The future looks bright for solar installations in the state, says the CEO

Curtis Tate recently spoke with Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, about solar development in the Mountain State.

Solar energy is expanding in West Virginia thanks to changes in federal and state policy. Curtis Tate recently spoke with Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, about solar development in the Mountain State.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dad: What is the Solar For All program and how does Solar Holler fit into it?

Conant: So this is a $7 billion program through the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) at the federal level. All this came through the Inflation Reduction Act from two years ago. There was a competitive program across the country that challenged states and nonprofits to develop programs to encourage low-income families to go solar across the country. Solar shouldn’t just be for country clubs.

The West Virginia Office of Energy submitted a proposal, which we supported, to launch a program across West Virginia that will help lower the cost of solar energy for families who really need it most. There were several other programs there, including solar power for colleges and residence halls across the state. We look forward to implementing it or helping with these projects in the future. We’re not directly involved in it, we’re just really excited. I’m thrilled that West Virginia won over $100 million, which punched well above our weight in terms of population.

Dad: The West Virginia Legislature has not taken up the solar bill you pushed for. Has anything changed since then?

Conant: Another topic that sort of dominated the solar sphere during the session was the Public Service Commission (PSC) case regarding FirstEnergy and net metering. So that’s settled. I think the session was still going on at this point. However, in late March, the commission officially adopted the settlement I had negotiated with FirstEnergy.

We have until the end of this year to bring people in under the existing rules. And then everyone gets grandfathered in for 25 years before the new program is introduced next January. This is probably the most important solar development in this state for me.

Dad: This was recently announced by the US Department of Energy 250 MW solar project in Nicholas County. That’s quite big, right?

Conant: This is a really big deal. It’s getting cheaper all over the country. Over the past few years, we have seen the price of this technology steadily decline even as everything else has gone up. I think this is a sign of things to come.

Dad: What are the advantages of combining batteries with solar energy? Does this help stabilize the mesh?

Conant: Absolutely, because you can bask in the sun in the middle of the day and discharge your batteries in the evening, when everyone returns home. Throughout the day you have fairly consistent power utilization curves. You feel a little spike in the morning when everyone wakes up, and then everything is predictable. Batteries allow us to take over the midday sun and move that energy into the evenings when people come home, when there will be large spikes in power demand.

On a small scale, people install storage because it’s really more reliable than the grid. Especially if you live somewhere and the power goes out whenever there’s a wind, people are installing solar systems and batteries to withstand multi-day power outages in a way the grid can’t. There are other reasons. You can reduce the amount of energy drawn from the grid at any time. Because if you are a large industrial or commercial user, you are charged for the highest peak power consumption during the month and you can use batteries to lower those peaks. So there are lots of different uses for them. But overall, it will allow us to use renewable energy when we want, not just when it is produced, and that also sort of evens things out.

Dad: How much of new clean energy investment in West Virginia and other states was spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act?

Conant: I don’t know the exact calculation. However, in particular, there has been a huge increase in manufacturing announcements, and I continue to see existing panel manufacturers overseas announce the opening of new factories, as I have just seen over the last few weeks in North Carolina. I think the pace will probably slow down a little bit just because they build all these factories and then when the panels and equipment start coming off the line, you have to have time to absorb that and get the supply chain involved. But as part of the investments that are being made, they will continue to pump out equipment, panels, inverters and all the other equipment that they will be making for the next 15, 20, 30 years.

We have been purchasing all of our panels from a factory in Georgia for approximately five years. They are currently undergoing a massive expansion of their facility. The electrical brains of the system are called inverters, and we place one microinverter on the back of each solar panel. Due to the Inflation Reduction Act, the manufacturer we use is a California company, but it has just opened plants in South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas. So now all of our inverters come from South Carolina. And it has been like this since last year.

Dad: Is there any concern that a change in the White House could result in some of these policies being rolled back? Or maybe the dynamics are too strong at this point?

Conant: I wouldn’t want anything to be undone. However, I think that at some point the train left the station. One of the really powerful things about the Inflation Reduction Act was the expansion of solar and renewable energy off the coast. This is driving an incredible amount of investment in coal country. We see investments in West Virginia, we see investments in Kentucky, Texas and Wyoming and across the country in areas of America that feed into the rest of the country. They’re really benefiting from IRAs and we’re seeing a resurgence in the manufacturing industry, so it’s hard for me to imagine a world where Congress would want to take that away.

Dad: How does West Virginia compare to other states in terms of solar development?

Conant: We have a stronger industry here than California at this point. Considering how everything is shaken up between the net metering agreement, West Virginia is infinitely better than what California currently has. Basically, we now find ourselves in a world turned upside down, where it is easier to go solar in West Virginia than in California.

Solar Holler is the underwriter of the public offering in West Virginia.