Good Energy Podcast Episode 2 – It’s a bird! It’s a man! No, it’s an electric plane!

SPEAKERS

Mallory Whitfield, Daren Wang, Andy Newbold, Shae Thomas

 

Mallory Whitfield

Thanks for joining me for good energy, an ADT solar podcast. I’m your host Mallory Whitfield. We’re here to let you know what’s happening in the world of renewable energy. Each episode will talk about the latest innovation or news in sustainable energy, hear from some of the most interesting people in the field and share some ideas on how the changes you make today can make a big difference. Please take a minute to rate, review or subscribe.

Mallory Whitfield

Daren, my trusty cohost. Good to see you again.

Daren Wang

It’s great to be with you again., Mallory.

Mallory Whitfield

Okay, so today, we’re gonna be talking about something that’s very critical to the climate change crisis, transportation. And in particular, how to electrify more of that. I know, there’s been a lot of talk about electric vehicles and electric cars. But one thing that’s kind of left out a lot of that conversation, or that we’re still trying to figure out how to make it viable is airplanes in aviation, right?

Daren Wang

Yeah, exactly. Right. So this is kind of an astounding piece of news that just popped up in the last week or last month or so actually, so and I’m going to dive into battery technology here. Pardon me, I’ll try not get too nerdy. But here’s, here’s the thing. One of the key measures for batteries is energy density, and they measure it in watt-hours per kilogram. I know I know, watt-hours per kilogram. Yeah, but it’s literally how much energy you can fit into a kilogram. And that matters because you have to haul that kilogram with you in transportation, right? So how much weight you have to put into a car to get it to drive you a certain distance?

So battery technology has made all the difference in the world to us. You’re talking about transportation, the battery in your standard internal combustion car that technology is about 100 years old or so. And that big heavy battery in your car, it gets 25 watt-hours per kilogram.

Now if you think about right so that technology is 100 years old now. When you were a kid did you have have a boombox or a Walkman?

Mallory Whitfield

How old do you think I am?

Daren Wang

I know you’re not as old as me! But so those double A batteries in your Walkman they would hit about 120 Watt-hours per kilogram if you were to have a kilogram of them. Just te the core of it would be about 120 Watt-hours. That’s pretty good but those batteries they’re not rechargeable either, if you remember. The big jump that has made modern life possible is the lithium-ion battery. It’s everywhere– it’s what powers our cars and everything like that. And that is 10 times as dense as the batteries that are in the current, regular cars. So that’s 255 Watt-hours per kilogram. Our iPhones run on lithium-ion batteries. The Tesla out on the road– that’s lithium-ion. The electric lawn mowers, your power drill–it’s all lithium ion. It’s world changing technology. So much so that although it was invented many years ago, decades ago, the guy that perfected that the chemistry, a guy named M. Stanley Whittingham won the Nobel for it in 2019. Because it’s a big deal. The problem is, is that if you put battery at 255 Watt hours per kilogram in a in a plane to power it, it’s going to spend all the power it has keeping the battery up in the air.

Mallory Whitfield

Because it’s so heavy, right?

Daren Wang

Yeah. Right. So, you need more density, more power for the same weight. It’s not about the size, the size, right the size, the volume, is one thing, but the density the weight is the big issue. So a few years ago, in 2020, our friend Elon Musk, my buddy Elon, Elon Musk tweeted out that if we had batteries with an energy density of 400 Watt-hours per kilogram, there’s that that phrase again, he would be able to make an electric plane. And here’s the headline: last month, the chairman of CATL, the largest battery manufacturer in the world, went onstage in the Shanghai Auto Show and said that they the company had perfected a 500 Watt-hour per kilogram battery, and is going to be rolling them out of manufacturing in 2023.

Mallory Whitfield

So this year?

Daren Wang

So this is, you know, if you’re if you know, software, you might know the term vaporware, which means lots of promises. Nothing really delivered. This does not sound like vaporware. This is the largest manufacturer of batteries, they know what they’re talking about. And they may have just changed the way we move things.

Mallory Whitfield

Wow. So this is huge news about batteries. That’s awesome.

Daren Wang

Yeah, and it can make all kinds of differences as far as you know. I mean, we get aviation pollution out of the air this isn’t next year, but there’s a path for it. We can make cars lighter and cheaper, much more efficient. The transformation of this technology if they can really deliver is just over roof. It’s over the moon. It’s fantastic.

Mallory Whitfield

So batteries are really such a big part of the climate, the solutions to climate change. And I know that you talked with someone else recently about a different type of battery that’s a little bit closer to home, right?

Daren Wang

Yes. So the thing with CATL batteries of course you can’t go buy them. They only sell them to the industry, to manufacturers. But Enphase is one of our favorite battery manufacturers and their supplier for ADT Solar and I spoke with Andy Newbold about what they’ve got going up going on at Enphase.

Mallory Whitfield

Awesome. Can’t wait to hear it.

Daren Wang

Our guest this time around is Andy Newbold. Andy is the Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Enphase. So, Enphase makes batteries, EV chargers and all kinds of power appliances. But let’s talk a little history. Enphase got it start in microinverters. What the heck is a micro inverter? And what is it about Enphase tech that has made such a difference?

Andy Newbold

Yeah, no, no, totally fair question. You know, I think so just taking a step back and phase was founded in 2006, by Raghu Belur or Martin Fornage here in the Bay Area. And since then, you know, they’ve been building these wonderful products called microinverters that functionally act as the brains of a solar energy system. You know, you can imagine a solar energy system, the sun comes down and hits solar panels. And sitting on the back of those solar panels are a little microinverter like this–about the size of my head sitting on the back of your solar panel. And it takes that energy created from the sun and converts it from direct current energy into alternating current energy, which is what we use in our houses.

Also, these little devices are full of incredibly rich technology microchips and silicone and semiconductors and just very high-tech technology that is communicating with the system and the grid, and allowing homeowners to get insights into their system. You can see with these little microinverters, how much each panel is producing. They optimize the energy in each system and they also because they’re sitting behind each solar panel, if one of these goes down 99% of your system is still functioning.

You compare that to some of the other competitors in our space, who are also converting DC energy to AC energy is in the home, you know, the other option is a string inverter. So all the solar panels sort of flow into one string and then go into one box inverter, that thing goes down, your whole system’s down, right. Whereas if one of ours goes down, which it rarely does, then you’re still left with 99% of your system. So you know, there’s the redundancy factor, the reliability factor. And also because we’re converting that, that energy right at the point where it’s being generated, you’re using alternating current, which is low voltage electricity, and it makes it a little bit safer to be running that low voltage electricity across your house instead of a big string of direct current energy. So their safety is also an aspect of it. So you know, that’s sort of the idea. At this point, we have almost over 60 million of these microinverters deployed across 150 countries across the globe. And, you know, we’re powering 3 million solar energy systems today. So, you know, we’ve come a long way since 2006.

Daren Wang

So, I mean, is it one microinverter per panel? Is that the way it works?

Andy Newbold

That’s exactly right, Daren, yeah, we typically, we’re pairing them per panel. So you can get that per panel insight. You can optimize those panels and get the maximum amount of power out of each of them. We are working on some products that might be used for a small commercial environment where you can do two panels to one micro inverter or more high powered setup, but right now we’re doing panel, one panel, one microinverter.

Daren Wang

Okay, great. So I mean, you guys are, you’re doing all kinds of stuff. Now. You know, you’ve got batteries. You’ve got chargers, kind of covering the gamut? I mean, what do you think as as a consumer, I’m thinking about upgrading my home’s energy system? I mean, what’s driving that? That process? For me? What am I worried about? What am I what am I getting out of the out of the gig?

Andy Newbold

Yeah, you know, I’ve been in the industry for a decade at this point. And, you know, the reality is, the number one thing is savings, people want a reliable product that will help them save money, that that continues to be the driving force in the industry, because utility rates are continuing to increase. And people want a way to fight back. They want energy independence, they want more control over their energy future. And so that’s the that is what we’re seeing as the number one driver. Now increasingly, you know, I’m based here in California, we’ve been seeing more and more outages, right? You know, power outages are impacting people here in California, but also across the globe, I think about Puerto Rico and, and a variety of other places that have been impacted by climate change and inclement weather. And now we’re starting to see people are more and more interested in pairing their solar energy system with the home battery. Right? And so, you know, we develop our own batteries that pair nicely with an Enphase solar energy system. And so people are looking for that backup power, that extra layer of resiliency and energy security, which, which has been a really interesting shift in the industry.

Daren Wang

That I mean, that reminds me one of the things I mean, one of your like, kind of innovative products, you’ve been doing the Microverse inverters, you know, since since day one, but you just rolled out with the, the IQ eight I think that last year. And I mean, in some ways that’s, that’s, that’s a type of game changer as well. I mean, tell me a little bit about that.

Andy Newbold

Yeah, absolutely. The IQ eight was the first ever inverter that enabled, that was grid agnostic, right? So what a lot of people don’t realize is, if the utility grid goes down, and your power goes out, and you have a solar energy system, you don’t have power. Effectively, your system cuts off because for a variety of reasons, but you know, they don’t want you sending power back onto the electricity grid while people are working on the lines and a variety of other reasons. So the grid goes down, your system goes down, if you just have solar, we came out with IQ8, which is a grid forming micro inverter. And so for the first time ever, you can run on sunlight only when the grid goes on grid shuts down, sun’s out, you can run appliances and power your home for the first time ever, which is really exciting. And of course you know also it enables you to it enables you to get an A smaller battery setup too. So you could start with a really small battery. You know, use the majority of your solar power to power your home. And then you could have just a little small Battery and grow that over time, right? So it sort of has changed the game from a solar and battery perspective in a lot of ways too. So really exciting, innovative technology. With the IQ8, and we’re just getting started with it. We’re in the US, and we’re rolling it out across the globe as we speak.

Daren Wang

So, I mean, I mean, that’s just an example. There’s so much interesting new tech, that’s, that’s been hitting the market over, you know, just every, every day, there’s some great new technology announced and somebody announced doubling the density on batteries just this past week or something like that, we’ll see what that looks like. So when I mean, what do you think is the next? The next big step in kind of home energy systems?

Andy Newbold

Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I’ll just say, we’re really excited about sort of the ongoing innovations in the microinverter space, and also the battery space, you know, just thinking bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, you know, as we evolve that technology, cheaper too, is really important. So you know, we’re moving, we’re constantly moving in that direction. As an industry, it’s fascinating to see. So that’s really exciting, because we want more people to have access to this technology, and we want it to be better, right? So that’s, that’s first, but you know, the big game changers, the really exciting stuff that’s on our radar, you might have thought recently we introduced or we demonstrated a product called a bidirectional EV charger, right? And so a typical EV charger you put on the side of your house or in your garage, and it powers your home. Or excuse me, it powers your car, right? Very simple, straightforward. Everyone knows how an EV charger works, For the most part. A bidirectional EV charger can not only charge your car, but it can also send power from your car battery to your home to power your home, it can also take power from your car battery and send it back to the grid. So these these new applications, the usefulness of it is unbelievably exciting. To think about a typical home battery, as it stands today maybe gives you 12/24 hours worth of backup coverage. And then you know, your solar fills it back up and it can keep going. But a car battery on its own is four, five times bigger than a typical home battery, you can imagine going a week with power from your car battery, if you could, if you could access it. So you know very exciting.

Daren Wang

I mean, do you think that’s it? So if I’m plugging my Tesla, or or my Chevy Bolt into the into into my house and powering it? Is the market still going to continue to grow for dedicated home Battery units you think? Or is it? Is it kind of kind of cannibalized?

Andy Newbold

It’s a great question. And I actually feel very passionately that they’re still going to be a very important market for home batteries for a variety of reasons. You know, one very obvious reason probably is that a car isn’t stationary, it moves, you need to use your car. And so when your car’s gone, you can’t use it to power your home, or at least you’re restricted from leaving your home in that case. And so that’s one thing. Another thing is, you know, we’ve been really working hard on grid services programs, for example. And so, you know, the idea is that when the grid needs energy, because it’s a high demand, you know, 6pm, middle of summer, everyone’s coming home and flipping on their air conditioning that really needs energy. You know, we’re working with utilities to send clean solar energy that is stored in home batteries back to the grid to help support them when that’s needed.

Now they need to, they need access to that power when they need it. And it can’t be they can’t be relying on you know whether or not a car is home. And so I think you know, there’s huge economic value and homeowners having these stationary batteries. And that’s only going to increase. And so I think I think both can work in tandem as a home energy system that’s intelligent and flowing energy into the house, into the car, into the grid whenever homeowners wanted to do that. And we’re helping them think through that we’re helping optimize that and automate it so that they don’t have to do anything except click a button on an app. So all of that plays very, very well together.

Daren Wang

Well, I mean, this has been great, Andy, thanks for coming out. And I mean, it’s, you know, every time I hear hear about some new technology it’s just so exciting. It’s an exciting time to be in the industry.

Andy Newbold

But yeah, thanks for having me, Daren. This is a lot of fun.

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Mallory Whitfield

Next up, we’re talking with ADT solders own Shae Thomas, where you can make a difference, a look at some of the actions you can take today to make things better for all of us. Shae is a senior designer for ADT, solar, but it’s her passion for all things sustainable. That really makes me want to talk with her.

Hi, Shae! So as our resident energy saving expert, can you tell us how you utilize the seasonal changes to save energy at home?

Shae Thomas

Absolutely. I first and foremost, love getting to use the great weather outside to have great weather inside. So one of the things that I like to do more than anything is, you know, when the weather’s nice, go ahead and kick that HVAC system off, turn your AC down, and let the temperature outside the fresh breeze come inside by opening up your windows. Now that can be everything from opening up your curtains and letting some sunshine in to warm in those cooler spring months. Or even you know, making sure to let a breeze in to kind of move some of the warmer air out of the house and get a nice, you know, nice breeze blowing going through.

But the big thing is opening and closing those windows to let air flow come through and opening closing your blinds or your curtains to allow sunlight in when you want it and block it out when you don’t. Now usually in the springtime in the fall, that’s when we have the best weather right? It’s perfect outside, everything looks great, everything feels great. So definitely take advantage during you know your great weather days. But even so, when we get into, you know, some of the more extreme weather right our winter months, our summer months, same thing, utilize what you have with your curtains with your blinds, and lock out some of that heat or keep in some of your warm depending on what time of the year it is.

So you can really take advantage of controlling you know, the climate in your home without having to use your air conditioning system, which pulls a lot on your electricity. So that’s, you know, a huge impact on your bill and and say, Hey, can I block out some of this heat, can I block out the cold from getting into the house by just using simple things like that.

Now another big thing that I definitely like to use as my ceiling fan, I have a couple of different ones in different rooms in the house. But a lot of people don’t realize you want to adjust how you’re using your ceiling fan. So if you actually look and I know at one point, I was like this is not real, there’s no switch on the ceiling fan. If you actually go look at the top of your ceiling fan, there’s usually a tiny little switch that toggles from one side to the other. And that switch helps you to adjust which way your fan is rotating.

So in the springtime, or in the summer months, when it starts warming up, you want to make sure that it’s going counterclockwise. And the reason being that warm air normally rises to the ceiling. And you want to make sure that you pull as much of it up as possible. Now when it’s wintertime and it’s considerably colder, you want to make sure that warm air stays in and around where you’re walking around. So definitely switching it to clockwise then that’ll help to push the fan air that’s circulating down into the room and help the room to feel a lot warmer.

Now these are simple things that probably you know you have, you know, adjustments on your ceiling fan and you’re not using them. They can help you out in all kinds of different situations. So definitely take advantage of them.

Mallory Whitfield

Awesome. Well thank you so much for sharing your energy saving tips. And for everybody at home, you can check out our blog at ADTsolar.com For more energy saving tips. That’s it for good energy this month. If you’d like to learn more about solar and what’s going on in the world of clean energy, check out our blog at ADTsolar.com. For everyone here at good energy. I’m Mallory Whitfield. We’ll see you next time. For now, keep the sunny side up.

Mallory Whitfield

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