Latest / Clean Power Hour / Electrifying Everything with Solar and Energy Efficiency with Austin Carr, Greenlink Energy Solutions | EP194

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Electrifying Everything with Solar and Energy Efficiency with Austin Carr, Greenlink Energy Solutions | EP194 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Austin Carr: We'd like to do an energy audit, analyze the consumption of the building, before we start trying to add on the renewable piece. So we're saying, Okay, where are we using this energy, I like to use an analogy, and your listeners are all gonna be real familiar with production versus consumption.
• 1:05
  Austin Carr: But for the layman, I give this this analogy that, you know, if you want your vehicle to go further, the first thought isn't, hey, let's strap on a trailer full of fuel. And let's get better miles per gallon here. Or let's go further. Let's actually see how can we increase the miles per gallon? How can we increase the efficiency of the fuel we're using? And then as a secondary, we looked at, you know, additional fuel sources if needed. So let's just kind of a little analogy that I like to use with folks when I describe the approach that we use,
• 1:31
  intro: are you speeding the energy transition? Here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts, Tim Montague and John Weaver bring you the best in solar batteries and clean technologies every week? I want to go deeper into decarbonisation. We do too.
• 1:46
  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.
• 1:52
  intro: Together, we can speed the energy transition.
• 1:59
  Tim Montague: Today on the Clean Power Hour, electrifying everything with solar and energy efficiency, my guest today is Austin Carr. He is the CEO and founder of Greenlink Energy Solutions in the Rockford, Illinois area. Welcome to the show.
• 2:13
  Austin Carr: Thanks for having me on today, Tim.
• 2:15
  Tim Montague: It's been great getting to know you the last couple of months, we've been working extensively together.
• 2:20
  Tim Montague: And you have a very unique story and have created a very interesting company in greenlink. So I look forward to sharing this with our listeners.
• 2:30
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• 2:49
  Tim Montague: Conductor, make sure you and your customers get the best PPA deal every time free to use for developers and EPCs. Visit conductor dot solar today. Tell us Austin a little bit about your background. I know that you're a military veteran, which thank you for your service. Very proud to be working with you.
• 3:08
  Tim Montague: And how did you get interested in energy?
• 3:13
  Austin Carr: Yeah, so I was in the military from 2007 through 2011. And towards the tail end of that, we started to see some of the solar coming out charge and some of the drones that we were working with, I thought, wow, this is really intriguing, really interesting. And instead of pulling out generators for some of the power, that technology was just starting to be utilized a little more at the field level where I was at. And I thought wow, this, this is cool technology. And so as I was transitioning out of military, I thought, you know, green energy, that's definitely the space I want to be. I don't know exactly what that'll mean, what that'll look like, but I'm very intrigued by it. So after getting out of the military, 2011 met my wife and her father in law was actually just spinning up a weatherization program for one of the contractors here in town that just got a contract through the iOS program, and was fortunate enough to be offered a job opportunity there started working for this company. And what we were doing is going into low income homes running energy audits, blower door testing, and Fred inspections, and then tightening up these buildings for the homeowners there. That would include weatherization, air sealing things along that line. And actually, it's really interesting, working out at a job site one day, and a gentleman drives by and says, Hey, I've got a couple units, I want to get insulated and tightened up over here, said, Okay, that's great, you know, I work for this company. So just give him a call and talk to the boss and he'll get you set up.
• 4:29
  Austin Carr: Later that day, the boss said, Hey, I got a call from this guy.
• 4:32
  Austin Carr: I don't want to mess with it.
• 4:34
  Austin Carr: That's not what we do. You know, we're just our weatherization is strictly through this siloed program, they were actually a heating and cooling. And they didn't want to get into the retail side of weatherization work. So I called the guy back and said, hey, you know, boss said, I'm good to go. So I'll do a side job for you. And I actually ended up doing two or three units for this guy, lo and behold, they found out you know, he ran an HVAC company here in town, the gentleman that the customer that had driven by a small little HVAC company, and we got to know each other a little bit. He said, You know, I think I knew your grandfather, Larry car. So yep, that's my grandpa. He's like, Well, he actually helped me start my company 30 years ago, and the heating and cooling industry.
• 5:11
  Austin Carr: And in a way this guy is my first customer kind of helped me kick off and, and get greenlink started. So after doing those few jobs for that guy, I was like, You know what, this is a, you know, I'm already doing this weatherization work. This is a great pathway for me to kind of dip my toes and get started here a little bit. And that was kind of the origins of greenlink. And where we first started a
• 5:30
  Tim Montague: lot to unpack there. You know, I I work a lot with American American corporate partners, an organization that helps veterans segue into the civilian economy. And so I'm just curious, Austin, what did you do in the military and how did how did that? How was that transition for you when you came back? civilian life.
• 5:52
  Austin Carr: Sure. You know, for me, I joined at 17, I was really young, right out of high school I just graduated, had to get my permission slip sign, so I could go off to basic training, and, you know, joining an operating, you know, as a, as a younger guy, you know, from 17 to 21, I feel like it was a little easier for me to transition back out, you know, I had no clue what I was going to do, I didn't have a lot of direction necessarily. I knew I wanted to be a business owner, I knew I wanted to be in green energy. Beyond that, it wasn't sure exactly how it looked. But I did not take advantage of some of the groups and entities that are out there now to help veterans transition, going from active duty back to civilian life. Fortunately, I had a good pathway and was able to, you know, get right into a career and kind of build from there. But, you know, those groups Wounded Warrior, and some of the other groups that are out there to help our veterans. I mean, that's, that's a great service that's brought to, you know, the veterans and helps them in that transition process.
• 6:44
  Austin Carr: Yeah,
• 6:46
  Tim Montague: yeah, check out episode 184. With Jana toner, she is the vice president of American corporate partners. All right. So, tell us, when did you when did you start greenlink?
• 7:00
  Tim Montague: And how has the company evolved in the last couple of years?
• 7:05
  Austin Carr: Yeah, so I started the company back in 2012. That's when our DBA and Corporation was established greenlink energy solutions. And in the early years, were really strictly on the energy efficiency side, the weatherization, the energy audits, building science principles, that's really what we were focused on. You know, and we would do a lot of different odds and on jobs who were first starting off, you know, when I say we, it was me, you know, doing our installation work, you know, some of the time and then we would also be doing remodeling projects, the banks, the foreclosures was a big thing going on at that time. So we do some rehabs and just picking up what we needed to to keep, you know, keep the doors open, keep the wheels in motion. And in about 2016. That's when we started moving over to the full time, energy, the all energy, we cut out all the remodeling side of things, we said, Okay, what do we want to be? Where do we see ourselves in the future here, when said, you know, obviously, green energy is the place to be, that's always been the focus in the mission. So we cut out all the remodeling work, and it was about 2017, when we started getting into the solar side. And so we're gonna start rounding out the company, the vision had always been, I look back at some of my notes from the early days, and I've had these kind of business plans drawn up where the intention had always been building science, renewable energy, and mechanical. And in 2017, we took that next step to add the renewable piece on with solar.
• 8:21
  Austin Carr: And it was a slow climb for us, we didn't just jump right in and start selling jobs and say, we'll figure it out later, we were very deliberate about it getting our guys NAVSUP trained and certified, and making sure that we did it right. And so it was a slow start through 2017 2018, I think is wrong 2019 When we really launched, and we're just going gangbusters, you know, had a lot of projects in the queue, started building the team. At this point, we're up to about 2025 folks on the solar install side. And our crews are very well known and respected, especially in the northern Illinois area. The focus primarily has been in the residential side over the last year, a couple of years here, we're starting to make that transition more into the commercial industrial space, which we're really excited about, I think there's a lot of opportunity there. So again, just rounding out those pieces with our envelope or renewable.
• 10:04
  Austin Carr: And we've also recently added on our mechanical piece too. And so those three pillars have allowed us to round out our service offering and really serve the market in a unique way as we look towards electrification.
• 10:18
  Tim Montague: Yeah, so, you know, we energy professionals, we always want the built environment to focus on the nega Watts first, right the energy efficiency, the the tightness of the envelope, the insulation, you have created a 360 process, which I just love this graphic, go to usgreenlink.com And check out Austin's website. And, you know, if you want to learn more about greenlink as the solar EPC, please reach out to me I am very familiar with their capabilities as well. You know, the LMR Illinois market, as you mentioned, is booming. We have a very robust RPS now, renewable portfolio standard, and we're going to be adding about 10 gigawatts of solar. In Illinois.
• 11:02
  Tim Montague: This includes large scale, medium scale, and you know, commercial, industrial and residential the full spectrum.
• 11:09
  Tim Montague: And that's what it takes to make the energy transition. So Austin, you've kind of got these, the you mentioned the three pillars, the mechanical, which I assume includes like HVAC, installing heat pumps, you've got the envelope side, making the building more efficient. And then renewable energy making the building run on clean energy and reducing your carbon footprint. And all of these contribute to that, but let's kind of walk through all of those especially I think starting with the envelope that was your origins and you're doing a lot of multifamily work, including some low income work, which I think is very important.
• 11:47
  Tim Montague: And so share with us what what does that all entail?
• 11:52
  Austin Carr: Sure, yeah, we'll talk a little bit about something that was really exciting for us last year comed, had actually launched a pilot electrification program for low income homeowners. And they came to us and said, Hey, we want you to be one of the two contractors in this program, as we pilot this, and see what the data looks like and the back end.
• 12:11
  Austin Carr: Turns out, there's actually a very successful program, and now they've gone formally live with that. And that program is rolled out to the masses. So we're excited about that. But, you know, really, again, starting at the envelope side, because for us, that's our you know, that's where we'd like to start, we'd like to do an energy audit, analyze the consumption of the building, before we start trying to add on the renewable piece.
• 12:30
  Austin Carr: So we're saying, Okay, where are we using this energy, I like to use an analogy, and your listeners are all going to be real familiar with production versus consumption. But for the layman, I give this this analogy that, you know, if you want your vehicle to go further, the first thought isn't, hey, let's strap on a trailer full of fuel. And let's get better miles per gallon here. Or let's go further, let's actually see how can we increase the miles per gallon, how can we increase the efficiency of the fuel we're using. And then as a secondary, we looked at it, you know, additional fuel sources if needed. So that's just kind of a little analogy that I like to use with folks when I describe the approach that we use. But I'm the building science and the envelope side, again, we start with that energy audit, running the blower door testing, which is critical tool that really quantifies what the air infiltration is on a home, this is becoming standard practice on new construction. And on a retrofit side, any of the work where we go into an existing home, we're always running a blower door pre and post. And that tells us Hey, at a 50, Pascal's the CFM, leakage of this home is x. And when we're done, we want to see that drop by at least 25%. And in many cases will be as high as 50% reduction. So if you imagine, you know, you've got to say 10 foot by four foot opening and a hole right through your house right to the outside, shrinking that in half. And you know, we also have customers say, well, we don't want our homes to be too tight. That was a thing in the 80s with the energy crisis, and they tightened homes as much as they could. And it would actually create some health issues and some indoor air quality issues for folks. Right?
• 13:59
  Austin Carr: Again, that's another reason that we use that blower door to understand what are the air changes per hour here, once we're done doing our work? And do we need to add some mechanical fresh air to the home?
• 14:10
  Tim Montague: Yeah, as you tighten up, as you tighten up the envelope, it becomes like a plastic bag, right? And then you have to actively bring in fresh air and extract the dirty air and then you if you can you want to do energy recovery. So that device is called as me any RV or an energy recovery ventilator.
• 14:27
  Tim Montague: There's many different products on the market. I'm partial to the CRV which is made here in in central Illinois, by a company called Build Equinox. And that device uses a heat pump, which is a little unique, because then it could add therms of heating or cooling to that process. And so you can use the device as a ventilator, but also as a space conditioner in the shoulder seasons. It's not going to be a full blown furnace. Right. But anyway, let's talk about the electrification piece. And the mechanical piece, you know, we're at a unique time in American history where cities around the country are starting to ban natural gas in new construction. This has already happened in California, Illinois, is looking at a ban.
• 15:11
  Tim Montague: New York State I think has got something on the books now. So slowly, but surely, society is going to move away from using fossil fuels inside our homes for cooking and heating. It's not easy, because natural gas is very energy dense. But you can electrify the HVAC system. So let's talk about that. How do you approach that?
• 15:34
  Austin Carr: Yeah. So once we have that building envelope, nice and tight. And actually there's a saying just to back into that real quick. We like to say build it tight and ventilate it. Right. So when you talk about the ARV, and the recovery units, that's that's actually the exact perfect approach there. So looking into them in any RV actually ties into the mechanical side. So when we go into electrify a home, we've got the envelope rate, we're looking at what are the BTUs needed to keep this home conditioned in the wintertime. So we'll run a manual J postwork. Once we know exactly where we've landed with tightening the home, we can run this Manual J which will determine what's the heat load on this home and what's the cooling load. Typically, in our climate zone, the cooling load is not as much of a concern, it's gonna really focus on the heating side. You know, historically, people come in, they'll throw in 80,000 100,000 BTUs furnace, just based on the square footage. They're not taking enough of the building pieces into consideration to make sure that they're sizing that right. And then you get into short cycling. And so last year, when we did this electrification program, we did about 30 homes, and in all these homes, we were putting in air source heat pumps, we were using Mitsubishi products. And you know, as you know, we're coming out of this really cold snap happened. So we were really excited to circle back with all those customers and see what their experience was and how their homes are performing. And we're really impressed to see that in negative 15 degree weather. Most if not all, these homes are operating solely on the heat pump, which is the the technology. Although heat pumps have been around for decades, the technology was never able to operate and maintain efficiency, down to those extremely cold temperatures. So we've seen it with our own eyes. Now it's the technology's there, our customers are loving it. And so if you get to a point where you drop below the negative 15, those BTUs are dropping off, you'd will kick out in the resistance heat side to supplement those beats used needed to make sure that you're keeping the house at the setpoint. And so the the furnace, the air handler, heat pump, I guess, in this case, is really one of the biggest elements on the mechanical side.
• 17:30
  Austin Carr: But beyond that, we look at the water heaters, we're installing hybrid water heaters where again, they have heat pumps built into them, they actually running on 110. And then you have resistance heat, if you need to pick up that tap that water quicker. You have that ability to recover faster. We call it
• 17:45
  Tim Montague: like a boost mode, right? If you have if you have a gathering and there's more guests in your home taking showers, you want to put that that water heater in boost mode, right. So because the heat pump is going to is going to heat things up more slowly than the electric resistance heat. Yeah, I harken back to a recent episode of Barry cinnamons podcast called the Energy show.
• 18:04
  Tim Montague: So check that out. And he talks about his own experience with a heat pump water heater, overall good experience and totally viable product. But you do want to have that boost mode when you're when you're using a lot of hot water.
• 18:18
  Austin Carr: Absolutely. Yeah, Heat pumps are designed for a low flow. It's just a steady run, as opposed to our furnaces where they kick on, they'll run for five or 10 minutes satisfied and then drop back off. Heat pumps are designed to just continually run again, going back to an automobile analogy.
• 18:35
  Austin Carr: City miles versus highway miles you get on the highway and you're just cruising those rpms are dropping down. You're in sixth gear versus in the city where you're jerking those RPMs up and down. That's a good analogy between a furnace and a heat pump operating.
• 18:47
  Tim Montague: Yep, yeah. And Heat pumps are totally mainstream in places like Europe and Asia. We've just been a slow adopter. We have, you know, abundant, cheap fossil fuels.
• 18:59
  Tim Montague: And so the American economy is just extremely fossil fuel centric. And we're and we're and we have cheap energy, right? And so it's we're a slower adopter to this electrification of everything, which is much further along, especially in places like Northern Europe.
• 19:13
  Tim Montague: But, you know, let's talk a little bit before we dive into solar in that and I want to spend the bulk of our time together talking about your solar industry and what you're up to there, because that's, you know, the core of my listeners are interested in that, but but multifamily. You know, one of the things that I'm aware that you're doing is you're able to tap into some of the federal and state incentives for upgrading multifamily facilities. Talk about that, and what are the programs that you're working with? And what is the opportunity for landlords who own multifamily real estate?
• 19:53
  Austin Carr: Yeah, so comed and Nightcore have a joint program, the multifamily energy savings program. And there are a number of different incentives and rebates, the tide of this from the mechanical side to the lighting, I mean, the LED lighting conversions that were taking place real heavily, you know, a decade or so ago, most folks have now converted at this point. But beyond the lighting side, you also have the insulation and air sealing and so commented Nightcore funded this program will the they'll work with their contractors and their network, we'll be able to bring customers into the program, they can also apply through comment and of course website will go in there and do entire attic upgrades on these homes, ventilate them, make sure that the attics are ventilated correctly, make sure the bath fans are exhausted out air seal the attic floors, and then get that attic insulated to an R 50.
• 20:37
  Austin Carr: And it's really incredible, the land, the landlords, you know, that's an investment capital expenditure for them, that's pretty tough, they're not gonna get a great ROI, because they're not paying the utility bills.
• 20:45
  Austin Carr: nikecourt and comed realize this. And so that's part of the reason they put this program together. And so we've seen tenants where they're in electric units, and they're paying $300 $400 A month utility bills to heat their homes with the electric resistance heat, we go in, and we make this upgrade to the attic, and we see their utility bills drops significantly. And so it's a great impact, again, on the low income side. That's making a big difference in the community. And we're we're excited to be a part of that.
• 21:13
  Tim Montague: Very cool. You know, and then as we electrify everything, you know, the the furnaces, and of course transportation, we're going to use a lot more electricity. I you know, it boggles the mind a little bit, Austin that the utilities are, are pushing back across the United States so hard against distributed solar, which reduces the amount of electrons that consumers and business owners buy from the utility But meanwhile, we're going to triple the amount of electricity that we're using when we electrify everything. And so I just I just say to the utilities, look, there's plenty to go around, you're still going to have a viable business where you're going to be selling plenty of electricity. Of course, we need to make that electricity in more sustainable ways. Today, we're in the process of transitioning from coal and natural gas power plants, to wind, solar and batteries. And we have the technology we just simply have to do the transition and many big utilities across the United States and here in our home state of Illinois are doing this it is truly happening. 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 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 chintpowersystems.com To find out more. So let's talk about solar. You got into the residential solar industry, and then you have segwayed into commercial and now large commercial and community solar.
• 23:03
  Tim Montague: So what tell us about residential? What is your experience? What is your customers experience? And what is the opportunity in residential and commercial solar?
• 23:16
  Austin Carr: Sure, yeah. So again, like you said, we started in the residential space, that was our primary focus. And, you know, getting into that we, you know, we had lots of bumps and bruises along the way, we've worked with lots of different manufacturers and different equipment. You know, we started with Generac, and actually joined Gen X contractor advisory board at one point, and I actually put a generic system in my house, we've done a lot of battery backup with our systems.
• 23:39
  Austin Carr: And again, moving through a variety of different manufacturers, we've worked with end phase and solar edge and grow watt Generac, you know, a lot of the big players in the game that we've worked with on the residential side. And over the last couple of years, as we see the rack value on the commercial side, it's just it's made a lot of sense, the ROI is there, and it's so impactful on the commercial side, that it's just a no brainer. You know, we were talking to a customer yesterday, and we're saying, Hey, you got a two year ROI on this system was actually just under a megawatt. And we actually quoted that system with the cient system, CPS system there. And it's really impressive, you know, the technology, what Chin's doing in the industry, we're really excited to be working with them as well. But this customer, they're looking at this and saying, these are what our cash flows look like, this is what we're doing here. So yep, this this is the way it works. When you couple this federal tax credit, and the Digi rebate, and the Asterix, you know, it just it drives the whole market and really is making a significant impact on businesses and homeowners alike.
• 24:39
  Tim Montague: Yeah, you know, consumer or business owner can reduce their power bill by 50 to 75%. With a solar array, and, and even more with solar and battery, you're never going to, you know, completely zero out your energy bill, because you need grid services, the sun only shines during the day, right, your solar is only producing during daylight hours. And that's what the battery is great for you extend the shoulders, you use the solar array to load the battery, or charge the battery during the day. And then you discharge the battery, you know, let's say at four from four to nine, when there's a very heavy load on the grid. And so electricity is expensive when you're on a time of use, which is increasingly common in states like Illinois. And so then you have those electrons, those solar electrons stored up in the battery, and you can discharge those into the local grid into your facility and use them to power the electric stove and the HVAC system etc. Right, which are consuming a lot of electrons. And, and then you reduce your power bill. There are very generous incentives.
• 25:44
  Tim Montague: Just if you're listening to this and you're working in Illinois, there are very generous incentives for batteries in Illinois $250 per kWh. And reach out to me I love sharing with contractors and developers how storage works in Illinois, and who are the partners that you need to bring to the table. So, Austin, you know, you mentioned the bumps and bruises. And that's part of being on the solar coaster, there are dramatic ups and downs in the market in the availability of incentives. We're in a good 10 year run now with the climate and equitable JOBS Act we call it C job here in Illinois. And if if you're not dialed in to your state's incentives, you need to get involved with your state organization. Shout out to Ica here in Illinois. I am doing business development for ICs. So reach out to me if you're a contractor or developer working in Illinois, please reach out to me and I'll help you get connected to icea the Illinois solar energy The Association, technically the Illinois solar and storage Association. But what tell us more about that journey? Austin in its early days still for solar, a lot of people don't understand what it is people are very skeptical.
• 26:56
  Tim Montague: Sometimes they think it's toxic, or it doesn't work. There, people have some nutty ideas.
• 27:05
  Tim Montague: But what is your what is your experience been working with both consumers and business owners?
• 27:11
  Austin Carr: Yeah. So, you know, we'll talk a little bit about the battery side, as I, as I get into answering that question, you know, I talked to a customer yesterday, and they said, Well, hey, we want to use our battery only during a grid outage as opposed to offsetting that peak demand. You know, I think some folks don't realize the batteries have profiles built into them, and settings. And so once you install that battery, you can change the way that that battery operates, you can say, hey, I want to say that there's a storm coming, I don't want to discharge this battery at all, to offset any of my demand charges. In this scenario, I want to keep this 100% full so that if we do have a grid outage event, we have maximum capacity to backup, you know, our facility or our home. Whereas in other cases, you can say, you know, let's let's offset, and let's attack those demand charges, like you talked about there on the commercial side.
• 27:55
  Austin Carr: And so, you know, I think with just the technology being new, you know, that's, that is part of the journey and the curve on this, as we're educating our homeowners and our business owners about how the systems work, what you can expect to see from that a lot of people are getting misinformation, and they think, you know, this, this technology is not right, again, talking to a customer the other day, and she was telling me well, you know, I heard from my GC that, you know, that's not the way solar works. And I'm still gonna have this, this huge utility bill, I said, Well, you know, I'll send you a copy of my utility bill at my house. And you can see exactly what it looks like. And I'll we'll log in together, and we'll look at the back end of the system and see how that battery is performing and what our production and our consumption looks like. And so you know, the technology is there, it's been there, and it's performing wonderfully, and providing a tremendous amount of value to a lot of lot of folks, again, on the residential and commercial side, we have a commercial customer out in DeKalb, where we did a large system for them.
• 28:50
  Austin Carr: This probably 225 kilowatts over in perspective to where we were when we installed that system, it was our largest system at the time. And this customer has just been absolutely thrilled with the performance of the system, he keeps in touch with with us almost monthly, you know, giving us updates on how excited he is and what the value that he's reaping from that he's sent us a number of different folks that say, Hey, we're interested, they might have spoke with the leasing company at a different time and, you know, really weren't getting the economics or the value that he's been getting as a customer who purchased that system. And so that's something where, you know, there's a variety of different ways to finance or put these systems together where whether it's a PPA lease or purchase a number of different options there. But in this case, it was a purchase.
• 29:35
  Austin Carr: And he's got the incredible results that he expected and quite frankly, even a little better than we projected, which is great. We tried to be conservative on our modeling to make sure that we may be under promise slightly and over deliver is the goal.
• 29:49
  Tim Montague: So yeah, that's always my approach with customers under promise over deliver. And you know, if you if you hire A quality contractor is using quality products and labor, you're going to, you're going to be very happy. Solar and batteries are a wonderful way to reduce your power bill, reduce your carbon footprint, it's real. It does take incentives, and good rules and regulations. Because as we said earlier, we have very cheap fossil fuels. That is a barrier to entry and we subsidize the fossil fuel industry hugely. And then the other angle to this that we haven't talked about is the human health aspect. You did mention that around the built in I mean, the the envelope, right?
• 30:31
  Tim Montague: When you tighten the envelope, you don't want buildup of co2 and I recently installed an air an air quality monitoring monitor. It's called a king pin, King ping. It's a weird spelling Qi N, P or Q ing P ing wonderful little device though it's it's Wi Fi connected, and it gives me you know, the PPM of co2, it also looks at the particulate matter, the PM 2.5. So these are micro microscopic particles in the in the air. And then, you know, temperature, humidity, and VOCs. That was those are the other things you need to be careful about is buildup of volatile organic compounds. So anyway, back to the solar industry. You're you're riding this this wave of of expansion of the distributed generation or the CNI solar industry here in Illinois, you're also working in southern Wisconsin. And you know, we have a much more robust market for distributed generation here and Illinois than we do in Wisconsin, in Wisconsin, there's, it's just different. You see more utility work, utility scale solar, not so much DG in in, in bits and pieces. There are local pockets.
• 31:55
  Tim Montague: And it'll it'll get there in time. All the Midwest is coming along slowly behind us, you know, first was Minnesota, with their community solar, then Illinois. Now we've kind of eclipsed Minnesota. They're they're fighting their way back, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, they're all in the in the wings.
• 32:14
  Tim Montague: And it's just a matter of when not if they're going to have robust distributed generation and community solar economies as well. So what else? You know, I guess, Austin, should our energy professional listeners and prosumers. You know, these are business owners and consumers who want to understand how solar works, what should they know, about, you know, going solar?
• 32:43
  Austin Carr: Sure. Well, there's a couple things you know, that come right. To my mind, we talked about how the incentives are driving the market. You know, the adjustable block program, which is, under the Illinois shines program is funding and incentivizing folks to go solar, you talked about it on your podcast the other day about renewable energy credits, equal one megawatt hour production. And so when we look at that, that's an important factor. And those incentives are scheduled to tear down here later this year, on 2024, we're going to be going to a lower block rate, which, you know, will slightly impact the ROI on a system, but it will still be, you know, a significant driver and encouraging people to go solar. And also with the net metering side understanding what net metering is and what that looks like. Particularly on the residential side, we're going to be going to and you spoke about with utilities, kind of shifting things a little bit going to net metering 2.0. You know, California is on net metering 3.0, which really pushes more towards that storage space. So I would really encourage consumers to consider the storage side, I think that's really important to take a look at that if you're going solar, it can be a large upfront cost. But if you look at the system over the life of 25 years, plus, that storage, in almost every case will more than pay for itself, especially on the CNI side. You know, working with intelligent generations here on a couple of projects that were worth exploring for our customers, they've got incredible technology and bringing an amazing product to the market were really jarred our CRO talks about, as you know, a cash box will will printing cash machine out there for the customers, you're really generating and driving revenue from your solar, aside from just the expense side where you're saving, you're actually creating cash flow there on the battery side. So really keeping an eye on the battery. And the storage, I think is really important moving forward into 2024, or 2025. And beyond.
• 34:36
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I'm glad you, you mentioned this value stack of storage solar is very, very one dimensional, right, it's either on or off, it's either producing electrons when the sun is shining, or it's not a battery is more three dimensional. It can be used for a variety of services. Of course, we've talked about, you know, reducing your load during certain times of day, and thereby reducing your bill right, your your the battery is becoming your grid during certain times of the day. It's also there for resiliency, if there's a grid outage, and you have the hardware installed to Island from the grid. So basically, there's a switch that is sensing, if there's grid power, when the grid goes down, the switch flips, and then you go into Island mode. And you know, you need a battery to operate in Island mode, right?
• 35:26
  Tim Montague: You cannot island from the grid, and use your local solar energy if you don't have a battery. So this is another common misperception of consumers. They think, oh, if I get solar, I'll have resiliency, not true. You need a battery in the hardware to Island from the grid, and then you do have resiliency to some level, you would typically attack certain critical loads, we call them right. So you have a separate panel that is used when you're in Island mode, you keep the refrigerator going, you keep the HVAC running or whatever is critical for you, obviously some power, the Wi Fi, etc. So and then there's grid services, things, you know, things like frequency regulation, which is something that the grid operator really wants. And the battery is a conditioning device. It can also be used as a virtual power plant, where you're signing up so to speak, to put your battery in as a resource for this larger agglomeration of other batteries. And that together is being used by the utility to reduce the amount of energy they need to produce with power plants like peaker plants that are very expensive. So when you have a capacity day, a very hot summer day say and those peaker plants are getting turned on the peaker plants only run at those times when the when the grid is really humming. And that electricity is more expensive.
• 36:51
  Tim Montague: And if you're a large commercial consumer of electricity that could be upwards of 30% of your bill, the what we call capacity charges. And so you can then use the battery to attack those specific days. And you have to work with partners software, software, service providers, like intelligent generation, shout out to mark through them.
• 37:10
  Tim Montague: And David Brown, we're going to have David on the show here in the coming weeks. So you can look forward to that there is software as a service for making the battery talk to the grid. In commercial applications, they don't work in the residential space, but in, you know, we're talking a 500, kW to several megawatt scale battery. And it truly is a game changer. It can also provide services like ride through if you're a manufacturer, and you're doing injection molding, for example, and the grid flickers, there's a brownout, the equipment goes, Oh, I can't operate. And I'm going to do what's called an uncontrolled shutdown. Having a battery, the switch flips and use the battery power and you have right through and then you don't have an uncontrolled shutdown. And that can save a company 10s of 1000s of dollars per uncontrolled shutdown. So reach out to me if you want to learn more about batteries, or reach out to Austin Carr, who is now becoming quite versed in this as well. What else should we let our listeners know, though about greenlink Austin, it's been a real pleasure getting to know you and the team. Very robust. I love this 360 Though maybe we can harken back to that, like, what inspired you to take this holistic approach because many solar installers are still very, you know, in their lane thinking about putting solar panels on rooftops, and that's important.
• 38:30
  Tim Montague: But you, you also have to now become a storage and electrification of everything to really even out the ups and downs of the solar industry in markets like California.
• 38:44
  Austin Carr: Yeah, I think, you know, over time, we're gonna see the industry go more and more that direction as well, where, especially on the residential side, where solar companies are going to have to partner or build their internal expertise on the consumption side. And so, you know, you asked, you know, what started the 360 side, and again, 360 is the building envelope, the mechanical and the renewable piece. What started that. So as I was getting into the building science, and I would talk to customers, and we're going in doing the weatherizing of their homes and running the energy audits and say, Yeah, well, we've just got a new furnace. And we've got 120,000 BTU furnace in this 1800 square foot Ranch, I'm like, There's no way this thing is short cycle and off and on all the time. And so just throughout the different experiences we've had we've we would see that customers, they were left to try to piece these different things together. Is that the window guys that the HVAC is at the insulation guy, what do we need to do here to either increase our efficiency or increase our comfort throughout the home. And so that really inspired me on the 360 side, there's a bigger picture, you know, somebody needs to take a bigger Look at this. And so that's where you know, where we came up with the concept, you know, and another thing that we think is really important for folks, you talked about some of the value adds and what Greenlee can do for our customers, we have an internal policy analyst. And what she's doing constantly is digging through all the different incentives and the rebates on all the different aspects, agricultural, commercial, residential, on the multifamily side. And we've created this in house we call it policy or incentive index that we've put together. And when a customer calls in, or lead or something, it's just they're just asking questions, we're happy to just talk with folks and point them in the right direction. Even if we don't do work for him. We just want to spread the word we believe in the cause and in the mission here, and so we can connect and add value to people by saying, hey, you know, this is something you might want to check into. A lot of people don't know about the electrification program, or the multifamily program, or the batteries have the Digi storage rebates. And so when somebody has this interest, and they don't know exactly where to go, you know, they could always reach out to us and we're happy just to talk about some of the different avenues to explore, and how you can bring these incentives and rebates to maximize the ROI of the project on any aspect of it mechanical efficiency or the renewable side.
• 40:52
  Tim Montague: Very good. And we'll, we'll give our listeners a way to reach you. But before we do that, tell us about the future of greenlink I've been helping you understand the large CNI and community solar market today. You're doing medium scale CNI, these hundreds of kW and soon you'll be doing megawatt scale projects, you're already bidding those projects. We also have a very robust community solar market in Illinois. These are up to five megawatts AC, which is 6.5 or seven megawatts DC, you can estimate that a megawatt of solar on the ground is five acres. So you know, these are 3540 acre solar farms.
• 41:38
  Tim Montague: And I have a prediction and that is that you will be considered ducting some of those projects in Northern Illinois. But tell us about, you know, how you're seeing this growth into the large CNI and the small utility space?
• 41:54
  Austin Carr: Yeah. So you know, like you said, you know, community solar in Illinois is a huge thing. It's a huge opportunity, along with rooftop on the CNI space. And so, you know, exploring some of the different technologies, again, you hooking us up with CPS cient power, you know, their big deal, keeping that ROI at the maximum level. You know, we're excited to be working on some of these community solar projects, helping working with the developers connecting on the production, the EPC side of things. We've got our in house engineers, our electricians, all the different pieces internally to support and work with some of the developers or customers directly that are looking to develop these projects. And so we just want to continue to maneuver with the market serve the customers and add value or we can
• 42:40
  Tim Montague: you might be wondering, how do you see an eye solar PPAs get financed? For many, it remains a mystery. For others, there's conductor, conductor, solar helps hundreds of developers and EPCs. Find investors, close transactions and collaborate effectively.
• 42:54
  Tim Montague: With competitive bids from high quality partners. Conductor, make sure you and your customers get the best PPA deal every time free to use for developers and EBCs. Visit conductor dot solar today. Very good. Well check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please give us a rating and a review. Check out the Events tab. We are now doing a huge series of webinars.
• 43:18
  Tim Montague: So check that out. At cleanpowerhour.com. Just go to the events tab telephoned about the show. That's the best way you can spread the word about the Clean Power Hour. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love connecting with my listeners on LinkedIn or at the website. How can our listeners find you Austin?
• 43:36
  Austin Carr: Yeah, so they can find us on all the social media platforms are greenlink energy solutions, visit our website at usgreenlink.com. Or they can give us a call at 779-774-3378.
• 43:49
  Tim Montague: Wonderful. Well, I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Thank you so much, Austin.
• 43:54
  Austin Carr: Thank Tim.
• 43:54
  Tim Montague: Hey, listeners.
• 43:54
  Tim Montague: This is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you. I do this for you twice a week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey.
• 44:25
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• 44:31
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• 45:03
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• 45:22
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• 45:22
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• 45:27
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• 46:02
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