Solar & Storage Market Podcast
Solar & Storage Market Series ft Apollo Power
[MUSIC] Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Solar and Storage Market Series. My name is Eris Doleve, and I'm the managing director here at Renville. Today, we are going to be hearing from Noam Moula, business development for the US and Matan Karmi application engineer at Apollo, about their lightweight flexible solar panels, mainly for CNI projects. We also have with us today Kyle Pease, a senior engineer at Renville. We share Renville's advanced online quote generation tool and show how to create complicated quotes with full bill of materials in just a few minutes. Before we dive in and while we are waiting for more people to join, I'd like to give a little background on Renville and some of the products and services we offer. Renville is a US-based solar equipment distributor. We have been in the industry since 2012, and we currently have fulfillment facilities in California, New Jersey, and Texas. Our sales staff all have background within engineering and solar installation. A few products quickly to spotlight here. We have inventory of Renville Hyperion Solar panels from 4.5 watt to 5.75 watt, starting at 15 cents per watt. We offer the full line of solar converters from 5 kilowatt to 60 kilowatt. We also offer the full line of quarter's power, home grid, Renville, and solute inverters and batteries. We have the new Blickier T-Gasket in 200 feet and 100 feet rolls of 1 inch, 3/16 inch and 1/2 inch of gap ceiling sizes, which have been very popular recently. We have Lumine indoor and outdoor smart panels on the shelf. This is a solution for avoiding costly upgrade of your main panel, and give you more granular control of your valuable storage. As always, we have a very competitive pricing on Enphase Micro inverters, and of course, we offer the full growth lineup as well. Email us at info@renville.com or see our webinar. Follow our email with more info on those. Here is our bulk module price list for large volume options and our upcoming offerings of solar modules. We carry Zenshine, Canadian Solar Q-Sales, Hyperion, Telsan, Solar for America, REC, and more. All our brands are Pumburg Tier 1. We update it regularly so you can stay up-to-date with our largest, latest deals and bulk orders. I'll take a minute to also mention the Blickier residential carport. This is a great way to extend existing solar systems or an alternative solution where you cannot install solar on a roof. When a customer is looking for more added values, now I will hand it over to Kyle Pease to go over the online "generation tool" to show you how you can generate a quote in just a few minutes and we'll get started with the webinar. All right. Thanks, Iris. Okay. I hope everybody can see my screen all right there. I'm on the Renview homepage. To get started with the design and quote tool, make sure that you're logged in. If you don't have an account, there's an option to register up here. We just need an email to correspond with you and a good shipping address to calculate shipping costs. Once you're logged in, you'll see your name at the top right corner and then you can come down below the top banner here. This image is hyperlinked and will bring you over to the design and quote tool. On the start page, you can select between a full system or a subset. If you already have one of the components, you can uncheck one of those. Next page is panels. You can choose between residential and commercial options. One of the nice things on this page is that you can see the price per watt metric. This gives you a good relative idea of the costs between different modules. This is just based on a one module to your quantity, so that pricing does change depending on your account status and the quantity that you're checking out with. Also keep an eye out for the Apollo energy modules. We'll probably put those up here as well shortly. After you select your panel, go on to the racking page and choose between different mounting systems. You can select pitch roof, flat roof, carport, ground mount. Under each of these, there's also some sub options. For pitch roof, you can select comp shingle, Spanish tile, flat tile, or metal roof. On the flat roof, you can choose between penetrated and ballasted, same with the ground mount. Then carport is also a neat option that air is alluded to with that Booker 2 car structure. You can also make a tandem structure sharing those columns, and you can get a quote for that as well. I'm going to jump back over to the pitched roof, since that's our most popular option. We'll do two rows of seven, and I'm going to bump it over to portrait, since that is the most efficient for the racking materials and minimizes the number of roof penetrations for the unit area of the array. Then you can choose your roof attachment style, Flashfoot 2, Hill UltraGip, some options there. You'll see your bill materials update as you make these selections. If you don't know what something is, you can click on it, and it's going to open a new page with that item, any manufacturer documents that we may have uploaded there as well, so you can learn as you go. It's a neat tool there. We jump back over to the webinar, okay, back over to the design tool. You can also choose your rail color, clamp color, and the span between roof penetrations, and then the duty rating as well. Then you'll get a little racking array sketch here to make sure that it's what you're expecting. Then once you're satisfied with those selections on the racking page, we'll jump over to the inverters. You can choose between micronverters, optimizers, string inverters. One of the cool things I like about our tool, we get a question all the time. Should I go with optimizers, or should I go with micronverters? You can compare the relative cost between, let's say, a 14 module system with IQA-Ms versus what if we wanted to look at string inverters with grow watt and optimizers as well. You can make those selections and then see the overall cost that you would get between those two options. Really neat feature there. Also string inverters, you can choose between single phase and three phase, 208 and 480 volt. You can also add on energy backup or take it off. Then at the bottom of the page, you'll get your RSD and optimizer options. Once you've selected your inverters, then on the final selection page, you can add spare panels. This is a common issue that we get with folks. After several years, they may have had a windstorm or a wayward frisbee and they've got a broken panel. It's really hard to find a drop in replacement, so I do highly recommend getting a few extra. It saves a lot of headaches in the future. You can also add on balance-a-system components, PV labels. You can add on EV charger. Then once you've made all your selections hit finish, you'll get your final bill materials. If you need to make any changes, you can go back, no problem. Then once you're ready to save it, hit generate project, email me a quote. You'll get an email with a PDF and the quote number. You can respond to that email. One of our sales engineers will get back to you if you have any questions, if you need any changes you weren't able to do on the tool. We also monitor these quotes as these designs come in in our back end. We'll look them over proactively to check on availability, any design concerns, and then also if there's any promotions that might be applicable, we'll send those over to you so that you can take that opportunity as well. All right, so that's the design quote tool. I'm going to pass this over to Nam and Mattan at Apollo Energy. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you for the opportunity. I think it's great that we're having this webinar and letting people spread the word about Apollo and enabling solar solutions. So I'm going to start by sharing presentation. So we are Apollo, and as Erez mentioned earlier, Mattan is our senior project engineer. He will join us as we go to discuss installation. And we'll start with a short video with a teaser. And that will kind of give you the story in a in seconds. So what you see on the video are different locations where Apollo actually enabled solar solutions. And it's not only rooftop, it's also other segments such as the trucking industry. And this is what Apollo is all about. Letting us generate solar energy from any surface under the sun. This is our vision. And we'll be focused today on the CNI segment or any rooftop that is not feasible for rigid glass solar panels and give you more information how we can enable you make more projects going. So again, our goal enabling solar solutions. And you know, solar industry, general speaking, is very exciting. There is always something new since solar started. And but yet we see a lot of rooftops that are still naked. A lot of areas that are exposed to the sun are still naked. And one of the major problems that we see with more than 30% of existing rooftops. And also with new construction is that the weight issue of solar panel, it's one of its limitations actually that with this technology is an issue. It's an issue that I'm sure any one of you is a developer. One of the checkbook on the list will be whether or not the load limit can can bear solar panels. And this is something that we're trying to solve. We're trying to take it off the list because it shouldn't be the reason that we don't cover that with solar. So lightweight solar solution is that enough. There are many options out there in the market that cause themselves lightweight. But the reason the issue is, or the question is, is that enough? We saw a lot of products in the semi flexible industry that cause themselves semi flexible, but actually it's just regular solar. And then you see the problems. You see micro cracks immediately after the installation. And by the way, most of them comes very close to the junction box because how they handle the solar panel. And you see fire in a lot of these products because flexible by its own is not enough. It's not enough because rigid glass solar panels are out there for a reason. And the reason is to protect the micro cracks and to protect the cell. And if the cell is not really durable, if the cell inside is not, if you don't, if you didn't do anything with the technology of the cell and it's just regular monocrystalline, then you'll get micro cracks and you'll get degradation. And now we'll get to Apollo. And actually, so Apollo is a company that is already 10 years old. We're already in the stage that it's not an idea anymore. It's everything is out there and commercial in the market. We have the biggest factory in the world for flexible and lightweight solar model. And I'm gonna pause the sharing for a second, the share of the screen on my skin for a second, just to just so you can grasp the idea of the flexibility. So this is an Apollo solar cell. And you can see that it's fully flexible from the inside. It's not just flexible from the outside, where the solar panel has different layers instead of glass. It's flexible from the inside. This is where the technology starts. And this is what gives the solar panel its durability and efficiency for long time installations. So flexibility is only when it's without breaking right. If it's flexible but breaks, then it's not really flexible. Apollo's solar model, we built them to be something that is relevant for the history. I mean, if you ever dealt before with the other flexible or lightweight technology, it never met the solar needs or the industry needs. So our solar panels are rated at 300 watts. Its efficiency is a little less than regular rigid glass solar models. But again, we're trying to solve problems or to bring projects where you cannot use rigid glass solar panels. The most important and amazing. And I'm going to say it twice, the most important and amazing thing is its weight 0.7 pounds per square foot. Yeah, you heard it right. It's the size of a regular solar model 40 inch on 80 inch. So and everything from the solar model to the rest of the system and Mattan will share more about it very soon is just regular solar installation. So the technology starts and end with the solar model. But then from there, everything for you as a developer, as an installer, as the owner of the system, everything is the same. You get the same warranty as you get for regular solar models. Everything is fully certified and it's actually even more certification than a rigid glass solar model because we apply these solar models with different markets, including the heavy duty vehicles and marine. And if you saw before, we even have a solar on it. So we need even more certifications and more test with external labs. So yeah, we have UL for that. We tested it in the best labs, independent labs. And if you remember just a few slides ago, I showed you the health test of the semi flexible. And now we'll go to a slide where you can see the difference. This is the Apollo difference. So he'll test with regular semi flexible and he'll test with Apollo. So first of all, there aren't any micro cracks in the solar panel before it's going out from the package with the handling. It's durable and you will find it operating amazingly from start to beginning. And after the hail test, you see 0.7% degradation. It's actually absorbed the heats of the the hail. It's more durable than rigid glass solar panels in that sense, because you can see in the cells that got heat that it's kind of blurry. The cell is still operating. It's not fully damaged. Well, I don't have to say much about the other test. Use cases. So you saw some of them in the video stadiums. Stadiums have a need for lightweight and flexible technology, not only because their rooftop is usually doesn't have a lot of load limit on it, but also because of its shape. Sometimes they want to keep the architectural structure of the of the roof. So and this is something that Apollo can do and enable without adding more structure and more metal and ruin the the architectural idea that they start with. We had installations on greenhouses without adding any additional structure. It's actually a plastic rooftop warehouses and warehouses, by the way, it's an issue not only with old buildings, but also with new buildings. If you build a warehouse or a terminal today and you want it to be able to to hold rigid glass solar panels, the cost on the structure is already the project cost and even more than that. So you don't have to do that in vents investment and you can cover any warehouse or any place that you have in your facility in any location without considering the weight issue. You see here more pictures, another curved rooftop and another thing that you see, there are different types of surfaces. So it's metal roof, bitumen roof. This is what brings me to go to our installation method. Installation methods by Apollo is something that there are many benefits in there. Not only that you don't need any wrecking, it's something that is done very easily comparing to traditional solar models. And I want to, Matan, I want you to join us here. What you see here at Apollo, we are very hands-on with projects and we want to know that we can actually provide a solution to every surface. So when there is a new surface that we need to find in the right installation method for, we go through a very comprehensive process and Matan, would you like to share more about that? Yeah, of course. So thank you now. As now I mentioned earlier, and as you understand from the use cases presented here, the main installation method of our module is by adherence to the surface. Since there are many surfaces, different surfaces require different adhesive. We at Apollo certify our modules and our adhesive pair installation method, the installation surface, where we have a very comprehensive plan for testing the bonding between the module, the surface and the adhesive, including accelerated aging at humidity freeze chambers and the temperature chamber to give you a clue about the durability of the adhesive. It's minus 40 degrees centigrade to plus 85 degrees centigrade. We are doing 1000 hours of bump heat testing for all of our samples. We test the bonding before and after the curing process and the chamber testing, all of this to ensure that your ability of the bonding between the module to the surface will stay as long as the module 25 years of performance and guaranteed is lasting. I think another important thing and benefit in our installation method is also these tests are meant to handle the uplift wind. When Matan says that we ensure that it will long last, it's something to understand how strong and confident we take the American Society of Civil Engineers code to wind uplift 175 miles per hour winds and we translate that into the strength of the bonding needed to be between the module and the surface. After all the frustrating testing, we ensure that the safety factor resulted in a decent safety factor per each bonding of module, adhesive and surface. Yes, and we see in most cases that the failure is not with the solar model, the failure with uplift wind is usually with the surface and we get amazing safety factors for four to ten times over the uplift wind of one or 75 miles per hour. In our installation manual, which is very detailed, you will find all the information that you need about how to do it, Matan, would you like to say something? Of course, so as you can see here, in this picture, you have a demonstration of installation with optimizers. It's important to note that our modules are agnostic to the type of electrical installation, meaning they could be installed with string invertels, with the optimizers of any kind. From the connectors up, the modules are agnostic to the electrical system. So here you can see an example of our modules bonded to a metal roof installed with an optimatial solar gauge optimizers and you can see how the layer is actually done and you can see that the installation is very smooth. There are no objects sticking out. The installation is at the roof level. It looks nice from up and it looks nice from... actually you don't see when you look from the below one of the advantages of our installation into the modules. Yeah, so if Kyle... I saw the next slide to many of the amazing Renzu products. Earlier, so this product, there is no penetration to the roof. It's a huge benefit and there is no penetration to the roof. You actually add another layer that protects the roof in a sense and you can see here the workers putting the paste. It's a paste adhesive for corrugated metal roof. Here is a closer look. Matan, I think actually you're here in the picture. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm in the picture. Yeah, the installation is very, very fast. All you need to install the module is to clean the surface in the designated areas using the detergent and the water. Let it dry a bit. Put the right amount of adhesive or use the pillow and stick module if it's the suitable surface. We offer this solution as well and apply the adhesive. It's a process that takes about three minutes or two minutes per module. Two men carry the module later. You will see a short video of peeling stick installation. Press it gently by hand or by soft roller and there you have it. Yes, that's all. So, as Matan mentioned earlier, for any type of surface, we certify different adhesive and for some of the surfaces that we found the best to use a peel and stick solution. This brings me to the next slide which is actually a video. I'm going to do a little teaser about it. You'll see that within less than two minutes, an installation of a solar module. This is actually Matan guiding another person that is not trained. Doing it and still, the installation is very fast and very easy. Matan, you can explain more. It's a project. Yes, yes. Well, here is the project in France on a bitumen roof. You can see that the two workers are taking the modules, our guidelines. They're laying the modules in a row with a proper spacing after they have positioned the module. One of them keeps the modules in place. The module in place and the other one lifts it up a bit to take the liner off to peel the liner. Next, the other workers on the other side is doing the same. Again, press it gently by hand or with a soft roller and they have it installed in less than two minutes. I can note that this module was their eighth module in a very large installation. Later, they have even improved in time, in the installation times. This is how an unexperienced worker installed. Again, within less than two minutes, this entire video is less than two minutes and they finished the solar panel. It's for TPO. The installation is TPO is a very common roof. A lot of you must see TPO membranes. It might be even faster because with TPO, we only use three stripes of double-sided adhesive. It might be even faster for that. I want to share a little bit about the savings that you have in a project level, because project level is always what's important in pricing. As you saw, it's easy to install. You reduce a lot of the labor costs. We saw some cases that was 50% of the regular labor cost to install it, definitely with the team that is already trained. By the way, if you need any guidance, any help with installation, you can always reach out to us, who always be happy to support you with any questions. Another cost that you save is the wrecking. There's no wrecking, only adhesive costs must be much less than the wrecking system and reduced the logistic cost. I mean, if every pallet has 60 panels on it, and sometimes you can even reduce the cost of the crane, because you can actually carry the solar panels up to the roof, and you don't need the crane to take them to the roof. All of that together, and what we saw in not only just one project in many projects, is actually that the project cost is the same. Although we're not trying to currently compete with rigid glass solar panels, we're trying to bring another solution, another benefit to solve problems and to actually save surfaces that are not utilized to there for solar panels. The cost, the project cost, the LCOE that you will see on the project level will be the same. This brings me to the messages that I want you guys to take with you from this webinar. With Apollo, you can do more projects. I mean, it's one of the questions that you have a go, no go at the beginning, then this question will always be go now, because the issue of the weight or the structure of the roof is not an issue anymore. So you as an installer, as a developer, as an owner of assets, you get more projects. There is an added value with Apollo sonar panels. We discussed it earlier, no penetration, less materials, easier on logistics, and the ROI is feasible. I mean, you'll check it for every project. And at the end, with the technology, it's already proved, it's fully flexible from the insights of the durability and the reliability of the solar panel is amazing. There is a reason that we work with top brands such as Audi, Volkswagen, Amazon, Nestle, leaper in the US, others, because they trust our products in terms of safety and reliability. After the webinar, what you'll need to go ahead and start a project is, of course, the data sheet will be available through Renvue website as well, installation manual. There are many video clips on our YouTube channel that you can use and learn from and convince your client if you need to. And of course, a pan file to do the design on Helios code is very easy to do it. And it's already bringing inside of it all the features of Apollo in terms of the distance between the rows and the efficiency and everything is calculated there. So please feel free to reach out if you need more information. We are very happy to work with Renvue and bring this product to you guys. Thank you. I thank you, Nam and Matan. Thanks, Kyle. One thing that is important to mention here is that we are going to carry some samples. So if you need to test the product, we'll have it in our warehouse soon and we'll be able to ship them in smaller quantities just to test on specific roofs. We will have the one with the adhesive applied to and the ones without. So let us know if you need any samples and want to test it. That's exciting. I think that it's certainly, as you said, now I'm opening new opportunities for us and for the EPCs to apply products on roofs that not necessarily were able before, like many warehouses are and sports stadiums that were just left without solar. For many years, this is a great opportunity even though price might be a little bit more expensive, but the reduction in rocking materials and labor just cover for the difference. So congratulations for this product and thanks for letting us carry it. If anybody have questions, feel free to email us at www.incuetrainvue.com. We will get back to you with answers as fast as we can. We will share this video, the podcast, and as a YouTube video on our channel. I'm looking forward to to distribute this product. Thanks. I think I'll jump in here actually with a couple of questions I'm already anticipating from our clients. The MLPEs, does that attach on the front of the panel with an adhesive in this case or maybe I missed how that works? The MLPEs, the rapid shutdowns or the optimizers are usually attached to the DC tray, however the DC tray is attached to the roof. It can be attached with the roof material, with adhesive, it can move with the patches, so however the DC tray is connected, the optimizer, all the MLPE will be there with it. Okay, and then for the roof attachments, have you experienced any pushback from HJs or there are certain certifications you can present to them to help them with exposure to this type of mounting system? So the product is UL certified. And by that, I mean it's a product that is UL certified as a solar panel, designated for rooftops. We also did a certification for fire tests as well. We have experience. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time, so everything was done before. And I think in many ways, it's even easier for any authority to discuss it because it's less materials, let's complicate an open version to the roof. Awesome, thank you. Thank you. Okay, so thank you very much again. I'm a mataan in Kyle, and see you later. Bye everybody. Thank you. See you guys. Yeah, bye bye.