, now we're back to the drawing board, as other companies may have tried to do in the past, we want to make sure we're here for the long haul. We put all the effort in the work and the testing the quality and durability of the product. We want to make sure that it scales effectively and sustainably.
• 29:45
  Rey Holmes: Right. Our President Mark Cuban always talks about, we want to be a sustainable, sustainable company, right? There's many non sustainable, sustainable companies that are out there.
• 29:54
  Rey Holmes: And so I think our focus point has been around scaling effectively versus scaling at breakneck speed.
• 30:03
  Tim Montague: So let's talk about some of the nitty gritties. When it comes to the installation, I get it that the shingles and our viewers can can see some some video of this here that the shingles are just nailed down just like any roof shingle with a nail gun. And that is the primary tool of a roofer these days is a nail gun right there going, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You hear this in your neighbourhood as the rooftops are being installed.
• 30:28
  Tim Montague: But a shingle a solar shingle also has wires, it has connectors, and there are strings, then running back to a combiner box. And then a home run back to an inverter. And at some point, you've got to involve an electrician. So explain for us if you would, and maybe Shawn, you could start and then re you can add a few comments on top of Sean's comments. What is it? You know, how does it How does an installation unfold? And I'm particularly keen to address the market of Yeah, I'm a forward thinking roofer. But I'm not a solar shingle installer today.
• 31:15
  Tim Montague: So from their perspective, you know, interested considering taking the leap, but curious to learn more.
• 31:23
  Sean O'reilly: Absolutely. I can start on that. One of the beauties of the product and the first ever I think is that it's deck side up you have the wiring. So as you're putting it in your the wiring right there in the raceways you've seen it.
• 31:39
  Sean O'reilly: And so yes, the raceways are there but it's also was much easier, the wire management is much, much easier than panels.
• 31:48
  Sean O'reilly: And then, you know, once you get to the top, you know, if unless you're going over to the next row, you can you drop into the attic and go from there. And then I won't get too much into the technical side, I'll let rady that. But the GAF also offers services to help help you through the permitting, and the electrical, and everything along those lines. So obviously, that's a scarce resource, which means they're growing more slowly on that front, but they pick partners that they can work with, and, but also provide that the electrical service as part of the programme and allows again, another barrier to entry.
• 32:30
  Sean O'reilly: They they take out for people looking to get started for people that they can choose to be part of the programme. And that allows us to learn along, learn, learn alongside them, but you know, they have the expertise in this specific product. Within the electrical, the electrical side is a big barrier to a lot of roofers and the harder part and, and just the roofing, and even putting up your traditional rack, most roofers could probably figure that out, but then the interconnection, and all of that is where you scare a lot of people off. And so the services are great in that sense. But you can also, you know, in terms of just like efficiency and instal, as you're getting the roof on, and you're you're finishing out the arrays, you can start working, you know, you can start working backwards up just in like a traditional rack mount thing and work towards, you know, work from the panel panel to the, to the roof. And so you can it's not like you have to wait until everything's completely done to get the ball rolling on that. So yeah, those are on on that side, you know, and we're still learning, you know, we're, and we're still looking to, you know, work with GAF on the services side and grow with them. And, but it's been pretty, pretty easy to kind of get to get through that work with them, and very big sport on the technical side.
• 33:51
  Tim Montague: So is a is a standard crew doing, you know, 95% of the work though, and then an electrician is involved to do the final wiring to the panel or just, I really want to be clear about what, who's doing what, the electrician
• 34:08
  Sean O'reilly: is wiring to the roof. Okay.
• 34:11
  Tim Montague: Yeah. And so, so you have a subset, or are you are you sub contracting that or?
• 34:17
  Tim Montague: Yeah, explain the
• 34:22
  Sean O'reilly: electrical the electrical work?
• 34:23
  Tim Montague: Yeah.
• 34:24
  Sean O'reilly: Yeah, well, it's essentially GF energy is providing those services as part of the programme.
• 34:30
  Rey Holmes: So I'll go into it, Tim a little bit more in depth, right. So there's there's two scopes that are that are part of a solar roof instal very similar to a if you're doing a roof, plus a traditional rack mounted, instal, there's the roof scope, so who is on top of the roof, and then there's the electrical scope, which is the wiring from those, those home runs down to the inverter down to the main panel. As Sean mentioned, our focus is really on driving the adoption of the rooftop scope through our roofing network and through contractors like smart roof. And so the programme in the product, the focus what people see is that rooftop products and Timberline energy shingle designed to be installed by your your standard refer, right from an installation perspective. That's why some of the design decisions, so we will ask, like, Hey, what are those, the visual feature of the Timberline solar, that's because we made the constitution to put the wiring on the front, not only because that makes the installation much easier, you're not underneath the panel, you're connecting things and then making hidden. It's on top for serviceability and for access.
• 35:38
  Rey Holmes: And so that roofer would put down the energy shingles, and then do those basic connections upwards. It's all plugged one into the next one, plug one into the next one, very repeatable all the way up the roof, and then leave those connections in what we call a top flashing, right. And that's the end of the roofing so they can continue doing the shingles across the entirety of the roof. And by the end of the instal of the roofing scope, you have a dried in roof, it's waterproof, everything can be left on there. And the beauty of the the certification approach for GF energy was we were the first people to get ul 7103 which is the newest bi PV standard from from UL and that means it's listed as both a building product period if you never energised it, it could exist on a roof and it made meets all the same requirements as a standard roofing shingle from a waterproofing from an environmental perspective, from a wind perspective, and waterproofing, all those are met and so that makes it very clear that a roofers and roofing can contractors do what they do best. instal sell and instal the roof, get that customer back to being watertight, right? They needed a roof, let's give them a list. Do you have energy provides electrical services, and a wide range of services and products. And so Timberline, solar is the product. But for contractors were maybe looking or have a barrier to entry in terms of the electrical contracting licence. We also provide those as a service. And so we have electricians on staff that will complete that electrical scope. We help out with permanent, we help out with design, we help out with all the soil capabilities to keep roofers focused on selling and installing roofs as they build those capabilities in house, right? You have contractors like smart roof have been kind of trailblazers in the industry of accomplishing those traits, right. And so there'll be probably the first ones to be able to provide their own electrification because they have those capabilities. But to tap into and leverage the 8500 contractors out there in the network and 5 million roofs every year, we know that that skill set range for that solar capability is going to vary. And the adoption curve of the solar specific skill sets is going to vary. And so we want to make sure we don't create that as a barrier for entry for our rooftop contractors, until we provide those as a service for folks who meet up or folks who need to leverage them. Right, right now. And so that's really the split between the two is rooftop scope. And on the roof, an electrician will come in and take care of the wiring from the rooftop down to the the inverter of the main panel. And from
• 38:18
  Tim Montague: a manufacturing perspective, what is your capacity for making these shingles? Where are they made?
• 38:24
  Tim Montague: And how is that going to scale in the coming years?
• 38:28
  Rey Holmes: Yeah, I love it. I think one of the one of the benefits again versus company, GAF, they're, they're dominant in the space of asphalt shingles, but they also have a giant US manufacturing footprint. It's we've adopted that same, that same perspective, before it was cool before they are anything came out and everybody wanted to do it. We already had domestic manufacturing is the way that we want to go. So our first manufacturing facility is in San Jose, California. That's where I am at today. And we have a capacity of about 10,000 rooms here. But already in progress right now is our second manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Texas, right call law more junction really adopted that Texas vibe. But that capacity is you know, 50,000 plus homes a year right worth of Timberline solar energy shingles to be very methodical about again, that sustainable scale, sustainable, sustainable company and bring online are manufacturing capabilities and capacity to match up with the demand and grow this aggressively, but in a sustainable way. And so that facility, again, combined with the San Jose facility, will represent about 50 to 60 65,000 homes per year capacity. And we'll continue to grow that as we capture more and more demand and increase our footprint, nationally. So feel good again, about investing in the future, we believe is the future. And so we're making the right investments to bring that capacity online.
• 39:58
  Tim Montague: What else should our listeners know about this product? The Timberline solar shingle, both from a roofers perspective, and from a consumers perspective,
• 40:11
  Rey Holmes: I'll let you go first. And I can give my speech.
• 40:16
  Sean O'reilly: First thing I say is just kind of, again, I said at the beginning, but kind of the all in one, the warranty is, you know, having the watertight and power production warranty all together and backed by you know, you know, on the watertight side, you've got the GAF golden pledge is is just a big win for consumers. And on the contractor side, being able to offer that and know that it's, you know, the relationship with with Jeff energy means that it's, it's backed, it's not just a piece of paper to give to somebody. And we've worked with Jeff for a long time, and that relationship is super important.
• 40:55
  Sean O'reilly: And GF energy has adopted the same, you know, mindset towards service and making sure that they take care of their customers, so the contractor so that they can take care of their customer. And that, you know, the relationship there is super important. And that's really the the win for contractors and for homeowners is you have, you know, a really strong relationship between the two.
• 41:18
  Sean O'reilly: And you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna get let down.
• 41:22
  Sean O'reilly: And so that's, that's, I think that's a big piece, the piece that really sets it apart. And then you know, just it's, it's a much more streamlined look, if you if you don't like the big panels on your roof. You know, aesthetically, it's it's a much more streamlined look. It's cleaner, more exciting.
• 41:39
  Sean O'reilly: Definitely I think it's the Jones effect, you know, people excited about, look what I got, which is exciting. We had, we had a guy asked if we, if we had any domain panels we could put on the front, you could show it off the front of his house was like north facing. And he was like, Jeff, can you just put some over here? Which he goes, theoretically we could. But yeah, so you know, it is it is cool, a cool thing to see up on the roof and, you know, bring bring some curb appeal to the house.
• 42:12
  Rey Holmes: I think, Tim on the side, GAF energy, I think it's that dual value, it's what more can the things that you're getting and putting on your home do for you, instead of a standard roof, a solar roof. And that integration just makes sense, right? From a total cost of ownership from a long term peace of mind, from some of the things that you are not hearing about the traditional products that are out there might be the thing that is the most value later down the line. Right, by combining the waterproofing, having that warranty backed by 138 year old company, who's not going anywhere, is a very powerful thing for protecting consumers in the long run, right and protecting your investment.
• 42:55
  Rey Holmes: In the long run. If something goes wrong, GF energy and GF are going to be around to take care of it right? We're going to be behind our contractors. And if our contractors need support, we'll be there to support. And again, returning back to the thought process of at some point in time, people thought having a Zune and a Nokia phone was a great idea in the combination, the same way that I think about it right now, the other analogy is, you know, the integration of Apple CarPlay into your car, it's like before, let's put on the dash iPad on top of the dashboard. And like that's good a Garmin little thing at the top. And now it's all integrated. And there's a reason for that, because it gives the ease of experience, it gives the ease of use, and that integration is much better in the long run. And so we're gonna continue pushing out more entries into the marketplace is good for everyone. And we just want to be on the cutting edge.
• 43:49
  Rey Holmes: And we'll continue to fight and earn that title of that innovation and pushing the market towards solar roofing. So I'm excited about the future.
• 43:55
  Rey Holmes: And I think it's a great value prop for consumers and even more for contractors who want to add more value to consumers that they're talking with every day.
• 44:05
  Tim Montague: And the technology array, is it is it cigs or what is the exact Yeah, technology integrated into these shingles?
• 44:14
  Rey Holmes: Yeah, so it's mono Park, right? So we went with the dominant cell in the marketplace to really capture that efficiency that's been put in that the cost and efficiency of Monoprix cells, we didn't want to take the technology risk on cigs, and it's unproven a little bit. And so by getting that long term quality reliability is we want to go with something that's tried and true, versus some of these brands out there that are kind of on the bleeding edge of cell tech, which means there's a risk that might not be around tomorrow, we really want to focus on the innovation on the attachment method, and leverage the best of the best from this solar cell technology.
• 44:52
  Tim Montague: And how long will it be? Do you think before we see this kind of product integrated into commercial roofing, which is I'm talking about, you know, flat roofs that are a membrane of you know, one of three or four flavours. But is is a is a VIP membrane in the works.
• 45:19
  Rey Holmes: I'll say this, where our focus point is as Jeff energy is on the dominant roof type for residential roofing.
• 45:29
  Rey Holmes: However, when you look at the GAF portfolio and greater the standard industry is which is the parent company of both GAF and GAF Energy is they are dominant and waterproofing across the commercial space, the residential space in Europe, Australia, they do all roofing types. And so it's only a matter of time before we're going and solving for those other markets in those other product categories. But I think the focus and the biggest pie for us to be successful today is around ask watching. So I think it's it's always cooking up we have a tonne of work on r&d All the time, but our focus is on making sure that we provide the best solutions for residential asphalt shingle market that segment and then expand from there right and only gives us more opportunity to go beyond that once we're clear. Leader in the in the marketplace for for for asphalt shingles.
• 46:26
  Tim Montague: Makes sense. Makes sense? Well, we'll put both your company's links in the show notes. I want to thank Shawn O'Reilly of smart roof for coming on the show and Ray Holmes, the VP of product at GAF Energy. Thanks so much, guys.
• 46:41
  Rey Holmes: I appreciate it, Tim. Thank you, for having me.
• 46:43
  Sean O'reilly: Thank you Tim.
• 46:44
  Tim Montague: Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify and please tell a friend or a colleague about the Clean Power Hour so that we can all see the energy transition together. I'm Tim Montague.
• 47:00
  Tim Montague: Let's grow solar and storage.
• 47:00
  Tim Montague: Take care