Latest / Clean Power Hour / The Secret to Affordable Solar for Multifamily Homes! EP288

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The Secret to Affordable Solar for Multifamily Homes! EP288 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:51
  Aliya Bagewadi: For us right now it, you know, it's very helpful to have these kind of kinds of conversations with you, because a big aspect for us is letting people know that we exist. You know, both building owners and installers that now you can go after multi family installations, because there is this technology that makes it more cost effective and affordable, and improves the value proposition for building owners. So increases the incentive for building owners to pursue these projects, and it from a technical perspective, it simplifies how installers ability to actually go after these projects. Are
• 1:29
  intro: you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.
• 1:39
  intro: We do too. We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition
• 1:55
  Tim Montague: today on the Clean Power Hour solar for multi family properties. I'm Tim Montague, check out all of our content at Clean Power hour.com Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. Tell a friend about the show. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love hearing from my listeners. My guest today is Alia bagiwadi.
• 2:12
  Tim Montague: She is the US Director of Strategic Partnerships for a loom, an Australian company that is now operating in the United States. And if you're a solar installer, developer working on multi family projects, you want to hear this. Okay? So welcome to the show, Alia, thank you so much for having Tim. I love this topic. Multi family has been a bit of a conundrum for the solar industry, unless you are California and you create special programs for multi family, and we will talk about that, but we will also geek out on what's going on in some of the other top DG states, like New York and Illinois. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 2:57
  Tim Montague: Alia, how did you come to a loom? You're based in Chicago, which I love, and you're working in Illinois, but you're also working elsewhere. So tell us a little bit about yourself and where a loom is targeting your early markets here in the US.
• 3:14
  Aliya Bagewadi: Great, yeah, so, um, a little bit about me. I, as you mentioned, I'm based in Chicago. I'm actually, I'm from Chicago. Um, growing up, I would go back and forth between Chicago and India, and was very aware of the inequality that existed, both in Chicago and in India. And so I always had this question of, Why do some have so much and many have so little?
• 3:44
  Aliya Bagewadi: And that the question of inequality really propelled me, even in college and beyond, trying to understand why is this the case. And I studied that in college, and then subsequently worked in all sorts of fields to try and combat this. And I think what drew me to a loom is the aspect that we are trying to solve for income inequality, as well, as, you know, supporting clean energy on the planet, and we're also trying to reach underserved populations. So, so that is really what attracted me to Allume, and we can talk more about how we do that, the areas that we are focused on in the US are, are Illinois. We've also done projects where in the southeast, where energy burdens are especially high. So we've done projects in Florida as well as Mississippi. And we are, we are pretty much looking to expand into the Midwest.
• 4:49
  Tim Montague: Great. Well, it's interesting that you're working in the southeast that is not a hotbed of DG, but, but anyway, your product is very unique. It is a physical device, and I want to clarify that for our listeners right up front. How does the Allume work? And just note listeners that this is an Australian company. If you caught my interview with Andrew Burch recently, check out that episode that is episode 263, from March, from early March.
• 5:26
  Tim Montague: 2025, with Andrew Burch, we talk extensively about the Australian market, where solar is 1/3 of the cost of solar in the US. So just keep that in mind. So what is, what is soul share as you, as you guys call it, and how does it work?
• 5:48
  Aliya Bagewadi: Oh, yeah, I'll also start. Talking about the context in which it was developed. And you and you mentioned that in Australia, solar is very it's financially very feasible, and that has also led to over 30% of single family homes having solar in Australia.
• 6:03
  Aliya Bagewadi: So in that very sophisticated, mature solar market, you know, about seven years ago, 10 years ago, there was this clear energy equity issue whereby people living in multi family buildings, people living in apartments, just didn't have the same access to that solar and so it's in that environment where soul share was developed. And what soul share is, is it's the world's only hardware that that shares energy from a single rooftop solar system and shares the energy to multiple meters in a multi family building. So it's actually physically pushing the electrons for direct consumption for tenants in in those buildings.
• 6:50
  Tim Montague: Yeah. And so you you've got the grid coming into an apartment building, then you have a meter bank, traditionally, right? Each unit is individually metered, and that's right away where the problem happens, because a developer or an EPC looks at that and goes, Oh, well, that's going to be too expensive to interconnect to 10 different or 20 different meters. I'm going to walk away from this. The other constraint can often be the size of the roof but or the available roof space. These tend to be sloped roofs. In many jurisdictions, it's a mixed bag.
• 7:27
  Tim Montague: Sometimes they're flat. But anyway, roof obstructions are a problem, so the Allume, though, is going to go between the grid and the meter bank and then allow you to effectively do a bunch of residential projects in a cost effective manner. So you're connecting the solar to the Allume, right, the inverter.
• 7:56
  Tim Montague: Or is that is, is there? Let's talk a little more deeply about some of the technology. Are string inverters acceptable? Or are you doing micro inverters preferentially? Or what? How does this work? Yeah, so
• 8:14
  Aliya Bagewadi: let me, let me delve a little bit more into soul share. So just a clarification, Soul share is the name of the technology, and then is the name of the company, and the the way in which, you know, it's helpful to think about the historic barriers. Why has this been why is something as simple as what you conceptually, as simple as residents in apartments receiving solar why has that been such a barrier, and it's a critical problem, because over 40% of the population in the United States lives in these apartments.
• 8:49
  Aliya Bagewadi: That's a significant chunk of people who just haven't had access to the energy saving, energy saving technology, or technology solar panels. And you know that's that is a clear issue. So I think it's helpful to think about, to think about these barriers, to delve into these barriers. And a really big problem has been the split incentive issue whereby building owners were actually, you know, make the investment, and it's a substantial investment, especially if you wanted residents to consume that solar, because to consume that solar you had, you had to have separate solar systems per unit, and that's a lot of hardware, as you're mentioning, and it's just really expensive. And why would a building owner make that investment if the if the benefits largely flow to the residents? So there is that historic split incentive issue.
• 9:48
  Aliya Bagewadi: The way that we are solving for it with soul share is we're sharing the energy between the building owners meter and the resident meters, so both can lower their energy expenditures.
• 10:01
  Aliya Bagewadi: And because the landlord is now sharing that energy with their residents, they can start they can charge for that access to that energy. So they can create things like solar amenity fees, which is similar to, you know, charging for parking or pool access. It's an amenity fee, and that's especially helpful in states where power purchasing agreements are not allowed. In states where power purchasing agreements are allowed, they can start to charge for that solar on a per kilowatt basis. So for the building owner, it creates a new revenue stream for them, and then for the resident, it still maintains that savings on their energy bills. So that's the way in which we're solving for that split incentive issue, which has been a very big issue in the multi family space. But so
• 10:50
  Tim Montague: the land. Board is effectively becoming the utility.
• 10:55
  Aliya Bagewadi: I wouldn't say that they're becoming the utility, because the the resident will continue to be on, will continue to have a contract and will continue to get energy from the grid. We're not completely offsetting grid usage, but we are significantly reducing grid usage. So we can, we can lower grid usage for residents by about 40% which is much more, frankly, more substantial than a lot of community solar programs, which are tending to offset energy bills by about 2010, to 20% in a good program. So and with a behind the meter solution like ours, we can offset significantly more than that. I know you asked about the Yeah, I can let you go ahead, but I know you asked more about kind of where it sits within the building, and I'm happy to answer that,
• 11:50
  Tim Montague: yeah, yeah, yeah, let's, I mean, let's, let's go a little deeper into Illinois. For example, I know you're working in multiple states, but in Illinois, I know that you're working in the solar for all program and where ostensibly we're trying to offer, or have to offer, residents a 50% discount on energy. And so let's just walk through from a residence perspective, they're in a building. The building owner goes, Hey, I'm going to install rooftop solar. I'm going to use this technology, which is great, because it it makes solar more practical for multifamily.
• 12:34
  Tim Montague: You tenants are going to now be consuming some clean, green solar energy and but you're not going to have to pay for the upfront cost of the installation. A lot of those costs are paid for by incentives for the Illinois solar for all program, frankly, right? Because those incentives are very generous and and so and then tomorrow, you're going to have a lower energy bill from Comet.
• 13:08
  Tim Montague: Let's just say you're in Northern Illinois, comment territory, you're going to get a lower energy bill, and I'm going to put a small service fee on your rent, or something like that, because I am incurring some administrative costs and some out of pocket to get this project done. Yeah.
• 13:27
  Aliya Bagewadi: So the question of like, how, how do we, how can we do multifamily solar within this program? Is how I understand the question. Well, so little bit about Illinois solar for all is that there's also this $30 million fund for multifamily, low income multifamily solar that hasn't really been touched because there hasn't been a good way to indicate 50% of the benefits are flowing to residents. That's been very difficult to prove.
• 13:56
  Aliya Bagewadi: What we are able to do with a technology like ours is the hardware social is actually controlled by software. So the software we can set up algorithms that tell so share to send 50% of the energy to directly to resident meters. And then we can show that with that software. So we can report on the amount of solar that's been delivered, consumed, exported, all relative to energy demand.
• 14:31
  Aliya Bagewadi: So we can really show and with concrete data that residents are receiving these benefits, which has been very challenging previously, and it was also, I mean, another barrier in the multi family solar space, because even if you know, even if building owners made this investment, it was hard for them to understand, how is it impacting my residents, but now we can show with this solar distribution data how it's lowering energy bills. So yeah, that's the way in which we are.
• 15:04
  Aliya Bagewadi: I would, I would say that we are unlocking this fund for installers in Illinois,
• 15:11
  Tim Montague: but how I described it is fairly accurate.
• 15:15
  Aliya Bagewadi: That is accurate. Yeah, okay,
• 15:17
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• 15:50
  Tim Montague: Plants now offering solutions for commercial utility ESS and balance of system requirements go to Chint power systems.com or call 855-584-7168, to find out more. So let's talk more about the building owner. From the building owners perspective, what is the what is the lift?
• 16:20
  Aliya Bagewadi: A lift for the in Illinois, or just generally.
• 16:23
  Tim Montague: I mean, we can talk about both Illinois and elsewhere. I mean, Illinois is unique in that we have very good incentives for low income. It comes. It is a double edge.
• 16:38
  Tim Montague: There's an administrative burden to that. But yeah, in Illinois and then in elsewhere in Florida or the southeast, happy to hear about both markets. But if I'm a facility owner, if I'm if I'm a apartment owner, and I want to bring solar, which many apartment owners do. I think, how does that work for me, though, financially and administratively?
• 17:03
  Aliya Bagewadi: Yeah, so if we just think about it generally, for the building owner, that if they want to own the asset, then it's typically like a CapEx investment for them. You know, they have to find this upfront capital, which at a time when interest rates are so high that can be challenging. However, there are specific funds right there are, there is still access to the solar for all funding at the federal, you know, from the EPA that is still accessible now, in which there are programs that are providing low interest loans for for building owners that want to go solar and provide this energy to their residents, especially in low income areas. So that's really the the you know, the upfront move from the building owner, but the benefits that they receive are significant, right?
• 17:59
  Aliya Bagewadi: So in addition to those low interest financing and tax credits at the federal level, minimum of 30% tax credit on the system, they also can distinguish themselves in the market. So in addition to lowering utility bills for their residents, which increases tenant satisfaction, and there's plenty of studies to show that it also improves tenant occupancy, so fewer residents move out because people like having lower energy bills. That improves the profitability of a building. It also, you know, you know this, that solar also increases the property value of a building right in addition to that, like we live in a time and age where many people, especially kind of, I would say, especially younger demographics, are keen on, on, on and aware of their carbon footprint, and want to live in buildings that are sustainable. So in general, these sorts of measures are very much improving the profitability of buildings.
• 19:02
  Tim Montague: Yeah. I mean, I do. I really like this value proposition, right? You make your building more attractive because the energy bills are going to be lower, and then you're, you're participating in the energy transition. This is, this is very attractive. What are the points of friction, I guess. And when you look at the landscape, you know, you're obviously getting a bead on, yeah, this is working here. This is sort of working here, and this is really not working here.
• 19:37
  Tim Montague: Why Florida? For example, Florida is not famous for its DG market. It is famous for utilities that are not friendly to DG frankly. How does this work in Florida? Or how is it working? You've got projects as far back on your website is 2022 is it still a focus of your work?
• 19:59
  Aliya Bagewadi: Yeah, so in terms of where we have focused and and I guess also the friction within the market, or where are the most opportune locations in the market, I think, certainly going to locations where there are strong energy equity goals and where there are clean energy energy and like equity goals and also an affordability goals as well as clean energy goals, is a very good market for us, because we can obviously help with both.
• 21:23
  Aliya Bagewadi: And you know, in Florida, we were very fortunate. We worked with the Orlando utility commission as a municipal utility in Orlando, and they understood that this could benefit their their residents.
• 21:42
  Aliya Bagewadi: And the citizens of Orlando. So they were very they were very approachable. They were very eager to work with us and understanding that they could what this could do for for certain demographics in in Orlando, and that's those kinds of relationships are, are what we're trying to to build. And I think we've been quite fortunate in in the utilities and partnerships that we've we've developed. What
• 22:13
  Tim Montague: other what else should our listeners know? You know, like my my core audience is installers and EPCs, and then developers, and then all the Allied, you know, finance, engineering, legal services, etc, and and all of these aspects of the of the energy ecosystem. Need to Know about soul share and Allume. But what else should my installer listeners know? You know, these are folks that are self developing CNI, which is this that, you know, that's the bullseye for you, multi family, you know, low rise, up to three stories, I think you say on your website, low rise, one soul share unit, just so you understand listeners, one soul share unit can connect to 10 meters. So there's no reason you couldn't do 100 unit property.
• 23:07
  Tim Montague: It's just, it's, there's got to be space for those soul share units. But what else should our listeners know?
• 23:17
  Aliya Bagewadi: Well, you know, it kind of goes back to your question around like, what, what the friction is? And I think for us right now it, you know, it's very helpful to have these kind of kinds of conversations with you, because a big aspect for us is letting people know that we exist. You know, both building owners and installers that now you can go after multi family installations, because there is this technology that makes it more cost effective and affordable, and improves the value proposition for building owners. So increases the incentive for building owners to pursue these projects. And it from a technical perspective, it simplifies how installers ability to actually go after these projects. So that's, you know, a critical thing that I would like the installers to know is that we're really keen to work with you to help unlock this market and to help you go after these projects. You know, another thing that I haven't sort of, yeah, if you want to bring up that diagram, though, just to describe it a little bit more, the way that things work is that you can take a single solar system, the energy goes down, passes an inverter. And you asked about inverters earlier, we're actually agnostic as to the type of inverter that's used. You can use a string inverter. You can use micro inverters, regardless the energy. Then, you know, obviously passes to soul share, and then soul share is distributing and allocating that energy depending on the building's needs. So that can be allocated in a variety of ways.
• 24:46
  Aliya Bagewadi: So if the building owner wants to max out their common meter, first, we can do that and then send excess energy to resident meters. Or we can have set allocation to every meter.
• 24:59
  Aliya Bagewadi: There's a variety of ways in which we can tailor allocation for the building. Excess energy can go, will go to the grid or a battery, and typically, with the the utilities we're working with that those net metering agreements are in the name of the tenant, so the tenant receives the credits for energy sent to the grid, further lowering, lowering their utility bill.
• 25:28
  Tim Montague: Okay, yeah, as you mentioned, you know, I love, I love this diagram, okay, but I immediately have cognitive dissonance, because I look at the soul share between the inverter and the meter bank, and I go, literally, there's one wire running out of the soul share, and somehow it can intelligently determine how much solar to put to each of those 10 meters. How on earth can it do that?
• 25:54
  Aliya Bagewadi: So it's not just one wire. It is soul share is centrally installed, so it does connect up to, it connects to every single meter, okay, within the meter bank, okay? And, yeah, so that might just be a, so
• 26:09
  Tim Montague: it's a simplification. All right, yeah, okay, so that's, that's fine, and, but, but in the projects that you've done so far, like this, this works. There's no, there's nothing, you know from an electrical engineering perspective, that is significantly prohibitive in American infrastructure typically, right? Well,
• 26:35
  Aliya Bagewadi: no, this is a behind the meter solution So, and that's also what differentiates it from community solar. So we're in. Reliant on third party ownership. We're not relying on community solar policies. That's how we were able to do a project in Mississippi where community solar doesn't exist. I'm
• 26:55
  Tim Montague: referring to the infrastructure, the physical, electromechanical infrastructure, right? So, so there's like, this does work.
• 27:03
  Tim Montague: It's been proven. I guess. We should. We should really just, in our last few minutes together, just shine a light on what, what else should installers know and where in what markets should if you're listening to this, should you go to the Allume website and then reach out to your team?
• 27:27
  Aliya Bagewadi: Yeah, so the technology has actually been around for a while. It's been around for about six years now.
• 27:35
  Aliya Bagewadi: And the company, as you mentioned, started in Australia, and then we expanded into New Zealand, Germany, the UK and the US. So it is a proven technology, and as a behind it's also UL certified, IEEE tested, so as a behind the meter solution, the reason I bring that up is it is something that is owned by the customer. And it's not some, it is a a, basically a mechanism that is connecting the single system to multiple meters. So we provide training to installers on on what that installation looks like, and we work very closely with installers, but it's, it's, I guess, from from a technical perspective, it's a, it's a a very viable solution for multifamily because it's not dependent on policy, is my point. And the the markets that we you know, if you're an installer, and if you're listening to this, if you are in the Illinois market, if you are in Florida, those are two states that we're very focused on.
• 28:51
  Aliya Bagewadi: We're also looking at Utah as well as DC. So if you're in those states, please do reach out to us. But just generally, if you're interested in pursuing multi family buildings with a behind the meter solution, if you're working on, you know, solar for all projects, please go ahead and reach out to us. I can give you our email. It's you can reach out directly to me.
• 29:17
  Aliya Bagewadi: It's just Alia, a l, i Y A at Allume energy, a, l, l, u, M, E, E, N, E, R, G, y.com,
• 29:28
  Tim Montague: and I have one last question, why not California?
• 29:33
  Aliya Bagewadi: Well, California has virtual net metering, and obviously the value of those credits is diminishing, but we we felt that are the beginning markets for us would be, we would be very valuable in locations where virtual net metering does not exist, because there's really no other solution, right? And so that's why we have been primarily focused on locations that don't have virtual net metering that doesn't however, I think that as these credits diminish, I think that we still have a very strong value proposition, because we help residents actually capture the full retail value of electricity by consuming it behind the meter, rather than just sending it to the grid. So California is on, I guess, is on the list, but we are pretty focused in the markets that we are currently in. So
• 30:30
  Tim Montague: if you have robust virtual net metering, this problem that Allume solves is just being solved by a computer.
• 30:37
  Tim Montague: You're saying,
• 30:39
  Aliya Bagewadi: Well, you I mean, when you have robust virtual net metering, then, yeah, you have a billing mechanism, right as you're saying, that can share those credits to residents. However, that's all dependent on the value of those credits, and if they're diminishing, as they are in much of the country, then a behind the meter solution that enables residents to directly consume that energy is more valuable because it's capturing a higher rate of of electricity.
• 31:15
  Tim Montague: Yeah, well, batteries are so important. Do you play well with solar plus storage? Yes,
• 31:22
  Aliya Bagewadi: so we have done solar plus storage previously in other parts of the country, sorry, in other parts of the world, in Europe and Australia, we haven't yet done a project in the US with batteries, but we are you would like to do a project with batteries.
• 31:39
  Aliya Bagewadi: Batteries, you know. Can actually improve the resiliency of the building, obviously. But what's amazing is that, like how so share is able to pull energy from a single system, social can also pull energy from a single battery to share that energy to multiple meters. So no longer do you need separate battery banks.
• 31:59
  Aliya Bagewadi: You can have a single battery and share that energy to multiple meters as well. Cool.
• 32:06
  Tim Montague: All right. Well, I want to thank Alia bagiwadi, the head of us partnerships for a loom, for coming on the show.
• 32:15
  Tim Montague: Check out all of our content at Clean Power hour.com. Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. Tell a friend about the show today. Don't wait, do it and reach out to me on LinkedIn. I want to thank you again, Alia for coming on the show. Thanks.
• 32:30
  Aliya Bagewadi: Thanks for having me. Rock on bye.