March 31, 2026
Old Solar Panels Are a Gold Mine (Here's the Math) #341
Revenue from aging solar assets can now more than double through redevelopment. Matt Murphy, CEO of Flux Energy, joins Tim Montague on the Clean Power Hour to explain how. Murphy, a 20-year solar industry veteran and former Greenbacker executive, launched Flux Energy to focus on repowering and redeveloping existing solar farms, adding energy storage, renegotiating contracts, and replacing outdated panels with modern technology. His claim: deploying capital into operating assets delivers returns as good or better than building new projects from scratch.
With SREC 1 and SREC 2 programs expiring in Massachusetts and solar panels from the early 2010s producing a fraction of what today's 750-watt modules deliver, the opportunity for solar asset redevelopment is growing fast.
Here's what you'll learn in this conversation about repowering and redeveloping aging solar assets:
- Learn how Murphy's "redevelopment" strategy stacks new revenue streams on existing solar farms by adding battery storage, repowering with modern panels, and renegotiating offtake agreements.
- Understand the scale of the efficiency gap: panels installed a decade ago were 120-watt modules, while today's range from 600 to 800 watts. A repowered site on the same acreage produces up to four or five times the energy output.
- Find out why Flux Energy prefers DC-coupled battery storage.
- You'll hear how Murphy restores EBITDA to peak incentive levels, then connects sellers with IPP buyers in what he calls "solar house flipping."
- Learn why about 50% of the decommissioned panels Flux has evaluated so far have secondary market value at a few cents per watt.
As the ITC phases down and a rush to complete new projects dominates industry attention, a parallel opportunity is emerging in the existing fleet. With state incentive programs expiring and aging assets underperforming, companies like Flux Energy represent a new segment of the solar industry focused on extracting maximum value from what has already been built.
Connect with Matt Murphy, Flux Energy
Matt’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-murphy-b900877a/
Flux Energy Website: https://www.fluxenergy.com/
Connect with Tim
Clean Power Hour
Clean Power Hour on YouTube
Tim on Twitter
Tim on LinkedIn
Email tim@cleanpowerhour.com
Review Clean Power Hour on Apple Podcasts
The Clean Power Hour is produced by the Clean Power Consulting Group and created by Tim Montague. Contact us by email: CleanPowerHour@gmail.com
Corporate sponsors who share our mission to speed the energy transition are invited to check out https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/support/
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!
WEBVTT
00:00:50.780 --> 00:01:25.359
Just that there is so much opportunity in these operating assets. We have all been so focused for so long in making the industry bigger and deploying new assets. But I really feel like there's just a convergence of a lot of different vectors that make it so that looking in and making sure that these assets that we have already put in the ground have really good, useful lives, are good members of their communities and bring healthy returns. Is is just such an opportunity that is going to explode over the coming years as more and more states programs mature, and I so excited for it.
00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:40.800
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.
00:01:36.659 --> 00:01:50.939
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.
00:01:52.560 --> 00:02:05.780
I asked perplexity, how much solar in the US was there before 2015 meaning older established solar farms. And it said 25 gig watts.
00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:18.579
But Matt Murphy, the CEO of flux energy, formerly of greenbacker, says he disagrees. So welcome to the show, Matt. This is a long time in the coming. I'm excited to have you on the show and talk about repowering and redeveloping solar. Welcome.
00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:24.280
Thank you. Yeah, it has been a long time in the coming. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm glad we could finally make this happen.
00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:53.240
So let's set the table a little bit for our listeners. There is a lot of chaos and turmoil in the solar industry. But that is an opportunity. Meanwhile, our industry is maturing. The technology has been around for a while. Technology has been around since the 50s, but really solar took off in the early 2000s and then it really took off in like 2010 that's the modern era of solar in the United States. And here in 2026 we're just going full guns.
00:02:53.240 --> 00:03:12.460
There's a mini boom going on as the ITC fades out. So everybody's trying to get their projects done before the ITC goes away. And I'm of the opinion that the ITC is not coming back. But either way, if it comes back or not, we're going to have a robust industry.
00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:17.259
We're here to stay. Solar, batteries, wind, they are the cheapest sources of power.
00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:35.640
Photons are super abundant. You can't stop that. Even Donald Trump cannot stop that. But Matt, you started a company just recently, and I think that was a brazen move, but explain to our listeners, what is flux energy?
00:03:36.539 --> 00:04:24.159
Sure. So yeah, as much as it is a chaotic time, I think this is a time of great opportunity for operating assets, and that's why I started flux energy. So we focus on what we call redevelopment. And if that's an unfamiliar term to you. I've recently made it up, so I think that's fine, but redevelopment is focusing on redevelop is is redeveloping an asset. So through a combination of installing energy storage to access new incentive programs and energy markets and repowering and renegotiating and amending contracts with off takers. Our thesis that we're proving every day now is that you can deploy capital into operating assets and get as good or better returns as putting a new asset in the ground.
00:04:25.399 --> 00:04:52.970
Yes. And you know, just for some context, I was in San Diego talking with some colleagues about a solar farm that was built in 2013 the solar modules on that solar farm were 120 watt modules. So that sounds pitifully small in by today's standards, where we have 750 watt modules, certainly in C&I, 600 to 700 is now standard in utility, they get even bigger.
00:04:52.970 --> 00:04:56.060
They go up to 800 watts, I think, or maybe slightly above.
00:04:56.899 --> 00:05:20.029
And the form factor is getting bigger too. But you can imagine if you can quadruple or quintuple the amount of energy per solar panel, there is motivation, you know, you have a footprint, you have site control on a certain acreage, and now you could get twice or four times as much energy out of that asset. And that's money on the table.
00:05:20.539 --> 00:05:23.059
Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:20.539 --> 00:05:37.429
And when you think about it, PPAs, as time has gone on, have got extremely competitive. And so if you can repower and produce more megawatt hours on assets that are older with better vintage PPAs, the economic opportunity is really great.
00:05:38.539 --> 00:05:49.580
Yeah, paint a picture for us. What's an example of you don't have to give names, but let's get, let's get into the weeds a little bit.
00:05:45.889 --> 00:05:53.570
How does this work? Why? Why does flux exist? There's, there's a financial reason first and foremost, I think,
00:05:54.049 --> 00:06:15.799
yeah, yeah. And really, that's what we're trying to get after, right? This industry is motivated by a lot of, a lot of sort of good and altruistic factors. We're doing this because we care, but everyone's going to make money at the end of the day. And so, just to run you through it an asset, without getting into specifics, we're in the midst of redeveloping a couple assets now where we have done a few things.
00:06:15.830 --> 00:07:14.059
The first thing we've done is we have developed a battery system to go along with storage, an existing an existing solar asset that's about 13 years old. That battery system is in a is going into a state program that allows revenue streams that do not affect the PPA. So this asset can maintain its PPA, deliver energy to its customers, and is installing a storage system that gets a new incentive program, participates lightly in an energy market, and increases the capacity payments of the solar asset. So what you have is you have an enhanced revenue stream and two revenue revenue streams stacked on top, and this combined with a repower to a juice, a DC, couple battery and provide more power to the customers who are really, actually excited about that they want more cheap solar power, We've been able to improve the returns of the size of like 8%
00:07:14.960 --> 00:07:41.330
and when, when Matt says dc coupled, you instantaneously know that he's talking about Massachusetts, because there is really no other dc coupled market in the United States today. But let's just say today, a solar farm is producing$10 million a year in revenue the old solar farm by repowering, redeveloping, adding storage, what could we what?
00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:42.620
What's possible?
00:07:43.850 --> 00:08:00.259
Revenue Streams can sometimes more than double, okay, you know, and there's cap expense to that. I'm not saying it's free money and your profits are going to double, but the returns are they're extremely lucrative, like we're seeing for the asset that I just gave an example of. And good guess.
00:08:01.070 --> 00:08:02.360
Press by your guests.
00:08:04.370 --> 00:08:06.980
I've learned by talking, yeah,
00:08:10.190 --> 00:08:31.730
and we like DC, coupled systems, sometimes utilities in modifications prefer AC coupled systems. But we like dc coupled systems because, combined with the repower, you can really juice the DC ratio of the solar without changing the AC ratio and making the utility do a restudy, and you can use all that clipped energy for the dc coupled storage. That's sort of that's why we like it. But we we do both.
00:08:33.289 --> 00:08:45.590
I would agree, but there's many fewer manufacturers that produce dc coupled products. I think that is going to be a growing list, but isn't it like less than a handful?
00:08:46.279 --> 00:09:02.570
Yeah, it's less than a handful. It is, but there's some good products out there, and I think it will gain some traction. It's interesting because there was a bit of a flip. Because I feel like at the beginning, when people were really starting talking about, you know, small utility storage, they were talking mostly about DC couples,
00:09:03.049 --> 00:09:08.000
you name some names. Or are you afraid that everyone's going to go buy up all your all the better. I don't know any of them.
00:09:08.059 --> 00:09:14.960
I don't know any of them. Tim, not a one afraid
00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:20.480
of Yeah, we need, we need, we need your secrets.
00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:21.710
Matt, we need your secrets.
00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:23.959
Oh, man, but then you wouldn't need me as much,
00:09:25.250 --> 00:09:34.220
all right. So, so the assets aging, the technology has vastly improved. Now we have markets with storage incentives.
00:09:34.699 --> 00:09:43.490
This is Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, California, Texas, a growing drum beat. Drum beat.
00:09:40.009 --> 00:10:19.789
You know, I predict, in five years, Matt, we'll probably have 30 VPP markets in the United States. It's, it's, it's starting to catch fire. It's good for utilities. That's the cool thing about this. Is batteries are really good for a utility operator, right? Because it's a sponge, it can absorb and release energy, and the utility operator really likes that, and it's instantaneous. You don't need to fire up a peaker plant if you have a VPP battery, right? And it's it's literally replacing peakers, which are very expensive to operate and not instantaneous. Yeah, so
00:10:20.209 --> 00:10:29.990
we have a piece of it's sort of a proprietary process that we're building, a software that we've developed that analyzes fleets for IPPs to show redevelopment potential.
00:10:30.199 --> 00:12:29.809
And one of the things we're most excited about and we look at in every analysis is either currently or in the future. Can we bundle assets into a VPP to get into some program, or just to make the economics a little bit better for the owner? Very excited about it? Yeah, and just from what you said before, not just for the util. These you know, what's really interesting, and I think super cool that we're finding is that, in a lot of cases, off takers, landowners, municipalities, they want something more from these assets. But we don't know that because people aren't engaging with them about that. And so as we look at these redevelopments and we get to talking to people, we're often able to provide things for the other counterparties in the assets that are very important. They're right. They're 2535 year partners that help them as well and get them a lot more excited about the asset than they were before. It's you know, the easiest and simplest form is a lot of off takers right now, really, really scared about energy pricing and given the opportunity to blend and extend their PPAs, which is something they might not have thought about, they get really excited.
00:12:31.069 --> 00:13:11.450
Now you're talking about off takers, but I think more about the acid owner or the IPP but again, let's paint a picture who you know, when I think of IPPS, I think of edpr and Ng and EDF, a lot of European a lot of European companies. We have, we have our next eras, you know, we have American versions of these. But so there's the the asset owner there. They own a fleet of power plants, and then they have off take agreements with various and sundry parties. Sometimes these are corporate off takers.
00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:17.480
Sometimes they're utility off takers. But why do you mention specifically the off taker? Oh, because
00:13:17.480 --> 00:14:01.940
so so our we work for IPPS, right. We're a partner of IPPs to help them identify through a proprietary process, the best assets for redevelopment, build redevelopment and repower strategies, and then do the actual hard work and get these assets redeveloped and repowered. But what I was saying is that the counterparties in these deals are super important, and they also have needs, and what we're finding is that we're able to get counterparties pretty excited about these redevelopments and repowers, because they need to be permitted still, right? You need municipal approval, you need the landowners, you need the off takers. But we're finding them actually getting really excited about this for some, some reason, they want to secure their energy contract long term.
00:13:58.670 --> 00:14:36.410
Some of them, you know, when the customer is a municipal utility, they might want storage for themselves, and you're offering them a quick path to it. The landowners often have different things that they're interested in, and so we just it's very interesting that we're doing this to enhance returns of IPPs so they can grow and thrive and continue into the future, but it is really an ecosystem, and there are needs and things that we can fix, that people are bothered by, and all sorts of other sort of ancillary positive benefits to redeveloping and repowering these assets.
00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:47.660
The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America's number one, three phase string inverter with over 10 gigawatts shipped in the US.
00:14:48.230 --> 00:15:41.720
The CPS product lineup includes string inverters ranging from 25 kW to 350 kW, their flagship inverter, the CPS 350 KW is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts. CPS is the world's most bankable inverter brand, and is America's number one choice for solar plants, now offering solutions for commercial utility ESS and balance of system requirements go to Chint power systems, com or call 855584716, 5847168, to find out more, in our pre interview, you called yourself a solar house flipper. What tell us about your business model in general, and then let's get into some of the other aspects of your business, like artificial intelligence.
00:15:42.529 --> 00:16:18.799
Yeah, so solar, house flipper, that's sort of how I describe us. To people that don't understand the industry. I'm one that will over explain and I find sort of people on the street, people I meet new friends. I overwhelm what I do. But what we're seeing is and Massachusetts, great example, right? Massachusetts had two very effective, very lucrative programs to encourage solar to be installed in s rec one and s rec 2s, rec one, so I think final projects this year and s rec two is shortly after.
00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:30.079
What happens when those projects expire is, or excuse me, those programs expires, those those projects produce sub you know, they're losing 50 to 60% of the revenue, so they become somewhat disinteresting new investor.
00:16:30.950 --> 00:17:30.559
What we have found is that some of our customers are really excited to redevelop those assets, return, bring the EBITDA and revenue back up. Similar, sometimes even a little better than when it had s rec one and s rec two, and then others were are small time owners that, you know, bought two or three. They saw a lucrative program. They've owned them. It's been great. But they want, they want to sell them, and they don't want to sell them for the current NPV of the asset post sric One or s or two. So we go in, we go to those owners, and we help them redevelop their projects, get them entitled, get them to NTP, and then we serve as a bit of a matchmaker, because we're working for the IPPs that want these assets, and so they're that's, that's sort of the house flipping analogy, right? We'll go in to a small owner, help them redevelop their assets, greatly increase the value, get it fully entitled, and then we have customers that are also our customers, that want to buy these assets. And that's where the flip takes place.
00:17:32.269 --> 00:18:00.860
It seems to me, if I'm an IPP, and you knock on my door and say, Hey, Mr. Behemoth ik, IPP, I've got an idea. We could repower your asset and add batteries, and it's going to make a bunch of money, and they go, Hmm, okay, show me the numbers. What prevents them from just running with that and stealing your secret sauce?
00:18:02.570 --> 00:19:24.980
I would argue that our secret we're very smart thinkers first ideas, but I'd argue our secret sauce is our ourselves. We are long term executors with great track records, and we're people that you can go ask the market about us, and it's very unlikely you'll find somebody, even people that I've had strong disagreements with, that would say something bad about our ability to execute, or who we are as people. So a lot of what we're selling is us, and there's not that many really world class executors in this industry. It's we're still, we're still sort of building up that base. But the better answer to your question is IPP. The IPP business is incredibly complicated. It's incredibly unforgiving, and these companies, even well resourced ones, find themselves with all of the things they have to do, still scrambling. So it doesn't really make sense to me for them to build a whole team, because that's what it will take to do this work, a whole team to redevelop assets, and then what does that team do next? How does that distract their focus when we're building that functionality so that we can do it fast, we can do it better. We can be great partners to enhance people's business, and we can be the experts on it, because it really is its own field of expertise. Repowering and redevelopment are nothing like original development. They're extremely intricate and technically complicated.
00:19:25.279 --> 00:19:36.470
I like your answer a lot. I'm a strong believer that ideas are cheap. It's the people that execute the ideas that are rare and or 100 can execute.
00:19:36.890 --> 00:19:50.360
And that's that's such a huge reason why I started my own company, because I I have tremendous belief in people carry this industry, and I want the best ones on my side. And I know a lot of them, and I want to, I want to build them a home.
00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:53.240
So tell us a little bit about the team that you've built.
00:19:54.289 --> 00:20:53.960
Yeah. So right now, we're small. We have three full time people, a finance person, chief operating officer is my co founder and myself. We will be hiring soon. But what is really been cool, and has jump started our business like crazy, is we have so many of the best experts in the industry that are so interested in what we're doing and are so excited to potentially join us or work with us, more that our network. If you looked at our company and who is working on our individual projects. There's like 20 of the best industry's best people going into every engagement we've had so far. So we've been able to really out kick our coverage with resources, simply because people really want to be involved. And now I think timeline wise, we got to do what every business does, right? We got to grow our FTES and really build strong capabilities. But so far, we've been able to take on two and 3x the engagements we thought we would with a small team and deliver, like really high quality work products,
00:20:55.430 --> 00:21:57.049
very cool. So you mentioned that for all intents and purposes, you're looking at assets that were installed in 2019 or earlier, which opens up a huge swath of markets in the United States, including my own state of Illinois, which saw the first tranche of solar getting installed in 2018 2019 This Is community solar and and then some utility solar started to happen in parallel, and now it's both. So let's talk a little more about your technology and your approach, though, here we are in the age of AI, everybody's using it to the extent possible. It's a continuum, of course. But you have specifically built a platform or a tool, I'm not sure what you call it, that helps you screen and rank fleets of assets. Tell us about that.
00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:30.380
Yeah, so we, we have taken a very particular approach to this, which is, this is a new idea, and the industry has been talking about it for a while, but there's not a lot of people executing it. So we built our process with the idea that we needed to be able to analyze a fleet very quickly and give a person a glimpse into their opportunity before asking them to engage and commit a lot of capital. So we built this process. We it's solar, right?
00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:30.380
So we have to have an acronym.
00:22:30.410 --> 00:23:32.480
We call it sai strategic asset intelligence, where we can take a portfolio, be it in a state or multiple states, and over three to five weeks for fairly short money. Give a really good, basically high level ranking of the opportunities. Take the best opportunities and give financial metrics, including, of like, a fully built up financial model, critical path for for one of the sort of best assets, and our our tools, they look a lot what like what everyone else is doing. We have a bunch of AI agents. We have some automated pulling of data and pulling into public resources, but they're able to really quickly assess the opportunity, and then we throw our expertise on it. And when our expertise goes on in, as I said, a very short amount of time, we're able to look at a ton of assets, and get a really good picture of the opportunity, not just now, but what opportunities are going to start to manifest over the next several years.
00:23:33.319 --> 00:23:41.750
So fast forward five years. You know today, you might be working in one or two states in five years. What's your prediction for how many states you'll be working in?
00:23:42.230 --> 00:24:24.740
I'd call it six to eight. And it's really interesting, because as time goes on and we're working in markets that are mature right, and have these aged assets, new markets are becoming mature simply as a factor of time passing by. So there's sort of six ish markets we're interested in now, but there's also markets we know we're going to be interested in three to five years. One thing that is of crucial importance to us is we have been executing at a high level for our entire careers, and we are going to execute at a high level no matter what. So the amount of markets that we will get into is the amount of markets where we can be one of the best experts, and we will not go far than that understood.
00:24:26.180 --> 00:24:56.930
So if I'm an IPP and I'm just, you know, I'm very focused on maintaining my existing fleet of assets and acquiring and developing new assets, there's somewhat of a blind spot, I think, is what you're saying, yes, redevelopment opportunity, and it's it's probably better for them to just stay in that zone that they're in and let you and probably soon your competitors.
00:24:54.170 --> 00:25:59.329
I don't know if you have any competitors yet, but you will soon they're coming. Yeah, it's clearly a niche opportunity, which relies on two things, as I see it, expertise people with know how, and technology, which you know you've now built with the help of AI, and that's only going to get better and easier honestly. You know, one of the mantras in society today, Matt is that the the AI companies are gobbling up the entire software industry because their tools are getting so good at replicating what others have. You know, spent their entire lives or decades building. It's kind of crazy. So I'm just curious. You know, do you feel like you you you certainly have a first mover advantage. What other moats Do you feel like you're building?
00:26:01.910 --> 00:26:17.240
It's a great question. So I think our process really good. I think that sort of some of the magic on the decision making is really good, and I don't see anybody being able to replicate it in the near future. It's certainly not AI.
00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:53.539
And the interesting part about AI, with this, this business, is that it is, it is sort of doing a lot of the groundwork for us, but the things that make us magic, it cannot do. It cannot go and make friends with municipalities and landowners that might have grievances. It cannot see the strategy that we are looking to put forth with both off takers and owners our customers. It. It. It's really good at doing a lot of the data sort of collection and analysis that we need. But the subject matter expertise part, I think, is fairly it's a fair ways off.
00:26:53.569 --> 00:27:29.450
And that's really the bread and butt of our business, the other moat. And I'm going to just say it again and again and again, we have we I've been operating assets for almost 20 years. I've been in the industry for more than industry for more than 20 every we have so much experience design, construction, engineering. We've seen everything that goes wrong. We know the commitments that need to be made and the commitments that you then need to honor. And I feel just like there's not a lot of long term operators committed to revitalizing these assets and making sure that they have their longest useful life possible. And I think that's a bit of a moment. I wonder if
00:27:29.450 --> 00:28:13.279
you could shine a light a little bit on what you think quality construction entails, because one of the themes that keeps rearing its head for me is under performance of solar assets, and there are a variety of reasons why that is, and maybe you could comment on that, but, but being an expert at building quality assets that are going to perform as expected or over perform, you don't want them to super over perform, because then you're leaving money On the table. You want them to perform as expected? You know, at 99.99999% but tell us about how you see that?
00:28:14.210 --> 00:28:30.710
Yeah, I think there's two things there. One thing that I think the industry needs to move towards, and is sort of naturally But slowly, is we need to be we need to have accurate assets. There's two there's two parts to the underperformance problem, right?
00:28:26.150 --> 00:29:16.190
One, there's construction that's not sort of supervised or done correctly, and equipment that is failing more than the manufacturer said it would. And then the other part is just over aggressive modeling, right? You can have the most perfectly put together power plant with the best equipment that never goes offline. And if you thought it would produce 20% more than it would in your model, you'll never get there, right? So there's sort of two parts in this one side, and I we're getting to this naturally. I'm seeing it through all the different providers that help with this. This beginning modeling, people are getting more mature, and they're making sure the models are more accurate and a good plant built well, with an accurate model should perform like a true p 50 right. Half the years are above 100% and half the years are not.
00:29:13.490 --> 00:29:50.000
And they kind of, they the scatter plot all gets right around the middle line in terms of quality construction. It's, it's just a matter of having the correct amount of oversight and the correct amount of quality and selection of materials and work practices without gold plating. Everything we know in this industry, we're trying to be aggressive book cost, and we need to make things the economics of things work. But you know how many ditches have been filled with wire and conduit and not inspected before and had rocks thrown on them.
00:29:45.589 --> 00:30:36.470
And how many unqualified or just started apprentices have been terminating home run wires on huge utility plants that then all of those connectors need to be replaced in three years. So it's really just about taking a little bit of time, both before and during the process to make sure your processes and procedures are correct. And we're we are, like, super focused and dialed in, that we find the builders actually love that when we're managing projects right, that we're getting in and talking about details and how we want things, and it goes a long way. And then, in terms of equipment, you make your best bet in the time you cover warranty, and you cover training to repair things in your procurement process where you should cover it, and then you make your best bet into what equipment you think is going to have high uptime and long life.
00:30:37.579 --> 00:30:40.339
Can you say anything more about that choice?
00:30:41.539 --> 00:31:13.130
What specifically Well, solar model modules, first and foremost, the most expensive part of the plant are commodities. But there's a lot of you know, people that want to find Made in America or FIAC free, yep. And you know, do Does, does it really matter what solar module you use? Does it does tier one versus other really matter?
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:39.829
Um, that's a great question. I think what matters is more nuanced than that. And I think within a manufacturer, you can, you can have that, that that nuance as well. So, you know, the top five had some, a lot of the top five had some really bad backsheet problems in the late teens. And just total batches of modules that were, I would have bought a tier two module any day over that, right?
00:31:35.990 --> 00:31:58.789
And I think you find the same thing with with a lot of the sort of tier two. Butters is that there's good, there's bad, there's different factories, there's different lines, and they're, they're all a bit different. So I'm a big proponent, at least on the module side of manufacturing inspections, understanding exactly what you're getting out of the factory. I think it's, it's worth the extra money. Some people don't have that luxury.
00:31:58.789 --> 00:32:15.019
They're buying from a distributor, etc. And it gets it gets hard. I think there is a real difference, but I don't think the real difference is necessarily manufactured to manufacture. It can be, it can be in sort of sub divisions of those manufacturers, and it makes it really difficult.
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:27.769
And then there's the construction side you mentioned, using relatively inexperienced labor. We do. We do need trainees in the field.
00:32:23.690 --> 00:32:31.519
That's the only way to grow the industry, and we have a shortage of labor, so that's a problem.
00:32:32.120 --> 00:32:43.940
But what are your comments to construction company owners or EPCs in terms of building their workforce and maintaining high quality standards.
00:32:44.120 --> 00:33:41.420
Oh, yeah. So I started my career when I decided to get into solar. Over two decades ago. I started as an electrical apprentice. I became an electrician because I realized I didn't know how the power gets to the plug in my wallet home. I thought, I thought I needed to understand the physical process, sort of from beginning to end. And I am huge on training and huge on getting trainees on sites. But there's a difference between a trainee on a site being supervised to do a task that they can do, confirming they can do it, and then having oversight and just saying to someone, hey, go in the field and make up these 200 connections, and potentially the person that taught them how to do it isn't doing it right in the first place. So I'd say to EPCs that what they already know for the most part, is that you want, you want trainees in places where they can succeed, in process they can succeed. And you want to train and train again and inspect and inspect again and make sure they're doing a good job. Because very, very often them not doing good job costs EPC quite a bit
00:33:41.420 --> 00:33:52.490
of money in our last few minutes together, what else should our listeners know about flux and this opportunity to redevelop and repower
00:33:53.990 --> 00:34:50.960
that's a great question. So I think a thing that's often missed because people sort of grab on this redevelopment is that we find that people are having a lot of problems with repowers, not not necessarily they can't get them done, but they're slow. They're a different sort of task than a lot of owners and other companies are used to performing. So they take a long time. They're hard to figure out without the appropriate value engineering and sort of Reduce Reuse strategy, they can be very expensive. And so because of that, and also to service our redevelopment projects, we're building out a repower services team to just be the partner to come help you. If you just have a straight repower equipment's failing, you need to do something. We can come in and we'll help figure out the most cost effective and quality solution to get your plant repowered. We're I'm actually pretty surprised that there's not really a ton of companies doing that right now, but I think maybe we're just a little early.
00:34:51.469 --> 00:34:58.309
Well, you're touching on something that's important, though, and that is the use solar modules there.
00:34:58.610 --> 00:35:11.450
There are at least two flavors, maybe three flavors, you know, some that are serviceable and can be repurposed and given away to a less developed country.
00:35:07.340 --> 00:35:24.470
And, you know, provide rural people electric, you know, solar electricity, and then some of those modules are going to have to be recycled or put in landfills, hopefully not very many of them put in landfills.
00:35:24.470 --> 00:35:30.710
I'm not a fan of landfilling solar panels, but where, where are we at on that on on the recycling piece?
00:35:31.100 --> 00:35:33.380
Yeah. So we're, well, so interesting enough.
00:35:33.380 --> 00:36:16.100
We've actually found in, I don't know, maybe 50% of the instances of the projects we've looked at so far, that there's a secondary market. It's not a great secondary market, but we've been able to sort of form agreements that someone will come take the solar panels once they're removed from racks for a couple cents a watt, which an expense to landfill, which we will never do, or an expense to recycle, is not the highest cost in the world, but when you replace it with a two to three cent A watt gain, it's it really helps the economics, but there's, there are recycling programs. We're kind of so we just started, right? So our first redevelopments that are going to go actually and start, we're going to start doing the work.
00:36:16.130 --> 00:36:25.250
They're a little whiles out, but we're already talking to recycling companies and making sure that we're going to choose the best, the best partner.
00:36:22.430 --> 00:36:35.030
Because, yeah, we're committed to that. We're not going to throw things. I mean, I got into this industry for what it is, right, making clean energy, and we're we're not going to do that. We're going to do our best to have as little footprint as possible.
00:36:35.510 --> 00:36:37.040
Anything else our listeners should know,
00:36:39.170 --> 00:37:13.760
just that there is so much opportunity in these operating assets. We. All been so focused for so long in making the industry bigger and deploying new assets, but I really feel like there's just a convergence of a lot of different vectors that make it so that looking in and making sure that these assets that we have already put in the ground have really good, useful lives, are good members of their communities, and bring healthy returns. Is, is just such an opportunity that is going to explode over the coming years as more and more states programs mature, and I so excited for it.
00:37:15.200 --> 00:37:40.010
Hey guys, are you a residential solar installer doing light commercial but wanting to scale into large C&I solar? I'm Tim Montague. I've developed over 150 megawatts of commercial solar, and I've solved the problem that you're having you don't know what tools and technologies you need in order to successfully close 100 KW to megawatt scale projects.
00:37:40.580 --> 00:37:47.930
I've developed a commercial solar accelerator to help installers exactly like you.
00:37:43.460 --> 00:38:07.400
Just go to cleanpowerhour.com click on strategy and book a call today. It's totally free with no obligation. Thanks for being a listener. I really appreciate you listening to the pod, and I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Go to clean power hour and click strategy today. Thanks so much.
00:38:02.990 --> 00:38:15.740
I want to encourage our listeners to check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please tell a friend about the show. That's the best thing you can do to help others find this content.
00:38:16.220 --> 00:38:24.500
And please come out and meet me at a trade show. I'm going to a lot of shows these days. I'll be at Atlanta, at Ari's southeast.
00:38:24.860 --> 00:38:30.110
I'll be at inner solar Midwest.
00:38:24.860 --> 00:38:34.760
I'll be at ACP in Houston. I will be at Innovation Day in Dallas in April for CPS America.
00:38:35.060 --> 00:38:37.730
Matt, how can our listeners find you?
00:38:39.140 --> 00:38:50.900
Well, you can always find me like everyone else on LinkedIn but Matt@fluxenergy.com and www.fluxenergy.com and you'll find us at all the trade shows talking about repower and redevelopment.
00:38:52.490 --> 00:38:57.410
With that, I'll say, let's grow solar and storage. Thank you so much. Matt Murphy, thank you, Tim. Was a
00:38:57.410 --> 00:38:59.210
pleasure. Thank you.
00:00:50.780 --> 00:01:25.359
00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:40.800
00:01:36.659 --> 00:01:50.939
00:01:52.560 --> 00:02:05.780
00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:18.579
00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:24.280
00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:53.240
00:02:53.240 --> 00:03:12.460
00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:17.259
00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:35.640
00:03:36.539 --> 00:04:24.159
00:04:25.399 --> 00:04:52.970
00:04:52.970 --> 00:04:56.060
00:04:56.899 --> 00:05:20.029
00:05:20.539 --> 00:05:23.059
00:05:20.539 --> 00:05:37.429
00:05:38.539 --> 00:05:49.580
00:05:45.889 --> 00:05:53.570
00:05:54.049 --> 00:06:15.799
00:06:15.830 --> 00:07:14.059
00:07:14.960 --> 00:07:41.330
00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:42.620
00:07:43.850 --> 00:08:00.259
00:08:01.070 --> 00:08:02.360
00:08:04.370 --> 00:08:06.980
00:08:10.190 --> 00:08:31.730
00:08:33.289 --> 00:08:45.590
00:08:46.279 --> 00:09:02.570
00:09:03.049 --> 00:09:08.000
00:09:08.059 --> 00:09:14.960
00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:20.480
00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:21.710
00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:23.959
00:09:25.250 --> 00:09:34.220
00:09:34.699 --> 00:09:43.490
00:09:40.009 --> 00:10:19.789
00:10:20.209 --> 00:10:29.990
00:10:30.199 --> 00:12:29.809
00:12:31.069 --> 00:13:11.450
00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:17.480
00:13:17.480 --> 00:14:01.940
00:13:58.670 --> 00:14:36.410
00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:47.660
00:14:48.230 --> 00:15:41.720
00:15:42.529 --> 00:16:18.799
00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:30.079
00:16:30.950 --> 00:17:30.559
00:17:32.269 --> 00:18:00.860
00:18:02.570 --> 00:19:24.980
00:19:25.279 --> 00:19:36.470
00:19:36.890 --> 00:19:50.360
00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:53.240
00:19:54.289 --> 00:20:53.960
00:20:55.430 --> 00:21:57.049
00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:30.380
00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:30.380
00:22:30.410 --> 00:23:32.480
00:23:33.319 --> 00:23:41.750
00:23:42.230 --> 00:24:24.740
00:24:26.180 --> 00:24:56.930
00:24:54.170 --> 00:25:59.329
00:26:01.910 --> 00:26:17.240
00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:53.539
00:26:53.569 --> 00:27:29.450
00:27:29.450 --> 00:28:13.279
00:28:14.210 --> 00:28:30.710
00:28:26.150 --> 00:29:16.190
00:29:13.490 --> 00:29:50.000
00:29:45.589 --> 00:30:36.470
00:30:37.579 --> 00:30:40.339
00:30:41.539 --> 00:31:13.130
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:39.829
00:31:35.990 --> 00:31:58.789
00:31:58.789 --> 00:32:15.019
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:27.769
00:32:23.690 --> 00:32:31.519
00:32:32.120 --> 00:32:43.940
00:32:44.120 --> 00:33:41.420
00:33:41.420 --> 00:33:52.490
00:33:53.990 --> 00:34:50.960
00:34:51.469 --> 00:34:58.309
00:34:58.610 --> 00:35:11.450
00:35:07.340 --> 00:35:24.470
00:35:24.470 --> 00:35:30.710
00:35:31.100 --> 00:35:33.380
00:35:33.380 --> 00:36:16.100
00:36:16.130 --> 00:36:25.250
00:36:22.430 --> 00:36:35.030
00:36:35.510 --> 00:36:37.040
00:36:39.170 --> 00:37:13.760
00:37:15.200 --> 00:37:40.010
00:37:40.580 --> 00:37:47.930
00:37:43.460 --> 00:38:07.400
00:38:02.990 --> 00:38:15.740
00:38:16.220 --> 00:38:24.500
00:38:24.860 --> 00:38:30.110
00:38:24.860 --> 00:38:34.760
00:38:35.060 --> 00:38:37.730
00:38:39.140 --> 00:38:50.900
00:38:52.490 --> 00:38:57.410
00:38:57.410 --> 00:38:59.210
