In this podcast episode, John Maher speaks with Brian Sadler of Solaris Renewables and Corrigan Harreys of SPAN, delving into whole-home electrification and how SPAN’s smart electrical panels make it easier than ever. They explain how SPAN panels provide homeowners with real-time data, allowing control over energy usage per appliance and helping reduce bills. With compatibility for solar, EV chargers, and heat pumps, SPAN’s innovative technology future-proofs homes, enabling smooth integration with current and emerging electrical systems. Discover how SPAN can help optimize energy management, cut costs, and prepare your home for a sustainable, electrified future. For more information, visit Solaris Renewables or SPAN.
John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher and I’m here today with Brian Sadler, vice President at Solaris Renewables 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: Thanks John.
Maher: Yeah, today we’re talking about whole home electrification and future proofing your home with SPAN Smart Electrical Panels. So, our special guest today is Corrigan Harries, senior sales manager at SPAN, the makers of smart electrical panels and EV Chargers. Thanks for joining us, Corrigan.
Corrigan Harreys: Yeah, thanks John. Appreciate it. Look forward to chatting with you and Brian today.
How Does SPAN Help with Whole Home Electrification?
Maher: Absolutely, thanks. So, Corrigan, how does SPAN position itself within this new movement of whole home electrification and grid modernization?
Harreys: Yeah, for sure. We’re a smart panel, yes, but really, we’re a whole home energy management system. So, for us, we feel like we create the foundational building block in any residential home to start their electrification process, right? Whether SPAN is paired with a solar and storage system, an at-home EV charger, a heat pump. We can really set the foundation for a homeowner to have a positive and ideally a simple experience to electrify. On the grid side, it’s maybe a bit more complex because you’re thinking pretty big picture, but we really talk about ourselves as the smarter grid edge solution. And for those that don’t know the term grid edge, that’s that middle area between the grid infrastructure and your home.
And so, we start to build some foundational building blocks on the utility side for further DERMs or demand energy response programs, virtual power plant, and also just a deeper insight into how utilities can think about each individual home and create those different programs that are going to be a benefit to the grid, but also to the homeowners themselves that enroll in those programs.
Electrical Peripherals in a SPAN Home
Maher: And what are some of the electrical peripherals in a home that SPAN helps homeowners to monitor and control in order to better understand and leverage their electrical usage?
Harreys: So, with SPAN behind each breaker space, we have a meter and so we are able to track day, week, month, year usage per circuit in your home. So, whether that’s your 120-volt, your lighting and outlet loads, all the way up to your larger loads like your heating and cooling systems, your heat pump, hot water heater, maybe your washer, dryer, pool pump, hot tub, those loads.
So, as a homeowner, we have our mortgage rent insurance, those large expenses. Your electric bill is typically right up there in second or third place for each of us as homeowners, but we lack the insight into what builds up to that these days unfortunately it could be a $400 or $500, $600 bill depending on where you live. So, we’re going to give really simple data through our SPAN Home app to each homeowner to see that usage, see what percentage of your bill is, your new EV charger, your heating and cooling, your heat pump, hot water heater to make those decisions on, “Hey, is it time to update or maybe my usage just really has been inefficient.”
And one of the nice things that we just added last week into our SPAN Home app was cost savings insights. So, for some kilowatt-hour can be a confusing concept, especially when you’re looking at how do I manage myself properly within my home. So, you can drop in your electrical rate and we’ll actually give you a dollar amount per load to tell you how much your central air costs you, how much that dehumidifier in the basement’s going to cost you, your fridges. And that’s really where I think it’s going to allow homeowners to understand it in very clean, clear data to say, “Man, I’m just not efficient with certain areas in my home,” or, “It is time to update that heating and cooling system that I’ve maybe been putting off for a couple years now.”
Sadler: I wonder if that’s going to cause or solve more domestic issues at home. There’s always the conflict of the heat up and down, the AC up and down, and now putting a dollar amount behind it it’s going to be… It’s awesome to see that. But no, I’m joking about the domestic issues, but still-
Maher: You just cost us $20.
Sadler: I know I experienced that a little bit, but we’ve been talking about the heat coming on and then some of what the AC needs to be sat at and on and on. But putting that dollar amount, same thing, space heaters. So, we have the way our house is set up, there’s a corner that just over by the dining room table that stays chilly. So, my wife wants to have a space heater there, and I’m like, “Do you know we just got a new heating system? Do you know how much that cost?” We’re back and forth in that, and I’m stoked that I can tag a dollar amount to that now.
Harreys: It’d be worse if you were a teenager in today’s world, that Xbox is toast, man. They’re going to know when you’re staying out past midnight and you’re tired the morning for school, right? It’s a tough scenario.
Sadler: No kidding.
What to Think About SPAN Smart Panels
Maher: Brian, talk a little bit about what your customers think of SPAN Smart Panels and how they’re able to control and see their electrical usage but also what they’re gaining from their solar panels and how that integrates into the system.
Sadler: Yeah, I think so. Some folks have come to us because already done some research and they’re like, “I want this, I need this.” And they’re super excited about it and others, it’s a solution too, depending on what energy system we’re building, and some of that avoids infrastructure or home system upgrades, things like that. And we’re able to say, “Hey, we can put a couple more gray boxes in and it’s going to cost this much, or we can put in a solution like this, which is going to actually give you something for this added investment which we need to do to satisfy code for instance.
I’d say across the board are the feedback we received from all of our customers has been tremendously positive and they’re usually overwhelmed by how cool this is and that they didn’t know that this existed and they get this much really incredibly simple but powerful data to see what’s going on at their home.
Folks really don’t know. I didn’t know, even though I’m in this industry, I had no idea what my heating system, cooling system, whatever, anything at my home, I really had no idea exactly what it was using and what the percentage of my overall use was. And then now being able to see how much that actually cost me. I mean, I can reverse engineer what the cost is, but now being able to flip over in the SPAN app and see, “Oh, that was a hundred dollars just for that month.”
It’s been really, really positive, especially for solar customers. It’s great. You can see not only what your home is doing, what your solar is doing and the interaction with the grid and then to take it to the next level is if you have a battery system, you really can get a ton more functionality and leverage a ton more data out of the SPAN panel and the app itself.
And those customers, I think it goes next level where they’re able to really get automatic load shedding, they can prioritize their circuits into that automatic load shedding. They’re also able to make real-time decisions as they can see exactly how much storage they have left in their battery system as what they’re doing currently in the home is using for energy.
And then they can make real-time decisions to take things off, bring things back up. So, I think it’s been overwhelmingly positive. And then folks that have a SPAN and then they refer someone like a hundred percent of the time, those folks want the SPAN as well. They’re like, “That thing is awesome. I want that in my home as well.” So, I think it’s been a tremendously positive, and we were one of the first companies to be a certified installer with SPAN and been partnering for a long time.
And the support from SPAN is awesome. Our customers have called SPAN directly and helped get really intricate troubleshooting from SPAN and insight too. Because we know how to install them, we know how they work, but then there’s a whole other level of customization for an individual’s home that we don’t necessarily have insight to.
I don’t know when they’re doing X, Y and Z, and exactly how they use their story, how they want to use it or their heating and cooling for instance, and what their individual lifestyle and schedule is. So those pieces present opportunities for customers to leverage it in a different way and to understand more. And SPAN’s been an amazing partner to jump on and support our customers as well.
Are There Any Incentives to Install a SPAN Smart Panel?
Maher: Corrigan, are there any incentives for homeowners to install a SPAN smart panel?
Harreys: Yeah, there are some great tax incentives available with SPAN today, and we always say contact your tax advisor, work with your accountant. But if SPAN’s paired in with your solar system, whether that’s SPAN and solar, SPAN solar and storage, SPAN plus storage, as long as your system qualifies, you have the opportunity to group it into the 30% tax incentive you get with your solar or storage system. So that’s a huge chunk that you can get back in your tax bill the following year. So that’s great that you’re able to roll that in.
If you are a homeowner that’s getting SPAN as part of an electrification upgrade, so that may be with an EV charger, with a heat pump, you can also get up to $600 back for a tax incentive. So it’s great that as part of the Inflation Reduction Act there’s been a bit of an increase in the ITC, the tax credits, and it’s great that they’re looking at these ancillary products that need to be there to set the foundation for what’s next for homeowners, what’s next to help the grid, and also just be able to have that quote unquote discount the following year from your tax bill to be able to roll these types of products in.
What to Consider Before Investing into a Smart Panel
Maher: And what are some of the considerations that homeowners should take into account when they’re trying to decide whether or not a smart panel like SPAN is right for them?
Harreys: I mean, we always look at it in two ways. We say, “Hey, how’s your electric bill? Is it so high and you can’t figure out how to control it? We know that rates are going up, so that’s part of the equation, but how do you start to offset some of those costs and be as efficient as possible?” And yes, it is an expense they’re going to be paying, so there’s an upfront investment to get your SPAN panel, but long-term, you’re going to have those actionable insights in your SPAN Home app to save money.
We also say if a homeowner starting there, and they may not call this, it’s an industry term, their electrification journey. So, whether that’s solar and storage system, an EV, a heat pump, heat pump, hot water heater, there have to be some foundational building blocks for homeowners to start to adopt those and invest in those into their home.
Service capacity in homes is not something that’s on the top of mind. I’d say probably not. One or two homeowners out of 10 are going to know, “Hey, what’s your main breaker rating?” It’s not like that thing we walk around with pride on. And so, in the Northeast, there’s a lot of 100 amp homes that maybe can take one EV charger, and in some cases that may even be derated, right? And so, as an energy management system, SPAN sets up that foundational building block to add any EV charger and a heat pump and a heat pump up water to each home.
And that’s really built into one of our software feature that’s called Power Up, where we’ll orchestrate those loads in a very fluid manner for the homeowner so that although maybe they’re loaded over their service capacity, we’ll ensure that they never go over the rating of that exact panel. And there’s a lot of new articles built into the National Electric Code that Massachusetts has adopted that allow us to enable the full feature set within every SPAN panel.
Sadler: I know for us as so I’m not only… We’re an installer, but I’m also a client as well. So, we started our journey. We have a slab ranch where we live, and so there’s some limitations like the attic is tight, so in terms of workability and running wires and doing anything up there is really difficult and we have no basement.
So, we had a oil fire boiler in our garage with a 275 gallon fuel tank, and then we did get solar. That was for us, that was step one eight years ago or so. And then we did. We Went with a hybrid or heat pump, hot water tank. That was the start. And now we knew at some day we’re looking at heat pumps, we’re going to get a battery, we’re probably going to get more solar, we’re going to get EVs or plugin hybrids. Those things are coming.
And so, we’ve done those things over the last few years and SPAN was really the piece that tied it all together. And now not only do we have an all-electric home, but we have the understanding through the SPAN management and app that now we understand the relationship between these things and how to best manage them and how much they’re actually using and how we can leverage that the best through the SPAN app.
It’s been a really cool tool for us to understand and now be able to control. So now having a battery system as well, we have… It is funny, I was driving and I got a notification that we were on battery, we had lost power from SPAN, and my wife didn’t get that and was in the middle of doing stuff and she was trying, she’s like, “The oven’s now broken.” She’s texting me.
I’m like, “No, no, no. The oven just was dropped automatically by SPAN so that the battery and everything else can power everything else in the house.” I’m like, “You’re watching TV and using Wi-Fi, right?” She’s like, “Oh yeah.” “And all the lights are on, right?” She’s like, “Yeah.” So, it’s been a really powerful piece for us and tied all of our electrification journey together and really gave us the understanding and that control, which I think is what ultimately homeowners are looking for. And then in our case too, it was going to result in some system upgrades and additional boxes that we need to put in because we have two solar systems and we have a battery system and all these pieces.
And we can find a space, like I said, we got rid of oil, but still it’s a pretty tight area where this stuff needs to fit. And instead of having a big long line of these gray boxes, I just have one SPAN panel that can handle all that because it does have that load on our load shedding and management satisfies all the code and allows us to have one piece of equipment that can do the work of several pieces of equipment and take up a lot less real estate as well.
Future Proofing Your Home
Maher: Corrigan, talk a little bit more about that future proofing of your home concept. You got into it a little bit and mentioned that even with a hundred-amp panel, you can install a SPAN smart panel, and it will help to allow you in the future, maybe add an EV charger, maybe add heat pumps to your home without maybe necessarily having to upgrade to a 200-amp panel. Talk a little bit about that and then where do you see things going in the future? Do you see that all homes will have smart panels like this?
Harreys: Yeah, so built into every SPAN panel, no matter who installs or where you get it from so to speak, is a software feature set we call Power Up. And that’s really our load management, our energy management software that creates that seamless orchestration of the loads within your home. And so, if you think about, especially in New England, like the three core electrification projects people do, right?
It’s solar and storage, it’s our home EV charging, and it’s generally a heat pump or a mini split. And so, the great thing and the low hanging fruit we always say is if you put an EV charger in, you can put a full level two EV charger in no matter your service capacity if you have a SPAN panel. That’s built into the electric code as far back as 2017, that load is just never going to be counted into your load counts.
So that’s 48-amps that you are now playing within excess that you have, so it makes room for that heat pump or that mini split system. And then also we talked about solar and storage. You can get SPAN installed before solar, you can get installed after. It’s up to the homeowner and how they go through that process. But you’re going to know great electrical usage and the size of that solar system, if you put SPAN in ahead of time.
It’s an easy thing to give your solar installer, “Hey, here’s my usage day, week, month, year down, ten-minute increments.” If you want to go crazy with it. If you get it installed with your system it’s, “Hey, now I’m ready to go get that heat pump.” Maybe it’s three years down the road. So, you can see your solar production, you can understand, all right, here’s what I’ve been using.
I’m going to now be using a bit more than I’m producing, but how can I be more efficient in other areas to offset those costs? So, it’s really that, again, foundational building block. No matter what you start with or if you start with SPAN, there’s benefits in all aspects of how that’s going to go. And I think as the industry and as homeowners, we move to electric, there’s some things forcing us there.
Gas bans in California and New York make ready mandates on new construction or depending on the size of the addition, you have to be wired for one or two EVs, even if you don’t have one, it’s there per code. Smart panels are going to be that building block that you want to put in. And I’ll say potentially, you look even further for the utility companies, it’s such a huge benefit to have an energy management system in homes because it buys them some time to update their grid infrastructure.
And foundationally it one day sets up them for other programs that they can do in terms of demand response. If they can help allow a homeowner to enroll in a program to manage their EV charger from five to nine p.m. and you get a discount on your bill, that’s a really usable, easy program for a homeowner. But also, it sets us up for success holistically as a grid that it’s under the process of getting updating. But like anything that stuff takes time.
Sadler: The energy panel, like the standard gray box electric panel, that’s something that hasn’t changed. And I mean since electricity existed really, it’s just different forms of gray box and different sizes and different amount of circuits that can land there or fuses or whatnot. So SPAN is really the first one that has taken that to the next level and rethought and reinvented the home service panel and taking it to a new place. And I think that thinking ahead, it is going to be the future. Why not? When you’re building a new host, everyone should have this to get that full understanding, and I’m sure that’s where SPAN is targeting in their business model.
We want to talk to large home builders and developers, and this should be a standard practice. That old gray box was a standard practice for 150, 60-years. So now why not integrate this? Everyone wants smart home pieces in their home. We have Google Home or Alexa or whatever the case may be, things you can talk to and SPAN integrates with Alexa for sure, and I think is working on and other smart home integrations as well. But that’s a huge thing is we’re going towards that, why not just start there and then build your system from there?
Upgrading Your Home’s Electrical Right the First Time
Harreys: We use the term a lot like, do it once, do it right. If you have to invest in your electrical, whether it’s in a retrofit renovation scenario or new construction, you wouldn’t go and buy the 13-year-old HVAC system or the modules from 20 years ago for solar. Why do you do it on your electrical panel? Don’t sacrifice. And there’s a lot of make ready mandates on the new construction side that are pushing builders that way.
But on the new construction side, your SPAN panel ends up being maybe 1% of your total cost, right? It’s a drop in the bucket when you think about the life of that project. Why would you not fully set yourself up for solar, storage, EV and whole home electrification if that’s your choice? It’s one of those things, you talk to a homeowner that maybe has a Google Nest thermostat or Lutron switches and blinds or Ring Doorbell, they can’t remember their life pre that.
And it’s like this amplifies all of that to everything in your home, but it’s just smart panels, energy management systems are still new technology and that’s why we have some resources available that I know your team uses Brian to bring that to life. Because if you get a SPAN homeowner and that SPAN Home app, they’re like, “Wait, I can see everything I’m doing and how much energy it’s pulling and how much it’s costing me. This is everything I’ve been looking for. And in some cases, things I didn’t know I needed.” Right? It just, it’s a newer concept that’s still getting out there in the market.
How Much Does it Cost to Install a SPAN Smart Electrical Panel?
Maher: Absolutely. So Corrigan, how much does installing a SPAN Smart Electrical Panel cost?
Harreys: Yeah, the nice thing about SPAN is that from our design standpoint, one thing we never wanted to change was installation. So, installation of a SPAN panel is exactly the same as a traditional panel. If you go on our website for any homeowners listening to this, you can go to SPAN.io, you see our listed MSRP on our panel is 3,500.
That’s obviously plus your installation, new home retrofit renovation, everything’s going to be a bit different. So, your installation costs are going to vary from project to project, but no matter if it was a SPAN panel or a gray box, that installation is going to be the same. It’s just thinking about ancillary products or any other rewiring or updates you may need to do as part of that.
What Products does SPAN Offer?
Maher: And then what are the products that SPAN offers? Do you have other things besides the one smart panel?
Harreys: Yeah, so we’ve got our SPAN Smart panel. We also have our own SPAN drive, full level two EV charger. And this is a pretty unique product where it works in combination with our SPAN panel. But if you’re in a home that, again, we mentioned before, maybe it’s a 100-amp home, you don’t have the service capacity to do full level 2 EV. Well, one, you can do that with SPAN, our SPAN smart panel. But when you integrate our SPAN drive-in, we can actually dynamically throttle power to that charger.
So, for many homeowners, they’ll derate a charger or maybe get a load shedding device if their service capacity can’t handle that. Again, none of that’s needed with SPAN. SPAN will take over for the homeowner and we’ll throttle between six amps and 48-amps. We’ll use whatever’s available if you’re short on a full 48, which just makes it a super flexible experience so that if you’re trying to get the kid to the doctor or soccer practice, but you’re also cooking dinner and you’re doing laundry, you don’t want to lose that charge if you need it.
So, we’ll give that really flexible experience for the homeowner. And then we’ve all got 45 apps on our phone. If we can make a few less for everything, we think that’s also a win. So, within your SPAN Home app, you can schedule based off time of use if you have those rates, your preference if you want to do 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM. If it’s an exterior charger, you can lock it from a software perspective, so you don’t have to worry about someone rolling in while you’re at work and charging their car on your dime.
And then a new feature set we came out with last week that we’re really excited about is that if you have Solar SPAN and SPAN Drive, you can actually charge your EV directly via excess solar production. And you can set up those settings as a homeowner. But it’s a really unique value prop that we’ve come out with there where if you have any excess solar production, charge your car with that. And that’s where we’re trying to get a bit further on this whole home orchestration, so to speak, as an energy management system.
Sadler: Very Cool.
The Future of Span and Smart Electric Panels
Maher: Yeah. So, talk a little bit more about the future and where do you see SPAN going from here? What’s next?
Harreys: Yeah, it’s exciting to be a part of a company like this where we take feedback very quickly and we actionize it very quickly, so to speak. So, at RE+, which is one of the biggest renewable energy trade shows, that was about a month ago at this point, we debuted some line extensions that will be coming next year. And there’s a bit of info on our website about this.
For us, it’s how do we expand the portfolio into further offerings for further applications. So, we’ll have a larger 48 space main panel really looking at that new construction space that need more circuits, especially if it’s an all-electric home, but also how do you really future-proof your new build?
And then we’ll also have a smaller form factor 24 circuit for maybe it’s a three-family or two-family home in Boston, or it’s utilized as a smart sub panel, so to speak. So, it’s really looking further than what we’ve been doing today to have the correct solutions for multiple applications out there in the market. We think if you’re going to put a panel in a home, you should only do it once. So, let’s make sure we have the right options for every type of home, whether it’s new construction, retrofit, renovation, single family, multifamily.
Sadler: Very cool.
Maher: All right, well that’s really great information, Corrigan, thanks again for joining us today. Appreciate it.
Harreys: Yeah, thanks Brian. Thanks, John. Great chatting with you.
Maher: And as always, Brian, thanks for joining us today.
Sadler: Thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot, Corrigan. Great to chat with you.
Harreys: Yeah, always.
How Can People Learn More About SPAN?
Maher: Finally, just to Corrigan, can you tell everybody how people can learn more about SPAN and get in touch with you?
Harreys: Yeah. Best spot to go is our website, which is SPAN.io. We have a ton of great information on the product, a lot of great use case videos and just further information if you really want to dig into the details on our website. And then we have a great social platform, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. Again, a ton of different information, a lot of different use cases and experiences on how homeowners are using SPAN and see the benefits of it.
Information About Solaris Renewables
Maher: And you can also learn more information on the Solaris Renewables website at SolarisRenewables.com or call 781-2706555.