Navigating EU vs. US Solar Regulation ft. Benoy Thanjan | Soliverse Ep. 36

What does it really take to build, finance, and scale solar projects when policy keeps shifting, capital is more cautious, and grid constraints are getting harder to ignore? In this episode of Soliverse | The Future of Solar, host Peter Pongracz sits down with Benoy Thanjan, Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and host of the Solar Maverick Podcast, for a grounded conversation on where the solar market is actually headed across the U.S. and beyond.

They unpack the real-world state of solar in 2025 and beyond, from agrivoltaics and floating solar to community solar, storage, project risk, data center demand, recycling, repowering, and the long-term challenge of competing with China. Benoy also shares what developers, investors, and industry leaders need to understand now about energy independence, market messaging, and why creativity remains one of solar’s biggest competitive advantages.

If you work in solar, storage, development, project finance, or clean energy investing, this episode gives you a practical look at the forces shaping the next phase of the energy transition.

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Transcript

Coming up...

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Unless it's like a later stage opportunity, it's extremely challenging to get development capital. There's so many variables involved, and a lot of the variables really the investor or developer can't control.

Peter Pongracz 0:11

That is Benoit Tanjan, founder and CEO of Free New Energy, clean energy investor and host of the world's most listen to Solar Podcast, the Solar Mavericks podcast. He believes the biggest risk in solar right now is not technology or demand, but uncertainty of freezing capital before projects even get a chance to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Investors are recalibrating. Unless it's like a later stage opportunity, it's extremely challenging. We're seeing investors who are willing to invest in projects and get a lower return, but obviously they have to be great projects for them to continue.

Peter Pongracz 0:47

He breaks down how investor behavior is shifting globally, why early stage solar is struggling to attract capital and what developers are getting wrong when they assume demand alone will carry the project forward.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Solar is the cheapest form of energy, the fastest to come online. We've made this whole thing so complicated, more complicated than it should be.

Meet Benoy Thanjan

Peter Pongracz 1:07

Today Ben Oi explains how developers, investors, and operators can navigate policy risks, capital shifts, and grid constraints without losing momentum. By the end of this conversation, you will understand why capital is pulling back before projects even stall, how investors are underwriting risk in today's market and how the industry can simplify instead of over-engineer itself. I'm Peter Pongrats and this is Solyverse. I really see and feel a huge shakeup of where companies are developing projects and trying to build either solar or hybrid projects. I spoke to a developer the other day from southern Europe and they used to do only Europe. Now they are almost 80% focused on the Middle East. So they are developing some huge sites in Qatar, for example, which is crazy. And I was like, How big how big? Oh, around 600 megawatts, you know, it's one site. The magnitude is absolutely out of this world in the Middle East and the speed as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, it's pretty amazing to see how like the project size has gotten so much bigger. I remember when people would talk about one or five megawatts being a large project, and now 20, 40, 50, 100 megawatts or nothing, especially when you talk about places where you could put a lot of solar on land. So obviously, like the Middle East, you could put a lot of solar. And we see that as well in certain parts of the U.S., we're seeing large utility scale projects, obviously, in Texas. And I've driven by so many big projects in Nevada and where land is relatively cheap, you have high solar radiance. It makes you know total sense to take advantage of the sun.

Peter Pongracz 2:53

Here in Europe, it's getting increasingly difficult to find one piece of large land that you can develop, actually, because otherwise you have some restrictions. For example, in Italy, you can only do agri-PV anymore on fertile land. So it's getting a little bit more regulated, but you can always find some things. And I was just chatting with the guys from Solar Power Europe this morning, and the data shows that, for example, BES has almost doubled since year-on-year from 2024 to 2025 in Europe. So that's the fastest growing segment. Having said that, the sad part is that we actually decreased for the first time in the last 10 years in terms of solar installations. So we went from 68 gigawatts in 24 to 65 being installed in 25. So that's the first drop in the last decade.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, that is very surprising to hear that there has been a drop, but that makes sense. Obviously, when you restrict the type of land that you could put sites on, that will obviously impact how much solar comes online. And by the way, the same thing is happening in the US. You're right, like certain parts of the U.S., there's a lot of land where you could potentially put solar. But for example, like in the Northeast, I'm in New Jersey, right across the water from New York City, they actually don't allow utility scale solar since 2012. And it's only related to agrovotaics, which is basically doing solar on farmland. They just recently released a pilot, meaning it's 10 megawatts, and then I think it's only 50 megawatts of projects that they're approving because a lot of people were upset that on productive land people were putting solar. So it's interesting because obviously you're seeing that with the agro voltaics, but then landfills and then flotovoltaics as well. So we're seeing other uses of solar, not on fertile or large land sites that you could be using for other purposes.

Peter Pongracz 4:46

Yeah, I mean the floating PV, from my experience, is quite big in Asia. It's getting bigger and bigger, you know, and then they have different formulations where you can put it on a lake or you can actually place it kind of on the sea as well. But then it gets a little bit more difficult with the waves, etc. There are quite a few companies, and I was doing some market segmentation last year on this, but the total addressable market was tiny compared to utility scale or CNI.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Oh, of course. It's still like very infancy and it's a lot more complicated. And yeah, I think people don't really understand, but I think as time goes on, you know, there'll be creative developers who focus on it to find the right opportunities. Same thing in agro votacs as well. We find that farmers who want to look at agro votacs, they want someone who has like a farming background. And then also too, like, are you gonna do grazing versus certain types of crops? And then that impacts how the installation is done, as well as how much steel you have to put in, like if you're gonna put it at a higher sort of to allow the crops or the sheet to go under you have it, the solar panels higher up above the ground. So it's interesting to see all this sort of specialization. There's conferences and people who specialize just on agroboteics, just on photovoltaics, and obviously just on utility scale, but there's that's obviously a lot larger addressable market.

Peter Pongracz 6:15

Oh, for sure. And I mean, there are some cool companies out there, like a solar geek out of Israel, you know, they specialize in this. And then I actually had Mo on the show as well, and uh he was explaining that it can actually be more beneficial for the crops as well, because you can do anti-tracking. So if there's too much sun in the middle of the summer, then you can actually shade the crops so you don't burn them out if it's too dry, etc. So, you know, there are a couple of cool interesting use cases as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah, and other countries seem to be a lot more advanced. I actually saw a solar gig at the first agro botanics conference that's in Chicago. Now they're gonna have their fourth one. I spoke at the conference. So it was interesting to hear um about that and how irradiance and shading could help the crop, and then you're getting the production from the system as well. So you're diversifying your cash flows for the farmer, and normally they're getting a lease payment. Usually that's how it's structured to use the land, and then the solar developer/slash owner obviously owns the project. So that's interesting.

Peter Pongracz 7:19

In Europe, we have some restrictions for that as well, because initially it was too good of a deal for the farmer, so it would have been worth, you know, just having the solar without farming underneath it. But now you have certain restrictions of like, okay, it has to be XY% of the entire land properly and actively used for agriculture, and then the rest can take up the solar part. But it's an interesting use case for sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, that is interesting because the US it's not as advanced, you know, it's still pretty early on. I think like Massachusetts was like the first one to have like a pilot program for agro votex. And then we're seeing in certain states they're using different use cases and they're having different solar companies come and look at it. So it's interesting to get different perspectives, and it's great to speak to you, Peter, because you're really in tune with what's happening in the European market. I know on the podcast, you're interviewing a lot of different people from a lot of different places as well.

What 2025 really feels like for solar developers and investors

Peter Pongracz 9:05

Yeah, indeed. Maybe that's a good segue into a quick recap on 2025. I just have the numbers in front of me here. I like the US installed somewhere around 45, 47 gigawatts of new capacity. How did the year feel on the ground? Was it just as shaky as in Europe? Or what is the kind of real-world feedback from the market?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, definitely. As a developer of projects, and we also do consulting services for developers, investors. It was a really busy year because the big beautiful bill was passed in the beginning of July. So it felt like a race. Everyone was like is trying to build, and even now too, because you still could apply for the 30% IDC with continuous construction role. So it's been a really busy year since that bill was passed, and then even into this year, it's just been a very busy time because everyone wants to get the full 30% investment tax credit. And then I know we were talking in the pre-interview, like you know, 2026 is a like I think you'll still see like a lot of projects come online because of the hangover from the big beautiful bill from 2025. But then going forward, it might be a little more challenging in the sense of we're still trying to get guidance on the foreign entity of concern language. So basically, I don't know you know how familiar your audience is, but President Trump signed an executive order, I think it was July 7th, which basically said in 2026 you can't have certain components from China, which is really the foreign entity of concern and ownership, majority ownership. We were supposed to receive that that guidance within 30 to 45 days after that was executive order was signed, but we haven't received guidance yet. I know a lot of law firms and accounting firms have been talking to the federal government and coming up with guidelines, but you really don't know what that's gonna be. There's a lot of developers who are being extremely aggressive because they feel like they understand what the guidance is gonna be by talking to their legal experts. We've seen in the past that you could get burned by it as well, you know. So it's interesting, you know, what's happening in the US market with like the challenges.

Peter Pongracz 11:31

Yeah, I mean, I and I think you know the risk really shifted into the early stage of the projects, right? The further down you are, maybe if you are RTB or you already have a PPA, then it's a little bit more solid case. But uh, you know, I know I just saw the data from one of my clients, and then they basically we clearly see the shift from both in the US and Europe, so there's no difference of investors shifting appetite to more solid, more bigger track record type of assets where you actually see the track record, they are fine with the lower yield and the lower ROI as well, but it feels like you know, run for safety and it can be observed across the globe as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

That's true. That's a great point, Peter. I think like what we're seeing, as you mentioned, is like investors are recalibrating. Like they're basically, unless it's like a later stage opportunity, it's extremely challenging. Like, for example, to get development capital for early stage projects. I mean, we're seeing large companies being able to raise capital, but the smaller developer is not able to do that at this time. And it's interesting because I think I was actually talking to someone that I had on my podcast, and really like the investor and the developers want to know like, how long is this gonna take and what's our return gonna be for the project, or the you know, but now it's really hard to determine that just because there's so many variables involved, and a lot of the variables really the investor or developer can't control. So we are seeing a lot of developers who are holding off on new investment opportunities. As you mentioned before, we're seeing investors who are willing to invest in projects and get a lower return, but obviously they have to be great projects for them to continue. And yeah, it's an interesting time. I think you're seeing that all over the world, not just the US.

Is storage ready, or are we still early?

Peter Pongracz 13:28

Yeah, I mean, more or less isn't they across the globe, but from the data I've seen, the time of pure solar projects is almost done. If you do a utility scale, pure solar, it's not really an attractive opportunity. Everybody is looking at hybrids, or maybe hybrids also with wind and best combined. The standalone is really dead. I think, at least from the European perspective, the reasons are quite clear, but we are really looking for more flexibility both from the grid and also production because we have every year more and more negative pricing hours. And then on the other hand, you need to kind of stabilize the grid a little bit so you can't just do pure solar.

Why solar’s most valuable trait might be creativity

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, I mean, we're seeing the same thing in the US, specifically like solar plus storage or storage standalone. Obviously, everyone in the solar industry talks about the negatives, which is the quick step down of the investment tax credit, especially when you talk about the residential solar market. But it does have a standalone like energy storage benefit, and it's actually extended. I forget to what year it is, but now every solar developer installer is now saying we're solar plus storage. So it's interesting because storage is a lot more complicated than solar, and then investors they don't like to take merchant risk, they want like fixed cash flow streams. So we're seeing in CERN markets it to be more popular, like for example, in Massachusetts with the SMART program, they have like a feed-in tariff. We're seeing in New York as well, within the Veter, the value of distributed energy resources, they have like a kind of like it's variable, but it has a fixed component as well. And then basically, like solicitations that utilities do, like in California and Hawaii for storage, everyone's really looking at storage. I still think it's really early, even though I've been talking about storage for like 10 years, and obviously the price declines we're seeing are the same with solar, and it's a game changer, right? You have an intermittent power source that then you could basically draw from at any time with storage. California has had the issue with the duck curve for a very long time, what you were talking about, like the negative pricing and that too much solar coming at peak times, and now the peak time has changed. And we're seeing that in other states that have a lot of solar, and then obviously storage is a great way to fix that issue. And we're also seeing how different technologies integrated, but I think it's still very early when it comes to storage. And I guess the challenge too is that starting in 2026, most of the supply chain can't be coming from China, which right now the US really doesn't have, even for solar panels, but storage, especially. We don't have the supply chain here. So it's interesting because I was listening to your podcast with Tim Montague, and he mentions this point, is like the federal government wants onshoring and manufacturing of certain critical industries, but it takes time to do that. You can't instantaneously put these restrictions and then really the industry is trying to figure out how to innovate, I guess, if that makes sense. But it takes time to transition even like the whole part of the supply chain for panels, like even the wafers or the cells, like manufacturing in that in that in the US is pretty rare, you know, other than just assembling.

Peter Pongracz 16:51

Yeah, and to add to that, the raw material prices as well, you know, silver spiked a little bit, which is one of the huge components. So I mean, I think it's definitely going to be a turbulent year again, but we just need to find ways to navigate it.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, definitely. And what's great about the industry is like it is so creative. Obviously, there are a lot of companies that are going out of business, but there's people being creative and finding ways of staying in business. And the creativity by the industry or the solar coaster is amazing to see. There's so many smart people in the industry, and they'll come up with creative solutions to get through that time.

Peter Pongracz 17:31

That's something I really love about solar, is that you still have this underdog type of mentality that you need to be quite creative, you need to be 50, and then you you will find solutions for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Oh, for sure. Like solar has some of the most creative people that I've ever met. And it's interesting because then I've seen solar people go to other industries, and then they've been extremely successful, and they credit it to the creativity of being in the solar industry. When you're in an industry that's obviously now emerging, I mean it's more than emerging, but it's very dictated on policy and policy whims that change pretty frequently and the complexity related to the project. Think about it. Really, solar solar panels in burning and racking. In the United States, we've made this whole thing so complicated, more complicated than should be. Like just getting, you know, projects permitted, the interconnection, the financing of these projects with this investment tax credit, the depreciation, how you structure these things, where you get the supply chain, multiple tariffs on Chinese and Southeast Asian panels. It's interesting because this is the fuel source that's the cheapest and fastest to come online for an energy resource. But from the state level, the utility level, federal level, it's been made so cut more complicated than it really has to be.

Peter Pongracz 18:55

Yeah, but it's the case everywhere else. You know, the system that's very fragmented and the different stakeholders have different goals and needs. And then the problem arises that I want to only install as much solar or best as I want, and I don't care about the grid. And now, you know, with the regulation, you kind of need to fit a square through a round hole, you know, that you kind of need to somehow guide these projects so it doesn't cause any trouble with the grid and the flexibility side of things, and you don't have too much uh curtailment either. But on that note, if you weren't in solar, which industry would you be working in?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

It's interesting because my background's in finance. So I think there's a lot of opportunity on the investment side. And obviously it's extremely challenging right now, but I think there's a lot of opportunities to understand transferability of the tax credit. So essentially, like transferability allows the simplification of you need like a tax liability to take advantage of the investment tax credit, and transferability makes it so much easier than it was previously, where you have to do a lot of complex structuring. I think consulting services as well, if you have like a certain sort of experience, what we're seeing too is like if you're good at obviously customer acquisitions or sales, development as a service, you know, people are finding, trying to find ways to be more efficient. You know, what the step down or the big beautiful bill is doing is other than you know, obviously people focusing on storage, is like how can we be more efficient to get the economics related to the projects to make them work. So I'm seeing a lot of creativity. And I think also too, like people are hiring less and they're using obviously AI, but then they're also using consultants as well. So if you have a deep knowledge base and something like, for example, interconnection or permitting, I think just think like and it's too everything's like state specific, even utility specific within the state. So if you have that sort of knowledge, that's extremely unique, and you can make projects because I focus on projects because we are doing a lot of project development. I think there's a lot of value for that, you know.

Peter Pongracz 21:10

Indeed, indeed. And you'd rather be a sushi navi knife than a Swiss knife in these days, right?

The policy risk that can wipe out years of development work

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah, for sure. Especially when AI can replace a lot of things, you know. So to have that deep knowledge, also the network and the relationships, right? Like one thing what I've learned from developing projects is you really need to have really great relations within the township that you're building the project with the senior people, meaning the mayor, but also the electricity utility, uh, you know, the people who work on interconnection in the town, like permitting. So a lot of development is local and it's really localized. I remember when we were looking at land sites in Virginia, and they were surprised like a New York, New Jersey developer is in Virginia. You know, obviously they want someone local. It's interesting because I remember when we first started looking for community solar sites and talking to landowners in New York. I'm not going to name the name of the company, but they were like, oh yeah, we keep getting letters from this company in California and Santa Monica. We're in New York, and you know, we want to work with a local business in the area. So it's interesting. Like development is localized, it's all about the relationships. We're doing, as I mentioned to you before, like the largest solar project in New York City in Manhattan. And, you know, that, you know, getting the mayor's office on board, NYCerta, which does the clean energy benefits, Con Edison, and then the New York Housing A Thorday and NYCHA. I mean, that takes years to build those relationships where they allow you to. Bring these projects forward or to get them comfortable. So and then once you know you have that sort of rapport, it's a lot easier and scalable because you have that relationship.

Peter Pongracz 23:00

But it's only scalable locally.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

It's only scalable locally, yes. Unless you're an investor of projects, right? Because you know, you have the local developers really take the projects to NTP C O D and then you know you're you kind of take it from there. It's only really been local, unless it's like an investor of projects. Development is local. So you have to understand, like, we're very involved in like the state policy in certain markets, so that we know like what the policy is going to be in the future, so that we could already start like reaching out to these landowners before because once things are so definite, meaning the policy is finalized, every developer is gonna come into that market if it's obviously a viable market to develop solar projects, meaning like there's the financial return. And the markets get saturated pretty quickly, too. It's like we were very aggressive in California for the potential California community solar program. Luckily, we weren't as aggressive as other developers, but then the California PUC in 2024 said no to the seven gigawatt California Community Solar Program, which was frustrating to a lot of developers because developers were aggressively getting land sites under option for this program, and then they said no to it, even though it looked like it was going to get approved. So, you know, people obviously lost a lot of money.

Peter Pongracz 24:26

All those resources invested, and then you know, if the ground shakes, then uh yeah, you really need to manage your risk, I think. You know, it's more and more so with the regulation and everything else getting more and more strict. It's quite tricky.

Why project development now feels like playing poker

SPEAKER_01 24:39

It's very tricky. And community solar, like politicians love community solar because you're usually like there's a contingency for like low moderate income customers to get it. Also, people who can't get solar, who you know for live in an apartment building or maybe they're shading at their house, and it creates jobs too, and it's privately funded. So I think CCSA, which is like the National Community Solar Association, said that one five five megawatt AC community solar creates like$15 million of economic output for that community, and it's all from private investment. But the challenge is that you have obviously large utilities, you know, they don't necessarily want the competition, right? But these distributed resources do help with the reliability of the grid, especially with the aging infrastructure. I think that's really what happened with California was the utilities are very strong and they didn't want this program and they said no to it. They kind of want the program under their jurisdiction so that they have control. It's interesting, and it's hard, right? Like as a developer, it's only solar panels racking and inverters, but there's so much more that goes into it, and it's so complicated. And from a policy perspective, what you see is a lot of the developers are not so sophisticated to know about all these different things. You know, they might know how to like find a good land site and develop solar, but then the financing is so complicated for a solar project, and then the policy, too. It's not easy to understand. You need an expert to understand them. Luckily, like we've advised a lot of companies on like developers and European developers too, who have come into the US market because there is a lot of opportunity, and there still is going to be. It's just there's a lot of challenges. But what those challenges do create is opportunity for the smart developer, smart investor.

Peter Pongracz 26:43

You know, you just need to learn how to navigate them.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yes. Seriously. That's been a challenge for me because there's some projects I should have said, and I saw other developers quit pretty quickly. But I keep pushing. But then if you look at the amount of money that was spent and the hours and what you're getting for the relevant development fee, it actually doesn't make business sense. But I guess that's part of the whole learning process too. And then you get smarter as time goes on. And some of these projects we've been developing for three, five, seven years. We're still waiting to get to the major project milestones. If you think about how simple solar is versus like a real estate project, right? Like it shouldn't take that much time, but it's unfortunate because there's so much regulation and so much approval. And I agree with you, like we have to be cautious on how we manage the grid, right? You can't just let any project come. But I think there's ways of expediting things. And I think what's happening too is like the utility companies need to be more flexible and creative, and they can't survive on what they did in the past because everything's completely changing. Obviously, the demand for electricity is growing exponentially, especially with AI and data centers, and they have to be a lot more creative than they have been in the past. Localized energy and smart energy and distributed energy resources and microgrids and different technologies are all part of it. And it's not going to be like one power plant generation and then transmission distribution lines. It's interesting. It's the beginning of the great energy revolution that's probably going to go on for another 30, 40, 50 years from what you've conventionally consumed energy, you know.

Are data centers pushing electricity prices higher?

Peter Pongracz 28:43

I mean, from the people I speak to in the US, the keyword that always keeps coming back is DG, you know, in the last half a year, especially, and love to play the devil's advocate as well when it comes to these things, because imagine that let's say in your local environment or in your local county situation, whatever it the case might be. Imagine if you have a data center, right? Technically, the way it works, if you purely base it on demand and supply without regulation, that they can outbid you of your in electricity, right? So if you don't have your own generation, you're really at the mercy of the market. And if that's not regulated correctly, which you know may or may not be, you can fall victim of that.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, that's actually a big thing that we're hearing a lot about is like, you know, the residential customer paying for the data set higher electricity prices. And this has actually become a political issue in the past election. I know more of New Jersey as well, because you know, electricity rates was actually a big thing related to the campaign about residential electricity rates going up because it's been predominantly flat for a long period of time, and then it's really gone up, and it's because of a large load coming from the data centers and prices going up. And also, there hasn't been really the comparable generation to come online to meet that. And it's interesting because now they're talking about keeping open certain plants that were coal or natural gas or even nuclear that were planned to be mothballed in the future, but because you need that generation, they're going to keep that online. So it's an interesting discussion because some of these data centers are building their own power on their locations because they don't want to deal with the utility or the grid and being energy independent. This is something that I actually talk to a lot. Storage is becoming increasingly cheaper, and we're seeing a lot more adoption by residential customers, especially places where you have like storms. So we're seeing like a lot of solar plus storage in residential homes in Florida because they want that sort of energy independence, also energy reliability if something happens with the grid. So it's interesting because I'm surprised how the residential customers are actually getting a lot more educated pretty quickly on it. When anyone asks me about solar, I just try to keep it simple. I say them solar is the cheapest form of energy, the fastest to come online, and you could be independent from the grid. Actually, those are the three things that I say because there's just so much different information and people don't know you know what to believe in in my podcast as well. You'll hear me say all the time, like solar is the fastest and cheapest. So people will come up to me when they see me and they'll say solar is the this is the one thing that I can. I mean, obviously there's certain cases where it's not. It's funny because people sometimes people will come and tell me the exception to the rule, but I'm like, yeah, there's always exceptions to everything.

Peter Pongracz 31:40

Yeah, I mean, people like to defy the rule and everything else, but across the board, definitely, even solar with storage. I was talking to Professor Dr. Adobean Kopesek from ISC Constance, they are a research institute, and he explained basically like like right now, the the cheapest cost of energy in terms of around three cents per kilowatt hour produced for solar and another three maximum four cents. So around six, seven, we are talking euro cents, but it's applicable in the US as well. So you can't even get close to that. Maybe with nuclear, yes, but how long is that going to take to bring online? And I've been listening to a lot of interesting podcasts about this new RD going into the micro-nuclear reactors, you know, that are the size of a car.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Oh, interesting. The size of a car, I never heard that.

Peter Pongracz 32:28

It's a size of a car, but it's basically a few years in the future you can do smaller capacities and large density in a small place, and it's also a really applicable use case for the data centers as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

That's interesting. I should look into that. I haven't heard about that. Obviously, I've heard about the modular reactors and obviously a lot of Nikle are being supported by the current administration, but I didn't know about the smaller scale that Finn Carrers definitely look into that. I can't even keep up with all the technology, and I feel like there'll be even more innovation in the future.

Peter Pongracz 33:04

So it's extremely quick, and you cannot really just read the news all the time because otherwise you're left behind. And one piece of tech that I'm really excited about is the thermal storage. There are a couple of companies in Finland who basically store excess energy in heat. It's an interesting application for the longer term. For example, here in Europe, when you have the winter, you don't really have too much solar because the sun is at a pretty low angle.

The hidden business opportunity in solar recycling and repowering

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Yeah, definitely. I've heard about that technology. I mean, I don't know that much about it, but it sounds like it's extremely creative, you know, in the the use case for it's what thermal energy storage, right?

Peter Pongracz 33:44

Yeah, there are a couple of companies. If I had to bet in the next five years, off what would be the most profitable aspect of the industry is definitely recycling, the recycling of the modules. I spoken to a few companies as well who do already like small scale recycling. The question is like, how do you scale it? Because these companies are usually restricted by a diameter of, I don't know, 40-50 kilometers around their home base. The shipping needs to be sold as well in a cost-efficient manner. But I think with the older parks being refurbished, etc., it's going to be a huge business opportunity as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Yeah, there definitely is a huge opportunity with that. I mean, I actually went to the largest solar panel recycling facility in Yuma, Arizona. It's called We Recycle Solar. And it blew my mind like what they're able to do with the recycling technology. And then they're obviously refurbishing panels and then totally recycling. And it was just amazing because there is actually not the infrastructure today to recycle all these panels. So they actually had panels from all over the world, not just the US, that they had just in warehouses because the assembly line, you know, they can't actually recycle all these panels. So it's interesting to see. And obviously, they have expansion capabilities that they're looking into. And I mean, I think it's a huge opportunity. Any RFP that we respond to, they ask, like, what's the recycling plan? Or what how what are you going to do at the end of the life of the system? So it's interesting because I've only seen the past few years, like several. We were actually invited to a Rubin County for a solar recycling plant in New Jersey that opened up like six months ago. So it's interesting. I think it's a huge opportunity. It's still very early. And it obviously you need a huge like infrastructure investment to get you know something like that completed.

Peter Pongracz 35:44

And for you guys in the US, it's not mandatory, right? To allocate some money to the recycling part when you're actually deploying the project.

Can the U.S. and Europe realistically catch up with China?

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Yeah, so that's not usually a requirement. I haven't seen it for the projects that we've been in. They usually ask us what the plan is going to be, but they don't ask to keep a certain amount of money in escrow for the recycling plant at the end of life. I haven't seen that yet. Well, it's interesting. Like 20 to 25 years from now, the project could have multiple owners, right? I'm also seeing a lot of repowering of assets. I'm sure you're seeing that in Europe where it makes sense to replace the panels and to do maybe an inverter, putting a new inverter, whatever it may be, because of the output. And then you have the existing infrastructure already there. So it's interesting because we're starting to see a lot of repowering of solar assets now.

Peter Pongracz 36:36

Yeah, and I mean it's quite easy to calculate the ROI on that because the panels have increased in efficiency, in size, etc. So you can really easily run the maps of like whether it's worth repowering or not.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Definitely. I mean, I think it's a huge opportunity, especially you know, finding a totally new site.

Peter Pongracz 36:54

So I mean we've talked about the US, we talked about Europe, let's talk about the big, big elephant in the room, China. Do you do you have any any data on that? Do you have any any feeling on how we could actually catch up on deployment or maybe generation as well?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

I think like the amazing thing that China has done is like they're extremely strategic and long term, and they put so much energy generation, not just renewables, but all kinds of generation, especially you know, for AI, and then too, like obviously solar and storage, and you know, most of the manufacturing and technology is coming from there. Even you know, BYD is now the biggest electric car company, surpassed Tesla. So I don't know how we compete with the long-term planning with the Chinese government. All I would say is this might be my US bias, is like the US seems to always come up with innovation, and there'll be so much innovation that's happening during this time. And I think the only way like the rest of the world could compete with China and what they're doing is out-innovating China. And we'll see if the rest of the world is capable of doing that. China's doing a lot of smart things and they have a long-term outlook. That's part of being a you know communist sort of capitalistic country in a sense, where the US it's a lot more challenging with elections and special interests. People are just trying to stay in office and not necessarily looking at the long-term future of the country.

Peter Pongracz 38:32

So they are winning and they are going to win on the long run. I'm not really optimistic about unless we really radically change something in the US and Europe, but Europe is you know far from being in the game. But the thing is that one graph that keeps circulating on the internet, you know, this four terawatt hour production in the US and around 10 in China, and then uh their 10 is still increasing exponentially, and the US is remaining flat, kind of sums it up. So, yeah, I agree with you. Like the only way out of this is uh out-innovating or coming up with some sort of logical and win-win type of licensing agreements of both technology and mostly manufacturing. Because let's be honest, by the time we would write down the economies of scale and experience levels of what they have already deployed in China today, it will take a long, long time. And the future is really like robotized and automated production lines. I think we would need to start doing a little bit more collaboration and less fighting, but that's easier said than done.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Yeah, definitely. That is uh great take on it, Peter. I appreciate you sharing. It's definitely gonna be challenging.

Peter Pongracz 39:38

And I think if there is somebody out there who could really give an insider's perspective of what China's take is on the energy production, that would be huge. So please get in touch.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yes, it's interesting. I know actually this person that I've had on the podcast, his name is Dan French, and he focuses on like what's happening in China and what they're doing compared to the rest of the world, because I guess he has international clients who are concerned with that. He or also actually does the biggest agro vote conference in the US. One of the things that I've noticed is he looks at things from an energy perspective. You know, obviously there are a lot of great minds in the solar industry, but everyone's very solar. Like if they've just done solar, they look at everything based on a solar perspective and not a total energy generation. And for this energy transition, it's not just going to be solar and storage, it's gonna be a lot of different technologies. Luckily, when I first graduated, I actually worked at Deloitte in their energy group. So I did a lot of different fuel technologies and they were non-renewable. So I learned a lot from that. And that's also helpful too, to have like first that ground-up knowledge of all energy resources and how each of the resources fit within the generation mix and how that's changing over time, you know.

Peter Pongracz 41:01

And also I think us as humans, we are we've in some cases we are extremely creative, and in others, we we are just going with the flow. And then, you know, of course, if you have some good workflows from oil and gas, etc., you can apply some of those in solar as well. It's just a similar, similar uh thing to do.

Why solar still has a messaging problem

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Yeah, it was interesting to me. So I was actually, there's a company called T1 Energy, they're building uh US-made solar panels in Texas. Most of the team comes from oil and gas and doing oil and gas projects in Texas, and they believe there's a huge opportunity with solar and solar manufacturing from the ground up here in the US. And actually, they have a facility, I think, that they bought recently or built in Texas, but it was interesting because the CEO was talking about how all his experience in oil and gas, how that applies to what he's doing now on solar. It was interesting to see, you know, because it's similar, it's just a different fuel type, and obviously within each fuel type there's unique parts of it, but it's still very similar in what it's going to do at the end from a generation perspective.

Peter Pongracz 42:12

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I think where we go wrong sometimes is that we are too tribal, you know, across the board in most cases. And I think we should really be a little bit more stoic in a sense of thinking about ways to collaborate for reaching the bigger common goal.

The case for making energy independence the core message

SPEAKER_01 42:29

For sure. You know, within the solar industry in the US, like the challenge that we have is even within the solar industry, there's so many different voices, and everyone's telling these like state representatives, utilities on the federal level, different stories. So like everyone ultimately is confused, right? Because even though we're experts in it, they're not experts in it. And then there's three solar people telling them something different, so it creates all this confusion. So that's why going back to what I said before, I tell people instead of all this stuff that we're telling them, just tell them solar's the cheapest power source and the fastest to come online. That's all you need to tell them. But it's created so much confusion with the industry because we have a PR issue where we're not organized well enough and everyone's so passionate. Everyone has their own ways that through their lobbying could help their business individually, whether it be utility scale, residential, commercial, industrial, but it creates a lot of confusion and a lot of miseducation. And then that creates a lot of confusion within the utilities, within the federal and state governments. And so we have to always remember that even though that we're experts in energy, energy is extremely complicated. And especially when you talk about politicians, like other than obviously donating money, which is very important, it's like educating them simply because they're not just looking at energy, they're looking at healthcare, they're looking at all these different things. And this the more we're able to simplify the message to them, the more impactful it's going to be. And I think like I've noticed in the US, we haven't done a great job of that. And you know, I know I've been talking to a lot of people who are involved in the lobbying effort that we should try to get one cohesive mess so that and try to be as simple as possible. The other term, too, Americans love independence. We should be talking about energy independence all the time. And when I say to like a residential home order, energy independence, they get excited when they hear about that, you know, especially as you see a lot more like outages and blackouts, and obviously like storms and things like that, where people are losing power. They really do appreciate that. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, and I'm actually very active. In a charity called Lecture of the Sun, where they install solar and storage for residential homeowners in Puerto Rico that have medical needs. In Puerto Rico, they have constant blackouts. So when you say energy independence, they know what you're talking about. Even kids under 10 years old will say, we need solar and storage for energy independence. But the mainland of the United States, we've been very reliable with electricity. But I think in the future, as the grid gets older and obviously the upgrades are not being made, even cyber attacks and things like that, you're going to see the grid go down more often than in the past. So I think people, at least in the US, don't have their appreciation because we don't have the same power outages as other countries do. I think that'll change in the future.

Peter Pongracz 45:38

That's extremely true. And if you think about that, it will always translate into geopolitics as well. That you want to be energy independent, but to be energy independent, uh it actually means being independent of other countries as well, for being able to power your industry to be able to power your day-to-day operations as well. And that's what most people don't really understand with this whole topic of energy, that we we need as much generation as possible. And hopefully we can cover that with the cheapest and fastest energy source.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Yeah, I totally agree with you. So many Americans have died in wars related to oil the past 20, 30 years, and with the transition to EVs, we're less dependent on oil. So we're less dependent on countries that have oil, right? And it's interesting. I don't know even if I should go into Venezuela, but the oil companies are not really that interested in the oil that's there in Venezuela because we've transitioned to other ways. And also the technology, too, has gone more advanced for oil joiling in the US, where we have our own and we have an abundance supply of natural gas, which gives us a competitive advantage, and obviously we're selling it to other countries. And but I'm not like an expert at this.

Peter Pongracz 47:00

Yeah, you Europe is uh still still still importing oil from the US, you know, after the the whole Ukraine war situation, it it kind of just shifted that we are shipping it from there. But that's also nice as a temporary solution. But you really need to find a way to be independent.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Well, that's why I feel like the energy transition, right? Eventually like EVs will be the predominant form, and then you won't be dependent. But all this obviously takes time to do, right? To build the this new infrastructure that we're building and that you're building and through the podcast and your education of the audience and getting these great people to come and learn a lot. So it's interesting. One thing too, I would say, is like the solar world, even internationally, is pretty small. Like you're like two degrees separated from Kevin Bacon. Like someone knows someone who knows you. And so that's why obviously like people will call me all the time or email me, like, what do you think of this person?

Peter Pongracz 48:00

So you're also running KYC.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

It's interesting because it's such a small industry still, even though it's growing exponentially. But people trust certain people to basically evaluate other people if they don't know them. So it's interesting because everything is about trust at the end of the day and whether you could add the value that you say that you're gonna add.

Peter Pongracz 48:21

It makes sense. And I mean, you can have some short-term wins if you overpromise and underdeliver, but usually you should be the other way around. So you should try to over-deliver and underpromise, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Oh, for sure. I think also being transparent, communicating, obviously adding value to the customer. And then also, too, like it's amazing. Like my long-time customers, it's almost like it's a personal relationship. We've become friends, they'll invite me to family outings. It's interesting over time, like how the relationships evolve. And I think people have to like you as well. Even if you could add value to them, they have to feel that you're on their side and that you have a personal relationship with them. You know, it's almost like a friend.

Peter Pongracz 49:09

Because you want to be working with people you actually get along with. You don't want to be working with somebody who you actually really hate.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Oh, for sure. And that's the great thing. Like obviously being on your own too, you could choose more who you'd want to work with, you know. And I think that's really important for like output, but also happiness, right? It's fun when you're working with people that you know, like, and trust.

Peter Pongracz 49:37

Yeah, I mean, you you know, you need to have your own purpose and you find joy in the day-to-day things that you do. Otherwise, it was the point, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Oh, for sure. The solar coaster.

Peter Pongracz 49:50

Yeah, for sure. And we are actually getting to the end of our time. Like we've talked about a lot of things, but for people who are interested in getting in touch with you, what's the best way to reach out?

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, we have a website for the Solar Maverick Podcast, Solar Maverick Podcast.com. You could find me on LinkedIn. You could also email us. It's through like the development company, Renew Energy. It's INFO at reneuenergy.com. Yeah, happy to you know connect with your audience. I appreciate Peter you making the time, and it's great. I feel like we could talk for a few more hours. So I'm excited for the growth of your podcast, and I appreciate you joining this journey.

Peter Pongracz 50:34

Thank you for taking the time, and I'm sure this is not the first and last episode with you, so we'll do another one somewhere in the future.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Definitely, for sure. I appreciate you having me.

Peter Pongracz 50:43

Yeah, thanks, Manu. Really appreciate it, and thank you. See you soon.