Latest / Clean Power Hour / High Density PEG Solar Racking for Ground Mount Solar with Matthew Lusk | EP141

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High Density PEG Solar Racking for Ground Mount Solar with Matthew Lusk | EP141 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  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 275 kW, their flagship inverter, the CPS 250 to 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, there's basically
• 1:27
  Matthew Lusk: no uplift on the second the solution are very minimal. We've done extensive windtunnel tests with IFA in Germany, and basically with a 550 watt module can handle about 106 miles per hour with a Category C for ASCII code seven s 10. With a 450 watt, we can handle about 174 categories of wind exposure. And yeah, so it's very well suited for those high wind environments.
• 1:53
  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 want to go deeper into decarbonisation? We do too.
• 2:08
  intro: We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together and we can speed the energy transition.
• 2:21
  Tim Montague: Today on the Clean Power Hour, high density ground mount solar. My guest today is Matthew Lusk. He is the Vice President of Business Development for a company called Yorkin technologies, the makers of the peg racking system.
• 2:34
  Tim Montague: Welcome to the Clean Power Hour.
• 2:36
  Matthew Lusk: Thanks for having me.
• 2:38
  Tim Montague: I've been waiting for this conversation for a few years, Matthew, I'm not sure what took us so long. But I'm glad you're here. And here we are in 2023. Everyone is freaking out about the IRA legislation because it's it's a gold rush. And it's an it's good for the solar industry. It's good for the energy transition.
• 2:55
  Tim Montague: It's not without its foibles, check out 45 Q. There are some poison pills in the IRA legislation to my listeners, check out all of our content if you would, at clean power hour.com Give us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify.
• 3:09
  Tim Montague: That is the best way you can help others find this content.
• 3:12
  Tim Montague: And please subscribe to our YouTube channel. So Matthew, before we get into your can technologies, and the peg racking system, which I'm totally stoked to do a drill down on with you but give our listeners some background on yourself. How did you get interested in the solar industry? And then how did you come to Yorkin?
• 3:33
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, so I've always been interested in solar in some aspect. back about eight years ago, I worked for strategy, and over in Berkeley, and they had a contract with the Department of Energy, for listing all their energy storage projects globally to show what energy storage can bring to the world. I came along kind of as an intern to help them expand that database from 50 projects to about 100 projects by reaching out to the actual companies and having them bulk upload all their projects. And then from that outreach, I became very involved in LinkedIn and got headhunted by a recruiter that basically hired me for electric. And I've been part of the blood group for about seven years. And then the sister company was European technology. And about two years ago, I when they got bought out and went to European technology, because they have the peg and I kind of believed in that product and want to be very involved in that and help expand that globally.
• 4:25
  Tim Montague: Very cool. So you've been in the industry for a while. And you've seen a lot of different products. And what do you like about the peg? What What attracted you to it? Well, it's really
• 4:38
  Matthew Lusk: simple. It's basically rebar with models on top. So very high density. I mean, I've done it installed some sites here in the US just putting rebar in the ground, crimping a top plate and a base plate and then putting some modules on top. So really unskilled workers really easy to instal about 80 up to 80% kind of less materials. So I think that simplicity makes it available globally on a very easy basis, compared to these big old pile drivers and complicated installation processes. And just putting modules out in the field is going to be where the where the industry is going to end up going. Long term. Switching back to the basics.
• 5:14
  Tim Montague: Yeah, so we will show some photos later in the episode for those watching on YouTube. But you know, this is an East West array, and the the the GCR. The ground coverage ratio is very high. And so you're you're basically blanketing the field, the piece of ground with solar panels in an East West orientation. So the rows are running north south and then you've got east west rows, there's no moving parts and it's low to the ground. And you know, so it is it is very unique.
• 5:50
  Tim Montague: Right, we're, you know, here in North America, we're used to either fixed tilt or single axis tracker for ground mounted solar. Now, this is a third option, or a fourth option you have Earth owes also, which is kind of come out of the gates this year or last year, with their totally flat to the ground solution, which is interesting.
• 6:10
  Tim Montague: I'm concerned. You know, both of these systems are great, because they get very high GCR. So if you're, if you're trying to create density, and you're limited to the amount of real estate you have, it's a great solution. And then there's the high wind aspect, which we will also talk about. So there's high GCR, high density, very low wind resistance overall, because it's a solid surface, basically, right?
• 6:44
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, we're having about crew size of about nine to 11 Guys installing one megawatt per week. So they're able to instal it quite quickly. It's very low cost, probably half the cost of any other external solution. For logistics, also, for the boundaries of the site, you can align the modules with not just North South oriented, but we have east, west, north, south and in between, because of the low tilt or the modules, we can also face it in any direction. So that makes it even more better for land use. Being able to take advantage fully of the site,
• 7:16
  Tim Montague: essentially, I don't know what you mean by the orientation and land use. So
• 7:20
  Matthew Lusk: north south doesn't have to be north, south, east, west, orientated north, south oriented or in between, we generally go along with the boundaries of the site, so that it can basically take up as much as safe as possible, because we're at eight degree tilt. So the yield variance is not going to be anything very basically.
• 7:38
  Tim Montague: Why would you do north south? I mean,
• 7:40
  Matthew Lusk: I mean, if you're somewhere like in Ecuador, or closer to equator, like we have some system out there, where they want to do north south orientation is that this site was better for that. So
• 7:50
  Tim Montague: Gotcha. You have to be careful. You said something that immediately was a red flag for me. I have to be honest, you said it's probably half the cost of other systems.
• 8:01
  Tim Montague: And you have to be clear about what you're talking about is the cost of the equipment. Is it the total installed cost? When you say it's cheaper? What is what is cheaper about the peg? Yeah, so
• 8:13
  Matthew Lusk: the material costs I would say, is generally around half the belts with foundations in the racking itself. Okay, installation costs we can provide man and our effort for installation. And the tools are generally a lot cheaper as well.
• 8:25
  Matthew Lusk: But we'd have to kind of look at a CapEx on that project is that the base is the band the country?
• 8:29
  Tim Montague: Yeah. And, you know, I was a fan of nuance.
• 8:35
  Tim Montague: Back in the day, the Osprey, we did an Osprey installation at Continental, and it was a double edge, you didn't need heavy equipment. But you're, you're still driving something into the ground, and that worker who's running that machine, it's extremely laborious for the worker. So that also is a double edge. less heavy equipment might be good, but actually, the workers, they like using machines and not putting a lot of fatigue on their body. And and so if in the nuanced case, you're driving a cable with a toggle on the end into the ground in the, in your case, you're driving a piece of rebar into the ground. How exactly do you do that, and how deep is the rebar going.
• 9:24
  Matthew Lusk: So the piece of rebar will just be with the hammer drill. Basically, it takes about 1520 seconds, going about two and a half feet in the ground. It'll depend on the pull up tests eventually, depending on the soil condition. So if it's softer soil or sand, it would basically be a helical screw justified with a screw.
• 9:42
  Matthew Lusk: It's with a two man auger. So basically, instead of digging a hole with it, you're twisting a rod in the ground with it.
• 9:51
  Tim Montague: Yeah. So two feet down, and then the rebar sticks up about three feet, or how tall is it?
• 9:56
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, approximately three feet. It's about waist level high. So the highest point I'm usually thinking in metres, but it's about one metre at the tallest point.
• 10:06
  Tim Montague: Yeah. So it's very low, very low to the ground.
• 10:10
  Tim Montague: And, sorry,
• 10:12
  Matthew Lusk: ergonomic height for kind of installing and putting the modules on there so that you're not kind of lifting them up high or anything like that. It's it's more waist level.
• 10:20
  Tim Montague: Is the is the process of wiring the modules relatively easy to the workers like it or?
• 10:28
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, because everything's above ground so I can show you a quick photo here.
• 10:29
  Matthew Lusk: This is kind of underneath the array. Are you just connecting as you go? Cable management server on the outside, it's easily accessible. You can have kind of Trey's going straight to the inverters.
• 10:42
  Tim Montague: We don't see anything
• 10:47
  Matthew Lusk: so yeah, this is going to be installation on the modules. So this is kind of the guy hammering in rods, installing crimping, crimping, installing the modules waist level high, you can see underneath it's kind of connected as you go, or you go back and connect those up from the outside of the blocks all the way through the inverse.
• 11:10
  Tim Montague: This is in Australia, those photos.
• 11:13
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, those were in Australia. Yeah.
• 11:16
  Tim Montague: So what is the Yeah, let's talk about your footprint. So far. You're a German company originally. Yep.
• 11:25
  Tim Montague: And you're the you're the you're the head of business development for North America. But you're getting you're getting traction in a few different places around the world. Tell us what's, what's the status of your footprint?
• 11:37
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, so we have 200 megawatts in Australia. And that's where we first started out. Guys, so I think back in 2015, there are some farmers that said, we can't grow any more from the ball, the droughts, but we didn't have solar. So they switch from solar, from farming to solar sold nine megawatts from the get go without our help at all. And then it kind of went from there.
• 11:56
  Matthew Lusk: So that's when our most developed markets, basically getting regional Australia and Outback and stuff and integrating energy storage with the solar for clients out there.
• 12:06
  Matthew Lusk: We have about 100 megawatts I would say, probably in the Netherlands, because it's very flat, they're very land constrained. So they really like the solution on those aspects did a couple of landfills over there as well. And then we're on every inhabited continent, with at least some form of a project.
• 12:25
  Matthew Lusk: I think we're in about 30 Different countries too, with the peg. So it's pretty easy to start a new pet project because it's so easy to mobilise and simple solution.
• 12:40
  Tim Montague: So the product has been around for a decade. But when was your first North American installation?
• 12:47
  Matthew Lusk: Just last year, so we have one Florida now?
• 12:51
  Matthew Lusk: Florida? Yeah, it's been a while to try and get some stuff in the ground, convince people that have the solution and get the bank bill reports from d&b and UL and all that stuff. Yeah, we do have an 8.4 megawatt in Cuba.
• 13:02
  Matthew Lusk: This being finalised now to them for North America.
• 13:08
  Tim Montague: Meaning the installation is underway.
• 13:11
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, has about one more megawatt left out of the 8.4.
• 13:16
  Tim Montague: Yeah, let's talk about the Caribbean. We were talking in the pre show that your system is is very wind resistant. And of course, one we are very cognizant of, of hurricanes here in the US, especially if you live on the Gulf Coast. Talk about high wind resistance. Yeah, so
• 13:36
  Matthew Lusk: there's basically no uplift on the on the solution are very minimal. We've done extensive windtunnel tests with IFA in Germany. And basically with a 550 watt module, we can handle about 160 miles per hour with a Category C or ASCII code seven s 10. With the 450 Watt, we can handle about 174 categories seeing wind exposure.
• 13:56
  Matthew Lusk: And yet, so it's very well suited for those high wind environments. Because it's low to the ground minimal uplift, it also has a point of connection on each four corners of the module on the ground very well, then we'll use like a helical screw to keep it in the ground from being pulled out. Depending on the size depends on the soil conditions. And then we can also do like a pre drilled into limestone solution as well, with just a regular rebar getting shim shoved in there. Concrete might we need it depends on the full test, but most of the time, it's not needed for limestone type solution.
• 14:34
  Tim Montague: I didn't catch that last thing you were saying lightning,
• 14:37
  Matthew Lusk: basically pre drilled like a 16 or 15 millimetre hole limestone in the rebar that hole, and we can have a solution for limestone as well in the Caribbean makes it pretty attractive.
• 14:49
  Tim Montague: Okay. Where does that where does that kind of train occur? Limestone,
• 14:55
  Matthew Lusk: Barbados, Turks and Caicos a lot, has just made a little bit of a vegetation on top and then it goes straight to limestone or harder rock. We only need about point five metres of soil with their helical screws. We can also go into like sand, for example, on the site,
• 15:16
  Tim Montague: so it can withstand 170 miles an hour. Is that what you said?
• 15:19
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, that's just their standard solution. We wanted to make it a hybrid high load solution with the go above 185. So depends on the site. We also have a site getting installed right now. In Philippines it will be a high load solution that will be for above 175 or something like that. Later this year,
• 15:40
  Tim Montague: yep. Yeah, so you know, where where real estate is is precious. You mentioned the Netherlands. The islands of course the Korea be in there.
• 15:50
  Tim Montague: They're landlocked, they're there, they're constrained. They they don't have a lot of real estate resources, or there's a lot of terrain. So make sense.
• 16:03
  Tim Montague: And then of course, storms and being storm resistant. And resilient to hurricanes is vital in the Caribbean. It's an absolute must. Right? And, you know, codes or codes are making that a requirement. So as should be, but where else in the US besides the southeast now, are you while the US or Canada, are you getting traction?
• 16:31
  Matthew Lusk: So we're getting some traction, I think, in California, we might be getting a Balson solution. So I had asbestos, that for Brownfield, basically being able to maximise on these brownfield sites to have maximum production. I know that in Maryland and New York, they allow multiple, I think approximate, but maybe not AC sites on one piece of land. So being able to maximise those is, is often quite useful, increasing the capacity. We're looking at a few sites probably in Texas later this year as well.
• 17:04
  Tim Montague: So how, how big is a five megawatt peg array using just say a 550 watt module?
• 17:13
  Matthew Lusk: So generally with a five pretty well, we're about point seven 5.8 megawatts per acre, I would have to do the calculations really quick for you back into them from that figure, but
• 17:22
  Tim Montague: do that do that math for us if you would, 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.
• 17:31
  Tim Montague: The CPS America product lineup includes three phase string inverters ranging from 25 to 275 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.
• 18:01
  Matthew Lusk: So about 6.25 acres for five megawatts. And then you had at a one point AC DC ratio for DC size you might do at 1.8 acres. 8.17 acres.
• 18:14
  Tim Montague: Yeah. So it's at least twice as dense. As a fixed tilter tracker, you know, a rule of thumb I use in designing for tracker, or fixed tilt really is five, five acres per megawatt.
• 18:31
  Tim Montague: So this is quite a bit denser than that. And you talked a little bit about the installation that looks very straightforward. Maintenance, both of the array and the vegetation, or, you know, weeds, you know, you're you're not going to get much growing underneath it because it is so dense, but you will get there are there are cracks and weeds will find their way. It's amazing to see. Especially fixed tilt arrays that don't get, you know, mowed often enough or weed whacked. Or the right plantings, that's, that's really what you want to think about is the right seed mix and the right establishment protocol. But talk about those things.
• 19:21
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah, so let me show some pictures of this.
• 19:27
  Matthew Lusk: Basically, we have access the What steps is apart from Marcos or five D would be that you can access underneath the array. You can change a module with the 12 Mod walkie battery here and kind of just undo the clip and pick out the module underneath. You can also access any with cart after you do a drone inspection for the most part but find any troublesome areas. For the module cleaning, it's just the brush that two guys can pull a little more. And then for enemies premeditation, we have robotic position, fabric mean barrier, or you could say like Clover grass, low growing depending on what
• 20:16
  Tim Montague: Yeah, leave that slide up if you would. The robotic mowing is that a third party product or something that the Gerken makes?
• 20:25
  Matthew Lusk: So this one is from Rena. And we're working on having a fully automated by by the end of q2 this year. And yeah, that's third party.
• 20:35
  Tim Montague: Okay. The fabric of course is a possibility.
• 20:40
  Matthew Lusk: Probably not in the Northeast for certain. If you have a slope to the site, you're gonna want to avoid it for stormwater. Probably keep vegetation underneath with robotic mower. Mm hmm. And then it does grow vegetation underneath. We have sites in Ireland that does grow the vegetation, but it is a bit slower. So for stormwater management, people ask, and you won't be able to keep anything vegetated underneath. But it does keep vegetation. So that's something to note as well.
• 21:08
  Tim Montague: So have you have you developed a seed mix that's, that works well, in different areas for the, for the pig.
• 21:16
  Matthew Lusk: Most people in Germany and Netherlands, you just plant on top of they just installed right on top of an existing field. So they don't, they haven't done that in the past, you can also adjust the amount of height that the solution is off from the ground.
• 21:29
  Matthew Lusk: Normally, it's about 0.8 metres, but we can increase that by to about 1.2 gives you a little bit more distance for growth. I know Israel, they let the vegetation kind of grow and then die in the summer, without kind of do much vegetation control for some areas. So kind of just depends on the site and what you expect from vegetation. But generally, we would recommend a white clover or something low growing.
• 21:56
  Tim Montague: Gotcha. And I see some, some sheep there. Where is that photo from?
• 22:02
  Matthew Lusk: It's in the Netherlands. Basically, those are miniature French, who said, I believe, where they basically cordoned off, preventing them from being able to get on top of the array, and then they kind of shift them from block to block and give
• 22:17
  Tim Montague: using them for vegetation management.
• 22:20
  Matthew Lusk: Yes, they kept them out a little bit. So they don't eat the wires as well.
• 22:27
  Tim Montague: The sheep to be too hungry. No. That's funny.
• 22:33
  Tim Montague: All right. What about what about snow load? That's that was, you know, when when I first started looking at this and doing some designs with a peg it you know, it does pencil it the density is wonderful. But I in you know, in the Great Lakes, I worry about snow load and ice damming, what, what are your experiences so far with that.
• 22:57
  Matthew Lusk: So we're looking at some stuff in Alberta, Canada right now, for snow loading. I mean, if it's going to be a huge downpour like four or five inches, there's going to be some buildup on there, and it's gonna probably disappear. And you're gonna have to model it similar to you would an East West eight degrees on a rooftop. So the candidates are looking at sites, they're like a part of an embankment. It's part of the farmers irrigation system that they only need kind of really during the summer. Or something that's the use case in that aspect. But for in general perch to other sites that are kind of like Maryland or closer to the water, we would imagine it takes a couple of days to melt off somewhere to Germany. For damming, we recommend kind of the module clips that allow drainage to prevent ice damming within the module itself. For Snow loans, we have a year ago by 51, approved to about 50 PSF.
• 24:48
  Matthew Lusk: But generally, I would keep it around 3530 to make it so that we have wider selection of modules available, and then the snow damming as much for those type of sites. That's kind of where I would imagine we'd start to stop pedalling as well as above the 35 PSF. Mark.
• 25:06
  Tim Montague: Okay, so what else should developers and EPCs and installers know about the system? What are the lead times?
• 25:20
  Tim Montague: And I guess, if if you have references, you mentioned the UL certification. I'm curious about that as well. But But yeah, from from an EPC developer perspective, what what should our listeners know?
• 25:40
  Matthew Lusk: Well, I think that the future the peg is going to be replacing trackers once we reach a certain price for walkie for modules, I think that price is going to be around 2625 cents per watt. Right now I know we're at 42. So right now we're going to have to have a language training site. It's like a balanced solution for a landfill or brownfield site, or a site that's connected with energy storage where the client wants the cheap dc side in order to feed into the energy storage.
• 26:09
  Matthew Lusk: And then longer term, I think hydrogen production, the peg would be very well suited for something like that. We're working on automating our rod installation. We have the automated robotic mower, the unskilled labour, you're seeing all these labour shortages because of the IRR. If we're able to utilise labour is not as utilised because we can use unskilled I think that will give us an advantage. A high density of effect for hygiene production makes us an advantage and then lower use of materials. Overall, the lead time is about 12 14 weeks from Pio. And then it's delivered at around four to eight megawatts per week, depending on kind of what we need to ramp up to for the site.
• 26:54
  Tim Montague: I didn't quite go ahead and turn off the screenshare, if you would, I didn't quite understand the point you made about module pricing.
• 27:04
  Matthew Lusk: Yeah. So when you have an expensive module, you want to get the maximise the use out of it, you want to get high yield, you want to track this time, and you want to get maximum use, because it's an expensive piece of equipment, as the price of modules comes down, it becomes a less expensive piece of equipment that maybe you want to just put into a field as cheaply and as quickly as possible. So that you can utilise it better that way where we make the capex and save on the capex side. Rather than having to get really expensive equipment that track something that's not as valuable anymore.
• 27:35
  Matthew Lusk: So places like Africa or the Caribbean, where these module prices are already half the price of the US, then it makes a lot more sense in those areas, because you're gonna want a fixed tilt, usually, for those systems in high density, and the lower cost of the peg kind of combines better when the modules are cheaper, similar to Earth versus system.
• 27:56
  Tim Montague: Interesting. I never thought about that. You know, I love trackers, the the insulation, that you get the kWh per kW up with a tracker here in the Great Lakes is 1600. And you can't achieve that with rooftop, you know, until you're in Arizona. So it is it is a nice bump to the production. But you've also got a mechanical device then that can break.
• 28:28
  Tim Montague: Yeah. And it's you know, it's an experiment that we're doing basically, just as the industry is growing now, in leaps and bounds installing large numbers, large quantities of trackers in the field in harsh environments.
• 28:40
  Tim Montague: California is one thing, but the Great Lakes is another thing.
• 28:45
  Tim Montague: It's very hot and humid in the summer. And it's very, very cold and snowy and windy in the winter. And so it's just a it's apples and oranges really.
• 29:00
  Matthew Lusk: But yeah, the optics savings, you can have a fixed tilt, we can do larger rebar that can have up to 4550 year design like to be could just sit down and build identity based in an ocean of solar panels. That would be a very long design life, too. So
• 29:18
  Tim Montague: yeah. Yeah. So there, there are some efficiencies here with the peg that I do really like. Because one of the one of the complaints is that, well, we're, we're converting too much ag land to solar. And if if you just Google that problem, there are some really solid analyses of this.
• 29:41
  Tim Montague: Now, how much real estate we need to completely green the grid with wind, solar and expanding the transmission infrastructure,
• 29:52
  Matthew Lusk: right? Eventually, it will take even more. Yeah,
• 29:55
  Tim Montague: but but these numbers are not are not big. We need one to 2% of the landscape to completely green the grid and electrify everything. So we're swimming in real estate. But in certain places, we're not swimming in real estate, like New Jersey, you can't develop solar on ag land unless it's dual use solar. New Jersey is a very small state. It's the size of Israel. And it's very dense.
• 30:22
  Tim Montague: And of course, they want to protect their farm ground. In Illinois, we're swimming in farm ground, huge quantities of it being used for ethanol, corn ethanol, which is 100 times less efficient on an energetic basis, then PvE. So we have plenty of land resources. And so that's really not a concern. But there are plenty places where real estate is very, very valuable.
• 30:47
  Tim Montague: And so we need loosens,
• 30:54
  Matthew Lusk: the IRA made it very valuable for low income brownfield sites, especially, those are going to be pretty good for us in terms of the land use.
• 31:06
  Tim Montague: Yeah, brownfield solar, I love it. It's a great repurposing of brownfields. And there's not much else you can do with a brownfield except turned it into a bright field with solar array on top. It doesn't it doesn't remove the the risks of there being a landfill there, right. There's still a landfill there. But now at least you're producing clean energy with that ground that otherwise it's just sitting there doing whatever it's doing, and landfills are our hazards and that's why communities don't want them anymore, and we're running out of landfill space. But anyway, Yep. So when you do a landfill, though, you typically can't penetrate the ground. If it's a cap landfill. So you're you're using a concrete foundation or what kind of foundation.
• 31:53
  Matthew Lusk: So there's multiple sizes, we can use the primary one, one licence. Nice, nice and neat is a concrete. But we can also use recycled construction material for ours, because we don't need that deeper foundation. So basically, one of the items that we recently came up with, it's not that pretty, but it's a lot greener. It's something like this, where you have a high density, plastic, and it's designed to be outdoors for a long duration. We could go with the recycled concrete or recycled asphalt,
• 32:26
  Tim Montague: okay. The ballast solution. Gotcha. But yeah, yeah, making ballast blocks, of course, you can make ballast out of many different things in, in more in the, in the, in the balance the ground mount projects I've seen. They're using just concrete and, you know, either pour in place, or precast. And, but it's a thing.
• 32:49
  Tim Montague: So what else should we know about the peg, I really appreciate this. Dive into your product. It's great to see you getting traction. And I look forward to visiting my my first peg project. I don't know where that's going to be. But what else should we know Matthew?
• 33:10
  Matthew Lusk: Maybe it's just perfect for and I like the Caribbean brownfield sites in the US long term is we hydrogen long, long term. Once we get to the white, what peak pricing there for modules that think you'll be replacing trackers eventually? There's a lot to happen this year. And maybe we'll be connected. And we'll have several projects hopefully by the end of the year here.
• 33:30
  Tim Montague: Sounds good.
• 33:30
  Tim Montague: Sounds good. And you mentioned automating the pile installation or the rebar installation. You call them piles. How do you refer to the foundation? Yeah, piles fine. Yeah. So how far are we away from rubber tising, a field of of peg piles.
• 33:49
  Matthew Lusk: So basically, we had a prototype for about five years ago, or three years ago, they got put on the sidelines during the electric RW E on you know, GE kind of combination.
• 34:01
  Matthew Lusk: And now we've just about a month ago, we started looking back into this because we're talking to some large players for hydrogen, potential integration and gigawatt scale globally, that pairs well and main thing that they're looking at is automating processes and that's probably one of the easiest processes to automate on our end. That's the right decision.
• 34:18
  Matthew Lusk: So I'd say hopefully by the end of this year, unless we had someone come in said we want this happened sooner gives us a project that always helps move things along quicker. But in development, we have a working prototype, it's getting the kinks worked out basically at the moment.
• 34:36
  Tim Montague: Great. Well, you can find all of our content at clean power hour.com Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. That is the best way you can support the show. If you're a potential corporate sponsor, please reach out to me directly. And with that, Matthew, how can our listeners find you
• 34:54
  Matthew Lusk: when they could find me on your dash technology.com or Matthew dot Lusk at urhgan Dash technology.com for an email.
• 35:00
  Matthew Lusk: Happy to follow up with them.
• 35:03
  Matthew Lusk: anyone that is interested in learning more
• 35:05
  Tim Montague: wonderful. We will put your links in the show notes. And with that I want to say let's grow solar and storage. I'm Tim Montague.
• 35:11
  Tim Montague: Thanks Matthew. 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 275 kW, their flagship inverter the CPS 250 to 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