Solar Farms Approved by the Trump Administration [Transcript]

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Adam ([00:01]):

Hey, welcome to the podcast everyone. Jamie, how’s everything going?

Jamie ([00:04]):

Oh, happy new year everyone. We’re really excited. This is going to be a, we think the best year ever for solar.

Adam ([00:10]):

Really? Oh, why is that?

Jamie ([00:12]):

Oh my gosh. So much has already started just starting with, you know, carry over from last year with people, you know, considering going solar and then now they are going solar or having a huge increase in commercial solar demand anyway with apartment buildings and self storage and office buildings. It’s like a, we’re just starting to see a little bit of a spark that it’s, you know, solar is really starting to click with a lot of commercial property owners and that’s a, that’s pretty awesome.

Adam ([00:43]):

Woo. That is finally, I mean, you’ve been banging the drum for how many years?

Jamie ([00:49]):

It’s our 11th year and it is definitely, you know, for commercial clients it’s, it’s a, I can’t even understand how, it’s not a no brainer when, you know, they’re just throwing money out the door every month for every year for years and year. Their entire [inaudible] the entire time they own that property. You know, it just makes no sense when they, you know, when they’re paying their own electricity bill. But then even in the triple net world, when that means that the tenant pays all the utilities, you know, if they like money, why not, you know, they’re collecting rent, why not put up solar and then they’re collecting for electricity. It to me, it’s, it’s an instant way to increase the value of the building. And yet it’s feels like I am talking Ukrainian to, to the property owners when I’m trying to explain how this makes perfect sense, but it’s a few select people are starting to get it and you’ll never guess who the number one guy seems to get it right now is

Adam ([01:49]):

Let me guess. It’s gotta be one of the, the Democrats. Elizabeth Warren.

Jamie ([01:54]):

Well, I, you had a hint ahead of time, but I don’t think anyone would have ever guessed that Donald Trump is now probably will go down in history as the biggest solar proponent in, in the history of the world. Actually. They’ve, his administration has just approved a, a 490 or in a 579 megawatt. Jeez. Now it’s 690 megawatts across 7,100 acres near Las Vegas and it will be the world’s largest solar farm.

Adam ([02:28]):

That’s great. Wait, we’re not talking about the same. Donald is this, is this Don jr not, not the wa really?

Jamie ([02:36]):

Well, you know for some reason he likes money and certainly not doing for climate, but Hey, you know as I’ve always said, I’ve never had one building owner, farmer, property owner, homeowner asked me, you know, how many tons of CO2 is the system gonna offset? It’s 100%. How much money is this gonna save me? And you know, the intersection of financial goals with the climate and environmental and political and you know, military goals, they intersect with solar power. And that’s what makes it so amazing. And that’s why it’s called solar harmonics, is because solar can really fix a lot of the things that are easily fixable in our world and in our lifetime. So I am glad to see the, the, you know, the president is starting to embrace that a solar power makes a huge amount of sense.

Jamie ([03:33]):

You know, especially when it’s in sunny areas like Nevada or Arizona or Texas, California, of course. It’s a, it’s a definite no brainer that that just blows me away. So do you know any details about this solar farm or do you what can you tell us about it? Well, it’s a $1 billion project that would provide electricity to Nevada residents, and it’s a through Warren Buffett’s NV energy. So interesting that you know, one billionaire is helping another billionaire, but Hey, like I said, financial goals intersecting with you know, environmental and political goals I am great with. So it is a, it’s, there’s all kinds of things that are happening with it. But the craziest part at this is the first of several giant solar farm projects that the Trump administration is planning to approve, which is incredible. So that’s why I think after it’s all said and done, the, he could go down as the biggest proponent of solar energy in the history of the world.

Jamie ([04:38]):

So you said he’s going to be doing more projects, a lot of they’re going to, the federal government’s gonna be doing more projects. Do you know what they’re going to be doing? Yup. There’s a 80 megawatts Sweetwater project in Wyoming, 80 megawatts. Who cares about that? No, that’s a huge, that’s a, that’s like 160,000 solar panels. And wow. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, it’s crazy. And then 500 megawatt project, the Pailin project in Riverside County in California. So those are two big ones. Those, these are going to take years to put together, but that’s incredible. There’s also been approvals for, I don’t know, hopefully I’m saying this right. Choke cherry and Sierra Madre wind project. That’s being going. It’s going on in Wyoming as well. And then, you know, there’s going to be huge wind farms out by Coachella. It’s crazy.

Jamie ([05:31]):

So it’s really exciting because then there’s going to be, you know, just, it, the more solar becomes accepted and as the more no brainer it will be. And every single client that we have, you know, they say, I wish I would not have waited so long cause I do wasting money. And so that’s kind of what the federal government is starting to apparently recognizes. You mean if, if this thing pays for itself or if it’s less than the cost of coal or the less, less than the cost of natural gas? Well, why wouldn’t we do it? I mean, we have all this empty land, you know, empty quote unquote. But you know, we have all this land and we have this sun, why don’t we put them together and, and get some power out of this thing. So pretty exciting actually. So

Adam ([06:19]):

Do those are those big giant solar farms. They don’t connect to a battery or anything. They just connect to the grid and go to whatever power production companies there.

Jamie ([06:29]):

Yeah. And you know, Wyoming, they, they’re mainly using coal out there. So why not take advantage of the sun and not dig out the coal cause it’s expensive and it causes health problems and, and it’s, you know, you gotta burn it to to make the power and that releases so much carbon into the atmosphere. So solar, you know, as soon as it’s sunny, it is producing and it’s proven technology. It’s clean. You know, if there’s a big flood or a terrorist attack, it’s not, you’re not doing anything other than taking down a few solar panels. So it’s not a combustible thing. And so okay. Yeah, I mean there’s all kinds of great benefits to this and it’s just shocking that you know, this was, there was not a lot of warning about this, but it’s all of a sudden more solar farms are going to be approved in 2020 than any other time in history and not just in California, but of course all over the place. So pretty cool.

Adam ([07:23]):

Do you think this is because of China? They’re going full out and producing way more solar farms and stuff?

Jamie ([07:33]):

You know, no, I think it’s all a hundred percent financially motivated. So

Adam ([07:37]):

I mean, you read about, you know, the, the biggest solar farm in the world that was in China and you’re like, it just, it’s mind blowing to see the size of their solar farm.

Jamie ([07:46]):

Sure. Yeah. It’s, and China is in the same boat. They burn a lot of coal and you know, if you’ve ever been to Beijing or Shanghai or you know, if you see pictures of them you can see that the air quality there is really bad. So they have to do something because breathing on that carbon probably is not a great idea. So it’s a, but yeah, I think, I mean we’re going to be talking about a lot of new pro new topics this year. So I’m really excited to talk about all the super cool stuff happening in the world of solar power. You know, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll be talking more about batteries and we have the inner solar trade show in San Diego in two weeks. And I imagine that’s going to be jam packed with the energy storage solutions. Yes.

Adam ([08:30]):

I can’t, I can’t. And a generator generator technology I would think.

Jamie ([08:36]):

Yeah. Yeah. I know Generac, the big generator company, they’re coming, they’ve come out with their own solar inverter and battery system. So it’s the first generation. So we’re seeing a few issues with it already, but it’s it’s pretty cool, you know, at least they’re, they’re putting their, their attempt in and it’ll take some time for them to catch. But it’s you know, it’s very cool. It’s exciting to see all these you know, these companies are financially motivated to get into this space. So the more, the more more companies and manufacturers that enter the space, the better it is for everybody.

Adam ([09:12]):

Yeah. And well, it obviously makes it cheaper for the consumer and that’s always a good thing, cheaper and better. So now if Trump could just roll back those solar tariffs, that would be fantastic. So I’m, so looking forward to this coming year to this year, do you see any big breakthroughs in solar technology? Do you see what anything crazy happening?

Jamie ([09:36]):

Well, I see lots of things happening, but we’ll save that for the next podcast. Or maybe even we might do a podcast live from the inner solar show. That would be pretty fun. So, but yeah, no, no. Well we’ll see. We’ll see. Yeah, it’s a but you know, maybe we’ll break it up into several podcasts, but anyhoo so it should be a pretty cool and yeah, I see tons of improvements coming for solar.

Adam ([10:02]):

Awesome. All right, so we’re going to wrap it up there. Great. Great. Okay. All right, we’re going to wrap it up there, everybody, if you would be so kind as to rate us on iTunes, go to our Facebook page. If you want to send us a message straight talk solar cast, you can send us a message through there and we’ll be sure to answer it on an upcoming episode in the meantime. Good luck everybody. Have a great day. Have a great week. Thank you.