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Electrical X-Factor is all about the fast-paced, ever-changing world of the electrical trade as seen by a seasoned electrician who’s been in the business for over 40 years. David Moss, CEO and founder of Patriot Electric in Victoria, BC, doesn’t hold back. He comes from the school of hard knocks… and class is in session.
EP Production Team (00:19.63)
the end of the day if they don't meet these targets and they fall short there's going to be some stuff going on.
At the moment, BC Hydro need more power. There's not enough power to supply everyone. If they say, we have to build another dam, we have to build another this, we have to build another that, we have to put new transmission lines in, what's going to happen with the cost of your power? It's like a tax. It's going to go straight up. It's a constantly changing industry. We call it the solar coaster for a lot of reasons. Would you rather pay $100,000 to Utility X over 25 years or a fraction of that for your solar system? There's not a lot of industries that are going to be around in 2030, 40,
50 years like solar is. So it ain't going anywhere, it's only going to grow.
EP Production Team (01:06.23)
Solar power isn't a new technology. We've been aware of solar as a source of energy for a while now. But it's hard to separate the reality and the perception that we have of it. You know, lunar colonies, biodomes, science fiction. But don't forget NASA and their deep space probes.
solar arrays on space stations. That's reality. The distant future isn't so far away anymore. But if the technology's been around for so long, and we're talking about it seriously only now, you might be thinking, there must be something wrong with it. When it comes to technology, early adoption comes with a lot of upside. It's brand new. It's shiny. You make your friends jealous.
But it also comes with a bit of pain. It's expensive, sometimes unreliable. And what if it doesn't take off? Betamax, HD DVDs, the Microsoft Zune? People call it the early adopter tax. When a technology becomes consumer-friendly, that's when it enters the mainstream. Suddenly, it's everywhere. There's a new wave, one that's been building for decades.
It's turning heads and it's got electricians around the world talking. There's a reason why electricians are going all out, reinventing their businesses and hitting the books when it comes to solar power. They're on the edge of the next big thing. Being in the industry and as close to the industry as I am, solar is the one. On this episode of Electrical X Factor, we talk to the experts who work in this space.
installing and selling solar technology. They say the demand is only increasing. There are a lot of public misconceptions about solar. There's a lot of hesitation because, like any industry, it faces threats. Unknowns. But a little education goes a long way. And David Moss, owner and CEO of Patriot Electric, is convinced that there's no better time to go solar than right now. He'll stake his future on it.
EP Production Team (03:25.282)
Yeah, so when they said electrify everything, I just said, I ain't retiring. Okay, I've been waiting all my life for this, all right? I'm not quitting now. Fossil fuels are going the way of the dinosaur. Gas-powered cars already have a sell-by date in Canada. Renewable energy is in. But which one's going to come out on top? What else can you put on top of your house or in your yard? When we talk about wind, it's a small version of how many kilowatt hours you can generate from a windmill of any size.
that you can have consistently having wind and dependably, know, structural wise where it can be. So I haven't seen any modeling of wind or tidal generation or, you know, any other forms of alternate energies. There's nothing that's on my radar right now compared to solar right in Victoria or say, lower Island, Vancouver Island, BC. There are wind farms and such, but we don't have those locations right now.
There's nothing that I'm seeing that's opening those doors and pinning those pictures. How many people want to be looking at a giant 50, 60 foot, 100 foot windmill in their front yard? I just don't see anything but solar right now. So it's a realistic option for the consumer in terms of how much space it takes up. But just how important is it that more people begin to go solar? I think it's very important that we have a sustainable solution, a cost effective solution, you know, not one that...
requires an insane amount of money. With solar today, it's gone to the point where it doesn't have to be that way. That's Kane Hammentree, CEO of Solve Energy. For him and others in the industry, it's all about education. It's about putting the word out that solar isn't just a neat idea. It's unique. Yeah, everybody knows solar panels make power. We've all known that since we were
eight years old having a calculator with a little tiny solar strip on it there. We all know that. You cover the strip, light goes off. And that's Riley Stock, account manager at Charge Solar. Most people are aware of solar and maybe they've heard of its limitations. But what they don't know is how much the technology has improved. They don't know about the perks. We all know that solar panels make power, but educating people on
EP Production Team (05:42.114)
the numbers and the logistics and how they all work and how it gets interconnected with their house. Yeah, these are all things that people just don't know. This industry is, it's exciting because the people getting into it are passionate and excited. You know, we want to help that excitement grow every day. It's there. It's a good industry to be in. I'm happy to be a part of it. I've been in this industry for over a decade now.
You know, I was on the retail end selling directly to residential homeowners while I was in the States for five years. And then here I'm on the distribution end. So now I sell to those companies that sell to the homeowners and commercial as well. majority is still residential. And yeah, it's a constantly changing industry. We call it the solar coaster for a lot of reasons, because going in one direction and all of a sudden things change. But you roll with your punches. Life is like a river. I like the industry.
I think it's a cool technology and I'm a sales guy so I could sell anything. That's not the problem. The problem is being happy and content with what I sell. And I've always had a passion for green energy and renewable energy. And at the end of the day, I sleep very well at night because I'm proud of what I do.
I enjoy what I do. It's very cool to be a part of an industry that I feel like is gonna have a positive impact, you know, going forward and it has a strong purpose behind it. I feel like we're just scraping the tip of the iceberg and I feel like as technology advances, as new things come out, I feel like we're gonna see a lot of change, you know, on that side of the industry. So I just feel like it's an exciting, growing, changing industry. It has nowhere near reached its peak. We're in for some cool stuff. I've been in the solar space since
end of 2018 and at first I was like, this is kind of interesting. You know, I always thought solar was this thing that you installed if you were in the boonies or, you know, like maybe only hippies installed or, or whatever. And then I can't realize, no, this is like something that everyone can have access to. And at the same time can create like a huge, huge positive effect. You know, like I never felt like I I've been in an industry where you really on both sides of the table can like extremely help someone to the point where it's such a no brainer.
EP Production Team (08:00.322)
that it doesn't make sense why anyone wouldn't really do it all the time. Well, the answer was sitting there staring at us the entire time. So what changed? Solar used to be expensive, prohibitively so. And now it's not. Solar's on the rise because it's becoming affordable. Although it might require doing a little math. The very common question is how much is it?
Same as everything, right? It's the same as how much does it cost? It's the first thing you will want to know, right? So I would say that I think at the moment as well, especially in BC, there's some very good incentives going on, right? Yeah, there is some pushback and mostly would be for the price. That's Ashley Brown, project coordinator. He works at Patriot Electric with David Moss. I've always been on the bleeding edge. Any new technology, anything to do with the way things were going to be getting going and going into, I was into it. I was all about it.
I loved it.
So I remember putting my first solar system in when I was 17 years old and it was to do with a swimming pool solar system. So this was a real way back. If I remember when you asked the question, I started reflecting on it. Well, okay. What about, what about my first solar system was I was back in around, gosh, 77, five, eight. And my girlfriend who was my wife now, Teresa, her brother was a plumber.
and I was in the trade so it was probably in the late 70s maybe yeah I was in the late 70s and so he said well let's put in a solar system you and I to heat the pool I said okay let's do it so we put in the great big black panels on the roof and nonetheless it was a solar system but it wasn't electrically putting it back to the grid it was just what was available what was going on at the time and a lot of pools around Victoria and around were using these black solar panels to push water up
EP Production Team (09:54.862)
and then as they came back down gravity, the black panels would be a conductor of heat from the solar arrays and then the water on the bottom end of that panel would come out at like 120 degrees and so that would be pumped back into the pool and you'd be warming up your pool and you'd have no problem but it was all done through solar black plastic panels. There was no reservoir, no tank, no nothing. It was just all hydronic. Electrically, I think I read somewhere that the first solar electric array came online in the 70s as well.
but that's one of very first. What is that? Like almost 40 plus years, 50 years. So solar electric panels and arrays don't quote me on this, but I know it's been around for like a long time.
EP Production Team (10:41.592)
You know, I was looking up the company that actually sold us the panels, Arc Solar. It was actually called Arc Solar back then, but now it's called Arc at Home. They morphed into fireplaces and so on because they couldn't make a go of it. The industry just didn't have enough demand for hydronic pool solar panels. So they morphed their business into fire, fireplaces and so on. So for those looking them up and I went, man, that's it's a local company still around. But unfortunately they never got and stayed in the solar quote unquote business. Timing is
everything. Simply put, it wasn't solar's moment in the sun. It's not uncommon when innovators get left in the cold. But fast forward a few decades and it's a brand new day. We're not suddenly rediscovering solar. Scientists have just been improving it. The momentum it's been gaining over the last three to four decades, but they've been mastering all the manufacturing requirements and the certification requirements and the warranty requirements.
because we all know your panels are up on the roof, man. They're going to be subject to snow, sleet, hail, sun, cold, everything. And then, you know, they're going to have to make it worth the homeowners while they got to be lasting at least 25 years because for the amount of investment you have to buy through a loan or whatever, the paybacks like anywhere between 22 and 24 years. So they kind of know that your loan payment to keep it economical is going to be structured over a long period of time, almost like a mortgage. And so those warranties
on those panels and those equipments needed to be able to outlast the amount of time you can have on your loan. Most of the people that we look at are always looking at the bottom line. So I'm spending $200 on my loan for the next 10 years, but I'm saving $161 a month on my hydro. So they're saying, all right, well, that makes sense there. But the equity that they're building in their home by putting in that solar system is just adding value and it's going to be able to be maintained and it's going to save them a whole ton of energy.
costs over the next 10, 20 years. I've never been in an industry where you get more questions. You know what I mean? Where you get more like, what about this? And how about this? how, you know, like, because let's say you get in a roof installed. Okay, great. You get the roof installed. You know, you're hiring someone to get your roof installed. With solar, there's so many questions like, well, what about this? And how do you do this? And so I feel like our biggest success and reason for bringing people onto solar is because they just need to be enlightened on why they should go solar. I feel like everyone would do it if they just
EP Production Team (13:09.782)
you know, have the data on why it makes sense. It's good that people are asking questions. It means they're interested. What you don't want is apathy or outright hostility to the idea. By asking questions, they're beginning to see how solar can play a real part in their lives. So what kind of burning questions do they have? Do we get enough sunlight in BC for solar? Like, that's a huge one. I thought it was rainy here. I didn't think it made sense. At least Victoria, we get quite a bit of sunlight.
compared to a lot of places all over BC and other parts of the world. But our main handling for that is Germany has some of the most solar power out of any country in the world, and they get similar sunlight to Alaska. A lot of people didn't know that, but it's like Germany, which is probably the biggest pro-solar country. USA has fallen, China's fallen behind that, but they get similar sunlight to Alaska, and they have.
such a strong amount of solar. And so you sit there and think, well, they must be doing something, right? They must be not just all following it blindly for no reason. The technology became better, more powerful. It's why the big selling point of new electric vehicles is you can drive them farther than the old ones. It makes solar a viable option. In the past, solar panels used to be made of basically, so you get silicone. Silicone is what makes the panels. It's a semiconductor.
So when it heats up or when light hits it, it produces energy. When there's no light on it, it doesn't produce energy or doesn't become a conductor for energy to pass through. Nowadays, they make solar out of pure silicone. They basically, it's a perfect silicone block, which allows it to be more efficient, more of a conductor in a sense. And so in the past, you might get a shady day, you might get a cloudy day and your solar just doesn't work at all. It doesn't produce any energy at all.
You know, nowadays, even if it is cloudy, you still are producing. It's not like you're producing like your peak sunny days or your peak summer days. But at the same time, you are still producing. And with our super long summers here, it makes it so prosolar because if the sun rises at 5.36 a.m. and it goes down at 10 p.m., there's so much time there to stack up energy that you've been creating throughout the summer. For a lot of people, that's a game changer.
EP Production Team (15:32.202)
It's more bang for your buck and you don't have to actually do anything but let it sit there and soak it all up. When you say it like that, it's easy. But powering your house isn't quite like buying a new appliance. There are a couple more steps to it than just plugging it in. But it's not as daunting as you might think. The process to actually get an electrical application for solar is actually very, very fast. In almost every jurisdiction,
It's days, if not a couple of weeks or even hours to get an electrical permit, which is the part of the side where it could cause a fire, you know, cause an issue. The side of it where it becomes hassle is the building side. And I do understand, you know, you don't want the roof to cave in when someone has solar, you know, you don't want someone installing solar on a straw roof, you know? So it's like, you want to make sure they're checking all their boxes, but at the same time,
If you look at solar being installed on someone's house, just to get really technical, solar is really only going to be about two to three pounds per square foot on your roof. If you think about it, if I stand on the roof and I'm 200 pounds, it's a lot more weight in one section. So with solar, it's such a small amount of weight evenly distributed across the entire roof. You can learn a lot on your own, but actually doing it yourself is a different beast altogether.
If you're afraid of heights, if you're borrowing your neighbor's ladder, think again. Maybe leave it to the professionals. David Moss is a certified contractor builder. He's got it figured out. Piece of cake on the permit side. Piece of cake on the building side too. Like, for example, the big difference here is from an electrical permit standpoint, it's a regulated work according to the electrical code. So that's a no brainer. We've known about it. We know how to connect it. It's a simple process. It's a simple way to do it.
However, what we've noticed by getting into this whole solar world is that Greater Vancouver is in a different environment than Victoria and Vancouver Island. What that means, and I don't really want to speak too much about this right now, but at the same time, we're very, very blessed right now in Vancouver Island that we don't have to go through structural building permit applications to put say a thousand, 2,000 pounds worth of solar panels on a person's roof. In Vancouver Island, we don't need that process. We can just get an electrical permit.
EP Production Team (17:56.542)
you're good although there is other things that you have to do you have to get an energy model done by an energy consultant and so on so forth but where I'm going with this is to do with the building permits Vancouver on the other hand requires a building permit structural integrity of the existing roof can it sustain the extra load of these extra solar panels and so that's a whole other permit application and professional analysis that has to be done whereas we don't need to do that in Vancouver Island right now I can see that changing
And so if that does change, you're probably going to be adding time and cost to the solar arrays that you're going to be putting in because you don't get permits for free. That's for darn sure. And then the consulting engineers that are going to be involved, they're not cheap either. And rightly so, they're putting a lot of their reputation and experience and professional knowledge to work at protecting your home and you inside that home. So there's validations for both of that. But for whatever reason, Vancouver Island seems to be protected right now. And I think that's
That's a big win for the consumer. As long as you've got a reputable installer, you don't want to be, you know, putting on solar panels if your roof's ready to fall in or if it looks like your fricking roof shingles are ready to go, you know, be replaced next year. There are tons of things you can overlook if you haven't done this sort of thing before. There's the upfront cost, but it's worth it to get it right the first time, not after you've got a hole in your ceiling. For David Moss, it's about doing it right. Doing it by the book.
It's all about safety first. There's lots of codes. As David knows, there is a massive, huge, thick book that used to look like a phone book from the 80s that tells you all the codes. You know, obviously there's always rules and restrictions, but there's equipment to circumvent those issues, right? The majority of the equipment nowadays has what's called rapid shutdown devices that are built into them, which means the whole system can be turned off from the solar panel level just with pressing one button.
And that is one of the requirements as per the fire codes when dealing with residential solar. A lot of the equipment has it built in already. Some other equipment, there's another piece of equipment that you will need to add for this rapid shutdown. But, you know, these are just hurdles that we need to cross with the building codes. Obviously, everything needs to be code compliant. It's about safety. It's about fire. It's about a lot of things because the stuff's going to be on the roof for
EP Production Team (20:23.054)
20 years, 25 years, right? They wanna make sure that if anything happens, they can turn the system off right away and so on and so on. They come out and change rules, change codes, and we just change too. It's just part of the world that we live in, you know? Some of the rules, I will admit, especially that rapid shutdown one, right? I've had firemen even tell me, if the house is on fire and there's solar panels, we're not gonna go on the roof. But maybe one out of a thousand houses that are on fire?
they might need to go on the roof. the rule exists for everyone. Do we like it? No, we don't love it, you know, but the reality is we don't have a choice. So like anything, when you don't have a choice, you roll with the punches. When solar power becomes commonplace among builders, everyone benefits. Instead of modifying an existing structure, it'll be ready from day one. Think about how most newer apartment buildings and condos come ready to charge EVs.
When solar grows, it'll only get better. Again, it's just about making things more efficient. Making more power with the same square footage we have available. How can we do that? So all of the manufacturers are working on that because we all want to be the best. Ultimately, the more efficient solar panels get, the more cost-effective the whole system gets because the same size panel makes more power.
So you don't need as many panels, you don't need as many inverters and racking and so on and so on. So as they get more efficient, system costs as a whole go down. Basically all these things go into the growth of the industry and how fast it grows. Governments are also doing their part to help out on a provincial and federal level. Whether it's because of a push towards greener energy,
or the fact that solar power could help put power back into the grid. Canada has been a consistently steady growth. Depending on where you are in the country will depend on the different incentives and initiatives they offer. Back seven, eight, nine years ago, they had a really good program in Ontario. That was really the birthplace of solar as an industry in Canada. Yeah, because they offered...
EP Production Team (22:34.956)
program that would basically buy your electricity for let's say 45 cents a kilowatt hour or 35 cents a kilowatt hour, but you're actually only buying the electricity for 10. So people were making money by doing solar on their house. So obviously it was a rapid, rapid growth and it quickly became saturated in that market. So that wasn't a sustainable growth. And obviously they've moved away from that many years ago because they realized real quickly.
that it just wasn't sustainable. And in the rest of the country, it's been more of a steady, consistent growth. Until a few years ago, there was little to no incentives for people to go solar in BC until a couple years back, they introduced the greener homes grant for the energy efficiency upgrades in your home. And then obviously that started it. About a year and a half ago around, they started the no interest loan.
So you can get a no interest loan for 10 years up to $40,000 to get solar. So basically in a world that interest is out of control, people really jump towards those kind of incentives and they make it easier for the people that maybe don't have the money per se, but they're still paying their electricity every month. anything to make it easier for people to go green. So now I think we're on a lot more of a
consistent and it's becoming more more rapid growth like I know from my own personal experience since they announced the BC grant for solar and batteries in residential homes like the amount of You know people inquiring or looking into it has grown 500 % mind you you know a lot of these people are people that possibly looked into it three four five six years ago, but for one reason or another they obviously shied away because
price, the ROI, things weren't as attractive as they are currently. When they did announce these, all those people that had thought about it in the past thought, well, that $25,000 system, if I can get 20 % of that money directly from DC Hydro or so on and so on, it makes the whole deal a lot more attractive. Perhaps they also have rising electricity costs.
EP Production Team (24:55.382)
Maybe they got an electric car and now their electric bill has gone out of control. And they're like trying to figure out ways that they can alleviate from the rising costs of everything in the world today. think people do ask a lot of questions about solar now. I think it's going past that point of where it's just technology that's in the pipeline. When you look at the statistics and the analytics of it all, especially in BC, and you can see it in a graph and it's not just slowly trending now, it's really going.
So I think in that way, people are asking a lot more questions. Something I wish that people were more aware of would probably be like how scalable it is as a technology. You can always add to it. It's always gonna improve. There's always gonna be another invention that comes out. Someone's gonna redesign something for more efficiency. So I wish more people would be aware of that. And then I think as well, people think that...
and this is just my opinion on it. I feel like a lot of people think that you need a massive house or a massive plot of land where that's not the case anymore. Things are very efficient. Off of 20 panels, you can get a really good system up and running for yourself. I wish people were a lot more aware of that. I think it's gonna be great for the environment. mean, initially, probably not the best because you obviously have to source the materials. When you look back at the payback period and after 10, 20 years, then people start going in the green on the profit.
And especially when you start looking, you know, from there, you're starting to produce electricity in your house. And when batteries catch up and can store it, it's going to be amazing for the environment, right? We're not going to be burning fossil fuels. There's going to be no gas that's producing electricity. A lot of it's done from hydro here, which is good. But I honestly believe that solar within the next 10 years will go to a different height. One thing that probably gets maybe overlooked with it is within 25 years when all of these panels life expectancy comes to an end.
there's gonna be a lot of recycling of panels. So as good as it is for the environment in the midterm, unless they figure out that part in the longterm in 25 years, that will maybe be a bridge they have to cross. Okay, now we're into the issues with solar. If there were no downsides, we wouldn't need to be having a conversation about it. We've mentioned costs that come with installation and overall, they're becoming more reasonable.
EP Production Team (27:12.28)
But they're not at the point where solar fits into everyone's budget. There are still aspects that could be improved.
EP Production Team (27:22.382)
Contention, it's kind of a unique word. As much as it gets very great credit, which it should do, there is obviously downsides to it all. And I think one of the biggest downsides is it's only productive in the day. You can't produce solar at night, right? It's not the way it works. So as much as it is a great technology and has a lot and lot of future towards it all, it brings me back to the point of the battery, unless that really is something that the costs can come down on, the technology can improve.
It's very good on its own, but it's something that can really be better once they start coming into that technology. So I think it's something that people should consider when they're putting in is like when this kind of does evolve, get ready for that because it's going to be the next step. Environmentally, it's very good. There's definitely downsides in the extracting the materials out of the ground. So that's definitely not a good, good short term part. If you was looking at it as someone buying it, I guess a bad thing would probably be the price initially that you have to outlay.
but again that offsets itself in the long distance. So in my opinion there's not too much bad with it and it's something that definitely the good outweighs the bad for sure.
Even with government incentives, the entry fee might be too steep for some people. And the people we're talking about specifically are homeowners. They're the ones who are going to be making the call to install the solar panels. It's not always smooth sailing. The process can get bogged down. We're regulated in the industry, so that means Patriot Electric doesn't do any installation without pulling out an electrical permit. It's very, very, very, very, not zero.
things we can do really without doing a permit. So we're going to be under the microscope of authority having jurisdiction, which is great because then they keep this honest, they keep the client safe and they keep the trunk slammers at bay as best we can. The more contention that we see is going to be around the red tape that it's going to take to do the work because we have the willingness, we have the products, we have the consumers that are ready for it. What's it take to get this in place? This is where
EP Production Team (29:32.076)
We need to have the streamlined application process for the consumer to get access to the grants, to the applications, to the loans. We need to get them streamlined on to getting on with BC Hydro and getting their arrays and or EV chargers ready for connections. And so these are things that the red tape, there's no word of it out that these new technologies and news policies and procedures are coming into place. They double, triple, quadruple the time it would normally take. And this is where things get choke hold, bottlenecked.
and then people lose interest and they get frustrated and that's where the negativity comes into the industry. Unfortunately, those are policymakers and procedure makers. Those aren't the consumers and they're not the installers. They're those other people. You're to have to have some savvy ethical company that's going to advise your clients that, maybe you should hold off. Maybe you should allow an extra $20,000 in to get your roof done before we put the solar panels in. Otherwise, in two years when the roof starts leaking, you're going to have to tear those panels off at your cost. So these are things where you just can't have
bubblegum company come in and say okay well we're gonna do this for you and here today gone to Maui. Consumers got to be wary man like I mean buyer beware like you have to be concerned about doing your due diligence it's not all about price either. Sure price is king but also you need to do diligence on what's the reputation of this installer do they know what they're talking about have they got your best interests at heart or is it just their pocketbook. Honestly maybe that sounds a little strange to you but for me
I've been around for 43 years, my reputation is everything and I want to make sure I'm advising that client. If there's a cautionary thing, if there's some concerns, I want to bring them up. I'd rather save that client the aggravation and have 10 referrals because of my advice on a good side, not a, not, my God, he's installed it next year, I have to it all off. That's that you're never going to get any long-term payback on that. The more and more I do my
research on what's going on in the industry now regarding EVs is that it seems to be a consumers driven by policy makers and not always are those policy makers having the consumers best interests at hands more about votes and so on so that's my point of view but here's where I'm going with this it's such a push to have alternate sources and get this green
EP Production Team (31:51.498)
energy out here. Let's reduce our carbon footprint. There's so much of that going on right now that people are seeing a windfall on how they can cash in on this ideology and this idea that by saving the planet we're going to have these awesome new technologies coming on. It's going to do a great benefit to the earth and to all humanity. Whatever. You can believe whatever you want. Where are we going to get the raw minerals? Who's going to get those raw minerals? Where do we find them?
and at what cost. We'll hear more about EVs in a later episode and what could go very wrong with their batteries. So when it comes to alternative energy sources, making the move towards them is idealistic, but it's not all sunshine and clear skies. Solar is an industry that faces threats. The biggest one being the supply chain. If we can't get the equipment for one reason or the other, then everything comes to a grinding halt.
And we have experienced issues like this. There was an issue with the port closing down one time and obviously the supply chain issues we faced during COVID. So that would be one of the biggest hurdles. There definitely was some during COVID. Right now we're good. You know what I mean? It seems like things are fine. There isn't any projected ones. I do feel like if there are certain like tariffs or anything like that put on certain Chinese imported products.
That may have an effect on the supply chain, depending on the political party and what they decide to do. But at the end of the day, countries all across the world, like Germany, you know, has great technology. Even the U.S. has great technology. And so I feel like if one doesn't do well, then the other will rise up and take its place, you know, because at the end of the day, solar now is made with almost 100 % renewable, reusable, recyclable material. Before, where there might have been a lot of nasty chemicals and gross stuff making solar panels.
There's solar panel recycling plants that'll fully recycle that solar panel and then it's going to be used again. There'll probably be times when there is a supply chain issue, but I do feel like if there is other countries rise up and take their place. lot of Asian countries, know, China, Indonesia, South Korea, they're definitely like the leaders I would say in the industry, but Germany is coming up strong. United States is coming up strong with some great technology. Vietnam, like, so there is countries that are.
EP Production Team (34:14.452)
starting to catch up, but those are definitely like your industry titans for the country in a sense that are mass producing a lot of it. If the government somehow decides to change its financing program, that might be another one that might change. So if this is a limited time offer, which they're not saying it is, but I mean, let's say basic, where are they going to get that money from them? I just I'm wondering, it's going to come back in the form of a tax to you and I'm sure as far as the trades go, we have the manpower, we have the know how.
So there's no restrictions on our end. always is threats to any industry you're in, but solar for sure. Like it's an industry that has new technology evolving at all times. So, you know, there's the chance of disruption. There's a chance of utility companies changing their structures, which would then create a threat depending on if they buy back their energy, if they buy back at half the price. I feel like grants and incentives going away will also take a dip in the industry. are, there are factors that could hit the industry, you know, like
outside competition from other countries coming in, you know, which obviously would increase the industry, but for local companies might affect it. When it comes to actually installing solar panels, building permits might also be an issue. The costs and time it takes to resolve them might be enough to put some people off of solar entirely. Currently right now, there are certain permits required for solar. Now, since solar is a new thing, they just added it almost as a permit you get.
similar to installing a, like building a building or building an addition to your house. So you have this crazy elaborate process just to get a permit to install solar that might take months and cost thousands of dollars. You know, when that similar process is being done for building a house from scratch. And it's like, hey, here's the thing. If we want to incentivize and get people to go renewable, we might not want to make the process so difficult and lengthy and expensive to get solar panels on someone's house.
when it's similar to maybe installing a heat pump or something along that line. And so that's something we are seeing in certain municipalities where it's very hard to get solar on someone's house. It might be a two to three month process and costs us thousands of dollars as a company to only be told that, hey, because of XYZ, you can't install solar on this person's house. that's definitely something we are seeing as like an effect on it. I just don't see that ever happening because they would have never allowed that. Now the industry,
EP Production Team (36:40.984)
currently where it sits, it employs tens of thousands of people in this country. So yes, I would be affected if they changed the rules and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but countless people, including like David's company, like they would suffer from these rules changes and there would be protests, there would be all kinds of stuff. can't, we're too big. They can't stop us now. You know, they can try, but again, they don't want to inhibit the growth of the industry.
because we do have goals in this country to be better, as every other country does as well. But we are quite conscious here in Canada and especially here in BC where we care about the environment, we care about the future and the world that we're going to leave behind for the next generation. Whereas in other parts of the world,
you know, these things don't matter so much to them because they just don't take the same way we do. That's a more reassuring take on the matter from Riley Stock. He's right in that British Columbia is conscious about green energy as a whole. So for the people in charge who want to lead by example, it's about putting their money where their mouth is. utility company you would think would really want to incentivize solar. And here's why. It's because if the utility company
Like let's say BCI Joe takes our energy that we produce, anything we overproduce and credit to us the difference, any excess energy for the grid helps the grid. Like if you have to build a $10 billion dam, it's quite expensive. Where if you have a few people or a thousand people or 2,000 people go solar, it actually helps the grid, provides energy to the grid. Don't have to build the new dam, could channel that energy elsewhere when the grid's strained.
And so, especially when solar is producing energy, usually at times when a lot of people are using it, it allows kind of relief on the grid. If you think about it, any excess energy that the utility company has, they could sell it to other provinces, they could sell it to other states, you know, and make a profit on it. But as we've seen across America, a lot of utility companies have chopped off solar and basically said, we're not going to buy your energy back. So anything you overproduce.
EP Production Team (38:53.154)
We're just not giving you any of it. Just an example is California, two major utility companies, PG &E and Southern California Edison, which basically is 80 to 90 % of the state said, we're going to buy your energy back pennies on the dollar, which then makes it not super pro solar because let's say you produce all this energy in the summer. Instead of getting credits for the winter, you just have no credits at all. They just won't buy that energy back. So it just goes to waste. And now it takes the financial part of solar.
and extends the payback period years and years and years. That's one example of what might make some people wary of going solar. And it's just one of the uncertainties that come with the territory. Despite the setbacks, however, the industry is continuing to grow. It's not a very risky bet on the future to make. COVID had an effect on the growth because that really hurt the supply chain for a couple of years at that time.
Prices had gone up. You know, once that ended and then they got things back on track, we've seen a consistent decrease in the prices of, especially on PV, on solar panels. Worldwide, I think the industry has grown. Myself, I worked in the United States for five years before coming back to Canada. And they had incentives back in the early 2010s that they still have, actually, but that...
had made that industry grow so much bigger and so much faster than even still in Canada right now. It would be maybe 10 years behind America currently. So we are catching up, but it is a consistent growth. And there's not a lot of industries that are going to be around in 20, 30, 40, 50 years like solar is. It ain't going anywhere. It's only going to grow.
And as prices go down, makes it more cost effective and parallel with the grid. And I find a lot of new builders nowadays are also roughing in to pass through into the attic, things like this to make getting solar that much easier. It's just gonna become mainstream, just like cars, just like Teslas, just like all that stuff. A lot of people will look at it like, well, hey, there's a huge expense to going solar. What about the rain here? What if it leaks?
EP Production Team (41:15.062)
You know, stuff like that, like, well, what happens if BC Hydro or the utility company stops buying back our power? Like these are all things where people have concerns about. Now, luckily, solar's become a lot more able to be gone. Just right now there's an interest-free government loan, which basically allows someone to finance the whole system, not to pay anything out of pocket. And instead they swap from paying BC Hydro to now paying for their solar, the utility company to pay them for their solar payment. So you get rid of one bill.
You start paying for your solar. That's not a bad trade off. It's getting harder to make a case against solar power, especially when the tech is there and when there are government grants and incentives that may not be there forever. Well, BC Hydro, there's been some incentives in the past, like the greener homes grant for upgrades to your home. guess a lot of people did heat pumps and things like this under that same grant that did carry over to solar as well. But in a lot of cases, people had already used that.
grant on their heat pump so they were no longer eligible for the solar. But they have a brand new BC Hydro grant. They're giving $5,000 for anybody that does solar on their residential house. Then they're giving an additional $5,000 grant for people to put in a 10 kilowatt hour battery in their house.
So just on both sides of it as far as the production and the storage, they're really incentivizing and encouraging people to do it. The demand on the grid has grown greatly over the last handful of years with the adoption of the electric vehicle and the more stress we can relieve from the grid by solar and batteries further helps the grid to perform properly. On the incentive end, obviously like
You know, nobody doesn't know what solar is. It's not a brand new technology by any means, but for the most part, anybody that's even a little bit curious have looked into it at some point up till just a few years ago. The price of the products were a lot higher than they are now because the industry as a whole globally has grown so much. The production has ramped up to a level where the prices we've seen prices have gone down quite a bit. So
EP Production Team (43:30.22)
The ROI and payback on a system is more realistic and reasonable now as opposed to five, six, seven, eight years ago when the only people that did solar back then were people that thought it was cool and that had lots of money because those are the only people that could afford it at that time. So it was, you know, like the payback was 18, 20 years. But obviously now with the prices going down and the additional incentives coming in, you know, people are looking at paybacks under 10 years.
which people can see 10 years into the future. People can't see 20 years into the future, I've found. People don't know where they're gonna be in 20 years. They can see themselves buying a house and living in that house for 10 years, but they don't maybe see themselves living in that house for 20 years. So to make a decision that's gonna last 20 years is a lot more difficult decision to make. I've actually talked to my dad about solar not too long ago. He lives very rurally in Wales, literally in the middle of nowhere.
and him and I were having a conversation with it and he's actually convinced himself from the conversation to go to solar. So I think lots of people are starting to wake up and listen to it, especially where you're starting to see, like I say, a lot more going in, a lot more going on with it. So I think people are very receptive of it now. Right now, just specifically with BC Hydro, they have a program where they will buy back your kilowatt hour energy at a one for one kilowatt hour ratio.
So if I produce a kilowatt over what I use, they'll take that energy and they'll credit it to my account. So it doesn't actually require that we need to install batteries to get someone to be super efficient with their energy. They use the grid as their battery and pull from that grid when they need it. It allows it to be a lot more cost effective in that sense. But let's say someone is like, hey, I get blackouts all the time where I live. You know, the grid's a little bit weak here.
Well then they could install a battery. They might install a five kilowatt or a 10 kilowatt battery, which allows them to, when the grid goes down, highlight certain things and keep those loads on until the grid turns back on. A 10 kilowatt battery is about 250 pounds. So they're pretty heavy. They go right on your wall. It looks really clean. Have you ever seen like the Tesla Powerwalls? They're probably two and a half feet by four feet. So it's a decent size. They're relatively thin, but you can.
EP Production Team (45:53.639)
know, sneak it in certain areas, just like on the wall and make it look real nice.
EP Production Team (46:01.282)
Going solar is about being forward-looking. It's about patience.
The payoff might not be immediate, neither the return on investment, but it just comes back to finding solutions. What do we have to look forward to? There's new technology constantly coming on the battery side. So for me personally, I have said this for a few years now, I believe that the technology lays within batteries. I really believe that once we start getting different batteries and mixing different metals and figuring out like that, that's where the real game changer is going to be because
how to use it as an equivalent. Say for example, a Tesla car, you know you're limited to miles on it because of the batteries. Now just say that you could hyper increase that to be like, you've got a range of, rather than 400, 4,000. And you can now say to people, you've got this solar array that we've installed. Rather than it taking two days to charge your house and it dissipating within a day and a half, it now takes.
just the one day, you know, the cycle of the sun for it to fully charge and you could potentially last two weeks on this. So for me, that's really where I see the technology change. think the solars, the inverters that they've got at the moment are very good. There will be changes on them for sure, but in my opinion, it's going to come through battery technology. The longer batteries last, the more independent from the grid you really are. It makes the effort worthwhile. Other improvements.
might do a lot to move the needle on people's radars. One of the biggest things is just like the aesthetics of it and the economics of it. But once both of them align, I think it'll be a part of everything, you know, as far as the building side goes. As with most things in the market, product appearance can't be underestimated. It might be a touchy subject, but many people find solar panels pretty ugly. Sorry to be blunt. Well, experts are working on that.
EP Production Team (48:01.12)
They're finding new ways to integrate solar panels into living spaces. There's a huge company or relatively huge company that is starting to grow and they're basically taking railing glass, stair glass, all sorts of glass, even fencing and they're making a solar panel and you can't even tell the solar's in there. It's so like nicely put in there. Another thing is like, you know, I used to live in Los Angeles and the Netflix building in downtown Hollywood.
They have solar all along the wall of their building and it almost seems like a window, but it's actually a solar panel. As they find ways to hide it and integrate it more into things, it's gonna just naturally be a part of a building, you know, and you won't even know it's there. When I looked into the power walls in Tesla six years ago, Tesla was already producing roof shingles that were solar panels. So your home, you would see beautiful new shingles look like shingles, like beautiful. They were solar panels.
Tesla designed and engineered, I was going, that's the freaking greatest shits and slice bread. They've got freaking power walls, they've got solar panels, they look like shingles. These houses are gonna have a 25 year freaking roof, but they also collect energy for the next 25 years. That's perfect. Yeah, those solar panel or those solar roof tiles, they came out years ago when I was working in the States. Yeah, that was a little bit of a kicker in the industry because everybody was like,
Elon Musk is coming out with the solar roof. I'm just going to wait for that and it's going to power my whole house. That idea is great, but the reality, it's not doable. Solar panels are specifically made to make power. They are contained within a frame. They are as efficient as they can get currently in this day and age. And they work independently on top of your roof. Solar tiles are essentially one cell in each tile.
those cells all need to be wired together. And you can imagine how many of those go into a tile roof. We're talking thousands of them, right? And if one of them goes out, like they do have optimizers connected to them so that if one goes out, it's fine, all the rest of them are still working. But long term, you could cover your whole roof in solar tiles and it would cost you
EP Production Team (50:17.582)
whatever, 50, 60, 70 thousand dollars and you'd make 20 percent of the electricity that you would make covering your south facing roof with solar panels. The juice just ain't worth the squeeze. The idea is great. The reality is nobody can afford to put tiles on the roof because it's cool. You know, maybe down in California where there's multi-bazillionaires that can just put whatever they want on their house but
For the most part, we deal with people that are looking to save money and make their house more efficient. And solar tiles, they're just not a viable product. Cool. But what I think is going to be a major industry disruptor and a major thing that's going to, we're going to see going forward a lot more as it like continues to adapt and become better technology is solar roofs. So instead of installing your roof, you install solar, which is your roof.
whether it is literally a metal roof that is integrated with solar. So you see a gorgeous black metal roof, that's actually a solar roof. And so it's not like you these massive solar panels on it, the roof itself is solar. And I feel like as the technology comes better with that, builders are only gonna wanna do that. We replace someone's roof and we put metal seamless, standing seam metal roof, and the standing seam itself is solar. And you can't even tell, you know?
But same with the Tesla roof. Like it's a great idea where, is if you can get the cost down enough and you have a product that lasts just as long as a normal roof, if not longer, and saves the homeowner money and, and, and it becomes a no brainer. Roofing companies will be a solar roofing company because they're just going to install like a normal roof and have the electricity in there to do the stuff behind the scenes. There's a sense of direction that the solar industry is moving towards. But at the end of the day, it's a decision. You're in or you're out.
What else do people need to know in order to push them off the proverbial fence? I've got longevity in my client base so they trust me. I don't have to sell. I just have to present the facts and they'll usually just take my advice on my reputation and my good judgment and my proven facts that I'm presenting them. So don't have to hard sell nobody. That's where I'm at right now. And so anytime I do present this to even a new client or to a friend or whoever,
EP Production Team (52:43.672)
They go, sounds great, David, let's get a quote. Because the modeling works today. So when you see how much it costs to get an array and what the available resources are for either a grant or for a loan and the payback they're going to have, there's so many factors now that are taking away all the excuses. So there's not a lot of people saying no to this. I mean, there's obviously, we're talking about homeowners here and our business owners. We're not talking about renters or anything. So we have a limited market, but.
the ones that are in the market and are open-minded, you really have a hard time saying no to what the numbers tell them in terms of savings, longevity, warranties, payback, cost of doing it. This is not an exorbitant amount. A typical system today costs anywhere between say 25 and 35 thousand dollars and that loan under that zero percent for 10 years is about a 250 dollar loan a month. But you're saving
plus $100 plus a month. Your payback is pretty easy to get to and that's over 10 years too. Honestly it's been a really cool ride. We've seen month over month growth. Each time there was a federal program that went away and it was a federal grant program and we saw a slight dip and then it just went right back up. I feel like the interest is super strong there. feel like just across America and Europe we're probably a good 15 years behind them. So I feel like
just naturally we're going to see a huge growth. Solar is in a sense a growth industry. Since the BC Hydro rebate came into place, we had over a hundred projects move forward with solar. Almost double the month before that. The loan applications for your home improvements, for your green energies, I think will go max 40,000. But in the last, say, seven months, we haven't seen a system that's been installed by us specifically, that's been anywhere even near 30, 35,000. 12 kilowatt system is usually where we're at.
You can go I've seen some homes we've done up to 20 kilowatts and that's where you get to the higher point of maybe 30 35,000 maybe around that area. So that's a big system 20 kilowatts There's a lot of energy coming back into the grid for that You've got a big property, but your average home is about 12 and that's around $200 a month and alone now You've got control of your power for the most part Usually you're getting usually you're offsetting about 75 % of your consumption at that point. So you've got control
EP Production Team (55:08.686)
of a very, very large percentage of your consumption is being controlled by your array. They used to call it the net metering, but now they call it the self-generation. So yeah, once your system has been up and running and you have it approved by BC Hydro, then that starts to come back as a credit on your account. So if you're consuming $150 a month and your net metering back in $100 a month, your net bill would be $50 a month. So that's happening now. So now eventually though, like you heard me say before,
We can build up to 100 kilowatt arrays without going into a completely different utilities. Here's where I'm going with this. Let's say you had a five acre farm and all of sudden you start building an array out in your field and it's generating 50, 60, 70, 80 kilowatts and your consumption is only 20 kilowatts. So you're now offsetting that by potentially anywhere from 50 to 70 kilowatts. You're pushing that back in the grid. So now the utility is going to be selling, buying that from you.
So now you've created a revenue property and you're now a power generator. An average consumer, like if you take a 200 amp service, mean, a 12 kilowatt system usually generates anywhere from 50 to 75 % of a consumer's power. They offset that. What I've really come around to understanding is not that we're saving barrels of fuel and we're saving trees, but I think where David Moss is coming from is this recognizing how important it is to have control of your energy costs.
And so when you have your own array, you have control of your energy costs now for the predictable future. That's the magic right there. There's got to be some sort of excitement with what we're doing. Like there's got to be some sort of grand purpose and scheme to it. And at the end of the day, it is a renewable source of energy. I wish that more people were aware of how good it actually is going to be in long term for
the environment. It's basically utilizing like this massive ball of energy in the sky that will forever be there hopefully or at least be there for, you know, long time after we're here. If we're not utilizing that and we're utilizing a source of energy that is not causing the greatest effect on what we do in everyday living, I think it's a waste. It does so much. Helps the environment, gets rid of your electrical bill as rates continue to rise as inflation just naturally happens.
EP Production Team (57:31.456)
It becomes like a pro thing. It's like, it's like, if you could lock in your grocery bill 10 years ago, would you have exactly, would you rather, would you rather keep paying utility X or would you rather own your power and be more sustainable, save money? You know, I feel like the only time someone doesn't decide to go solar is okay. Maybe they're moving in a year. Fine. They're moving in a year. Maybe they'll get on their next house or they're just not actually.
fully comprehending everything you're telling them or you didn't provide the data in the correct way that they see it because at the end of the day, it's like, would you rather pay $100,000 to Utility X over 25 years or a fraction of that for your solar system?
When you're throwing numbers around like that, it makes a pretty good argument. Having independence, controlling your utilities is a major selling point for the guys. Having your own independence, control, like knowing and not having that like peace of mind. I feel like that's huge. And I feel like COVID really pushed that a lot. I wanna control, wanna know, I wanna like feel good about this, I don't wanna.
be worried like, this gonna happen? What if this happens? When I was in the UK and I worked on the Olympics and I had worked for myself at the time, it all stopped within maybe one week. So basically what happened in the UK is there's seven big companies that are energy suppliers. The seven big companies, they decided that they wasn't gonna pay back 25 pence per unit. They was gonna pay back six pence per unit. So now, you know, you've literally four times the amount of payback. So people aren't seeing it pay back in 10 years. They're seeing it in 40 years.
That really had a huge effect in the UK. And like I say, within one week, it all stopped and no one was getting any more installs. So that could potentially be a threat here. But the one thing that I would say that makes me think no, is it's monopolized in BC. It's Hydro who own it all. So there are not any competition with anyone to buy it back. They know that they can set the standard in what they're selling it. And they know they can set the standard in which they're buying it back. It's never gonna be up against anyone for competition. So.
EP Production Team (59:35.438)
I think there could potentially be a problem. I don't think it would happen in BC for that reason. I would say in the near future, maybe some think that people haven't probably thought too much about is at the moment BC Hydro need more power. There's not enough power to supply everyone. Yeah, so at the moment they're kind of like, we're underpowered here on the grid right in BC. There's not enough power. So that's the reason there's a lot of these incentives for people of paying them the $40,000 interest free loan.
of 5,000 that they're giving them in government grants is because it's pretty underpowered. Now that's with a very low percentage, and I'm not sure for the top of my head of people that have solar panels, but I can't imagine it being higher than three or 4%. So I think to myself sometimes what's gonna happen if 100 % of the people have it and now they don't need all this extra power, would that be something where they can start cutting costs? Yeah, so at the moment they're of like, we're underpowered here on the grid right in BC. There's not enough power, so.
That's the reason there's a lot of these incentives for people of paying them the $40,000 interest free loan, 5,000 that they're giving them in government grants is because it's pretty underpowered. Now that's with a very low percentage, and I'm not sure off the top of my head, of people that have solar panels, but I can't imagine it being higher than three or 4%. So I think to myself sometimes, what's gonna happen if 100 % of the people have it, and now they don't need all this extra power?
Would that be something where they can start cutting costs? I've thought to myself a few times, what's going to happen when that flips and they say if everyone had solar panels, now is there too much power? Will that affect kind of in the future of what they're going to pay and how they're going to pay it? So definitely at the moment where there's lack of energy, it's great. The utilities are going gangbusters right now at self-generation. And that's meaning people to put arrays on their homes. That's called self-generation now. used to be net metering, now it's called self-generation.
So what that means is the utilities cannot and will not be able to produce enough hydroelectric electricity in BC, let alone across Canada, to meet the demand of these mandates and these energy directions that the governments are putting out there. So they have to get the power from somewhere else. So they're putting out millions, not hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives and industry loans and all kinds of different.
EP Production Team (01:01:52.622)
methods to entice and encourage a homeowner to see the advantage of taking advantage of these abilities to become a self-generator. So it looks good from the consumer's point of view, it looks good from the hydro's point of view that now we're going to have X number of million kilowatts being produced by consumers. At the end of the day, if they don't meet these targets and they fall short, there's going to be some stuff going on. And if they say, we have to build another dam, we have to build another this, we have to build another that, we have to put new transmission lines in, what's going to happen with the cost of your power?
It's like a tax. It's going to go straight up. And since we have monopoly in BC, you're going to be faced to pay more for your electricity. And it's going to be on a daytime basis price. So in other words, if you're going to need your power at this time of day, well, that's when everybody needs your power, you're going to pay a premium. So they're setting us up for a fall. If you really think about it, the more independent we can become on having control of our own power, having control of over anything in your
water, power, heating, whatever. Just don't be completely reliant on everything that we take for granted today on our utilities and so on so forth. So if we can take and have a bit of control on that, then you're going to save yourself some aggravation by being forced into doing something you didn't really want to do or plan to do or even think it could be done. There's a clear picture that says there's no way that they're going to be able to produce the energy from the grid to meet the demand over the next
say five years by the time they hit their targets for 2030 and the amount of new EVs that are going to be coming on and the heat pumps and all that stuff can't be done. So there's going to have to be either self-generation and they're going to have to push, push, push for self-generation so they can put that extra power back into the grid to offset these other demands. This is the time right now. I've never seen it in my 40 plus years in this trade. Any amount of money as much like this. This is one of those rare times.
every decade or so that you're going to see a real important capital investment into energy. And this is one of those times right now. So I don't think there's a better time to get into solar than right now based on the amount of grant, the interest-free loans, both for your business, both for your residential. It's all going in that direction right now. And so it's never been brighter for us to do this, for consumers to do this, take advantage of this. It's a constant.
EP Production Team (01:04:18.952)
stream of new people that are as passionate as and excited about getting this going and growing that it keeps things interesting. Maybe going solar is too much of a plunge at the moment for some. So what can people do to ease themselves into accepting alternative energy as a normal, everyday thing in their lives? I number one's education for sure. Same as anything in life. know, if you want to improve and get better, educate yourself.
So I would say number one is education for the general population. You know, not just the people trying to sell it, but the actual general population. Other baby steps that people could start to take is, you know, more investing in energy efficient appliances. There was a point in life, and we spoke about it not too long ago, where, and it was one of Dave's actually, and one of mine, but we said, we speak and said, what was one of the biggest technology booms that you've seen with inside of the electrical world? And Dave's answer was LED lighting.
We'd kind of seen it go from something that was super expensive and not very accessible to now it's cheaper than a normal light bulb and it's advertised, right? You should be using this. Simply educating potential homeowners because a lot of times people just simply don't know. Like these incentives I just talked about with BC Hydro, a lot of people just don't know. It's not like they get an email from BC Hydro just because you're a BC Hydro customer saying, hey, we'll give you 10 grand if you get solar. That doesn't happen.
The more you see solar panels, doesn't matter where they are, the more they become just something common in the back of your mind. So as time goes on and people see it more and more and their friends get it and their family members get it, then it's gonna become common, normal. Like I was mentioning, I worked in the States for five years in New York City and I have 330 solar systems that are currently running and operational in New York and New Jersey.
You drive around New York and you can go through streets that are half of the houses on the street have solar. We're headed in the right direction. The willingness to go green is there. It'll take a bit of an adjustment. But as Riley Stocks said, it's about getting solar into the mainstream. Once their neighbor has it and their guy down the street and their brother-in-law's got it, well, makes it a lot easier to make that decision to go green.
EP Production Team (01:06:43.008)
Nobody wants to be the first person to take the bullet. Solar power is moving on up. While it might seem a little experimental, a little DIY, the perfect solution for those who want to get off the grid. It's becoming a regular fixture in households and a serious source of energy globally, not just in our own neighborhoods. While they're not directly linked,
It's hard to ignore the comparisons to EVs, especially when we're seeing them more and more on our commutes to work and back, or when we hear about them in the news for quality control issues, safety recalls. They're still ironing out the kinks. Solar is a technology that could have a huge impact on the way we live. People buy EVs so they don't have to deal with the rising costs of gas. Solar is about a similar independence.
It's about decreasing our reliance on the power grid and the utility companies. It's about future-proofing. On the next episode of Electrical X Factor, electric vehicles are everywhere. So are e-bikes and scooters. It's a fast-growing market and companies are jumping aboard as quickly as they can. Safety regulations can't keep up. And on the manufacturing side, sometimes,
When it comes to batteries, these aren't handheld electronics or household appliances we're talking about here. When something goes wrong, it can be catastrophic. All it takes is seconds.