Episode 13
· 36:53
I will say that our business is stronger than it has ever been.
John:The success of growth and where I see companies growing consistently really is your people.
Joe:I mean, the story is not does it make power? Because they all make power. The story is what does it power? This is what solar installers need to know with your host Herve Billie and Joe Mahamati.
Hervé:Hi there. It's Herve and Joe in what solar installers need to know, where we interview solar CEOs and experts on how they run their business on the solar cluster. We ask their private revenue numbers. We give actionable advice and learn about trade secrets so you can run and grow your solar business. Joe and I built a solar company from 0 to 12,000,000 sales and got successfully acquired.
Hervé:If you'd like to do the same or do better, go to sungo.com/blog to get actionable behind the scenes lessons on running and growing your solar business. And now without further ado, let's jump right into the next episode.
Joe:Hi, everybody. My name is Joe Marhamati. I'm one of the hosts of what solar installers need to know brought to you by SunBoy. Today, I'm proud to bring John Proffitt, who is currently the sales and business development leader for residential energy management at ABB. Welcome to the show, John.
John:Thank you, Joe. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invite.
Joe:Thanks for joining us. So I wanna summarize your resume, because you're still with a manufacturer. Now you've been with SMA, head of business development for home solutions. You were previously head of business development and applications engineering for Lumen, where we had most of our interaction when I was a solar installer. And you're also with Segura, director of business development and commercial sales, which is important because I try to make sure that all the guests we bring on the show have had experience as an actual rooftop solar installer.
Joe:You've been up and down the solar coaster. Tell us a little bit about how you got into the industry and how you landed in your current role.
John:Sure. Sure. Yeah. I I feel privileged to have been on the journey I've been on thus far. And let's see.
John:I got my start back in 2011 or 2012 or so working in the nonprofit. But before that, actually, I think the first renewable energy project I ever worked on was a solar flat plate collector that my graduate school professor tricked me into building for and said it was, you know, hands on learning experience, and it absolutely was. Little did I know he actually ended up throwing that thing on his roof and got, you know, free hot water out of it. After graduate school where I studied community energy, I went on to work in a nonprofit doing energy efficiency, Department of Energy, Home Performance with Energy Star programs, bit energy efficiency on the weatherization assistance programs. And then, I stumbled across a very small solar installer at the time who was bidding on one of our Solarize projects.
John:And, they had pretty big ambitions to grow, both nationally as well as internationally. And, I joined them back in 2012, I think it was, to do a little bit of everything. Right? So in the startup days, I was climbing on roofs, getting measurements, doing solar sales, helping on the installs when they were shorthanded, and that's really where I learned just about, you know, everything about the solar industry and being a solar installer. And that company grew for many years before I started getting on to the technology vendor side.
John:And that's, Joe, where I think you and I connected when I was at Lumen, which was a technology startup doing energy management, specifically at the circuit level. And after four years of working to build that company on the business development and sales side, I did something similar for SMA, going in to do business development for The US operations on the home solution side. So helping them transition a bit away from just being a manufacturer of inverters to being more of a holistic home energy company that provided not just inverters, but meters. We're working towards batteries and many other parts of the system that come together to provide a full solution. And it's kind of interesting now being back at ABB, which is actually or I shouldn't say back at ABB.
John:I should say I'm kinda boomeranging back to Lumen because it was just earlier this year, Joe, that ABB acquired Lumen. And as such, they were looking for some individuals to come in on the commercial side and help lead the growth as also the but also the integration of the two companies, and here I am.
Joe:Okay. Dare I ask, what equipment do you have at your house?
John:Yeah. Well, it's so this is my second house that I've installed equipment on, so it's not as crazy as you might think. So I've got a solar PV system on my roof. I think they're REC panels. I can't remember the exact wattage.
John:I've got Enphase microinverters. I think they're the IQ sevens or IQ seven pluses. I've got a Lumen smart panel that's installed on my basement. So I have a 400 amp split service with two two hundred amp mains. And on my basement service were all my major mechanical equipment, my large loads, and my HVAC, my water heater.
John:We did a basement renovation, so I've got some cooking induction stovetop and such. I put all of that on a 200 amp panel in my basement that's also connected to my smart panel, the Lumen smart panel to help manage those loads.
Joe:Of any battery storage?
John:Not yet, but intend to do so in the coming years. Not sure exactly when the time will be right, but, you know, I I definitely see a need for it today, though we're still in a market that has strong net metering and low electricity rates. So it hasn't been a necessity from an economic perspective. But anytime we lose power out here, I start to get a little nudge from the family that it might be about the right time to do it.
Joe:So do do you have an opinion about what storage solution you would consider going with? Can
John:That's a great question. I have not nailed it down, but I have a strong affinity towards SMA, and, you know, they had plans to release a home storage battery. I'd I'd very much like to see them do so. And there's plenty of great technologies out there these days. So kinda depends on what you're looking for.
John:You're looking for, you know, the best daily cycling battery that can AC couple into an in phase system? Are you looking to build something that's, you know, totally robust and could last several days, in which case you might be doing something more on the 40 inverter side with a larger bank? Or you could be looking for, you know, the most cost effective solution, which these days, depending on your your market and your region, could depend on a utility incentive program. So, I I can't tell you which one I would put in, but I can say that there's a lot of good options in the marketplace from my view.
Joe:I can't wait to see which one you choose because I think there's more battery now batteries now than modules at these shows, and, I've lost track of how many there are.
John:It's a good point. Yeah.
Joe:So you talk to a lot of installers. What's one mistake that you see solar installers make over and over again that you think is holding their businesses back?
John:Yeah. Yeah. Very good question. You know, one thing, and maybe it's more of just a philosophy than a mistake, but it's really, I think, incredibly important to not just look at your current customer, but also look at that future customer. So often we get, you know, caught up in whatever is working well today.
John:So you might be in a net metering market. You might be installing solar PV only, not really looking to add any energy storage, and that may work very well. You may see growth, and you may hyper focus on that, you know, particular customer at the expense really or the opportunity cost of losing sight of some of those future customers. And I think, know, it it's certainly a a mistake I've seen some companies make in just becoming a little bit too siloed or a little bit too focused on any one particular customer segment. I you know, what I see a lot of successful successful installers doing and especially in a marketplace like today's, which is highly dynamic.
John:Right? Plicies are changing. Incentives are changing. It's really important to be adaptable and flexible. And when you are building strategies and building product offerings that serve not just your customers today that we expect to have in the future, I think you're diversifying your business.
John:So you might be asking, what do what do I mean by that? Right? I think energy storage is the obvious one. We see attach rates, I think, at the national scale going up, I think, close to 35% today, but, you know, that's particularly because of markets like California that are driving that with net metering three point o. But we see see, you know, that trend really starting to work its way east.
John:We see a lot of other markets that are looking at, you know, net billing tariffs, and we also see the need for, you know, having solutions that fit resiliency as, you know, primary market driver, like Texas and Florida perhaps. So building into your business plan energy storage or other energy management or electrification offerings or even going back and looking at your past customers and saying, you know, maybe your installer that's been around for ten plus years, perhaps you've got a bunch of SMA Sunny Boy and converters that are reaching the end of their warranty and could use repowering. And so there's a sales opportunity in just building out, you know, a large deployment fleet of existing systems that might be getting close to end of warranty, Also, having good skill sets and building a team that can service systems and even, you know, upsell systems when going into repair projects. They may not even be your customers, but having that extra ability to serve both future customers as well as going back and serving past customers, I think is a great skill set and strategy for installers to use these days.
Joe:What about installers that are looking at HVAC and roofing and weatherization, obviously, EV charging and storage? Do you think that installers are are wise to get into some of these other verticals that may not be directly related to solar or renewable energy, but that could expand their base of customers? And where have you seen that work well, and where have you seen it go wrong?
John:Yeah. So it's a great two part question, really. And I think my answer is with anything, there's a balancing act. So it'd be really easy to say, yes. Absolutely.
John:You should do go all in and do HVAC, do roofing, do, you know, heat pumps, induction stovetops, water heaters, electrify everything. Just become a home performance contractor and do audits while you're at it. But the reality is that we also have to have operational efficiencies. So it's good to really hone in on what is working best for your your organization, you as an installer. You should focus on that current customer, the one that, you know, you plan to serve and grow with, but not lose sight of those future customers.
John:So when looking to explore and looking to grow into some of these other industries, I think it's important to understand the market dynamics. Are you intending to see a utility VPP program? Are you intending to see net metering change? And if so, then, yes, batteries is absolutely a good product to look at. Perhaps you're in an area where heat pump adoption is, you know, going really high.
John:It's going well. And then it makes sense to maybe look at the HVAC industry and see if you could look at a couple of key players that you could partner with. So you don't necessarily have to do it all at once, but looking at your market, understanding who the, you know, who the right partners are in that market, both from a supplier perspective as well as even a contractor perspective, I think, it's always good to explore. It's always good to look for those options. It's always good to look to expand your addressable market when possible, but also not losing sight of what it is that you do best, your core competency, and taking care of that customer today.
Joe:Tell us a little bit about ABB. You know, some folks will be familiar with Lumen and SMA, and others may not have heard of ABB. Tell us about the suite of products and services. And when you're talking to installers, how can ABB help their business?
John:Yeah. So ABB has been around for a very long time, one of the largest power electronics companies in the world. You know, where we are focused today is really on electrifying everything. So it's, you know, electrifying homes, but it's also transportation and emobility. It's industry and it's utility.
John:So we serve all of those segments with a focus on electrification. So where my focus is on the ABB team is in energy management, specifically residential energy management. It's a fairly new division within ABB, I would say. Working on electrification is not, but getting into the residential and kinda getting into the digital, both software, hardware tool sets that can be provided to homeowners is somewhat new for ABB. But they bring, you know, the expertise of, you know, over a 120 or actually excuse me.
John:Over a hundred and thirty years of working on, you know, all all different sides of this problem. Right? All different sides of trying to electrify everything and building some of the best hardware and power electronics in the world. So we have a lot of new resources at our disposal that we can then use to both build out our existing products as well as introduce new products and really try and solve some of the most meaningful problems that we're seeing here in, you know, in the industry today.
Joe:So it sounds like it's fair to say you think electrification is the future. Are you seeing installers go in that direction, encourage their customers to electrify everything? And what are some of the ways that ABB can help your average residential solar installer get into the electrify everything movement and grow their business?
John:Yeah. Great question. And I think, you know, we're we're in the midst of that transition right now. We've been seeing it over the last several years. It put incentives and policies aside.
John:Just the demand for electrical appliances is going to continue to increase. The technologies, the cost of these technologies, both the economic as well as the noneconomic, you know, benefits of these technologies are becoming more apparent to the everyday consumers. But integrating these techno is not an easy feat. It's challenging both from the installer as well as the homeowner's perspective. So homeowners have to understand what technologies are going to be best for my home.
John:Do I have a road map to install and, you know, procure and install x, y, and z? Installers have to learn how to put these new technologies into homes. And the grid itself and the utility distributions that are going down all the way to these homes are not necessarily set up for all this additional electrical load. So we're really trying to solve all of these problems. We're solving it at the homeowner level by helping to build tools that can enable the adoption of electrification, appliances, and devices.
John:The installers, we're helping to educate them on alternatives to some of the biggest barriers to electrification, and I can drill down on those in a moment. And then on the utility side, I think we're, you know, providing balance of system components, switch gear, etcetera, for a lot of the larger both utility scale, renewable energy projects, as well as, you know, I think a future application that I'm seeing a lot of different companies getting into is really on the sort of the grid edge or the demand side management side of having flexible resources at the residential level that can be called on by utilities when needed. So maybe just to drill down a little bit deeper on the primary use case. Right? So for your homeowners and your installers.
John:If you are a solar installer who's putting in solar and batteries, the first use case of using a product like ABB's Rely Home Smart Panel is gonna be in enabling whole home backup, but also extending battery runtime. So we have a smart panel that can connect really to any existing load center, and it can integrate with any battery on the market. So we have communication integrations with several, Tesla, Enphase, Franklin, SolarEdge, e g four, among others. And what we can then do is when a power outage occurs and you're running off of your battery system, we can allow access to all of your circuits, but so as to not exceed whatever the continuous power output of your battery and your inverter are. At the same time, we can also extend battery runtime when we have one of those communication integrations.
John:So you can set state of charge and then drop loads or drop circuits when your battery is starting to be depleted, and you can do that at the circuit level. So HVAC runs only until my battery hits, you know, 75%. And then that case, I wanna actually drop the HVAC and save some of that energy for some more essential circuits. On the electrification side, Joe, this is rather new, and this is where ABB has come in and really given us a boost. It we are now helping builders.
John:We're helping contractors. We're helping solar installers. Really anybody who is putting in electrification devices into homes, we're allowing those devices to go in to homes that would otherwise not be able to accept those devices because of either main panel or utility service limitations. So the big use case here is perhaps you wanna put in an EV charger. That EV charger, you know, the contractor comes out, runs the load calcs, and that panel is not sized for that EV charger, or the utility lines that are feeding that house are not sized appropriately, in which case they might get hit with an unexpected bill for having to upgrade all of that extra infrastructure can be really costly.
John:It could be $3,000. It could be $20,000. I've seen these run as high as $60,000 when somebody is trying to put in an EV charger and all of a sudden, thing upstream, the main distribution panel, those conductors, those service conductors feeding in, even the transformers upstream are being, you know, upgraded as a result. Our product is a hardware and software solution, and it's UL listed as an energy management system to allow for us to avoid those costly infrastructure upgrades by connecting to those largest circuits in a home, managing them, keeping demands down, and then allowing that EV charger to get installed without that huge infrastructure upgrade. So that's the electrification side that we can support as well.
Joe:What do you think about the connector meter collars? You're talking about electrification and and making it simple or simpler for homeowners and installers to to go solar. Does ABB have anything that competes with that product? What's your opinion generally of the technology?
John:Yeah. I think it's great technology. We are not actively developing anything on the meter socket adapter side that I can speak to, but I can say that we do see the trend of whether it be Tesla's backup switch or connectors, Islander product, anything that's going to enable more adoption, faster penetration of renewables, specifically solar and storage projects is something that we would support as a company and kind of have alignment with those types of products. Where we would then come in as load management is still going to be absolutely critical when you're installing a solar and storage system and using, you know, a meter socket adapter. Presumably, you're getting rid of perhaps some other device, perhaps some MID device that maybe had some integrated load management into it, and now that's no longer needed.
John:It's no longer part of that bill of materials balance of system. And so we see ourselves again as helping to enable technology like that so that somebody can install their meter socket adapter, connect a battery backup, perhaps it's a smaller battery backup project, and then being able to manage the loads that are downstream of it to provide a better and, you know, workable, functional user experience for the end customer.
Joe:So let's say you've got a residential installer customer who's got a potential homeowner in Harrisonburg, Virginia who, you know, is a science nerd, math nerd, ran the numbers, and it says, hey. I've got a great ROI if I put in a 15 k w system and 24 to 36 kilowatt hours of storage and a Lumen smart panel and buy an EV and an EV charger. But they add up all the numbers, and it's 6 figures. How do you advise that installer to provide financing, or where could they go to to give this customer, who might be middle income, the means to make all of this stuff work at the same time?
John:That's a that's a difficult question. So 6 figure sales are always a little bit difficult for the, you know, the median income customer, and financing these days is also a challenge. Right? So without knowing all of the details, it is tricky. Right?
John:So every market, I think, it's good to understand what your options are for financing, and there are going to be national players out there that are offering various products. My only real recommendation these days, and I don't know if this is a solution, Joe, is to just, you know, understand what the financing options are, do your homework, and then try and figure out, you know, what is gonna be a best fit for your customer. So there's a lot of different options out there, you know, whether they be the TPO options or the more traditional lenders or even looking at your local credit unions as an option, they're all gonna have their benefits. They're gonna have their drawbacks. And the the recommendation I think I'd have for any installer is just to not be dependent on any single financer.
John:We're going to see some of them fail in the coming months, if not, you know, or years. Others will, you know, succeed. And then I think as often happens, new business models and new project financiers will come in to offer other products, and it's just good to do your research. So, yeah, I I don't know if that's an answer to the particular question at hand, but, my my only recommendation is just to do the research and not be too dependent on any single financier.
Joe:No. That's a good answer. You know, there's so many credit unions now and private financiers and fintechs and home equity line credits Yeah.
John:Okay.
Joe:That is really just knowing the options and and crunching the numbers, and and I would have the same answer as an installer. So so put your installer hat on. If if you were the CEO of a rooftop solar installation business right now, where would you be focusing? What do you think are the top two or three trends that every installer should be paying attention to in the next twelve months? And what do you think we're gonna be talking about in in Vegas and September at RE plus?
John:Yeah. It it's another really good question. I think if I were an installer, you know, kinda going back to our earlier conversation around looking at the future customers. I think that's directly correlated to trends. Right?
John:You gotta look at the marketplace and see what are the trends in this marketplace. Are some of these trends coming to my market anytime soon? So, you know, if you're an installer here in Central Virginia where there still is net metering and its retail rate, you might not be thinking about what is it going to look like next year or the year after. But I think at least being adaptable enough to train your team. Right?
John:So I would be looking at, alright. Yes. We're gonna focus on PV projects, but, you know, I'm gonna make sure that my team is trained on at least, you know, two to three different energy storage products. We may not be going all in, but in the event that, you know, the local utilities here start to, you know, reform net metering policies, they get it approved by the public utility commissions or perhaps, like we saw in our neighbors to the south in North Carolina, perhaps they decide to offer a VPP or a utility incentive program around energy storage. These are trends that we're seeing pop up, you know, all across the country.
John:So I wanna make sure that my team is ready for when they do come to to Virginia even if they're not here now, and that's just an example. Right? I may also be looking at, alright, in the event that perhaps solar incentives go away, what are some other technologies that I know are going to be in demand that I can train my team to sell, install, and maintain. And that maintain, I think, is a really big one. Right?
John:So oftentimes, we think of solar PV projects as we think as, you know, we're gonna install it, we're gonna be done with it. I know, Joe, your tool on the software side helps customers do a much better job on their O and M by being able to manage all of these on a single platform. I think looking at O and M as a business avenue would be something that I would be looking at for my installation team. Right? Being able to go back to my existing customers, make sure that their systems are operating, offer them service agreements.
John:And like I said earlier, in many cases, even potentially repowering these systems, adding batteries, making them larger. Perhaps things have changed in their lives. Maybe they've got an EV charger that they want installed, and they now need a larger system as a result to offset some of that demand. So these are some of the, you know, key trends. You know?
John:One, there are going to be new programs in every market across the country in time. Don't know exactly when. It could be good. It could be bad. It could be net metering reform like in California, or it could be a utility incentive program like in North Carolina or connected solutions in New England.
John:Two, there's going to be electrification. Different markets are going to see this more accelerated than others with different products being, you know, perhaps more popular than various regions. But I should be prepared in the event that I, you know, have customers asking for this and I perhaps see a business opportunity in it. I should be prepared for that, you know, that trend. I wanna be able to serve those customers, not just solar, but some of these other products in the electrification journey.
John:And then, you know, the third thing is be prepared to also service those customers, not just, you know, one time sale and installation, but look at these things as twenty five years assets. Look at these, you know, appliances beyond just their lifetime or their warranty and understand what you're gonna do when they reach that end of life or that end of warranty and how you can provide the best value to your customer thereafter.
Joe:Alright. While you've got that CEO hat on, I'm gonna make life real hard for you. Let's say president Trump's big beautiful bill act becomes law. There's only a few weeks here where I can ask for hot takes on this, so I gotta ask you. And on December 31, the ITC goes away completely, and you're at two fifty a watt today, which was the average installed price per watt in the last EnergySage quarterly report, and you tell your team, we gotta get to $2 a watt by January 1.
Joe:How do you do it?
John:Yeah. If I had the answer to that question, I'd probably be the most valuable consultant in all of America right now. But if I had to cut costs, how would I do it? I think the first question I'd ask is do I need to cut costs? Am I providing enough value that there's still gonna be demand for my product in a marketplace without incentives?
John:And I'd be preparing to, you know, run that that hypothesis or that thesis across customers. I'd be collecting voice of customer data as much as I possibly could, really understanding the value proposition, what customers are willing to pay for it, what my market would look like without it. And, you know, in parallel, I perhaps be looking at operational operational efficiencies. Efficiencies. What ways can I reduce my costs?
John:I think there are different ways of going about it, and it depends on which part of your business you want to tackle, but I'd probably be looking at every single one of them. Right? I'd be looking at, you know, operations. I'd be looking sales. I'd be looking at what tools can I use in those areas that would maybe streamline some of my activities?
John:But, you know, I I'm sitting here as a vendor, a supplier of equipment today, and I would also be looking at my suppliers. Right? Where can I cut costs from a supply chain perspective? Are there equal products out there that are providing, you know, all of, most of, if not all of the value of my current, you know, supplier's platform that perhaps have lower costs? And that's a complex question to ask as well.
John:Right? Because we don't know necessarily what tariffs are going to look like. We don't know, you know, what domestic content might be requirements might be looking like in the coming you know, with this administration. So, yeah, I'd I'd be looking at it from all angles. I'd be trying to be adaptable, flexible.
John:Like, first and foremost, would be talking to my customers and trying to figure out, you know, where demand is, what the value for that, you know, that future product is going to be. And then the other thing I'd I'd be doing is waiting and seeing because that's all we can do sometimes. You know, I'm optimistic, of course. You know, this recording might come out, and I could be totally wrong. But, you know, I have to have a level of optimism that our government will reason.
John:And at the senate level, there might be some additional compromise that goes into the rewriting of the bill. And my hot take is, yeah, we might lose some incentives, but perhaps there might be a phase out of those rather than just a complete cutoff. Because I think, you know, in a best scenario, if these, you these incentives are being phased out, it does give us additional time to figure out how we're going to get our cost down, how we're going to get our product value up, and then really be able to accelerate all of these great technologies in this industry again.
Joe:That's a great answer and very thoughtful. We're gonna put your ABB hat back on. How can installers build stronger relationships with suppliers like yourself, financiers, or other partners to gain a competitive edge?
John:Yeah. I love that question. And I think first, know, just keep the communication flowing really both ways. Right? So don't be shy.
John:Be transparent. Provide feedback. I think too often suppliers are really only getting feedback when, you know, installers calling the customer support line. And the first thing I'd say is, you know, a supplier, make sure that you have a robust support line where you can take that call in a reasonable time, collect that feedback, help your installer, and solve the problem. But at the same time, also being able to give your customers an avenue to provide additional feedback.
John:So as a manufacturer, as a vendor, a supplier of technologies, one of the things I've always encouraged my teams to do is really go out to their customers and conduct a voice of customer research, make sure that we understand how they're using your product, what they're looking for, what works well, what doesn't. And, you know, as an installer, I would say be candid, be transparent, you know, talk to your manufacturer. They want to hear those details. They wanna know what's working, but they also wanna know what's not working. And then, you know, at at all levels, they want that feedback.
John:It could be on the product design side. It could be on the service side. It could be on the sales side. Perhaps they just wanna know better forecast data so that they can align their production or their distribution strategy, you know, to better fit your needs as the installer. What it comes down to is just ensuring that you have good communication with your key partners, whether those be suppliers or anybody else in your value chain, just making sure that you've got, you know, open lines of communication at all times with those partners.
Joe:It's interesting. Related to that, the one position we went back and forth on in hiring in our in our business, which was a $1,012,000,000 dollar rooftop installation business, was a procurement officer, a dedicated person that would just stay in touch with all of our partners and and vendors and distributors, and we never could quite justify hiring for that position. But I also know other installers that that have invested in that to negotiate for the lowest price and to keep providers up to date and distributors. Is that something a position that you would prioritize? And and do you find that it actually provides ROI to installers when you have a counterpart like that?
John:Yeah. I think it comes down to scale. So as you get larger and as your equipment the number of suppliers you're working with becomes larger, I think it becomes more critical. So in markets where maybe you do only have a few key suppliers and finance partners, it may not be necessary at first. You as the COO or the CEO or anybody who's, you know, high level in an organization and wants to manage those relationships early on, I think, can do so.
John:But at a certain point, you're starting to take away resources from your organization when you don't have that dedicated procurement manager or director of procurement or or, you know, whatever that title ends up being. And I think also as we look at, you know, what does the future installation look like? Is it just gonna be solar PV, or are we going to have solar PV batteries, EV chargers, and perhaps other electrification? Are their products going to be working well with DER aggregators and derms platforms and maintaining those relationships, really understanding the nuances of, you know, the supplier's products and how they're going to fit into your business model is really gonna get more and more complex, I think, as the systems that we're installing at homes become more complex. So there's really kinda two parts to this.
John:There's one, there's, you know, the scale of your company, you know, how important, how big, how large, how many suppliers are we working with. But then two, you know, as market dynamics shift and, you know, your future customers' needs shift and these projects become more complex, how are we dealing the nuances dealing with the nuances of our suppliers' technology and how they fit into our customers' applications and use cases? So having those things understood and then being able to manage that, to me, it doesn't seem like a one person job anymore for these large companies. And in fact, I think a lot of procurement managers do a great job, the ones that I've worked with, and really linking the pieces within an organization. And I think that's one of the biggest benefits is, you know, knowing when to pull in different care stakeholders and contributors from an organization, getting them with those suppliers and those partners so that they can really work together and collaborate, you know, get efficient and effective projects done.
Joe:So you've been in the Virginia market for a long time. I'm sure you've interacted with Dominion and all the major players. What do you wish more solar installers understood about the permitting, interconnection, utility coordination process?
John:Yeah. I so it's been a little while since I've been in the weeds of actual, you know, interconnection agreements and permits and such. But one of the things that I always felt was a little bit misunderstood maybe about working with those those agencies is most of the time, they want to see your projects go through. They're not there to squash anything that you're working on. They don't necessarily have a grudge against you personally or your company.
John:So I think my recommendation is to really try and build those relationships much like we were just talking about doing with your suppliers or financiers is to build the relationships, understand what motivates them at the end of the day, how they're doing their job, what, you know, what you can do maybe differently to work with them and and kinda how to work with them more effectively. But, you know, if you look at utilities like Dominion, sure, it may seem like a large investor owned utility that doesn't necessarily want to see, you know, you as the homeowner putting solar on your building or, you know, you as a commercial entity putting solar on. Perhaps that's at odds with their business model, but, you know, they've also got DG departments. Right? They're also looking at ways that they can provide value to their customers.
John:And increasingly in today's marketplace, I think they're all gonna be challenged with keeping electricity rates down. There's kind of a a double edged sword there, if you will, of making sure that one, you know, they're providing reliable power and also making sure that they're keeping their costs down. And increasingly, I think they're going to be dependent on, you know, us as distributed generation providers, whether that be solar storage or the aggregators who are putting these things together. They're gonna be depending on us to really contribute to the grid. Because I think at the end of the day, if solar and batteries do not have a place at the table, all we're going to see is electricity pricing go up and up.
Joe:So when you think about where we might be in five years, what are you most excited to see ABB do in the next five years, and what do you think the industry might look like by 2030?
John:Yeah. So on the ABB side, I see and and hope for, you know, mass electrification really at all scales. On my side, I get really excited about thinking about how we can accelerate that. Right? So how do we create the best, you know, tools to enable our customers to more easily integrate these devices into their homes to make these homes more resilient, to make these homes more affordable as well as healthier?
John:I see us doing that. You know, that's that's kind of a a mission that at least I, having joined ABB in March, have just started. So there's plenty of work at hand. Right? I think if you look at the statistics and you look at electrification, I think Rewiring America and Pecan Street put out statistics like some 48,000,000 homes, if they were to electrify, would require service upgrades and main panel upgrades.
John:That's a lot of homes, and that's a lot of really, I would say, wasted, you know, capital expenditure that there are better ways that our technologies can solve. ABB has a lot of those technologies, but there are many other players, so many other really reputable companies who I think are also coming in and contributing cool technologies to this space to tackle, you know, this problem as well as many others. So I get excited. I'm kind of a technology optimist. I I'm interested in seeing the different technologies that will be coming out from ABB's perspective.
John:I'm interested in looking at, you know, how they can use some of these cool technologies to really create more effective value propositions, full home solutions. And, you know, I think we're just getting started in many ways, and it's gonna be a great five years and and, you know, awesome challenge to see how many of these homes that we can, you know, bring solar batteries and other electrification assets to fruition.
Joe:Alright. Last question, John. If you're the king of the solar industry for a day and you could change anything to get us to a 100% solar penetration faster, what would you change?
John:Okay. Another very good question. Let's see. I'm thinking about today, and I'm thinking about that, you know, that house bill that passed, and I'm thinking about what it takes to increase, Right? Not just, you know, keep our industry steady, but actually what enables growth for solar and storage and, you know, other electrical upgrades in a market without incentives.
John:And the answer that comes to mind is really on the permitting side. So I think beyond permitting, how can we reduce soft cost to the point where installing solar, which is the most cost effective resource from a, you know, a production standpoint, if it's the most cost effective resource, it should stand on its own. It shouldn't require incentives. But what's getting in the way? And I think it's, you know, some unnecessary, maybe regulations, maybe on the permitting side perhaps.
John:And if I were the solar king and I could just declare that we could do away with permitting, would I? Not necessarily. I think we do need to keep some safety in mind. So I think maybe looking at, you know, the codes and making sure that perhaps things like the solar the solar app could get, you know, promoted and enabled in more localities, ensuring that, you know, the NEC and UL listings are all in a good place for, you know, the advent of the energy storage systems and homes. There'd be a few things I do, but I'd be mostly looking at the soft cost and trying to figure out ways that we could get those down to the point where solar and energy storage can stand on their own without incentives because I think that's inevitable.
Joe:A great answer. I heard a joke on I guess it was Suncast recently. They said when you buy solar in America, you're paying for paperwork, which made me laugh. So that's a great answer.
John:In some ways, it's true, isn't it?
Joe:Yeah. And and so where can people find you, John? They wanna learn more about ABB's products and services, where can they find you?
John:Yeah. So, you know, ABB, because we recently acquired Lumen, we really have two different avenues for getting in touch with us. You can look us up both as, you know, Lumen, www.lumensmart.com. But at ABB, we have a lot to offer beyond just the smart panel side. So I would highly encourage anybody who is interested in our products or services to check us out online as well.
John:If you type in ABB, you'll see us. We're we're kinda all over the place. We're electrifying NASCAR, formula e. We're in homes. We're in utilities.
John:We're, you know, we're working all across the board. But if you're looking to get in touch with me personally, happy to give out my email here, Joe. It's just my first dot last name, which is Jonathan dot profit. And if you're listening, that's p r o f f I t t, two f's, two t's. And that's @us.abb.com.
John: Joe:Thank you, John. Thanks for taking forty minutes out of your day to join us on the What Solar Installers Need to Know podcast today.
John:It was my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.
Joe:Thanks everybody for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Hervé:If you'd like to do the same or do better, go to sunvoy.com/blog and get actionable behind the scenes lessons on running and growing your solar business.
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