ChargeExpo 2024: Exploring the Role of Energy Storage in Modernizing the Power Grid

What's going on everyone? It's Daniel Littwin, the voice of b to b coming you from the Irving Convention Center for Charge Expo twenty twenty four. Here today with mister Bobby Rees, he's an energy storage specialist and a retired fire chief at Hiller Companies Bobby. Thank you so much for sitting down with us today. Thank you for having me. Happy charge expo twenty twenty. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. So, today, we've been hosting a lot of conversations around a lot of the larger coordination that needs to expand and needs to, I guess, you know, open up more lines of dialogue around achieving major goals in acting the energy industry, utilities, and the larger sort of suite of stakeholders, in this environmentally conscious movement. What I'd love to do first for our audience is get some analysis or really context on Hiller Company's role in some of those movements and trends. Right? Where does Hiller companies fit into some of the larger trends that we're talking about here at Charge Expo include including grid modernization, vehicle adoption, you know, coordination between utilities, power generation, etcetera, break that down for us. So Hiller provides hardware and software. Okay. By that, I mean that Hiller started in the nineteen hundreds by providing, fire protection equipment. And still does. Okay. And so, one of the branches out of Wilmington, North Carolina, and my boss, Paul Hayes, started to move forward on energy storage systems, not only providing the hardware, but also the software and we consult power companies. We'll do all the hazardous mitigation analysis which includes some of the fire analysis, some of the bloom studies, if something goes wrong, you know, far is is the the gas that's gonna travel. Sure. What kind of impacts are you gonna have? The emergency plans were, for the fire departments and the the authority having jurisdiction as to what to do during an an incident if an incident occurs and who to get a hold of all the responsible parties and, some of the tactics that they use should use and not use and things of that nature. So, we provide that kind of a holistic approach for the independent power providers and the power providers. Nice. So as an energy storage specialist yourself, I'm sure you can speak to a lot of the larger trends that are impacting the grid today and some of the press points that are motivating the grid to modernize and implement, battery solutions, energy storage solutions, and energy recycling solutions. Right? They're all kind of part of this, larger push for modernizing the grid. So I'd love to get a pulse check for our audience. Where are you seeing some of the most active conversation around, this grid modernization goal. Right? How are folks handling some of the points of needing to adopt energy storage solutions, where are those conversations being felt today? Throughout the United States. Is, as you're starting to see more and more the need for alternative fuels, California is probably one of the biggest that is really taken off on on energy storage. They have quite a high demand, and and, they have brownouts rolling brownouts and, and, Texas here that we're at. A few years ago, you heard that, they had a unusual freeze and the energy required tax, the energy being provided. Right. And and so they had blackouts, brownouts, and, and, that we're left without energy. Right. And so you're starting to see the country see the need more and more In California, they've had brownouts and rolling brownouts for some time now. Right. So, and they've had older farms out there and generating alternative fuels, windmills and wind wind farms. And and so the next step was kind of now natural was that they're creating energy, alternative fuel energies, and but no way to store it. Yeah. So the batteries provided that storage system for a rainy day. So when they have a big load during the summer or wherever time it is is that they don't have to have the brownouts anymore or as many as they have the bank now to pull from on energy and and supply that energy field. Nice. Well, then, you know, it sounds like obviously the larger trends of, adopting energy storage solutions to support the grid are not just there to, make best use of renewable energy, but rather to address some of the rather persistent challenges that the grid has faced for years. Right? And that will face in an accelerated rate. As we continue to electrify more industries, and as our power consumption needs only increase. Absolutely. And so, I'm curious where you're seeing some of that dynamic, right, where, would you say a lot of the energy storage, solution adoption friends are being motivated by, utilities and grid stakeholders trying to solve some of these challenges that have plagued them for twenty years. Are they looking ahead at adopting the infrastructure that will support renewable energy, capture, generation and usage? Is it a mix of both? Is it kind of one over the other? What are you seeing? Seeing all the above k. I assume so. Yes. So you're seeing number one, a catch up from, as you pointed out many years, The second thing is, the transient populations that we have from state to state will put a burden on on a certain state, and now all of a sudden put more burden on another state. The influx of migrants from all over the world, you know, we are a great country. And so you're seeing that, the invention of EVs. You gotta plug in, use that energy. Heck, I have all my power tools and all my lawn tools are batteries. Yeah. I love them. And and so that starts adding to the grid. Right. And the need for more energy. As we get away from one fuel to another Yeah. Is shifting. And, and so, having to develop that for the future also, or are we gonna be ten years from now when everybody's driving EV vehicles Right. In California, I think, twenty thirty is is, the the date that they're shooting for to quit selling new, fossil fuel vehicles. Wow. And and so that's gonna tax the system even more. Definitely. So, yeah, I think it's a right move to censor your your, creating energy by solar or what other other mechanism by wind is is to be able to store it for a rainy day. Yeah. And and that's kind of where the the industry is going. Definitely. So then in terms of trends and the actual adopt, of energy storage solutions. I guess where is that timeline right now for the national US grid are a lot of utilities companies and grid stakeholders on top of these investments as there's still a lot of work to be done to sort of mass standardize. The type energy storage needs that will, lay foundations for the future. Kind of where are we in this timeline of of really adopting a strong foundation of energy storage across the grid. I think it's in it's in transition. Okay. Yeah. So as They're perfecting one technology or starting to see a better, safer technology coming down the pipe. And and so It's it's very dynamic, but the investments are also large. So the whatever technology they're using today is gonna be for the next ten, fifteen years before they start making another investment into a bigger and better solution. Right. And now the energy storage world's an interesting one because there are a lot of opportunities for energy storage solutions to supplement multiple layers of this power downstream, I guess. Right? Obviously deploying them on-site at, you know, let's say, a slice of the grid will create more reserve energy to deploy out across a region. But we also see opportunities for energy storage at sort of the point of use at the edge, I guess you could say, which would be increasingly necessary smart buildings, commercial facilities, manufacturing facilities, who may find it useful and actually help put less strain on the grid by adopting energy storage themselves. Break down how you see that dynamic playing out in the next few years and maybe where that emphasis should be. Right? Because like you said, it's a massive investment to deploy energy storage for the grid. It might be more feasible in the short to encourage the adoption of energy storage at the point of use to support the grid and put less strain on And I'm I'm curious if, you know, you see the tides turning in one of those two directions or where you think some of that it should be in the short term to encourage the adoption of energy storage to support the grid. Right. So you're seeing it at the macro level and you're also seeing it at the micro level Right. As far as, in residents and having, power systems within the homes that they They create their own energy by solar and then capture it right there for when the sun isn't out. And, for peak periods and things of that nature, and you sell back to to utility companies to how that help that, macro, right, system, you know, and So you're starting to see at the micro level also micro grids taking place and and kind of stand alone. Yeah. There's always gonna need be that need for that macro, but, the I think the the microsystems that that you're capturing within your own residence. Yeah. And in generating the energy and storing it, will help the the bigger grid system. Yeah. And so, likely, it's gonna be then a dual strategy, a parallel strategy that tries to incentivize adoption in both layers, which obviously takes different strategies for crafting incentives, whether it's like a literal financial incentive, where it's more of a larger sort of community wide or industry wide support structure for that adoption, where are you seeing some quality, you know, incentive structures, whether it's, again, actual incentive financial incentives to adopt these technologies or more community industry oriented incentives that are trying to sort of mass transition almost at a more cultural level, to get organizations, companies, or the grid to adopt technologies. What are your thoughts there? Well, I think you're seeing it at many levels. Of course. You're seeing at the federal levels and some of the funding there federal or just trying to see at the state levels, you have organizations like CECa, California Energy Story Storage Alliance Yeah. That is trying to standardize, codes and regulations and and try to make it more incentive buys for the the power providers Right. To go electric and go energy storage. So you're starting to see it kind of at different levels. Are you seeing it at the community level as well? So, you know, really micro. If we talk about, a neighborhood or we talk about city or a county. Right? Where they're setting some of their own goals and perhaps the conversation is different one. Right? It's, a more community oriented type of dialogue that obviously looks a little different. Curious if you're seeing any energy on that level as well. Yes. You are. Yeah. Is is is at the communities are starting to see the the advantage. However, said that there's still a lot of education needs to take place because they're afraid of the new technology. There's been a few bad experiences with the technology, and, and, it was early on. McMickin, in Surprise, Arizona, I was involved with, and, and, It scared everybody. Nobody knew about the batteries. Nobody knew about the the lithium ion. And and, and with the gas that's coming off, how far they go, what kind of impacts they have to the environment, to the community, to people. Yeah. You know, the whole gamut. And and so an incident like that early on where there was no regulations, essentially, and, no one even knew that existed there. Power companies or SMEs knew very little as to the dynamics of of the batteries, the the, adverse effects. Right. And so in the past, you had a little bit of the cart in front of the horse. Right. Is is that, yeah, this is great. This is gonna provide a lot of energy, but what happens when it goes bad? You know, when it goes awry and and, what are the impacts? How do you deal with it? How do you deal with the the stranded energy within and and, how do you get rid of that energy before you start moving it? Right. How do you transport it? Where do you send them? The end of life batteries. And, you know, we're not just talking large ones for the utility companies. We're talking your phone, your computers, all the other small batteries, What do you do with them? And you're seeing, unfortunately, some negative impacts were people just toss them in the garbage. Right. Garbage goes into a trash truck. Trash truck compresses the the trash and it sets the batteries on fire. Now they're jumping in the middle of the street. So that's the the negative press that you see and and perceptions of reality. Right. And so we had another incident in Arizona in Chandler, Arizona. That was a warehouse. And one of the best ways to treat something that that has gone bad. A battery going to run away where it starts consuming itself, but it generates some, some gas some very flammable explosive, some toxic. Right. And, and so you know, that perception there and you had this this warehouse about seven thousand square foot and day two, the morning of was involved with it, and everybody was in agreement. The provider of the batteries, the provider of the building, the fire department, the city. Everybody was in the same page. Let it burn. Let it consume itself. Wow. Because consuming itself gets rid of some of the the stranded energy. Right. Easier to get rid of. It's a least impact to to the environment. And and but perceptions is by three o'clock and the afternoon when the media hit and people start saying, well, my asthma just got triggered by what's coming out of that building, which was very little of none, and it was just dissipating into the air. Right. And my father's having a heart attack five miles away, which I was there almost two weeks. And, going and visiting the site every day, and there was hardly anything coming out of that structure. So it went from let it burn, let it consume itself, to know, keep the sprinkler systems going. And twelve days later, it went through five million gallons of water. Which compounded the situation because you had eighteen inches of water in a seven thousand square foot building went up the the buses and shorted out and actually compromised and and exacerbated the the problem. Wow. And and so those are perceptions, but they're very real. Yeah. And so they flooded City Hall saying, you know, that all these negative impacts And so by aft by late afternoon, City Hall said, do something. Right. Keep the water running, whatnot. Even though it had a little impact to nothing. And and so those perceptions is what we need to start working on to get over the the that it's a boogeyman. It's not the technology. Right. And I think that highlights a really important dynamic here that the industry should prioritize, which is that You know, in a lot of ways, energy storage technology is introducing new operational and maintenance layers you know, administrative ones that need to be solved for how do we standardize the waste produced by this, the environmental footprint of producing these batteries in the first place. Right? They're obviously a necessary piece of the larger, technology ecosystem to support the grid of the future. They come with their own challenges. But to your point, one of those really key layers is mass industry and consumer and sort of citizen level education around the role of batteries, the importance of batteries, why you should be adopting them, but also how to handle them, how to throw them out. What to do in the case of an emergency because as we sort of decentralize the grid and start turning more homes and businesses and degrees into energy, storage locations, but also sometimes even power generation locations too when we see some of these smart buildings generating their own power and becoming self sustaining. Right. There are now new operational layers, whether it's staffing out the right team, educate and users that, is gonna be critical. Do you feel like those conversations are happening enough yet? If so, great. What's working? And if not, how can we start to motivate those conversations? Yes. Well, the power providers and the independent power providers are providing classes and training to the ASJ, the authority having jurisdictions fire department building departments and things of that nature. Right. Their own people. And and so that's the way you you accomplish it. However, is is changing the the ideas of mindsets throughout the country and even at a smaller community unless it's impacting you directly, you're not gonna go to a community meeting. And how many community meetings do you go to? Yeah. Unless it's impacting, you know, zoning or something. Right. Your own resident is is you usually don't go to them. And and so that's what we need to bridge is how do we get to the communities and educate them The other piece of it is recycling. You're starting to see recycling plants come up. However, is very few right now. And so transporting from A. These used batteries in in a community all the way across the country to B community where they're recycling them, and they're getting the minerals out of them and reselling the minerals is a way to go. And and so, you're starting to see that starting to generate in in communities. But again, it's it's we're a little behind the park curve on on that on clean. And what do you do with the the end of life batteries? What do you do with your phone when when it's done? You're starting to see some cities have some programs where you can come in kinda like, like, you know, paint and stuff like that. He has his materials where have hazard materials day where you take them somewhere. Right. You're starting to see cities, take that approach where you take your batteries and they're a little bit more careful as to how they're gonna, send them off somewhere to be disposed or, recycled. Right. Yeah. And, you know, that that brings up another good point too that, a lot of times, these sort of extra inconveniences for the end user are are just things that are difficult to get a community to adopt. Even if it's something like a hazardous waste removal day, you know, I don't know if is that everyone gonna coordinate their time for it. Sunday. One, I have church. I have soccer game. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to go. Right? That's not to say it shouldn't be happening, but it also highlights an important, dynamic here where I was to someone here at Charge Expo twenty twenty four, actually, and he was saying, look, the big elephant in the room that we're not talking about is that we have all this recycling infrastructure. When we talk about cutting carbon emissions, when we talk about making better use of our energy, we barely even recycle something like they said, like, five to eight percent of, you know, our trash is recycled and something like Germany, and please don't quote me on these might be wrong, but, something like in Germany was, like, eighty five percent or something. Let's just say it's disparate and we're very behind on making good use of our recycling centers. And even motivating recycling in the first place. So that's really all to say. Some of these conversations around developing new infrastructure for recycling batteries, developing whole new standards and new task forces and, new community initiatives Some of that can probably be solved instead by facilitating a better use of existing infrastructure, maybe finding ways to turn existing recycling centers into ones that can handle recycling and, you know, end of life battery situations to incentivize the end user to be like, you need to recycle your battery. Guess what? You can toss it in the blue bin now. Right? And I think that's really just a microcosm of larger conversations where When we talk about revitalizing the grid, sometimes the best solutions are finding what infrastructure is already out there and how can we slightly tuner operations, tweak it, improve it, rather than always saying, do we, you know, what's the ten year rollout of new infrastructure? That's obviously gonna be key, but I imagine it's gonna have to be a balance to start to get some short term wins too. So Thanks for sparking my my Absolutely. Rain there. You got my wheels turning. So thank you, Bobby. Well, I'll go ahead and wrap things up, Bobby. Thank you so much for your time today, appreciate your analysis. Again, folks, we've been chatting with Bobby Ruiz. He's an energy storage specialist and retired fire chief for Hillert Companies. Bobby, if folks wanna learn more about the work that Hiller is doing in this space, and also Hiller companies' larger suite of services and solutions. How can they get in touch with you? How can they learn more? Hiller dot com? Easy enough. Yeah. Okay. Oh, hiller companies com. Okay. Perfect. Alright. Hiller companies dot com. Folks you heard it here. Thank you so much. Again, Bobby, for joining us. It was a pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate your analysis. And folks, thanks so much for tuning in to this charge Expo twenty twenty four interview. We'll catch you on the next one.