March 27, 2025

ESS Market Volatility with Aaron Marks | EP272

Show Notes
Transcript

The energy storage industry is evolving rapidly, driven by shifting market trends, policy changes, and supply chain volatility. In this episode of the Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Aaron Marks from Clean Energy Associates (CEA) to unpack the latest insights on energy storage, battery procurement, and how tariffs and policy shifts are shaping the industry.

Aaron shares insights from his seven years in energy storage market intelligence, highlighting the different sources of volatility the industry has faced - from the transition in battery cell procurement in 2017-18 when Korean OEMs dominated before Chinese OEMs and LFP batteries gained traction, to the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act, and now the policy changes under the Trump administration.

The conversation explores how recent policy shifts are creating market turbulence, with Aaron revealing breaking news about manufacturing pullbacks, including Freyr's pivot away from their planned Georgia battery factory toward solar production. This exemplifies the rapid changes that make market intelligence services so valuable for companies trying to deploy solar and storage solutions while keeping pace with industry developments.

Aaron explains how CEA has expanded from its origins in factory audits and quality assurance to offer comprehensive supply chain services and market intelligence - helping clients know exactly what they're buying, who they're working with, and how to make strategic decisions based on current market conditions.

Listen to this episode to gain valuable insights into:

How policy volatility affects energy storage markets
The evolution of battery cell procurement trends
The impact of the IRA and Trump administration policies on US manufacturing
The integrated approach CEA takes to quality assurance, supply chain management, and market intelligence

As the clean energy sector continues to grow, understanding market dynamics is more important than ever. Tune in to gain valuable insights from one of the industry’s leading experts and ensure your projects are set up for success.

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Aaron Marks

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And I've been working in market intelligence for energy storage for some level, for the last seven, eight years. And let me tell you, there's always been different sources of volatility. If you go back to 2017, and 18, we're talking about a transition in battery cell procurement. Of course, at that point it was Korean OEMs really ruling the roost, and you started to see that transition into Chinese OEMs and LFP, then you move into 2021, 2022 now we're talking about the IRA. That's still volatility. I mean, generally a good thing, but it's still creating changes in the market.

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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.

00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:55.719
We do too. We're 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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We're here at re plus Boston. I'm with Aaron Marks of clean energy associates. I've had Andy Klump on the show before, and everyone you know who buys solar equipment, whether that's batteries, modules, inverters, knows about clean energy Associates. We're going to talk with Aaron, though, about market intelligence services. And you know, I think of things like factory auditing that you guys do. Basically, when you're buying megawatts or gigawatts of solar panels, you want to make sure you know exactly what you're getting. And that's one of the value propositions of CEA. But what is your niche?

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Aaron, so

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I work in CA's Market Intelligence Group. And as you mentioned, CA started with factory audits quality assurance, but we expanded from there into more supply chain services and then eventually into market intelligence. So of course, you want to know exactly what you're buying in terms of your actual panels, and that's where the quality assurance comes in. You want to know who you're working with, and that's where the supply chain management comes in. And you want to know what's going on in the market and how to make those strategic decisions. And that's where market intelligence comes in. And we're really aiming at CEA to offer all three of those and integrate those together as well. I

00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:26.599
mean, it seems like the market is kind of freaking out right now because the Trump administration is putting tariffs on everything they can think of is, has that caused a lot of turmoil and angst in your from your perspective,

00:02:27.259 --> 00:03:14.759
it has. It has introduced a lot of volatility into the market. And I've been working in market intelligence for energy storage for some level, for the last seven, eight years. And let me tell you, there's always been different sources of volatility. If you go back to 2017, and 18, we're talking about a transition in battery cell procurement. Of course, at that point it was Korean OEMs were really ruling the roost, and you started to see that transition into Chinese OEMs and LFP. Then you move into 2021, 2022 now we're talking about the IRA. That's still volatility, I mean, generally a good thing, but it's still creating changes in the market, and now, with the new administration, we have more policy changes. They're coming on quickly, and our clients do rely on us to stay abreast of those changes and explain what's going on as succinctly and as punctually as possible.

00:03:14.819 --> 00:03:32.840
Yeah. So one of the things that the IRA seems to have done or accomplished, right is an explosion of manufacturing in the US, solar panel factories, battery factories, EV factories. Is that trend in jeopardy? Do you think because of the Trump administration, it

00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:46.539
is a bit hard to say. Of course, in the last week, we've seen core power pulling back with some of their manufacturing plans. We've seen Frayer, kind of pivoting from storage into their solar plans.

00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:46.539
So there's a lot going on.

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Is that Georgia battery factory that Friar was building not happening.

00:03:50.740 --> 00:03:55.120
That was the most recent announcement that they are shifting away from that battery. Wow,

00:03:55.180 --> 00:04:03.120
wow. But they bought a five gigawatt solar panel factory right from Trina.

00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:14.699
Yeah. So interesting. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta reconnect with Freya. I think they're a great company, but I you know, they were a pure storage play, and now they're solar and storage, but that was news to me that they're backing off of Georgia.

00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:14.699
That's

00:04:14.699 --> 00:04:38.120
right, and these updates are happening so quickly, and that is part of our value proposition. You know, when you're out there trying to actually deploy storage solutions, trying to actually deploy solar solutions. You're not necessarily sending people to the back office to read the news, but when you have a dedicated market intelligence partner, that's when you're able to know what's going on, know what's going on, quickly, and be able to make strategic decisions based on that information.

00:04:38.120 --> 00:04:49.660
Okay, well, I'm Jim Montague. Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. And how can our listeners find you? Aaron. So

00:04:49.660 --> 00:05:00.899
I am available at Aaron marks. I'm on LinkedIn. My email is a marks at CEAthree.com and always willing to have conversation about what's going on in. Storage market, excellent.

00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:03.720
I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage.

00:05:03.720 --> 00:05:05.339
Thank you so much. Aaron, thank you. You.

ESS Market Volatility with Aaron Marks | EP272

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