Claire just returned from RE+ in Las Vegas, Dan just back from Beijing. We compare the U.S. private-sector deal frenzy with China's government-plus-industry energy push. Claire explains why developers and tax-equity players are racing to start construction before credits sunset, how much of the pipeline is real vs. grandstanding, and why battery storage was the talk of the floor (hello, duck curve). Dan reports on mega-scale grid building, EV battery swaps, and long-duration storage ideas (from sand to moving rock). We also look at community solar, interconnection bottlenecks, and what consolidation means for getting steel in the ground fast. Hosts: Claire Broido Johnson & Dan Kammen More: energymatters.world
NOTE This file was generated by Descript
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 What happens in Vegas stays in Beijing.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:07 We'll go there.
00:00:07 --> 00:00:09 This is energy matters with Claire and Dan.
00:00:16 --> 00:00:21 So I just got back from Las Vegas and Dan just returned from Beijing.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:26 In this episode, we're gonna talk about renewable energy plus or re plus.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:30 Which is North America's largest renewable energy conference in which
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 40 people descend upon an area.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 Dan's gonna be talk about some updates from China.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:42 So Claire, I used to be a regular attendee at the re plus conference
00:00:42 --> 00:00:43 that you're just back from.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 I didn't go this year because I was off at a meeting in China.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:52 Where individual lectures had 4 people in the auditorium for each one.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:52 Wow.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:59 And let me start with you, because my go-to meeting used to be the one you
00:00:59 --> 00:01:04 were at when we felt that things were progressing and there was not only
00:01:04 --> 00:01:08 local money, but private sector money, and the government was behind it.
00:01:08 --> 00:01:09 And I'm a little.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:14 Confused as to trying to figure out what are the, what are the lessons, what are
00:01:14 --> 00:01:18 the things that are most exciting at a conference that's really designed to be.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:23 Private sector folks making deals, getting things happen, hearing about new
00:01:23 --> 00:01:30 cool stuff when we certainly are not in a pro renewable energy federal regime.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 Just start off with what are some of the exciting things that happened?
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 So it's interesting you say this.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:37 So there were lots of deals to be made.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 I had about 30 meetings in 36 hours, and there are.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 Lots of people swimming around.
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 There's a lot of money sloshing around.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 There's a lot of developers out there.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 There's a lot of EPCs out there.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:50 There's a lot of manufacturers out there.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:58 There were two floors of expo hall that was just Transformers inverters.
00:01:58 --> 00:02:04 Module cells and then there were two additional that were battery storage
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 and more, which is sort of shocking.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:11 And you know, you ask why are there still people doing stuff here in the
00:02:11 --> 00:02:16 United States when one could argue HR one is has caused so much turmoil.
00:02:16 --> 00:02:20 And you know, I asked that of a, of a friend of mine from Spain and he looked
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 around and he said, this is why there's still people running around all the time.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 Nobody's given up the renewable energy space.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:32 Is a creative, curious, intellectual space, um, and innovative,
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 and we're gonna figure it out.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 Now that we know most of the rules, we're gonna figure it out
00:02:36 --> 00:02:37 and we're gonna come back kicking.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 So I gotta ask one kind of, you know, picky question that comes from
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 previous things we've talked about in past episodes, and that is, of
00:02:44 --> 00:02:48 course it's a creative, curious space and people have some money to spend.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 But we've also talked about the fact that credits are running out at the
00:02:52 --> 00:02:57 end of this year and next year in different areas and solar and wind.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 And so are you sure that the people at the meeting weren't just trying to
00:03:00 --> 00:03:04 make the deals before the Iron Curtain came down, or was this actually.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 Part of an ongoing, exciting time, and it's just that the fundamentals
00:03:09 --> 00:03:10 of renewables are so good.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:15 I think that the fundamentals of renewables continue to be good.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 They are less good without the federal task credit for sure.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 There was a lot of grandstanding.
00:03:20 --> 00:03:21 There's no question about it.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 And then as far as I'm concerned, so gimme an
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 example of what's grandstanding at the meeting, I gotta know.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:32 There are a lot of people saying they have a lot of money to put
00:03:32 --> 00:03:36 towards project financing, not of residential anymore, but of commercial,
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 industrial, and utility scale.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 How much money are they really gonna put out?
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 Let's remains to be seen.
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 On the complete flip side, there's a lot of EPCs energy performance
00:03:46 --> 00:03:50 contractors that say that they have tons of projects that they
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 need financing for, but in reality.
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 Probably 10% of those are real projects.
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 But I mean, it's often the case that only a few of the
00:03:58 --> 00:03:59 projects talked about get made.
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 So that's, that's not super unusual.
00:04:01 --> 00:04:06 I guess what I'm really asking is, was it people have some inventory and
00:04:06 --> 00:04:10 some money that they wanna get out the door door before tax credits go away?
00:04:11 --> 00:04:16 Or do people see the fact that, well, we've been investing in the
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 residential market for a while and now there's all this kind of.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:24 Built up desire to get commercial projects in the ground.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:28 And so no matter what federal or state policies are, people are really
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 looking to do the next cool thing or they just want to use up what they got.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:33 I think it's both.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:38 So I think there was a lot of money in the residential market and you saw SunPower.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:44 Fell apart last year, Sunnova, uh, including my friend Megan Nutting.
00:04:45 --> 00:04:51 Uh, they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in June of 2025, and just this past week
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 completed a sale of their core assets.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:54 So, first.
00:04:54 --> 00:04:58 There's a lot of folks who have invested in residential for a very,
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 very long time and are trying to figure out where to put their money.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:05 And two, there is a lot of tax equity out there trying to figure
00:05:05 --> 00:05:09 out where they can put their money before the tax credits go away.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:10 No question about it.
00:05:10 --> 00:05:10 Right.
00:05:10 --> 00:05:11 And that's what I really wanted to get at.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 'cause I do think that.
00:05:13 --> 00:05:17 From my seat in Washington DC I see a lot of people talking
00:05:17 --> 00:05:21 about, well, this project has been kind of going along slowly.
00:05:21 --> 00:05:25 I've gotten the permits only, you know, piece by piece, but I really gotta
00:05:25 --> 00:05:29 get done now because without the tax credits that are expiring at the end
00:05:29 --> 00:05:34 of this year and then 2027, it's just not gonna make financial sense unless
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 I can get my construction started.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:38 That's right, that's right.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 Now, we talked about this in a prior episode, but it's important
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 to remember there's a lot of different rules and a lot of people
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 who are trying to bend those rules.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:48 So let's talk about.
00:05:49 --> 00:05:55 Projects that are over 1.5 megs AC in the solar space, as long as there is
00:05:55 --> 00:06:01 some beginning of construction defined as offsite spend, as long as you spend that
00:06:01 --> 00:06:07 money before July 4th, 2026, whether it's on a racking system or a transformer, as
00:06:07 --> 00:06:12 long as you spend money before July 4th of 26th, you then have four years to install.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:18 There's still a lot of fiat or foreign entities of control issues wandering
00:06:18 --> 00:06:24 around, and there are manufacturers who are now trying to change ownership.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 So instead of being Chinese owned, they're trying to make it
00:06:27 --> 00:06:31 European owned, but what's allowed to be manufactured in the US.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:36 Versus manufactured in China, versus manufactured in Europe versus
00:06:36 --> 00:06:38 manufactured somewhere in South America.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 So there's a lot of wheeling and dealing right now, which back to
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 my South American friend is why he said, this is why I'm here.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 I'm, you know, this doesn't happen in Europe.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 There are still lots of deals to be had in, had in the United States.
00:06:50 --> 00:06:55 And how many of the deals, or maybe even gimme an example of one or two are pure
00:06:55 --> 00:07:01 private deal in the sense of a grocery store chain or an auto parts thing.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:01 Yep.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:06 Decides they want to put solar on the rooftops to save money on bills versus.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:13 Companies that say, I want to start installing power projects to sell power
00:07:13 --> 00:07:17 to my utility, not for consumption of my customers, but as a merchant.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:18 Okay.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 We could unpack that for a long time.
00:07:20 --> 00:07:21 So I will give you an example.
00:07:21 --> 00:07:27 On each side, there is an energy performance contractor who is working
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 on a golf course in Southern California.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 That golf course just wants lower utility rates.
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 Right, and so the question for the contractor is, can
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 I just direct sale this?
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 Can I just sell this to these folks right away?
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 The the golf course can take their tax credits, or do I need to do a
00:07:43 --> 00:07:48 power purchase agreement or some sort of third party ownership where, you
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 know, sun Rock's investors, you know, full disclosure, I'm the president
00:07:51 --> 00:07:55 of sunrock, so Sun Rock's investors, or somebody like Sunrock is going to
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 take advantage of those tax credits.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:02 All of that, we're kind of lining a fire under people's butts to say.
00:08:02 --> 00:08:06 If you're serious about solar, now's the time to do it because of all of these
00:08:06 --> 00:08:07 beginning of construction rules like.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:09 Use it or lose it, baby.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:10 It's time to get moving.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 And are these projects gonna be things that they're gonna like put
00:08:14 --> 00:08:15 in the margins of the golf course?
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 You know, instead of a sand trap, now we're gonna have the solar trap?
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 Or are these gonna be things that they're gonna put elsewhere?
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 So, I mean, there's canopies, there's ground mount, there's rooftops, but
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 it depends, you know, very specific.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:26 Um.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:30 On the flip side, talk to my friend Joe Song.
00:08:31 --> 00:08:35 He's buying up land all over the country, Greenfield land, and he,
00:08:35 --> 00:08:40 with his 30 different developers are buying land and trying to figure out
00:08:40 --> 00:08:44 how to get interconnection, figuring out where their transmission lines
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 are in different parts of the country.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:51 Arizona, New Mexico, all, all over, you know, Nevada, um, and.
00:08:52 --> 00:08:57 Trying to make sure that the transmission is available so they can install a
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 greenfield development of lots and lots of megawatts on the ground.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:01 Yeah.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 And no shade thrown to your friend, but.
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 A year and a half ago, that project would have to not only, you know,
00:09:08 --> 00:09:12 get some money from the inflation reduction Act and whatever else, but
00:09:12 --> 00:09:18 it would also have to be attentive to the needs and the rights of minorities,
00:09:18 --> 00:09:22 indigenous peoples, right People in the through, in the through fair.
00:09:22 --> 00:09:26 But the federal government has removed a lot of those programs, so.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:31 Do you think this is gonna have any effect in terms of what I call environmental
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 justice or we'll talk to later?
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 In China they call inclusive growth.
00:09:36 --> 00:09:42 Oh, well, I, okay, so we could unpack this and spend many, many hours on this,
00:09:42 --> 00:09:43 but it really depends on the state.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 So, the state of Maryland that you and I are currently in does
00:09:46 --> 00:09:51 require for community solar that 50% of the offtake, or 50% of the
00:09:51 --> 00:09:55 subscribers for community solar are low and moderate income customers.
00:09:55 --> 00:09:56 That hasn't changed.
00:09:56 --> 00:09:57 Exactly.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 They don't care what the federal government says, but in different parts
00:10:00 --> 00:10:05 of the country, for sure, inclusivity and making sure that solar is available
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 to all has all but become extinguished.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 From a grant perspective, those grants don't exist.
00:10:10 --> 00:10:10 And that's
00:10:10 --> 00:10:14 what I'm getting at because I actually thought we had a really wonderful
00:10:14 --> 00:10:19 evolving pathway where not only it was affecting how states tribes.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:24 Low income communities and, and companies were working together.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:30 But also it was a process that I thought was sort of hitting its stride.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:34 We were seeing projects going in, we were seeing, um, energy,
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 going to low income communities.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:40 We were seeing rents for some of the projects, going to low income communities.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:41 And you're saying at Las Vegas.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 That's still going on.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:48 Yes, but only if the there is incentive money available for it.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 So you still have quote unquote energy communities.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 You get a higher tax credit.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:57 If you're considered an energy community, you get a higher tax credit right now,
00:10:57 --> 00:11:01 if it's considered domestic content, but the world is definitely shaking up,
00:11:01 --> 00:11:05 I would say, you know, another one of my learnings, you know, one is that.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 People are still doing a whole bunch of deals.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:12 Two is that there is a mon, a lot of money sloshing around from the
00:11:12 --> 00:11:16 residential sector and from a bunch of tax equity folks who are saying,
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 wow, I really gotta put my money to work before HR one really kicks in.
00:11:20 --> 00:11:21 But three.
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 There's a lot of people in this industry and there's gonna
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 be a lot of consolidation.
00:11:25 --> 00:11:29 So you know the name of the game is efficiency, right?
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 How are your processes?
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 How do you get these things installed fast?
00:11:33 --> 00:11:38 How do you put steel in the ground as quickly as you can in the context of
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 the fact that you need a permit and you need interconnection approval?
00:11:41 --> 00:11:45 And for example, in Ameren, we were working on a deal with a
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 partner, took three years to get interconnection approval from Ameren.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 One could argue.
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 You know, you should be suing about that.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:56 But you know, that goes back to the fact that utilities have different incentive
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 structures than the capital markets do when it comes to renewable energy.
00:12:00 --> 00:12:04 The fourth thing I would say, and I'm, I'll be interested in your thoughts
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 from Beijing, is that everybody's talking about battery storage.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:08 Right.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:12 Particularly in California, and this is where different regions
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 have such different thoughts.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 You know, I, I think utilities often think that they're their very own
00:12:17 --> 00:12:21 special snowflake because they've got different issues than everyone else in
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 the country, and that's not totally true.
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 But in some perspectives it is.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 And so Dan, you know more than anybody about the duck curve in
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 California, but that's the idea that.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:36 So there is so much solar energy in California right now, and you, if you, we
00:12:36 --> 00:12:42 will put a photo of this on our website, energy Matters world, but you produce a
00:12:42 --> 00:12:47 lot of solar energy during peak hours, during the summer hours, and at that
00:12:47 --> 00:12:52 period, somewhere between four or five and 9:00 PM the solar goes down, but
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 the energy usage continues to stay up.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 And in California, demand charges have gone up by a factor of
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 three in the last several years.
00:13:00 --> 00:13:04 And so what most industrials know to do is between that four and 9:00 PM
00:13:04 --> 00:13:08 they literally turn off their all of their equipment and wait until later.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:13 I mean, it's interesting because if you go back 10 years, there
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 was subsidies for putting solar.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 In California and and the other states that were moving ahead.
00:13:19 --> 00:13:24 But California has now installed enough solar that it only gives a
00:13:24 --> 00:13:30 subsidy if you do storage, and Texas is overtaking California in being the hub
00:13:30 --> 00:13:34 of storage in the us Nothing compared to some of the storage efforts going
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 in in Asia and even parts of Europe.
00:13:36 --> 00:13:40 But I do think that that lesson even of the capital to make it happen.
00:13:41 --> 00:13:47 Is clearly out there that storage is the glue of the new grid and you'd better keep
00:13:47 --> 00:13:52 your storage installations up, keeping up with the amount of clean energy going
00:13:52 --> 00:13:56 in because that duck curve does mean we all like to use energy between about
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 four and 9:00 PM so it better be there
00:13:59 --> 00:14:00 and right.
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 We like to use it and solar stops being producing between four and 9:00 PM.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:04 That's right.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:05 Yeah.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 So battery storage, there was a talk of the town, but if you, if you think
00:14:08 --> 00:14:12 about it, you know, people are putting power walls on their houses from the
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 residential perspective and utility scale.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:20 And what we mean by utility scale is really huge systems, you think acres
00:14:20 --> 00:14:24 and acres of, of solar plus storage, that's selling back to the grid.
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 However, there's still.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:28 You know, I, I don't have the math for this.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 I, if somebody's listening and can send me the data, I would love to hear it.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:36 You know, couple hundred commercial industrial battery storage projects have
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 been installed across the United States.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:38 Really?
00:14:38 --> 00:14:39 Not that many.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 And that is dependent upon regulations.
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 It's because nobody really understands storage.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:45 Yes.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:49 It's because there's a lot of regulatory guardrails associated with it.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 So let me give you an example.
00:14:51 --> 00:14:52 In New Jersey.
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 And I don't wanna get too wonky here, but there's a program that called the
00:14:56 --> 00:15:06 Emergency Load Reduction Program, ELRP, whereby if you, a battery owner, whether
00:15:06 --> 00:15:11 it's third party ownership or not, are willing to have a megawatt that can be.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:19 Provided back to PJM or the independent service operator that manages the grid.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:24 Anytime that PJM requests it, you will get paid a hundred thousand
00:15:24 --> 00:15:29 dollars per megawatt per year to be used during emergencies.
00:15:29 --> 00:15:35 And historically, that ELRP or emergency Load reduction program was set up
00:15:35 --> 00:15:41 for the one time every three or four years when there's an emergency and.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:47 Walmart, I'm just, you know, Kohls some somebody, some industrial chain is told
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 For these two hours, I need you to.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:55 Put your air conditioning at 50% capacity so I have an extra one megawatt that I can
00:15:55 --> 00:16:00 turn on for that one hour and I'll pay you a hundred thousand dollars per megawatt
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 per year, because that's cheaper than installing a new natural gas peaker plant.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 No, I just gotta chuckle at this because you know, California's been doing
00:16:07 --> 00:16:13 this for decades now, and it comes right out of the old utility playbook
00:16:13 --> 00:16:17 where if you can be a responsible.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:22 Participant on the grid, meaning if you can dial down your usage or now in this
00:16:22 --> 00:16:26 case, if you can dial up the energy that comes out of your battery system,
00:16:27 --> 00:16:28 the utilities are gonna reward you.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:35 And it's so nice to hear, even this dire situation, the ELRP, not the best acronym
00:16:35 --> 00:16:40 in the world, but this in this dire situation where we're starting to get.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:45 Commercial entities, you know, fast food chains, supermarkets saying,
00:16:45 --> 00:16:51 I, it's worth it to me to put this power on the grid, but to make it
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 dispatchable when the utility wants it.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:54 When the utility wants it.
00:16:54 --> 00:16:55 That's right.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:55 That's right.
00:16:56 --> 00:17:00 And so this one ELRP program in PJM and of course the, the cost of it and
00:17:00 --> 00:17:05 the value of it is different depending on the different zones in PJM, but.
00:17:05 --> 00:17:10 While it's supposed to happen, only once every three or four years that ELRP
00:17:10 --> 00:17:11 was dispatched three times this summer.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:17 Three times and we could talk about the fact that that's climate change
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 or increased demand, or both.
00:17:19 --> 00:17:23 Um, lots of reasons we've talked about and we'll continue to talk about,
00:17:23 --> 00:17:25 but that's just very interesting.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 So I think, you know, everyone at this conference is talking
00:17:28 --> 00:17:29 about battery storage.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 How many people have actually done anything, remains to be seen.
00:17:32 --> 00:17:36 But certainly the regulatory policy is set up so that.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:42 The capital markets start financing battery storage at scale.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 And that's certainly something that we at sunrock are doing at scale.
00:17:44 --> 00:17:48 We're trying to finance battery storage, solar plus storage and storage
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 alone, using third party ownership
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 and just it, just talking about another place leaving China out
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 of this for a bit as a proud fin.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:02 Um, I am, you know, watching there are now, there's now a company
00:18:02 --> 00:18:03 in Finland called Solar Knight.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:08 And of course in the, in Scandinavia, you have very long nights, and what
00:18:08 --> 00:18:13 Solar Night does is they have a solar array, which is good in the summer and
00:18:13 --> 00:18:17 really bad during the winter because they have these long, long night times, but
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 they have a huge building full of sand.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 And when there's excess energy, they heat the sand.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 Sand stores a lot of energy.
00:18:26 --> 00:18:30 'cause sand is basically little grains of silica, same material,
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 solar panels and lots of air pockets.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:37 And so what they do is they essentially charge up their sand battery so
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 that they can do solar at night.
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 Hence the name Solar Night from their sand battery.
00:18:42 --> 00:18:43 And these are.
00:18:44 --> 00:18:48 Black tower buildings that are popping up in Scandinavia, and it's
00:18:48 --> 00:18:54 an example of building clean energy in a not very solar friendly place.
00:18:54 --> 00:18:58 Certainly for half the year the winters are dark, you get up right and it's dark.
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 You go to come home from work and it's dark.
00:19:00 --> 00:19:05 But this is the kind of creativity in the battery world that we're starting to see.
00:19:05 --> 00:19:09 And I would like to see companies like this moving back into the us.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 From Scandinavia, and we'll talk later about some of the really neat
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 new technologies coming out of China.
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 Yeah, I mean the, the, you know, world's most natural battery,
00:19:18 --> 00:19:19 of course is hydro, right?
00:19:19 --> 00:19:24 You, you move hydro or you move water up the hill when it's nighttime and it's
00:19:24 --> 00:19:28 cheap to move it up the hill and you pour it down the hill when it's most expensive.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:28 It's true.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 So pumped hydro is the norm.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:34 But you know, places like California where I've been for the last, uh, 25
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 years, we are technically a desert.
00:19:37 --> 00:19:37 Right.
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 And so the fact that we move water up and down is crazy.
00:19:40 --> 00:19:45 And so now there's companies in California, in Switzerland, in Iceland,
00:19:46 --> 00:19:47 they don't move water up and down.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:48 They move rock.
00:19:49 --> 00:19:50 You gotta, you gotta explain a little bit to me.
00:19:50 --> 00:19:51 What are you talking about?
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 Bringing rocks up and down a big hill?
00:19:53 --> 00:19:54 How is this helping us?
00:19:55 --> 00:20:00 So the oldest form of energy storage is what's called pumped hydro.
00:20:00 --> 00:20:06 Meaning when you've got some cheap energy or extra energy, you move some water up
00:20:06 --> 00:20:12 from reservoir one to reservoir two that's higher up and now the water sitting there.
00:20:12 --> 00:20:16 And when you want energy, you just spill it back down and it runs the turbine.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 And that's the classic pump hydro.
00:20:19 --> 00:20:23 But why pump hydro when you could pump other things that are not in short
00:20:23 --> 00:20:29 supply, rocks and concrete are not scarce, so why not build a a tower?
00:20:30 --> 00:20:35 And when there's energy that's low cost, IE, there's not a big demand for it.
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 Use some of that to move the rocks uphill.
00:20:39 --> 00:20:43 And then when you need energy, you just let the rocks come back down in the
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 crane that is used to generate energy.
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 And so now you've got the rock version.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:50 A pumped hydro system.
00:20:51 --> 00:20:55 And of course one last critical feature here is that the batteries
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 that you and I have in our phones and laptops, lithium ion or lithium
00:20:58 --> 00:21:04 phosphate, they're fine for about three or four hours of usage per cell.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 But they're not fine longer than that.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:10 They are short duration, and of course, once you move water or rock.
00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 Or whatever you want uphill, you lock it in place.
00:21:13 --> 00:21:18 And so that can be stored for days, weeks, months, even longer.
00:21:18 --> 00:21:23 And so we're starting to learn that storage itself comes in many flavors.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:28 And so my question for you back at the re plus meeting is did you see some of these
00:21:28 --> 00:21:33 long duration storage companies, like those that are doing flywheels or those
00:21:33 --> 00:21:34 that are doing flow batteries saying.
00:21:35 --> 00:21:36 You're gonna need us.
00:21:36 --> 00:21:42 'cause as much as short-lived batteries in your car or your home are fine, we
00:21:42 --> 00:21:46 need to balance that out with batteries that last days, weeks, or longer.
00:21:46 --> 00:21:47 Were those guys present or not?
00:21:47 --> 00:21:51 A couple of them were, but to be honest, it was a lot of Chinese
00:21:51 --> 00:21:55 companies, a lot of South Asian companies who are trying to produce and
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 manufacture in the United States now.
00:21:58 --> 00:22:02 Um, it was much less of that and much more of we're gonna manufacture
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 the first 800 watt battery.
00:22:05 --> 00:22:10 Um, which is just, it's super interesting and there was a contingent from Turkey.
00:22:10 --> 00:22:11 There was a contingent from.
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 I mean all over the, all over the world.
00:22:14 --> 00:22:15 People came from all over the world.
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 There were a bunch of Israelis there.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 There, you know, it was, it was very, very interesting to see
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 everybody wants in on this market.
00:22:22 --> 00:22:26 So even though the IRA or Inflation Reduction Act has gone away, everybody
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 still wants to be in this market.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:30 So before we switch over to China, I gotta ask you.
00:22:30 --> 00:22:30 Yeah.
00:22:30 --> 00:22:35 If you were to be able to go around at re plus and put a couple gold stars
00:22:36 --> 00:22:42 on companies or ideas that you thought were really changing the game, who
00:22:42 --> 00:22:44 would you give a gold star to and why?
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 Doesn't have to be a particular company, but it can be.
00:22:47 --> 00:22:52 But what were the ideas or the products or even the companies that you thought, wow.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 I want to invest in them.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:59 I mean, there are super, certainly super cool, um, inverter
00:22:59 --> 00:23:00 companies that are coming up.
00:23:01 --> 00:23:06 Anybody that is manufacturing battery storage in the United States
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 is gonna be in very high demand.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 Tesla and lg.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:13 Uh, you know, fortunately, unfortunately, that those are the folks that make
00:23:13 --> 00:23:14 batteries in the US right now.
00:23:15 --> 00:23:16 There are.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 Lots of interesting racking systems that are coming along
00:23:20 --> 00:23:24 and certainly, which of course only a real energy nerd can love a racking system.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:25 But I get it.
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 I got all excited about racking systems.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:29 Tell, tell our listeners what is a racking system.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:31 It's not a torture device.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:32 It is not a torture device.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 Although if you don't have one, maybe it is a torture device.
00:23:35 --> 00:23:38 So racking system is exactly what it sounds like.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 You got a bunch of solar panels that you wanna put somewhere,
00:23:41 --> 00:23:43 you wanna put them on the ground.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:46 That's a bunch of rails on the ground, that's called a ground mount.
00:23:46 --> 00:23:50 You wanna put your solar panels on the roof of a building.
00:23:50 --> 00:23:55 You need metal rails, and you put the solar panels on, and typically
00:23:55 --> 00:23:56 you're gonna tilt the panels.
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 To be at the same latitude that you're at.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 So a racking system is literally just that made of wood, made of
00:24:03 --> 00:24:07 metal, made of who knows what, so that the solar panels can sit there.
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 And there are some very high tech systems.
00:24:10 --> 00:24:14 There are some racking systems that actually rotate and track the sun.
00:24:15 --> 00:24:19 It's often not worth the effort, both in terms of extra hardware,
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 but also in terms of the extra gain.
00:24:21 --> 00:24:25 But there are places in the more northern latitude or southern latitude
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 you go, the more those are useful.
00:24:27 --> 00:24:32 So I have a, I have a friend who is both a, a rock singer
00:24:32 --> 00:24:36 and runs the most successful racking system company in the us.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:38 Um, and they literally do that.
00:24:38 --> 00:24:42 You, a company or an individual comes to them and says, I need
00:24:42 --> 00:24:43 to mount solar panels here.
00:24:45 --> 00:24:49 And they'd say, these are the least cost, most reliable racking systems
00:24:49 --> 00:24:51 to hold your panels in place.
00:24:51 --> 00:24:55 So they're gonna be fine against wind, they're gonna be low cost if you're gonna
00:24:55 --> 00:24:58 be cleaning them by hand or by a drone.
00:24:58 --> 00:25:03 All kinds of things to make them directly available so that you can maximize
00:25:03 --> 00:25:04 the amount of energy that coming out.
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 I mean, you're more of the technologist and I'm more of the finance nerd.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 So to me, you know, some of the most interesting that were things
00:25:10 --> 00:25:13 that were coming out are things that have to do with tax equity and
00:25:13 --> 00:25:14 how are you managing tax equity.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:18 And I'll do a quick shout out to Billy Lee, my friend, who's the co-founder and
00:25:18 --> 00:25:23 president of Reunion that has created a marketplace for clean energy tax credits.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:27 That's not brand new, but it's become much more standardized
00:25:27 --> 00:25:28 and there's a lot of folks.
00:25:29 --> 00:25:33 Trying to figure out how can they do asset management more effectively
00:25:33 --> 00:25:36 and how can they do operations and maintenance more effectively?
00:25:36 --> 00:25:40 I think the fact that battery storage doesn't last for as long as solar, you
00:25:40 --> 00:25:44 know, we often assume that solar will have a lifetime of 30 or 35 years.
00:25:44 --> 00:25:48 Battery storage will, you know, typically will people will provide
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 you a warranty for 10, maybe 15 years.
00:25:50 --> 00:25:50 That's long.
00:25:50 --> 00:25:51 We have to extend that.
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53 S Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:53 --> 00:25:57 So I mean, you know, how do you finance storage systems when
00:25:57 --> 00:26:01 you need to do an energy service agreement for 20 or 25 years and the
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 warranties only last for 10 years?
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06 People, you know how thinking through all of that is really interesting.
00:26:07 --> 00:26:11 But now let's transfer over to Beijing and tell us a little bit about.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:15 What should be ex we be excited about, from an American perspective, about
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 what's happening in China and what should be making us shake in our boots
00:26:18 --> 00:26:20 so they would ask the same question.
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 So the meeting I went to was attended by the Vice President of
00:26:23 --> 00:26:29 China, China's special presidential climate Envoy, the CEOs of the
00:26:29 --> 00:26:32 five biggest utilities in China.
00:26:32 --> 00:26:36 The CEOs of the three biggest electric vehicle manufacturers.
00:26:36 --> 00:26:41 So these were heavy, heavy hitters, not only in the Chinese market, but as you
00:26:41 --> 00:26:46 said in the US market, and really the global market because something like 70
00:26:46 --> 00:26:51 plus percent of all of these type devices, solar panels, wind turbines, electric
00:26:51 --> 00:26:52 vehicles, they're all made in China.
00:26:53 --> 00:26:57 So this was the big summit in the national.
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 Convention Center, which is a massive building.
00:27:00 --> 00:27:05 It's so big that almost everyone I knew who was at the meeting came to the
00:27:05 --> 00:27:09 meeting in sneakers and carried their shoes around in a bag because it was such
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 a long walk between places across this.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15 Oh, we all wore sneakers the entire time at RA plus the entire time.
00:27:16 --> 00:27:18 But you know, they're a little more formal there.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 And when the vice president of China is gonna be showing
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 up, people were wearing shoes.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:22 Even I That's true.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:23 Were a tie.
00:27:23 --> 00:27:23 Yeah.
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 Um, but there, individual, wow.
00:27:26 --> 00:27:26 That's saying a lot individual talks.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:28 That says a whole lot.
00:27:28 --> 00:27:32 But there were individual talks at this meeting where there were
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 4 people in one auditorium.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:38 So this is no small operation.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:39 And so,
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 so what are they saying about what's happening about foreign entities
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 of concern and things like that?
00:27:44 --> 00:27:48 Are they just focusing on trying to change ownership to places outside of
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 China, or they're just gonna ignore what's happening in the US market?
00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 What are, what are they doing?
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 They wanna manufacture everything quickly,
00:27:55 --> 00:27:55 right?
00:27:55 --> 00:28:00 So most of the companies were really saying, it is so silly that the US.
00:28:01 --> 00:28:05 Has put research and development money into all these technologies for
00:28:05 --> 00:28:10 decades, and now that the clean energy industry is a big deal, clean energy
00:28:10 --> 00:28:13 is about 10% of the Chinese economy.
00:28:13 --> 00:28:15 It is perhaps the same level in Europe.
00:28:15 --> 00:28:20 These are not small numbers and what the Chinese are saying and the
00:28:20 --> 00:28:24 Argentinians and the South Africans and the Mongolians and all kinds of, in the
00:28:24 --> 00:28:27 Vietnamese that were there, they're just shaking their head and they're saying.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:33 You know, I understand that US politics can swing left or right, this and
00:28:33 --> 00:28:37 that, but it does feel to them that U, the US government has decided to
00:28:37 --> 00:28:42 give away the store, right when the store is actually producing money.
00:28:42 --> 00:28:46 And for a long time you had to subsidize, now the store is profitable
00:28:46 --> 00:28:48 and suddenly the US wants out.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:52 So that was by far the most standard comma.
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 But let me first just do a little more scene setting, because
00:28:55 --> 00:28:56 this meeting wasn't just big.
00:28:57 --> 00:29:03 It was a meeting of not only as you saw lots of companies and I saw solar
00:29:03 --> 00:29:10 companies from Uzbekistan and I saw wind companies from Brazil and I saw the
00:29:10 --> 00:29:14 inverter companies, like you said, the companies that make the devices that turn
00:29:14 --> 00:29:18 the direct current out of a solar panel into AC current that we use in the grid.
00:29:18 --> 00:29:22 We, I saw those from Turkey and I saw those from Spain.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:24 All of these folks were there.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:27 But the focus of the meeting was actually.
00:29:27 --> 00:29:32 The backbone, and maybe this speaks to planning versus opportunism.
00:29:32 --> 00:29:38 So the technical host of this meeting was something with a pretty nerdy name, Geico.
00:29:39 --> 00:29:42 That's the Global Energy Interconnection Network Company.
00:29:43 --> 00:29:49 That's basically the company that works both inside China and in other countries.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:53 Whether they twist arms or not is something we might get back to, but
00:29:53 --> 00:29:57 this is the company that will build or will at least advise you and your
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 country of how to build the grid.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 And if we're gonna move power around, whether it's kind of short
00:30:03 --> 00:30:07 distance or long distance, we need either the big classic high voltage
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 lines or we need the smaller lines.
00:30:09 --> 00:30:14 And this meeting was hosted by the agency that does that work.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:14 Geico.
00:30:15 --> 00:30:19 And the most amusing thing I, I heard at the meeting was something that I'd
00:30:19 --> 00:30:22 actually known but hadn't quite realized.
00:30:22 --> 00:30:24 And that was, this organization has a lot of money.
00:30:25 --> 00:30:29 And they have incredibly beautiful educational displays.
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 Every corner I turned, there was another interactive console where you could
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 understand power flow or this or that.
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 And I kept wondering, how do they have all the money for this?
00:30:38 --> 00:30:43 And it turns out that several years ago, the president of China.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:49 President Xi told the world's largest company, state grid, which has over
00:30:49 --> 00:30:54 a million employees, that one of the recent very profitable transmission
00:30:54 --> 00:30:59 lines that they had built to bring power from Inner Mongolia, which is
00:30:59 --> 00:31:03 an excellent place for solar and wind to Beijing where the demand is high,
00:31:04 --> 00:31:06 almost, uh, almost a thousand kilometers.
00:31:06 --> 00:31:10 So 600 miles that that transmission line, they were gonna voluntarily give it.
00:31:12 --> 00:31:14 To this company, Geico.
00:31:14 --> 00:31:17 So the Geico would have a revenue stream forever.
00:31:17 --> 00:31:20 Now, in the US we never tell.
00:31:20 --> 00:31:21 It would never happen.
00:31:21 --> 00:31:25 We never tell one big company, oh, build something and you are gonna
00:31:25 --> 00:31:27 now donate it to this other company.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:29 In this case, it happened.
00:31:29 --> 00:31:34 And so Geico ran this meeting where energy ministers from around the world,
00:31:34 --> 00:31:40 from the so-called bricks, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, they were all there.
00:31:40 --> 00:31:41 But so were.
00:31:41 --> 00:31:46 The ministers of energy and the permanent secretaries and big companies from
00:31:46 --> 00:31:48 all across Africa, from Latin America.
00:31:49 --> 00:31:53 I was frequently in a meeting where I was the only person with
00:31:53 --> 00:31:57 a US passport because the US is just out of the picture right now.
00:31:57 --> 00:32:00 So it was a culture shock.
00:32:00 --> 00:32:02 If I were to put up a picture of the meetings I was.
00:32:03 --> 00:32:06 In Beijing versus the meetings you were in in Las Vegas.
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 Right, right.
00:32:08 --> 00:32:12 So I, but I guess I, I'm confused now because you're talking about Geico
00:32:12 --> 00:32:17 and these companies that are investing in electricity all across China.
00:32:17 --> 00:32:20 How are they building our grid in the United States?
00:32:20 --> 00:32:21 Well, they're not building any
00:32:22 --> 00:32:27 US yet, but everywhere else in the world, if you wanna build a transmission line to
00:32:27 --> 00:32:34 bring low cost wind power from northern Kenya down to Nairobi, or you wanna
00:32:34 --> 00:32:39 build a transmission line to bring power from one of the big dams in Southern
00:32:39 --> 00:32:45 Africa to the big market centers in South Africa, or if you want to upgrade an old
00:32:45 --> 00:32:48 decrepit power line in Argentina or Chile.
00:32:49 --> 00:32:53 To bring power from a gas turbine or from a hydro plant to the
00:32:53 --> 00:32:55 big load centers like Santiago.
00:32:56 --> 00:33:00 It's quite likely that even if you don't give the whole contract to one
00:33:00 --> 00:33:04 of these companies here in China, you might be contracting them for
00:33:04 --> 00:33:09 the high voltage tension lines or for the racks of inverters we talked
00:33:09 --> 00:33:12 about, or the racks of solar panels.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 And so they are essentially a one stop shop.
00:33:16 --> 00:33:19 For the hardware, the infrastructure.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 The backbone, if you will, of the grid.
00:33:22 --> 00:33:29 And this meeting had a lot of high level positive talks in the sense of ministers
00:33:29 --> 00:33:33 of envir, of, of energy from around the world and the vice president of China
00:33:33 --> 00:33:36 who may become the president of China.
00:33:36 --> 00:33:40 We will see these people were all saying we in China, speaking for
00:33:40 --> 00:33:45 them, have committed to zeroing carbon out of our economy by 2060, which.
00:33:46 --> 00:33:51 I would say it was too late, but it's better than a lot of places and we are
00:33:51 --> 00:33:58 prepared to work with whomever wants to get that power from their supply
00:33:58 --> 00:34:00 areas to uh, to their demand centers.
00:34:01 --> 00:34:02 So.
00:34:03 --> 00:34:08 The gist of this meeting in China was that if you want to install any kind of power,
00:34:08 --> 00:34:12 it could be renewable energy, but it could be a gas turbine or a hydro plant.
00:34:13 --> 00:34:17 You are likely to need a company that's really good at building the
00:34:17 --> 00:34:22 hardware backbone, the transmission lines, or the switch gears to
00:34:22 --> 00:34:24 connect you into the grid or.
00:34:25 --> 00:34:30 The large scale solar or wind storage centers so that you can buffer the
00:34:30 --> 00:34:33 amount of energy that comes out and sell it at a more even amount.
00:34:34 --> 00:34:38 This meeting was all of those people running around and
00:34:39 --> 00:34:41 different than the Las Vegas story.
00:34:41 --> 00:34:47 In each meeting I saw whether it was a deal or whether it was just a talk,
00:34:47 --> 00:34:49 there was not only the private sector.
00:34:50 --> 00:34:53 But there was also a government official from the host country
00:34:53 --> 00:34:55 or from China or elsewhere.
00:34:55 --> 00:34:57 Whereas it sounds like in your meeting.
00:34:57 --> 00:35:01 Yeah, you saw lots of the private sector folks, but the US government
00:35:01 --> 00:35:04 was not exactly, uh, front and center.
00:35:04 --> 00:35:05 No,
00:35:05 --> 00:35:07 they were not front and center, center at all.
00:35:07 --> 00:35:09 I mean, I'm sure there were side meetings and all sorts of things,
00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 but no, the federal government is, is
00:35:12 --> 00:35:12 so I think less so.
00:35:12 --> 00:35:15 I think that's the big difference at this meeting in China where
00:35:15 --> 00:35:20 there were thousands and thousands of people from over 120 countries.
00:35:21 --> 00:35:26 In general, you had private sector developers, you had utilities, whether
00:35:26 --> 00:35:30 they're private or state owned, and you had government officials from
00:35:30 --> 00:35:32 China and or these other countries.
00:35:32 --> 00:35:38 And I think the place where this all kind of comes together is China is.
00:35:38 --> 00:35:43 Dominating the world's manufacturing and, and, and sell and selling into
00:35:43 --> 00:35:45 the market of electric vehicles.
00:35:46 --> 00:35:51 So something like 30 million electric vehicles are in China today.
00:35:51 --> 00:35:52 It's dramatic in the country.
00:35:52 --> 00:35:57 Traditional gas powered vehicles have blue license plates and electric
00:35:57 --> 00:36:01 vehicles called new energy vehicles have a green and white plate.
00:36:01 --> 00:36:03 It looks like the kind of the state flag of Colorado.
00:36:04 --> 00:36:04 Okay?
00:36:04 --> 00:36:06 And the number of different.
00:36:07 --> 00:36:11 Structures to support clean transportation.
00:36:11 --> 00:36:12 Were just dramatic.
00:36:12 --> 00:36:16 So ev around every corner you would see a sign saying, this company or
00:36:16 --> 00:36:21 that company, CATL, which is a big Chinese battery company or Phoenix.
00:36:22 --> 00:36:26 Or this or this other company, they were all saying we now have
00:36:26 --> 00:36:31 a battery that can charge and give you 300 mile range in 10 minutes.
00:36:31 --> 00:36:31 Wow.
00:36:32 --> 00:36:36 And now there's a new solid state battery that was profiled at a
00:36:36 --> 00:36:38 big like auto show demonstration.
00:36:39 --> 00:36:42 And they said, and this blew me away, they said, this new solid
00:36:42 --> 00:36:48 state battery can give you 600 mile range in five minutes of charging.
00:36:49 --> 00:36:51 And people got in it.
00:36:51 --> 00:36:52 They saw it happen.
00:36:52 --> 00:36:53 They drove out.
00:36:53 --> 00:36:56 They drove to the Great Wall, they came back, et cetera.
00:36:57 --> 00:37:00 And then the other side of it, and this is really the place where it
00:37:00 --> 00:37:03 really was from Las Vegas to Beijing.
00:37:04 --> 00:37:06 We saw companies that.
00:37:07 --> 00:37:10 Two years ago, we're selling electric vehicles, whether they plug into
00:37:10 --> 00:37:14 the grid, so-called V two G, vehicle to grid, or whether they were just
00:37:14 --> 00:37:16 electric vehicles that you could buy.
00:37:16 --> 00:37:21 But I saw some of those same companies this time saying, yeah, we've decided
00:37:21 --> 00:37:25 that we're gonna go even faster in this direction, and so we're gonna
00:37:25 --> 00:37:27 install all around the country.
00:37:27 --> 00:37:30 These little tiny garages looks like a mini gas station.
00:37:30 --> 00:37:31 What happens is.
00:37:31 --> 00:37:35 You drive your car up to the gas station, but don't pull in.
00:37:36 --> 00:37:39 You get out of the car, the building takes over.
00:37:39 --> 00:37:45 Drives the car in, puts the car up on a platform like they're doing service.
00:37:45 --> 00:37:49 Puts a new battery in and in three minutes you're back on the road with
00:37:49 --> 00:37:52 a new battery and you don't own it.
00:37:52 --> 00:37:54 The company's responsible for the maintenance of the battery.
00:37:55 --> 00:37:59 You own your car, but now your car is so much cheaper because for electric
00:37:59 --> 00:38:02 vehicle, the battery is the biggest price.
00:38:02 --> 00:38:02 Sure.
00:38:02 --> 00:38:06 So your car, whether it's a little tiny town car or a huge Escalade.
00:38:07 --> 00:38:09 The prices now dropped by 70%.
00:38:10 --> 00:38:10 Wow.
00:38:10 --> 00:38:13 And we saw these all over China.
00:38:13 --> 00:38:16 Some people are betting on them, some people are betting against them.
00:38:17 --> 00:38:21 And you know, if there's one message, I think from our two meetings is that
00:38:21 --> 00:38:26 every time I saw someone talking about this in China or in Brazil or Kenya or
00:38:26 --> 00:38:32 Malaysia, there was a private sector person there and there was a government
00:38:32 --> 00:38:33 official in the same conversation.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:34 N
00:38:34 --> 00:38:35 Absolutely not.
00:38:35 --> 00:38:36 What was going on at our ebook?
00:38:36 --> 00:38:37 Not at all.
00:38:37 --> 00:38:37 So, all right.
00:38:37 --> 00:38:37 Not
00:38:37 --> 00:38:38 at all.
00:38:38 --> 00:38:41 So, so here's some of what we learned in Vegas and some of
00:38:41 --> 00:38:43 what Dan learned in Beijing.
00:38:43 --> 00:38:46 So check out our website@energymatters.world Up
00:38:46 --> 00:38:50 next week we'll dig into energy efficiency and what it means for you.
00:38:50 --> 00:38:53 This is energy Matters with Claire and
00:38:53 --> 00:38:53 damn.