About episode
When you think of residential solar, you probably think of solar installations that are tied to the grid. These installations have many benefits. You can rely on the grid when you need to, you don’t need to store all the energy you generate in batteries, and you can sell energy back to utilities. But on-grid solar isn’t for everyone, and our future surely requires some mix of on- and off-grid technology.
To learn about the use case and business opportunity of distributed off-grid solar, I sat down with the founders of two growing, off-grid solar companies. Arnold Leitner is the CEO of YouSolar, and Sean Luangrath is the CEO of Inergy Solar. Both Arnold and Sean have been in the industry for a long time and helped clarify why off-grid solar matters, who it’s for, where the industry is, and where its likely to go. Their two companies offer really different products and understanding their differences really helped me comprehend some of the different applications for off-grid solar. And, as it happens, YouSolar is actually in the final stretch of an equity crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine, which you might want to check out if you really like what you hear.
Ok, here we go!
In today’s episode, we cover:
- [3:02] Arnold’s CEO journey
- [6:11] Sean’s CEO journey
- [9:11] Inergy’s product lineup & target customers
- [11:32] The power of a 26-pound electricity system
- [13:01] YouSolar’s progress toward commercialization
- [13:53] YouSolar’s current & future products
- [17:59] YouSolar’s history
- [18:53] The importance of off-grid solar
- [25:11] The difference between YouSolar, Inergy & big solar companies
- [29:36] The future of balance on-grid & off-grid power
- [36:46] Key barriers to scaling
- [40:52] Experiences with crowdfunding
- [45:45] How listeners learn more about distributed off-grid solar
Arnold’s CEO journey
Arnold explains that he became interested in environmental issues at a young age and decided that solar energy was the most important renewable technology. He worked as a graduate student at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado, but lost his position due to a slash in funding by Congress. He then completed a Ph.D. in superconductivity and became a general energy consultant at a firm, that’s now part of SMP Global, in Boulder. When NREL requested a study on solar as a utility-scale generation source from the firm, Arnold volunteered to write it. This study was titled “Fuel from the Sky,” which became the blueprint for the utility-scale development in the desert southwest and did a lot of good within the Department of Energy. Arnold soon launched his first company, Sky Fuel, which built large-scale parabolic trough concentrators, but ultimately had to be sold due to the impact of fracking, crashed gas prices, and the global financial crisis. He shifted his focus to distributed solar and founded YouSolar almost 10 years ago with the goal of developing an independent power system that can work everywhere, like the sun.
Sean’s CEO journey
Sean shared that he is a refugee from Laos who escaped during the Vietnam War with his family in 1979. They were in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines before being sponsored to move to the United States. Sean grew up in the Bay Area and went to Brigham Young University in Utah for his undergraduate degree, obtained his Master’s at Berkeley and MBA from Columbia. He worked in finance and operations in large companies such as Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and PeopleSoft before moving into the startup world. After Sean left Apple, he joined a Sequoia-backed enterprise software startup in China and later a late-stage Kleiner-backed startup in the United States. With ties to Silicon Valley, China, and Salt Lake City, he became the ideal candidate and founding CEO of Inergy, a spinoff solar company in Idaho focused on consumer solutions. Sean fell in love with the mission of the company to provide affordable renewable energy to people without access to electricity and felt a duty to help, given his experiences as a refugee.
The importance of off-grid solar
Sean emphasizes the importance of off-grid solar from the perspective of both developed and developing countries. In developed countries with a robust utility grid, off-grid solutions provide greater resilience in the face of natural disasters or power outages. On the other hand, in developing countries where electricity is unreliable or nonexistent, off-grid solutions offer the ability to prosper and access education, health, and entertainment. Sean believes that off-grid solar provides flexibility, power, and options for people regardless of their location or access to the grid, ultimately enriching their lives.
Arnold approaches the question from a different perspective, emphasizing the importance of “high power grid forming systems” rather than focusing on off-grid or on-grid power. He explains that energy production is not the biggest problem for the grid, but firm power and high power are what’s valuable. However, typical solar battery systems cannot power an entire home because they are outgunned by the amount of power needed. Arnold argues that the transformation should be toward high power grid forming systems, which would enable homes to be powered independently. He gives an example of a customer who opted for an independent power system rather than upgrading their service with PG&E, which would have been costly. The critical path to achieving this is on-site power and high power, regardless of whether it is off-grid or grid-forming. The market for this transformation is driving trillions of dollars in investments, as people are increasingly opting for a mesh grid that delivers energy with no soft power to homes and businesses, rather than a central grid that delivers power.
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Arnold Leitner & Sean Luangrath
Connect with Jason Rissman
Subscribe to Invested In Climate
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