April 23, 2025
Next Generation Battery Storage with David Florenz | EP282
Today on the Clean Power Hour, host Tim Montague sits down with David Florenz from CPS America at Intersolar San Diego to explore the future of grid-scale battery storage and utility-scale solar solutions.
David shares his journey from residential solar to utility-scale projects and reveals why CPS's innovative modular battery design is changing the game for project owners and operators. Learn how their distributed architecture offers superior resiliency compared to traditional centralized systems, allowing for easier maintenance and minimal downtime when issues arise.
Key highlights from this episode:
- CPS's unique modular approach to grid-scale storage with 200 kW power conversion systems
- How distributed architecture improves project resiliency and simplifies operations & maintenance
- The advantages of CPS's integrated manufacturing approach (everything but the cell)
- Current market trends in grid-scale storage across California, Hawaii, and Texas
- Retrofitting opportunities for existing solar farms
- CPS's new 125 kW / 261 kWh C&I energy storage solution
Perfect for utility-scale developers, IPPs, project owners, and anyone interested in the future of renewable energy storage. David explains why modular design matters and how it impacts long-term project economics.
Press play to discover how CPS is shaping the future of grid-scale energy storage and learn about their comprehensive approach to solar + storage integration.
Connect with David Florenz:
LinkedIn: David Florenz
Email: david.florenz@chintpower.com
Website: CPS America
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The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America’s number one 3-phase string inverter, with over 6GW shipped in the US. With a focus on commercial and utility-scale solar and energy storage, the company partners with customers to provide unparalleled performance and service. The CPS America product lineup includes 3-phase string inverters from 25kW to 275kW, exceptional data communication and controls, and energy storage solutions designed for seamless integration with CPS America systems. Learn more at www.chintpowersystems.com
The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Please subscribe on your favorite audio platform and on Youtube: bit.ly/cph-sub | www.CleanPowerHour.com | contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com | Speeding the energy transition!
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But yeah, so what I've been doing is just basically explaining the difference, and a lot of the difference is really how we have it modular, how it's each of our PCs is they're 200 kilowatt.
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Each of them is tied to a battery rack, so it gives the project more resiliency. And we've been seeing more from IPPS, or any, anybody that's going to end up owning the project. Their interest level increases when they realize that it's not a centralized transformer skid, it's, it's decentralized, right, distributed. And so basically, when you have, when it comes to different parts too, and I'm thinking just about O and M.
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That's another thing that they really like, because it makes O and M super simple.
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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.
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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 inner solar San Diego, and I'm with David Florenz in the CPS booth. Welcome to the Clean Power Hour, David, thank you.
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Thank you. Tim, it's great to have you on the show. Yeah, great to be here. How did you get into the solar industry?
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Well,
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it was about 12 years ago. Now, I started on the residential side and worked for some companies that, you know, people know Vivint and then Sun run and all that. And so I did do civil engineering back in the day, and that's what kind of ended up getting me interested into the renewable sector and but yeah, I, I, I've been on the sales side. I've helped with with, you know, some design and all that, but very, very light.
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And now I'm at CPS, and I love it.
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I mean, you really could, with your experience, you could work at any number of solar manufacturing companies.
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Why did you choose to come to CPS and sell three phase string inverters and grid scale storage?
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I guess, I guess it's the relationship that I built. I we met back when I was at, runnergy here at these trade shows. But then I made a move to astronergy, which is our sister company. And from there, I got the opportunity to meet Brian, the president of the company, Brian Wagner, and just seeing the team, and just, you know, seeing how they were, how they're, just the culture there, I could tell there was something different, something special, and and then learning more and more about them. Because, like, like I said, I came from the residential and I feel, like many residential installers, they actually don't know much about CPS right now more and more. But really, there's a lot of them that just don't know the brand
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sure, because they're not dealing with three phase string. They're dealing with single phase you do, and now have a single phase product, but it's kind of apples and oranges, right? But what is it that you do? What is your niche within CPS? Within
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CPS, I'm focused on what I've been focused on for for a few years now, with on the on the PV module side, which is the utility utility scale. And so I'm doing utility scale, but on the ESS battery side, so that's that's mainly been the focus, plus the PV utility products that we have for the inverters the with the centralized wire boxes and distributed wire boxes as well.
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So CPS has a five megawatt hour battery. Now we're looking at that, a model of that container here. One of the cool things, I think, is that you are a soup to nuts, manufacturer and integrator, everything, but the cell is a CPS product, and that's pretty unusual. But what has the reception been so far in the market
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with our product?
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As you know, utility takes time.
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All right, we have some really great opportunities, some that were designed into but like I said, I started about six months ago. So two, three years to, you know, really three years until we'll see, you know, some of these start landing in the market, some ERCOT, different place, California, different utilities there, but, but, yeah.
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So what I've been doing is just basically explaining the difference. And a lot of the difference is really how we have it modular. How it's each of our PCs is they're 200 kilowatt.
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Each of them is tied to a battery rack, so it gives the project more resiliency. And we've been seeing more from IPPS, or any, anybody that's going to end up owning the project, their interest level increases when they realize that it's not a. Centralized transformer skid, it's, it's decentralized, right, distributed. And so basically, when you have, when it comes to different parts too, and I'm thinking it's just about O and M, that's another thing that they really like, because it makes O M super simple, where, if there is an issue, you can take out just one of these, right? That's bad. One of the PCS is and then swap it out. And a lot of times you'll just have it on site. But going back to the resiliency, if one goes out, you just have one rack down. And that's very different than what's been out there, what's been installed, especially it's a big difference, especially if you're doing a four hour duration, because this this right here, as you see, it is a two hour duration. You would take this other battery, pack this five megawatt hour, put another one right here, or you can do it side to side, right and then that becomes a four hour duration. And so if your transformer, centralized skid goes out, you have two batteries, two containers, that's 10 megawatt hours decommissioned, not, not working, right? And so, so we see importance in that. Again, going back to resiliency of the project, it's just something that we see the owners of these projects really, really seeing the value of it, but Right? It takes time. It's not like, oh, let's, let's do it tomorrow, right? Sure. I
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mean, we're talking about a multi million dollar sale for one thing and but I'm curious, the grid, scale storage market is certainly well known in California, Hawaii, Texas. What are you seeing in terms of uptake and quotes for projects at the grid, scale, storage,
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those, those are the states you're absolutely right. Hawaii, I share basically. So there's, there's someone else that helped.
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Obviously, everybody wants to work Hawaii, right? But California, but Texas is definitely the one that the quotes come in. You know, basically week after week there's, you know, smaller, smaller projects, right? Lots of standalone battery projects.
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There's, there's some that are DC only, where we would only offer our five megawatt hour so that those still we have the an opportunity there.
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But yeah, explain that to me. How does that work?
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A DC only battery, yeah, so it's not grid tied at all.
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Basically, like I was saying with the centralized skid, they're wanting it to be a dc, dc to dc, connected this.
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This is AC to DC. So basically, where, where it'll tie in, straight into the PB as well on the project, right?
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But is it a behind the meter application, then, or front of the meter?
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It's, it's behind the meter, most of them, yeah, from what I'm seeing. And, like I said, I'm still relatively new so and those, those are the projects that I I don't end up getting too, too in the weeds with, because we're only offering our our five megawatt hour. The ones that I do, though, are the ones where we're doing the AC, where they're looking for AC couple, and a lot of those are our projects where the PV has already, you know, been installed, or standalone.
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That's where we see the basically retrofit, where they're adding storage the project to an existing project, or or just the standalone, yeah, I
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think we're going to see a lot of retrofitting in storage to existing solar farms from anything, you know, two megawatts and up. But David in our last minute together, what else should our listeners know about you and CPS? I,
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my title is utility, but with ESS and with CPS being so so focused in C&I for so many years, eight years in a row now, number one market share in the US. We have a lot of customers, lot of repeat customers, that are interested in storage for C&I. And that's been especially here, and you've seen it in inner solar. It's there's been a lot of interest in our C&I, our new one. This is brand new. I just saw yesterday, right? 125, 261, kilowatt hour C&I solution. It could be also for a four hour duration. You can go to a 62.5, but that's something that if you have any projects interested in, for C&I, not only will we be able to obviously offer you the unit, but we have great expertise with our engineering team, also our software side for the energy management system, EMS, we're helping, helping, basically teach anybody that needs help with proposals, with understand.
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And how, how your end customer can really find savings and really make sense of why they should or could right benefit from our C&I that solution,
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yeah, thank you.
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Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify and follow us on YouTube. David, how can our listeners find you? I'm
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on LinkedIn.
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David Florenz, you can, you can email me as well. I believe I have it on there, but David dot Florenz, F, l, O, R, E, N, Z, at, Chintpower.com. Yeah, reach out and I'm happy to help. I'm
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Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. I.
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