We talk with Buddy Starr from Greentech solutions about the state of the solar industry in 2024, including advancements in technology, government policies and incentives, challenges faced by the industry, projects completed, and trends to watch in 2025.
John Maher: Hi. I’m John Maher, and I’m here today with Brian Sadler, Vice President at Solaris Renewables, a solar company in Massachusetts providing premium solar and storage technologies with exceptional customer service and designing, installing, and servicing solar systems in Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire, and Maine. Welcome, Brian.
Brian Sadler: Hi, John. Good to be with you today.
John: You, too. And our special guest today is Buddy Starr, General Manager of Greentech Renewables, New England. Welcome, Buddy.
Buddy Starr: Thanks for having me.
Solar Advancements and Breakthroughs in 2024
John: Yeah, absolutely. So today we are talking about the 2024 solar energy year in review, kind of wrapping up the year 2024 and seeing how the industry fared this year and kind of looking a little bit forward to next year as well. Buddy, what are, in your estimation, some of the most significant advancements, if there have been, or breakthroughs, in solar technology in 2024?
Buddy: Sure. Yeah, I think in 2024 from the technology side, we saw the launch of more battery products broadly. I think the attach rates are starting to come up on the residential side and we’re seeing batteries more viable than they have been in the past. So I’d say from a technology standpoint, seeing things like the Powerwall 3 launch, and some other stuff, has given our customers an opportunity to attach more storage to their systems.
John: Brian, are you seeing a lot more battery installations on your end as well?
Brian: Yeah. And we’ve been doing storage for some time now, but we have seen more general interest and acceptance that everyone wants payback. What’s the payback on any of their investments? And there’s more acceptance that this is a security, creature comfort, and kind of resiliency for everyone to keep things going as they remain at the homes, if they work from home, things like that.
So people have been more excited and accepting. And anytime there’s something new, like Buddy mentioned Powerwall 3 coming out from Tesla, that creates a buzz. There’s more news about it, and then there becomes more general acceptance, and folks just want it as well.
And also, there are incentives with some of the utilities tethered to storage, which is helpful. And then, anytime you’re comparing storage to a generator, which would be the alternative, you get rewarded for investing in a battery as opposed to the generator. There’s additional costs ongoing. So I think when you compare it in that fashion, it also makes it an easy conversation and folks generally get it. We can kind of accelerate their solar system being on in an outage and giving them more functionality.
And obviously, I think the apps, as time goes on, all of our industry has done a great job of adapting, and the technology supporting the systems is much stronger as well. It keeps growing. As different utilities or states have different incentives or ways that they bill you, then the products react to that as well.
I think we’ve seen a lot of financing, FinTech stuff, and there’s a lot more of that comes into play where they’re being more customer-centric and installer-centric for making it easier to access financing as well. So I think our industry continues to innovate and drive to making it more accessible for everybody.
Government Policies and Incentives for Solar
John: What about government policies and incentives? Has that impacted the solar energy industry this year at all?
Buddy: Yeah. I think solar has always been a very policy-driven industry and it continues to be so today. There’s always a lot of volatility with that, from one administration to the next, and different state incentives that have expiration dates and maybe delays on the new programs coming out.
But to speak to 2024 specifically, I think there was a lot of federal policy in the IRA that we’ve been waiting for clarifications on, and we finally got a lot of those in 2024. And we’re kind of excited as to how that starts to roll out into 2025 and beyond, namely some of the adders to the ITC, whether it’s domestic content, low income, community adders. So those are now kind of prescribed and somewhat usable where, prior to 2024, they were written into law and completely unusable or had a lot of questions on how they were to be deployed. So we’ve made some progress, which is good.
John: And the IRA is the Inflation Reduction Act, right?
Buddy: Yep.
John: Can you talk a little bit more about what specifically the incentives are that you get from the IRA?
Buddy: Yeah. So in the IRA from the homeowner side, they extended the federal ITC, which is 30% tax credit, Investment Tax Credit, to go solar. That applies for businesses as well. And then, they had some ITC adders in there to add an extra 10% ITC if you use domestic content if you’re a commercial entity, not necessarily for a residential homeowner. But that was clarified mostly in 2024, and we look forward to using that. There’s a low income adder, I think Brian, if I’m not mistaken.
Brian: Yeah.
Buddy: And then, they clarified some other things on the nonprofits getting to use it and some other stuff like that. So there’s a lot in there, but those are kind of the main ones that affected our business in 2024.
Brian: I think the direct pay, is what you’re referring to with nonprofits, right?
Buddy: Yeah.
Brian: So any nonprofit now can claim the tax credit, where before we had to figure out a workaround or special financing types for them to realize it through cheaper electricity, where now they can actually file a simple form to get it directly paid back to them, the full 30%. So it obviously helps with the economics, because if you’re approaching the same solar system and you’re not getting back 30%, it’s obviously harder to make the economics work, especially for a nonprofit. When we’re thinking churches, schools, non-government agencies, things like that, that are usually pretty budget-driven and have a hard line and it just doesn’t pencil. So it makes it attainable and a huge deal for them.
And then, I think part of the IRA too, some fringe things for us that were in there were for energy efficiency stuff for heat pumps. So I know, ourselves, we did a whole home heat pump at our home and we’re able to get $2,500 back as a tax credit for the heat pumps.
And I think it also further clarified storage as a piece, which they kind of did before, but this really made it ironclad. They wrote it in more firmly that storage qualifies as a standalone for the ITC. But there was a lot of great pieces.
I think locally for us, here in Massachusetts, we had the Clean Energy Act of 2022 as well, which was, I think it might have been the same month as the IRA, right? They were both in August. And basically, we saw 0.0 results of that for almost two years because of bureaucracy and such.
So we finally are seeing here in Massachusetts, a really big deal is the net metering cap being raised from 10 kilowatt to 25, which we’ve been at 10 kilowatt to get the full credit for net metering since 2015. And now it aligns more with system sizes, people electrifying, and it aligns with… The new incentive program that already ended, it came out and then it’s already gone before it started, it seems like. So I think those things are good.
Some other more nuanced policy pieces in that Massachusetts Clean Energy Act too, what they call the single parcel rule, where you can have two points of interconnection on the same parcel or property. So it’s good for multi-families, HOAs, and being able to divvy the system up differently, things like that. So there was a lot that is, like Buddy said, starting to get some movement. Right?
Buddy: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Challenges Facing the Solar Industry
John: What are some of the biggest challenges that you think that the solar industry has faced in 2024? Were there any types of the typical supply chain issues or labor shortages, regulatory issues, things like that?
Buddy: Yeah, a good segue, because part of the IRA, there was also a lot of manufacturing incentives to bring domestic manufacturing here. So we’re incentivizing those manufacturers to make the investment in the US manufacturing economy. And so, there’s challenges with that when we’re kind of shifting that supply chain over here. And we dealt with some of that, but I think long-term it’s on a good trajectory, for sure. So yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing is just a transition I think for a lot of our manufacturer partners to make that shift.
Brian: So right, Buddy, a little bit of a consolidation of manufacturers while some buying out pieces of others, things like that. And that also leads to that transition and shift, which makes what Buddy does and what we rely on harder, in that we’ve got these panels and they’re like, “Well, now it’s transitioned to this panel” or “that one’s now sunsetting” and they come out with a new one or they’ve consolidated, and this is their focus now. So there was some of that, and I think there always will be. Albeit solar has been around decades, but it’s still really an emerging industry in terms of residential and commercial applications. And it’s really been accelerating fairly quickly, so we’ve seen some of that.
And then, of course, we had the border situations through the conflict areas in China. So customs and Border Patrol has been basically checking every manufacturer over the last couple years to make sure that everything there checks out, and that can lead to some disruption of supply. So we’ve had some of those pieces in part as well. But fortunately, Buddy’s company does a great job of managing that, forecasting, staying in touch with their full supply chain, and then end-users like us, and what our demand to pipeline is, so they can properly adjust. And then, because there’s such a large distributor, they’re able to move products around the whole country and satisfy the different markets. So there might be a shift in the type of panel or product in different areas, but they’re able to react to that and make moves and satisfy that, which is a huge deal.
Completed Solar Projects in 2024
John: So I’ll ask you both, what were some of the most exciting projects that you worked on over the course of the year? Buddy, why don’t we start with you?
Buddy: Oh, we’re just a boring partner in the background here, just trying to help. We’re fortunate to have such great partners like Brian here and a lot of our customers. They’re the ones on the front end finding the projects and finding good use cases for solar, and we’re in the background just kind of making them happen.
Brian: Right.
Buddy: So, they’re exciting, but at the end of the day, I always used to joke around that we deliver pallets of material and construction supplies to the job sites. That’s kind of what we do. And it’s not glamorous, but important, but we also get to participate with our customers in helping them serve their customers.
John: Any particularly large projects that you helped with or anything like that?
Buddy: No. Most of what we do is residential. We do get involved in some commercial projects from time to time. But the sales cycles on those are so long, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly a highlight for a 2024 project, at least off the top of my head. But Brian maybe could highlight maybe a couple of cool ones.
John: Yeah, go ahead Brian.
Brian: Well, I think for me personally, inside the day there’s little victories when just something goes right. Those are the highlights I would say.
Buddy: Yep.
Brian: But in terms of executing a project that had a positive result, we got great feedback. In terms of a larger project, it was really complex. We had one that was a good-sized solar system spread across a couple of different buildings on a residential property, a beautiful sprawling property. So it was hard to juggle the solar portion. And then, it also had six power walls.
John: Wow.
Brian: And it also had a generator. So it was a cool project. And it was a challenge, because as soon as you solved one problem, you discovered that the thing that we intended on over here doesn’t work or it doesn’t work with another third party, maybe their smart home system or something like this. So we had a cool project like that, where we basically had solar operating, if power goes out, the batteries pick up the whole home with the exception of maybe some heavy load, like a geothermal unit, something like that. So they had different backup heat that it would pick up. So their whole home was operating. And as the power in the battery drained or the customer decided to change their reserve level where they wanted to engage the generator, then it would trip over automatically through them using the app, pick up the generator, and that would feed through the rest of the home.
So the idea is that during the daytime you have solar that’s powering. This is in an outage, right, in an outage environment. You have solar powering your home and it’s being also supplemented by the battery if need be, and other times, the solar is now backfeeding and charging the batteries. And then, at night the customer can kind of shut the batteries off and allow the generator to come back on so that they have enough juice in the battery the following morning to then re-engage the inverters to tell the solar system to turn back on. Because if you were to allow the battery system to drain all the way out, now there’s not enough juice to tell the inverter that there’s power to power up.
So it’s a way of gaming how all the different systems work and trying to integrate them together and function automatically or with the manual control from the homeowner, which is…it’s a lot, I’ll say that. I’m trying to make it sound really simple, but technologically speaking and with hard-wiring and with the different systems coming together, a project like that is super satisfying.
And then, another project that I can think of is just a single mom that just saw that her solar system worked as we told her it was going to work and started saving real dollars on her electric bill and was just over-the-moon elated about saving $30, $50, $100 a month. It makes a huge difference. And those are super satisfying interactions with customers to say… Because we know how this works. We talk about it every day. We design these things, we install these, and we know that this is what’s going to happen based on all the science of the site. But to educate a consumer and get them to buy in and to trust you and to go for it, and then to see that come to fruition and have them be like, “Oh my God, it does work.” It’s super satisfying to see customers get really gassed up and excited about their energy system and that it’s saving them money.
John: Right. Because there’s probably a lot of trepidation going into it, them thinking, “Hey, am I spending all this money and I am just going to end up with a higher bill than I had before and it’s not going to work?” That kind of thing. So it’s satisfying to know that, yeah, it worked just like you said that it was going to and they’re saving money now. That’s great.
Brian: Yeah. I like to get the question, “What’s the catch?” or “What am I missing?” That means I did my job, right?
John: Right.
Brian: Because it does sound too good to be true, right? I compare it to cars. So let me know. People are like, “I’m not spending $50,000 for a solar system.” I’m like, “I just drove past a Lexus and Mercedes and a brand new XYZ in the driveway, which yields zero return and just drop off the face of the map as soon as you buy it in terms of value. Where if you bought one of those cars and you got a tax credit for a third of the cost of it, and then you got free gas for the life of that vehicle, and then you got paid every mile that you drove it around, would that be the car that you’d want to buy? Does that make sense?” Right?
John: Yeah.
Brian: And of course, right, that doesn’t exist. Oh, and it has a 25-year warranty and labor is included, like free parts for 25 years. So if you think of the investment with solar, all the return that you get and kind of the set-it-and-forget-it, turnkey situation that it is, that an installer like us takes care of all that for the homeowner, it’s really a no-brainer. And it’s just a matter of working through how to acquire it, what type of financing makes the most sense for the customer. Because if your site is good, it’s an absolute no-brainer. And it is satisfying to see people get it up front and trust you and then on the back end be like, “Oh my gosh.”
John: “Why doesn’t everybody do this?”
Brian: Right? Except that’s the two things I want to hear, right? It is like, “What’s the catch?” and “Why doesn’t everyone do this? I don’t understand.”
Solar Trends and Predictions for 2025
John: Right. Buddy, as we’re looking forward to 2025, what are some of the key trends or predictions that you have in terms of the solar industry and where things are going?
Buddy: Sure. Yeah, I think the demand for solar is going nowhere. We’re in this kind of electrification market as Brian kind of alluded to. We think, especially in our region in New England, there’s a lot of older homes, a lot of opportunity to electrify and modernize. So again, I don’t think the demand for energy is going down, so the demand for solar is obviously going to continue to be pretty strong up here.
We’re going to have some supply challenges, I think. There’s some tariff enforcement going on with the importers. I mentioned we’ve kind of been repatriating a lot of the jobs and incentivizing them with the IRA, but we’re going to be more in a transition of that as the tariff moratorium ceases and enforcement begins again. Do we have enough product manufactured here to supply that demand? And if not, does the new cost to import, is it prohibitive?
So those are sort of the questions, I’d say, as we go into this new year. I think there’s no question that the price of modules is going to increase in that environment, and some of the raw material costs already signaling to kind of go up. So we think we’re going to be in a increasing supply cost going into next year.
And then, what does our monetary policy do? The interest rate is obviously a huge input cost to a lot of these systems that are financed. And to the degree that we have a stable monetary policy next year is going to impact that for sure, positive or negative. So can I predict that? No, hard to say. But we’re kind of hoping for at least some stability and maybe some easing of the interest rate would obviously go a long way to making solar more accessible for more people in the short term. So yeah, that’s what I’m looking forward to for next year.
Brian: Yeah, we’re looking forward to some growth. I know 2024 was a challenging year on a lot of different fronts, specifically kicked off with high interest rates and residential buyers that were looking at financing primarily, it was hard to overcome. And then we saw, finally, a relaxing of that in the second half of this year, starting to turn in the right direction. And hopefully that continues where the rate at least stabilizes, right? Because we had quick jumps up and then we had a couple quick jumps down after almost a year and a half of a high rate environment. And now we’ve seen some, I think the incoming administration, there’s excitement about financial policy and then there’s also some trepidation about what is that. And it’s kind of a bit of their volatile leadership potentially. So it’s just unknown.
But it’s also the tariffs, by nature, are inflationary, so the Treasury note is going up. And so, there’s a balance between the rate and the Treasury on what finance companies are going to be looking at in terms of setting their pricing. So if that can remain stable and we can have kind of a calm transition and start to 2025, I think that would be huge and be a signal to consumers that now is the time and it’s going to remain the time and things are going to be set and stable. I think all things in the economy, we do need that, so fingers crossed.
John: Yep, absolutely. Okay, that’s all really great information. Buddy, how can people learn more about Greentech Renewables and get in touch with you, especially solar companies that might want to partner with you?
Buddy: Sure. Yeah, you can find us online, of course, greentechrenewables.com, search for us on Google. And we’re at every trade show in the industry, of course.
Brian: Mostly sponsoring them too, right?
Buddy: Yeah. We’ll be at RE+ in February in Boston, for sure, so I’m happy to kind of touch base there. You’ll see us at some of the policy events. SEBANE is our local trade organization here in New England, so that’s another good place to connect with us. And yeah, I look forward to meeting other solar people.
John: All right. Well, really great to talk to you again, Buddy. Thanks for joining us today.
Buddy: Sure thing. Thanks, John.
John: And as always, thanks, Brian.
Brian: Thanks, John, I appreciate it.
John: And for more information, you can visit the website at solarisrenewables.com or call 781-270-6555.