 Welcome to our special DTNS solar panel round table show at Los Angeles on Tom Merritt and from studio Redwood I'm Sarah Lane and I'm the shows producer Roger Chang in 2019 people installed solar panels on around 2 million U.S. Households that number just keeps going up It's expected triple by the year 2030. It might not be right for every household But maybe it's right for yours. Are you sure? Do you know how to figure it out? What can solar do? What can it not do if you're in Ohio? Should you just give up because you got clouds half the year? Well, we're gonna answer these and more questions We put together a panel of solar panel owners and experts to share their experiences So listeners can make a more informed choice about going solar. I have solar panels that I put on my own house Sarah you you don't but you have solar heating on your pool So you're in the solar game a little bit indeed Yeah, there there are solar panels on the roof of the Airbnb house that I manage which makes the pool quite warm Yeah, also joining us engineer at AES kind of kind of bringing in the commercial perspective here Joe briney. Welcome to the show Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here Steve Sheridan brand new solar installer on your house and producer of the silicast welcome. Thank you It's a pleasure and This man is a triple seven captain airline pilot. I like to Describe him as a solar enthusiast Brian Hoffman. Welcome. Thank you Tom. How you doing? Good to have you man let's go around the horn and Talk about why you're interested in solar why you why you went with solar panels if you put them on your house Or Joe's case why you got interested in solar energy in the first place. Let's start with you Joe Yeah, so when I was in college I actually went to a school that fed into a lot of aerospace companies So I went to Loyola Marymount, which is down in El Segundo. So we're down the street from you know, Boeing, Raytheon Northrop all those company all those large companies and I participated in a federal program Where we did energy audits for medium-scale manufacturers in the Los Angeles area So we would go there, you know do an energy assessment give them, you know ways they could save power You know on their energy bills and also with the climate change perspective in mind and It just turned out that it was very hard to get a lot of these businesses to invest a lot of money and To change a lot of minds to get them to change their habits And so I quickly realized that if we were going to you know Do something about this climate change issue that we really needed to go to the source of our energy and so a Couple years after I graduated college I took some courses got certified as a solar energy professional and I've been in the industry for about Let's see 12 years now and and just for anybody who's like well, I'd like to get certified. What did that entail? So there are online courses that you can take The course that I took was actually at it was at Hawaii Pacific University It was a 200 level course that they allow pretty much everybody to Enroll into and then you take a test at the end of the semester or at the end of the course that it really not that tough the math isn't that hard you just have to You know understand a lot of the concepts behind, you know, how the panels are strung together things like that So, you know the entry to getting in is actually not too high Well, and once you get that certification Does it open up a lot of? You know opportunities for work that you wouldn't be able to have otherwise that other people are looking for that certification for Yeah, absolutely. So it just shows a basic understanding of the systems and so you don't even have to be, you know an engineer To do this. So a lot of people in my class that were also, you know, older than the the normal Undergrads who are in there, you know, they were going for maybe sales positions or maybe other sort of development Positions within solar power companies. So, you know, if you wanted to get into this industry It's not necessarily just about, you know, design and installation and production modeling There's a lot more that goes into it. There's a lot of permitting. There's a lot of sales There's a lot of different avenues that you can take All right, Steve. What about you? What what led you to go get people to climb up on your roof and put solar panels up there? well, my wife and I recently purchased and Electric vehicle each one of us and on top of that we were thinking of getting a new HVAC system installed in our home But based on a heat pump so that that uses electricity for both electrical or both air-conditioning and heating so our electrical demands are going up and we wanted a way to offset that also, we wanted to reduce our carbon footprint and and it's just kind of neat to think of driving around and Heating and cooling your home based on solar energy based on the Sun. So that was our motivation So it's not exactly self-reliance the way California does it because you have to send your electricity into the grid And then they send it back to you basically, but it's kind of a self-reliance sort of situation. Yes Yeah Brian, what about you? You're doing all kinds of fun things with solar energy over there What got you interested in this? Well, when we started building our farm We had a lot of projects that needed to get done around the farm and I didn't really want to buy seven generators So I kind of figured out how I could use solar to do a lot of little projects and the first big Successful one is when we put in the dam We use solar power to run the electric pumps to sprinkle the grass to grow the grass to kill the erosion So that was that was the first one. It was wildly successful. It was so successful I said, well, what else can I do with this? And now I overwintered tilapia in a barn completely heated and maintained by solar power And next we'll become the just like Steve The next vehicle I get will most likely be an electric pickup truck And I want to be able to power it myself And since it's going to live in that big barn It's pretty easy to put solar on the roof and charge it from from the same solar panels So that's that's kind of what i'm doing So brian, I know a lot of people say, oh, I mean, you know, the solar power over the course of 10 20 years will pay off But sometimes it's somewhat cost prohibitive at the top You know, you're talking about your farm and talking about all sorts of things that you were hoping would be powered by solar Did you feel that way at first? yeah, I'm kind of in a unique position because I've uh Saved my pennies as it were so i'm able to to have some of these projects And I could be one of those, you know, the leading edge guys that pays a little extra upfront I have I have found that solar Is a really good thing, but you have to do the math You have to know how many kilowatt hours of power you're going to use And you have to know that you can produce X number more than that All the time Clouds in the wintertime are a big deal, you know in southeast texas You know a lot of a lot of the golf moisture comes up. So those times of years I can't Count on it reliably. So I either have to have larger batteries or I have to make sure that that project doesn't need the energy But but the big thing is if you over panel everything if you have enough which obviously I can afford um My projects I I typically tend to make them a lot larger But I also understand there's an awful lot of people who cannot And so I'm a very pragmatic very realistic guy when I talk about solar I make sure people understand the math right up front It's how many kilowatt hours an average house is 30 35 kilowatt hours a day And to store that much power If you use lithium currently which is pretty much the standard right now That's $12,000 worth of batteries Most people can't afford that and so Right now that's not going to happen. So a lot of the grid tide stuff that's happening Is great for the bring it into the system But if you're using the infrastructure as your battery sooner or later The rest of us have to pay for the infrastructure. It's kind of like the electric vehicles who aren't paying gas tax Sooner or later the rest of us have to pay all the road tax Um, so there's going to have to be a change on how this works But it is a really good thing to start moving all of us in the right direction. Yeah, yeah And that's that's kind of where I'm just one of those leading edge guys The the math that you talk about is I think the the first thing that that scares people off But there's so many tools and things and we'll talk about some of those Uh, what are some of the other considerations? Beyond the cost beyond figuring out, you know, how much I need and and and who's going to install it Before you even get there. What are some of the other things to to take into account steve? You did this most recently. What are some of the things you had to think about? Well, this relates a bit to the cost, but it's really important to understand how your local utility company and your state handle that the charges and the credits you may get for Overgener for surplus generation and that I know varies quite a bit around the country and even within a given state But it can make all the difference in terms of The payback period for installing solar on your on your roof and and and just the the months to month cost So that was that was one of our big considerations. Another for us was our roof type, which was clay tile That's probably the most difficult type of roof to get a solar panel System installed why popular in sunny areas too, right? Yeah, exactly here in california What what like why is it so? well So Unfortunately clay tiles They themselves form the integrity of water protection and once you puncture or put a hole in a clay tile It's it no longer provides that protection. So for our roof They basically had to remove all of the clay tiles for the sections of the roof where there would be Solar installed which are major sections right entire sections Put down a new roof a asphalt You know asphalt tile roof And then put the panel install the panels and then redo the sole the clay tiles, but only for purposes of looks They don't see the purpose anymore. That was going to be my next question is you know Cosmetically a lot of people would be like well. No, we don't just want you know some asphalt tiles So yes, you you kind of have to think about that unless you don't care Right and it turned out pretty nicely because solar panels normally are about three four or five inches from the roof line or the rooftop, but The way they did ours the clay tiles are basically flush with the panels after they reinstalled the the clay tiles So it looks it looks good Any other considerations here brian that you could you could add to this Well, one of the things steve just said that caught my attention was the aesthetics Brought his panels closer to His his house his roof line and i'm actually standing mine off as far as I can five to six inches Because I don't want heat build up underneath my panels because that lowers their efficiency five to ten percent Sometimes as high as 15 percent in certain areas And with bifacial panels, which is something we probably ought to discuss on the different types of panels at some point Any reflected light that bounces underneath my panels can also help generate additional power And is that when you you have uh, you have the ability to to use the light that's bouncing underneath basically That's correct. That's essentially what it means. Yeah, that makes sense But don't waste that energy it's right there Well, not only that but they last longer because those panels are glass on glass And they don't have the acidic plastic back sheeting Which over time will break down and destroy your connections say last longer to get you get more for your money so joe being on a little bit more of the We're making the things that people will use eventually side. Uh, what resonates with you here? Well, I think uh, Steve brought up a good point is that you know, there's a lot of roof considerations that you need to think about and A lot of it is that you know, a lot of houses that people are moving into were built 10 20 30 40 years ago when solar wasn't a thing or Consideration so there's a limited amount of your roof space that's facing south There might be a lot of gables that separates You know the areas where you can put panels or maybe you have some large trees in your yard that are shading the roof Because you know the old way of thinking about things was to reduce Uh your hvac costs, which was shading your house And so houses were just not built for solar panels And so we're seeing a lot of stuff being installed today where you know There's requirements in some states to to put solar on new houses. And so those design considerations You know are being implemented But for the most part it's hard to go back and retrofit so you might be limited in You know how much solar you can fit on your existing roof And there are a lot of solar companies out there that will come out there and help you do the math There are different financing structures. So if you don't have you know, a huge chunk of change To buy the thing up front, you know, maybe you can lease it So so there are other ways to get into it, but but you know, sometimes you're just uh How to luck just because of uh You know as an earlier adopter You kind of have only so many options. Yeah Yeah, or there's a huge building next to you that just keeps this all day, right? You could you could be in that situation There's a lot of stuff that's out of your control and some utilities have offered You know options where you know, you can you can select on your bill or within your account that you only want to purchase Green energy that comes from you know, larger solar farms that are you know connected to the same grid too So so there are other options, you know, depending on what region You're in yeah Let's talk about that because one of the biggest objections I hear from people is you know, I I live in michigan There's no way i'm ever going to get solar Is that reasonable is is is are there places where you just it doesn't make sense or is it just mean it's going to be more expensive It just means it's going to be more expensive and and states can do a lot to mitigate that too So, you know, one of the states with the highest Renewable penetrations for a long time is massachusetts, you know, not exactly known as a a sunny state So there are ways to do it, you know, my company is installing solar farms in michigan So it does work. Um, you know prices have come down far enough where You know, it it can work anywhere But you know, the payback might be a little bit longer depending on the incentives And things like that as you're in colder less sunny climates Yeah, yeah, well, that's that's one of the things I try to get across to people is that yes My uh recovering of investment in california is going to be much faster that there's there's no debating that because we got a lot of sun here Not a lot of clouds and unfortunately for for our water situation not a lot of rain either but Uh, but it's good for the solar How do you figure out the budget where where do you start to figure out if you can even afford this and i'll throw that open to anybody Who wants to answer it? Where did you start steve? Yes come on, okay So the brine kind of referred to this that uh, first you should The the first thing to do is determine what you use on an average basis from for electricity And maybe on a monthly basis what your average use and it will vary with season depending on your heating and cooling system But get a profile of that over the year That's that's the starting step and if you work with a solar company to size your system They will probably ask if they're good. They will ask for that And then the next thing is to start determining, you know, how large your your solar system should be and again, uh, your solar panel provider should um should help you with that Um, we there are several online tools that you can use to help assess What is your ruse exposure and even sometimes considering what the seasonal variations are? So basically you try to match your uh supply with what the solar can generate with your demand Or maybe overshoot a bit as brian recommended And uh, that will allow your solar company to determine how many panels to install what type of system to install Yeah, and even before you get a solar panel company, like you say you can use those those calculators to try to get a ballpark estimate Yeah Brian did is that Kind of similar to what you do Yeah, it's pretty similar. Um, I did it kind of backwards I uh, I started going with solar projects and then went, huh, how much do I really need? And uh That's when I started looking at uh, the law and in texas Um, certain places have net metering certain places only have partial net metering Which is the wholesale non-transmission rate For electricity. So in the part of east texas where our farm is That's what I'll be paid quote-unquote if I sell back power So what they really want you to do is take care of your own needs um, I decided that More and more things are just going to go electric And therefore How much do I need? How much more did I think I need? And then double it and now all of a sudden You know, thank you elan musk and and the rest, you know, electric cars electric trucks are becoming very popular And I'm going to have one at some point and I want to be able to charge that well 135 kilowatt hour battery is a lot of electricity. How do I how do I do that? Well, if you look at that building right there, that's the barn And if I can solar that whole barn I can charge that truck once a day. Mm-hmm Um That that dam you see off to to my right, which would be Over on the edge. I can put solar on that and that's the power I tend I'm going to plan to sell back to the grid And that'll be the quote-unquote recovery process, but it'll be a 15 to 20 year recovery process. Yeah on the monies But you know, thankfully I'm one of those guys that it won't matter as nearly as much But I'll be giving back to society as well Which is kind of neat. It's kind of fun and I can be one of those people that starts the the conversation and say I did it on a pretty big scale. No, that's not what you're going to do. You're going to be like steve You know figure out what he's doing in his house And move on But we can have the conversation now and that that's a really good thing. It's to be able to have these conversations Yeah, and I think that's what shocked me when I did my own solar install was I I'd saved up money for it. I didn't want to do the lease option, but there are lease options and they can work Uh, but I'd saved up money and I've I've basically said just how how much do I need? And and we did exactly what y'all are talking about which is, you know, we figured out what my my average power use was We, you know padded it up a little bit and then said this is the this is the amount of Panels that you need with the amount of sunshine we normally get here And I got a company that would guarantee that they said if you fall Below that in fact, I think they they gave me 110 percent like you're going to make 110 of that If you fall below 110 percent We'll come out and we'll either add a panel or we'll we'll fix something But they'll they'll guarantee it so so look for that if you can find a company that will do that for your install I I think that that made me feel a lot better about it. Are they still in business? They are. Yeah That's one of the big problems right now yeah You know promises are fine until the company goes out of business Well, yeah, and that that is the other side is you got to you got to find somebody that you feel is going to Stay in business. I mean joe. I don't know if you have any insight on what to look for there Yeah, I mean, I think the larger companies are probably ones you want to go with it. They're more, you know National companies that you can you know, I always recommend people to to call three of them and have them each come out Give you a quote play them off of each other And then select one of them But you know, I think there's a lot of like two guys in a truck solar out there And you got to kind of look out for those guys because it's going to be very very hard almost impossible for Average homeowner to make a warranty claim against any of the equipment that they install Because you're going to have to try and prove that the equipment is not working as intended You know and they could always make the argument like oh the panels are dirty or you know It's not wired correctly things like that So it would just be a huge headache that you'd rather have the installer deal with so, you know When I was working on the residential level if anybody had Uh if if their system was dipping below what we projected and what we guaranteed, you know We would swap out what we thought was the defective part and then the warranty issues were you know Part of our obligation at this point and the homeowner was you know back up and running right away And and that's kind of what you want to look for did did do you feel like that happened rarely often? Uh based on what consumer you know expected versus you know actual reality It was rare. It really was but but I mean you're spending a lot of money on this thing So you don't want to be you know left out Uh if it does happen, of course. Yeah, yeah Uh, so so steve. How did how did you decide given given all this like got to find somebody's going to stay in business? Gives me a gives me a decent guarantee I know we'll do the work properly. You had a whole roof thing to deal with. How'd you decide that? Well, I went to my buddy tom merit and asked how he got his install But the best piece of advice that you gave us was start at energy sage dot com I'm not sure if this is countrywide, but it's a great website because Uh, you basically put in your your home and solar information the basic information of what you're looking for And they go out and get bids from various companies. Uh, I think it's typically five or six And then those bids come back to you and then you can choose to pursue those or not and and that's how I started And of course I did a lot of Further investigation on each of those companies including how long have they been in business? Do they have a better business bureau rating? You know Yelp ratings the whole nine yards for about three of those companies And and that's how we ended up going with the company we selected And a lot of these national companies and the ones that are rated really well They're going to more or less design the same system. So if you get three companies out there, they're going to be Their designs and their offers are going to be really really close to each other. They were in our case. Yes Yeah, it's it's they're all using like tier one modules and you know Tier one inverters and things like that stuff that is not, you know It's name brand recognition and companies that will also be around for for 20 or 30 years Right. I noticed all of the panel manufacturers the inverters. Uh, we're all very similar brands They're only like two or three brands of those electronics Yeah, how do you research the type of panels? Uh, uh, do you is it Safe to just tell the general populace who's not that interested to go with what the installer recommends Or should people look into it and shop around? I think you can go with what they recommend. I mean, it's it's like I said, there's not a huge difference Uh between the the tier one module manufacturers that they get all of their module components from the same factories They're just putting it together in a different assembly line and then slapping a different sticker on it at the end of the day So even you know The we deal with three or four different module manufacturers that are our company and there's a minor difference between them Really the way that we choose is You know, which ones are available and what can we get a better deal on at the time? Brian, what are your thoughts on this? Did you do some shopping around price comparisons? Oh, I've done so much right price comparison around the world is ridiculous. Um There are several companies in the united states that will sell you bulk panels pretty much wholesale And uh, since i'm going to do it yourself or kind of guy, I've looked around I found several Companies that have really good prices on the good name stuff the tier ones tier twos Um, and you find that if you look at what the actual output production is And then I also like the ones that are put together here in the states Why because they just tend to be a little bit cleaner. They tend to have a little less of the imperfections Uh, and those panels have been producing I've got some panels that have been running for 12 years right now and I've been very unkind to those panels And they're still within just a couple percent of where they were to begin with So, you know, if if you're looking for a turnkey absolutely tier one is the right way to go If you're doing it yourself or you can look around there's there's a couple pretty good places to find panels Very reasonably and then storm yourself And how much time and effort if somebody's like, you know what? I think I want to do that. I'm a DIYer Yeah, yeah, like what do we what are we talking? Wow If you're going to put together a system like steves You're probably going to have to do your research for the panels the racking system The charge controller batteries if you're going to use them And then the inverters if you're going to go Grid tied only well, then you're probably going to use like the end phase panel mount inverters and right now they the quad panel mount seems to be the easy way to go And then you're going to be quote-unquote done and then you just have to put all that stuff together Now some people don't like climbing on their roofs Some people don't have access to a lift The country lifts are pretty easy to find they're called tractors So getting up on the roof is really pretty easy Um, so for me, it was easy. Um, I could weld I had to do a little bit of Custom racking for what some of the things I wanted to do. So I just decided I'd build the rack myself it's it's my solar tracker And uh, I get about 28 to 30 percent more power on the tracker Then if I just flat amount of those panels and those are the panels that I use to run my What I call tilapotopia, which is keeping the tilapia alive over winter and it's If you have to do all that yourself you could probably Find panels find all the parts Put it all together and get it on your roof in less than six months part time You know on your off time as it were But you have to want to but you have to want to yeah, but if you want to you can save a lot of money And you can put the project, you know, these guys came out and said well, here's what we're going to do for you Well, I actually built the barn and I actually Built the barn and placed the barn such that I could put solar on that roof Before I ever built the barn. So that was part of the plan for that building But a lot of people don't have that but if you're going to if you're going to start building a project You're going to start building your house a good southern exposure Gives you the ability to put panels up now 17-foot rails are the normal rails for the long rails If you want to be off Your roof and again by facial glass on glass panels right now Are probably the gold standard. I'm curious what the other two guys think about panels But that's that's where I'm leaning towards I haven't bought any panels lately that we're not by facials And uh, they're going to last longer. I'm going to get better production out of them And therefore I want to mount them high. So I need those rails I could mount them straight on the roof of the barn, but then they'd be hotter I'm losing percentages because of heat and they wouldn't get the reflective light underneath them as well So there's a little bit of trade off there And but the nice thing is I'm saving an awful lot of money compared and I can show people how to do it fairly easily I don't know if that helped or not so find a brian And and just to be clear when we talk about southern light, it's because we're all in the northern hemisphere, right? I mean, it's all going to be different if you're in the southern hemisphere If you happen to be listening to this and you think like southern light That's actually like not the light. I like the most, you know, it's it all depends on where you live Yeah, yeah, which which part of the equator you're on which side of the equator you're on Any any other thoughts on panels from from joe or steve? I just went with what they recommended and One thing to keep in mind And they they don't advertise this and I think they should the panels are rated as a certain wattage typically ours are I think 370 watt panels made by panasonic They're not the bifacial that brian's been talking about But that is not the power the that's a peak power the amount the max amount They'll produce that is not the power that you get at your electrical panel. That's the I think the dc power with about an 80 percent efficiency or 20 percent conversion loss, so you'll see only 80 percent of that at its best so They will typically take that into account when they size if you're doing having a company do it for you Unlike brian, they will size your system and take that into account But if you're trying to do back of the envelope calculations to kind of confirm what they're doing, which is what I did I was off by a little bit and and it's because of that 20 loss of getting that dc power to ac at your electrical panel Anything else to add Yeah, um, I would just say that you know over the last, you know 20 or 30 years The the the biggest innovation in solar panels has been, you know, putting cells on the back of it So, you know, a lot of times I'll hear people say something like, you know They're waiting five or ten years for the next big innovation to come around because, you know You read these things online where scientists at mit have developed a solar cell that, you know Slices bread or whatever, you know, it does everything. So, um, you know, and they're like, oh, I'll wait for that to come out But but, you know, we're seeing a lot more solar now just because the installation and the Manufacturing costs have gone way way down So the panels really aren't that much different than they have been. It's just that they've gotten so much more Costs competitive. No, not even more efficient. It's it's the panels are getting bigger So the the efficiency has only gone up a few percent But it's just so much cheaper to manufacture them and it's so much cheaper to install them than it used to be The prices have gone down 50 to 80 percent and that's why we're seeing more So it's this idea that like, hey, I'll wait for the next great thing to come out Is, you know, you might be waiting a long time Whereas, you know, that great new thing not only has to Prove to be effective in the real world, but then it also has to be commercially competitive with with stuff That's been on the market for 20 years and that's going to be really tough You know, these things are going to pay back in Five, 10, 15, 20 years depending on where you live. So you can kind of do that math So it's still a good investment now and then, you know, once it's paid itself back if you want to look in and Retrofit with the latest and greatest at the time then you can look into doing that But I wouldn't delay for a technological innovation, you know, this is a little bit of a, you know Personal question because I don't own a home. I don't You know, I I'm a renter Is there anything in the solar area? And I guess this question is for you, Joe and maybe you Brian or or Steve as well Anything that I can do Without having to make some big investment that's going to be like five, 10, 20 years going down the road that can help me And help the environment potentially Yeah, I mean if your utility gives you the option to buy clean energy, that's that's the easiest way to do it You're just checking a box on a form Um, or if or if you can find a company or, you know, convince your landlord to find a company to to lease the panels That's no money down. So you don't have to worry about payback. You know, you're probably only going to be saving 10 or 15 bucks a month on your electric bill, you know, which isn't huge Yeah, it's not nothing but it's no money down up front as well too But but it is tough when, you know, the person who's actually cutting the check You maybe the homeowner is different from the person who's benefiting it Who's the person who's paying the power bill so that right that's another big hurdle that that we see in places Where where people rent? Well, folks, if you're enjoying this conversation And you're not a patron go find one of our patrons and thank them because that's why we're able to do this show And we thank everybody who supports us at patreon.com slash dtns And in fact, we like to reward them for sticking around and keeping the show going That's why we're happy to offer patreon loyalty rewards. So if you stick with us for three months Depending on what level you're supporting us at you can get We'll send you a sticker or a mug or a t-shirt even got hoodies in there and little tote bags Every three months Yeah, Sarah's got one of the totes Just stay a patron at a certain level and you can get all the details at patreon.com slash dtns Let's uh, let's Talk about this from the perspective of the utilities which which I know joe has a good understanding of What should homeowners understand and what do utilities need to do to prepare a homeowner to understand If they're moving to solar Well, I would just say that I think that utilities are generally against it because uh, you're you're buying less of their product So, uh, they've kind of been dragged kicking and screaming into this Based on states have what's called an rps or a renewable power standard So, um, they're they're generally going to be Fighting it a little bit the one thing that they can benefit from if you're in an area that doesn't Charge you power by the time of day. Let's say you have a flat rate So you might be you might be using power, you know In the evening when it's very expensive for the utility to to buy it and you're actually buying it at a cheap rate Um, so so there are some ways that the utility actually does benefit from from homeowners installing stroller But but there are grid limitations when you have like your distribution lines If you have a large renewable Penetration into the grid then those lines need to be upgraded and they usually do it at the utility's cost and to brian's point earlier if you're Not buying power from the utility that cost gets spread out amongst other people as well so, um, you know, it's it's I was I was a little jaded from the uh, when I was doing residential installs Just because there's a lot of barriers the utility has a lot of power and in this case and Distributed energy cuts from their bottom line. And so they're not they're not huge fans of it, you know the utility scale Farms that I do now, you know, we sell power to the utility that they then sell to you So they're okay with that because they're getting a cut of it And and we're upgrading the grid for them to to install it. So, you know that in my mind That's where we're going is the grid is going to become clean Uh, because of these utility scale plants Because the utilities are going to be okay with it and then battle number two is to try to knock down these monopolies that are the utilities That was going to be my question. Do you ever see a world where It is not the utility that has gone green but a a solar only utility that becomes um a viable You know option for people Yeah, absolutely. I mean we're headed that way the economics are Going in that direction, you know gas and coal are getting more expensive and solar and wind are getting cheaper So um and batteries are getting cheaper as well Lithium ion, which is mostly the technology is being used. It's what you find in your car your laptop your phone You know, those were built for power density and so you could carry them around and they would be portable They're not ideal for grid integration So they work and and and they're pretty price competitive now But there will be something around the corner a better use case for different chemistries or different technologies So that only has the potential to get better too So, I mean, there's really no doubt in my mind that by 2050 the grid itself is going to be entirely renewable with energy storage But but like I said, the second part of that is is getting the utilities on board to rest power away Some of them have been doing something called like a community energy program where they're doing smaller smaller utility scales So maybe one megawatt two megawatt farms and then they'll sell that to their their customers But in that case they still have the power. They're still the middleman So it's going to take a long time before it's you know Everybody was solar on their rooftops and they're yeah interconnected and sharing it and they have like a micro grid going on It's that's the ways out although brian you've got kind of your own personal micro grid going on over there I do a couple things that I see differently than joe Out where i'm out in east texas the utility actually Cares more about safety than than the cost. They want to make sure that you're 1741 compliant. They want to make sure that you have good grid sensing They actually up to 25 kw Continue production. They're happy with you It really just cost $50 for the fee and for the gentleman or the lady to show up Inspector system show that you're compliant and they're happy to have that power. So that I do like Um as to where we're going to go If you look at all the storage technologies the sodium batteries the the iron air batteries salt water batteries all the things are coming I think it's it's going to be very hard for the average homeowner to have the kind of storage that they have to have Built into their residency Especially apartment buildings, especially, you know large cities where you can't possibly generate the energy you you use That's not going to happen. You're still going to have a base load of power that has to be generated someplace Obviously fusion is it's less than 30 years away now Um, and I say that humorously. Well, yeah, and it will be for for many years 30 years away. Yeah, but but if fusion shows up that fixes a lot of things There's a lot of other technologies out there and I I'm not trying to digress Solar is great But if you look at california, there was a couple years where california actually had to pay arizona to use their solar power during the day They generated too much And that's that those balancing acts and getting all the systems to work together Just to be clear if people didn't quite catch what brian said california was generating so much solar energy They paid arizona to use the solar energy that california was generating, correct? Yeah, yeah, so Which seems very backward by the way We gotta send it somewhere and arizona's like, I don't know you give it pay us. We'll take it Okay, yeah So and and the infrastructure is going to be one of those things a smart grid with real and artificial intelligence That really watches what's going on and the homeowners in suburbia having their their local storage We can get most of the way there I don't think in my lifetime We get to the everyone's generating everything on renewables Windmills just don't have the energy density if you look at an average wind farm One gas fire generator Puts out more power than the entire wind farm So the economies of scale just aren't there unless you're going to take north dakota and turn it into a wind farm And and then then you could make enough power for the united states When it blows A lot of people would be like, can we? Yeah, I was like, I mean we could probably exempt fargo and You know Yeah, so it's it's storage storage storage Um, and I I was going to go with 20 kw For for my farm and I went no, I'm going to go to 30 and then I doubled it to 60 Wow, and then I went In a couple of years I'm going to have even more because I'm going to have two vehicles that I have to charge And if that's 130 kw a vehicle Guess where I'm going to have to go to Yeah, so it's That's the real thing and and you won't run into this but but steve will uh, because I know I will There's there's a maximum to to what you can put up there, right? Oh, yeah And at that point you have to figure out How you're going to charge the things you're going to do now some things you can charge at different times and different rates You know, you can go charge your car at any charging station sure if if you can't generate enough But I don't have a charging station out in the farm other than the one i'm going to put in Yeah, yeah, so that's a good question for you steve. I mean, do you think about uh expansion and what happens next? I mean, obviously you've had pretty good results, but you know if you want to if you want to expand this whole operation Yes, definitely. Um, we're happy with the solar system as installed. We're getting good performance Follows what was expected what we're moving into next is energy storage as brian's been discussing So we're now in the process of having a couple tesla power walls Installed on our house to uh to store that energy Um, and that that will be its own adventure. I'm sure but not as aggressive as brian I think uh, we're getting we'll get about 26 k kilowatt hours of storage out of those two 27 maybe out of those two I think they're 14 out of these. Yeah, good. They're they're rising So the main thing is to I mean that will not pay off like like the solar panels will we're doing that for other reasons I mean, there may be a slight payback to shift our energy use from The the peak time of use rate to the lower costs so we're not drawing power during the expensive times That's a minor savings. It doesn't really pay off very soon but We will be backed up for power outages And um, we just want to be able to operate our house when um, you know without electricity now I don't know brian. Are you off the grid or are you still on the grid? I am both Our cabin is our cabin is on grid that new the new barn is off grid completely And the when we build our quote-unquote retirement house That will be coupled so that I can sell back power But I will definitely be a net producer at that point patiently awaiting my invite To to the ranch Yeah, you guys are welcome anytime. Oh, thanks So real quickly, I understand When you install a solar power system on your house minus without batteries, you cannot power your house from solar power directly You you need to have some buffer between the panels and your main electrical panel and that is the batteries A lot of people Don't quite understand that or assume that you can power your house directly So you must have batteries if you want to power your own, uh, you know power down during a power outage But in california, I think we cannot be off the grid. Is that right tom? That is correct. Yeah, we can't at least you have to Let me say la dwp. You can't I think might be different Southern cal Edison, which I'm part of I don't think you can so and that covers probably 90 of california Well, and just just for you know clarification For people who don't know who Edison or you know power company. Look why why can't you? Yeah That's a good question. I think it's why can't your why can't your panels create power during a blackout? No, why can't you be off the grid? Why does the utility require us to send all of our solar panel electricity to them? Yeah, why can't we separate from the grid? Yeah, in a normal monopoly. It's a it's a policy move that says we want to manage all of your electricity Right. Is that sound right joe? Yeah And there are safety considerations too and and maybe maybe this is kind of off topic But if there is a blackout and they have you know linemen working to bring the grid back up They don't want solar power injecting power into that grid that they're they're not aware of They're gonna be able to so for a while They weren't letting anybody do a black start or anything You had to fully disconnect from the grid if you wanted to be generating power which In I started out in Hawaii and and they were allowing people to do that because it's an island And then they it happened quite often, but yeah I got a couple other a couple other points. I want to hit before we wrap up here One is is tax breaks rebates subsidization. How much did that figure into your decision, Steve? Big time So everyone in the u.s. Is eligible at least through this year for a 26 percent Uh Instead of investment tax credit if they install solar on their On their house and I think that applies to battery systems as well. Is that right, Brian? Primary residents any solar component the last I checked Any solar and storage? Yeah, the storage is part of the solar. So okay, so that's that's 20 26 currently it was 30 percent and I'm talking uh, yeah, it was 30 percent when I installed mine I just yeah, that was right at the end 2018 or 2019. I think it's been going about going down about 2 percent a year Next year it goes to 4 percent year joe Maybe it goes down to 26 and then 22. Okay. Yeah, and then I expired in 2024. I believe it goes down to 10 percent Oh, it does still around. Yeah. Okay. I thought congress would have to renew So that was a huge that was a huge incentive for us that and um, there were other california and utility subsidies and Other other things that would offset the cost, but we weren't eligible for those So it was mainly the federal tax tax credit. Can I be the contrarian on this one? Sure. Yeah When the tax incentives showed up the prices went up So when these incentives go away the real price of solar installation for everybody should go down Interesting probably not the amount of the of the credit, but probably darn close Yeah, because you've injected you've injected money into the into the system basically is how that argument goes Yeah, I I did notice when they were providing quotes The first number they quoted was with the tax credit included That's not the way you give me a bid. Give me the total price. I will take the tax credit. Yeah. Yeah The other thing I wanted to bring up was was maintenance and monitoring real quick and and for me As far as what I know is, you know getting up there and cleaning those with with some clean water You know getting deposits off regularly is is pretty much the only maintenance I have to do the rest of the maintenance is covered by the installer to say like if we notice An inverter going out and it shouldn't be we'll we'll roll a truck and all of that There's a login for enphase and lighten that lets me see what the power usage is and monitor all that Anything additional that y'all do that that that you want to mention brian? Is there there anything different that you do for that? I have my drone and I go up and inspect everything nice Kind of love brian Hey, come on out and enjoy the fun, but uh, there are a lot of birds I've made made a farm with with trees. So I have a lot of birds around So I got to make sure they're not nesting up there every once in a while Simple green works really well with the high pressure sprayer to get the cleaner up on the roof And I know that's non-toxic. So that's what I clean my my stuff with that and my one was in a ground mount I just use a microfiber cloth and it does a great job cleaning those up um And the cabling I over cable everything I make sure everything's uv rated Um, and then I use a conduit to to ship everything back and forth and that's all buried So very low maintenance Steve, what about you? Pretty much what you've said tom Just some water I we can't easily get on our roof But uh, just spraying water up on top and letting it come off Seems to be good There may be a day where we have to get up there and it'll be more of a challenge with our two-story clay tile roof Yeah, and you want to not use hard water if you can at all avoid. Yeah, right Joe any other thoughts that you you have the any tips you could throw out there anything like that? No, I mean just just monitoring it, you know daily weekly monthly and and getting up there and washing it Especially, you know in the spring or in the fall. Um, so you can capture the best times a year. Yeah All right. Well, I want to thank y'all for for doing this. This has been really fun I've learned things along the way. I'm sure the audience has as well We'll go around the horn for for any last thoughts any any regrets any advice you'd have for for people About solar We'll start with you brian I have no regrets. I love playing with solar I enjoy all the projects. I've got more projects than I can get finished Solar is going to be one of those really nice things that we can do for our own planet And I'm going to continue doing it In fact, I'm going to design the house with the appropriate facings so I can add more solar to the house if I felt like it Um, I think home storage is going to be a big deal, especially with brownouts blackouts grid problems those in can Can do that More better and same with the the new vehicles that are doing two-way charging I think that's going to really take a little bit of the load off of the grid And I think that's something that's that's going to help long term Steve what about you any any any last thoughts things you do differently advice for others? um One word of advice if you're going with a contractor it like most major projects It will probably take longer than they quote so bear that and be more expensive And then possibly our company was pretty good about yeah We came in on we came in on the expense just exactly what they said, but that's good But the time was and part of that is there are things out of their control like Permits from the city and and the utility but for the most part Just put a little buffer on if you have a time element here that you need to worry about But I have no regrets except I wish I had done it earlier about back when the The rate was the tax credit was 30 percent. Although from what Brian said, maybe that wouldn't have made much of a difference Panels are more expensive then. Yeah, but I do feel better having solar offset our Larger electrical demands in our house Joe any thoughts to add to that? Yeah, I would say if you're curious about it, you know, um, you can Do some research and find some large reputable country companies in your area and and have them come out usually they'll come out and give you Uh An inspection an analysis and a free quote So no charge to you they can give you a good idea of what your potential is what the cost might be Maybe different financing structures. Um, so it's a good way to do some research that isn't you know that intimidating Well, we sure loved have having all of you joe steve and brian As our solar panel on the show Ha ha our solar panel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, uh, yeah, it's just you know got the jokes Just a reminder that The regular dts show is live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern 200 utc you can find out more at daily tech news show comm slash live But boy, this was fun. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of you gentlemen for bringing The information and bringing the education to all of us I hope all of you out there in the patreon world learned a little something as well And uh, and we hope you have all a nice weekend Steve if people want to find you, uh, where should they go? You can find me at sp Sheridan on twitter and I also contribute to my wife allison's website, which is pod feet pod dot com Brian, uh, if folks want to follow you is there a place they can go and not till I retire Too many projects But folding it home. Good day internet team gotta plug that still top five. So i'm pretty happy with that. Awesome Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Thanks for supporting that that that effort as well I know you you said you got a whole machine devoted to it. That's great. Yep And joe, thank you as well I don't know if there's anything you want to tell folks or or not, but it was great to have you Oh, well, yeah, thank you for having me and if people do have questions. They can find me on twitter at j a briny bri any why? I usually don't post a lot, but if you have questions and you want to message me I'll be happy to answer them All right. Thanks again everybody. Uh, if you can't afford solar yet at least go enjoy some sunshine. We'll talk to you soon Show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frogpants.com I hope you have enjoyed this program