March 19, 2025

Commercial Solar + Battery Storage: Making Smart Energy Solutions Work for Your Facility | EP268

Show Notes
Transcript

This expert panel discussion, hosted by Tim Montague of the Clean Power Hour and sponsored by Chint Power Systems, explores how commercial facilities can implement solar, battery storage, and building management systems to lower energy costs. The webinar focuses on a case study of Rancho Santa Margarita Toyota in California, featuring a 451 kW rooftop solar project paired with a 125 kW/279 kWh energy storage system.

Key Discussion Points

Financial Benefits of Solar + Storage

Ryan Ferrero emphasized that while environmental benefits are a bonus, the financial argument is what drives adoption
Converting energy savings into income streams rather than just reducing expenses
Leveraging investment tax credits, bonus depreciation, and available grants

Building Management Systems Integration

Casey Miller shared how solar alone is no longer enough in many markets due to utility rate changes
Utilities have introduced peak demand charges and time-of-use energy charges that limit solar's effectiveness
Elexity's approach combines battery storage with load control (managing HVAC, EV charging)

Technology Advances

Anton Patton discussed how string inverter technology has evolved for both solar and storage
Improvements in remote monitoring capabilities reduce the need for on-site troubleshooting
Integrated, turnkey solutions have replaced earlier "Frankenstein" approaches where components were cobbled together

Case Study: Rancho Santa Margarita Toyota

Implemented a phased approach starting with rooftop solar and white TPO roof
Added Elexity's building management system to optimize energy usage
Installed battery storage to store free solar energy or cheap off-peak energy

How the Elexity System Works

Revenue-grade meter installed to mirror the utility meter
Connection to solar output and direct battery control
For HVAC control, supervisory signals sent to thermostats within customer-set guardrails

Social Media Handles

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Transcript

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00:00:00.479 --> 00:00:53.740
But the challenge is going forward, solar is not enough anymore, particularly in markets like California with an m3 changes. What's happening is utilities are outsmarting solar in some of these markets, and they're doing that with rate changes. They're hitting customers with peak demand charges, that worst 15 minute mistake of of the billing period that can dominate the bill and time of use energy charges in ways that look solar is producing often when the value of production is the lowest and that that creates a significant challenge, both for you know, for for people developing solar projects, and what do you need to do? Well, you've got to start paying attention to load profiles in the building.

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Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.

00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:19.140
We do too. We are here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition.

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Welcome everyone to today's expert panel discussion commercial solar and battery storage, making smart energy solutions work for your facility. I'm Tim Montague, host of the Clean Power Hour, please check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Today's webinar is brought to you by Chint power systems. Check out all of their three phase string inverters and battery storage solutions for CNI and utility applications at chintpowersystems.com. I will be your moderator for today's session. Before we dive in a few quick housekeeping items, the session is being recorded and will be available for replay at cleanpowerhour.com. You'll also get a email notification about the recording, which will be posted sometime next week. We'll have Q and A during and after the session, or towards the end of the session. So please do put your questions into the Q and A feature in the zoom at the bottom of your interface. Feel free to connect with our panelists on LinkedIn. I have put their profiles in the chat there for you, and they are all looking forward to hearing from you directly on LinkedIn. Today, we're going to explore how commercial facilities can implement solar, battery storage and building management systems to lower energy costs. We'll take a detailed look at a project called Rancho Santa Margarita, a Toyota facility there in California, which features a 451 kW rooftop solar project and a 125 kW 279 kWh energy storage facility. Let me introduce our distinguished panelists, or distinguished panel of experts today. First, we have Ryan Ferrero, national director at Freedom solar. Ryan leads industry electrification for for commercial facilities across all 50 states, and as a former auto dealership principal who received numerous industry awards. Ryan brings first hand knowledge of how renewable energy can transform commercial operations. He's even presented to the US Senate and has been featured on CNN Fox NBC and in Fast Company. Next is Casey Miller, CEO of alexity, a startup in Bend, Oregon, specializing in energy control software. Casey brings over 20 years of experience in business creation, sales leadership and product development. Under his leadership, alexity has developed innovative solutions for coordinating real time optimization of solar, HVAC, batteries, EV charging and grid services in buildings, in commercial buildings. And finally, we have Anton Patton, VP of Product Management at CPS America, based in Pleasanton, California. Anton leads CPS is product and engineering activities, including support for current product lines and development of new solutions for the US market. His background includes extensive technical experience in CNI solar, solar PV and energy storage projects.

00:04:28.252 --> 00:05:38.540
Today, we'll start with practical insights for facility owners and managers, and then move into a deeper technical discussion for those interested in implementation details, and by the end of this session, you should have a clear understanding of the immediate financial benefits of solar and battery storage, how these technologies work together to maximize savings, practical considerations for facility owners, strategies for navigating utility rate structures, what. What makes a facility ideal for these solutions and how to evaluate warranties, maintenance and long term reliability? Let's begin with a brief a brief overview of commercial solar and storage as it stands here in March 2025 Ryan, give us given your experience with automotive dealerships and other commercial clients. What are the most compelling, immediate financial benefits the value stack, so to speak, that you're seeing for businesses who are implementing solar plus storage in 2025 and can you share some specific ROI metrics from recent projects?

00:05:39.259 --> 00:05:43.660
Yep, sounds good.

00:05:39.259 --> 00:06:45.639
Tim, thank you. You know, first want to say when I got into this space after my life as a car guy, you know, and out of Boulder Colorado, it was sustainability. Was pretty preachy, you know, we wanted to try and convert everyone to be an environmentalist and hug trees and eat granola and that sort of thing. And it was pretty quick to learn that the only way you're going to scale green things is the financial argument. You know, we can all agree, left side of the aisle, right side of the aisle, that if the money makes sense, we're probably going to do it so for commercial solar, that is a very important focus, is focus on the money. And if there's any environmental motivations, you just let that be the sugar on top and down the road. But in the meantime, how do you get immediate financial impact and and that's what's exciting about commercial solar. Obviously, you want a short payback. You want to leverage all eligible incentives, whether cash or tax.

00:06:41.379 --> 00:08:12.600
But you also have to think about, as you say, the value stack Tim. You want to think about who wins on the go forward basis. So if you have energy savings, you know, if you're saving money with the battery from peak demand shaving, or if you're saving money by not paying the utility company as as much. Saving is not very inspiring. You that just that word you could save money by switching to Geico, right? So what we really help commercial owners leverage is to convert that savings into income. So essentially, what you do is that Accounts Payable person is going to cut two checks each month for the electricity that's consumed, one that's going to the utility company and then one to the entity that owns the solar and the storage assets. So you're again diverting what would have gone to the utility company as a passive income stream. So when you put that all together, the most immediate financial benefits are obviously going to be what you can get with investment tax credits, bonus depreciation, any cash payments or grants, but you also have an aggregate of savings that it's fine if they let it hit the financial statement, and their P and L has a reduction in fixed expenses. But where everyone stands to attention is when you see, you know, two, four, $6, million of savings become an income stream. Well, now that gets pretty exciting.

00:08:13.860 --> 00:09:11.879
Yeah, in my experience, solar alone is a nice ROI, right? You put some money in for the facility. It pays back over five to 10 years, and then the rest is gravy. With solar plus storage, you have the potential of multiplying the ROI, literally, by a factor of three plus and yes, the capex is greater, but the ROI is much greater, and that is the value proposition, and why solar plus storage is the peanut butter and jelly and then the whole sandwich is with our friend, Casey Miller here with electricity building control systems. So Casey, from your perspective as an energy management software provider, how are you seeing the integration of building management systems with solar and storage changed the financial equation for commercial facilities, and what kind of operational savings are your clients experiencing beyond the direct energy cost reduction.

00:09:12.899 --> 00:10:03.539
Thanks, Tim and thanks. Thanks. Everybody who's attending. I think looking forward to this discussion. I'm going to be a bit controversial here at start, and before I do that, I'm going to give the context that I love this. We love solar at electricity, in fact, in fact, part of our mission, really is to expand solar into CNI space. And I've worked for a long time with people like Anton, who you'll hear from to make solar easy and more affordable and economical in the commercial industrial space. But the challenge is going forward, solar is not enough anymore, particularly in markets like California with the NEM three changes. What's happening is utilities are outsmarting solar. Are in some of these markets, and they're doing that with rate changes.

00:10:04.019 --> 00:12:09.840
They're hitting customers with peak demand charges, that worst 15 minute mistake of of the billing period that can dominate the bill and time of use energy charges in ways that look solar is producing often when the value of production is the lowest, and that that creates a significant challenge, both for, you know, for for people developing solar projects, and what do you need to do? Well, you've got to start paying attention to load profiles in the building. Ideally, you're matching the solar output to the load profile, and you can't control solar. So what can you control? Well, you can control the loads, the usage in the building at electricity. We do that with batteries and with load control real time, shifting of H back and EV chargers in commercial facilities, and when you match those load the load profile to solar production, then you get the kind of multipliers you talked about, Tim, you get better ROI for the customer. You get improved payback periods. And we're seeing payback periods in California in particular for a battery and load control investment of as low as three years, right? And that's those are. Those are great numbers to Ryan's point. Show Me the Money right in in these businesses, they need to see the dollars and batteries, combined with load control and solar are showing up and delivering we'll talk about an example with Rancho, Santa, Margarita, Toyota. But Tim, you also asked about other benefits of a of an energy management system. When you provide a solution to manage the load profile in a building and loads like HVAC and EV chargers, you're also giving these customers a platform to see, monitor, control and manage everything in their facility.

00:12:06.299 --> 00:12:50.740
And there's other economic benefits that come with that, ease of use, lower operational cost, improvements in the ability to maintain systems in a facility. And there's one more thing, when you control all those assets together, you can enable customers to participate in grid service programs. And Ryan talked about savings are nice, but what we think customers love are checks. So when you can extract a payment from a utility to a customer that shows up as new revenue man. That's really fun to do, and we got to do that last week for one of our car dealership customers. So we're taking a different approach.

00:12:51.639 --> 00:13:02.639
Unfortunately, again, solar is not not enough anymore in some markets and and, you know, batteries, plus low control can really make a significant difference.

00:13:04.918 --> 00:13:26.359
Well said. Well Anton CPS America provides the technical backbone for many of these systems. How have advances in inverter and storage technology over the past few years impacted the financial viability of commercial solar and storage projects. Are there specific technological breakthroughs that have been game changers?

00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:33.080
Yeah, thanks, Tim.

00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:50.320
I mean, so CPS, you know, we've been a leader in the commercial industrial space. You know, we've deployed over 10 gigawatts of PV inverters to the US market, and with that, we've seen, you know, a lot of different types of projects.

00:13:46.779 --> 00:14:44.980
We've worked with a lot of VPCs and developers, and we've seen a lot of the challenges that can be faced with these commercial projects. And we've gained a lot of knowledge there, and it's allowed us to grow with the industry and and become a trusted partner, not just with our technical solutions, but, you know, with the reliable support and service that we pride ourselves on and we provide to our customers during the project, design, installation and operation of these systems, and thinking about the string inverter technology, so three phase string inverters have made major impacts in the CNI solar PV space over the last, you know, 1015, years, and it's really enabled the commercial solar space to grow a lot bigger than it was really expected to be.

00:14:41.019 --> 00:16:26.840
And we're really excited to bring that string inverter technology to the energy storage space, and kind of bring a lot of that value that that's been seen with solar, things like, you know, the flexibility and compact. Impact solutions that have really evolved, both in solar and now storage, also, you know, being able to scale these solutions and have short lead times, which obviously leads to projects being able to be developed a lot quicker than you know it would if you had to wait a year plus for the equipment needed for these installs, several other technological advances that we've seen a big need for with the lessons learned Over the years, on storage side has been data communications, so remote capabilities of monitoring these systems, being able to remotely troubleshoot, diagnose without rolling trucks to the site, has been critical. Higher efficiencies with the equipment, things like liquid cooling for batteries versus the traditional HVAC units, you know, as well as you know, not just on the technology side, but the industry standards that have developed and involved a lot of the codes to make these, these systems safe. I think all of these advancements have have impacted, you know, the viability and financial value of these storage systems.

00:16:28.100 --> 00:16:47.679
Great. So Ryan, Ryan and Casey, let's talk about Rancho, Santa, Margarita, Toyota. Walk us through the elements of this 451 kW project, solar project and what were the some of the challenges and solutions for the dealership as you understand them.

00:16:48.399 --> 00:17:26.538
All right, let me start and kind of hit you with a barrage of data points. First of all, when I first went and visited this store and got to know the ownership and the the motivations. It was 102 degrees outside, standing on the the pavement was blistering hot, and of course, the retail environment that they have, those front doors are opening all the time, and that air conditioning is just firing away. I mean, it was crazy hot.

00:17:21.858 --> 00:17:30.199
And of course, the there's a lot of glass with solar, you know, heat gain coming in there too.

00:17:30.199 --> 00:19:49.058
So they needed to really attack, not just what's happening with peak demand charges and all the year over year utility costs there, but just invite the environment they're that they're in that June, July, August, is incredibly relying on air conditioning. So they, they took a holistic approach, and it was brilliant. It was a phased approach, too. It was, you know, kicking off with, all right, we know we need to get what's called a max fit. Let's get as much solar as we can, up on the roof, ballasted systems, so we don't have to drill any holes in it, although let's get the life expected life of the roof close to what the expected life is of the solar array. So they put a new roof up there with white TPO, so that white membrane helps with reflectivity and ambient lights, you get a little more bonus production on the panels. And then you're going to realize, well, wait a minute, solar is kind of dumb. It's just up there doing its thing. So we need to get software in there to optimize everything and understand the time of day and anticipate it with AI so building management systems and electricity started really turning the screws on, shifting load with the HVAC. And then, well, wait a minute, we need to get a battery up there. Let's fill that up with free energy from the solar or at night when energy is cheapest, and then drain that battery during those afternoon times. Even if the air conditioning is not running, they can run their Their compressors, you know, very busy store. So what they ended up doing, over the course of a few years, they didn't just wave a magic wand and do it all at once. They did things in it. And what I think is brilliant, which is one step at a time, but know that in several years, you're going to have a machine that is really well tuned for the specific operations of the store hours of the day, and they're Now really insulated from pain from SoCal Edison and what they're running into with these explosively high peak demand charges out there.

00:19:50.618 --> 00:19:59.919
So I'm putting the facility on screen. You can find it on Google. This Rancho Santa Margarita is a little bit south.

00:19:59.999 --> 00:20:10.259
In east of Los Angeles, but so in Southern California, and Casey tell us about the project from Alexis perspective,

00:20:11.220 --> 00:20:20.839
yeah, well, Ryan did a great job of explaining that, and we love this customer.

00:20:14.160 --> 00:21:16.200
The owner, Jim is progressive and wanted to invest in a whole energy management system and and he's done that. He's done that in stages like Ryan described. I think it was really smart. They, they made the decision to move forward with solar, you know, but solar is a construction project. Takes time to get permitting and and get the wheels in motion. And while that was set in motion, they went ahead and invested in Alex City's HVAC load control platform. We put a meter in the building, we got eyes and ears on the building, and we began controlling HVAC to shave peak demand right away. It's a one day install, no permits required, and they were immediately able to, you know, get benefit from that, and see their energy use, see their energy production in one place.

00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:52.900
So that was smart and and that allowed them to, you know, clearly support the solar investment, and then, with data, make an intelligent decision about what size battery they needed and what benefit that would bring. Yeah, so just a great a great way to approach the project in phases, and now we are controlling the whole system. They're maximizing the benefit of solar. Got a battery that's reducing those peak time of use energy charges with Southern Cal Edison every day.

00:21:49.599 --> 00:22:03.660
HVAC, load control that's clipping demand charges for them. We're soon to be installing our control EV chargers, and they'll have one platform to manage everything.

00:22:00.299 --> 00:22:07.859
So, yeah, just, just really smart and and they took advantage of kind of phasing the projects, I

00:22:07.859 --> 00:22:18.839
like to say, alexity, turns your building into a battery. Is that a misnomer? Do you think, or is that kind of what we're doing here, turning the building into a storage device?

00:22:19.319 --> 00:23:04.259
Yeah. I mean, certainly when we put a battery in the building, we've got a battery. But we also treat the HVAC system like a thermal battery. I would simplify to this. We use multiple tools to help customers, buy low, sell high. Every day, buy energy, low, sell energy, high, yeah, maximize the value of solar and, you know, flatten that load profile, and we do that with both a battery and our load control techniques. But yeah, sometimes Tim, we talk about H back management as that's a small thermal battery that's in every building. And you can take advantage of that, pair it with a battery system and get more for your money. And

00:23:04.259 --> 00:23:53.980
what we're really talking about here is attacking the duck curve right in California, where we have high penetration of solar. You get this belly right of the duck because the solar is cranking in the middle of the day. And so energy does get very cheap, and then, as the sun goes down, energy goes up and demand goes up, because people are going home and turning on their kitchens and their HVAC. And then you utilize the battery, or the battery, plus, right in in Lexington case. So Anton, what would you like to add in terms of what our audience should know and understand about implementing solar storage and building management systems from CPS perspective?

00:23:55.839 --> 00:25:08.759
Yeah. I mean, I think one message I'd like to reiterate is, you know, implementing solar and storage for these, these projects is not as complicated as it may seem, or at least it doesn't have to be, especially with, you know, a turnkey hardware solution and a good software controls package like alexity has, I mean, like Casey said, you know, our goal with these solutions has been to make it as simple and easy as possible to implement solar plus storage and provide that value so, and there is a lot of value to adding store storage, like we've been talking about For these PV systems really being able to take that, you know, clean energy from PV and use it at the high demand times, and not just, you know, when the sun's out. So, yeah, I mean, we, we've deployed several generations of energy storage systems since. 2018 the first generation was about 30 kilowatts, 65 kilowatt hours.

00:25:10.619 --> 00:26:20.059
Our latest generation, I guess that's what's at ranches. Our Santa Margarita is our 125, kilowatt 279, kilowatt hour. And we're also launching our our new 62 and a half and 125 Gonzo energy storage system that we're excited about this year. And then, you know, I think I'd like, also like the audience to understand, you know, what's important for these energy storage systems is really good integration between all the components involved, the batteries, the inverters, the energy management system, all the software. And you know, we at CPS, we put a lot of focus in this, and we're now manufacturing battery modules, obviously the inverters and the entire hardware package, while working closely with with Alexa on the software side. And that's been really important, you know, versus kind of taking different products, putting it together, we're really able to to offer a kind of turn key, fully integrated package. I

00:26:20.059 --> 00:27:05.940
think many solar professionals today are familiar with solar and batteries, and they're, you know, every solar professional is now a energy storage professional. If you're not, you better get on that train, because that is truly the future in all markets across the globe. But Casey energy management software is something that many energy professionals are not that familiar with, and it does seem to be a bit of a black box to us, I think. But tell us a little more about a system, your system, and if you can bring it home to Rancho Santa Margarita, that's great.

00:27:03.180 --> 00:27:13.740
But just in general, what are some data points and strategies that are important for maximizing the value of this kind of an installation?

00:27:15.059 --> 00:27:49.180
Yeah, well, we have to think from a system perspective. And you know, for the the project developers out there, companies like freedom solar, right? I think need to, need to be and are. That's why Ryan's here, energy problem solvers for the customer, and thinking about the whole bill, thinking about grid services and to venture in, to go from solar to batteries, that's one step.

00:27:45.039 --> 00:28:00.359
But if you take the step to think about being a problem solver for the facility and managing all the major energy systems in the building, you just get much more significant economic benefit by doing that.

00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:08.400
And you're, you're going to deliver an experience to customers that really just it, you know, is very positive.

00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:30.859
You're going to delight customers. Me, let me talk about a little bit of the challenge, and then the benefit of adding load control, for example, the benefit Tim you you use the metaphor of the kind of thermal battery, and I'll just play off that as a as a simple metaphor.

00:28:24.680 --> 00:28:35.059
Right now at Rancho Santa Margarita, we have 125 kilowatt 279 kilowatt hour battery there.

00:28:35.900 --> 00:29:33.680
By controlling HVAC, we're really adding another, effectively kind of 50 kilowatt, 100 kilowatt hour thermal battery. So think of the math there. That's almost a 50% improvement in battery capacity by managing little less like 40% by managing the loads. And that just simply drives better economics. That translates to better savings. It translates to bigger grid services, revenue checks. That's the that's the upside from a hard dollars perspective. I talked a little bit about the other upside for the customers now they have, you know, picking up my phone, one platform to log in, to manage everything. They don't need to go buy $100,000 building management system from Honeywell to manage comfort and HVAC. They don't need to go buy an EV charger management solution.

00:29:33.740 --> 00:29:36.140
They don't need to buy these different packages and silos.

00:29:36.140 --> 00:29:38.779
They can get one platform. So those are some of the benefits.

00:29:38.779 --> 00:30:03.119
Here's some one of the challenges and I'll speak to it just frankly, for the project developers that are going from solar to storage, adding load controls a little bit of a head scratcher, like what we're going to talk about HVAC, that that feels like a bit of a stretch.

00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:11.519
And, but think of it the other way. You'd be crazy to not control something like HVAC, which is 60 to 70% of the load in most commercial buildings.

00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:22.519
You do that first. You do that in concert with a major investment like solar and storage and and we really are.

00:30:22.519 --> 00:30:34.700
We're really crazy as an industry to not be paying attention to the loads and this and the rate structures and everything that's changing from a utility perspective is forcing us as an industry to go do that.

00:30:30.740 --> 00:30:40.660
So we just try to make that really easy for our partners.

00:30:34.700 --> 00:30:42.640
And you know, once you do that, you really can get a delighted customer.

00:30:44.079 --> 00:32:00.220
The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over eight gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS product lineup includes string inverters ranging from 25 kW to 350 kW. Their flagship inverter, the CPS. 350 KW is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts. CPS is the world's most bankable inverter brand and is America's number one choice for solar plants, now offering solutions for commercial utility ESS and balance of system requirements go to chintpowersystems.com or call 855-584-7168, to find out more. So Anton tell us a little bit of you know about what facility owners should understand, how do we size these solar and battery storage projects? And you know, is there an optimal solution, so to speak, for every facility?

00:32:02.079 --> 00:34:17.159
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that'll depend on the civility. But, you know, with sizing systems, you know, solar only is, you know, relatively straightforward. You look at the building demand or load and and you size the solar based on that. Now, with adding energy storage, you then can look at all right, when is the energy being used? You know, how much is being used during these peak demand charge times, when the you know, facilities, Bill you know, is significantly being kind of charged during those times. And then you know, when, when is optimal to charge and discharge these systems based on those rates. So looking at, you know, offsetting the high demand charges that are huge for these commercial facilities, using the the solar produced during the day, and using that during the peak hours where the value of energy use is really high versus, you know, the Low, low value times during, during kind of midday, or you look at, you know, providing the right type of backup or resiliency for a site, you know, that's there's different, I guess, applications for the solar and storage systems. And, you know, I think looking at the site's interval data of exactly when you know the energy is being used, and what the right amount of both solar and battery capacity makes sense. I think you know, we at CPS can support on the technical side for the hardware. Alexa does a great job of looking at the economics. They're doing that analysis and really seeing what the economic value is in ROI. So, yeah, I think it's, it's something we can definitely support. And, you know, make easy as you're you're setting these systems

00:34:17.518 --> 00:34:29.659
Casey. We're getting some questions from the audience that really boil down to, you know, could you describe the system to us? It's, it's, it's, it would be great if you could just paint us a picture.

00:34:26.778 --> 00:34:39.978
What are the hardware and software components of the electricity system, and how do they play with the battery and the solar Oh, and the HVAC system? Sorry, yeah.

00:34:40.280 --> 00:39:32.480
Great. Appreciate the questions. Well, let's start with the hardware, because that's maybe a little easier to understand. In every building, we put in a revenue grade meter that's measuring the total load, or the net net load, mirroring the utility meter. We optimize economically against the utility meter. So we. Put in a revenue grade meter to see that data and manage accordingly. We also connect to the solar systems output. We are monitoring that data. Of course, with the battery system, we're connected directly to the battery and our EMS software is the supervisory controller of the battery itself. If the customer elects to go with load control, which is optional, right? We do quite a few buildings where it's you know, we're just doing Battery Management with our EMS software. But if load control is a good fit for the building for HVAC, we connect to every thermostat in the facility, and we're sending just a supervisory signal to that thermostat to move it up or down, and we do that inside the guardrails that customers set up. So back to the software piece for HVAC load control. Our customers have a software platform to set temperature settings for every room, every zone, schedules, overrides they have a week. We enable them with a complete platform to manage that, and then we optimize inside their guardrails. We do that on autopilot. If there's EV chargers, they have an interface to our software to set up the chargers in a way that we know where we're allowed to throttle them back and control them. A car dealership may have a front of building EV charger that's for a customer, and they want that to just run whenever a customer needs it, but they may have a few level two or fast chargers in the service bay, and those just need to charge a vehicle overnight, and those can be managed more carefully to avoid peak charges. So we enable an interface to our customer to set that all up. Now, what does the software do? Like, what's the magic behind it? Well, we are using predictive control to anticipate peaks. We're connected to real time pricing from the utility. We're forecasting weather and forecasting solar output that gets all smashed in our AI engine to make decisions real time, every minute, every day, about what to do with HVAC EV chargers and how to not deploy the battery. Let me boil it to maybe a couple simple examples, pre cooling a facility. Let's pick Rancho Santa Margarita, Ryan talked about standing on the patio at 102 degrees in the middle of the summer. It's it gets hot there, right? Um, Rancho Santa Margarita, we know their limits, where they where they define comfort, and we'll pre cool their facility within their limits, knowing we have supply solar output at the moment, and knowing the forecasted temperature will rise later in the afternoon and allow that HVAC system to drift during that period of time to avoid a peak demand charge. And we can do that while keeping them comfortable. The magic here is you have to you got to deliver savings. You can't disrupt business operations, and that trade off. That's the That's the secret sauce in our algorithm that we've built and invested heavily in over a number of years to get that right, and and when you get that right, when that shows up, man, it's really fun. And I'm going to give one example. Sorry for taking the money. Sorry for taking the mic for so long, but I'm going to give one example of a fun moment. Another car dealership, another Toyota dealership in in California that we control. We recently got to knock on their door and say, Hey, here's a$30,000 check for the grid services program we enrolled you in. They're like, wow, wow. What did we have to do to get that nothing? What did you do? Well, we optimized your HVAC. They're like, what did you make us? We weren't, we're not, we weren't less comfortable, right? We intelligently did that in a way, inside your guard rails every day, on autopilot. You didn't have to think about it, and a check shows up right now. That is fun, and that's the kind of that's the kind of output you get from a system like Alexei.

00:39:34.880 --> 00:40:15.420
We have plenty of time for more questions from the audience, so please do put your questions into the Q and A and we'll do our best to get to those thank you for that. Casey, that was good overview. I wonder, Ryan, can you speak to the customer's perspective a little bit more and how that conversation and implementation went? I. As far as, how were they able to understand this value proposition, and how did they tackle, you know, this second phase of the project of integrating the battery and the the electricity system,

00:40:16.619 --> 00:40:48.760
yeah, and based on some of the questions that I'm seeing coming in, there's kind of a story here that's playing out with in the same way in front of me, and that is that we can be such technologists and tinkerers and so curious on the nooks and crannies of the technical aspects on everything, how everything works, and that is repelling for an awful lot of the client perspective, because they have their own lives.

00:40:48.760 --> 00:41:38.059
They're very busy. They're running their own business. So in thinking about the misunderstandings, we really need to have that bullpen of facts and when and if they want to drill down and get into the details of the technology. We can do that, but we like to keep things in a very simple, you know, eyebrows in the middle of your forehead. Just keep it real easy and light. And this is, this is the path that you're that's inevitable for you. Going back to another problem, when you look at last month's utility bill, you don't know what happened. You just look at it, all you know is, that's a lot of money, but you can't decipher it. You've got transmission charges, distribution charges.

00:41:34.940 --> 00:42:34.579
You know, in some areas of California, you could have six, nine or 12 different schedules for peak demand charges. I mean, it's, truly is a migraine headache waiting to hit you. So the solution is, really starts with where there's pain, there's opportunity, and the pain is what is going on here, and we know that it's mass chaos, there's confusion, and I have to pay that bill. So the next step is, how do I fight back? So it's very simple, on site power production. With on site power storage is functionally and financially the way you fight back. And then, oh, by the way, because you are running a business and you can't figure out the calculus problem that's on your utility bill, why don't we have aI powered software that just does that heavy lifting for us? And you know, I love what?

00:42:30.500 --> 00:42:58.300
When Casey says, Let's just put it out on autopilot. On my home system, I've learned something very simple. If I can get the house cooled sooner in the morning before the peak demand times hit by one, two or three when it's hotter, I'm just maintaining I don't have to play catch up. You know? I'm learning that just in in my home system.

00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:25.400
Well, geez, when you're talking 5060, 80,000 square foot buildings. I need on site power production. I need on site power storage. And I need someone else driving the ship for H back and optimizing everything else that is monitoring the time of use charges that are coming. You know, as Casey said, minute by minute from the utility company.

00:43:21.679 --> 00:43:46.000
So that's the whole process. So, you know, if they want to get into the technical aspects of, what's the wind load rating, what's the weight? Can it take snow loads? You know, what do inverters do? Sure, we can geek out on all that stuff. But the reality is, is we have one thing to solve, and that is, how can I fight back with my utility bill and then, and then keep it simple.

00:43:47.260 --> 00:44:04.440
So we have a couple attack on to that, yeah, go ahead, yeah. And, you know, Ryan is so good at speaking the customer language and simplification. I want to center on one thing as an example, back to that peak that demand charge.

00:44:04.500 --> 00:44:18.000
It's a the worst 15 minute spike in an entire month or a billing period, just 115 minute interval that can be 70% of the bill.

00:44:18.539 --> 00:44:50.739
Imagine running a school with a, you know, couple 100,000 square feet with solar battery, hundreds of HVAC systems, or a car dealership with, you know, 20 HVAC units and and a battery, and doors opening and closing, and customers coming and going and EV chargers turning on and off. There is no way this customer could manually manage that. That is it's impossible.

00:44:52.119 --> 00:44:57.400
Let's let software simplify that. That challenge

00:44:58.059 --> 00:45:08.099
for sure, and we have. Have a couple of questions from Craig Lewis, who is a friend of the podcast and was a guest on Episode 160 He's the founder of the clean coalition.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:37.039
Thank you for being here, Craig Lewis, and for anyone who's not familiar with the clean coalition, please check them out. They are building community scale micro grids, mostly on the west coast, but working nationwide. And there's, there's two questions, one for for the team, about this project, and is there, is there any kind of a public case study that people can learn more about this project with?

00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:41.019
There is not yet.

00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:41.019
Okay, there will be one, right?

00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:49.840
We do have a couple case studies that are similar, that are on our website, website@alexity.io but, yeah, this one is

00:45:50.199 --> 00:45:53.920
to be published.

00:45:50.199 --> 00:46:00.119
And then in this case, or in in this and other cases, are you?

00:45:53.920 --> 00:46:10.380
Is this project a micro grid in that it can isolate from the grid in the case of a grid outage and and is there a consideration for the value of resiliency? This

00:46:10.380 --> 00:46:51.039
project is an on Grid project. The location here, they just got very limited outages and and very high utility bills. So as the focus was clearly on on Bill reduction, but our collective system can support a micro grid or a hybrid, hybrid, meaning on grid most of the time and when there's a high risk of an outage, whether it's from weather or other inputs, allocate some of the battery capacity for backup. So that's certainly capable possible, but this project is just an on grade project

00:46:52.480 --> 00:47:00.960
very well. So yeah, we have, we have about 10 minutes left. You had something to add Anton,

00:47:01.619 --> 00:47:43.300
yeah, I was just going to add, you know, like Casey said, the system does have the capability of, you know, a micro grid application or backup application. And we are starting to see a lot more and more of those types of projects, depending on what the the needs are for the system or what the customer is looking for, but it is a different, you know, calculation versus, you know, really focusing on lowering those bills, which is a huge, you know, challenge, like Brian and Casey are saying a lot of value there, versus the value of backup and resiliency, which there's a ton of value there.

00:47:43.300 --> 00:47:46.360
It's just a different, you know, financial calculation,

00:47:48.400 --> 00:48:00.579
understood. I'm just looking through the questions, and I want to thank Dr Z for also helping me sort through these questions. He's in the background here from CPS.

00:48:02.860 --> 00:48:27.019
Um, there are a lot of questions about hardware and Casey is if I think one of the important things for us to understand is off the shelf versus a custom box, so to speak, from alexity, what all is entailed in an electricity installation, in a project like this,

00:48:27.619 --> 00:49:12.960
yeah, from a hardware perspective, it's one standard. It's our EMS controller box. It's, you know, this side, it's, you know, a couple feet by couple feet. It's small. It gets mounted in an electrical room. It has our meter hardware in there, our communications hardware. There are CTS that connect, you know, to both the solar and the in the building load. The other major piece of hardware is the battery system, right? And it's as simple as that, many buildings already have smart thermostats or a building management system, and we're just communicating to that through our controller.

00:49:14.940 --> 00:49:27.320
This is not open heart surgery on an HVAC system in a building, right? We're not replacing major components there. We're simply communicating to the existing systems that are there.

00:49:27.739 --> 00:49:49.239
Sometimes we need to, you know, the customer needs to upgrade to a smart thermostat. You know, there are, there are a lot of buildings that are guilty of having push button thermostats that have been there, you know, for 25 years. Just sometimes an upgrade to get there. But from a hardware perspective, it's relatively simple, the battery and our controller and

00:49:49.239 --> 00:49:59.920
can alexity be retrofitted? This is a question from Phil sun, another friend of the pod. Shout out to Phil. Can you retrofit electricity on top of an existing PV and battery?

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:01.260
Storage system, you

00:50:01.260 --> 00:50:21.860
certainly can, yeah, we're the supervisory ens layer, you know, and we can go in and integrate with an existing battery and then integrate again with the key loads in the building. So the hand, the answer is absolutely yes. We designed our system for for just that purpose cool.

00:50:22.219 --> 00:51:04.739
And a question for Anton from a colleague of yours in Pakistan who goes by the name Bucha. Bucha, they're introducing battery storage into the Pakistani market. One of the drawbacks is the number of cycles that we use. And I'm, you know, cycling batteries is definitely a question that comes up. It it can impact the warranty. But do you want to speak to cycling and and maybe the what is the best practice if you're an installer thinking about these solutions, yeah,

00:51:05.699 --> 00:53:05.400
you know, as far as the battery warranty, you know, ours, and I think most battery suppliers have, you know, not just a time, you know, a number of years that the batteries are under warranty, but a number of cycles. And for most of the applications that we've seen today, it's, it's one cycle per day. But you know, the inverters or the batteries do allow, you know, more than that, you just have maybe a shorter lifetime, or, you know, shorter time for degradation of those batteries. So, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the message is, you know, look at the battery warranty terms. But you know, typically, if it's one cycle per day, you've got the the standard, you know, length of the warranty period. And then I was just going to add to the question on hardware. You know, I think early on when energy storage technology was coming out, a lot of you know, engineers were, they'd have a battery and a bi directional inverter, and they were figuring out how to put it all together, and then they had an EMS to manage it all. And it was, it was a little bit of an engineering experiment, whereas today, you know, with with solutions like, like what we have, where it's a fully integrated batteries, inverters, you know, all tested, certified to operate together, and communications all optimized there. I think it, it makes it really easy to understand. And, you know, I guess have that solution that's like, this is what it does. This is the benefit and not having to to go into a lot of those technical weeds, like Ryan was saying it, you know, a lot of the the customers or the owners don't have the time or really want to go into all that

00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:13.440
cool we have a couple of questions from qsai, who's also a friend of the pod.

00:53:10.079 --> 00:53:39.619
Shout out to Kasai. Had lunch with him just a couple weeks ago in Southern California. Two questions, did you add CTS to every breaker on every sub panel. So question about the hardware, and then did the no, sorry, the utility. What kind of utility permission is required to install this kind of a load control system? If any great

00:53:39.619 --> 00:53:54.280
questions, we often get that question around installing sort of sub metering or breaker level, you know, measuring and monitoring of HVAC, we don't have to do that.

00:53:56.139 --> 00:54:53.619
One of the beautiful things about the capability of software with with the ability to learn behavior and characterize behavior in a building is that you can, over time, learn the relationship between the energy signature and the specific unit you're controlling and build that relationship through software. We know, for example, in every building that we're in the power signature of every single HVAC unit that we control, and the amount of energy it needs to heat or cool a room by a degree or two. You can learn that, and that avoids, you know, considerable cost to to install unnecessary monitoring, frankly. So that's, that's, I guess answer question number one. Tim, what was question two? Again, utility.

00:54:53.920 --> 00:54:57.280
Yeah, is utility permission required, not

00:54:57.280 --> 00:55:20.599
for the load control piece. All we're doing is. Making the building more efficient, right shifting the loads. No utility requirements or permitting requirements for the installation of load control. We do use an electrician to install the meter at the facility. And so, you know, whatever local codes are required to be able to do that.

00:55:20.599 --> 00:55:24.619
You don't need to be supported.

00:55:20.599 --> 00:55:36.800
But no, this is not a an interconnect application process or a utility process for the low control piece, of course, for solar and batteries. The answer is yes. You know, gotta go through it, through a process there.

00:55:37.519 --> 00:55:49.119
Great. And then I think a very important question from Dave on, do you think about other energy efficiency aspects of the building when you're going into a project like this?

00:55:49.119 --> 00:56:03.300
Do you do any kind of a base level audit, energy audit and and then have you, you know, do you? Do you often want to consider upgrades to the facility?

00:56:04.079 --> 00:56:08.639
Great question.

00:56:04.079 --> 00:56:27.199
Again, we do so part of our process. When we get installed with the load control element, we go through a learning process. We learn the behavior of the building, and we produce a systems health check for the customer, for H back, we'll tell them, you know. Give an example.

00:56:27.199 --> 00:57:36.920
We have a school in Southern California, J Sarah, 117 H back units. They get a report that says, here's the performance of each of those units. Here are the units that might need some repair, not able to keep up with temperature, but so pretty significant value add there in terms of efficiency. Here's the truth, most commercial buildings are poorly managed today and there are there's kind of low hanging fruit around efficiency by just getting them set up on schedules and eliminating dumb energy mistakes through our automation that drives efficiency. You know, the last person to leave the building on a Friday afternoon sets the temperature in a HVAC unit to 68 degrees, and it runs all weekend with nobody in the building. We eliminate all those dumb mistakes, and sometimes that's five to 10% maybe sometimes more of the bill. So that is part of our setup, and that's in addition, you know, and then above that, we do the demand management work. So certainly we start with energy efficiency.

00:57:33.380 --> 00:57:43.480
We're not doing lighting and other things. We're really focused on the major flexible loads, like H back and EV chargers in the building.

00:57:44.980 --> 00:58:04.199
Great. Well, I'd love to hear any closing comments from our panelists. I want to thank our listeners and audience for being here and for all your questions. Any closing remarks you have to make them very brief, but, but yeah, we're welcome. Welcome Anton, Ryan and Casey to make any closing comments.

00:58:05.039 --> 00:59:49.599
I'll go just real quickly. I talked about the phased approach, and that's important from the client perspective, in that they don't have to be psychic. They they don't have to anticipate what are the problems I'm going to be solving two years from now that I should be addressing today. So what I'll liken that to is, you know, maybe 10 years ago when commercial green efforts were out there. And, you know, how can I run my business and be more environmental? I mean, there was really silly things, like, can you compost your your coffee grounds? And, you know, these really small, inconsequential things that truly were greenwashing. So when you look at a phased approach, you do follow the money, and what you can end up doing is being a little more patient and realize, okay, what's the big Sledgehammer thing I can start with what? And that is a financial decision, like, what's obvious or inevitable? Let's, let's tackle that, and then how do I find the the truth on what's the right combination of technologies that I'll be adding to that. So I think Anton brought this up too. Is, you know, it was three, four, even five years ago, is the wild, wild west on how to Frankenstein a system and put it together and no one knew what? There's just too many, too much chaos that's all calmed down now. So what, why we really do like this Rancho Santa Margarita example is it was, it was not heavily subsidized at all. It was just the function of the technology that was solving the problems.

00:59:49.599 --> 00:59:58.360
And they did it in a nice, patient way. And here they are with the built out system where they they don't have to worry.

00:59:58.360 --> 01:00:06.599
Now it's when they. Read the news about net metering, 3.0 and all those other they don't care.

01:00:03.119 --> 01:00:17.280
They don't want to sell energy back to the utility anyway. They want to store it on site. So here they are at the top of the mountain. But it took them a while to climb it, and they were not sweating when they got to the top.

01:00:20.460 --> 01:00:45.940
Yeah, I can, I can go next Tim, yeah, I guess start with Thanks. Thanks, Tim and everybody for having me on this, this webinar. But I think a closing, closing remark is, you know, with the changes in utility rates, you know, and kind of the industry trends, you know, the energy storage piece has been kind of a key next step in the clean energy transition.

01:00:46.659 --> 01:01:18.480
You know, solar only has been becoming, you know, more and more challenging to pencil economically on its own and adding energy storage. You know, the solutions are there. And you know, we have solutions that are great fit for the commercial market, paired with the alexity energy management system. So if you are working on a solar and storage project or a solar project, and it's difficult to pencil, you know, reach out to our team. We can go over the solutions we have and the value they can provide.

01:01:19.860 --> 01:01:26.300
Yeah, I'll just, I'll be brief. I know we're at the end of the hour. You heard it a bit of complexity today.

01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:34.460
Our aim, you know, particularly CPS and alexity, we are trying to the complexity is, is there?

01:01:30.619 --> 01:01:50.139
It's real, like managing this complex rate structures. But the solution, we're focused on making that simple, to in to design with install and to delight customers. And that's that's kind of the mission we're on. And we'd love to help you, help you get there.

01:01:51.699 --> 01:02:20.925
Well, thank you all of our panelists, Ryan Ferrero from freedom, solar Casey Miller from alexity, and Anton Patton from CPS America, I put their LinkedIn profiles in the chat so and we'll put those in the show notes as well. So please connect with them on LinkedIn. Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com, if you're listening to this on Apple or Spotify, please give us a rating and a review, and of course, follow us on YouTube.

01:02:17.264 --> 01:02:20.925
Tell a friend about the show.

01:02:20.987 --> 01:02:44.320
Connect with me on LinkedIn. And with that, I want to say thank you to CPS America for sponsoring today's event. Go to chintpowersystems.com for more information about their three phase string inverters and battery storage for all of your CNI and utility scale project needs. With that, I'll say, I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Thanks so much, everybody. Bye.

Commercial Solar + Battery Storage: Making Smart Energy Solutions Work for Your Facility | EP268

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