Sunrun is the biggest residential rooftop solar installer in the US, and recently they've added batteries and EV chargers to their offerings. I talk with CEO Mary Powell about why household electrification is still so difficult & time-consuming, and how the process could be improved.
My wife and I live in Roanoke, Virginia and have rooftop solar with 26 panels. The majority were installed in April of 2019, with four more installed two years later. We are grid-tied, net-metered and served by Appalachian Power. We got off the gas replacing the furnace and water heater with a heat pump and electric water heater. We're 100% electric. Our monthly home energy bill is $8.92 per month year-round. Bob Egbert
Nice. I like the comment that regulators, etc. need to not be so "backward looking."
Clearly we need to emulate some of the Aussie items you got into Saul Griffith to accelerate residential solar. But they also have 50% higher electric rates, and I'll bet the cost of shipping container of solar panels is 30-40% less there. (No tariffs and UFLPA issues.) And I think solar irradiance in most of Australia is better than solar irradiance in many residential solar friendly states in the USA.
City governments probably should have no role in regulating rooftop solar at all. Or buildings in general. Building and electrical codes should be much more standardized -- we really should have a national code of standards that can then be _somewhat_ customized at the state level, but not the insane patchwork we have in the US today where Palo Alto can throw a wrench in the works of solar deployment for the entire Bay Area mega-region. ( https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2021/05/21/palo-alto-takes-heat-over-solar-permitting )
There is a serious problem in the Bay Area where Palo Alto will adopt some ludicrous standard, and then other cities will follow suit because they assume P.A. must know what they're doing, and that standard is "for safety". I had to re-design my PowerWall install on the fly, to mount on an outside wall, because Palo Alto decided that installing batteries inside the garage was a fire hazard. (But parking a car full of gasoline isn't? Or, for that matter, an EV with a much bigger battery! Come on.) I had already done the work to prep a concrete podium and set up an ethernet drop in the garage. What most irritated me was that in that case, it was actually _Tesla_ internalizing P.A.'s stupidity, not even my own city -- the install team basically said a bunch of cities locally had adopted this and so then the regional install team adopted it as policy. I called up my own city's senior inspector and he said he was fine with doing it my way, but they refused.
PG&E says that BEVs operating in their northern & central CA service area alone now equal the peak load shaving capacity of about 5 Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants. Getting BEVs connected to the local distribution grid while they’re “sleeping” in garages & lots is a priority.
About 45% of US households are tenants & condominium owners, not single-family-residence owners. Their only green energy option is community solar, and they can’t own a BEV unless their apartment owner, condo association or employer provide vehicle chargers.
The most rapidly exploitable strategy to extend green energy benefits to all those folks is to convince investors/ owners & managers of large leased residential & commercial (sub)urban properties to use IRA incentives to shade their hot asphalt parking lots with solar canopies +stationary storage batteries +Vehicle-2-Grid chargers. Right where most energy is being consumed. If IRA incentives don’t work, consider updating our building codes & local commercial development ordinances. We already require commercial properties to provide up-to-date seismic bracing, fire sprinklers & disabled accommodations. Carrots or sticks.
Let me know what you have in mind, timing, etc. There’s a long term structural impediment to energy efficiency & on-site solar power production & storage in the commercial real estate industry. Property owning landlords don’t pay the utility bills. I live in Sonoma County, CA, which is BTW, home to one of the largest & oldest conventional geothermal power producing steam fields. And new Advanced Geothermal projects are already in development here.
I'm more focussed on the first part of your post: "Getting BEVs connected to the local distribution grid while they’re “sleeping” in garages & lots is a priority." This needs to move faster for many reasons. I'm looking for companies that are deploying these and working with utilities to build an end-to-end solution. So far I found one, Virta, based in Helsinki. Do you know others?
Some, maybe. But we are certainly in the “early days” of this: Charging infrastructure, BEV adoption, reliable neighborhood micro grids. The opportunity is there, but property owners, investors, managers & leasing agents need to be motivated. All the parking lot solar canopies I see are on owner occupied properties. It’s the quickest way to get to Net-Zero for properties with lots of air conditioning, water heating, refrigeration or other electrical equipment load, and can pay for itself within a decade. No new land acquisition, site improvements or utility transmission required.
My wife and I live in Roanoke, Virginia and have rooftop solar with 26 panels. The majority were installed in April of 2019, with four more installed two years later. We are grid-tied, net-metered and served by Appalachian Power. We got off the gas replacing the furnace and water heater with a heat pump and electric water heater. We're 100% electric. Our monthly home energy bill is $8.92 per month year-round. Bob Egbert
Nice. I like the comment that regulators, etc. need to not be so "backward looking."
Clearly we need to emulate some of the Aussie items you got into Saul Griffith to accelerate residential solar. But they also have 50% higher electric rates, and I'll bet the cost of shipping container of solar panels is 30-40% less there. (No tariffs and UFLPA issues.) And I think solar irradiance in most of Australia is better than solar irradiance in many residential solar friendly states in the USA.
City governments probably should have no role in regulating rooftop solar at all. Or buildings in general. Building and electrical codes should be much more standardized -- we really should have a national code of standards that can then be _somewhat_ customized at the state level, but not the insane patchwork we have in the US today where Palo Alto can throw a wrench in the works of solar deployment for the entire Bay Area mega-region. ( https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2021/05/21/palo-alto-takes-heat-over-solar-permitting )
There is a serious problem in the Bay Area where Palo Alto will adopt some ludicrous standard, and then other cities will follow suit because they assume P.A. must know what they're doing, and that standard is "for safety". I had to re-design my PowerWall install on the fly, to mount on an outside wall, because Palo Alto decided that installing batteries inside the garage was a fire hazard. (But parking a car full of gasoline isn't? Or, for that matter, an EV with a much bigger battery! Come on.) I had already done the work to prep a concrete podium and set up an ethernet drop in the garage. What most irritated me was that in that case, it was actually _Tesla_ internalizing P.A.'s stupidity, not even my own city -- the install team basically said a bunch of cities locally had adopted this and so then the regional install team adopted it as policy. I called up my own city's senior inspector and he said he was fine with doing it my way, but they refused.
I loved hearing Ms Powell's enthusiasm. Thanks for a great "feel good" episode!
We need a compelling offering for landlords. Hard problem, but solvable.
PG&E says that BEVs operating in their northern & central CA service area alone now equal the peak load shaving capacity of about 5 Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants. Getting BEVs connected to the local distribution grid while they’re “sleeping” in garages & lots is a priority.
About 45% of US households are tenants & condominium owners, not single-family-residence owners. Their only green energy option is community solar, and they can’t own a BEV unless their apartment owner, condo association or employer provide vehicle chargers.
The most rapidly exploitable strategy to extend green energy benefits to all those folks is to convince investors/ owners & managers of large leased residential & commercial (sub)urban properties to use IRA incentives to shade their hot asphalt parking lots with solar canopies +stationary storage batteries +Vehicle-2-Grid chargers. Right where most energy is being consumed. If IRA incentives don’t work, consider updating our building codes & local commercial development ordinances. We already require commercial properties to provide up-to-date seismic bracing, fire sprinklers & disabled accommodations. Carrots or sticks.
Love your thinking. I’m forming a panel discussion on this topic. let me know if you’re interested in participating.
Let me know what you have in mind, timing, etc. There’s a long term structural impediment to energy efficiency & on-site solar power production & storage in the commercial real estate industry. Property owning landlords don’t pay the utility bills. I live in Sonoma County, CA, which is BTW, home to one of the largest & oldest conventional geothermal power producing steam fields. And new Advanced Geothermal projects are already in development here.
I'm more focussed on the first part of your post: "Getting BEVs connected to the local distribution grid while they’re “sleeping” in garages & lots is a priority." This needs to move faster for many reasons. I'm looking for companies that are deploying these and working with utilities to build an end-to-end solution. So far I found one, Virta, based in Helsinki. Do you know others?
Some, maybe. But we are certainly in the “early days” of this: Charging infrastructure, BEV adoption, reliable neighborhood micro grids. The opportunity is there, but property owners, investors, managers & leasing agents need to be motivated. All the parking lot solar canopies I see are on owner occupied properties. It’s the quickest way to get to Net-Zero for properties with lots of air conditioning, water heating, refrigeration or other electrical equipment load, and can pay for itself within a decade. No new land acquisition, site improvements or utility transmission required.
https://pearlx.com/
Yeah but storage...
thank you Dave for this interview and all your work! you rock!