welcome to the st paul forum i'm john forty this week we'll be talking about solar energy we're here at all energy solar to learn more about how to apply solar energy to the household level like good southern exposure on a rough or in a field and we're looking for trees to not be shayna projects so we can get the the best value out of the solar system and get the most production from that and now there's currently like a federal subsidy correct or a tax credit correct and that's driving of the tremendous boom that's going on now and i know you guys are hoping that the boom continues after the credits correct but tell me about the metrics  is like a third of it is paid for by the credit crunch and like that there's a currently there is an investment tax credit it's thirty percent of our projects so if we're doing whatever size of project thirty percent of that would come back to us through through this tax program that program currently is available through the year two thousand and sixteen for residents after that it's about to expire unless congress decides to continue that incentive ok now in television generally referred to as death yes but this time the numbers minneapolis st paul or we're looking at from anywhere from you know sixteen to twenty four panels or project in that range and for that you know typical project we're looking to offset sixty to one hundred percent of someone's electric bill electricity so everyone that has an electric bill right now or worse are paying out that money and it's nice to capture that with the advent of solar technology we now have the capability to produce energy on our own site and offset our footprint with electricity in months in the summer when it is really sunny there is days at the noon hour where we are selling that energy back and we are spinning that meter back and we can collect a check at the end of the month ok so each of these panels produces about a kilowatt hour per day the yeah ok so basically one of these panels will power an outlet for an hour that's correct ok that's a very straightforward simple way of thinking of it right and a lot of people have a prejudice that minnesota is not a good place for solar because it's cold but is that true actually the one benefit that we do have is it is cold the equipment we're installing is electronics electronics inherently like to work better when it is cold so that's where we actually do see some of our peak performance on our solar system minnesota on average has about two hundred seventy sunny days if that's you know similar to places in texas and florida so we do have a good exposure are countries like the country of germany actually has twenty five percent solar on their grid and they are further north from whe re we are for latitude and it is cloudy are there and they have been able to roll out solar in a big way and if it works well there it will easily work well here so both the high latitude being you know brotherhood to the pole and clouds that are working against so that's correct ok which is why i took off early in southern california of course like that and it's come here but in many ways it seems to be a better fit here correct so we are we are seeing some great benefits because we have a great s out in like the seventies and those kind of a boom but you know by the time you were born before that it was it was just heat it was it was water pipes and black paint basically correct it to me and these are photovoltaic will take cells yeah so about them what these cells what we're that we are the same energy we're using our home we're now providing it with solar power and then if we're not using that energy in the home what we're doing right now with laws in the state of minnesota like net metering is we're selling it back to the utility so we are spending that meter backwards ok and you can also from what i understand store some in battery is that's corrupt selling batteries here so right now the battery marketplace it is better is there an expensive proposition so there is companies like tussle that are driving down the price of the top of batteries but what it was like net metering we can sell back that energy we don't need to store it on site in the next five years the next ten years we will see a big surge and better technology so we can store that sun power that's produced during the day and then use it overnight what do you find people most like about solar i mean you're in essence you're the first contact of all energy you go out and meet people and a people buying out of ecological reasons they buy for economic reasons how does that break down the biggest driver actually would be economics in the solar provides that independents where you know we do now have a choice of where energy is coming from and we're also getting that economic benefit of saving money on  our month over month electric bell and then underneath all that most people do appreciate that this is a clean technology and they are doing their part for the environment but economics is a huge player no ok and the price of batteries is seem to be dropping continuously is the same true of the photovoltaics that's correct so in the last ten years and since the seventies when some of this has started rolling out we've seen a heavy decline on the the price of that and that's also including also with that on top of the local incentives from xcel energy and also with the thirty percent tax credit we've really seen solar become an economic decision first and foremost ok as best as we can public television tell me the advantage of like speed is that if i make  decision today and put what ten thousand twenty thousand into the end it can be financed i'm sure how soon is it up and running so for a typical project we're looking at a three to four month so in the first step in the project as i'm coming out here sites and taking measurements and reviewing our son access if things look good from there we're discussing the economics of the project from there we're working with the local city to get local permit ing we do building permits electrical permits and then we also work with electric utility for interconnection so there's some paperwork process closer to the end of that three month period where arriving on site we're bringing the panels we're going to end up you know a typical project for installation takes one to two days for us to install the rock in the corrected your hand all the way through the steps and then later we'll be talking to brian one of the owners of the business about solar in a broader sense correct cindy is one of the biggest assets she that she cares of say the paper great well brenda thank you very much thank you ok i'm with cindy larson odile customer gaze on and project coordinator at all energy solar city he don't know it but you are the linchpin that runs the whole organization you hold the customers and from the moment they agree to do this until it's up and running it's kind of fun because you get to do a whole variety of things and i love meeting the people and most people have a lot of questions about solar and so answering the questions and addressing any concerns they have it's part of an educational kind of a role so this is new to so many people but then also getting down into the nitty gritty and just handling the details and following up on the details and moving the paperwork through the system with the interconnection in the permanent thing and then finally getting the meter out and turning the system on so to keep considerations for customers i'm sure our number one the tax credit and number two getting that needed to go backwards when you have a nice sunny day and you are helping people through that paper process the entire time think roughly equal in difficulty or how do you find the well the federal tax credit is something that the homeowner would do when they had their taxes or do so they would file their paperwork with their tax account and take the rebate at that time as far as the interconnection rebate that would be with excel or with another utility they will all have their own special paper paperwork that we would do and sometimes there's a lot of pieces of paper that need to be done depending on the utility and sometimes it's not that many pieces of paper so it kind of depends on where you live who your utility is and same thing for permitting some building permits are more detailed and there needs to be planning meetings and conditional use permit meetings in townships for example so it really depends on where you are and who your services so city people  k on this process and the meat you had hold them from since the beginning to end and there's a design process you have in house designers here to help people figure out where to position their panels to give maximum efficiency as well as be out of the way for convenience factors tell me about the process that's exactly right the first thing that we do after the project is handed off from the sales consultant is to i'll meet with them and schedule an engineering site and we will have a tech go out and gather all the data on their roof in their attic and with their electrical panel gathering all the data they need to build the system so all that data will be gathered and it will come back to the designers and the designers would design something that is a preliminary layout like this and this is a fairly simple layout but it'll show the customer's house in a three d form and how the panels would lay out then the customer would have a chance to look at that and make any changes or making the tough talk to the designers and find out why they did it that way but that's a really interesting process because the designers are looking at the measurements of the sunlight hitting the roof in all the different parts of the roof and they're also looking at forecasting for shadowing through the day and through the seasons so they can actually put the panels exactly where they know the best production is going to be and  it seems like there maybe it's free but do they occasionally fail who do people call you if there's a problem how do you deal with that they can fail and it seems like if they do they will have it'll happen right now mental beginning when we turn the system on and we find a faulty module and in that case we would just come out and swap out the module right away the panels are under warranty for twenty five years and then our company has a five year warranty as well so they're the top of the panel is glass so a lot of people ask about do i need to wash it or clean it or do anything in there are really low maintenance and they're very strong so usually not too much of an issue so are those rare instances that that's generally a manufacturing flaw let's talk about acts of god it's a tree falls out and it's just i'm sure it's part of your house you just need to call your homeowners policy and let them know that you've made an additional investment is that how it works right exactly so customers will call their insurance agent and they'll tell them what they're doing and usually insurance agent wants to know the total cost of the project and then they will factor that into their insurance policy so it's i think what i've heard is that the city of st paul tilt up styles there was extra engineering required for that but otherwise it's pretty straightforward and they do they're pretty streamlined what kind of demographic  and young people is it eco types is it being cowards who you are educating it's amazing the variety of people that are my customers i have a ninety year old customer who is thrilled to do the solar and turned on and everywhere she goes she takes her utility bill on her purse and she takes it out and she shows all her friends and she shows him the credit that she gets every month so she loves that but we have young couples we have single parents we have large house and small houses the whole gamut are there any considerations as far as families go i mean these things are up high that's kids are climbing on them and that sort of thing you know this far as i know that's never been a problem and the thing that really interests kids and i've seen this is where the solar begins operating and you can you are would be able to log onto a website and look at your production and look at your usage and you can see a live so often the kids will get involved and they will go around the house and turn off lights and watch the usage go down and so you're producing more solar and so gets the kids into a relationship that they understand between the usage and conservation and production in your own house that you are your own power plant what's it like doing the back office stuff in a booming business is your workload double every three weeks or something like that and we are incredibly busy and so to keep track of all kinds of customers and all the details for all their project it's challenge we have a sales force in place and we have other people in the office that can help and we have a really nice computer as system that helps us track everything so it's pretty smart city thank you very much it was from thanks so much i'm here with brian allen by is president of all energy solar brian what's the easiest way to think of the numbers for solar sure you know an average homeowner uses anywhere from seven thousand to ten thousand kilowatt hours in a year so that's the first number that we really look at when determining how much energy you need to produce with solar panels with an f to take in all of your your site specific information every home is different every house has different orientations different trees growing in the days lots of different things that we have to take into consideration so we start with how much energy you consume that gives us then the size of the system that you would need to produce let's just say one hundred percent of the energy that you need then we start looking at the design constraints which are going to be shading from trees available roof space the orientation and pitch of your roof and then we look at budget and verify how much are you willing or able to spend on such a project and finally we consider you know the aesthetics and curb appeal of your home we want to make sure that what we're designing and putting on your property is going to look good as well how much do installations typically cost we see prices average anywhere from fifteen thousand residentially all way up to even sixty or seventy thousand dollars but your average price is right around twenty to twenty five thousand dollars and that's where ty's then by driving your beater backwards yeah over five years ten years well you know a good way to look at it is how much do you spend on electricity a year right now let's say that's a thousand dollars and if you took that and continued to just pay money to the utility company what value do you get out of that other than the convenience and  luxury of having electricity on a pretty consistent basis that's about it with solar energy you you pay to produce at electricity yourself and ultimately you're going to pay for that once and over time as the cost of energy increases the value of that energy that you're producing increases along with it and so with other incentives and ways of reducing that upfront cost we can see financial paybacks pretty quickly  by pretty quickly i mean three four years in some cases five years and in other cases as long as ten or twelve years it averages out right around six or seven years and do people do it in staged fashion where they would just do say a quarter of their needs or something like that and then do a quarter again in a few years yeah you know normally what we try and do is design based on the available space that we have and most homes don't necessarily have enough roof space to cover one hundred percent of the energy that they need if they do that's usually the most cost effective way of doing it because any time you can scale a project and do a bigger project to start off with we can bring our prices down as an installer and as a a company so scale and commies of scale come into play every time we're looking at projects the smaller the project the larger the upfront cost is going to be per kilowatt then a larger project there's something about the evolution of the business how long did you start sure we my brother and i started this business at the end of two thousand and nine prior to that we had been working for solar companies all across the united states i was working on california my brother was working with a company in new jersey both and running offices out there understanding the industries the entire time we kept a pretty close eye on what was happening in minnesota  our our home state where we grew up and it was always our dream i guess to bring this industry back here and when we saw that the finances in the economics around starting and running a business in minnesota with solar energy made sense that's when we decided to come back because it seems to me that the the one product that would make an enormous difference in the long term of this is batteries what's coming out of it the battery for it you make a really good point energy storage is kind of the next big market that a lot of the industry seeing i don't know if you follow anything with the electric vehicle market even musk the owner of tesla and space x he's he's also begin to solar panels and into batteries and he's making a big bet that batteries for homes and that energy storage component is going to be a big push and we feel the same way  we are also realistic on the cost of those right now and the longevity of those products as well as the the recycling and reusing ramifications that come with using a  battery we want to make sure that if we're going to use a product that it still is safe for the environment so that's ok but your motivation are are you an eco terrorist or are you primarily ecology driven are you a business guy i mean you seem to have a community of people that it's a comfortable place to work is it all those things that you know if you're not sure you know it is a passion and it's a passion built around an upbringing that taught me to respect the planet and respect nature and and to do everything that we can to preserve it and so that's that's my parents to thank for that as an early age they got us involved in boy scouts in hunting and fishing and camping and and all of those things and i want to be able to continue to enjoy those those parts of our planet and as well as pass it on to my child so brian ecological power in the age of digital information you can really monitor what's going on with your panels show us what you've got going on here sure something that we've had implemented since we started our business was online monitoring capabilities this is not only for our purposes but for our customers as well what's really nice about the monitoring for peace to our business is that our customers can engage in their own energy consumption as well as how much energy their panels are  producing it's really used as a tool to help you understand energy and see it on a minute by minute basis versus seeing your one month electric bill going out and i use that much electricity this allows you to know and so this is an example of a of a project where you can see two different colors on the graph here we've got the red and the green the red represents the electricity that the home consuming and this is over a three day period and so any time it's see you see it filled in with red that means that the home was consuming electricity from the utility company buying that electricity  basically looks like we came up to the daylight here at around six seven am and the solar panels at this customer had started producing electricity it wasn't a full sunny day looks like we might have had somewhat of a cloudy day but within that seven am to six pm window the customer pretty much produced all of their own electricity with solar panels and then any time you see it filled in with green that means that we actually sold energy back to the utility company so in that one day period there's a good chance that the amount of energy they produced and fed back allowed for a credit for the energy that they consumed at night so they could be net zero within that twenty four hour period the really neat thing that we like to show is is the ability to kind of just this view to see your all time  history and drop into maybe just the most recent last hour as well as drop in and actually see your energy consumption on a ten minute kind of window and so if this customer were to come home right now and who's really interested in having a piece of toast and they threw a piece of bread in the toaster and they turned that toaster on we would be able to watch right here on this graph the energy consumption skyrocket by about a kilowatt and a half that's so much electricity a toaster actually uses some of them or some of them slightly less but it gives you that instantaneous understanding around electricity and on top of that i can now check the production of the solar array and verify it's operating correctly and do that remotely right from my desk and so when customers have questions they call when we pull up their monitoring we're able to answer it right there over the phone and i've seen this on a phone or a mobile app that gives the same information there is and this is just one of many platforms that we use and so there's there's mobile applications for it all so you can see this right from your phone i have a customer who owns a tesla and the tesla has a a large monitor within the within the cabin of the vehicle and they pull up their monitoring on that all the time and they use it to specifically see how much electricity they use to charge their electric vehicle as well as to see what their solar panels are producing so it's a unique product and i want to learn more about the sun itself and i don't want to sound like an eighty but the sun must be worth twice as big as the earth massive the bigger the earth and it produces an incredible amount of energy but that energy takes eight minutes to get here why do we have to wait that long it is a long time to wait for that light to hit the earth but when it does it's really powerful enough sunlight hits the earth on a daily basis to power the entire united states if we were able to capture runs on light it could power the entire world and the capturing business yes i am and and and we're really excited about that it's it's a source of power that i don't think is ever going to burn all our time on this planet and hopefully to ever  unless you actually look into it and to do your own research is great but the internet is not always honest yeah so check out our website fill out a form let us come out to your home for free power generated will be used by the house and anything excess console back to excel so you use anything generated first left over which i'm guessing based on the meter spinning backwards here