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Batteries Now #1 Morning Power Source in California · Clean Power Hour

• 0:53
  Tim Montague: Welcome to the Clean Power Hour live bringing you the latest and greatest clean energy news every other week with none other than the commercial solar guy, John Weaver, welcome to the show, John,
• 1:04
  John Weaver: how you doing life?
• 1:07
  Tim Montague: Life is great.
• 1:07
  Tim Montague: We're moving into a post ITC world in the solar industry, there's blood in the water, but there's lots of opportunity. So listen up solar professionals.
• 1:21
  Tim Montague: Let's get better at doing what we do right? Let's bring down the cost of solar. Let's improve the quality and the long term performance of our projects. Lot of talk about project performance going on in our industry. Because guess what?
• 1:35
  Tim Montague: John, solar is underperforming.
• 1:35
  Tim Montague: There's a bit of a race to the bottom in the solar industry.
• 1:40
  Tim Montague: Right? People end up buying cheap equipment or cheap contractors. And guess what?
• 1:48
  Tim Montague: That doesn't turn out so well.
• 1:52
  John Weaver: Yeah, performance matters. A lot of a lot of our customers, we have performance guarantees for them. In some of our contracts, our commissioning tests are pretty significant. We don't use a dino Watts unit.
• 2:04
  John Weaver: That would be cool if we did, but, you know, we use a little PV cyst coupled with also energy. We've never done insurance level coverage guarantees, though, that one group trying to remember their name right now, they have not G Cube for insurance, but a different one I don't know, no not solar insurer, someone else.
• 2:28
  John Weaver: He started off with a lot of cool solar insurance stuff.
• 2:31
  John Weaver: They, they taught me about it.
• 2:31
  John Weaver: His name will come to me, Matsui, I think ran the show there, but, but, yeah, insurance is out there for coverage. And there's, there's interesting stuff. So I, I do, I do think having good quality matters.
• 2:45
  John Weaver: It's funny, though, one of the stories that I wanted to chat about is about a politician who wants to bring back the ITC a Republican, and so I don't think we're in a post ITC world. I actually disagree with that. I think we're in a middle phase. I mean, technically the ITC is still here, so definitely our reality today is not post ITC, but very soon could become,
• 3:10
  Tim Montague: yeah, I'll put this on screen. I just did, you know, I just dropped an interview with Costa Nicolaou from our from Ari, Boston, and we, we talked about this, the ITC going away, and whether or not it's going to come back, and it's fine to hold out hope that it's going to come back. If it comes back, that's only a good thing, and it is an accelerant, right? And it's interesting that we have a Republican who's fighting for bringing the ITC back. We're not in the post ITC world, but for I like to say, for all intents and purposes, we are, because it's only a year and a half, a little more than those, let's say two years right, two years away. And of course, if you're safe harboring, and then you've got a you've got a longer runway, but, but we all have to be prepared for it to go away. But what's the story with this Republican in is it Pennsylvania?
• 4:12
  John Weaver: Uh, yes, Brian Fitzpatrick. He's a House House member, and he voted against the one big bill. Apparently, he did not like the removal of solar and wind tax credits, and he wants it back. And he actually lines up with things I was hearing from other people like, you know, I remember reading before, when the OBB was being talked from folks who are saying, listen, right now we're talking about the tax credit going away, but we think it might become Permanent in 2028 like that was the exact opposite of the things I was hearing. You know, we're seeing the tax credit go away, but at the exact same moment, people are saying, Nope, it might become permanent.
• 5:01
  John Weaver: And that really surprised me to hear that it's like, in the midst of my depression, it's like, oh my god, what are we going to do to get moving? We're hearing the opposite a couple years down the road. Now, that's a nice little thing to satiate your soul and make you not fight for the thing that's in front of you, but now we're starting to see it. I mean, we got a Republican who's going to push for it, and I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, the original tax credit came from George Bush, and then the tax credit was Republicans who controlled the House and the Senate in 2015 extended the tax credit. That's when we had our massive 2016 year, because everybody thought the tax credit was going to end.
• 5:39
  John Weaver: So do I think tax credits come back? I do. I believe so. I did a little poll. Did you see my poll that I did on LinkedIn? By any chance? How did that play out? Well. We should share the results with everybody and show it. So mind that put it on screen. I'm gonna I'm coming to it right now. Here it is, here's, here's the here's the post. So yeah, so we did a poll.
• 6:01
  John Weaver: I did it on LinkedIn. Got a lot of, a lot of lot of thoughts there. And here it is, it just found it. Let's zoom in on this thing and see what's going on.
• 6:13
  John Weaver: So let's do a share. Boom, share my screen, pick my LinkedIn, and let's zoom in real tight, alright, so we got got my poll here. Oops, alright, so I hope is that big enough for you guys to read it? Tim, people on the screen. All right, great. So do you think the US 30% federal tax credit will be reinstated, and we got 135 votes, so that's a decent number. I don't know if that's scientifically appropriate, but because I'm not a scientist, but if you look at it, 25% just said yes, another 25 said yes, but different, 39% said no, and 11% they just wanted to see the results. So we sort of had a, you know, if we think out of this chunk here, we got a 50% versus 39 so that's not overwhelming or anything, but that thinks that some that shows that some people think, hey, maybe. And, you know, there's some opinions on it
• 7:22
  Tim Montague: and and the you think the predominant Yes, but different is yes, but permanent.
• 7:28
  John Weaver: No, no, no, no, just different. No, just different. Who knows is that?
• 7:31
  John Weaver: That's what everybody I put different just because, because I thought different might fit, but I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, I didn't. Man permit might be
• 7:43
  Tim Montague: it cool, but I'll just say I've been having a lot of conversations about this at at inner solar the last couple of days with manufacturers, okay? And these are people that benefit from the ITC, okay, it affects the whole, the whole spectrum of solar companies, whether you're a manufacturer or an installer or developer or asset owner, but I'm not hearing a resounding confidence in it's coming back. And I just think it's healthy for us to behave as if it's not and it's okay to lobby for it and talk to your elected officials and say it is a good thing, it is a good thing, okay, but let's not bank on it. We have to. We have to, in my opinion, be more focused on bringing down the cost of solar, reducing the soft costs, making the permitting and interconnection faster and easier and improving our quality long term performance is a big issue. The other signal I'm getting is that there's now a very significant repowering industry. John I was talking with my friend Eric at omco about a big repowering job where they're going to tear off series four first solar modules and replace them with series seven.
• 9:19
  Tim Montague: Those series four modules that were installed in 2013 are only 120 watts. John, it's it's crazy how how technology has changed in just 13 years.
• 9:36
  John Weaver: That's a that's cool. I don't know money.
• 9:39
  Tim Montague: Seven modules are like 750 watts.
• 9:41
  John Weaver: They're also really big too. They get really big the next round. So, yeah, yeah. And their efficiency is way up as well.
• 9:48
  Tim Montague: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.
• 9:51
  John Weaver: So I agree we shouldn't. I mean, technically, it's going away, you know, it's going away in a year, in two years, roughly. And for my business, it's still very important, because our projects, you know, we're not going to really participate in projects that go that are going to, that need to Safe Harbor by this summer. We may participate in one or two at most, but that's not going to be our bread and butter. Our bread and butter is going to be projects that will finish at the end of this year, projects that will be finished at the end of next year. And then after that, we have to start figuring out what's coming next. And I would say, you know, the region that we're in, New England, we have very high energy pricing. It counters by having high labor costs, because unions are very strong with electricians, and they have a lot of control up here, which is good I like paying but you know, that's that's what our market is so, so who knows what's going to happen? This is a bipartisan supported piece of legislation.
• 10:44
  John Weaver: Everybody likes getting rid of tax credits, because rich people get to use tax credits, and residential people like tax.
• 10:50
  John Weaver: Credits and and I personally believe it's an important tax credit to have, because it's really, to be honest, it's not really a tax credit. It's not really an incentive, in my opinion, my opinion, this is really just a carbon tax in another form that's directly applied, that doesn't allow politicians to extract the tax and stick it somewhere. This is a direct application of a carbon tax that's politically palatable, so, but who knows? We got to get to work. We got to build doesn't matter.
• 11:22
  Tim Montague: Let's talk about batteries. You found a story before that. You wrote a story, I wrote a story. You wrote a story in PV magazine, when the sun sets, batteries rise 24/7 solar in California. I love this story.
• 11:35
  John Weaver: I want to jump in front of it. Though it's the story of the week. I need to cover it. But we had something very big happened. You actually knocked it off the list. Tim, I knocked Supreme Court. The Supreme Court made a big, big ruling in the last couple of hours. I don't know if you noticed that the Supreme Court overruled. Said it was illegal Trump's global tariffs. And I want to just clear this up and communicate it to people in a, in a, in a in a manner that it grabs them properly. So, you know, we'll go back to this story next, because this is actually my favorite story of a while
• 12:07
  Tim Montague: that I've gotten written. I don't see it on the dock, though, I deleted it.
• 12:09
  Tim Montague: Yeah, it
• 12:11
  John Weaver: was at the top.
• 12:11
  John Weaver: Don't worry, it's where you put the link for the show. It was right there. But it's all right, we don't even need a story. We can find one if you want.
• 12:21
  John Weaver: Cnn.com, I have it whatever.
• 12:21
  John Weaver: Just type in CNN, Trump's tariffs.
• 12:26
  Tim Montague: So the supreme court is saying that was not legal putting tariffs on solar equipment.
• 12:34
  John Weaver: No, no, that's why I have to talk about it. We have to be a little more refined in the conversation. So when he came into power, he added a 10 to 50% 100% tariff against everybody, just like the whole world. It didn't matter who you were, didn't matter what you look like. Tariff, you're alive.
• 12:50
  John Weaver: Tariff, you're from somewhere else, tariff, if I don't like you, tariff. And that was it. If you don't be nice to me, more tariff. And that's the way it works. And so the global tariff, which right now, I think, is at 10% against everybody, and it's just everything, everything coming into the country, unless you bribe them, somehow, you got a tariff. And some of the tariffs are pretty big, 45% 50% that tariff, which is 10 to 20% 10 to 40% that tariff is gone. I don't know how it's going to work out, but it's illegal, so I think they have to stop collecting it today. But all the other tariffs that hate our industry, you know, the the section 232, which is coming, the, you know, there's, there's, there's various tariffs, you know, all these AC, dv, things.
• 13:34
  John Weaver: It's which I can never say the name, right? ACD, slash, VD, whatever it is, those tariffs are still there. The battery tariffs are still there. The China tariffs are still there.
• 13:43
  John Weaver: So the tariffs against the Southeast Asian countries, those are still there on our modules.
• 13:49
  Tim Montague: So I just, why are you so excited about this?
• 13:52
  John Weaver: It's just, it's important thing to bring up. We just knocked off 10 20% off of like, say, copper, off, just random stuff, steel, aluminum, extra tariffs and but we got to talk out, because it's important to know what it doesn't mean for us. We still have import tariffs on modules that double the price of our modules. We still have a 40 to 60% tariff on battery imports from China. So so some are gone. Most of them are still here for our industry. So it's news. It's news that we shouldn't sell. We should celebrate a tiny bit, but not as solar people. We should be like, Alright, cool, and get back to work because
• 14:28
  Tim Montague: but so is this? Is this potentially one domino of many that is could cascade into real, significant change in our industry.
• 14:38
  John Weaver: No, I don't think so.
• 14:40
  Tim Montague: Okay, this is,
• 14:43
  John Weaver: yeah, I would love to, I'd love to say, tell you that Tim, I you know me. I'm a happy guy. So no,
• 14:50
  Tim Montague: sorry, well, let's, let's get happy on battery.
• 14:52
  John Weaver: Yeah, much better, much better. I like this story.
• 14:55
  John Weaver: Let's do it. You gotta scroll down. Show us the graph.
• 14:59
  Tim Montague: And I will say, John, there's a clear signal at inner solar. The show was smaller by about a third this year, but the number of battery companies was probably doubled, and there are more battery there's more battery companies now than there are solar module companies at this show
• 15:15
  John Weaver: that makes sense.
• 15:15
  John Weaver: That makes sense because, because there's going to be a billion batteries, it's going to be so hard to know which battery to pick. Man, everybody's going to package it their own special way. It's harder. I think batteries are easier to assemble as a package than a solar panel will be. I don't know that because I'm not a manufacturer.
• 15:33
  John Weaver: I Don't Know Jack. But just a thought, all right, here's, here's the chart of the day, man, we got to zoom in on this thing. Gotta zoom in to the point where you can see all that purple, that purple stuff on the bottom. Yeah. So this story is really about that purple, and I know it gets really thin there two, three on the left. But what this is about is that, for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, batteries and solar ran 24/7 in California. So if you actually go to the prior day, you can on this because this is an image that I grabbed.
• 16:05
  John Weaver: But if you go to the prior day, batteries started running in the
• 16:08
  evening around 430 5: 30pm just like you can see on this chart, around 415, to 16 hour. Around the 16 hour, which is four batteries, started running, then they ran through the evening, just like on this chart, but then you can see at zero, midnight on the left of this chart, let's just scroll to the left a tiny bit. You can see the battery started running at midnight, and for the whole morning they kept running. I know it looks really thin, but I double checked it's a positive, net positive battery output all the way through the morning until about 730 I think it was 735 or 740 when the sun started getting big. And batteries cumulatively, and I'm going to say that word loudly, cumulatively, started charging.
• 16:49
  evening around 430 5: And then they charged all day long, right up till the evening, and then they hit their stride in the evening, and then they ran to like 1230 so this here's, here's the line, here's the sales pitch line. Tim for the whole day California was solar powered 24 hours, because those batteries, they charge in that big old purple chunk that's in the middle, because that electricity is dang near free.
• 17:12
  evening around 430 5: You know, that's, that's like one cent per kilowatt hour electricity. That's, that's cheap stuff that they're getting. It would have been curtailed. That electricity would not have existed if it weren't for the batteries. And so they charge on the sun all day, and then they ran overnight. So California, sunny California. Man, was 24 hours solar power. Now it's a tiny, little bit of tiny sliver. You know, the haters are gonna hate, but I don't care. And ran, dude, the batteries ran. And here's a little nuance that is a large collection of hundreds of batteries. So they're like, you know, there is no one battery that ran 24/7, yes, yes. Well, this is only utility scale. This doesn't include distributed, which is in the 10s and hundreds of 1000s Tim and Cali, but, but, yeah, so there's where I'm saying that one battery. So it's not one battery that ran, it's the fleet of batteries that ran.
• 18:10
  evening around 430 5: And that's what's necessary.
• 18:13
  evening around 430 5: That's what Kelly wanted anyway.
• 18:13
  evening around 430 5: And so that's just cool, man, California's running on sunlight. That's the story of the week. That's the story of the year, dude. And here's Oh, and here's a new cool one. So this happened, like, a day or three later. So what this is showing if is that batteries at 5997, for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, were the number one morning electricity source. Tim, we all know about the evening, evening peak.
• 18:45
  evening around 430 5: Electricity gets more expensive because we don't have that sun.
• 18:49
  evening around 430 5: Everybody's home. It's blasting the AC. But what's happening in the E in the mornings? Tim, electricity is more expensive in the morning now because people are waking up. They're turning on their toasters, they're taking hot showers, they're turning on the lights, they're moving. And before the sun starts to hit, the price goes up, and so for the first time price signals, and that's the key. Price signals have motivated the battery people to output in the morning and the evening. And for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, batteries were the number one morning source. So now we have number one in the morning, number one in the evening, and then solar just blasting it. So we're pretty soon going to have a day where batteries are going to be the number one source at like 6am and then it's going to go to the number one source of solar at like eight, and then solar is going to be number one until five, and then batteries are going to be number one to like 10. We're gonna have like a 15 hours of nothing but sun and batteries dominating the California grid. It's coming shortly. It's coming shortly. So pretty cool stuff. I'm excited about it.
• 20:03
  Tim Montague: It's a good story.
• 20:03
  Tim Montague: I took a webinar from om am om analytics and q cells last week.
• 20:10
  Tim Montague: And if you haven't seen this webinar, check it out. You can just Google it. The recording is out there on the OM analytics. I think om has published it, but they break down the CNI or DG battery market and highlight different markets and Illinois is one of the largest DG battery markets now, thanks to our new surge legislation the VPP, I ran into a company. I didn't get to talk with them, but I learned about it called lunar, just like lunar, the moon, right? Lunar ESS. Check it out. Are entering the Illinois market. This is the batteries as a service marker market like base. Power Base is installing a 40 kilowatt hour battery that looks like a AC unit outside the home, and then it provides grid services, VPP and resiliency, if the you know if and when you need that. So the battery only thing is really going to be a hot, hot market.
• 21:22
  Tim Montague: Now for us, right in the US, we're going to see a lot of battery only, battery, solar and storage is great, right? That's the PB and J. I love it. But we're also going to see battery alone at all scales, right?
• 21:35
  Tim Montague: Individual buildings up to utility scale.
• 21:43
  John Weaver: Totally agree with that. Totally agree with that.
• 21:45
  John Weaver: Yeah, batteries. You know, you can deploy batteries so quickly and easily. Well, I don't know about easily, but so quickly in a space versus, say, you know, big solar plant, and with wireless tools, with VPPs, you know, you can move the energy where you need it, and then that local battery does great work.
• 22:03
  John Weaver: You know, this is NREL. NREL is what their name is. They're not something of the Rockies whatever. NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
• 22:10
  John Weaver: They're awesome. My favorite people in the world, NREL, did a great report looking at where battery cost makes sense relative to demand charges in the US. And back when that report came out, five, five ish years ago, plus maybe, I think they were saying like 15 to $20 demand charges were needed, and that was like half the country.
• 22:34
  John Weaver: But then battery prices dropped by 50% 75% since that report.
• 22:40
  John Weaver: So, you know, I really want to get good at batteries. I'm actually talking with a local startup here at Harvard kids.
• 22:46
  John Weaver: They're starting a little company, and they're trying to do batteries direct at the location, and I think it's a great idea, and I want to pat him on the back and tell him to work hard, because I believe in that idea. So, so, so maybe we can interview some Harvard kids.
• 22:59
  John Weaver: So, so, yeah. Anyway, batteries are great, dude, loving it.
• 23:05
  Tim Montague: Do you really want to talk about rising electricity prices?
• 23:09
  John Weaver: Well, I think we should bring it up at least, just for a moment to make sure that our customers, you know, our commercial developers, our people that are we need to be refocused on. You know, you're talking about the ITC going away. Well, guess what?
• 23:21
  John Weaver: Electricity price is going up 7% this year, 7% next year, and then slowing down a little bit the year after, is about equal the 10% of an ITC Tim, you know, kidding.
• 23:35
  Tim Montague: I love, I love talking about this because I've coined a new expression, rising electricity prices. Sorry, rising electricity prices is the only guarantee, and they're significant. What did this story say?
• 23:49
  John Weaver: 40% demand? Bro, yeah, 40% dude, wow.
• 23:55
  Tim Montague: So there's one guarantee and, well, there's two guarantees are going to go up, and the cost of solar batteries is coming down. And together, that's anti gravity for our industry, bro.
• 24:09
  John Weaver: We have that now.
• 24:09
  John Weaver: We do have some cost upward pressures within our industry, labor costs, materials like silver and copper, but more broadly, energy is outpacing that stuff. So so yeah, so I just you know, as commercial developers, I want to make sure that we, as retail, as sales people, keep in our head clearly, price of electricity is complex. It's not even across the nation, though. So what's there are reports out there that break down the electricity price increases on a state by state, regional level. So if you're a local sales guy, you need to, like, know your region well, because, I mean, look at this Illinois. Tim, geez. Look at Ohio. Look at Virginia,
• 24:48
  Tim Montague: 16% year over year in Illinois, 12% in Ohio, 13% in Virginia, only 4% in Texas, kudos to Texas, and 1.2% in California. Kudos to California.
• 24:58
  Tim Montague: I do there may be a signal there. You know, Texas and California have the most solar and battery, so maybe that's working. I don't know
• 25:11
  John Weaver: that signal, dude, that's a signal. I mean, Illinois electricity shouldn't be going up. You guys have like, 50% nuclear, and that stuff's fixed, isn't it?
• 26:11
  Tim Montague: 40% nuclear? Yeah, yeah. Well, we are getting data centers. So there is load growth in Illinois, and that's, that's probably the root cause. But and electrification, I mean, the the charging infrastructure is growing, even though there's a dip in in EV sales in the United States, right? Or it's flat.
• 26:36
  Tim Montague: It's not really growing that quickly anymore. It'll come back the first principles of elect.
• 26:40
  Tim Montague: Electrification of transportation and electrification of HVAC, just rule the day, right? Those are better, more efficient technologies, fewer moving parts, they're going to win.
• 26:56
  John Weaver: Got the long game.
• 26:56
  John Weaver: Tim, so anyway, as as professionals pay attention to this electricity price. You know, in my financial models, I'm really conservative with the price,
• 27:07
  Tim Montague: with the what is the escalator you use in your model?
• 27:11
  John Weaver: I use two and a half or three. And I'm in New England, I use two and a half or three. I don't want to go above three, because long term is 2.8 2.5 in the US, you know, it's, it's slower than inflation.
• 27:22
  John Weaver: Historically, we're just in a funny period. We should probably be doing it for. But who knows.
• 27:29
  John Weaver: I mean, in Rhode Island, the price of electricity went down this winter versus prior winter.
• 27:32
  John Weaver: So it's, yeah, because Rhode Island had very expensive gas due to other things going on around the world. So it's, I got, we got to be every every person is local. Tim, we live in a state level industry. Illinois is very different from California. You just saw without electricity rate. So we, we got to be local professionals.
• 27:55
  Tim Montague: Well, I see a 4% escalator is quite common. I get, I have the privilege of working with a variety of EPCs, and so I get to see what other installers are doing, and I see a lot of 4% and I and I stand by that. I have no issue with that, but I also think 3% is very reasonable and fair. I mean, that's one of, one of the things about running a solar cash flow.
• 28:22
  Tim Montague: John, is there some subtle ways that you can tweak the numbers to make things look better than they may actually be in reality?
• 28:30
  Tim Montague: Yeah. But do you want to talk about aliens?
• 28:34
  John Weaver: Yes, absolutely.
• 28:34
  John Weaver: Come on. This is a fully energy story, sort of kind of
• 28:41
  Tim Montague: looking for advanced aliens, search for exoplanets with large coal deposits.
• 28:46
  John Weaver: Yeah, come on. I just, I just thought this was a fun one. So just the story.
• 28:49
  John Weaver: Well, just 10 seconds, just to entertain ourselves, some researchers, they this is just a hypothesis. They're coming up with ideas. They say, you know, if we want to find societies in space that are like ours, that we're able to do advanced things. One thing we should consider is coal, and the reason is that coal led to our ability to create hardened metals. And these hardened metals were the pathway to us doing, you know, modern civilization, stuff, steel, baby hard steel, and, yeah, communication towers and rocket ships and satellites and awesome stuff. Yeah, so coal was the first step. Coal was that stepping plant, at least these people, at least
• 29:40
  Tim Montague: with us, well. And to have and to have coal, you have to have lots of life, oceans and and. So, yeah, you have to have lots of life in order to have an advanced civilization. So, yeah, this is, this is interesting. The other, the other, the other. Curious space story that I heard the other day is that there are some geeks at NASA that are modeling a future where the moon is gone because we've mined the moon and converted it into satellites and space based data centers. It's a thing. Yeah, the lunar Moon, the whole moon, so there's no more lunar eclipses. Now, when you google this, right? You do solar eclipses. The conversation, the conversation about space based, everything you know AI data centers is definitely getting news right there. Yeah, Elon is talking about it. Google's Google wrote a report on this.
• 30:49
  Tim Montague: And you get a lot more radiation in space than you do here on Earth. So I do think, I do think that we will, we will build space based data centers. It's just question of how soon. Now, finding aliens on a distant planet. I don't expect to see that in my lifetime, but I'm okay with the concept. It's very likely that they're out there, right? They're just they, most of them don't get off planet.
• 31:26
  Tim Montague: And you see that with humanity, we're busy shooting ourselves in the foot. John,
• 31:33
  John Weaver: it's very hard to mess up, and it takes a lot of work to mess up, so we're, you know, we got to be focused on that. Tim, you mean to not mess up. No to mess up. We're shooting ourselves in the foot.
• 31:42
  John Weaver: Takes a lot of focus to be able to shoot yourselves in the foot as much as we are,
• 31:49
  Tim Montague: we're doing a damn good job.
• 31:51
  John Weaver: All right, all right. So that's it. So if you're, if you're a space alien searcher, start looking for coal. That's that's the pitch.
• 31:57
  John Weaver: That's the sales pitch.
• 32:00
  Tim Montague: All right. Now there's a story about hitham says world's first open door, first test of its 6.25 megawatt hour best was completed. Tell me about John. I've seen the name, but I'm not familiar. Where are they out of
• 32:15
  John Weaver: so they are Chinese battery manufacturer. They're one of the leading edge manufacturers, one of the biggest they they're, I see them just deploying all around the world. So, you know, lithium hit them. That's their, their pitch
• 32:30
  Tim Montague: play on lithium, right? Yep.
• 32:33
  John Weaver: And what was interesting about this test, and i That's why I grabbed it said, and I think it's important for sales guys, commercial sales people to understand this, that this battery was able to open the doors, so that means very highly oxygenated fire and then shut off all safety features.
• 32:57
  John Weaver: And with that occurring, even right next to another battery, the unit was the other batteries weren't damaged, right? So this is just an extreme test of let's do, let's do a bunch of stuff that hopefully shouldn't happen, like this. The safety systems shouldn't shut down, the doors shouldn't be open. These are two things which we shouldn't be doing, but we're doing it just to see what happens, which I love, you know, just setting stuff on fire, that's so cool.
• 33:27
  John Weaver: But that's what this test is, and it's
• 33:32
  Tim Montague: actually the test.
• 33:32
  Tim Montague: This is the test to see that the fire or the thermal event won't spread from container to container, right,
• 33:41
  John Weaver: even under the worst circumstances. Yes, that's fundamentally what we're looking at. Good, good summary.
• 33:46
  Tim Montague: Tim, yes, yeah.
• 33:46
  Tim Montague: Um, you all 9540 a
• 33:52
  John Weaver: and NFPA national fire. So what's cool about this one also is that, look at that cell. You know, this is the first time. This is a really neat cell. We're about to learn more about it. But if you scroll up to the top the solar cell that's in that one, it's 1175, notice 11, 1175, amp hours.
• 34:11
  John Weaver: That's the biggest battery cell that's out there. And they say that this battery cell is aiming for long duration energy storage. This is like a battery cell that's like this big. It's like, you know, it's like a single like your car battery, except one cell. And so I'm really interested about this cell that, you know, it's not the focus of the story. The focus of the story is the fire.
• 34:30
  John Weaver: But that 1170 Yeah, the 1175 amp hour cell, that's just a real interesting cell. It's being deployed in Saudi Arabia right now as part of a long duration battery. And I think we're talking like an eight to 12 hour lithium battery. And so it's just interesting that cell. So that's, you know, different topic, not related to this, but you know, it's what we set on fire, which is cool.
• 35:00
  Tim Montague: So if this is this large format, 1175, amp hour.
• 35:05
  Tim Montague: What is the what is the standard cell amp hour for? Yeah, most CNI batteries today, or utility batteries?
• 35:14
  John Weaver: Well, yeah. So those are actually different. So we actually had a story.
• 35:17
  Tim Montague: Is it like in the three hundreds or Yeah? Yeah.
• 35:19
  John Weaver: So right now, the standard for utility scale is around three. But this is the year of the big sell. We said that. We covered that story a few weeks back, maybe a month back, and the big sell is showing a lot of manufacturers moving from a 300 ish to like a 567, 100, with this one being like the biggest sell that's out there. So right now, if you were to purchase a thing at this immediate moment that was available, it might still be a 300 but it's transitioning to 600 for the big projects and and extreme ones like this one. This one's pushing the edges at 1175 now a residential battery is probably in the 100 amp hour. We actually covered a story a couple months ago where the transition to larger cells for utility and commercial was actually leaving a dearth of supply in the smaller battery cells, and it was leading to price increases for small batteries, which was just interesting to see dynamics of an evolving market.
• 36:27
  Tim Montague: So I want to do one more story, John. Take your pick.
• 36:30
  John Weaver: One more Wow, man.
• 36:30
  John Weaver: We're going so fast. All right, so we got a high voltage inverter. We got long duration batteries. Tariffs. We have another tariff story. Hey, let's. Talk about, let's talk about this new company that's going to put out transformers.
• 36:46
  John Weaver: There's a new group who's looking to sell a whole bunch of transformers. Oh, you know
• 36:57
  Tim Montague: that story? Yeah.
• 36:58
  John Weaver: But I got the, yeah, we can do that one. You know what? My transformer story is not on here, so that's okay.
• 37:04
  John Weaver: We're we're just gonna skip it.
• 37:04
  John Weaver: Put pressure on me. Let's do the story one up, because this one's really important and applies to us the next solar import tariff.
• 37:14
  John Weaver: Okay, even though we started off the story line talking about no more tariffs, I'm predicting that one that's about to come.
• 37:23
  John Weaver: And everybody should be conscious of this, because this will affect your procurement, so if you're buying some modules,
• 37:29
  Tim Montague: so let's just say it's this is a solar power, solar power world story by Kelly pickerel as solar, AC, CVD, adcbd. Investigation continues for India, Indonesia and Laos petitioners now cite critical circumstances. What is What does she mean by critical circumstances?
• 37:52
  John Weaver: Well, I'm going to share this, and you're going to see the critical circumstance, and it's going to be this right here, damn this is what they mean by critical circumstances.
• 38:02
  John Weaver: So this chart represents, you know, this is everything that was happening before a tariff hit right around here. So what I'm showing on the chart, on the screen, everybody, it's monthly imports of solar panels for silicon. Silicon panels, mostly from Southeast Asia, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
• 38:22
  John Weaver: And you can see from like January of 2024 through about October, you know, maybe even just end of the year, you can see that the volume just crashed. And then after the rulings of the terrorists last summer, you can see the volumes and all these other countries stayed down, except for one country, and that country is Indonesia. And if you go back to, let's say January of 2024, it looks like six megawatts of solar panels came from Indonesia. But last month, no, in December, no November, 2.5 mega gigawatts. That is the special circumstances that they're saying is like, listen, we tried to get rid of the tariffs. Now the whack a mole is happening again, and all the modules are moving to Indonesia, and now Indonesia is doing an end around on our tariffs. We need to file a lawsuit, and we need to fix it. And here's another one. We got modules coming from we got cells coming from Indonesia, and we got cells coming from this great country, South Korea. So these are the situations that these guys are going to sue about. They're going to be like, hey, you know, you need to protect us from everybody. South Korea's doing too many solar cells. This is going into Georgia and their facilities there and then Indonesia. So in essence, Indonesia sent in 1.5 gigawatts of solar cells after being at zero, like borderline zero, and 2.5 gigs of modules. So expect that those modules that you utility scale people are buying from Indonesia, and those cells that you module manufacturers are buying expect to get whacked. It's just going to come it's, it's what's next. So, so that's the critical circumstances that the solar module people are suing over.
• 40:22
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I'm glad I don't work in the solar module space. It's hard business. It's, it's, it's hard enough helping my clients navigate this territory. And, you know, shout out to Chris. Let me I did an interview with him yesterday on the show floor at Imperial Star.
• 40:40
  Tim Montague: Yeah, Chris has been on the show. He's a friend of the pod, but you know he What? What we see is you, if you're a module maker, now, you have to have a menu of options, right? You have domestic content, Fiat free, non domestic content, Fiat free, and then non domestic, non FIAC, free, three flavors, and that's just life as a solar module maker. Gotta do it.
• 41:15
  John Weaver: That's it. You're right. That's
• 41:18
  Tim Montague: it. We'll be back in two weeks. John, any closing thoughts? Oh, I want our listeners to know that I will be in Milwaukee March 17, at the NABCEP conference. I'm hosting a reception. I would love it if you would fly out to Milwaukee, John and join me on March 17.
• 41:33
  Tim Montague: I'll buy you a plane ticket, brother. I mean that in all sincerity, I will fly you to Milwaukee to join me. Me at the NABCEP reception that I'm hosting from six to 9pm in Milwaukee. Check it out at Clean Power Hour com, at the Events tab, okay, you can register for free. We have space for, I think, 70 people, and we're going to drink some Milwaukee beer and network our butts off with solar professionals. That's my only regret. John, from the last five years of being a consultant to the industry is not going to enough events, so I'm stepping on the gas. I'm also going to re plus southeast in Atlanta at the end of March.
• 42:17
  Tim Montague: So if you're in the southeast, come see me in Atlanta.
• 42:22
  John Weaver: Big, ATL baby,
• 42:25
  Tim Montague: very easy to get to right one of the biggest airports in the world. So John, how can our listeners find you?
• 42:35
  John Weaver: Commercialsolarguy.com, is our website. I'm on LinkedIn.
• 42:40
  John Weaver: John Fitzgerald Weaver, and apparently, and this is kind of cool, if you ask chat GPT, or something about who's the coolest, smartest, best looking solar expert, apparently I pop up on that list. It's kind of neat. I've had a couple of inbound leads people asking chat GPT, so apparently the AI you can find us as well. So so that's another
• 43:00
  Tim Montague: place. How on earth did you pull that off?
• 43:02
  Tim Montague: John,
• 43:03
  John Weaver: I you know what?
• 43:03
  John Weaver: I'm on the tubes. 24/7 man, so the machine sees me as like a brethren. It's like, Ah, you're fleshy, but you're a nerd. So we're gonna bring you in house.
• 43:13
  John Weaver: We need you.
• 43:16
  Tim Montague: I love it. I love it, all right? John, well, thank you so much, and thank you all for being here. We had a good live audience today. So really appreciate everybody listening to the show and all of our content, of course, is at Clean Power Hour. With that, I'll say, let's grow solar and storage.
• 43:30
  Tim Montague: I'm Tim Montague, thanks so much, John. You.