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LG Energy Solution Targets 50 GWh With 5 US Battery Factories · Clean Power Hour

• 0:52
  Tim Montague: Welcome to the Clean Power Hour live. I'm Tim Montague, your host, bringing you the latest and greatest solar, wind, battery, energy news every other Friday. Today is May 1 2026 and I'm joined by my co host, John Weaver, the commercial solar guy. Welcome.
• 1:09
  John Weaver: Hello everybody.
• 1:09
  John Weaver: Hey, Tim. I hope everything's going all right.
• 1:15
  Tim Montague: I
• 1:16
  John Weaver: scream. I love background, but you have a green screen.
• 1:18
  Tim Montague: I love technology, but I love to hate on technology. The Riverside platform is causing me a lot of grief today. So I don't know if this is working or not, but here we are. I appreciate you being here, and we've got a lot of stories, so I think we'll just dive right into the news, and I will give an update on my travels. I spent last week in Dallas, Texas at Giga week, a event hosted by chin power systems. Chint power systems, America's, otherwise known as CPS America, our major sponsor here at the Clean Power Hour, got to hang out with 300 installers, developers and asset owners. It was an amazing week.
• 2:00
  Tim Montague: I also did a tour of Elm micro grid, which will be releasing an episode on in the coming weeks, but I just love hanging out with Chint customers, because I learned so much about what's going on in the industry. And no surprise to you or the audience, John, one of the things that we talked the most about was batteries and the evolving landscape in the US market, there's still just a handful of markets where batteries make really good economic sense. And I'm on a mission to document how batteries and micro grids are impacting the grid and helping consumers fight back against rising energy costs. And that is a very important thing. The New York Times reported this morning, I think John, that gasoline prices have gone up 30% and electricity prices have gone up 30% in the last five years for consumers. So we're feeling the pain. And there is an answer in the clean energy transition that some people in Washington DC have not, have not seemingly understood. But do you have a high level on batteries before we get into the anti dumping duties and solar imports from India, Indonesia and Laos, which is our first official story.
• 3:38
  John Weaver: Yeah. I mean, you hear me every week, every other every time we're on the show, talking about batteries heavily these days. And, you know, there's one or three battery stories in our list. You know, batteries are the thing we've been hearing about for so long.
• 3:53
  John Weaver: What happens when the sun goes down? What happens when the wind doesn't blow? And really, it's a new expertise that we all have to gain. Elm, we actually have a quote for for one of our projects, a standalone, oversized dc coupled solar plus storage system in mass. Soon as I get through some documentation with the state, I'm gonna start spinning back to the batteries.
• 4:18
  John Weaver: And elm put together a great, great quote with good sizing and all the gear I needed. And I you know, batteries aren't gonna stop. It's it's we're in the early midst of it. We're just at the front end. We're starting to see leading markets like California really start to evolve. And we're now starting to see, and we'll see a story on our list, actually, for Europe, how they're where California was a little while ago. And it's starting to evolve there. You know, these in there's another story we have about LG. And then doing batteries, I could have put 10 battery stories on this list. It's, it's just, it's, it's what's coming and, you know, as I said, we need to get better at it. You know, it's interesting. You mentioned gas, and I brought it up, like, two, two or three shows you. I was like, oh, man, I expect price of electricity to go up faster. But this week, I saw an interesting story from Bloomberg, and I didn't put it on the document, but the Bloomberg folks are saying that there's so much gas available that there's no place to go. Like, their every truck is filled up, and some people are paying people to take the gas so that they don't have to shut off their machines and shut off their pumps,
• 5:41
  Tim Montague: yeah,
• 5:42
  John Weaver: because of various reasons, and it's pretty interesting. So I you know.
• 5:45
  John Weaver: Batteries are coming, man, and they're not going to stop. And they're growing and growing.
• 5:54
  John Weaver: And, you know, one of the last stories on our document mentions how much battery capacity is being constructed right now, and that's not going to stop. It's yeah, it's big. It's coming hard.
• 6:07
  Tim Montague: So I dropped an episode on Tuesday this week with a company called brevian energy. That's on screen now.
• 6:14
  Tim Montague: This is Rod Matthews, the CEO of brevian. This is a solar developer in North County San Diego, and they're working with a CCA, a clean choice, Community Choice aggregator, which is a unique entity to the California market, but there are various forms of aggregation around the country. Basically, you get a group of cities who come together and they collaborate on buying energy and doing interesting things. In this case, like they have developed a Clean Energy Alliance, solar plus battery program, and they're installing third party owned, commercial size batteries. So these are megawatt hour plus projects, and the host is getting paid a lease payment, and also reducing their energy spend and also getting some resiliency from the facility. So the utility is guaranteeing that they'll reserve 20% of the battery for resiliency. So anyway, this model that is being rolled out in parts of California. This is brevian. Is in SDG and E territory is one that I think that we're going to going to see in a lot of markets, just because it is a very low cost entry. That's one of the problems with batteries, John, is the capex, the out of pocket on the front end, is significant. Even if you have a short payback period, you have to come up with those resources, and that can be a challenge when you're trying to do a lot of other things. So no
• 7:55
  John Weaver: different than solar, though, same same challenge. We always deal with solar.
• 8:00
  Tim Montague: Well, yes, it's solar. It's that same challenge on steroids, because the capex is so much greater. You know, a solar project, let's just say a solar project is $500,000 and if you want to pair a battery with that $500,000 solar rate, you might be looking at a million plus dollar battery. So yeah, it's just it's more money. The ROI is greater. And the value of the of the asset as a solar plus battery facility is much greater because it truly offers some resiliency depending on the size of the battery, and things like energy arbitrage and things like grid services, right that a solar array is never going to do for you so well, let's talk about PV magazine. You found a story about the ad.
• 8:54
  John Weaver: Yeah, this is going to affect people directly and quickly. Solar imports, I mean, we can read it off direct from the document, just so. I mean, I'm sure everybody that's buying modules, they know, but us, Department of Commerce has announced its official preliminary determinations of what they will add to the cost of solar modules from India, Indonesia and Laos and India, which has become the second largest manufacturer of solar panels globally, if they Want to send modules here, they're essentially going to be doubled 123% tariff, Indonesia, 35% Laos, 22% so we're just doing the same old thing that we've done. You know, we're jacking up the price of solar panels so that oil and gas can go just a little further, that's really what it is. And so first, solar can meet their quarterly stock numbers and keep ramping. And it's just not going to stop, because first, solar has the nose of plenty of politicians, and they're going to keep fighting anybody that brings in modules. And you know, this is the most recent attack. And so if you get a chance to buy some modules from some place and you're like, wow, these are really cheap, you better buy now. Get them on shore so that any tariffs that might come later can't be applied to you.
• 10:23
  John Weaver: Because this is just, this is just our world is we're just going to keep paying tariffs on solar related gear because we're an oil state.
• 10:31
  Tim Montague: Yeah, the companies listed here first, solar, hot lock, q cells and mission solar are well known names in domestic manufacturing in the US, and that list is growing. Canadian solar is building a factory in Indiana. I mean, there's t1 is in the news a lot. Lot. And I think jigger Shah just had t1 on his new podcast. They're planning to do the whole nine yards ingot to wafer to sell to module and and then. And so they're seemingly these domestic now, domestic manufacturers are trying to build a moat, which is very ironic, right? Because some of them, like q cells, obviously, is a very international, global company, and they have production in multiple countries. They're trying to create a wall, though, right, against low cost modules coming in from overseas. And then I had a conversation with Dean Solon.
• 11:37
  Tim Montague: You know, who I, who I mentioned last two weeks ago on the live and we're about to drop the full interview with Dean it'll be coming out sometime this, this coming week, I think. But Dean Solon, the the creator of Shoals technologies, the E boss company now has a company called create energy. And Dean initially went to market, or was going to go to market with a a native manufactured solar panel. And he's backed off of that because of all of this chaos that he has witnessed, and he's very skeptical about the ability of companies to establish this.
• 12:19
  Tim Montague: This what I call the whole nine yards. I don't know. Is there a technical term, John, for a company that makes all of the parts and pieces of a solar of a solar module in vertically
• 12:31
  John Weaver: integrated.
• 12:31
  Tim Montague: Thank you.
• 12:32
  John Weaver: Well, I don't know about one place, but at least if, yeah, I don't know if it's one building, but if it's under one country company, yeah, one vertically integrated? Yes.
• 12:42
  Tim Montague: He commented that it was just, just too for just, just, for example, laborious to permit a project that makes solar cells, for example. So, so anyway, it's, it's, it's interesting. I, you know, I feel the pain that installers and developers go through when procuring modules, because they're just being whipsawed by these, these wins, right? And they just want quality product that's at a reasonable price, bottom dollar, right? It's not complicated, and the federal government isn't helping our industry, though. They're just creating friction and chaos.
• 13:28
  John Weaver: This is true. Yeah, getting modules, this domestic content stuff. It's very challenging. I'm going through a procurement process right now.
• 13:33
  John Weaver: It's going a little slow, but it should be closing up shortly, and then I'll be able to talk up some cool modules that I'm getting. But it is, it can be a challenge right now. It's it's really challenging. People are trying to lock in supply.
• 13:47
  John Weaver: There's section 232, coming, probably, so we need to, at some point you're going to hear us discuss the outcome of that ruling. I'm trying to get my modules procured fully in my hand before section 232, hits, so I don't pay an extra tariff.
• 14:03
  John Weaver: But yeah, it's it's challenging.
• 14:07
  John Weaver: It's really challenging.
• 14:08
  Tim Montague: So there's a pending ruling.
• 14:10
  John Weaver: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
• 14:10
  John Weaver: So we probably talked about this a year ago once, but section 232, is a new global anti polysilicon ruling, which is thought to add anywhere from and this is me reading my favorite solar analyst. It'll come to me in a second. He's investor dude, Philip Shen, and he works for, ah, it'll come but in his writings, he's seeing, uh, 10 to 20 cents a watt potentially being added to any modules with imported poly. And that's everything. That's mostly everything. So, you know, he's hot to trot on First Solar stock because of this reason, but section 2322, 32 it's floating.
• 14:56
  John Weaver: It should have been ruled on and applied months ago. I don't, you know, I don't know why it hasn't, but some people are saying it's being used by the current administration as a negotiating line with the Chinese because there's a big meeting between our leader and Xi of China very soon. And so hopefully, 232, yeah, or hopefully it holds off for like two or three more months. And then 232, comes after I buy all my good stuff. So, so we'll see.
• 15:25
  John Weaver: We'll see how stuff goes.
• 15:29
  Tim Montague: And meanwhile, the tariffs that have been placed, some of them have been deemed illegal. So you found a story,
• 15:39
  John Weaver: well, not story.
• 15:39
  John Weaver: You found a website
• 15:42
  Tim Montague: by the US Customs and Border Protection called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, duty, refunds,
• 15:50
  John Weaver: ref. Funds.
• 15:52
  Tim Montague: And so what's the story? And I'll put that on screen.
• 15:56
  John Weaver: So the Supreme Court ruled that Trump's global emergency energy emergency tariff was illegal. There was no energy emergency. I don't know what the exact logic was, but it was illegal. And so the 10 to 1510, to 50% tariff, whatever the heck it was, it kept changing. That's illegal, and anybody who paid a tariff, the individual, the company that paid the tariff, can now get those tariffs back. And this is the website, so you plug in, and this has been up for about a week, maybe two, you plug in your info, and slowly, you'll get your money back for any gear you bought. Now the key is it's not for the end user. It's for the person that imported it and actually paid the tariff and has a record of it. So you don't necessarily know if a tariff that you pay will come back to you or your customers. It will go back to the importer, though, and so whoever these big importers are, they're going to get a windfall, in fact, because they were able to pass on those costs, right? And it's a very low probability that they're going to pass on that tariff some groups like FedEx and stuff that said they're going to try their best. And that sounds cool, but I guarantee you I have no idea which tariffs I paid. I would only paid two tariffs explicitly that they said, Hey, we increased your price. And here's the number you got to pay. It's like, All right, well, I get this money back. I'm going to reach out. I'll ask. But a lot of groups blended their cost, because that's how you manage business. You You know, if you know your tariff, if you know your first product was, say, $1 and your new products$1.50 you make your product$1.25 because you don't want to lose your customers. And so if you had a blended purchase from this tariff, how does that get figured out? How's that managed?
• 17:41
  John Weaver: And I don't know. I don't know, but if you're an importer, get on that website. You guys already know, because you're importing, and you're the ones who are being burnt by this, but get on there and get your tariff back, and, you know, have some lower prices for us for six months or or just make some money and go on vacation. I don't know, but the tariff website's up, and it was illegal, and that pisses me off.
• 18:05
  John Weaver: But hey, this is, this is how it runs.
• 18:12
  Tim Montague: All right, let's talk about tandem PV. In this case, it's a company called tandem PV. Tandem PV is also a phenomenon. Tandem PV begins perovskite silicon solar panel demonstration manufacturing by Kelly pickerel. Quick aside, I interviewed Kelly at the Chint event in Dallas. So that'll be coming out here in the coming weeks as well. We talked a lot about American Solar manufacturing, solar panels and batteries. So what is going on with tandem PV? John,
• 18:46
  John Weaver: so first off, I want to say this out loud so everybody can hear it. The company is releasing a product with perovskites that will warrant less than 1% annual degradation for 25 years. That's step number one. That's it.
• 19:10
  John Weaver: Everybody's been talking about it. What's the what's the warranty? This is the warranty less than 1% now, a second item is that this is a unique tandem product. It's not actually a tandem cell. It's a tandem module and and that's really interesting. It's not exactly the thing that made me go whiz bang over the last years. But talking with somebody who's really close to this company, it seems like this could be effectively the same thing. So what they do, you have a standard silicon solar panel underneath, and then your modules, glass is where, this is where the perovskites are. And so you have two unique modules, almost inside of your module, and then they connect, I guess in the back of the module at the junction box. I'm not exactly certain how the wiring comes together, yeah, but
• 20:02
  Tim Montague: so it's almost like two different solar panels together in a sandwich,
• 20:06
  John Weaver: yeah, yeah, totally. And reading their stuff, they see a pathway towards similar efficiencies like 33 34% eventually, as they get better and scale and and do things well, I believe their first module is gaining on 30% Yeah,
• 20:25
  Tim Montague: there
• 20:26
  John Weaver: you go. And apparently they're, they're sort of sold out. They don't. They can only make about 40 megawatts right now per year, and half of it's done by hand. So that's not the best product, but they that volume that they're doing is going to testing institutions and module manufacturer or module buyers and and various groups. So they're, they're sold out, essentially. Yeah, but sold out to people that want to see their product, to test their product and see if it's a viable product. And all of that is kind of exciting to me. And I communicate regularly on the tubes with a gentleman who's been investing in them for a very long time. So I just it's pretty cool. It's pretty neat.
• 21:08
  John Weaver: Perovskites are coming to bark.
• 21:12
  John Weaver: They're here, and we're gonna be touching them soon.
• 21:15
  Tim Montague: Yeah, we're gonna have another perovskite company on the show, Swift solar, who we've reported on here on the show, and they're making a tandem cell, yes, so they're gonna manufacture cells that layer perovskite on on PV and, yeah, looking forward to that.
• 21:39
  Tim Montague: That'll be maybe out in a month or so. So, yeah, the drum beat of perovskites is definitely happening. I I'm still curious if, if the LCOE is going to really, is going to really work, right? They this technology has to compete with on the one end, thin film, right for solar, for utility scale, and it has to compete with crystal and PV top con and HjT, traditional PV technology. Do you have a strong sense that this is really you know, that the timing is right and that tandem is going to sweep the field, so to speak.
• 23:25
  John Weaver: So this is my belief. My belief is that a tandem solar panel is going to cost less per watt than a standard very shortly, and it's definitely going to cost, yeah, it's going to cost less per watt because you're going to have more efficiency
• 23:44
  Tim Montague: for
• 23:45
  John Weaver: the same glass, the same frame, the same junction box, the same back sheet. The only difference is going to be one little thin extra layer of perovskites on your standard solar module. But it's going to jack the number from 25% max efficiency to up to 35% this group, tandem said that they believe there's plenty of space between their cost and what the developer needs the module to cost in order for them to make money. So my opinion is, without a doubt, like when the real tandem hits, they're going to be the same cost. Now maybe they'll start off more expensive, simply because they can, because they have a value aspect, and the value of them is higher than a standard module. But competition is going to chew that away really, really fast as soon as three companies launch.
• 24:42
  Tim Montague: Well, largely competing. Is there some simple logic here that tells me that they have to charge more because there's an additional process, whether it's at the cell or the module level, right? They're doing an extra step or two.
• 24:57
  John Weaver: There's machines, big, $100,000 machines. So yes, the cost per module will be higher, say, 3% 5% but the output per module, the wattage per module, is going to be up 30% so that's why the cost per unit can go up.
• 25:15
  Tim Montague: But
• 25:16
  John Weaver: the same module that was, you know, 600 watts, it's now going to be 800 watts.
• 25:19
  John Weaver: And that module that was 600 watts. Let's say it cost 100 bucks. The perovskite module is going to cost 110, 120, and so that's 10% higher, 5% higher, whatever it is, but the wattage is going to be 30% higher. So yes, price per unit will go up.
• 25:37
  John Weaver: It should. There's a new machine. There's three machines in the manufacturing line, but the one is just going to outpace the hardware. And that's already being seen in numbers here and there that I I get to browse. So I I'm bullish on that. I do think that people who are strong finance folks, so let's put it this way, the Americans that are backed by Wall Street. Are going to jack their price up as high as they can, because they know how to do the spreadsheets. The Chinese who want to dominate, they're going to destroy it. And so give tandem their shot. Get swift their shot. All these US companies are going to come in and sell it 50 cents, 80 cents,$1 a watt, whatever the markets can sustain, but as soon as China starts pounding it, that premium is going to get consumed. So,
• 26:31
  Tim Montague: yeah, I'm so curious to see how this unfolds, but time will tell. Okay, you found a story about Trina Solar claims world's highest efficiency for silicon solar cells. Which one? 8% efficient device by Vincent SHA in PB magazine. This is, I Okay, 28% efficient. You know, they're approaching the physical maximum of, what is that? 29 and a half or something like that,
• 27:01
  John Weaver: something like that. Yep. So, so this is really cool because it's the most most efficient solar cell out, or was the most efficient silicon solar sellout then, and this module would be about 26% efficiency, and they'll start manufacturing them very soon. And the reason developers need to care about higher efficiency is that for I don't know if this is exactly true anymore, but the President of long G once said, for every 1% increase in solar panel efficiency, the cost of the solar portion, not the transformers and all the other stuff, but the solar plant itself, The L Coe, drops 5% now I've done some math, and I don't know, I can only make it work to two and a half percent. So maybe there's just things I don't grasp. But every 1% increase in efficiency means more the same module or more wattage uses the same labor, the same human, the same racking, the same, concrete, all kinds of stuff.
• 28:05
  John Weaver: Now, other pieces have to get bigger, like the copper wire has to increase. The inverters have to go up. Interconnection costs, they go up because your system AC rating is higher. But you know, it's cool. I i was really entertained by this, because I was like, Oh man, 28% that's awesome, and it set a new record. But the next story is really entertaining. Just note that the date on this story real quick before we switch. It's April 27
• 28:32
  Tim Montague: Yeah,
• 28:32
  John Weaver: so April 27 Trina breaks the world record for most efficient silicon solar cell on Earth. And then Tim what happened the very next day?
• 28:47
  Tim Montague: This is the story
• 28:49
  John Weaver: about Yes, sir, literally, the very next day.
• 28:52
  John Weaver: Timothy, I just record Yes. They had, they had the record sell in their pocket. Tim and they decided to wait until Trina was like, Ah, we're number one. And nah, we'll let you have that record for one day. So kudos long G for being patient and playing the long game. And
• 29:17
  Tim Montague: if I'm Trina or long G, am I investing heavily in tandem R and D. Or am I thinking, Well, I'll let the others do that heavy lift and then I'll just buy them once they get established.
• 29:35
  John Weaver: No, because Trina and long G have some of the highest rated tandem solar cells and jinko, so
• 29:40
  Tim Montague: they're doing their own tandem R and D.
• 29:43
  John Weaver: Yeah, I think long G might be the highest one I've seen, which is right at 34% so they long G already now, the CEO, the former CEO of long G, who retired and moved into the r, d department recently, he he said perovskites about a year or two ago, maybe a year ago, he said perovskites were still a little early. They needed more testing to be to compete with pure silicon. So he was a little and he's a very technological advanced person, and very honest. So when he said that, I was like, ah, but it could all, yeah, I don't think he would be asking for sales reasons to, you know, keep everybody liking his silicon product. So it made me, you know him and Jenny Chase.
• 30:27
  John Weaver: There are people I respect, and both of them kind of keep me in check. When my whiz bang, new, awesome tech, you know, energy starts bouncing around. So they're coming. All the big boys are doing perovskites, and as soon as somebody lands it, they're all going to start ruling them out. They're here, they're here, but spread out everywhere, and we're going to see them very shortly, man, I just
• 30:53
  Tim Montague: hope it helps us bring down the cost of solar. I you know, as you and I know and our listeners know, the soft costs of solar are also a major problem. The technology can get more affordable and more efficient, but we have some significant problems with permitting and installation, right, that are not going to get solved by technology. Well, not by solar technology, other technologies, permitting technology. All right, so here's the story in energy storage news, LG es says manufacturing spend puts company on track for 50 gigawatt hours plus us. Ess production target, yeahs is.
• 31:42
  Tim Montague: Coming to America, except this is Ontario, Canada.
• 31:48
  John Weaver: No, there's five factories. One of them's in Ontario. So there's two in Michigan. I believe there's one in Kansas. I don't know where the fourth one is. And then, of course, the one in Windsor, Ontario. So that's their five facilities that will be online by the end of 26 and it's gonna be over 50 gigawatt hours of capacity per year, which is awesome. That's just, that's just under what we installed in the entirety of last year. I think we did 60 ish, 50 to 60.
• 32:19
  John Weaver: And this is right next to it.
• 32:19
  John Weaver: It's projected we'll do like 100 ish, I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but, you know, we might double last year. And these guys could do half of it hypothetically, they they said a couple of interesting things that I liked, or, well, one particular their next cells, that their current that they're working toward deploying will be 15% less than the current product, and they see that product deploying by 2028 so we should expect to see cells continue to fall in price.
• 32:52
  John Weaver: And I don't know exactly what their technology is here, but they noted in the article they have, you know, a lot of battery stuff. I don't really know the high end stuff, but they have dry electrode processing, a solid state we hear about constantly, and then sodium, and it's interesting to see sodium moving beyond the big Chinese manufacturers like C, A, T, L and by D, because sodium is, maybe, I don't know, sodium, they say is going to be cheaper, because sodium is more available than lithium, but it's not as energy dense, which will mean you still need a bigger set of Balance of System gear, if it you know, if you can fit 10 megs in one container and six or seven or eight in another, you know, all the container and the inverters and the heating gear, all that stuff costs money, and that's the same on either container, but one holds 10 and one holds eight. So cost per kilowatt hour. Sodium might, right now, cost more than lithium, but as it scales, it's gonna hypothetically cost less.
• 33:57
  John Weaver: So I'm it's cool to see LG working on these things and saying that they're us. Do you have a
• 34:03
  Tim Montague: prediction when the crossover is going to happen for sodium, when sodium will become more economical and competitive on a density basis?
• 34:13
  John Weaver: I don't have a prediction, because I'm not. Is it
• 34:17
  Tim Montague: five years? Is I was
• 34:18
  John Weaver: gonna say early, 2030s, just some things where I'm reading and my memory is slowly touching, but I'm going to guess early 2030s is, is when it will meet, maybe meet the same costs, but it has to scale.
• 34:30
  John Weaver: There was a purchase this past week. It's not on the dot, but a 60 gigawatt hour procurement from hyper strong, who is a big integrator, a global battery integrator, Chinese, and they bought 60 gigawatt hours, or, you know, set up a deal with CA TL with cable. So that's like the what, what the press was calling, or at least ca TL was calling a breakthrough deal for for sodium, saying, this is, this is the start of big procurement, and people believing in it. So I it's, I don't know how long, but as it scales, we'll find out. Because, I mean, right now, lithium is just scaling massively.
• 35:16
  Tim Montague: Says here that Tesla has committed to invest in 25 billion, in 2520 2025, 2026, 2026, I'm curious how, how big that that 25 billion is relative to what LG is doing. I don't see a number for LG here. This is clearly a very big investment, though, five factories,
• 35:44
  John Weaver: yes. And three of them are already up. Though, of course, two of them are under construction.
• 35:51
  Tim Montague: And, you know, we reported on, I think John, one of the one of the trends in this, in this market, is that companies like LG have been pivoting away from EV cell production to stationary storage cell production right
• 36:09
  John Weaver: in the US, at least, yeah,
• 36:12
  Tim Montague: yeah, because we've been raining on the EV parade. Now, ironically, EVs are the hottest thing since sliced bread, because of gasoline prices skyrocketing because of the war in Iran, so the feds have unintentionally caused a resurgence in interest by the American consumer in EVs. Yes,
• 36:35
  John Weaver: they have.
• 36:38
  Tim Montague: I'm not one of them. I want to be an EV owner again. But. But my my technology that I trail around, called a sailboat, prevents me from doing that. Technology is always a double edge. All right, we have time for one more story.
• 37:01
  John Weaver: Wow, we've already been talking for a while. Oh, how about this one? Republicans have submitted a new proposal to re up the commercial tax credit.
• 37:13
  John Weaver: I heard about this,
• 37:17
  Tim Montague: I heard about this, and it is, in my opinion, not that surprising. I'll put this on screen, but what's the story? And who wrote the story and where
• 37:30
  John Weaver: it's from, solar power world, one of my favorite places to read. And it's probably written by Kelly, because Billy Ludd, I think, oh, Billy. Billy's Great. Billy's really tall. Did you know that he's like, Billy's taller than me, which is unusual.
• 37:42
  Tim Montague: There
• 37:43
  John Weaver: you go. Billy's cool. Billy's a nice guy. Met him a few times, and I love reading him and Kelly and everybody at solar power world.
• 37:47
  John Weaver: It's just, you know, Republicans put it out as politics. You know, historically, Trump was the last before Biden Trump actually extended the ITC, he signed off on an extension of it. So the politics of this, this is one of the most positive, one of the most positively political documents that people like in the United States. Solar power is, I know I've written this headline is more popular than apple pie in the United States, even with all the negativity it gets and so this legislation is something that could occur if there are Republicans who feel the need to bolster their November chance.
• 38:32
  John Weaver: But at a minimum, what we do see is that across the board, as the political regimes continue to evolve. We'll see what happens with this. I just, every time I see this stuff, I get a little excited. But, yeah, this is just, it just hit the news last week. It's a new, new piece of legislation that's floating out there. There's already democratic versions of this out there, in other ways. But this is just, you know, keep it in your heads. Keep watching so
• 39:04
  Tim Montague: as things stand today, the the ITC, the commercial, solar ITC, is going away at the end of 2027, unless you safe harbor by July 4 of this year, and then that gives you an additional two years of runway. Is that? Right? Right?
• 39:23
  John Weaver: Four, four, so, 2031 No, from you, from July 3.
• 39:32
  John Weaver: 2026, so until July 3
• 39:35
  Tim Montague: of. 2020,
• 39:36
  John Weaver: 30 Okay, yes. So, yeah. So for the big players, you know, not for guys like me, whose projects take six months to build. But for the big players, they got a runway. And if you do things like buy a transformer, and they start to build the radiator, is what I'm told. And those take a long time. That begins your construction. And that's the key.
• 39:58
  Tim Montague: It's not really four more years that we have to be specific about this, because right now it's expiring at the end 2027 correct July of 2030 is two and a half years out from that. 2829
• 40:13
  John Weaver: so an extension of two and a half. Yes,
• 40:20
  Tim Montague: but fear not.
• 40:20
  Tim Montague: There is life after the ITC, I stand by my words on that. I've talked to enough people that are very smart, much smarter than I, who believe this. The solar industry is going to be here for the long haul, and we need to continue to drive down the cost of solar and become more efficient and cut the fat out of the industry and cut the profiteering. We're headed for quite a ride. We're riding the up of the coaster right now.
• 40:52
  Tim Montague: John, right there's, there's a mini boom happening. But hold on, because if the ITC does not get extended, then there is going to be a bust in 2028 maybe as early as next year, in 2027
• 41:10
  John Weaver: not my company.
• 41:10
  John Weaver: We're going to be packed. We're going to be figuring out how not to mess up at the end of 2027 by taking construction risk. We need to focus and work hard.
• 41:23
  Tim Montague: Lean in. Lean into your strengths. Continue to diversify. Is one of my pieces of advice. Go hard after battery storage. Go hard after micro grids. It's okay if you want to do something adjacent, also like roofing or HVAC, if you have.
• 41:42
  Tim Montague: Those chops, but I just say, lean into your strengths and focus on making your operation more efficient. That's going to help you ride through the down period, if there is one. I mean, here in Illinois and in other similar markets, there's not going to be much of a downturn because we have such good legislation, right? Good state incentives, the emergence of VPP in front of the meter storage and utility storage, there's so many drivers, but those are very state specific. So well, well, we've done it again, and we're out of time. I want to thank you, John Weaver, for being here every other week. Check out all of our content at clean power hour.com We've launched a new website. We used to have two websites. Now we just have clean power hour.com all of it is there. My consulting or advisory services are there and all of the episodes of the Clean Power Hour. So check that out, and please tell a friend about the show. That's the best thing you can do to help others find this content. John Weaver, how can our listeners find you
• 42:54
  John Weaver: commercial solar guy, calm, that's it. That's my website. Got a phone number, got an email, or you can come to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I'll buy you a beer.
• 43:04
  Tim Montague: And that's a good place to hang out. There's a lot of energy companies in Massachusetts. I unfortunately only go there for Ari plus in February, when it's not very nice. But maybe I can manage to go to Boston twice this year.
• 43:17
  Tim Montague: Find me an excuse to go to Boston. John,
• 43:19
  John Weaver: absolutely me buy you a beer. Tim, come on. I'll buy you two you're a tall guy.
• 43:23
  John Weaver: You need two beers.
• 43:27
  Tim Montague: All right. Well, thank you all for being here. We do this for you, and with that, I'll say, let's grow solar and storage. I'm Tim Montague. Have a great weekend, John. You.