Latest / Clean Power Hour / Unlocking the Potential of Solar + Storage with Industry Veteran, Ryan Mayfield | EP197

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Unlocking the Potential of Solar + Storage with Industry Veteran, Ryan Mayfield | EP197 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Ryan Mayfield: My message kind of is to those, you know, the NABCEP certified installer who maybe isn't doing storage as you know, that's definitely you need to be doing storage, you need to be feeling comfortable with storage. That is the way that we're moving as the industry.
• 1:02
  Ryan Mayfield: That's the future of the industry. It's almost the president of the industry. So in order to truly get up to speed, you know, of course, you know, education is going to be one of my first things, education from ourselves. You mentioned some great organizations. And then, you know, quite honestly, one of the other big things is engaging with partners who are do have that experience and being able to help you so
• 1:26
  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.
• 1:40
  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 together we can speed the energy transition.
• 1:54
  Tim Montague: Today on the Clean Power Hour, making solar and storage expertise successful, I'm Tim Montague, your host check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify and tell a friend about the show. also love to hear from my listeners, you can reach out to me at cleanpowerhour.com or find me on LinkedIn. I love to connect with my listeners. So do that. today. My guest is Ryan Mayfield. Of Mayfield renewables. He is a very storied, renewable energy engineer, and trainer and expert. And I'm just so excited to bring you onto the show.
• 2:30
  Tim Montague: Ryan, welcome.
• 2:31
  Ryan Mayfield: Thank you.
• 2:31
  Ryan Mayfield: Thanks, Tim. I really appreciate it. And thanks for having me love the show.
• 2:34
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• 2:48
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• 3:03
  Tim Montague: It was great to get to meet you face to face at InterSolar. Last week in San Diego. That's always nice to shake somebody's hand.
• 3:14
  Tim Montague: But you have a quite a storied history, you're probably I would just venture to say in the 1% of experienced level professionals in the solar energy industry, which is which is great. So if you're listening to this, stick around, you're in for a treat.
• 3:35
  Tim Montague: And of course, check out Ryan's website at Mayfield dot energy.
• 3:39
  Tim Montague: But Ryan, tell us a little bit about your backstory. How old were you when you got interested in energy engineering? And how did you find your way into solar and storage?
• 3:50
  Ryan Mayfield: So yeah, thanks, Jim. And I appreciate that. And so yeah, so I was you know, I got hooked on solar renewables when I was, you know, still in college. So this was the late 90s. When I was finishing up my school, I did an engineering program and you know, kind of got hooked on on solar there.
• 4:08
  Ryan Mayfield: Got to do a course with solar energy International, they came to the town where I was up in Northern California where I was going to school, so got very, very lucky. Did a take your bedroom off the grid was the name of the name of the course that we did. So we put, you know, I forget what it was three or 475 Watt modules on somebody's roof, some l 16.
• 4:29
  Ryan Mayfield: Batteries. So it's just kind of that's where it all got started for me and I got basically got hooked. What year was that? That would have been 98. That would have been? Yeah. And yeah.
• 4:43
  Tim Montague: And so we were doing less than a megawatt a year. In the US of solar now we're doing 30 gigawatts plus a year I think we did. 33 is the official number for 2023. So the solar industry has truly exploded in the decades since then. The modern era really started I think, in 2010. But anyway, keep going. How did your career progressed from there?
• 5:10
  Ryan Mayfield: Yeah, no, that's great. And so from there, I moved to Colorado, followed my now wife out to Colorado and got a job as an installer. I was just telling somebody this story actually at InterSolar where I got to do a guest judging of the solar games, which was super exciting, lots of fun. And so kind of remembering that so doing installations, basically as an apprentice before there was even an apprenticeship program set up in Colorado so you know, falling through attics crawling through crawl spaces, digging ditches, all the good stuff, you know, actually connecting modules this was pre MC connectors as well so you know, learning all the wiring and all that kind of stuff. So it's it was really great hands, excuse me hands on experience for me. But yeah, so I did that for a few years and then moved out to Oregon. And that's where I started working with Bob Maynard. He had a company that was a distribution company. So we were focused 100% on renewables. So we were a distribution company in the world of renewables when there were very, very few of those folks. And so we were sharp modules and SMA inverters. So this would be in the early 2000s. That was our big and the other part was Outback inverter.
• 6:22
  Ryan Mayfield: So we had a ul 508 A shop so we would take actually the components mostly out back but other components, and assemble them there in our shop and builds power panels for folks and then ship them out to the field and they were put them up on the on the walls.
• 6:39
  Tim Montague: And I'll just shine a light on some of the brands you've mentioned here.
• 6:41
  Tim Montague: Sharp, obviously a Japanese brand SMA a German brand, but Outback, I think is an American company, right?
• 6:50
  Ryan Mayfield: Yeah. When I present they were folks that were had been working for trace engineering, which then became Zan tracks. And now Schneider.
• 6:56
  Ryan Mayfield: And so it kind of that progression, but they were they left trace started their own company, they were doing inverters and charge controllers. And so yeah, they were 100%. American, just north of Seattle.
• 7:09
  Tim Montague: Yeah. And solar and storage was part of part and parcel right of the early solar industry. Because it was a lot of Off Grid applications behind the meter. Solar wasn't a thing so much. It was really all about off grid. Back in the early days, where you had some remote operation and a need for power.
• 7:29
  Tim Montague: Solar was very expensive. I mean, I don't know if you have a, you know, a per watt figure to give us at that at that time.
• 7:37
  Tim Montague: But certainly, you know, maybe 10x What it is, you know, at least today
• 7:43
  Ryan Mayfield: Oh, absolutely.
• 7:43
  Ryan Mayfield: I, I wouldn't even remember. But yeah, I mean, modules alone were so much more expensive than, you know, as system as a whole what we're selling today.
• 7:54
  Tim Montague: So that, you know, that's one of the things that makes technology like solar go mainstream, is that cost adoption curve, right, we've drastically reduced the price of the technology, and we've vastly increased the amount of consumption globally. And, you know, the US is, what maybe 10% of the global solar market, but, but anyway, it's a vibrant market, it's the fastest growing source solar is the fastest growing source of clean, sorry, of, of grid power now in the United States. And, and wind is right behind it. Wind is a little ahead of us in the greater scheme, but we're, you know, now solar has kind of eclipsed wind. And we're gonna have a, you know, the writing's on the wall that we're gonna have a 50% solar grid by 2050.
• 8:40
  Tim Montague: And, and we'll have a 40% wind grid by 2050. So, wind and solar will be 90% of the grid in 23 years, which is kind of hard to believe. But yes, that is happening. And, and not a moment too soon, right? We have to net zero the economy to try to put the brakes on runaway climate change. I would be remiss if I didn't remind my listeners, though, that NITSA ruining the economy is just part of the problem. That's 40 gigatons of pollution. There's trillion tons 25x that in the atmosphere already that put us to 420 ppm.
• 9:27
  Tim Montague: And, and so we also have to think in parallel about decarbonizing the atmosphere.
• 9:31
  Tim Montague: One of the things I love about working in solar Ryan, is that there are so many people that care about the environment and sustainability, mission driven entrepreneurs and professionals.
• 9:41
  Tim Montague: And that's very much what I am and, and who my listeners are.
• 9:45
  Tim Montague: So let's keep going. But what well, let's jump to the modern day, like what are you about now? And what are you best known for?
• 9:55
  Ryan Mayfield: Sure, so yeah, so 2007 is when I started the company, and I started doing it solar engineering was, you know, first and foremost out of the gate, what we were doing, I was also doing education at the same time. And so both of those things hold true today. It's you know, very much the core of what Mayfield renewables is. And so I was I went out on my own and started doing, you know, working with EPCs doing system design and engineering work for them.
• 10:22
  Ryan Mayfield: And then at the same time I was doing classes, I was teaching a two year degree or part of a two year degree program, I shouldn't say phrase it like I was doing the whole thing. I had a solar focus course set of courses in a two year renewable energy program that was down in Eugene, Oregon. And so I was doing that at the same time. It was a great mix for me of education and then actually doing you know, doing the engineering work in the field. And you know, progress through the years in And so now we are Mayfield renewables is doing a large amount of the large, biggest part of our business is these the engineering side. And so we are engineering, solar and storage systems with a major focus on energy storage, more complex systems. So micro grids, resiliency systems, those are the things that we really strive to do. And we're working with our clients to provide those services. And so that's part of our expertise making that available through the engineering. And then I also love doing educating I love talking to people codes and standards is a big thing for me.
• 11:26
  Ryan Mayfield: This past year, I was able to get on the code making panel. So the National Electrical Code, I'm on code making panel 13, now with Justin Sanchez, and so that code making panels responsible for article 706, amongst others, for the listeners are familiar with National Electrical Code.
• 11:47
  Ryan Mayfield: 706 is the energy storage section of the electrical code.
• 11:52
  Ryan Mayfield: So, you know, I love talking with that. And so we are at Mayfield renewables, we're doing a lot of educating for folks.
• 11:59
  Ryan Mayfield: And so we have courses on our own website, go to conferences, you know, provide education for our clients directly in in various ways through direct courses. And again, on the the pre recorded type courses as well. And then the final thing that we're doing that we love working with, and this is it gets into the education part, even more is working with manufacturers, when they're bringing products to market, and we're really doing it through the lens of education. So we're educating people educating their consumers on their products, and helping that really helps them the manufacturers, as well understand, what do they need to include in their products, we have so many new energy storage products coming to market. So it's pretty easy for manufacturers to kind of miss the mark, quite honestly, and bring something that they think is going to be useful. But maybe that's already been tried and proven in the field that it doesn't necessarily isn't necessarily required, or vice versa, they think they're gonna leave something out. And it's like, no, we actually need this, that disconnect, for example, is really important because it code.
• 13:56
  Tim Montague: So here we are, we've come full circle in the solar industry where battery storage is integral, it is vital in certain markets, it makes solar pencil in some markets like California, now, we're under nm 3.0. Here in Illinois, we have very good incentives for battery storage. And batteries provide what we call a value stack, which is geographically specific, it's specific to the geography, the incentives, the utility, et cetera. So it is complicated, but it's also not rocket science. It's like, yeah, the battery is a sponge, it can absorb energy from the solar array or from the grid, and then it can give energy or deliver energy to the facility or to the grid, depending on what you want to do. And so you can provide local value in the form of resiliency, right? If the grid goes down, you have a you can micro grid and have power for your facility. But you can also provide grid services with a battery frequency regulation, for example, or be part of a virtual power plant. And, and grid operators, as you know, as as solar becomes a bigger and bigger part of the grid. grid operators are going to love storage, because it's just so valuable. That stack is so valuable and flexible. Solar is very one dimensional, it's on or off, right? It's either producing when the sun is shining, and it's not or it's not. And I love solar, it's, it's cool, because it you know, fundamentally is free free photons from the sun being converted to clean electrons.
• 15:36
  Tim Montague: Once you have the technology installed, you have your free free electricity. So So anyway, so now batteries are kind of going mainstream, again, in the solar industry. And if you're a solar professional and you're not involved with storage, you absolutely need to get involved.
• 15:58
  Tim Montague: Get educate yourself, take Ryan's classes, go to heat spring, check out the courses on heat spring, check out Shaun White's work, check out my work and start dipping your toe in the water and start doing battery projects because your customers are going to want them and when
• 16:15
  Ryan Mayfield: they're in I would say they're even starting to require them or ask for them.
• 16:17
  Ryan Mayfield: So we're working with some clients right now where it's co ops for example. So their power co ops that are putting out RFPs that for solar plus storage and in some cases, storage only projects and so they see that value as you're talking about their solar is great, but it's not. You can't count on the solar to be you know, hitting at the right time and reducing that demand and providing that grid to service and so it's pretty exciting times in terms of that is, you know, what we're seeing being almost demanded from the from the industry as well. So,
• 16:52
  Tim Montague: so I'm curious if we could, I'm curious if we could have a conversation, Ryan, that kind of walks through the early stages of a solar and storage projects and the things that a facility owner or an EPC, and installer needs to be thinking about the questions that need to be asked. And I understand that it is geographically specific, but pick one of your favorite markets. And let's just walk through kind of what are the considerations? One of the, you know, there's always the the backdrop of money and money is super important and powerful, and super influential. If a project doesn't pencil, well, if it doesn't generate ROI, well, it's not going to get off the ground. And that's a major factor, because batteries are not free. But But anyway, let's walk through kind of what are the major considerations for a behind the meter solar storage project that might have the capability to ice you know, to the island from the grid? Sure.
• 17:53
  Ryan Mayfield: And that's, that's exactly the types of projects that we're focused in on ourselves right now. So providing resiliency. And so one of the things you mentioned, you know, the budget always that's going to be one of the very first things has to come up understanding, you know, what is the budget, what, what can is what's even possible with the budget that you have, but I would say for us, you know, we're doing a lot of this work here, we're looking, I sit in the northwest, our employees were spread out across the country, but we were very, you know, fortunate in terms of where we're located, and just the people we've gotten to know and things. But one of the so one of the common projects, is this resiliency type, be able to work, have the power go out and still provide power. So one of the very first questions we have to always ask is, what is it that you're trying to accomplish? Are you trying to backup the whole building? Is there a subset of critical loads? How, how does it what is you your desire as a client as the system owner, so being able to understand what that is, and sometimes that means setting expectations or lowering expectations, like, of course, I want to backup my whole facility. But I have a limited budget. And so we're going to talk about, well, what are those loads, and then being able to understand what they are, in a perfect world, when we are doing this, you know, we're doing a feasibility study, that's a big part of what we offer as a service. And so coming in and really looking at those loads, even monitoring them if we can.
• 19:21
  Ryan Mayfield: So very often, it's going to be a subset of loads, you may have your green button data, even, you may have your demand charges, things like that, but that's for the facility as a whole. And if you're doing some subset, we need to be able to parse those out meter those separately. So that's ideally what we're going to be able to do, and then be able to understand from there, what are the components that are going to meet you at where you need to be, but doing a technical, you know, technology and a economic model on that. And so understanding, putting all of those components into a model, and being able to return that in a report form to the customer saying, Here's what the dollars and cents look like, here's what the kilowatt hours look like.
• 20:04
  Ryan Mayfield: And here's what your ROI is and how it's going to affect your system as a whole. You know, for the next 1015 20 years.
• 20:12
  Tim Montague: Let me stop you there for a second. So, you know, most commercial solar installers would use a tool like energy tool base on a daily basis for modeling solar, and now potentially solar and storage. But are there tools that you recommend, besides energy tool base for the this, this basic, you know, financial assessment of the value of solar and storage? Yeah,
• 20:40
  Ryan Mayfield: so the one that we've lien really leaned into is xindi. And so xindi is a modeling software where we can do both the financial and the technology type modeling on it.
• 20:52
  Ryan Mayfield: We've also used Homer Homer grid, specifically. So those are a couple of programs that we've used, and being able to, you know, put these inputs in and then as all as my my folks will help, you know, we're actually going to be talking about this later, in a webinar own talking about you know, this being an iterative process. So you're going to put those inputs in, you're going to have a conversation with engineering and with the owners and it might change a little bit and then you can go back and you're gonna tweak those inputs and you're gonna see how they come back out. And so it's a, it's a great process and be able to, you know, go through those steps in order to deliver what the customer really needs for their system.
• 21:36
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• 22:12
  Tim Montague: And one of the things that's now on the landscape also we're in the landscape is Evie infrastructure, right? More and more people are installing Evie chargers and driving EVs. And the the Evie is a very interesting platform because it's a battery on wheels, you know it a model Y just for point of reference, you know, has about 120 kilowatt hour battery in it, that that 120 120 kilowatt hour battery is a big battery, like an off grid home, a small, off grid home might use a 30 kilowatt hour battery and a big solar array, you know, 20 kilowatt or 30 kilowatt hour, or sorry, 20, or 30 kilowatt solar array. So you've got four acts of a robust resi storage battery in a model Y Tesla. And they get smaller or bigger, of course, as the Eevee gets bigger or smaller. And does does a tool like Sendy allow you to do any kind of vehicle to grid modeling as well. At this moment,
• 23:24
  Ryan Mayfield: I can't speak to that i i honestly, I'm not sure if Cindy is doing that. But that's definitely something that's coming up more and more in terms of the conversations in being able to understand, you know, what are those sources?
• 23:36
  Ryan Mayfield: And so that is, you know, one of the big benefits, you know, as far as India is concerned, as far as the modeling platforms are concerned, you're going to have a battery bank of a certain size. So the big question there is, you know, is that vehicle always available? Or is it available when the, when you really need it, or is it today drive it off, and it's not at that site. So that's one of the things and that's one of the beautiful parts of the modeling is being able to put in, hey, we have this size kilowatt hour battery. But if it were to not be there, or you know, not be available, you can model that as well. So, so specific to vehicle to grid. I'm not 100% Sure, but you could also just say it's a, it's a battery that's available to you. And the other thing that's really great is being able to integrate other sources.
• 24:24
  Ryan Mayfield: So you know, generators, for example, a lot of these locations that we're going into, it might be a campus, it might be a healthcare facility, or a you know, larger campus, they already have generator or generators that are already backing up their sites. And so they are wanting to use solar plus storage to extend that time period. So here in the Northwest, we're expecting a earthquake event that the prediction is that we're gonna have two weeks without power.
• 24:51
  Ryan Mayfield: And that might even be a little on the conservative, we might be even longer. So, you know, for a facility, if they have a generator, but that generator was dying, designed to get them through three days, you got another 11 days at least. And so this is a way of incorporating a resource or resources to work in conjunction with that and extend your fuel runtime. So you don't have to run the generator all the time. And now all of a sudden that three days becomes much longer on the generator.
• 25:20
  Ryan Mayfield: And so it's, that's one of the really fun parts to have the modeling is being able to play with those types of parameters.
• 25:26
  Ryan Mayfield: Yeah.
• 25:29
  Tim Montague: And in terms of your customer base, paint us a broad strokes picture. You know, it sounds like you're working with facility owners, and then but also other developers and installers. And what are what are the percentages roughly?
• 25:45
  Ryan Mayfield: Yeah, so you know, a lot on the engineering side. And I'll lump in feasibility studies kind of into that side as well. It's, that's really kind of consulting. But if we kind of put all of that together, you know, we are working with EPCs are far and away that you know, our largest percentage of our clients, but we're working with more and more developers on getting those on the front end of those systems.
• 26:09
  Ryan Mayfield: And then with the you know, the facility owners very often were getting called in earlier into the process even into the they might be receiving grants or might be going after some grants to do this. And so that's a very popular thing here and the northwest, Oregon and Washington have some grant programs. And so working with entities like municipals municipalities, county governments, irrigation districts, those kinds of things. And so those are kind of the three level or the kind of tiered folks who are we're working with In order to deliver these products, gotcha.
• 26:47
  Tim Montague: So what else should an EPC be thinking about about, you know, diving into solar and storage? And I guess, where do you see the most traction? And the flip side of that, where projects are falling apart? What is it that that works? Well, and what is it that falls apart?
• 27:13
  Ryan Mayfield: So for us, I would say, you know, we are, we as a company are really focused on the CNI or the mid market solar. So we're, you know, looking at, you know, hundreds of kilowatts, PV projects up to, you know, multi megawatt projects, we're very much purposely not trying to get into the utility scale. So that kind of is its own world, if you will, that and we're seeing a lot of traction on the utility side, utility scale, and, you know, huge hundreds of megawatts and hundreds of megawatt hours in terms of storage. One of the areas that we're really focused, because we're focusing on CNI, one of the things that we're seeing is really helping people understand what are the products available. So CNI is a growing part of the market, but it's not, you know, when you look at the numbers, of course, utility is going to be, you know, dwarfing everything else, just by the sheer numbers. Now, when we look at installed capacity, and things like that, and of course, when we have, you know, 100 megawatt fields of solar, that's going to be pretty easy to to work everything else. So availability of products and products that actually work well together. And that's a question we get all the time is in the CNI space? What batteries are you using, what inverters are using what's working well, and so that's why going to a show, like InterSolar is great for us, especially, you know, seeing what's out there, who's, who's coming to market with what products and being able to integrate everything together.
• 28:37
  Ryan Mayfield: So I would say that's one of the areas, you know, we're seeing it grow, and I don't wanna say necessarily falling apart, but it's making sure that those components are working together.
• 28:45
  Ryan Mayfield: And I would say, what we have seen in some projects, is where it's not very well thought out on the front end, it's a they'll put in a PV system and a battery system, maybe just based on some rough back of the napkin calculations, and then they get to install it and there, oh, these don't go together, or we need a controller, the BMS, doesn't talk to the, to the inverter, and all these kinds of these different hiccups. And so it's one of those got to make sure that all those components are compatible going to work together, and then in the end, deliver what the client wants.
• 29:21
  Ryan Mayfield: Because if, if you install something, and it just doesn't deliver what it might be those grid services, like you talked about, it might be a resiliency for a couple of weeks, so making sure that you're, you're hitting those targets. Yeah,
• 29:36
  Tim Montague: this is a, this is an aspect of solar and storage that is very deep water, frankly. And you have to be very careful, because some manufacturers, the one who's kind of famous for this, I think, is Tesla, where they sell the full wrap, right, they sell the battery, but also all of the hardware and software, and the containerized solution that is space conditioned and ready to drop in. Okay, that's one end.
• 30:10
  Tim Montague: And then you have the other end, where people will just sell you battery packs, that you then, you know, modularize and install with a bunch of other stuff yourselves or with some other integrator, and there are companies that, you know, are specialized as integrators, they'll bring a container to the solution. They'll bring a software platform, they'll bring a charge controller, etc. And it's it's apples and oranges. I don't know, in the greater scheme of things. Ryan, do you see a trend? Or do you see success with one approach versus the other? You
• 30:49
  Ryan Mayfield: know, at this moment, we've seen because I would say this, the CNI space is so it's maturing so rapidly, and it's still pretty young, I would say we've seen the most success with, you know, components, batteries, inverters, you know, that are coming in together, at least designed by the manufacturers designed and maybe not necessarily, you know, listed as a complete system, but they've, they've already done their engineering work, they've already done all of their communication protocols. And so it is as simple as, get everything talking to each other and, and they're all speaking the same language. So definitely see more success with that, but we are seeing the trend and this is you know, after talking to folks at the show, I feel like the trend is you know, we have our batteries, we have our inverters, we have you know, whichever you know, maybe the the BMS is part of the battery system but we're bringing those together, trying to be a little bit more agnostic. I heard that a lot on the on the show floor.
• 31:41
  Ryan Mayfield: You know, we're a battery pack now. except we're inverter agnostic, and the idea being, they're not hitching themselves to any one horse, anyone cart and being able to work with multiple folks, which makes a lot of sense. business wise, it's a matter of though you as an installer, you as an engineer, do these really work together? And what does it take to get these to work together?
• 32:00
  Ryan Mayfield: You have to be you have to learn a whole new language in terms of communications.
• 32:05
  Tim Montague: Yeah. So is that something that you is that a service that you provide, though, helping to select technology?
• 32:13
  Ryan Mayfield: Yeah, a lot of our clients when we, you know, especially doing feasibility studies, part of our output is, here's what we're recommending, and we're going to recommend that you put in these components. And it's because we've seen them work together, we've, we've had systems that we've done ourselves, and they they work, they go together, or we've done our due diligence, and we've talked to the manufacturers, and yes, we can feel very confident that these components aren't going to work together. So that is definitely a big part of what we're doing more and more in terms of, you know, customers coming to us and like they know that they need backup, or they know that they need to do those grid support services. But hey, how do we get there?
• 32:51
  Tim Montague: Yeah. So in the, in this middle market, let's say a 500, kW or megawatt battery, you know, a megawatt battery today, lithium, lithium iron phosphate is kind of the middle of the road, you can get a two hour or four hour solution. So two to four megawatt hours of batteries are or battery energy?
• 33:16
  Tim Montague: And how many on on one is it on one or two hands, the number of manufacturers that you might recommend to a customer looking for that kind of megawatt solution. At
• 33:31
  Ryan Mayfield: this moment, it's probably one hand that we are, you know, we're looking at, and we are feeling confident in and understanding that those components are working well together, playing well together, talking together. So definitely growing and you know, you walk, you walk the show floor at any of these larger shows, and you think it would be, you know, hands and feet kind of numbers that we're talking about, but it's, it's still relatively small.
• 33:55
  Tim Montague: Yeah. All right.
• 33:55
  Tim Montague: Um, there's a lot of other stuff we should probably touch on. We have limited time here. We've got we'll go for another five minutes, maybe. But what else would you like to shine a light on your you have your fingers in many things? I'm glad you mentioned. Being on the code committee, you're very involved in article 7706, the energy storage section of the NEC, you're you're deep into education and training. Just check out the website may feel dot energy. But what else would you like to talk about? Ryan?
• 34:34
  Ryan Mayfield: Yes, I think for me, you know, you mentioned earlier attendee you know, how much the industry is growing and how much you know, we're going to be a major percentage, we being the solar plus storage plus wind being, you know, 90 90% of the grid. And for me, a big part of that is, it's rooted in education. And that's where, you know, I'm holding near and dear for me. So getting folks, it's a, it's gonna be a matter of people, right? So we can achieve those things, as long as we have the people to actually be putting the stuff in the ground, and putting it in the ground in such a way that they are knowledgeable, confident, and being able to even go so far as you know, testing and doing operations and maintenance. So those are things that I'm really focused in on our company is really focusing on is the education piece so that these systems are working in their work in the way they're supposed to. And so that's, you know, for me, education is going to conferences and delivering a class talking about code saying, hey, to install this properly, here's the codes. Here's what how you're going to apply the codes. But it's also working with manufacturers to put out content, put out information, sometimes specific for products, but as their as we've seen, that can be translated across the industry. So really, for me, it's kind of educating people.
• 35:51
  Ryan Mayfield: And it's kind of a multipronged way of meeting people educating them where they need to be and helping them understand the key components. So you know what that means for a, an O nm operator of a five megawatt farm is going to be different than what it is for, you know, what somebody on the residential or CNI spaces, but it's still important in all in all those cases.
• 36:16
  Tim Montague: Yeah. Yeah, it's still a little bit of the Wild West in the solar and storage.
• 36:21
  Tim Montague: And I mean, I'm surprised how many installers I still meet who are gun shy about storage.
• 36:31
  Tim Montague: They've maybe dip their toe in the water and had a bad experience. And yeah, there are problems with certain products.
• 36:39
  Tim Montague: Okay. That is the nature of technology. LNG, it has to go through a maturation process.
• 36:44
  Tim Montague: Batteries are not new, though, and they're well over 100 years old. The first you know, vehicles were EVs. So, I think that, you know, we truly are on the on the doorstep of a time when batteries are going to become super common. And, and this is across the board from residential to commercial to industrial and, of course, grid grid scale. Here in Illinois, you know, we have coal plants that are being shuttered and replaced with solar and batteries. That's, that's how good the technology is.
• 37:28
  Ryan Mayfield: But so yeah, like you're saying, you're seeing utilities move towards it, require it, you know, we have some, some programs out there now, where you have to have storage included with it. We have some here in the Northwest, where the local utilities saying we have a grant program, but we're only gonna do that if if storage is included as part of that program. So definitely, they're seeing that.
• 37:48
  Tim Montague: And let's, let's shine a light, I guess, on on the list of places geographically where we see the most activity right now. I'll start the list and then you can finish the list because you have, you have a much longer tail of knowledge there. But Hawaii would be an early adopter, right? You know, their attachment rate for solar now is nearing 100%. California, major incentive for batteries now as they've devalued the value of solar, but solar and batteries does have tremendous value. And there's a lot of grid problems with fires, and wind, at cetera, that you know, inspire people to be thinking about batteries.
• 38:31
  Tim Montague: Then you have places like New York and Massachusetts that have battery incentive programs.
• 38:38
  Tim Montague: Vermont was an early adopter of battery incentive programs. Here in Illinois, we have a nice incentive program, it is going to become more robust over time, there is new legislation in the works here in Illinois in my home state. And then Texas, I note that there's a lot of grid scale storage happening in Texas as much grid scale storage as there is grid scale solar, and Texas and has now eclipsed California on an annual basis of the amount of solar going into the state of Texas. So, so there's a there's a shortlist now, what are the next like five states where you see a lot of solar and storage happening? So
• 39:18
  Ryan Mayfield: you know, just kind of maybe even a little bit broader. So the Midwest, for sure, you know, Illinois, we're starting to see things. And you know, like, Wisconsin, Minnesota, we're starting to see, you know, us personally see some things going on there.
• 39:30
  Ryan Mayfield: Where we're seeing a lot of because of our focus on the CNI space, we're seeing a lot of folks, you know, northwest, you know, our, where we were born out of is a big one as well, just that resiliency aspect, and people making those prepared, making making themselves prepared. So we're seeing a lot of those kind of natural disaster areas, you know, the the southeast kind of Florida type locations where people are, there are definitely those applications. And then, you know, we haven't done a whole lot, but looking to do more Puerto Rico, for example. So those are some of those locations that we're seeing that it's growing. And a lot of that is based around the resiliency aspect. You know, Oregon and Washington, we're starting to see the same thing that California has in those public safety power shutdowns. And so those are they're on the they're available for the utilities. And then of course, that just means people are gonna be without power. So it's up to them to figure out how to make it last through those times.
• 40:37
  Tim Montague: You didn't mention Colorado, what's going on in Colorado?
• 40:40
  Ryan Mayfield: You know, Colorado, that's a great one.
• 40:42
  Ryan Mayfield: It's not a market that we're actively trying to do more in there. You know, I don't know the the exact policies that are driving things in Colorado at the moment, but we definitely, you know, there's plenty of solar going on in Colorado. It's the storage part that we personally haven't seen, but not to say that that's not not going on.
• 41:02
  Tim Montague: And what about like, Arizona, Nevada, Utah?
• 41:07
  Ryan Mayfield: You know, those states, from what I've seen, you know, a little slower on the adoption in Arizona, definitely.
• 41:13
  Ryan Mayfield: There are some some larger scale projects that have happened. And it always seems to be that the I'm not sure if the utilities, you know, how they integrating solar, specifically in but now storage always seems to be kind of a push and pull dynamic with utilities that are some similar to what we're seeing in California now. Got
• 41:34
  Tim Montague: it. So, in our last minute together, Ryan, what do you have to say to energy professional polls about the future of solar and storage. And clearly you're biased as As am I? Right? Yeah, I'm just curious, like when you're talking to, let's say, a P VIP, right, someone who's who's well established in the solar industry, but for whatever reason, may not have had much exposure to battery storage, what is the pathway to get more knowledgeable?
• 42:10
  Ryan Mayfield: So yeah, so you mentioned some of the great way.
• 42:12
  Ryan Mayfield: So my message kind of is to those, you know, the NABCEP certified installer who maybe isn't doing storage, as you know, that's definitely you need to be doing storage, you need to be feeling comfortable with storage, that is the way that we're moving. That's the industry as the future of the industry, almost the present of the industry. And so in order to, you know, truly get up to speed, you know, of course, you know, education is going to be one of my first things, education from ourselves. You mentioned some great organizations, heed spring sei is another one that I threw out there earlier. So there's organizations out there that are, you know, trying to educate, you know, speaking with folks going to shows understanding those kinds of things. And then, you know, quite honestly, one of the other big things is engaging with partners who are, do have that experience and being able to help you. So it's, you don't have to go about it alone.
• 43:02
  Ryan Mayfield: There's people out there that are, you know, helping and so, you know, there's ourselves, of course, and then there's other, you know, firms out there that have that experience, and can help provide that path and make things better for you, especially on those early projects.
• 43:19
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned partners, you know, one of the partners I highly recommend, and he's gonna be coming on the show, again, here is intelligent generation, a gentleman named David Braun is their head of business development, or mark through whom Mark has been on the show.
• 43:36
  Tim Montague: And you know, if you're working in PJM, or miso, or even ne ISO, a partner, like intelligent generation is, is incredible for identifying the value stack. And they're a, they're a platform for, you know, software as a service platform that makes the battery talk to the facility and talk to the grid. And it's different in every market, though, there. You know, I don't I don't have a national go to I know, stem works nationally, but they're very heavy in the California market. And then folks like yourselves, are? I mean, I don't know, are you also recommending partners like, like, the intelligent generations of the world?
• 44:19
  Ryan Mayfield: Yeah, for sure.
• 44:19
  Ryan Mayfield: And so if there's, you know, the, that financial aspect, as we've noted earlier, that's a really big part of it, making sure that that's being understood, and that's being fulfilled? And so understanding what are those? You know, what are the programs for the utilities? What are they looking for? What do they require? And so, you know, manufacturers aren't always going to know that because it's, as you just noted, it's so diverse across the different regions. And so finding those folks who know there's those regions and know those utilities that to, you know, finding those partners is a really key part of this.
• 44:49
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• 45:03
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• 45:18
  Tim Montague: Yeah, we're gonna have to do a part two, I'm afraid on on the value stack of of silver and storage because this is, this is a this is a big topic. But I want to thank Ryan Mayfield for coming on the show today. Please check out all of our content and cleanpowerhour.com Reach out to me on LinkedIn, I love hearing from my listeners and give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify. Just go to cleanpowerhour.com You can click on the Apple or Spotify link, and then give a review right there and tell a friend, that's probably the most powerful way you can help others find the show. He's just talking it up.
• 45:56
  Tim Montague: So I really appreciate that. And I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Thank you, Ryan.
• 46:03
  Ryan Mayfield: Thanks.
• 46:03
  Ryan Mayfield: Appreciate it.
• 46:04
  Tim Montague: Hey, listeners.
• 46:04
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• 46:35
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• 46:41
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• 47:13
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• 47:32
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• 47:32
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• 48:11
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