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California Batteries Just Killed Negative Daytime Solar Prices · Clean Power Hour

• 0:51
  Tim Montague: Welcome to the Clean Power Hour live bringing you the latest and greatest clean energy news every other week. It's April 17. I'm at Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee, outside of Chattanooga, and it's a glorious day. I am here for a regatta. There's a sailing club just behind me, there with some sailboats, and life is really good. Welcome to my co host, Mr.
• 1:17
  Tim Montague: John Weaver, welcome to the show, John.
• 1:19
  John Weaver: That's not bad.
• 1:19
  John Weaver: Tim, hanging out with the boats with a beautiful blue sky.
• 1:22
  John Weaver: That's not a bad, not a bad place to be. It's not very wind powered right now, though you were talking, so that's kind of funny.
• 1:31
  Tim Montague: Solar powered.
• 1:31
  Tim Montague: There's a light breeze now, so that's good, because it's kind of hot. It's 85 it's a warm day, but it's beautiful. There two of the great things about this is it's technology, aka sailboats and people, lovely people. So I get to combine two of my true passions, and sustainability is in the mix here, actually, right? Because wind powers many things in our society. Many parts of our grid are now wind powered, and someday, you know, 40% of the grid will be wind powered. And you just think about the impact John that boats have had on humanity, like from everything from a canoe to a bear skin kayak or a seal skin kayak that rocked humanity's world historically. So boats are really important technology.
• 2:25
  John Weaver: Yeah, I mean, I don't, I know nothing about boat history, you know, other than stories about us crossing the world with them, but I'm assuming that boats go back to kind of way back when,
• 2:37
  Tim Montague: further 1000s of years.
• 2:40
  John Weaver: Yeah, I'm gonna guess boats predate written history, so they're probably a pre history type of thing, yeah?
• 2:46
  John Weaver: So for sure, yeah. All right. So we could talk about, I got cool stuff to talk about, you know, every week and
• 2:53
  Tim Montague: first and first, I got to give a shout out, because I went to Dean solon's factory in a little town called Portland, Tennessee, which is an hour north of Nashville. And Joe Farney was kind enough, his chief of staff was kind enough to invite me down. I'm going to put just a few still photos.
• 3:13
  Tim Montague: We're going to produce a full podcast episode from this visit.
• 3:19
  Tim Montague: But there's Dean Solon. Many of you know him because he puts on good parties at trade shows for shoals. He's the founder of Shoals, and he's now a billionaire because he sold Shoals, but and there was some news that we released during the during the recording, which is that he made the Forbes list of 250 Self Made Millionaires in America. These are people like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates and so many legends. But, and I learned that one of the criteria is coming from humble beginnings. Thus, the self made people or self made Yeah, self made people factor. He grew up in steel country in Gary, Indiana, very humble roots, but is a beast of an entrepreneur and at create here in Tennessee.
• 4:12
  Tim Montague: Oh, he's got, he's got a, he's got an amazing car and motorcycle collection. I didn't get a shot there of the motorcycles, but, oh yeah, there I did. He's a, he's a self described gearhead. And the very interesting thing about create, okay, so they're making trackers, so racking. They're making inverters. They partnered with SMA. They're building SMA inverters at their factory.
• 4:43
  Tim Montague: They're making batteries with SOCOMEC, a French battery company, and they're making Balance of System and then a software system that connects it all. Oh, and they have a autonomous mowing company. They bought Gray's robotics. So six major elements of of well, there's, there's more to it. But anyway, one of his things is he's trying to create very robust solar construction projects that last for 50 years.
• 5:13
  Tim Montague: He's really down on cheap construction, and he mentioned some projects that that he knows of that were were dysfunctional after just two years in the field. So Dean is committed to helping our industry become more robust and long lasting. And I really appreciate that, all the while being affordable and making stuff in America, like 100% he wants 100% of his stuff made in America. So you can look forward to that episode which is coming up. And. John, do you have any questions about Dean Solon for me?
• 5:54
  John Weaver: No, not. Now I like to ask him questions. When I meet him at conferences. He's nice guy to listen to, especially when he starts going on a riff and getting mad at something. Then he's fun, because then you're going to hear all the colorful words.
• 6:06
  John Weaver: It's great. So I think it's interesting what he's doing. I'm sure there's a bigger, broader plan that would be cool to read about, because he's attacking little strategic spots, or maybe just a whole supply chain, and trying to make his own company to do it all. I don't know exactly what the bigger logic with the individual attack points, but it's really interesting to watch. I mean, he's bringing it from the ground up, and you know the concept of a 50 year solar power plant. You know we have solar panels that can last that long, glass on glass by facial panels seem to have very long term lives. At one point, I was told by somebody, no financier would care about a 20 a 50 Year module, because they're probably going to repower halfway through with new tech to get more energy out of the same site, throw some batteries on it. But we're in that early stage where we were.
• 7:03
  John Weaver: We're going to learn about these things, these repowerings. We're sort of seeing repowering, because this is a repowering conversation or not. You know, it's either you build it initially for 50 years and it lasts 50 or there's repowering in the midst of it. And, you know, I wonder what that's going to look like again. We're starting to see it with wind farms a lot. It's been going on for a while. They're getting bigger farms at the same sites.
• 7:28
  John Weaver: I haven't, you know, I haven't seen somebody explicitly like repower a solar plant with super efficient modules and ultra dense and throwing batteries behind the original interconnection. That's what my my next pie in the sky. All I want to see for Christmas is
• 7:47
  Tim Montague: is, uh, yeah. And that harkens to my Yeah. That harkens to my recent episode with Matt Murphy of formerly of greenbacker. I can't remember his current company, but check out that episode. He is in the repowering business, but just real quick when it comes to reliability. For example, this is a water tank that has fuses.
• 8:07
  Tim Montague: These are large. I don't know what the amperage of these fuses are, but they're submersing the fuses for months at a time, and then measuring how much the ampacity of the of the circuit is impacted by water influx. And he's calculated that his technology is 1000 times better than the existing standard. So that's just an example. He's he's very interested in preventing, you know, you think of a a solar connector, right?
• 8:41
  Tim Montague: And when that's on a tracker, the tracker is rotating and it causes the connector to rotate a little bit. Well, he's now designed a cage that goes around that connector to prevent stress on the electrical connection and putting more stress on the wire insulation. So a very innovative. He's got a lot of innovative ideas. He reminds me a lot, honestly, of Elon Musk, and I don't know if he's in the same category of genius as Elon Musk, he's in a better category in terms of him as a person. I get the sense that he's a very caring person. He cares about his employees, and he cares about the United States in ways that I don't think Elon really does, but I digress.
• 9:39
  John Weaver: So I think one of the interesting things about Dean's position, coming from the wiring segment, is is the innovations that he's talking about are not the big whiz bang, you know, perovskite solar panel, or, you know, some new cutting edge thing he's talking about fixing little things, many of them, it reminds me of That word I've heard about in Japan.
• 10:12
  John Weaver: It's you, you attempt to get a little better every day. Yeah, that's these are some of the things. And this is multiple times you've nothing you said today about your visit changed from prior conversations. I've heard about Dean's new work. And Dean's new work is about fixing all the little things. And that just sounds interesting, and him coming from being a guy who touched all the wires he's he's the type of person to have that type of insight. So I'm It's interesting. It's interesting to hear about it.
• 10:43
  Tim Montague: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:43
  Tim Montague: So you wrote a story in PV magazine, batteries buying free column. California Solar driving up price?
• 10:54
  John Weaver: Yes, yes, very interesting to me. And nobody liked my headline, by the way.
• 10:58
  John Weaver: Tim, so I guess I my They said my headline was horrible on
• 11:03
  Tim Montague: nothing is free.
• 11:03
  Tim Montague: John, nothing is free.
• 11:06
  John Weaver: Of course not. But wholesale electricity in California during the daytime is negatively priced. Tim, so there's something about that, and that's what this story is about. So what's occurring now in California is, well, what's been occurring for a long term is that the duck curve, and the duck curve means a whole bunch of electricity being produced in the daytime. There's an excess, quote, unquote, excess volume of electricity. There have been headlines spilled all around California is wasting electricity. They're they're pushing solar into other power grids. They're messing with the local region, all this negative stuff. And you know, too much solar, too much this. And you know, people just liking to complain, well, batteries are officially doing the battery thing. The thing that we were expecting them to do that daytime electricity, which in California, is actually priced negatively. Tim, so I don't know if it's not free, but it's they pay people for the to take their electricity. That price of that daytime electricity is now increasing, and it's increasing because battery demand is driving up the price. And that is the story of the year. In my opinion, the demand
• 12:25
  Tim Montague: of the battery absorbing energy from the grid, right?
• 12:29
  John Weaver: Yes, between when, as soon as the sun goes up, is when it starts and it starts hitting hard at like 1011, 12, 123, when solar blasting, and so batteries, and then the batteries like and we discussed this a month ago, they're now running 24 hours in California, So we're taking sunlight, and most of the batteries are charging all sunlight, and we're time shifting it for all of the day. Some days it's running 24/7, most days it's pounding into the early evening. But the key is, and here's the magic Tim, the price of electricity in this particular day was negative five cents a kilowatt hour, for the last, you know, 3.2 gigawatt hours, or 3.2 gigs worth the battery demand increased it by 4.2 cents. So instead of the instead of the solar, people paying a nickel, they're paying just under a penny. And the reason they can pay is because they have contracts, they have incentives, they have production credits, they have PPAs. Their PPA could be 20 cents, so it's okay to lose a nickel in the wholesale market. They account for this. But that's changing now, and this is the old chart right here. The one you were just looking at that was what batteries were two or three years ago. 2022, so a full four cents, almost four cents, not a full four cents, almost four cents has been added to the price of daytime energy. And that's leading to, I think it's like $10,000 10,833 of my memory serves, something like that, in one five minute period of revenue, that instead of being zero, it's now going to the solar asset owner. So the value of a daytime solar power plant is now increasing in California.
• 14:32
  Tim Montague: This is really big. Tell me more about about how this impacts either our industry or consumers and business business owners.
• 14:43
  John Weaver: So our industry, that means our solar, where people were saying the solar, solar is going to consume itself. Solar is going to cannibalize itself because there's going to be so much solar in the daytime. Now that's being balanced. So this means that PPAs, this means that the solar power plants that are in regions with lots and lots of solar already, it's no longer a no go. This now opens up those regions where they said, Oh, we have too much solar. We have a duck curve, California, Germany, Europe, these. So the value of our solar is now worth more because the batteries are are able to eat that and move it around the clock. And this is really a bigger discussion. And I actually have articles on that, on this particular tape, on this particular show, and if we want to move into the bigger question, but the medium question for now, though, and this sets the sets the conversation. The medium question is that batteries are now pulling up the price of cheap daytime electricity, and they're competing to redeliver it over the course of the day.
• 15:48
  John Weaver: And that is just a big. Step Now, broadly, this is the first step in the 24/7 solar Yeah, and they're the virtual
• 15:59
  Tim Montague: Dyson Sphere.
• 15:59
  Tim Montague: John, batteries are the virtual Dyson sphere. We don't need the Dyson sphere because we have batteries. We want the Dyson Sphere anyway, but we don't
• 16:07
  John Weaver: need it. We're talking about, I'm writing a story. It's going to hit the PV mag in the next week or two, but it's about medium and long duration energy storage. And right now, medium duration is taking hard punches. Man, long duration form energy they're looking pretty cool right now, but if we got a whole bunch of batteries, and they have software and they know how to do the, you know, man, that's a that's a global battery. That's a very interesting piece of tech.
• 16:39
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I think a form energy is like 100 100 hour solution, and then medium duration. Do you mean like a 10 hour solution? Medium was
• 16:47
  John Weaver: defined as greater than four and, you know, less than 100 like one or two days or eight hours to 24 hours, that was medium for a while. But, you know, four to eight hours is now long duration lithium, and that's what that story is going to be about, yeah,
• 17:03
  Tim Montague: but, but it's hard for it's hard for the flow battery companies. I think maybe that's, that's when I think media duration, I think flow battery. Yep, form is iron air.
• 17:16
  Tim Montague: Form is iron air. It's fundamentally different than flow.
• 17:19
  John Weaver: But so, so, yeah, so interesting stuff, interesting stuff going on there, and, and so this next story, I just put it on the document so we can reference it.
• 17:28
  John Weaver: You know, California's got a massive volume of batteries coming, and it's interesting in this story, actually. So here's the
• 17:35
  Tim Montague: CPUC story. Yeah, do the
• 17:37
  John Weaver: CPUC story next please. But in the battery story that we just closed, there's a report from Aurora Energy Research. That's who wrote that report they put out that we're actually in California, and this story aligns with it. They think that battery capacity may outpace renewable capacity, which could lead toward greater upward pressure on wholesale pricing, because daytime pricing is still so much cheaper than overnight, evening and morning, and we may see further upward pressure while battery growth outpaces solar growth, which is a really exciting thing, interesting thing, we may see the price of daytime Wholesale Solar electricity get pushed up further, which is wonderful for solar asset developers and long term pricing viability. So, so
• 18:31
  Tim Montague: this is the story.
• 18:31
  Tim Montague: The story is seeing, seeing shortage. California seeks six gigawatts, clean cow, clean power capacity. By John Weaver, march 17, that's today in
• 18:44
  John Weaver: PB magazine. That was a month ago. Actually, I this.
• 18:47
  Tim Montague: March 17, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you.
• 18:51
  John Weaver: And so, and so the purpose of bringing this story up now is just to show that the state sees they need new juice them batteries are coming, and they even said that in this story they expect the majority of that capacity to have batteries attached. In fact, there's no choice but to that six gigawatts of clean capacity, there's no choice but it to have batteries attached to it, per the requirements that's coming.
• 20:12
  John Weaver: And this is just,
• 20:13
  Tim Montague: yeah, this is, this is very important for for our national audience, to to to understand you're getting a glimpse into the future here.
• 20:20
  Tim Montague: This is what's coming down the pike. What happens in California, happens everywhere.
• 20:26
  Tim Montague: There's just a lag. And so you got to skate to where the puck is going. And you're no longer a solar installer. You're a battery installer who also does solar. That's just the way it is. Love it or leave it. Love it or leave it, I say. But if you don't embrace batteries as an energy professional, you're done.
• 20:46
  John Weaver: Have to, you have to, I mean, everything in this document, everybody should read it. If you're a California person, just understand you have no choice. It's, I mean, legally for the for the large scale stuff, if you want to get in on this procurement, your solar has to have batteries attached to it and and it's it. This is it.
• 21:04
  John Weaver: Man, I was there's a story on Bloomberg this week where they're now going to push developers to include solar in all of Germany's procurements.
• 21:17
  John Weaver: And we may see some new legislation coming from from Germany for that, and so, so batteries. I mean, we've been talking about batteries so much, but solar, solar has to feed them batteries. But really, batteries is something we all need to learn. It's our career now. It is,
• 21:35
  Tim Montague: it is, and it's, you know, as I've said on the show before, it is somewhat rocket science. And how you know they're controlling a battery and optimizing its value stack is somewhat rocket science. So you need very smart partners like intelligent generation.
• 21:51
  Tim Montague: There's a handful of these companies, and it's regional, so you got to know your region and who's a good player. Intel.
• 21:58
  Tim Montague: Intelligent generation is just my favorite for PJM, which is a huge ISO, but that's only one ISO. It's the largest ISO. John, all right, what's our next story?
• 22:15
  John Weaver: Community? Solar, Timothy, 10 gigs, yeah.
• 22:20
  Tim Montague: And this is another, and this is another guidepost, I think, an important guidepost for our listeners. The title this story is us community solar passes 10 gigawatts, 10 gigawatt milestone despite market contraction. So it's the best of times. It's the worst of times, a tale of Twin Cities. Is that is, that's the quote, right? And it's the best of times, okay? Because, well, hey, we're humans on Earth, and we're alive in 2026 and life is good.
• 22:51
  Tim Montague: There's a boom going on because of the O triple B. Thank you, Donald Trump, you created a boom in the solar industry. Just remember that we want that to be remembered. It did create a boom. Now there is a potential bust coming at the end of that boom. Hopefully, not, hopefully we can create enough, enough growth and and bringing down the cost of solar that we just ride through that, the loss of the ITC, right? There are many people, including myself, who feel that the ITC is not necessary. We will survive the ITC free world. But anyway, if you're working in New York, in Massachusetts, in Illinois, in Minnesota, in Colorado, in New Mexico. So many markets you are, you are experiencing a robust community solar market now, and this graph shows it well. We, we had a peak in 2024, of two gigawatts of install, right? And then it dropped out a little bit, and then it is going to drop down even more. It Down to 2030, but the cumulative, cumulative total is rising up to 16 gigawatts. Whereas, yeah, we're, we're past, looks like we're going to pass 12 gigawatts this year of installed so and community solar. Why do we care about community solar?
• 24:31
  John Weaver: John, I care about community solar because it puts a lot of distributed, middle sized projects widely across the market. And it's, it's an extension of commercial and residential.
• 24:49
  Tim Montague: It puts down. Who does community solar matter most for?
• 24:54
  John Weaver: I mean, I would say local communities. You know, the savings of community solar hypothetically pass on to apartment dwellers, people who don't own their home, people who can't install solar on their roof, businesses, too. That's where the savings go. But the savings are limited because you don't really own a project. But I would argue the local installers, local businesses, local power grid, local landowners who want to be in the solar biz, so want to be in the industry, but they're not utility scale and so. So apartment dwellers, non homeowners, people who don't have a big house, they get the electricity, and then you get lots of local people who get to install it. So it's really, it's, it's community. That's the name of it. That's why it's named that way.
• 25:47
  Tim Montague: It's yeah, and it's for, it's for consumers who don't want solar on the roof, or can't afford solar on their roof, or who are renters and thereby cannot put solar on their roof because they don't own the building, or they have a big yard, a big tree in their yard, like Tim Montague, so many people can benefit. I've signed up for next amp community solar, by the way. Now I still have not been assigned to a project I signed up about a month ago. My son finally guilted me into it.
• 26:17
  Tim Montague: Thank you, Finn, he's right. I should definitely be a community solar subscriber, and I now have my about my mini balcony solar, 400 watt foldable solar panels, and my power bank. It's just not plugged into my house yet. I'm working on that. I actually need to hire an electrician. If there's any electricians in Champaign that want to fix my my out. That on the back in the backyard. All right, I love this story. Oh, but before we leave this story, it's it notes that the long term growth is now heavily dependent on the establishment of new markets in Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Michigan. So if you're anywhere near those markets. Know that there is a burgeoning solar market coming in those places.
• 27:05
  Tim Montague: And you know, today there's only five really good solar markets, but in five years, there'll be 20. It's going to grow just like the same with battery markets, right? There's only a handful of really good battery markets. But the wave is coming, so you gotta, you gotta get in the game, and you're in the community solar development game.
• 27:31
  John Weaver: John, yeah, yes, we are very lightly, you know, not, not in the like, the bigger one, like we were in New York, but we definitely participate in it.
• 27:38
  John Weaver: And our project is online, our first one, the Farmer Brown solar.
• 27:45
  Tim Montague: Yeah, we showed that last time.
• 27:47
  John Weaver: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, sort of, you know, two projects we're developing now. They're going to sell into community solar in Massachusetts. So, so we're in it, we're we're next to it, definitely.
• 27:58
  Tim Montague: But now we're going to show a lovely, a lovely O and M, lovely on M photo, yes, yes. So, so
• 28:05
  John Weaver: everybody you know, do I need to clean my solar panels? That's the real question. Well, today we need to clean these solar panels. So the customer has been asked. We got a message, hey, our productions down for the week, or productions been down for a while. And we're like, Yeah, that's true. We need to schedule our annual chuck up and look at your numbers. They are down about five, 10% at least 10% and we finally got up on their roof.
• 28:28
  John Weaver: And this is what was
• 28:31
  Tim Montague: going on now this, this is when I first saw this.
• 28:35
  Tim Montague: John, I thought it was hail damage, but now I now that I look closer, I see that it's bird droppings, right? Yes, sir, yes. Is it seagulls?
• 28:43
  John Weaver: Or what goals these are seagulls? We when this project was initially built, it was, it was seen and pointed out to the customer that there were Seagull nests on one of the roofs, not this one, the central roof. This is the roof to the west. And those seagulls, you know, we said, hey, you guys, gonna have to manage this. It's gonna be an issue. We actually also had to replace a module which had a Quahog, a shell, which is essentially just a big muscle type shell that's seagulls will pick up, they'll drop on rocks, open them up, eat the insides, and so they use solar panels and so, so this is the O and M project of the week.
• 29:19
  John Weaver: Man, you know sometimes the
• 29:23
  Tim Montague: cohog had cracked the panel,
• 29:25
  John Weaver: yes, yes. That's, that's their job, yes. So we, I'm gonna
• 29:29
  Tim Montague: have to mention that to Dean Solon, maybe he can solve that problem too.
• 29:33
  John Weaver: Man, that's a big Quahog. Man, this is, you know, they're not going the same speed. They're not falling
• 29:39
  Tim Montague: from that's like a baseball.
• 29:41
  John Weaver: Yes, yes. They're, there something special. So, so, yeah, that's a New Bedford challenge. Is dealing with cohogs.
• 29:48
  Tim Montague: Was this your install?
• 29:49
  John Weaver: Yes, yes, we installed this project.
• 29:52
  Tim Montague: Okay, well, you better get, you better get your scrub brush out. That's gonna be a dirty job.
• 29:59
  John Weaver: Yep, yep.
• 29:59
  John Weaver: Somebody's gonna be up there. We have a couple of cleaning crews.
• 30:01
  John Weaver: We're working on a quote for that to get it cleaned.
• 30:05
  Tim Montague: But and I would say, O and M is another great opportunity, right? I'm I'm bringing a dedicated O and M story to the to the to the pod soon, but it's a growing opportunity, right? There's enough installed solar. There'll be enough stranded systems where the installer is no longer around and the building owner or homeowner needs an O and M Company and and Dean Solon, you know, thought that just vegetation control was a big enough problem that he bought a company called Gray's robotics and is further developing that autonomous. It's an electric, fully autonomous mowing robot.
• 30:49
  Tim Montague: But all right, let's talk about BYD.
• 30:52
  John Weaver: You're gonna hear me talk about batteries a whole lot. Tim every single day.
• 30:59
  Tim Montague: BYD unveils world's largest 14.5 megawatt hour DC energy storage system, 14.5 megawatt hour.
• 31:09
  John Weaver: Now there's a key sentence within this, though, that's actually more important than the overall size, and I'm going to read it off. It comes out of the article. It's about halfway down,
• 31:21
  Tim Montague: and so yeah, let's just for let's level set here.
• 31:24
  Tim Montague: For context, I think a five megawatt hour system or block would be a big that's like a big container, a big utility scale battery container,
• 31:33
  John Weaver: yeah, standard 20 foot long. That's the standard Tesla size about now it's just over four so, yeah, that's a standard container
• 31:41
  Tim Montague: five megawatt hours. Okay, so what is, what has BYD done?
• 31:46
  John Weaver: So first, they have a giant container. You know, that's cool. It's split up into a couple pieces. But look at that third paragraph, and look at this the last sentence. It's really just one sentence. The that right there, the total life cycle, cost per kilowatt hour will be 1.4 cents. So you know how we were talking about negatively priced solar being bought by batteries just a moment ago. And imagine if a battery manufacturer, imagine if a battery dude in Cali installed his soul his battery, and it cost him 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour to move electricity into it, and he's buying solar. He's not buying solar. He's being paid to buy solar at negative point eight cents. So now effectively, negative point eight plus 1.4 is point six cents per kilowatt hour. That is cheaper than wholesale overnight coal and gas anywhere on earth.
• 32:55
  John Weaver: Now most places aren't going to have negative solar. It needs to be at least three cents per kilowatt hour. So now what we're talking about if you can get solar at three to four cents per kilowatt hour, no incentives, no crap, just straight, pure solar, 3.3 to four. Now you put on a penny and a half and some profit. So now we're talking, let's say four and a half to seven to six cents per kilowatt hour for solar plus storage, 24/7, that's, that's, I mean, we've been saying game over, game over. You know, solar is the cheapest. It's cool, man, solar is cheaper than gas, but you know what happens when the sun goes down? Well, guess what?
• 33:38
  John Weaver: Tim, this is what happens when the sun goes down. 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour is our adder, plus maybe some loss for efficiency.
• 33:46
  John Weaver: And I don't know the math, because I'm not, you know, I'm not deep like Vincent is, but this, this is where it's headed, 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour for the value, for the cost of using a battery, if we can, you know, in the US, they were signing PPAs at two cents. So if you can buy solar for two cents and it cost you a penny and a half, you can deliver wholesale equivalent to gas. Gas is three, four cents. And if we can, really, truly beat gas, man, that's something special. That's That's it. That's the beginning of the end.
• 34:28
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I didn't realize it says here that Okay, so first I have to talk about, say where this story is in ESS news, which is the PV magazine publication or not?
• 34:41
  John Weaver: Yes, sir, no. PV magazine's
• 34:43
  Tim Montague: battery publication, yes, yes. Okay, so by Vincent Shaw and Maria meif and oh, this is, this is an old story.
• 34:53
  John Weaver: Well, yeah, yes, yes. It's being brought up because we're talking about the other things, but yes, it is an old story.
• 34:58
  Tim Montague: Yes, and, and, but it mentions that Tesla rolled out a 20 megawatt hour mega block, which I did not know.
• 35:09
  Tim Montague: We've been asleep at the wheel, John, we haven't been covering all the storage news.
• 35:13
  John Weaver: We talked about Tesla mega block A while ago, trust me, we did. Okay. It was it was launched at re plus. It launched at re plus. Last year the mega block, there was an override event. It's really just four blocks. That's all it is, with a shared infrastructure in the middle with a big transformer. So it sounds like magic. The real cool thing about it is the wiring in the center is what the mega block is. So, so this is just a magical battery, man, this is the start of the next batteries. And, you know, a penny and a half per kilowatt hour. So it's just a cool thing, and it lines up with, say, These next two stories like, you know, you're looking at the one with India that you're looking at right now. India says that they could cover 90% of their total grid at about 5.6 cents per kilowatt hour, solar plus storage.
• 36:08
  John Weaver: There's other research right now that says 90% of the world's electricity can be covered with solar plus storage alone at today's cost. This is a shift that has occurred recently Tim, and it's occurred within the last year or two, like, I think, you know, covering the news for like, a year and writing articles saying solar and wind can get to 80% and that was the optimistic angle that people were taking. They're like, yeah, it used to be solar plus wind 50% then 60 to. 70, then 80 was like this great breakthrough, and everybody's like, all right, the last 20 we'll get from here and here now we're seeing research coming out of India.
• 36:50
  John Weaver: We're seeing research coming out of the other story that's on the document, which we don't have to cover, and it says that 90% of the world's energy can be covered by 90% solar plus storage. The only places that have a big risk are the northern areas of Europe. Everywhere else is within this band. That's close enough to the equator, where the
• 37:15
  Tim Montague: percent and in Northern Europe, they've got plenty of wind, so no,
• 37:19
  John Weaver: that's the problem.
• 37:19
  John Weaver: They got lots of hydro. They got some nuclear, so they can get to that 2030, 40% so this, you know, this, this combination of solar and storage. Tim, we've been, you know, people have been preaching about it. Well now it's no longer preaching. Tim, now it's, it's hitting stuff.
• 37:38
  John Weaver: It's starting to hit in a different way. And you know, we're going to repeat it. Hey, you solar people. You better be battery people. This is your job now. You better figure it out, because it's coming and plenty of people are going to be battery experts and so. And there's a neat little piece of data in this story, actually, if you wouldn't mind him, write a scroll up a tiny bit. It shows a ratio. Okay, right in that middle sense, that middle paragraph, four, it says, In other words, 4.9 gigawatts of solar plus 13 and a half gigawatts of battery is equal to one gigawatt of pure 24/7 load.
• 38:20
  John Weaver: This number is similar to that 24 hour power plant in Abu Dhabi. I don't know if you remember that one from the news.
• 38:29
  John Weaver: I remember, yeah, so that one gigawatt plant came with five gigs of solar and 19 gigawatt hours of battery. So we're starting to see Tim what it's going to take, capacity wise, for the solar industry to take over like run the show, be 90% these are some ratios near the equator, as it goes north and south a little. Maybe the solar has to be six gigs, seven gigs.
• 39:04
  John Weaver: Maybe the batteries have to be 1518, 20 hours to get this load thing and calculus work. But in the United States, you know, where we have, say, to two, one and a half terawatts of, like, 50 to 70% capacity factor. That means we're probably going to be, you know, four, four terawatts of solar, somewhere in that range, and 5x the number of batteries. So we're, we're starting to see shapes, larger contours of the way the world is going to look in these numbers right now, which is, which is cool. The earlier numbers, you know, they'll keep changing. But this is the beginnings, the beginnings of seeing the future pretty clearly.
• 39:50
  Tim Montague: Yeah, I love that.
• 39:50
  Tim Montague: The contours we're seeing, the contours of the future. And it's, it's just like a it's a bit like an iceberg. You only see what's above the surface, but there's a whole bunch coming, and l COE is what's driving this. And you know, as we see, the fossil economy is so problematic. Fossil fuels are not equally distributed around the world, absolutely, they are very spotty. The sun, on the other hand, is sun and wind are very relatively equally distributed around the world and much more accessible. So if you want national security and unin uninterrupted supply chains, I noted on my way down here that I'm paying between 20 and 30% more for gasoline now at the pump than I was two months ago because of the war in Iran, which is, in my opinion, driven by the fossil industry. I don't truly know who's pulling the strings behind the scenes, because I am not a elite but some smart people have done that analysis. All right, John, so thanks so much for the great news. I think we should wrap up the show right there. Are you good with that?
• 41:14
  John Weaver: You know what?
• 41:14
  John Weaver: We're talking about, gas. One item, you know, okay, price of gas has held flat. I'm talking natural gas, electricity. Gas compliments what you said. Price of that natural gas has held flat in the midst of all this ongoing warfare. Man, it's, it's, it's interesting to watch.
• 41:34
  John Weaver: The price of oil is going up in the United States, which leads to more oil pumping. We have a warm front that came through in March. Much still going on in April, and that that extra oil means extra natural gas. And a couple weeks ago, I was telling everybody, Hey, increase your forward pricing for natural gas, because the price electricity is going to go up. And I'm just pointing out, Hey everybody, a minute ago, I was telling you about the future and how I know stuff. Well, here's a reminder.
• 42:03
  John Weaver: I don't know jack, so, you know, don't invest. Don't invest, based on John Fitzgerald believer, maybe build some solar. But that's beyond that.
• 42:11
  John Weaver: Don't, you know, talk to Tim.
• 42:15
  John Weaver: He's the smart one.
• 42:17
  Tim Montague: Well, Mike, my whole goal in life is to be less wrong. So yeah, I am mostly wrong. All right, that's good.
• 42:29
  Tim Montague: Check out all of our content at clean power hour.com Give us a rating and a review if you're so inclined. But more importantly, tell a friend about the show. So many people do not know the Clean Power Hour exists, and we're giving you two shows a week, the live and then another interview twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. We're dropping so check it out. Clean Power Hour Comm, we're on YouTube, we're on Apple, we're on Spotify. We're everywhere you can listen to podcasts and John Weaver, more importantly, how can humanity find Mr. John Weaver,
• 43:01
  John Weaver: smoke signals. You could also just go to commercial solar guy, calm, that's our number one place, and I'm on LinkedIn a lot. We like to share the stuff we construct. So commercial solar guy, calm, and LinkedIn to look up the commercial solar guy, you can find us
• 43:19
  Tim Montague: all right. We'll be back in two weeks, and I want to thank you for being here all of our great listeners. And with that, I'll say, let's do some sailing this weekend and enjoy the lovely breeze that is going to be here tomorrow. With that, I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. You.