Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Utility-Scale Mobile Energy Storage System

0:00Transcript

0:00Big welcome everyone. Thanks for being back for one of our battery revolution slash Battery Insiders sessions. As you can see if you're on the session and live, it's our 53rd session. We've been doing this for quite a while. There's been a fantastic group of people and also co-moderating and introducing a range of different topics or ranging what did we have more recently, maybe solid-state or also recycling and policy and all kinds of interesting topics. Also one of the topics, hydrogen versus batteries. Yeah, so it's been fantastic today. Myron and I, Simon, will be the co-moderators of this session. And we've got a fantastic conversation with us who Myron will introduce in a second. But before that, I just want to quickly say these sessions usually happen on the first Saturday of the month live on Clubhouse. But this time actually we have it on the third Saturday just from scheduling reasons. And but yeah, for next time expected again on the first Saturday of the month. And you can also listen to these sessions anywhere where you listen to your podcast.

1:00So be it Spotify, Amazon or Google or any other platform that you should be able to find on there as well. I know quite a few of you are also listening to this as these recordings. And then also we're going to have a quick summary, quick short recap as well for these sessions. So that's also something you can listen to later on as well. And maybe just one quick plug before we pass over to Myron is our next week's event, which is our Battery Associates Annual Battery Day. It's going to be quite a long event scheduled for 11 hours. So really covering all the different time zones. That's really the intention behind it. Yeah, don't miss out on it. It's it's free. So you can get tickets for free. We have a really interesting conversations and sessions, including case studies and different panels, keynotes, etc, etc. So it should be a great day. And also a few announcements of some of the recent projects we have been working on. Yeah, if you want to join us for that, just go on batteryday.info.

1:46You can register on there for free. It would be nice to see many of you there as well. For this, I will pass it on to Mariam to introduce today's conversation starter. Thank you so much, Simon. So today, we're joined with Yezan Harasic, who is a great guest, and I'm going to be here to introduce you to the next speaker. So I'm going to be here to the next speaker. So I'm going to be here to the next speaker. So I'm going to be here to the next speaker. So I'm going to be here to the next speaker. And I will pass it on to Mariam to introduce today's conversation starter. Thank you so much, Simon. So today, we're joined with Yezan Harasic, who is the co-founder at Power Edison. And what Power Edison is doing is actually really interesting because it's tackling the challenge of how do we mass deploy energy storage systems by making them more flexible. So they're introducing mobile energy storage, which has capabilities aside from flexibility in terms of optimization of systems, being able to be deployed in remote locations or being able to actually be deployed for different applications in a specific field environment.

2:51So very excited to have Yezan here to introduce this topic to us and to introduce this idea to us. And I will hand this over. One thing I would like to say is my flight is boarding soon. So if you see me leaving the podcast, I will be listening into the recording very soon. Thanks, Mariam. And good luck with the flight. Have a safe flight. Just by way of introduction. So my name is Yezan Harasic. I'm a co-founder of Power Edison. And Power Edison is what we call a utility scale mobile energy storage system developer. And, you know, just taking a step back and why mobile and why we chose this niche field. And I started off my career and in a company called NRG, which was at the time, this was back in 2015, was the largest independent power producer in the US. It had over 50 gigawatts of generation capacity. And the team was tasked with what I was working on was tasked with how do we make energy work?

4:06We have all these power plants, all these solar assets, wind assets, you name it, fossil or non fossil, clean, whatever the case may be. How do we deploy energy storage with our current generation assets and make it work or storage independently or whatever the case may be? So that kicked off the analysis of, OK, looking at wholesale markets, distribution, transmission behind the meter, front of the meter, you name it. So we really looked at everything and what we quickly realized back at the time, but it still applies today, that most of the applications for energy storage, they're really dynamic. And what I mean by dynamic is dynamic in geography and dynamic in time, which means, you know, energy storage might be needed at one location at one point in time. But, you know, fast forward a day, a week, a month, a year, several years, you need to move that assets to another place in order to increase the benefits. So it might not be useful at the initial location that you deploy this then, and you might want to move it around to increase the benefits.

5:21So that really launched us into, OK, why don't we just develop a energy storage system that's mobile, that's built to be mobile and rugged from the get go, from the ground up. And these are utility, what we call utility scale mobile energy storage systems. So, you know, megawatts of energy storage systems on trailers, on barges, on ships, and on rail. And that can be moved very quickly, sometimes within, you know, 1520 minute notice, you can move these battery systems, similar to like a diesel generator, that you see all around that you can just pull in, pull out on a quick notice, and redeploy it. So, you know, in general, we're saying that we're technology agnostic when it comes to the batteries or the energy storage systems. We just so happen to use lithium-ion today because it's the most bankable technology out there today, but really technology agnostic. And what we focus on, you know, there's the benefits and the costs for every single project.

6:30You know, costs are important and our friends at the industry are doing a great job in lowering those costs every single day, whether it's from the cell or the module or the integration level. But we really focus on the benefits side of the equation. And, you know, by having an expensive asset and deploying it and redeploying it over its life, you're increasing the benefits and hence making it more efficient. And, you know, sometimes I tell my friends, you know, the closest analogy would be to compare it to, for example, an Uber, where you're increasing the utilization of a vehicle. You know, most people use their vehicles less than 10% of the time. It's always parked in their driveway. So you have this expensive asset that's not being utilized. So Uber really took that model and tried to increase the utilization of a vehicle, which makes it more economical. For society and more sustainable. Same as Airbnb, where you take, you know, arguably people's highest value assets and a home or an apartment and then try to increase the utilization by renting it out when they're not there.

7:41So we're within the same theme of how do we make an expensive asset more sustainable, more beneficial to society? And the straightforward way to do that is to make it mobile. With that, I'll pause and see if everybody has any questions. I think so far we are, I think, following. But also if anybody from the audience wants to bring a question already, we can go there. Or was there anything else you want to share, Justin? Or should we go into questions now? So on a high level, just to share with you the flavor of projects that we're working on, it's, you know, think of, and if you go to PowerEdison.com, you'll see some of the renderings of what we do. So think of these trailers, batteries on trailers, and they're really in a one megawatt, four megawatt hour increments or building blocks. And so most of our customers, they purchase a fleet of these battery systems and they use them for really a plethora of applications, including, you know, peak shaving, backup power, transmission distribution, upgrade deferrals, power quality, management, and they participate in the wholesale market.

9:11So really, a lot, a lot of applications. And I wanted to share that, you know, most recently, one of the biggest applications we've had for mobile storage is to combine it with EV charging, you know, a lot of EV charging is coming online, where different fleet owners, they're buying electric vehicles, whether passenger vehicles or medium and heavy duty vehicles, and they want you know, to install the chargers, but they call the utility and the utility says, hey, wait for me for two to three years, until I build out the infrastructure, the feeder capacity and the substation and bring you the wires. So you can put in your chargers, because your chargers are now, you know, you had a 10 kilowatt service, but you're asking for 500 kilowatts in one step increments. So we actually gotten a lot of requests to deploy our mobile battery systems with EV chargers and to power EV chargers until the utility can come in two to three years and upgrade the service.

10:15And then at that point, we would go away and help another customer. So, you just wanted to mention that and we got that request so much so that we really launched a sister company called EV Edison. So we have power Edison, we have EV Edison, and EV Edison is focused on electric vehicle infrastructure development, whether it's, you know, traditional development of chargers, and we develop super chargers around the country, whether it's stationary or utilizing our mobile energy storage technology. So that's just a bit about the applications. That's super helpful. Thank you for sharing this. And this actually was one of my questions also to understand more about this, because I thought it was an interesting use case. Obviously, the recharging and also something I've seen, I think the first time in California, like this FreeWire, of course, also expanded and I was wondering if it's going in a similar direction. Then also, I think my second question to that before we go to Miriam's questions also in the chat.

11:15Because I know FreeWire, for example, at the beginning, they were looking also into using Second Life batteries. And I know quite a few other startups and companies have been trying doing that and then all of them actually went to fresh batteries. So I'm just curious about the two questions. Maybe one, you know, is it different or is there something different compared to that's FreeWire or others? I'm sure you're monitoring this market quite closely. And second, have you been looking into Second Life or any experience on that topic? Yeah, FreeWire did a great job in the early years. And I remember their unit, they had a small unit and they had an app. And from what I remember, you know, a Tesla owner, they would park their vehicle in a parking lot somewhere and they would go to a meeting, for example, or to lunch. And using the app, they would tell FreeWire, hey, here's my car, go charge it. And FreeWire would come with a small battery, like you said, Simon, sometimes Second Life batteries and charge their vehicles wherever they are.

12:14So bring the infrastructure to them. You can think of mobile or power Edison or EV Edison with their mobile energy storage systems. But, you know, times times 20 where we service really a fleet of of Tesla's or heavy duty trucks or class eight trucks, tractor trailers. So for more so for a number of fleets in the in the megawatts when you try to charge them simultaneously. And the second question for you, why, you know, the Second Life batteries? So we actually looked into Second Life batteries quite a bit, especially during the early days, you know, 2015, 2016. Second Life batteries, there, from what we saw, there was a case for them back in 2015, 2016, when the batteries were probably 30% or 40% more expensive than they are today. And but it took a lot of effort to, you know, disassemble the batteries, the Second Life batteries, especially, you know, the BMS wasn't as advanced as it is today. You would need to disassemble the batteries, check the cell voltages, match cell voltages together and basically create a module from scratch with all these cells that you take from the battery and remove the damaged one.

13:43So when we looked at the cost of, you know, building up a Second Life battery versus buying a new battery back then, it was, you know, even. But today, I would say buying a new battery is probably ahead of using a Second Life battery. You know, but that's not taking into account nowadays, a Second Life battery, you can just pull a module and use the module as is without having to, you know, disassemble it and double check on every cell. You know, that BMS has gone a long way since then. Thanks for sharing. Maybe also to add to this, I think it's an interesting topic which keeps coming up. And I also remember we had a lecture on the BatteryMBA from B Planet in Spain on the Second Life topic, which is definitely, you know, I think it's been quite anticipated. And then we also had a recent podcast actually with someone, founder of Moment Energy, I think based in Canada. And also it was a really interesting session.

14:46So if anybody's interested in Second Life who's listening to this right now, I can also highly recommend you the session with Moment Energy. And a few, probably now two months or so back, which I think was quite insightful as well. But yeah, the scale is definitely helpful to understand that you also are quite a bit bigger. So I thought maybe your EV kind of, you know, application is like a different form factor, but it seems like it's essentially the same as just for this use case, I guess, optimized. Yes, yes, exactly. And it's mainly for, you know, the, the what's happening around the country, what I've seen happen is a lot of fleet owners, you know, a state or the federal government has incentives to buy electric vehicles. So people would grab those incentives by electric vehicles, but they don't really think through all the infrastructure that's, that's needed. So they, they grab, you know, 10 box trucks for deliveries, and then they grab them, they get them to the, to the site, they get them delivered.

15:49And then they say, Oh, shoot, I need to install electric vehicle charging. Okay, let me, let me call a charger company to install, you know, a charge point or juice box or whoever. So you would buy the chargers, and then, you know, you try to call your utility to connect them. And then your utility will tell you, Hey, you're trying to connect, like over a megawatt, you're increasing your demands, your electric consumption by a megawatt overnight, you know, I need time to upgrade, you know, rightly so I need time to upgrade my cables coming in the feeders, the substation. Because one megawatt is not, or, you know, hundreds of kilowatts is not a small number. So that's where, you know, the bottleneck occurs sometimes, and more so now with, you know, the lead times on chargers, lead times on transformers for the utilities. So everybody's struggling all around and, you know, quickly deploying the infrastructure needed for EV charging and mobile batteries is one of the ways where it's a stopgap measure.

16:57Thanks, Nara. Thanks for expanding on that. And I think then there's also a question from Mariam in the chat, who will ask now maybe for her, because I guess she's boarding the plane right now. Yeah, I'm here. So Yazan, it seems like sort of a no brainer to go mobile. So I'm wondering what are the unique challenges associated with making energy storage systems mobile? And then secondly, why are more energy storage companies not going mobile? What are the challenges there? Sure. So we've seen a lot of companies, you know, try to reverse engineer, try to change their stationary energy storage system to mobile. You know, now a lot of customers, they're kind of, you know, waking up to the fact that, hey, maybe I want to move this asset, you know, this asset is, as everybody knows, you know, the batteries or lithium-ion. Nowadays, it's probably 6000 or 7000 depth of discharge full depth of discharge cycles over its life. And so, you know, that assets, which, you know, seven, eight years ago lasted 10 years, now it's lasting 15 or 20 years.

18:13And a lot of these customers that buy large energy storage systems, they're like, hey, what if I want to move it within the 15, 20 years, maybe I don't want to use it for backup power for the sites. And maybe the site is not going to be here 10 years down the line or 15 years down the line. So, you know, people try to, you know, move their stationary storage, but very complex. And it's very complex just because the stationary energy storage systems today, they're not really constructed with mobility in mind. And, you know, a few examples would be sometimes the dimensions of the of the of the outdoor enclosures. They don't fit within what a trailer could carry legally on the road or the weight is so much higher than what could be carried legally on the road. That's, you know, very important. Another one is vibration and acceleration, you know, as you can imagine, carrying something on the road has a very unique vibration and acceleration, deceleration profile.

19:24And you need to make sure that all the batteries inside, which are quite sensitive, you know, can withstand all the shocks and vibrations and whatever is it is exposed to the road. Now, you know, electric vehicles solve this problem a long time ago and they built their modules purpose, built their modules to withstand all the vibrations and accelerations that happen. But stationary storage system, they're more bulky. They're really made, you know, carrying the kind of an IT rack design where you have modules and you put them in very high racks and you put the racks in enclosures. Whether it's a container or otherwise. And you really just take that and you drop that in a site on a cement foundation. And, you know, the most you would do is just to do some analysis on some earthquakes and you're good to go. So it's really not meant for long distances traveling over the road. So that's what, you know, people, you know, all the, all the, the cabling, all the structural analysis, all of that that needs to be taken into consideration.

20:33And other, I mean, there's a couple of, I guess, technical aspects. Are there also like regulatory aspects? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in my backyard, I want to put a battery there, for example. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, regulatory and permitting. It's so funny that you think of mobile systems versus stationary systems. And what I would compare it to is like for mobile systems, we really don't have much permitting or most of the stringent permitting aspects go away with mobile systems. I would compare it to parking an RV in a driveway versus, you know, creating an extension to your home or building a shed where, where you build a shed or build an extension. You need certain permitting. You need architects drawing. You need civil work. You need electrical work. You need all that stuff in order to build that extension. But parking an RV, you can park an RV in your driveway tomorrow and nobody would ask you any questions. So it's very similar to that.

21:41Once you put something that's mobile and you can move it around quickly. So most of the permitting restrictions just ease up. But that's a great question. Fantastic. Thank you. Before we ask any more questions, I also want to encourage anybody listening to this right now here live to join us on stage to ask your questions as well. Let's make this interactive. It always is a lot of fun. So, yeah, just to encourage you all to raise your hands. We can bring up on stage. Barrett, great to see you. Hi, Simon. It's a nice interesting discussion. So I just want to understand about the businesses which is in the other markets because right now you are talking about the mobile energy solutions. For example, countries like developing countries like India, Indonesia is facing a similar problem because the quality of the grid is not very good to support the rapid charging of the vehicles because companies are saying we are providing rapid charging solution. But unfortunately, infrastructure is not well established even though if someone can purchase a very good electric vehicle EV, but the charging infrastructure is not there.

22:52So what is your idea on that? So what is your idea on that? So is it the market is very good for the developed countries or if you are going into a developing country like some Asian countries in some Middle East or some countries? What would be your business model and how you see the market growth in those areas? Thanks for that question, Broth. That's a really good question. You know, for developing countries, I would argue there's more of a case for energy storage in general, you know, put aside mobile energy storage. But energy storage in general where the peaks are increasing at a rapid rate and energy storage is perfectly suited for peaks. That's, you know, when the most value can be extracted from battery, you charge it at night, you just charge it during the day. By the way, the US and it, you know, has a very robust grid. But it's still in many areas, they're struggling with peaks that occur on the on the network, on the grid.

23:52And, you know, we're always in the US and in developed countries, we're always building to meet that peak whenever it occurs. And as a result, on average, the grid in the US, you know, transmission distribution is only utilized 41% of the time on average. So you have this massive network, massive, the US's largest machine in the network, electric grid is only utilized 41% of the time trillions and trillions of dollars. And just trying to chase that peak when it occurs, you keep on building to meet that peak. But energy storage gives us a reason not to really keep on upgrading the grid and use batteries instead to charge during the night, discharge during the day when a peak occurs. And that way you don't have to build more infrastructure and increase the utilization of your current infrastructure, which is only 41% utilized. And same thing for developing countries where, you know, there's a rapid population growth in some cases, there's a lot of urbanization that's occurring, a lot of movements of people from cities or to cities.

25:09And utilities are struggling to meet that demand, ever growing demand, and struggling to, you know, keep up with the pace of building infrastructure. And so that's where batteries, whether it's stationary or mobile, really have a case, I would say more mobile, where you, you're trying to anticipate where this load growth occurs, you can park a mobile battery system somewhere at a constraint circuit, alleviate that constraint. And then, you know, if that constraint goes away, two to three years down the line, people move, load changes, you can move it to another location. So it gives utilities and governments a tool in their toolbox to address this load growth issue that's happening, especially in developing countries. countries like India, which I come from, like moreover, the distribution infrastructure is completely government infrastructure, which is not has the highest quality. And also right now, there are many private players also increased in this infrastructure. And right now, many countries are looking for virtual plants, virtual power plants, VPP solutions for solving this issue.

26:24Where do you think this solution will have an effect on the virtual power plant system that they are thinking about? How your system can help the countries in implementing this virtual power plants? I think virtual power plants, you know, the case for virtual power plants is increasing by the day, as you know, the limiting factor with VPPs, and using it as a kind of a micro grid, we have solar, wind and batteries, or energy storage in general. It was really the, you know, the cost of the batteries that was inhibiting, you're just becoming, you know, off the grid completely, or sometimes become off the grid when the power quality isn't there from the local utility. So I think, with time, and you know, some estimates, you know, say 2030 2025 2040, depending on where you are, depending on the irradiance and depending on the wind, depending on the cost of storage at a certain location. VPPs are going to be more pronounced and more utilized, I believe in the future, especially in cases, like you stated, some countries, the infrastructure is not quite up to par with what the people need.

27:42And so VPPs could be an excellent solution. And VPPs could be in the case of mobile storage. Sometimes, you know, the utility is trying to get there, it's trying to upgrade the infrastructure required. So the mobile system could be there until the utility upgrades are made. And so you don't need a battery that's there for 20 years. But you can, you know, pull that battery in for two to three years, you have a VPP set up until the utility comes and makes them the updates and the upgrades required. And then you move that battery somewhere else and you help another community. So I think VPP has a lot of merits, especially with batteries, especially with mobile batteries. Yeah, that's very insightful. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, as well. Yeah, also, I want to encourage anybody else to come up for any questions. One question I have in the meantime also is, what's like the extra cost if you have like the same system, right, like the same container, same capacity, etc.

28:54Do I have it mobile versus not mobile? Is there like a percentage roughly, you can say? Yeah, yeah. So I would say, you know, in terms of equipment, it's probably, you know, 10 to 20% more for putting, you know, the batteries and reinforcing them structurally and putting them on trailers and doing all these modifications. But you'd be surprised that when you're actually installing, so you look at the installed cost of stationary versus mobile, you know, and try to do so now you have the equipment costs with mobile is 10 to 20% more. But once you reach a site for mobile storage, you don't really need much in terms of civil work, you don't need cement foundations, you don't need, you know, asphalt in the location where you're, you don't need conduits, you don't need a lot of stuff becomes not necessary. And so your civil work, and electrical work at the site is much reduced. So what we've seen is that, you know, apples to apples total installed costs of stationary versus storage, they're about the same.

30:00And obviously, that depends on the location. So, you know, one thing is to think about the equipment costs. And then our thing is to think about, okay, what's going to be my total installed costs, bringing a stationary system, what do I have to do, I have to put cement foundations, I have to get architects drawing, I need to get certain permitting going back to the permitting. How much time am I going to need to install the system and if it's going to rain, then I really can't do any work on the site. Whereas with mobile systems, it's really factory ready, we build it in a warehouse and in a factory and it's pre built pre and everything is pre wired, and you just send it to site. So what we've seen is that they're really compete and on par when it comes to the total installed cost. Thank you. That's a very fascinating point. And before we go to Mayano, Mayam also has one more question.

31:00I'm not sure if you're able to ask Mayam, otherwise I can ask it for you. Mayam is asking, how big can the systems get? Is there a capacity limit after which mobility is no longer economical? Great question. So we build in mostly increments of one megawatts and two megawatt hours. So a trailer is one megawatts and this trailer would have, we call it the PCS trailer and the power conversion system, power conditioning system. That's about one megawatts of, you know, inverter, medium voltage transformer, switch gear and everything else. And then another trailer, which is two megawatt hours of just batteries. And then you can mix and match however many PCS trailers and however many battery trailers. So for example, one of our customers ordered three megawatt, 12 megawatt hours. So three megawatt, 12 megawatt hours would be three PCS containers and six battery containers. So it's a total of nine trailers together. And, you know, so you can go as many megawatts as you want and as many megawatt hours as you want.

32:15Or you can go as low as one megawatt, two megawatt hours depending on the applications and the fleet size needed. So as long as the, you know, talking about economical or not, what we say, as long as the unit economics makes sense. That's what you care about. You know, it's, it's about, it's all about unit economics at the end of the day. If, if one megawatt, two megawatt hours makes sense on a unit economics basis. And then it's just an application. How much, how many batteries can I deploy before it starts becoming, you know, overkill and really not needed for my application. So as long as the unit economics makes sense, you can buy as many of these mobile batteries as you need. But this is for the application. Great point, unit economics being an important point here. Maiano, thanks for joining. Do you have a question? So far we can't hear you, Maiano. In case you are speaking, you're muted. Otherwise, if you cannot speak right now, maybe you can try it later again.

33:38Maiano? No. Okay. I think we're gonna see if you can speak later. That's interesting. Maybe also one question kind of, I mean, you mentioned this before, but I mean, kind of, what do you think will be the biggest driver for kind of more mobile energy storage systems? I mean, you now we're understanding, okay, essentially, you hopefully have a bit about price parity, you know, depending on where you are. So it's kind of, you know, like, you could sell, I guess, as an additional benefit, which doesn't cost you anything, which makes a lot of sense. But I'm wondering, is there any, like, downside? Do you see anything where people say, look, I want something more stationary? And again, maybe it's also regulatory thing where you don't get a tax credit in the same way? I don't know, I have no idea. So things like that. I'm just curious, like, are there any downsides to having a mobile? Or why, why wouldn't everyone do mobile? Yeah, I mean, mobile storage, if you have an application where you really know exactly that you need it in that location for 20 years, then, you know, absolutely, you know, stationary is an option.

34:39For example, you know, you have this giant wind farm, and, you know, you want to deploy energy storage at that wind farm for all of its life, you know, the wind turbines have a life of 20 or 30 years. So you know that you're going to need some sort of energy storage capacity at that location. Same with, you know, solar, with these giant solar farms, and you need some sort of energy storage capacity there. So, you know, those are two, you know, renewable energy integration. You can get away with having stationary systems just because, you know, you have that certainty of generation at that location. And, you know, because, obviously, wind turbines, they're not going anywhere, solar panels, you're not going to move 100 megawatts of solar panels somewhere else. So you know that, you know, if things go wrong, you know, the whole system is going to be removed altogether. But even then, it's very interesting, the, a lot of our customers, they have, you know, portfolio of solar, have a portfolio of wind generation assets in the ground.

35:56And, you know, wind is in the highest generation is in the August, you know, timeframe or the, you know, August, September, October timeframe, that's when the generation is the highest. Solar integration, you know, you have a lot of generation in the springtime, where, you know, the irradiance is high, and the solar panels are cool, unlike the summers increases the efficiency of the wind. So you have this seasonality effects when it comes to renewables. And so what people have been trying to do is, hey, why don't I use the same assets and mobile energy storage, I can park it with a wind farm for these, you know, autumn months, when the generation is highest, help me regulate my generation. And then during the springtime, I can move it to solar fields where I can kind of firm up my generation, you know, solar is giving me a lot of issues with backfeed issues on the grid. You know, the issues with solar is, you know, during spring, when the generation is high, consumption of energy is usually low.

37:09Why? Because a lot of people, they're not turning on their AC during the spring. So the utilization is a bit low. So the generation capacity of the solar farm, it really back feeds into the utilities distribution circuit, which causes some voltage and stability problems. So they would love to have a battery there for the springtime when the generation is at its highest. So even with these assets that are, you know, known and you have them for 10, 20, 30 years and you know the wind farm is going to be there, you know, the solar is going to be there. The generation profile is very interesting to look at in terms of applying it for mobile batteries. And so you can use the same assets to really cycle it almost on a like a seasonal basis. You park it in the autumn with wind, you park it in with solar in the spring. You go to some winter constraint circuits where you have a ski resort and everybody's turning up their electrical heating.

38:10So you park a battery there to alleviate the circuit and then you go to summer constraint circuits. So you can do the same thing and you can utilize that mobile battery for four different applications within the year, for example. But you know, yeah, mobile batteries, what we like to say, wherever energy storage makes sense, mobile energy storage makes more sense. So it's really just how creative can one be in deploying these energy storage systems because we know they're just so flexible and can do many things. And, you know, they can they can do more than 25 applications on the grid. So it's just a matter of how do we organize our thoughts and how do we apply them effectively over the life. Yes. And what about maintenance? So are there any pros of and consequences of mobility on things like maintenance or the operations of the actual energy storage system in a deployment? And secondly, what are some core competencies that Power Edison needs to have compared to, say, a stationary energy storage integrator?

39:30Thanks, Mariam. In terms of maintenance, it's actually so maintenance is a tricky one. But with our mobile systems, because we designed them to be mobile from the get go, we've had a lot of testing done and we kind of know where the maintenance, where we should expect the maintenance. And we have a maintenance schedule that aligns with a mobile asset specifically. So it's unlike a stationary system. But we actually are. And just to tie it in with the second question, the core competency is very important to have. Analytical tools. So we have an onboard EMS or energy management system, fleet management system, you know, all these different sensors on the equipment to detect, you know, anything that could happen. And we try and we have AI engines that predict any potential failure points so we can address it preventatively. So that's, you know, one of our core competencies is trying to merge the fascinating world of energy storage with the world of, you know, IT, AI, predictive analytics, BMS, EMS, and which is fascinating in its own right. And so you have what we have is, you know, we have this hardware systems, the mobile battery systems, we also have this high level of view of the assets, just like, you know, you open your phone, working working on Uber, working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working So it's really our core competency is merging the two where we have this hardware that we've worked on for the past five, six years to make it robust and mobile.

41:52But we also developed at the same time the software piece, which gives us a lot of insights into this asset because it's not something predictive. It's not dropping a container at a solar farm and nobody's touching it and you have CCTV footage. And, you know, it's a mobile asset is somewhat flexible in its applications. It can be used for many applications I could discuss. So having that software piece is really needed for our system. It just gives us more comfort and gives our customer more comfort about what's happening to that asset. Thank you, Yazan. I know Mariano and Ngozo, you have some questions. I do have a quick follow-up question, Yazan, on specifically I know one big issue with companies is that they have to deploy personnel to do maintenance. And so that's actually a huge operating cost is personnel cost for maintenance and not being able to predict when they should perform maintenance and so on. So the software piece is interesting. So the software piece is interesting.

43:00But is there a case for mobility? You know, because the systems are mobile, it's easier to take it to a central location where maintenance can occur in a cheaper way. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that comes. So it's twofold. One is you're absolutely right. We bring them to central locations if needed to do maintenance or we send some people out to do maintenance. But it's also we love to actively engage the community. And what we often do is wherever the system is being deployed, where it's going to spend the most time, we train people from that community, from the either, you know, personnel from the customer itself or otherwise. And we really actively engage the community and try to teach them, educate, train about energy storage in general. And, you know, this new world that we live in, whether it's batteries or electric vehicles and clean energy and clean tech in general. So that's a big piece of our story where we try to do as much community engagement as possible and really try to get people on board with this new wave of clean energy technology.

44:25And especially from a maintenance, the maintenance piece is a good one to engage people on a more substantive basis. And they really feel empowered when they're given that education and that ability to do, you know, to be an active member of society. Thank you so much, Yazan, for that clarity. Mariano, you had a question in the chat. Are you able to chat or do you want me to ask a question? Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Okay, that's nice. Thank you, Yazan and Simon and Matt. Yeah, my question, there are several. I don't know if you have already done or said that. Did you have the business possibility also to rent? Yeah, yeah, we can. We also sell the equipment, but we also lease or rent it. Yeah. Yes, that's great. That's great. And for me, it makes a lot of sense. I would love to have a case study of what are the frame on the usage of your products. I think it's needed.

45:47And as Barra mentioned, I think it's quite liquid for many, many reasons in many options. As one, maybe occasional, but maybe also not so occasional also needs. The second question is also from the cost of the energy. It has been increasing almost here in Europe a lot. Then what does, I think the tool has more sense when also the energy is rising. Because if you have renewable energy and you have the option of mobility, I think it now makes more sense than before with the highest cost of the energy. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. When you look at what is a battery always competing with in terms of, we put it in the wholesale market, for example, a power plant. Let's say a peaker power plant. And you're always looking at what they call the LCOE, the levelized cost of energy. And so if a peaker plant that's a combined cycle or a combustion turbine, they utilize gas. Obviously, it's a major input. As gas prices increase, the levelized cost of energy from that power plant increases.

47:20So now you're really comparing that to a solar plus storage facility. And, you know, solar plus storage is more expensive in some areas than a combined cycle plant. But now as the prices of gas increase, one, it's the price of gas, like you said, Mariano. Increasing the cost of gas increases the cost of energy from that power plant. But it's also a question of reliability. You know, how reliable is my gas supply? How redundant is my gas supply? Can somebody just cut off my gas supply versus having a solar field or a wind farm with energy storage? And it's really independent of external, you know, political or otherwise factors. So now you have, you know, energy that's at par with a fossil power plant. But you also have energy that's very reliable as well. So that has a soft benefit as well. So absolutely, as the cost of gas increases, it makes more sense to deploy storage plus renewables. So, working with working with working with working with working with working with working with working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working working higher, but on the other hand, you need to have several manufacturers or several options if you want to be global.

49:10Did you have that in mind to have in each place, let's say, the option or you are thinking more that you centralize and you sell your products around the world? What are your thoughts on that? That's a great question. Like I said, we're technology agnostic by choice, by strategy. The reason is a lot of our friends in the industry are doing a tremendous job at forwarding and accelerating different technologies, whether it's lithium-ion or zinc or liquid air technologies, you name it. Fuel cell technology doesn't even have to be a battery related fuel cell technology as well. You know, backing by large conglomerates. But yeah, it makes way. I see a lot of the different chemistries come to play. In other places, they're much more energy dense. They're cheaper. less precious metals, which is very, very interesting to us. And no matter where they are, I mean, you know, batteries, you can buy them from South Korea, you can buy them from China, Japan, Europe, North America, wherever the case may be.

51:05The supply chain is not an issue. But for projects here in the US, we can buy them from Asia or Europe, the cells, the batteries and deploy them here. So we're really looking at a global basis on who can provide the best form of energy storage and where we can mobilize it to increase the benefits. So that's really what it comes down to. Last two questions. Last two questions. Last two questions from my side. One question could be your actual challenge for decreasing the cost of your products. And if you also have some thoughts of mobility, but so mobile your products that can be used in a vehicle to like emergency mobility in the street. So let's say when you have some problem that you go there, so mobility, this is thinking a product less than one megawatt. Absolutely. So, you know, applications. We get a lot of applications for sub one megawatt and we're building smaller units to address that in terms of emergency response.

52:33You know, that's a very valid use case. A lot of customers, they're using it primarily for let's say they use it for peak shaving for most of the year, but they have that hurricane that comes at storm and they move that system to a shelter, for example, where the shelter has solar on the roof. It has some generation capacity and they park the battery there and they power up that shelter for the community for, you know, to house them, heat, you know, charge their phones, etc. So it's a very valid use case. And going back to the community engagement is something we really love to see. In terms of costs, you know, just high level, you know, we're all impacted by the global supply chain issues of the past two years. So, you know, batteries, lithium-ion batteries, specifically, they've increased in cost by 50% over the past year or so. And so what we saw is that people had to get much more creative on, okay, you know, the cost of batteries increased by 50%.

53:43What can I use this battery for? That's going to, you know, make the benefit cost ratio greater than one. So that has really encouraged people to think outside the box. And one of these applications goes back to that resiliency use case that you mentioned, you know, using it in an emergency situation, which could be tremendously helpful for a community. Thank you, Dathan, for your question, for your answer. Thank you. Thank you so much. And before we go to the next one, Yoto, maybe one quick question. You said 50% increase. Does it mean also your systems would increase in a similar way or you were able to mitigate it through longer supply chain agreements? You know, our increase, we have, our systems have increased, you know, we're not immune to the supply chain issues. But it's not just batteries. It's really everything else. All the commodities, most of the commodities increased in a substantial way. And we try to hedge that by diversifying our supply and of batteries around the world.

54:50We have a global supply chain of batteries. But, you know, this pandemic really affected everybody. So nobody was immune to the price hikes from, you know, even the battery manufacturers, all the components for the anodes, for the cathodes, for the collectors, for, you know, the shipping containers themselves, shipping costs. So everybody was impacted in a global way. So all these price increases, you know, they were, we were all exposed to those price increases. I love that makes sense. Thanks so much. And Goto, would you like to go next? Thank you. Thank you so much, Simon. My name is Goto Gadu. I'm a businessman out of Nairobi. Yes, I'm listening to you. You know, I've picked so much. Thank you for sharing all that you've been sharing. I'm doing some research about setting up a business that produces lithium cell batteries. And I'm looking at what the potential market and looking to understand what end users, you know, end users in different industries look like. I heard you mention that, you know, you're, you know, you're pretty much, you know, neutral on chemistry.

56:19What is it you look for? And in what form do you procure? Is it in the cells? Is it in the battery packs? Because I also heard you mention, you know, there's some technology that you use on your batteries. Thanks. Sure. Great question, Goto. Thank you for that. It's really changed over the, it's, it's, it's been very interesting to see the, the way the industry has moved and developed over time. So, you know, 10, you know, five, 10 years ago, people were really siloed. And you have the cell manufacturer, the cell manufacturer sends the cells to module integrator. That module integrator sends it to somebody else to put it inside racks. You know, they manufacture the racks. Another person puts it inside enclosures. And that end product is shipped to, you know, the end sites to, for the application. We're seeing more so that, you know, the manufacturers themselves, the cell manufacturers themselves, they're really taking it downstream in terms of products. So they would manufacture the cell, they would put the cell in the, in the module, they would create the BMS around it.

57:33They would put that modules into racks and they would put those racks into enclosures and sell you that product as is. And all that's left is for somebody else to just get an inverter, get a transformer if needed, and you're done. So we've seen a lot of that happen over the years. So they're very rarely do you get a manufacturer that only manufacturers sells and that's their end product. They usually go more downstream than that and try to integrate a product that has more value and they can sell and they can differentiate themselves with that product with the market. Given, you know, the high competition of the market. So that's just something to be aware of in terms of, you know, the, the product size in terms of the call of the technical specifications of a cell. You know what we look for specifically, you know, high energy density, whether it's, you know, in terms of weights or in terms of volume. It's very important.

58:39You know, we look for a lot of high charge discharge rates if possible. You know, as, as I said before, having it bankable, having it tested and there are some UL testing certifications, UL 9540, UL 9540A, making sure, you know, UL 9540A has been kind of something that's on the forefront where they literally light a cell on fire and see if it propagates to the cell next to it. And that's a huge test that's done in the industry and it's a real differentiating factor. So when you say I have UL 9540A tested, that's a huge benefit to somebody else where you can, you know, taunt the fact that, you know, I, if I, one of my cells is, has a thermal event, it's not going to propagate to the cell next to it. And hence, it's not going to, if you have a fire in one of the cells, it's not going to spread out to the rest of the system. So that's been a huge differentiator in the market and it's been sort of the top things that people tend to look for in cell manufacturers.

59:56Oh, okay. Wow. Got it. Thank you so much. Of course. Cheers. Thank you. Maybe one quick follow up before Mark goes just to clarify. So are you using LFP at the moment? I know you're technology agnostic, but it's LFP. Can you say that? Yeah, mostly LFP and NMC. And is it like, for example, if you still use NMC, is there like any, like, you know, what's the reasoning? Would you use like different chemistries for different applications or is this not really decided? Exactly. You know, NMC, for example, where you have an application where you need more energy density, you go for NMC where safety for some reason, you know, if a customer, it's not going to be near dwellings or something like that. NMC, we know that it has more of a higher tendency for thermal events. So some customers are comfortable with NMC and they're willing to sacrifice that for, you know, higher energy density. And they have a more of a budget to pay for NMC versus LFP.

1:01:05You know, LFP, as you know, Simon, it's, you know, it's less expensive, but less energy dense, but safer. So you have those three knobs and people turn them around and pick whichever chemistry applies best for their applications. Great. Thank you for clarifying. Mark, good to see you. Do you have any question, Mark? And maybe you're off for the moment. That's not a problem either. If we come back, I also want to encourage anybody else, if anybody has any remaining questions, before we're going to wrap it up for today, or maybe Dan, when I see you in the audience, or anybody else, please, please, please bring in any remaining questions you have. Mayano? Jason, explaining or coming from this thermal runaway, what are your options that you give to the customers to avoid that? Did you include some, what are the, the, that you give to the customers to, to say, okay, I have that secure. And anytime it comes, control, I have, you, you explained, you have PMS and you, you develop like that.

1:02:31But what are, what else you have more? Yeah. Yes. Great question. Mariano. Yeah. Like I said before, most of the preventative things that you can do is done through the software and the software is getting more intelligent by the day where it can predict some events occurring before they occur. And literally shut out the user from doing those applications. And especially now, since there's a lot of educating happening around batteries and energy storage systems in general. But, you know, should a, you know, event occur, which is very unlikely, we have internal detection systems, you know, different gas detection systems inside the battery enclosure. We have automated disconnects that shut off certain batteries from others. We have automatic fire suppression systems backed up by, you know, backup batteries inside those containers. You have what we call blast panels. So if there's a buildup of gases inside the enclosure, the enclosure, instead of just, you know, breaking in different ways, it just exhausts through a vent at the top without harming people around it.

1:03:56So really it's the, all the industry has been working together on how do we make batteries safer? Because, you know, and if there's a thermal events within the industry globally, you know, that's all that's findings. And the reason for that event occurring is shared with everybody because it's within the benefit of everyone to learn, okay, you know, what happens? Why did it happen? And how can I make my sister system better so that it doesn't happen in the future? So you have all this collective knowledge that's shared in the industry, which is fantastic. And, and everybody has the same goal of moving forward in terms of the safety and the reliability of the systems and constantly trying to improve this aspect for, for the, you know, to the users of the battery systems and the energy storage systems. So, you know, to answer your questions, there's many steps that the industry in general, not just us, the industry in general has taken to make these systems very reliable, very safe, no matter what chemistry you're using.

1:05:07and, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been great to be a part of that development over the years. Thank you. Thank you to explain that, Jason. It's, it's good to know that all the interior community is building on that. that's big, because the reliability also for, in general, it's, it's very important to, to spread all, all that too, in general. One, one question, in some of countries, they don't allow to include energy storage in buildings, let's say, in buildings. Mm-hmm. What are your thoughts on that? Did you think that it's, what are your thoughts? Yeah, in buildings, it's, it's a bit difficult. You know, I live in, in New Jersey. A lot of our projects are in New York city and New York city. I think, you know, by far it's the most stringent when it comes to battery systems because of the high, you know, population density that you have. They really, the FDNY or any authorities having jurisdiction, they really can't risk a battery fire, anything like that happening inside of buildings.

1:06:22But, you know, that's, that's changing. That's changing. Because, well, one, you have the batteries that are, like I said, getting safer. And by the day, but you also have a very interesting thing that's, you know, you, let's say you're in New York city and you have a high rise residential building and you have the, you know, the tenants inside the building, they come in with their Tesla and they park it in the garage and the Teslas have a hundred kilowatt hours each of battery capacity. And you might have, you know, 10 Teslas parked in that garage. And now you have one megawatt hours of batteries inside your building. It's still indoors, but it's just a different way of thinking about it. So it's, it's funny that, you know, the increased electrification of the transportation sector is getting people more comfortable with batteries in general. and I just, I expect it's just, you know, it's just time that it really takes, you know, it's just a matter of time until stationary or mobile batteries inside buildings are allowed to be permitted.

1:07:30So it's, it's, it's getting there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for, thank you for your thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's another invitation to Mark in case you are able to speak. I'll bring up your question, but maybe you're still not able to speak. That's not an issue at all. I think, yeah, I mean, there's also the last invitation for anybody who wants to ask, ask any more questions. I think we have a covered quite a few topics today already from, from the storage systems. So I think it's also really kind of thinking, you know, where, where do you think things might be heading the next five years or so in this area? Is it like, do you think percentage wise there'll be many more mobile storage systems? Do you think you're going to see more of these systems are we integrated already? Like it's a new houses, et cetera. Maybe it's a default, right? That they have the batteries already in the systems.

1:08:30So what kind of curves, maybe do you have any anticipation how you see the market about the next five years or so? I think it's, it's riding on the cocktails of the huge wave of, and a lot of concern globally around, you know, climate change action. A lot of countries, a lot of States in the U S they're inactive. working working working working working working working working working working whether it's renewables or energy storage, you know, between New Jersey and New York, we have a goal of reaching about 30 gigawatts of energy storage that needs to be deployed before 2030. And, you know, it changed it from state to state 2030, 2040, but in massive, massive gigawatts of energy storage that needs to be implemented, you know, based on their studies and based on the roadmap to get to, you know, green energy economy by a certain date. So there's a huge momentum, I would say, in the next, you know, we think of 2030 as a long way away, but we're already 2022 and almost getting into 2023.

1:09:40So it's really around the corner in terms of deploying massive infrastructure in terms of batteries or otherwise to enable this, you know, roadmap for the clean energy economy. So I suspect gigawatts and gigawatts of energy storage systems being implemented locally and on a national level. And especially, you know, you have different federal enactments going into place, giving a lot of money and a lot of incentives to everyone from, you know, manufacturers to developers, to customers in order to implement these cleaner technologies. So, you know, to answer your question, Simon, just a lot of growth opportunity when it comes to batteries, when it comes to renewables as well, and when it comes to electrification of the transportation sector as well. Thank you. Maybe one last question from my end would be, because I found very interesting what you spoke about, you know, the data and predictive maintenance and these kind of topics. So I'm just curious, maybe you can share, you know, like how early can you kind of predict any failure or like do you have any real world examples, anything you can share?

1:10:58Like, you know, how good is this kind of prediction today and how you weather the plans of the future? Yeah. So one of our, you know, most claim to fame aspects of the system is really during transportation, if it's subjected to certain vibrations and accelerations, you go over a speed bump at high speeds, the system would flag it to the user and tell them exactly, you know, check on these one, two, three, four components and locations within the system because you went over a certain vibration profile or acceleration profile. So it really points people to, you know, identify exactly within the system where to look at and how to remedy it before bringing the system online. You know, also, you know, the traditional stuff like, you know, cycling, how you cycle the battery, the cell temperatures, cell voltages, currents, et cetera, you know, how is the user cycling these batteries and are they using it in a way that's outside the permitted way that we allow them to use the batteries?

1:12:20During the life of the system. So it shows like it doesn't allow the system to cycle them in specific ways. It really tries to limit and put bookends on how the battery should behave and how the battery should operate. So it just gives more confidence all around where you don't have a user that has a free reign to deploy batteries in a way that's not useful for the system. And all the data around it tries to educate the user and tries to steer them in the right direction for the perfect cycling of the batteries and just trying to use the batteries in the right way for the application that they're trying to do. So, yeah, I think that's a good thing. That's great. Thanks for sharing. That's a good, I think, other point, right, to kind of, that you have this mobile element. So you want to kind of also, you know, monitor this and I would envision like what you just described would also be either be, you know, useful for other applications and might already be used, right, for any expensive equipment you're shipping around.

1:13:28Yes. I'm having a good data on it. Yes. So, yeah, also I thought I'd quickly share in here a panel which we recorded last in our last battery day, which also was on the topic of opportunities and battery data analytics. It might also be interesting for others to watch because here we had four of the battery data companies in this space. One is Politica Diagnostics, TWICE, Acure, and then Voltaic, all work on battery data and all kinds of applications. And I would share the insights. We also had a challenge from one of the UK leasing companies, electric vehicle leasing companies, and giving them a challenge, what is kind of the predictions they need for other use cases. So, yeah, if anybody here is interested in battery data, we can just recommend you to maybe also watch this panel or join us next week in this year's battery day on Friday. Great. If there isn't Mark, just last checking if you can hear us, but maybe not for now.

1:14:26Otherwise, if there's no one else that has any questions. Mariam, can you speak? I was clapping. I think this was a great topic. Thank you so much, Razana and Simon for hosting. Thank you, Mariam. I really, really appreciate it. Yeah, great. Even from planes. We have safe travels, Mariam, and Razana does a massive thank you for sharing your time and your insights. And again, if you want to listen to any of this again, you can find it on any of the podcast platforms, such as Spotify, Google, Amazon, and anywhere else you listen to your podcasts. And otherwise, you'll hopefully see many of you next week on our annual battery day. Again, battery day.info. That's a great event for getting us insights on batteries for free. Otherwise, we're going to have one or more of these sessions as usual on the first Saturday of the month. So that will be in two weeks. And Justin, maybe if anybody wants to get in touch with you, should I just follow you on LinkedIn or?

1:15:24Yeah, I think LinkedIn. Happy to please connect and happy to answer any questions and look forward to connecting with everyone. So you can either find his name here on the profile or you can find it in the show notes. Thanks, everyone. Thank you so much, everyone. Take care. Thank you. Thank you.