The BIG Shift in Solar and Storage Industry You Need to Know

On the latest Clean Power Live, Tim Montague and John Weaver dive into the cutting-edge developments from InterSolar Europe 2025 and discuss critical US clean energy policy challenges. John shares his first-hand experiences from the conference, highlighting how the battery revolution is transforming the renewable energy landscape, with batteries now taking up more exhibition space than traditional solar technology…

Highlights

• Battery Revolution Takes Center Stage: At InterSolar Europe 2025, batteries and battery-adjacent technologies now occupy more exhibition space than traditional solar equipment, signaling a major industry shift (PV Magazine).
  
  
• Next-Generation Battery Technology: CATL showcased an ultra-dense 9MWh battery container, while sodium batteries emerge as a potential lithium alternative despite current cost and lifespan limitations (ESS News).
  
  
• Solar & Tech Innovation Continues: New developments include flexible colored solar panels exceeding 20% efficiency, laser wind measurement systems providing 5-10 minute warning of damaging winds, and automated cleaning robots for arid region installations.
  
  
• Hotel Solar Carport Project: Weaver’s 690 kW commercial project is progressing toward Q3 2025 completion despite excavation challenges (LinkedIn).
  
  
• IRA Under Threat: Proposed legislation could undermine the Inflation Reduction Act, which has spurred $321 billion in domestic clean energy investments, by imposing unworkable supply chain verification requirements (Canary Media).
  
  
• Battery Tariff Developments: Tariffs on Chinese battery imports have been reduced from 145% to 60%, though industry experts estimate effective tariffs remain at 40-65% when all categories are considered (Energy Storage News).

Transcript

Tim Montague: 0:53

Welcome to clean power live. It's Friday May 16, breaking down the latest in solar, solar, storage and and other other clean energy technologies on a bi weekly basis with my co host, John Weiner, welcome back, John. Hey

John Weaver: 1:09

Timothy. I see I went to inter solar in Europe. It was really cool.

Tim Montague: 1:16

And Iceland, right, right. Which Iceland wasn't Iceland cooler?

John Weaver: 1:20

Yes, absolutely, in many ways. And so I'm gonna go back to Iceland now for like a week, do it properly. Now that I got the proper sizing and tasting of the place. It's really close to where I live. I'm in Boston. It's true. Yeah, just go right over the hill sort of, kind of, is the way I was saying it to myself, because, you know, whatever you

Tim Montague: 1:45

could stop off on Greenland on your way if you wanted to. I got to see the south coast of Greenland on our flight back from Iceland last year, I went to Iceland for a week, for a week, and Greenland, Greenland really, really rugged and mountainous and icy ocean. Not the case in Iceland. You know, they're opposite rights, right? Greenland is more icy. Iceland is more green. Green it was a marketing, marketing ploy by Eric the red I read it right, right, crazy, like who got banished Greenland and then had a bunch of Icelanders to come to Greenland.

John Weaver: 2:21

Wow. When I flew back, we did a layover in Iceland. I did on the way over, is when I stopped at in Iceland, but I caught a picture of the largest glacier, the one that's on the east, south ish, and at

Tim Montague: 2:39

the end it says, And so,

John Weaver: 2:46

back to Chicago time. I have no idea. I didn't even I can't even remember it because I didn't try. Went nowhere in went nowhere into my brain. It just started with letter V. They're like, 12 letters, pretty

Tim Montague: 2:58

cool. It's got to be one of the craziest languages I've ever seen, Icelandic. It's an Old Norse language. It's cool. It's cool. I

John Weaver: 3:08

think it's cool. And

Tim Montague: 3:13

the food was really good, really good. I remember that. And expensive.

John Weaver: 3:18

Yes, everything was expensive. The I had the hot dogs, which were great, just because they were, like, you know, Icelandic hot dogs. I hope, hope they were cool and, and fish. I had lots of good fish. I was happy with eating fish. That was my those are my goals. There might be

Tim Montague: 3:39

people eat horses. Horses could survive. Cows don't survive. I saw

John Weaver: 3:52

more sheep. I don't think I remember seeing any cats, lot

Tim Montague: 3:55

of sheep. Sheep, lot of sheep. Yeah, that's

John Weaver: 3:59

what I thought the hot dogs were made out of. But who knows.

Tim Montague: 4:03

You never know what the hot dog so, what about inner solar? How was that? Was that,

John Weaver: 4:11

uh, InterSolar was cool. Um, I guess the super high level thing is I need to get better at batteries. I have a couple of links to articles I wrote on it. We could cover later. We want we could cover it now. Um, it was getting pretty big. There's 18 rooms, and each room is a giant conference hall, you know, 100 feet by 200 feet or something, some giant room, and now there's 18 of them full. The first six are focused on solar. The next row of six, like the first four, were batteries, and then other stuff near batteries. And then, like in the next row, like three or four were battery related. So charging mobility, you know, house control systems, things like that, so like battery adjacent. So one could argue, the conversation has now it's now more space is dedicated to non pure solar, solar racking inverters. There's at this conference a third at the most, was pure solar could have been more there could have been more racking, but, you know, for purpose of being entertaining on the show, that's what I would say.

Tim Montague: 5:23

But so do you think this is just like, like a natural trend that you know solar and batteries is like the core, and then we spread out into electrification, electrication, transportation, Ev, everything. And EV, charging, charging, and then also all this other stuff, style, controlling, drone, environment you're putting your building basically, is that? How far it's going to be too? I guess it already is. I.

John Weaver: 5:51

Yeah, I mean, we're in the midst of the battery revolution, like we're in the midst of that funky spot on the curve where it like, and I've shown this to somebody like the I'm wondering what the document is going to say next year from Bloomberg BNEF, because every year they do the global price of batteries. And like, two years ago, was like 165 then it fell to 144 but then with COVID, it jumped back to 155 and last year went down to like 134 this year it's gonna go like 100 Yeah. So, oh, this is the battery. More battery focused one, yeah, the calcium. That was

Tim Montague: 6:29

funny, yeah. So we'll go to it.

John Weaver: 6:33

Oh, to it. Oh, you can scroll down really fast to it. It's within here. It just shows a guy dress up as a cow. But really what their product is evermore. So they make some components within batteries, and they, one of them needs a nice pure carbon as its output. And I think, what is the process? What is it? Binder so binder material, anode, binder material, I, you know, it was, I hope I did it right. Wasn't cathode versus the anode, but it was binder material that they make. And they were finding that, specifically, cowboy grass put out a product that might be 50% cheaper to get then, and it's just one sub component of many. So it's not like 50% it's going to drop the battery 50% Yeah, they'll drop quarter of a percent. But whatever it is coming from cow poop, hopefully, because I want to write that story in the future. So no, this is a more story that matters. Is right above it, tenor. Tenor. This is, yes, sir. This is a nine megawatt hour battery. It's a two piece battery, actually, if you notice, you can see there's two chunks of container there. They depend upon each other to exist. They are not single existent units. That is one unit. It's a 20 foot container footprint, but it's taller. Well, there's

Tim Montague: 7:57

usually batteries, I mean, yeah, PCs, sorry, power control system is that? Is that case or

John Weaver: 8:07

I think they're vertical, with battery packs being pullable. And then in the center there's lots of control systems. So each one of these things are open. There may be battery packs on each row, but that's part of their their magic. So that that unit is an ultra dense unit from the leading company, C, A, T, L, if I were to go to China, I'd want to go hang out at their factory and just stare and hang out with their R D people and see what kind of cool stuff they're doing. And that's that's and so batteries. This is me too. I like this a lot. This was a creative implementation of a multi car system that has a five item bill of materials. Now you may need like 88 of them, but for installing this,

Tim Montague: 8:53

so it's like modularly charged charging where they're putting the putting close to the parking spot. Deal to deal absolutely,

John Weaver: 9:03

yeah, 1d No. Technically up to, like 53 cars per row, but they definitely won't be getting a full charge. And it had smart charging. He was telling me how, in the cold you can't really charge a battery at a low rate, because once you start trying to charge it, it's key that you warm it. And warming it costs a certain amount. But the rate of charging, if it's too slow, it won't warm it enough, so then it pulls up more. So he said, four KW is this base number. So if you, let's say you have like, 10 cars, you would think, Oh, let's charge them all at 2.2 now it won't even work. You'll actually lose energy. You have to, and they're based, I think in Sweden, you have to, in the Nordic environments program, then to charge at at least 10 per unit, 15 per unit, maybe even all 22 so that the heating cost actually goes down from the process of charging at a high rate. So instead of spending four kW, it only charges at one kW, because you're like, boom. So there's a company

Tim Montague: 10:06

called society. Oh, except society article, look at that. Just call it. That.

John Weaver: 10:15

Thank you. You're

Tim Montague: 10:20

Hired, all right. The link in the show in May magazine, scooters, also scooters in the world. I mean, I mean, so

John Weaver: 10:36

pretty, though, just looking at it was gorgeous, but fine, I guess

Tim Montague: 10:40

I don't know. Man, oh, man, curver, curve. I guess you're sitting. Is it meant? Anymore? Sitting?

John Weaver: 10:50

You could. Get into Hunter, but it looks cool. Yeah, definitely, the rims were neat. The rims were, like, sweet looking. I guess maybe I was just like, oh, I don't have cool scooter in my life. Tim, I got a bicycle. It's old, it's beat up. It's got lots of safety tape on it, so don't get hit by a car.

Tim Montague: 11:11

Well, you need a scooter, Scooter. John, that's all

John Weaver: 11:15

take a date on a scooter. You did another

Tim Montague: 11:18

story? Story, I don't know.

John Weaver: 11:21

Yes, we do this on facts. Those are sodium batteries. Tim, the world is thinking about moving from lithium to sodium, and there are real life sodium batteries existed, installed and running, they're probably twice as expensive and have 1/5 of the life of a current lithium, which is pretty badass these days, but I don't 1/5 is right, maybe half, but they're out there,

Tim Montague: 11:46

and where's some from? Oh,

John Weaver: 11:50

I believe this is an Australian group, okay?

Tim Montague: 12:04

I

John Weaver: 12:06

see the subgroup spin it one more time. Sorry. Everybody watching some do break dance on his hands. In case you're listening, there's a sun grows sign. So we're getting them some, uh, some advertising. Wait, no. Tim, do you work for? Do you work with, uh, Sun growers? No, you work with CPS. I work with

Tim Montague: 13:15

CPS, yes, but yeah, it wasn't, definitely, it wasn't very good branding.

John Weaver: 13:22

Good for me. So Asa, that's cool battery. Those are pretty neat because some of them were over 20% efficiency. So we're looking at a green, a blue and a goldenish, flexible solar panel. And they're, you know, colored panels. Now, esthetics, you could, you know, if those things were right price, you could just hang them like a giant flag or something. I don't know you could. You could do something cool with that. They're above 20% they don't have to be perfect anymore.

Tim Montague: 13:56

Your Honor energy, Your Honor energy, is the name of this.

Unknown: 14:01

Yeah,

Tim Montague: 14:03

green. Huh,

John Weaver: 14:05

yeah, oh, no. I don't know if I asked. I think I just went straight for the efficiency and I didn't care. Yeah, maybe click on it, see if there, see if we can zoom in on that module, see if it says like, perk or something. But we could poke around and find out if we wanted, yeah, it was neat that I my biggest happiness was seeing a colored product, well of colored, flexible product, well over 20% I thought that was the kicker of that. It's like, wow, this has some esthetic potential, and it's well over 20% so yeah,

Tim Montague: 14:47

you can see clouding and building in that, in that, in that stuff, right?

John Weaver: 14:51

Yes, yes. And didn't you have a friend who's an architectural guy, architectural solar person, not friend, but a company you're working with?

Tim Montague: 15:01

Yeah, back in the day, years ago, years ago. All right, that was

John Weaver: 15:06

Oh goodness,

Tim Montague: 15:08

but they're out there. They're out there the project.

John Weaver: 15:12

But, you know, I'm thinking of a different person that's I consulted with. So they're out there. What about the wind cube, sheets, lasers? So out of

Tim Montague: 15:24

that little No,

John Weaver: 15:26

no, this to pick up pieces of dust that represents wind movement.

Tim Montague: 15:33

So it's measuring, measuring, wearing the wind. Yes,

John Weaver: 15:36

it's essentially, it's measuring the wind by shooting lasers to pick up dust. And its purpose is pretty cool. It's, it's a local hard data tool. So it's a six figure system that gets implemented on the leading edge of a smaller plant or spread amongst a larger plant. Yeah, yeah. That figures out what wind is about 10 to 15. Do I say five to 10 or 10 to 15? There's a specific number. He gave a five to 10 Minute advanced warning, yeah, yeah, against potentially damaging winds. So that's its purpose. That's its purpose of existence in relation

Tim Montague: 16:19

to solar source,

John Weaver: 16:22

yeah. So you have your wind radar stuff, which will give you a broader picture when hail or heavy wind are coming, and then when you want to, like, know if that wind is exactly hitting your site in the next five to 10 minutes. Put this fellow, what they said is put it out. Prevailing wind corner or in that area? Yeah,

Tim Montague: 16:48

I don't, I don't understand why, why this is just like because all these, all these farms, also

John Weaver: 16:59

correct. But this one, I think the fact that they have the laser lets it pick up the dust particles further, versus an on site spinner. But I didn't really ask aggressively on that one. I just said, Okay, so this ties into the standard SCADA, because he had one right there. And so they do both, but, um, but this one, you know, that's what he pissed now, its purpose is to give you a five to 10 Minute lead time on the oncoming went and so I think that's the key, yeah, pretty cool piece of gear.

Tim Montague: 17:37

All right, clean up. Clean out. I guys anyway, tell us about it.

John Weaver: 17:55

This is an arid region, automated overnight, yeah, yeah, cleaning system, that

Tim Montague: 18:02

thing we're looking at. Robot, yes, it looks, it looks unwieldy, wieldy, but, but

John Weaver: 18:12

I don't know, big, clunky robot. That's maybe the easiest type of robot.

Tim Montague: 18:19

Yeah, it's gonna drive around the rows of panels and clean, clean them, yeah, with a dry brush or a wet brush.

John Weaver: 18:27

This is a dry brush, yeah? So this is for aired regions. Apparently you can't use a dry brush in other regions, because the humidity starts to have an effect pretty quickly. They also you can do it with a wet brush through this system, because I asked that question, yeah. However, they said you got to have a vehicle following it, because this it's not strong enough to pull water at this power level. So in the daytime, if you have it cleaning that it's solar powered, and it works. And they said you might want to have the batteries full, but it can knock out a couple megawatts in the daytime. And, you know, 345, 10, without using it, with being pure solar, he gave me some numbers. I put the numbers in the thing so three megawatt, three megawatt brush can do up to five megs, three meter brush can do up to five megs, and the larger one can do up to 10 nights, and

Tim Montague: 19:24

where's country, country?

John Weaver: 19:27

Oh, one of those countries in that union of Europeans,

Tim Montague: 19:33

the Baltic. Baltic. No, I don't know.

John Weaver: 19:37

Yeah, click on the internet and find out. No

Tim Montague: 19:39

worries. No worries. Anything else. We should probably if there's anything else beer, beer is always a good beer.

John Weaver: 19:46

There's always good beer to be had.

Tim Montague: 19:48

How was that? Was the beer? The

John Weaver: 19:49

beer was wonderful. I have an appreciation for like, 5% Pilsner, I guess is what it is. Just got great taste. Ever whiner? I don't know there's a whiner beer. Somebody, the guys who I was with from PB magazine knew exactly what to order,

Tim Montague: 20:08

so I had some good beer. Is this the same one

John Weaver: 20:15

for Yes, sir. It looks like it's evolving to new cell types into half cells,

Tim Montague: 20:21

solely there's no regional, region, right, right?

John Weaver: 20:25

Well, I think so. I think the distributor, and I think salon might be the product, but I'm confused by that actually, because I actually switched it here. If you zoom scroll down, out everyone, there's a magazine there where it shows and you can zoom in on the magazine, and it has the name of the product sold on everything so, so good product. I liked it. There was big. There's a lot of things there. My biggest emotion is that I should learn a lot about batteries. Learn how to build some batteries, learn how to research some batteries. Because that's, yeah, yeah, that's the next solar. So to say, for sure, sure, solar plus storage is the next solar and the next storage. You know, solar plus storage. So we got to get good at all those. And

Tim Montague: 21:07

I think, I think solar installers are going to be installing more batteries than solar in the next five years, five years. And it's one of these, one of these point things where you don't see it coming. I'm just it, just and then it, and then it's all battle batteries.

John Weaver: 21:23

I like your hopefulness that we're going to be installing in five years. Yeah.

Tim Montague: 21:30

Well, what are we doing? Doing?

John Weaver: 21:33

We're fighting the war.

Tim Montague: 21:35

Drinking. Beer. Beer. Freedom man. Oh, freedom, war. Yeah. Hopefully

John Weaver: 21:42

not. Yeah, keep working. Tim, keep working. How's the pickleball business? Tim, your fans want to know. Tim, how's the pickleball business?

Tim Montague: 21:51

It's coming slowly, slowly, very slowly. I am still a developer, but, man, I'm taking my lumps, lumps. It's a risky business. Understand, I've got skin in the game and risk on the table, but I'm still hoping that the project, project is going to see the light delay.

John Weaver: 22:14

All right, wouldn't be investing if it wasn't some risk there. So yep,

Tim Montague: 22:19

yep. Should we talk about what's going on in Washington or the hotel project, or DC?

John Weaver: 22:28

Yeah, let's go. Well, let's see the hotel projects, just so we have something like positive and nice to talk about, yeah, then we can talk about DC. And, you know, let's deal with our

Tim Montague: 22:39

so, our project, and this is a looks like, yes,

John Weaver: 22:47

sir, yes, sir. Can you? Can you see our beautiful pictures? I just we saw the pictures today this, I think this was the construction manager visiting two days ago, checking in on stuff. And it just looks so nice and bright of a location. And it was like, Oh, look at that. And it's a parking lot. It's been a parking lot for many years. When we dug it up, there was something underneath it. We found, like building pipes. So maybe it was a building before. No idea. Now, it's like a Hunt Club. And look at that sunlight, and look at that carport, and you know, we're gonna start. You can see in the back, if you see all the way in the back, in the center, it looks like just thicker Gray, but that's actually us starting to do the purlins, the structural cross beams at the beginning, because we're done with putting the big steel in the ground, in the ground. And so now it's time to lay the top layers. And it just looks nice. I just look with a beautiful image.

Tim Montague: 23:45

Who's these? Manufacturer?

John Weaver: 23:48

This is solar mounts based out of Michigan, big, chunky, flexible system. Key detail we learned is that you have to drill holes. They give you flexibility and that your modules can move, but that means they're not machine punching the holes for modules in the factory. You gotta have the hours budgeted for that process. And you know, but you learn, you learn, you get the tool, you get your technique, start hammering. Yeah, yeah. And just, it's just nice looking. I was just happy with the color of the sky, the look of the steel, the progress. This was actually so our prior project, we took, we filled up 110% of our excavation budget, plus some because we had flooding, which was fair for us to deal with. But then the other half was that the the ground surveys didn't catch the ledge. At the rate that we hit ledge, we expected to have some so we had the machine on. But what do you mean? Oh, rock rock, certain rock rock that has to be broken with a big machine.

Tim Montague: 25:00

Rock, rock, the ground, yeah. But

John Weaver: 25:03

ledge, I believe, is a certain type, yeah. So you know that

Tim Montague: 25:08

was painful, painful. You had to drill it,

John Weaver: 25:21

big machine making sure we broke it once we had to fix it, but, but that, yeah, so it's a nice chunk of chunk of stuff. So if everything else

Tim Montague: 25:32

goes, everything else goes well, when will this project, project see electricity grid,

John Weaver: 25:41

September and lucky world. October, you know, because we have to do some medium voltage work. The utility has already done their interconnection. We gotta do some transformers. Gonna do a pad. It's gonna take a while to put 690 kW of modules up when we're drilling holes for all of them, because it's just, you know, X amount of hours to put that up. So, yeah, so I think we should be done. You know, could be touching the grid in and what I mean by that, you know, switches can be thrown for it to test the systems, maybe June, July, and then it'll be a couple months of paperwork. So, so q3 q3 is the, probably the probably the hard goal. And there is a hard goal, and I, I'm envisioning it end of September for mechanical completion, but I think it's earlier than that for reality. But we'll see. We'll see. You know, there's always something. There's always a component that's late, component that's early. I. Just gotta push through projects.

Tim Montague: 26:46

Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, DC, I mean, there's going on the IRA is under attack. There was a deal mail in China, but in DC, on this, there is a bill that is going to potentially, and the good news is reported today, right? That this, this has been shot downtown, rarely, yeah, so this story, media, media is the title, energy, energy and, and, you know, the the thing thing in this story that really, that really stands out as that the the IRA encouraged 300 $321 billion in domestic, domestic clean energy projects, and now that is at risk, right, right? And there was another, another 522 million private, private by the private sector. Now the GOP, GOP bill this, this could disrupt this economic, economic development, and this includes factories, factories, right? Solar Panel, panel, batteries, batteries, EV charging, infrastructure, structure, all kinds of factories. And then also projects, I think it's right, that are used.

John Weaver: 28:30

Yeah. So first off, though, this article, it's, there's, there's two things we should talk about. One is this within the IRA so the reconciliation bill version was put out by the house. One version of it. And I don't know if it's gone to the floor, but it's it's coming out of different departments, and I think this bill was one vote against one piece of it. I'm not certain where we talked about the vote against it today, but when we talk about this poison pill, let's talk about that first. So the poison pill says that no project can receive federal funding, essentially that has hardware that comes through these groups, these countries, and one of them is China, one of them is Russia. And here's the nuance where it gets to be unusual. Slash poison. It's that the way the language is put it in it allows the government to force you to verify, to force you to verify all components and all of their supply chain has, yeah, yeah, and that right there is The key unworkableness, because right now POA, the Uyghur protection documentation that is pushing against China. It's easier to manage there, because you're just talking silicon and then wafers and then cells. But if you think about an inverter and all the places that has to come from, and what stack of paperwork you would need to get through customs, and and then Customs has to approve it. So it's not like, by default approved. They have to be like approved. And so it, it's going to cause challenges. And and we're gonna see, we're gonna see if that exists. So that's the first time is dealing with that, this foreign thing. And then, I don't know if you noticed, but at the same time, Reuters just came out with a story saying they found shutdown devices and Chinese inverters. Yeah,

Tim Montague: 30:43

companies, companies, of course not. They

John Weaver: 30:49

didn't name the people who said it either. Tim I think it's a lie. Just saying. I think think the game is on. Timothy, yeah, there's an attack, attack from the side, and they have to push the politics. I fully believe that we are literally in the midst of a concerted effort to undercut this. It's that's too fun of timing. I mean, maybe, maybe Reuters decided to hold it, but we'll see. So, so, so there's little dance going on now. There's, here's the second piece about this legislation that was released, and I'm surprised he didn't mention that this legislation changes the IRA. This legislation makes the IRA. Are you talking about

Tim Montague: 31:34

country media story, or the blue sky? Sky story? Talking

John Weaver: 31:38

about the canary media story? Okay, okay, the same legislation that. Has this freedom. This is just one sub component of the broader bill being changed that I'm the IRA is being changed. This document changes. It did you know that they're getting rid of the residential solar tax credit? That's right,

Tim Montague: 31:57

right? That's the big news. I mean, it's both commercial, commercial, so the residential would go away 2025 and then, I think, then commercial, commercial credit, it starts

John Weaver: 32:11

phasing out in 2928 the last full year, okay, then it starts going phase out 29 by 20% another 20% uh, year after year. Yeah, I don't think it ever gets to 20% of the tax credit. I think it goes straight from 40. So you got like 29 at 8030,

Tim Montague: 32:33

at and let's, let's remember, we've been here, been here, right where the itI has been phase faced, you know, phasing out, and, and so it can come back, but, but can be used, but it's,

John Weaver: 32:53

yeah, and what we're talking about investments, you know, these are five, you know, the factory phase out, paying for hardware started to phase out in 2930 it wasn't an indefinite, paying forever and ever for you to manufacture in the US. It was through the end of the decade. So this might have protected some of the factory interests decently. I don't know. Yeah, it's still dancing, though it's not done. It could get packed more for solar, we could get hurt more, yeah, but,

Tim Montague: 33:25

but anyway, there's good news out today, right, that the sweeping bill just failed in the Budget Committee 16 to 21 so, so you know this, this hurts road state states to phase out road state states, yeah, and, and, you know, you gotta have an economy, right, right, as much as you might love what, what the Trump administration is doing, doing you gotta have, gotta have, you gotta have jobs, jobs and economic growth, growth and the ITC going away is gonna as as many, many mentioned, right? Yeah, just, just crazy, crazy. All right, all right. So we talked about, about the tariff, tariff war,

John Weaver: 34:18

yeah, I think that's the one I was paying attention to right now, is the battery tariffs. Because I'm I'm trying my best to pay attention to him. I want to be in the I like the idea of being in the battery space. So Tara forward is, I guess. I

Tim Montague: 34:35

mean, it's great news we've had, had for a couple of weeks now, 100 and 145% or 135 5% from China, China, and now they're now 60% which is good, good. I mean, it's way better, way better than what it was was. And, I mean, I've been talking chin tint. You know, they make batteries in China, China and and most of those are made in Thailand, Thailand, I think, um, now we also, we also have tariffs, tariffs on Thailand, Thailand, but, but less than, less than China, China, and then. So anyway, yeah, five, 5%

John Weaver: 35:29

but for batteries, it's higher, yeah, yeah. Because for batteries, they have other tariffs already in place. I think it's a section, section 301, section, something else to something. So those two items give me, you know, get us somewhere per the article I shared in the room. If you want me to share it, I can because, because I like, I like that website. So this,

Tim Montague: 35:58

this story. Back to us. And then, then there's another, another story, um, global average prices. Well,

John Weaver: 36:18

that's the one I was I wanted to bookend that with. And so the energy storage, one of the second item though, that they said is that they see tariffs around 40% right now on batteries. Christian Rosalind, who's a good friend of mine, but he's also an industry expert for tariff related stuff, but works in DC a lot, he sees the tariff percentage around 65% so that's why I was wanting to show. Share this cost and imagining what the real effect is if we start getting cheaper battery prices available, and what the real tariff would be, and what the effective price would be, because if we start to say, let's just say, let's just say, our Tariff with batteries end up being 65% because of all the sex, because there's other tariffs on batteries, just like there are in solar panels, because of the domestic importance of it. But let's just say it's 65% and then we look at that list. Do you mind sharing the Goldman Sachs? Oh, there it is. Perfect timing. And we see that in 25 you know, let's say, for instance, 23 we see 140 to 180 let's or 160 to 170 or actually, that's probably closer to 150 sorry, 2223 now to get back

Tim Montague: 37:30

to 150 ish, these are dollar

John Weaver: 37:34

dollars per kilowatt hour, yes. And if you look here, it's the whole system. So other components. This is shipping container delivered to port. Type of thing, is my guess. And so to get back to 150 you probably need to be at 80 if your tariff is 65 so eight times six is four, eight That's five. So eight plus 55 is 135 so if the world is at 80, which is somewhere in 26 maybe then interesting. Now we know that BYD just did a massive bid that was actually in the 66 range, no 60 range, but that was for a massive that was a gigawatt hour purchase that wasn't one shipping container. So 80 is a realistic number in China, on the ground right now, delivered to my warehouse. Probably I could get to 85 100 I don't know. I've never purchased one of these. You know, I want one of those. See it Kato ones. Those things don't exist. So, yeah, I know taxes. Thanks, Randy. We appreciate it. So if we think about that price, that price per kilowatt hour of where we are right now, you know, I know there are people in the US signing deals for under that 80 number today, and they have 80 globally. That's a global number. That's great. Global average. We know China's below 80. So if there's a entrepreneurial person who's knocking doors downtown Shanghai, working hard, they're getting containers at 7075, 80. And if all that's working, there are COVID Arrow pricing, which is strong but survivable, I guess. And that's if we hold it 65 oh, so that is my reason you're

Tim Montague: 39:38

talking about 6065 on the TerraForm kWh. 65%

John Weaver: 39:47

as the tariff. Yeah, yeah. If we hold it 65% for importing batteries into the US, then an 80 kW gets you, you know, gets you the COVID error number, yeah. I mean,

Tim Montague: 40:01

domestic battery manufacturing. Tesla's biggest one. Good luck getting products. That's the challenge. There is supply chain there and then, and then you have building a battery factory. But if this legislation goes through, they are not going to energize that factory. Factory, it ain't happening.

John Weaver: 40:26

So you should ask them their reaction to this. I bet you they might be interested in speaking in their voice out there, because they're probably looking at the manufacturer's credits very explicitly. And I think I mentioned this earlier, the manufacturing credits may have been phased out as well from the other side, but to a lesser degree, however, there's something. There's another killer in here. Transferability is now getting to be harder and maybe even phasing out sooner. And the factory people really wanted the transferability. That was a massive driver. 90 cent on the dollar, transferability was golden for those folks. So well, they should be called. They should be on the show to give them right

Tim Montague: 41:09

want to call them right now, well, so I don't have contact more

John Weaver: 41:16

anymore, all right. Well,

Tim Montague: 41:19

it's originally a Norwegian region, Norwegian region company, but they've just announced that their, their their new US headquarters is going to be in Texas, Austin, Texas, and yeah, they bought a solar panel factory, solar plant. It's another battery, battery company, company, yes,

John Weaver: 41:46

and I think they laid off. They had a Georgia battery facility they were thinking about constructing in Georgia. Is

Tim Montague: 41:52

Georgia happening? I I think

John Weaver: 41:56

there's a chance they slowed down a bit on

Tim Montague: 42:00

that. Yeah, but

John Weaver: 42:02

I don't know. I don't know much. Yeah, yes, I think I've seen them

Tim Montague: 42:14

songs on right, and I need to get two years ago I hunkered down. Into solar last year, I need to pop my head up. I had some more stores. So if you're if you're a storage developer, OEM asset owner, please reach out. Reach out to me. You can find all this content. You can find me. Tim Montague, John Weaver, can help find you. Find you.

John Weaver: 42:46

Commercial solar guy.com commercial solar guy.com, we should get a cool jingle. Tim, clean power, power.

Tim Montague: 42:55

We share. This friend of mine is threatening to ride your jingle for me, there you go. He's been threatening. I

John Weaver: 43:04

gotta give them some beer, beer and 50 bucks getting roughers,

Tim Montague: 43:11

you know, all right. And in the meantime, let's grow solar and storage. Storage. Take care. Take care. You.