Latest / Not Another Energy Podcast / No, YOU Go First: All Aboard The Battery Train!
Transcript
- Bethany: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite show, not another, Energy Podcast. Bethany. Teresa: I'm Teresa. Bethany: And together we are Bloom Advisory Partners. So, Teresa, I was reading the internet this morning. Not the whole internet, that would take longer than a morning. yeah, it's like Teresa: I love that you call it the internet. or when I was in my rocking chair Bethany: I had my pocketbook. I was gonna go to the supermarket, but first I read my internet. No, I was reading the internet. I have like this little roundup, you know, I have my little chat GBT do a little roundup for me in the morning, kick off my day. and I s something came across from a brand that I love, that I know you love too. our friends in the UK, Octopus. Teresa: Yes, yes. Bethany: UK UK or UK based US brand kraken or Kraken. and I was reading about it and I thought to myself, I can Wait to share this with Teresa. They are doing a really cool they have a they have a memorandum of understanding with a company called Ampace, and this is all around battery technologies. And of course, and we've talked about this before, it's happening in Europe first, but it did get me thinking I know how much you love batteries. We talk about batteries a lot. There's a ton of stuff going on right here in the US. We might not have octopus doing this kind of cool stuff here, but we have lots of cool stuff here. So I wanted to give you the space and the opportunity to dive into batteries. Yeah. Teresa: Okay. I do love batteries. I love anything battery powered. so Bethany: I know. Yeah. Teresa: I have not moved into a battery powered lawnmower yet. I mean that just don't feel like it's strong enough and I have, you know, I'm pretty aggressive with my lawnmower. I just run anything over. Also kill small animals with it. So, you know. But in general, I love batteries. I mean, think about everything in your house that runs on a battery now. Like e everything. I I I Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: my battery powered snowblower. And my battery powered snowblower shovel. Bethany: Well w dun don't do those get enough juice from their battery? Okay, okay. Teresa: They do. They do. I love it. It doesn't shift the snow as well. It's a little bit heavy. just to put it out there for anybody that's looking into one. I really do like it. But I wouldn't recommend it for my dad, who his Bethany: Okay. Teresa: heart is powered by a battery. So if you wanna Bethany: Okay, okay. Teresa: know where I mean, looking into this, I I asked my version of AI, which I know is like sort of like the common man version co pilot. I was like, give me a fun fact about women and batteries. So my fun fact is a woman invented the battery that powers my dad's heart. So there you go. Bethany: That's really cool. See, I love it. See women, we have your hearts and your back. Yeah, and your snowblower. Literally nothing. Teresa: have it all. What what what don't we do? Like the batteries of the world. Bethany: That's right. No, that is really cool. But to your point, literally batteries are everywhere. Inside your home, outside your home, inside your body, outside your body. I just installed a ton of ring cameras, both at my home, at a commercial property they o that I own, and of course my beloved Camp Honor. And I opted for the battery on all of them. So I'm also now late to the game but obsessed with my ring app. So I said Teresa: Ha ha Bethany: if I'm ever late on a deadline, it's probably because I was watching my ring cameras. But yeah. They are everywhere, big, small, utility scale, you know, so what's what do Teresa: Yes. Bethany: you find what what makes them so intriguing to you? Is it their the flexibility of use? Is it, you know, what what draws you to them? Teresa: So I I will say this. If you go back just four years ago, people would talk about batteries, but it wasn't really a thing. I mean, outside of the stuff that you we talked about for your house, nobody Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: was like, I'm gonna shove a battery onto my house and power everything. I mean, maybe like you t heard about like you know, the forward lightning, which is now defunct, or Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: you know, we're gonna put a Tesla battery wall and little pilot projects, but nobody was really Bethany: Yeah. Yeah. Teresa: doing stuff with it. And now Bethany: Yeah, I I think well a lot of the narrative that I remember is when renewables were first coming on strong. It's like we have all these renewables but we don't have battery storage, so we're wasting all of this, right? So, you Teresa: Yeah. Bethany: know, that's y it was great. What they didn't they were talked about but they were talked about how they weren't good enough. Teresa: Or they were really expensive, right? Or they Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: only last two hours for this billion dollar project. Why would we do that? And the world has changed completely. I mean, we have long duration batteries. We have batteries that aren't lithium ion now that are take care of a lot of the fire issues. your octopus thing, it it's sodium. I'm gonna get this wrong. Do I'm not a battery expert, people all right. Yeah, but Bethany: Well, I could always put it in the show notes if you are. I could correct you. Teresa: but the the concept of batteries and the chemistry behind them being far safer and greener is to me a game changer for putting them into your homes and the local versions of batteries, right? I mean, I who wants a battery in their neighborhood that their fire chief has told them we could can't put the fire out if it starts. But Bethany: Yeah. Yeah. That would be a no go for for me. Yeah. Teresa: Yeah, yeah. So I and and some of that and don't come after me, everybody. I know some of it is just like the nature of the internet and I we all know that fire video. But the reality is the technology has come so far and the world in my eyes is completely different. I'm gonna battery power my house so I don't have to be on the grid all the time. I'm w we have places like Minnesota that we've talked about that are doing in front of the meter grid scale batteries just to support distribution. you just read an article the other day that you sent me about EIA and more and more utility scale solar has batteries. Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: and then there's, you know, my favorite, which I have we have no affiliation with these companies, but Walmart has a deal with base power to sell home batteries. Walmart. Like we're just gonna put batteries in your home and sell them at Walmart like we do anything else. Like, how crazy Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: is that? Bethany: It's crazy, but to me, that is the sign. And I did go read about this a little bit after we chatted earlier. That is a sign that it's going mainstream. If Walmart says, Yep, we can make money off this, y at scale, at scale, then it Teresa: Yes. Bethany: it's no longer a boutique green energy nerd, Ed Bagley Jr. situation. Like now we're talking mass appeal, mass markets. But did you get it? Teresa: Is the most niche Yeah. Are we just leaning into we're old right now? I got it. Bethany: Did you get it? No so if if y'all don't know who Ed Bakley Jr. is, yeah, Google it. But just wrote I have a great story. I I listened to him on MPR and he was at this event and he said that he could fit all the trash from his home into his glove compartment and a reporter followed him home and made him prove it and he could do it. He could fit all of the trash from his home into my glove compartment. Teresa: that's impressive. Bethany: Not in a mine. They didn't come to my house and put it in mine. But literally th that's Teresa: Yeah. Bethany: how eco conscious he is. so he if I had to guess at Bagley Jr., if if you're listening, hit me up, he probably already has a ton of batteries. Just saying. Mm-hmm. Teresa: My kids would be annoyed by him 'cause they th there was this two year period where I was like convinced that the three of us could only create one bag of trash and one paper grocery bag full of recycling a week. Which I mean, and he's clearly like far advanced, right? So we stopped using paper towels. I I still don't use paper towels. You've been to my house, right? I like my Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: cloth napkins. but we were doing it and I was like so militant about it. Like, that's a glass jar, we could use that. I I mean at one point I was Bethany: I'm sure I'm sure your kids love this. Teresa: like picking herbs out of the garden and using all these glass jars, like with like vodka to make cleaning solutions and things. And you know, yeah, I I I went I went Bethany: God, wow, who hurt you? Like I did. Teresa: way too far. Also, I literally just found one of those the other day, like shoved in the back of a cupboard. I threw it out. Bethany: God. That so with there, I learned something new about you. I did not know that you went through your Pioneer Woman homesteader phase. Well, Teresa: I did, I did, I tried my best. Bethany: you tried and and would you you probably would have was that when you started your transition to putting everything in your home on a battery? Is that when you started looking at battery powered snowblowers? Yeah. Teresa: truthfully th I d had a combustion what do you call it? Combustion engine snowblower that I had in Cleveland back in like the very early two thousands and that little thing r ran and ran and ran. But I hated fit like you had to mix like oil with gas and it felt Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: so wasteful and like harmful. I don't know. So yeah, I sort of leaned into Look, I'm not that far into it anymore, Bethany. Let's be honest. Sometimes I like a little bit of convenience. Yeah. Yeah. It's a hybrid. It's a hybrid. It has a battery. Bethany: Yeah, I've seen your SUV. I know. It is a Yeah. It is a high well, you you know, I I I bought a Chevy Volt the year they came out. I was a super early adopter on the EVs before I think it was like eleven miles was what you got on your charge. And then and Teresa: gosh. Bethany: then the then you it it charged, you know, while you were breaking and all this other stuff. I was early, early adopter. I think it was twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. So, and I don't drive an electric car now. I w I'm hoping my next car is an electric car. But all that to say, from that and we could talk about now the progress of batteries and how far they've come from my first Chevy Volt in twenty whatever to the electric cars and the ca the capabilities that they have now and the range that they have now on the charge is another Teresa: yeah. Bethany: testament to the battery technologies that have happened in the past ten, fifteen years. Teresa: Yeah. I'm gonna do the you we always joke that we're psychic. I'm calling it five Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: five years from now, there's gonna be some version of like a just plug and play battery for everything in your home. It's gonna be Bethany: yeah. Teresa: you know how how you have I have like the works system, so it's like one battery and it plugs into all your different yard tools. It's gonna be something like that. Like here we're gonna r run your HVAC system and then you're gonna unplug it and you're gonna put it in your car. And it's just gonna plug and play everywhere. That's that's what I think is coming. Bethany: Well I'm gonna write that down and we'll put it into our Are We Psychic version two at the end of this year, like we did at the last season. So we'll see if you're right. Teresa: Or somebody is listening and they're like, That's a great idea. I'm gonna steal that and patent it. It's it's free. It's for all of you. Bethany: Just so everybody knows it is November fourth, one nineteen PM, poor man straight bark. Alright, so let's talk about how batteries could go from something that was working, a little bit dangerous, technologies have changed, and now we're talking about putting them into Walmart in people's hands. What else are we doing with batteries? maybe is the utility scale and the community scale. Teresa: I think a lot of people aren't don't realize that a lot of what's driving your cost today have to do with I and I know everybody wants to talk about data centers, but let's be honest. We have a crumbling grid and it's expensive to replace the grid. It's hard to replace it with something that is weather hardy. On top of that, we have all this new generation coming online. So people want to build these huge, giant transmission lines. If we have utility scale batteries, You need less of those sorts of high cost things. Maybe we don't need as much transmission, which means everybody's transmission rates go down. Or, you know, I always think about the city of Lakewood, and you guys hear me ha bitched about this for since July, right? what if they had batteries in the city? What if First Energy at the time had said, look, I know that our infrastructure is bad and we have to replace this. substation and it's gonna create an outage or it's gonna catch on fire. What if they had batteries there that they could easily say, but your power is gonna stay on because we have these long duration batteries and we're we're gonna make it nice and comfortable for you? Or I don't know, the wind blew through and, you know, an entire neighborhood is out and you had a portable battery that was enough of a duration that you could just plug that into the grid while you were trying to fix the stuff around you. It's I don't Different version of microgrid, different version of bringing down the cost of the grid. I just think batteries have so much potential that nobody's really tapping into. Bethany: No, would this be a a viable solution too for a topic we talked about a couple episodes ago, the dreaded PSPS, would having access to batteries or utility scale batteries kind of deflect some of those sort of forced power outages? Teresa: possibly 'cause you don't need as you don't need long wires running between things, which is what causes the fire concern 'cause they're Bethany: Mm-hmm. Teresa: basically bringing electricity along these huge areas. but the Walmart stuff could help with that too. You Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: you have a PSPS, just use the battery on your house. there's so many options out there. And I I'm not gonna say that nobody's talking about it, but I think to your point, we talk about batteries in these very isolated ways it's about renewables or it's Bethany: Hmm. Teresa: only about powering your car. But the reality is batteries could be a huge solution for all of our grid issues right now. Grid security. the the power plant down the road gets taken out by a cyber attack. Your your a attack. I don't know why I say attacked. I don't I can't talk today. anyway. Bethany: We we we are we are recording the day after the mid midterm, so that's it was a long night. Yeah, that yeah. And upcom Teresa: Yeah, it was a it was a lane yeah, we'll talk about the midterms in in December when when the dust settles. Bethany: that's right, upcoming episode. We're not gonna touch it today. Teresa: Yeah. But think about the grid security aspect of if you had multiple batteries around, then you can't take out everything all at once. And i I know that I sound like the crazy cat lady sometimes when I talk about my conspiracy theories, but I we've seen it. We saw it all summer long. Cyber attacks in Europe, cyber attacks in Germany. Bethany: Mm-hmm. Teresa: Like the reality is this is happening and we need to think about alternatives and batteries are a quick plug and play alternative. Bethany: Now what what are the what are some of the complications though of getting them if there's such a great solution, if they could if they're so multitasking, they could solve all of these things, why Aren't they e w A easier to get? what what are some of the holdups? And I know to an extent, especially with the Walmart stuff, it's very, very new and then you're getting out of the energy experts that know and understand it and to your average Jane and Joe who need to understand how to work a battery. You know, why aren't these being adopted at a larger or faster scale? Teresa: think at the residential level it's cost. we we have to be honest, even if you gave somebody a battery for free, you have to give them the installation for free. They have to own their home. It's Bethany: Mm-hmm. Teresa: it's not as simple as you get a battery and everybody gets a bat we have to be realistic. Things are expensive right now and not everybody owns their houses and we have to live in the reality that we have. The bigger ones I think it's space. I mean some Bethany: Mm-hmm. Teresa: of these need up to like it's an acre space that's a lot of space that you need to put a battery down. It's not as they're not little. They're hopefully as we get further along they'll get smaller. But especially the ones that aren't lithium ion, these are not little pieces of technology. So you can't just put like my Lakewood example, right? Like I don't know if anybody's been to Lakewood. It's an inner ring suburb of Cleveland. The houses are very close together. They were all built in like the n early 1900s, late 1800s Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: There's no space there. You're not putting a giant acre size battery there. Bethany: Well no, but could that be a situation though where you could find space and get and and and have community access to it? I'm thinking a community solar situation. Could you ever do that with batteries or did they just have to be closer, more proximity? You gotta be able to access them to literally plug in. Teresa: there's so much to unpack on that. So first of all, community solar is just virtual, right? It's it's literally dollars and numbers that appear on your bill. You're not physically taking from community solar. Sorry, community solar people, I know you but that that is the reality. You have a perch you have a purchase agreement that says you're buying from it, but it's virtual for a reason, right? So could you have a battery that stores based on certain times of market and you get the benefit of that? Probably the same concept. But if you really want to use a battery for resiliency, you have to be connected into it. Otherwise it's pointless. Bethany: Okay, just spitball in there. So I you know, I love to ask you this question all the time. Can you think and we talked about the Walmart base power, but you know, is there anywhere that you think are are working with batteries in the right way or kind of kind of blazing a path for how we could work with batteries, maybe at a utility scale, maybe at a you know, more local scale? Teresa: Yes. I think data centers are using them in very intriguing ways. They they've basically all been told, pay for what you take from the grid and pay for your costs. And they're like, Cool, then I'll install batteries in my own gen and I'll do it myself and I won't even touch your grid. Right. I I don't know. I think there's some products out there that are growing for residential customers that combine generation with a battery. So that could move things a little bit longer. I think about again, well let's just lean into the fact that like you and I have been around forever. Do you remember when Bethany: Ha ha. Teresa: smart thermostats were like not really a thing? And then Bethany: Yeah, of course I do. Teresa: and then the company we worked for, Direct, wound up doing a partnership with Nest. Bethany: We did two. We did one with Hun yeah, but before that remember we did a pilot with Honeywell and then we went to nest. Yeah. And that was kinda like the early days of smart thermostats. Teresa: Yes, yes, yeah. And basically just gave them all away. And then Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: those programs became utility programs where they just gave them all away. And now everybody's like, I can just get a a free smart thermostat or use my thirst. I my point is retail suppliers tend to be on the front end of essentially saying if you buy from me, I'll give you free technology and then those technologies become just an adopted day-to-day thing. Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: We're seeing that on the battery side. We are seeing them saying, hey, sign up with me and I'll give you a battery and together we'll work the grid and, save money or make money. I I think that could be a good catalyst for at least on a residential home market, batteries becoming more of a common thing. Bethany: Okay, now do they operate in the same way we've talked about like kind of the on demand thing before too? Would these batteries be a potential on demand participant or? Teresa: Depends on the battery and who's controlling it and who's really watching the switch for you. I that it that's I don't know how else to say it really. It it just depends. Like anything else you put in your home, what you do with it depends on the expertise that you're using with it. Bethany: All right, so in your ideal world, if somebody could set this up to work it perfectly in a way that maximized batteries, had the most benefit to the grid and the most benefit to the end user, the consumer, what would that look like? Teresa: A local energy market. Remember those? Bethany: No, I'm not that old. No, I'm just kidding. Teresa: No, I mean that's literally it, right? You have all the tech inside your house. You have some form of generation. I I know we all talk rooftop solar and there's a lot of companies that are combining those with batteries. somebody showed me their N phase stuff for their house once and it was really impressive. Like it it it did everything, Bethany. It it it switched when it was supposed to, it provided power during an outage the way it was supposed to. Like it was a really cool It I don't have N phase. Also again, they aren't sponsoring us, but you know, Bethany: But if they want to, call me. Teresa: yeah. And I they were showing me everything and I was like, they actually got me swayed a little bit on solar and you know how I feel about residential solar. but Bethany: You tend to like it better though if it is paired with something like this. that does tend to be where you start to go, wait a minute, okay, okay, maybe. Teresa: Yes. Yes. But this is that this is exact exactly the same thing. So I don't know about you, but one of the th that I actually don't have a smart thermostat in my house because I don't wanna deal with it. And if you start having batteries and solar and all these other things, you're gonna reach a point where you don't wanna deal with it. So to get the most value, you're gonna wanna partner it with somebody who's gonna control it in the right way. And Bethany: Yeah. Teresa: not to shit on utilities like I typically do, but Let's be honest, you're gonna get some crap program that the commission only looks at in like a siloed little box. And they're gonna be like, well, only if you use it for this one specific thing. So now you're not getting the value from it. And all the ratepayers are probably overpaying to give you a free battery. Versus the base power Walmart deal, where they're sort of tying it into a generation offer plus base power. Plus they're gonna run it in the mar the Texas ERCOT market for you and get some revenue from it. it pulls all the pieces together. The ERCOT market gets the benefit of basically shifting power when demand is peaking, which means everybody benefits from that. It's a really nice little package they've got going. I might be fantasizing about it a little bit, but it it's Bethany: That's okay. Teresa: it's a local energy market. It's how things are supposed to to run. And it lets go ahead. Bethany: I well go ahead. No no you go ahead. I Teresa: No you Bethany: was just gonna wrap it up, so if you had anything else you wanted to say, now is the time to say it. Teresa: I was just gonna say I don't think residential customers get the opportunities that they need to actually make money on their power use and batteries unlock that for them. Bethany: All right. Well, I think that's a great place to end. And I think that people should really look into maybe putting this on their Christmas list. The holidays are coming, you know, maybe Santa could drop some a battery in your stocking for you. And we will check back to see if Teresa's prediction is correct that the future is just having this little what what did you call it? Just just a Teresa: Plug into your house, a battery that just plugs into your house. Bethany: battery that just plugs into your house and you can plug different things into it. Well like a almost like a surge protector, but it's a battery. Yeah? Teresa: Well, I want a battery that you can move. I want it to run my HVAC system or I could just pull it out and be like, This is charged, but the one in my car isn't charged, so now I replace the one in my car and put the one that was in my car on a charger. everything I do with all my lawn equipment. That's Bethany: Yeah, so somebody could get on that for Teresa and invent that for her. A, that would be great. She would love it. And B, she'd be right, and she loves that too. So, somebody. Yeah, Teresa: I always like it when I'm right. Bethany: I know you do, don't we? All so, all right, guys. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening. We always appreciate your time. We hope that you join us on our next episode. Because until then, Bethany. Teresa: I'm Teresa. Bethany: We are Bloom Advisory Partners. And remember, guys, energy is never just about energy.