Full Transcript

Micah:

Yo sun!

Jared:

a podcast about the state of solar.

Micah:

I’m Micah Goldmark Hill, founder of solar States.

Jared:

And I’m Jared [inaudible] with solar energy consultant.

Micah:

Thanks for joining us today. We’re really excited to have you back, man. So much has changed since the last podcast.

Jared:

Yeah, it’s been quite a time. Uh, lots going on in, in the current climate.

Micah:

Oh man, it’s been a brutal, brutal time. Just gotta start out by giving a shout out to black lives matter. It’s a peaceful movement, no matter what you’ve heard, it’s a peaceful movement trying to change the circumstances with which black people have had to deal with violence from police throughout really the history of the United States. We support black lives matter and we support equal rights for everyone.

Jared:

And to that end, you know, this past week, um, after seeing some of the unrest and stuff happening here in Philadelphia, I thought it was really great seeing you and the rest of our management team take to the streets and, uh, devote the day to helping clean up and support local businesses. So thanks for always being there

Micah:

for us. I mean, really what else can we do? We’re Philadelphians. This company is made up of something like 90% of people who live in the city of Philadelphia. Um, we saw all the distress, all of the anger, all of the frustration, some of it was taken out on the city itself. And we wanted to say, we understand that anger, but we also want to help. And we did that by doing a day of cleaning up after the looting. So, um, there were tons and tons of peaceful protest, and I think we should really focus on that, but I was proud of the company that, that so many people showed up to help clean up and also a number of folks have been involved in the peaceful protest. Absolutely.

Jared:

Yeah. Great, great, great. So I think the purpose of this podcast is to have some conversation about residential rooftop, solar primarily keep it light and friendly and hopefully offer some people some insight into what our lives are like being a local solar installer here in Philadelphia. Yeah, man, Joe, um, one of the things that, you know, we had talked about getting into was what the experience is like working in solar and meeting people, um, out in the community that have interest in solar, somebody that’s, uh, uh, you know, just scratching, scratching around, trying to get a little sense of if this is something they can do. And I was curious, you know, given that you’ve been in the industry for over a decade, you know, when somebody comes up to you and asks about solar, what, what are some of the first things that you think about some of the questions that you ask them to determine, you know, what their potential is?

Micah:

Sure, sure. Well, the first thing I’m thinking is, man, this is awesome. There are people who are interested in going solar, and then that might sound like a pretty basic reaction, but it’s true. I mean, every time I hear somebody’s interested in solar, I just think, wow, this is awesome. And one of the reasons I think that is because of the environmental impacts of solar, um, you know, it’s, it’s so critical that we get lots and lots of solar installed in order to offset all of the carbon producing electric sources that we have currently. And so every time I hear somebody interested in going solar, I think here’s more carbon, we’re going to be taken out of the environment. So I love that aspect of it. Um, then I sit and I really kind of try to talk with them and see what their motivations are.

Micah:

And there’s a lot of different motivations for going solar, believe it or not. Um, and I usually group them into three groups just because that is easy for me, but really it’s, it’s pretty diverse. The first group of people, which I would say now is probably the most common is the folks who want to save money. Um, they know they want to live in their house for a long time. They know that solar energy can save them money and they want to figure out how best they can save that money and, uh, make a great investment for their house. The second type of solar person is the person who really cares about the environment. And for those people, the investment return is secondary to the environmental benefits. That’s not to say that the investment return is inconsequential. It’s just that it comes second behind the ability to have a positive environmental impact.

Micah:

And the third type of solar customer tends to be, um, somebody who wants to prepare for Armageddon, right. Or prepare for the worst. Um, and they want to be able to be self sufficient. Um, usually they want to know more, not just about solar, but also batteries, sometimes generators, um, to figure out how they can make their home more resilient. Now, there are plenty of customers who encompass traits of two or all three of those, um, and, and want to see them all addressed or some of them addressed. But those three buckets are usually where people land or across those three buckets somewhere. So, um,

Jared:

have you seen that change over the past 10, 12 years? W I I’d imagine that at the beginning of the green wave, a lot more of the people were environmentalists or preppers, and as some of the economic benefits became more actualized, there was kind of a transition.

Micah:

Yeah, you got that right, man. You really got that. Right. Um, the early adopters for solar were definitely environmentalist. Um, you know, the cost for solar, uh, when I started installing, when we talk in terms of cost per watt and the Watts are the number of, um, you know, solar modules in their efficiency that we put on the roof. And so the cost per watt was somewhere around six bucks. I mean, to give you an example at the crane arts, um, we did, uh, 444 solar modules on the roof there. And, uh, that cost about $550,000, something like that. So a little over a half, a million dollars, not, not an inexpensive solar install. If I were to do that same solar installation today, it would probably be under $200,000. So the cost has come down tremendously. So the early adopters were not as concerned with cost.

Micah:

They were more concerned with the environmental benefits, but as the cost of solar equipment and parts, and everything came down, it became an economic advantage for people. And that widened the appeal of solar. And now we’re at yet another wave where we’re seeing people who ordinarily would not think about having a battery or resiliency in their house are really thinking about that. And as an example, you know, my father the other day asked me, Hey, maybe I should be thinking about getting a battery in the house, just in case something happens. And I said to him, you know, I think a lot of people are thinking the way you are these days. Um, it’s good to have a backup plan just in case something were to happen. It’s a pretty emotional, tumultuous world as we’ve witnessed over the past few weeks.

Jared:

Yeah. And I, I want to keep my fingers crossed on this, but, uh, I see that battery prices and the technology is kind of following a trend the way you described that solar, where, you know, currently it’s not a really great economic play. Maybe there’s a costs are a little bit higher. It’s kind of that first wave of people that really care strongly about that resiliency. But hopefully over the next few years, that research and development is going to bring down those costs and it’s going to be a lot more affordable, um, kind of the way solar has trended.

Micah:

Yeah. That’s that’s that’s right, Jared. I mean, I think you, you nailed it. It’s, it’s definitely following a downward pricing trend, the same way that solar equipment has, and that makes battery technology really, really exciting. Um, I think also that the trend nationally is to have electrical rates, um, change to time of use rates, which really benefit, um, battery owners because they can then program the battery to discharge at certain times when electricity is the most expensive and save a lot of money. So I think there’s a lot of use cases that are gonna start making sense for batteries as they become less expensive. The technology is becoming less expensive and more reliable. Um, so, you know, I’m really excited about the future integrations of batteries, solar in the, in the grid.

Jared:

Well, I’ll echo that a hundred percent. I mean, I love solar, but some of this battery stuff I could just geek out on for hours and hours on end. Um, so, uh, you’ve got these three buckets of people and you’re kind of trying to see what their driving factors are. Um, I mean, where do you take the conversation from there?

Micah:

Um, so once we’ve listened and I think that’s the real key part of any good sales person’s role is listening. Once we’ve listened to what they want to accomplish with solar. The next thing is to try to design a solar array or a solar array with battery backup that will meet the hopes and wishes of the client. And that’s really what this is about is we’re trying to meet the expectations of the client. And sometimes we can do that. If the energy usage in the house is relatively efficient and there’s ample roof space, um, you know, usually we can do a hundred percent offset and that’s a lot of people’s sort of goal with going solar is to offset a hundred percent of their usage. Um, however, sometimes that’s not the case. What we really pride ourselves in is giving very conservative estimates of solar output so that we not only meet what we say we’re going to deliver, but we exceed it.

Micah:

Um, we found that that leads to much happier customers. You know, you can find a lot of solar companies out there, unfortunately, who are willing to pump up the energy estimates just to try to get the sale. And that’s something that I think really hurts the industry. So we give very accurate, um, assessment of what we believe the solar is going to produce over the longterm. And we can get fairly close because we have a lot of data at our disposal. Um, one of the great tools that’s out there is called PV Watts and that’s made available through the national energies, national renewable energies laboratory, or Enrail. Um, and that can give you a very good estimate of what a PV system will produce, uh, over time. And that’s, that’s really the meat and potatoes of, of what we’re trying to do is tell people exactly how much energy they can expect to receive. And if we can meet their expectation, that’s great. Otherwise we can reset that expectation to what is more realistic. And if that’s something that’s very comfortable to them, then we can typically move forward.

Jared:

Got it, got it. So you, you hit on a couple of things. Energy usage is a big one. Um, I know that that’s something that I really focus on with a lot of folks. Uh, you’re a big, big believer in mini splits. I know you’re always talking about how energy efficient those are. Um, yeah, but, um, I, it’s interesting because when you talk about that percentage offset, it’s not just how many solar panels can we put on your roof, but it’s also how much energy is your home using. If you can make a more energy efficient home, you can use fewer solar panels to power, a larger percentage of that total usage.

Micah:

Absolutely. Jared, I mean, I think that’s a point that gets overlooked a lot. Solar is really the, the point of the pyramid doing energy efficiency in your house first is just, you know, make so much sense. It’s just logical. Um, you know, the, the less power you use, the smaller solar Ray you need. So you hit the nail on the head there.

Jared:

Yeah. So I mean, talking about roofs, I mean, roofs come in all shapes and sizes and colors. Um, I’ve found that that’s a major pre-qualifier and having these preliminary conversations with people, um, often roofs can be really complicated. And I mean, that’s, I think a thorn in my mind of the side of solar is when you have all of these different eaves and dormers, uh, is that something that you talk about with people as far as expectation setting or,

Micah:

um, typically we start with shading because that’s a really easy one to talk about. Um, Hey, do you have any big trees or anything that would shade your house, um, from the South, uh, that would prevent you from getting good sun exposure? I mean, ease and dormers and all of that stuff. Yeah. They make a layout pretty complicated, but you know, that’s our job as solar installers is to deal with with complications. Now, there are certain roofing materials that are very, very difficult us to deal with. For example, slate, shingles. Um, you know, I frequently tell people that if they have slate shingles, we probably shouldn’t do the solar because it’s extremely expensive to Mount it through slate shingles. Um, can it be done? Yes. But is it cost effective? No, it’s not. Um, it requires some specialized people to come in and deal with that slate. So, you know, the, the composition of the roof is certainly part of this is the discussion as well as the structural stability of the roof. Um, now that’s a bigger unknown frequently for people. Um, and that’s where solar States is expertise where we send insight techs to, to really look at the roof and make sure, um, that an engineer has a look to, to ensure its structural stability.

Jared:

Yeah. That actually reminds me, there are two things that you mentioned that I want to touch on first. Um, you know, you mentioned that you have good exposure to the South and maybe you can just highlight what that means. I mean, that is obviously relative to Philadelphia. Um, but explain why the Southern exposure is so important.

Micah:

Sure. So the sun rises in the East and sets in the West pretty much. Uh, you know, most people are aware of that when most people don’t know is that the sun throughout the course of the day is pretty much always in the Southern sky. So while it’s going East to West, it’s traveling through the Southern sky now in the winter time, it’s more dramatically in the South because it’s lower in the sky than in the summer where it’s almost overhead completely. So that Southern exposure is really, really important if you’re going to get any production during the winter.

Jared:

Right. Right. But conversely, if you have a whole bunch of big trees on the North side of your property, that’s not really, uh, any kind of a red flag or a mitigating factor to installing solar, I guess

Micah:

that’s correct. Um, you know, if, if there’s Northern shading, it doesn’t really matter. Um, you know, it’s, it’s really important to be upfront with people too. You know, a lot of people see heavily shaded Roos and they still give the same energy output, uh, estimates. Here’s our thing. You can spend your money any way you want to, but we’re going to be honest and accurate about how much energy you’re going to get out of this. If you want to put up solar in a very heavily shaded area, we can do that, but we’re going to let you know, for sure the amount of energy that’s going to be produced is going to be significantly reduced. We have plenty of clients who fall into that environmentalist bucket who say, well, the expense is still worth it because I’m doing something. And I applaud those people. But to, to the solar installers out there who install in a highly shaded area, but don’t warn customers of reduced, um, output, uh, you know, that again is something that hurts the industry.

Jared:

Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, I speak alongside you that that’s a super big point of pride. Um, I feel so confident talking to people when I can say, Hey, before we’re going to install this, we’re going to have an engineer come out to the house. They’re going to fly a drone around, build a three D model that we’re going to put into our CAD software. That’s going to give us the proper shading analysis with decades of climate data and really make sure that your particular roof in your particular neighborhood in Philadelphia or Maryland or Delaware or New Jersey is going to produce this much energy, not some panels sitting on a lab table somewhere under some special light. This is real world circumstances. And, um, you know, it feels like a major differentiating factor, um, compared to a lot of the, um, other players that like you said, may just be really liberal and kind of aggressively positive about what they hope a system could potentially, uh, get.

Micah:

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think another big factor that I talk about early on with people is, you know, there’s really long warranties on this equipment 25 years. I really can’t think of anything else that has a 25 year warranty that I work with. I mean, it’s, it’s a really long warranty. And one of the reasons why that warranty is so long is because there’s no moving parts in the system, you know, that’s usually what breaks, um, is when you have to grease a gear or you have a belt and an engine or something’s moving and it just wears down over time. That’s not the operator. Right, right. Operator error. Sure. Um, you know, and, and so you have these really long warranties. So long as there’s a quality installation, what, what can break solar installations down is bad installation practices, where you have, you know, uh, wires rubbing the roof or poorly managed or too tightly bent.

Micah:

Um, that type of stuff over the 25 year life will, will wear out. If you have installers who are trained in high quality installations, then you’re going to be in good shape. And that’s what I really focus on with clients. Listen, there’s, there’s thankfully a lot of good solar installation companies out there. We are one of them, uh, I personally am, NABCEP certified. And I tell people to look for that naps up certification because it’s a sign that people understand the importance of quality. The other thing that really sets us apart is our workforce solar. Isn’t just about positive energy from the sun, but it’s also positive energy for the community. It’s about employment. It’s about jobs. And we hire inner city Philadelphians. We pride in being the on ramp for the green collar economy for inner city Philadelphians. And we run training programs for inner city Philadelphians.

Micah:

So not only do we have the best train solar installers out there, but we also have people who really have no experience with environmentalism or with solar and they’re being introduced to this. And then they fall in love with it. So we’re creating a whole new generation of environmentalist and solar workers, and we’re super, super proud of that. And that goes for not just, um, minority communities in Philly or low income communities, but also for women installers. We have probably more women, solar installers than any company in the area. And that’s something I’m really proud of. And I’ll also just say that the way we structure our workforce, um, make sure that everybody feels very safe and secure with their jobs. I find that when I look around the company, the people that have been with us the longest are people that have been on the roof installing.

Micah:

And to me, that’s an incredible value to customers knowing that this isn’t seasonal work, this isn’t independent contracting work. This is full time work. This is a full time job. And these are people that have been doing it for half a decade or longer, and have really come in contact with every situation under the sun and can really apply that knowledge and experience to their roof and to their house and make sure to take that care in installing a system, like you said, that’s going to stand the test of 25 plus years. That’s it, that’s a wonderful point, Jared, um, you know, and solar installation is a skill and it’s a skill that gets better with practice. And it’s a skill that gets forgotten. If you have long periods of time off, our installers are out there pretty much every day of the year. You know, of course they take their holidays and vacation time, but they are regularly installing solar.

Micah:

They don’t have months and months long gaps, um, where they forget their practices or their techniques. Um, these people are really, uh, craftspeople. I mean, they are extremely skilled at what they do, um, because they do it frequently. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, so I mean, I want to take a segment here to just think back about some of the exciting installs that you’ve done over the years. Are there any that come to mind that you think people would be interested in hearing about unique situations or just kind of cool projects, um, that might pique people’s interest in seeing the possibilities? Sure, sure. Well, uh, I mean, you know, steep roofs are always a challenge, you know, when you have a 45 degree pitch roof, uh, that’s like, it’s like mountain climbing up there. You know what I mean? So that’s always, um, an interesting, uh, experience.

Micah:

I do remember early, early on, we took a job out in long Island. We were, we were taking work wherever we could get it because we didn’t have much. Um, and we got a contract out in long Island, um, and we sort of planned it out and we, you know, we decided what we were going to do. And we, we looked around for places to stay. We had to come from Philadelphia, so we knew we had to stay and we decided, you know, the hotels were all, it was a very, very wealthy area. Hotels were very expensive. So we decided to, to stay at a campground. And, uh, this was the first time that the installers who I was working with had ever gone camping, um, ever in their lives. Uh, you know, these are inner city Philadelphians, so they’d never had the opportunity to, to go camping.

Micah:

And, uh, so we finished our first day of work and we went back to the campsite and we set everything up. Um, and you know, I was there and we had dinner around the campfire and I said, Hey guys, you know, you know, be careful with the food. Don’t, don’t bring food in your tent. And I don’t know if they thought I was kidding or whatever, but these two guys decided that they were going to bring food into their tent just in case, uh, you know, they got hungry in the middle of the night. Well, middle of the night, we hear them screaming and hollering,

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh, selfie scratching on the 10th. So let’s go, there’s a bear there’s blah, blah, blah.

Micah:

And we look out our tent and their tents completely surrounded by raccoons because they had bought all that food. They could smell the food. So we had to yell and scream and get all the raccoons away. It was a pretty funny situation. So, um, you know, I think that was pretty unique, pretty fun. And those guys will look, look back and remember that experience for the rest of their lives.

Jared:

I bet, I bet. And it does seem very harrowing. I’ve been on a couple of roofs and, you know, 20, 25 degree pitches is no joke. But hearing about, you know, like you were saying kind of rock climbing, repelling almost down the side of a 44, 45 degree pitch roof is takes real craftsmanship and expertise there.

Micah:

Oh, no doubt. No doubt. And you know, that’s the other thing about solar is safety, man. You want to make sure everybody’s safe. Um, there’s a lot of OSHA regulations, a lot of safety planning that goes into every installation, whether you need a man lift or you’re putting in roof anchors and you’re using, you know, lanyards and, uh, lifelines and harnesses. Um, but you gotta make sure that it’s done safely.

Jared:

Yeah, for sure. So any other stories that come to mind before we move on to the final segment of our show here?

Micah:

Um, well, again, early on, uh, I was, I was hired by a company to come and troubleshoot a solar array that somebody else had installed. It was, it was in Northern New Jersey and I went up and day one and I couldn’t find the problem. Is it two hours away? So I had to drive back and then, you know, I would wake up at 5:00 AM. I would drive up the two hours, uh, to Northern New Jersey. And then I would troubleshooting. It got really, really cold. I mean, like super cold. So cold that, like, if you took your hand out of your glove, you had about 30 seconds and then your hands started going numb

Jared:

that by far is the one thing that I will say. I mean, you can keep your body warm when you’re on a roof, but the one thing that you need a lot of dexterity is your fingers. And you just, you can’t put gloves on gloves on gloves and still work

Micah:

on a roof. That’s absolutely right, Jared. So I had to keep taking my gloves off to get certain modules or certain solar panels up and, uh, you know, to troubleshoot them. And it took me like four days, cause it got so cold and it was so hard to work up there. It took me about four days to troubleshoot this solar Ray. And I was just waking up at 5:00 AM, driving two hours up working all day long, trying to figure this problem out. And then putting things back together, driving back, you know, fighting sort of New York traffic in Northern New Jersey. It was a nightmare man. But, uh, you know, I learned a lot. We did end up getting that system fully functional.

Jared:

Amen. Awesome. Well, I mean, I think all of this talk about installers. I just have to say, I feel like our install teams are the backbone of our company without them. I could not do my job. I just have so much gratitude and appreciation for the work that they do. And I’m so happy to work alongside them. They teach me a lot about solar and about the vocation of installing and um, you know, if any of them are out there listening right now. Thanks for everything you guys do.

Micah:

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely shout out to all solar installers. That’s really hard work. Um, and they do a great job in the cold, in the heat, you know, high winds, that sort of stuff. They’re on the roof and they’re just doing, doing a safe, great job.

Jared:

Yeah, absolutely.

Micah:

Right. Well, that brings us to our final segment. The rapid shut down, down, down. So this week on rapid shutdown, uh, we’re not going to really focus, uh, on a solar issue so much as a community issue. We need to shut down police brutality towards, uh, people of color it’s just too much. And it’s gone on for way too long. You know, the names that I can think of growing up. I remember Rodney King, the beating and then the police officers being found innocent of any wrongdoing, which was just shocking as a younger person, um, to the more recent, you know, Philando Castillo, uh, Brianna Taylor, uh, George Floyd, you know, it’s just gone on way, way, way too long. And you know, people like to focus on lots of different aspects of, Oh, but what about this kind of violence or gun violence or this or that.

Micah:

And all of them are problems and we need to work on them. But the unique problem of police brutality is one that it not only violates the person who has been hurt physically, but it devastates a community because they no longer feel. They can trust the people who they’re supposed to entrust to protect them. And it’s like a cancer. It just eats away at our communities. So this week on rapid shutdown, we’ve got to shut down. Police brutality enough is enough. We need better training. We need to pay policemen, police officers, uh, much more money. We need to get better candidates and we need to have much, much, much higher standards, uh, for policing.

Jared:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, on that note, I saw a post the other day on social media that I thought brought a little brevity to the situation, but was really on point. Uh, it was a joke from Chris rock, um, who has been a great advocate and supporter of, uh, equal rights. And he said, I know it’s hard being a cop, but some jobs you just can’t have bad apples. Everybody’s gotta be good. Like pilots, American airlines. Can’t be like most of our pilots like to land. We just got some bad apples that like to crash into the side of mountains. And I think that that’s, you know, that’s an point statement when it comes to policing, you know, we’ve often said, ah, there’s just a couple bad apples, but, um, we got to all do better. And we got to make sure that every single one of our police officers are good people doing the right thing, caring about our communities and protecting everybody equally. So, um, that is a great rapid shutdown down, down, down, down. All right. All right. Well, I think that concludes our episode. This has been yo son, the story of the state of solar. Thanks for joining us.