April 16, 2025

Evolving Landscape of C&I Solar & Storage | EP280

Show Notes
Transcript

Today on the Clean Power Hour, recorded at Intersolar San Diego, host Tim Montague sits down with McKay Johnson of Helix Electric and Kelly Shamblen of CPS America to discuss the current state of the commercial and industrial solar market. Despite the industry's unpredictable nature—often called the "solar coaster"—both guests express optimism about continued growth in the clean energy transition.

McKay Johnson highlights how permitting challenges in Southern California create obstacles for project implementation, noting that other states offer a smoother process for getting solar projects "into the ground and built." The conversation reveals a significant shift in the storage market, with Johnson explaining how Helix Electric has moved from primarily PV-only installations to seeing dramatic growth in hybrid systems and standalone battery storage projects over the past 18 months.

The discussion also explores how NEM 3 (Net Energy Metering 3) has created tailwinds for storage adoption, changing project characteristics even while overall development pace remains strong. Johnson shares insights into why Helix Electric consistently chooses CPS America for power electronics, citing product quality, continuous innovation, and exceptional customer service as key factors in their long-standing partnership.

Kelly Shamblen offers perspective on Southern California's role as a hotbed for C&I (Commercial and Industrial) projects, particularly highlighting school districts, municipalities, and retrofit opportunities as growth areas. The episode concludes with both guests emphasizing the value of industry trade shows like Intersolar for discovering innovations and the importance of strong, loyal partnerships in navigating the evolving solar landscape.

Listen to this episode to gain valuable insights into market trends, technological developments, and successful business relationships that are helping speed the energy transition in Southern California and beyond.

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McKay Johnson

Helix Electric

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The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America’s number one 3-phase string inverter, with over 6GW shipped in the US. With a focus on commercial and utility-scale solar and energy storage, the company partners with customers to provide unparalleled performance and service. The CPS America product lineup includes 3-phase string inverters from 25kW to 275kW, exceptional data communication and controls, and energy storage solutions designed for seamless integration with CPS America systems. Learn more at www.chintpowersystems.com

The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Please subscribe on your favorite audio platform and on Youtube: bit.ly/cph-sub | www.CleanPowerHour.com | contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com | Speeding the energy transition!

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With the SoCal market. If I could change something for a pro, I would say, you know, make permitting a little bit easier. Yes, I would love that. I think that would accelerate the market and continue to expand it, of course, because we do work in other states as well, and the ease of getting things into the ground and built, if you will, is a lot easier than than so called.

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Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.

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We do too. We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition.

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We're here at inner solar San Diego. I'm Tim Montague. Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com.

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Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify.

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Today. I'm here with McKay Johnson of Helix and Kelly Shamblen of CPS. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's great to meet you You as well, and I understand. I'm gonna see you in Dallas, hopefully again, you will for Innovation Day as well. But you're an EPC based here in San Diego. I was telling you that you have a horrible life. I lived in San Diego 20 years ago, for 10 years. So I know a little bit about this place. I lived in Pacific Beach, actually, okay, my, my, my old, my youngest son was born in Pacific Beach. But anyway, that's my claim to fame. So what is on your mind about the CNI solar space right

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now. You know, it's a little unpredictable as a market right now with, you know, certain events happening in the nation. But, you know, we're excited as full EPC, we're seeing, you know, full gas pedal down to the metal. So very excited to see where it goes this year.

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Yeah, it is interesting that there are these ups and downs in the industry.

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We call it the solar coaster, and we are coming into a time probably, of unusual turbulence, given what's going on in Washington, but it's like this, right? There's ups and downs, but there's going to be an upward trajectory, right?

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Because there's just lots of money flowing into the clean energy transition, and so we need more EPCs. We need more equipment manufacturers. But if, if you could change one thing, I guess, about the Southern California market, what stands out for you about that market?

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You know that's that's tough with the SoCal market. If I could change something for a pro, I would say, you know, make permitting a little bit easier. Yes, I would love that. I think that would accelerate the market and continue to expand it, of course, because we do work in other states as well, and the ease of getting things into the ground and built, if you will, is a lot easier than than so called, but fully

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agree, yeah, it's the number one thing, I think, is, is making permitting easier?

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Yeah, and we're here with Kelly.

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You're Kelly's customer. Tell us a little bit about your relationship with Helix. Our relationship

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with Helix goes back years, many years, as a matter of fact, and we really appreciate the support they've given us over the over this time. And yeah, we've developed quite a bit of projects together and looking at some storage projects with them and some other school districts and whatnot down in San the San Diego area,

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I'm curious, how have you seen the storage market change in the last, say, five years?

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Oh, it's just increasing, ever increasing, so more than ever. Typically, 80% of our business is PV only up until this last year, year and a half, but now we're seeing a lot of hybrid systems that really want to see a best system attached to it. And not only that, we're seeing a lot of best independently, just best install projects. And that's that's not typical for Helix,

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yeah, yeah. It's we've kind of crossed a tipping point, I think, in the last year, year and a half, and going to see even more. Of course, nem three helped, right? That gave storage some tailwinds. Did you see besides the storage uptick?

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Did nem three affect your business?

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You know, that's that's an interesting question, due to the fact that we work with so many developers in the space, and really, we're, we're a domino effect off of what is going on with the developers business. We haven't seen anything slow down overall, and we haven't seen anything modify that way. But we are seeing the projects in themselves. The characteristics of those projects change a

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little bit. Yeah.

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And when you're looking for power electronics, you have many choices. So what is it that keeps you coming back to CPS,

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I would say first and foremost. Well, it's probably a tie between the quality. A product, and the innovation that Chint consistently brings to solar.

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Beyond that, it's the people and it's the responsiveness.

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Whenever we need something, it's bar none.

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Thank you. I would fully agree I am biased, but Kelly, tell us a little bit about the Southern California market. From your perspective, it's a very important market for CPS. It's a very important market for the solar industry.

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But we'd love to get your thoughts on the market, in general, solar,

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Southern California, excuse me, is a hot bed for all kinds of CNI projects. We do a lot of the school districts down here, municipalities and whatnot. They are in the perfect space for what we're doing in terms of rooftop carports and those types of projects. So it's definitely a growing business right now, and a growing area within California. A lot of retrofits projects are going on down here as well. We're

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here in San Diego at inner solar, and this is a very large trade show. If you haven't been, I encourage you to come. It's in January or February, usually here in San Diego, and there's about what 20,000 people here, if not more.

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So they tell us, yeah, what is it that you're looking for by being here in San Diego? I mean, not the trade show, sorry,

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the trade show.

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Honestly, seeing what kind of innovation is coming out into the market, what we can anticipate over the next one to two years, because you can learn a lot from what you see here on this floor, and how the developers are constantly going to be better improving their projects, and what kind of equipment our team being the installer, the EPC doing the construction, what we can actually anticipate installing in The field?

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Anything else we should talk about, about Helix and CPS,

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honestly, just an exciting partnership, and we we've been together for years.

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We've been very tight for years.

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We every project we work on, if it's not CPS, we do our best to see if we can work with CPS, because we're so attuned to their product and working with their individual like personnel.

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So yeah, that's about it.

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I would say from CPS, we value our partnerships and those that are loyal with us and grow with us, and I think Helix is definitely the epitome of that. Thank

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you. Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify, and with that, I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Thank you so much, Matt, sorry we can't. Yeah,

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you got it close enough. All good. You.

Evolving Landscape of C&I Solar & Storage | EP280

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