How Battery Storage Is Changing the Grid | Alex Shoer, Managing Partner @ GridVest

So today on the show we have Alex Shore. Alex is a co-founder managing partner of a company called Grid Vest. And what they are doing is enabling the adoption of batteries to very interestingly a middle market that they feel like is uh extremely underserved. So as he describes it in the episode uh in the

very high level uh world of batteries there's uh residential applications you know per house uh smaller easy to deploy. He says on the bigger side uh there's utility scale applications and what he says is apparently those are pretty easy to do given uh they're for a very specific purpose um and you can

turn them on and off uh at will. And so there's a middle section of that world that's very messy. Um, uh, includes, you know, people developing buildings for example or running factories or industrial applications and things like this. Uh, a lot of different use cases that make it very complex and there's no

solution to make it easy. So, not only does Alex have a very interesting uh perspective, deep knowledge about batteries, uh and the energy market as a whole, um but Grid Vest is building a very interesting solution to uh to these people left for dead in the middle. Uh so, it was very educational for me,

inspiring, and I know it will be for you as well. Thank you as always to our sponsors, Clean Tech Growth Lab. If you're looking to grow in clean tech, they're the people to do it with. And the producers of this podcast, Crazy Friends. And with that, I give you Alex.

Oh, welcome to another episode of The Grove. Shout out to the sponsors mentioned just before we got started. Without them, it would not be possible to interview awesome people doing awesome things like Alex. Welcome. Hey there. Thanks for having me.

That's right. We're going to get into how you are leading the and this is me after the research I've done. You guys are leading uh a really significant uh change in how energy is distributed uh saved, dis dispersed, used things like this. So um before we get into all that, if you could give a brief introduction

of uh yourself and what you're building. Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me again. Uh so yeah, I'm Alex Shore. Uh right now I'm the managing partner of Grid Vest. We are a battery storage equipment distributor and financing company. So what that really means is we're selling big 20 foot containers of batteries and

we're selling them to installers and construction companies who are are building the the the renewable energy projects that are using those batteries. So usually it's paired with solar or wind. um oftentimes connected to a building as well. Uh so that is providing backup power and helping reduce electricity bills and um really also just right now helping the

utilities because the the grid is so overloaded. So batteries are kind of become the the saving grace. So, we're trying to just make it easier to uh to access the batteries, to pay for the batteries with our with financing, and then also just technically figure out like all the intricacies of permitting and fire codes and just the changing

technologies. It's like every year it's a new battery technology and it's a new policy landscape. So, if you're out there trying to build these projects, it is really hard to keep up and and um so anyway, that's what GridVest does. Uh my backstory before that was I lived spent nine years in China. Um so I started my

career in finance but realized pretty quickly that I wanted to focus more on renewable energy uh and climate related um well at that point at that time in 2010 2011 it was we weren't even using the word climate it was more like environmental rightives um and uh and I felt like all right well if I want to go

somewhere to work on on a on a big environmental challenge where would I go and obviously China is comes to the top of the list when you look at how much coal they were using and and still use there the large the world's largest user of coal and uh and then having the um

having the uh the main um having the this opportunity to kind of disrupt that that and be be a part of the change in in China. So I went there in 2011 started a renewable energy business uh called Cedar Clean Energy. Uh we were the first companies in China to use rooftop solar PPA financing. So it's a

it's kind of a unique financing structure to finance solar energy and from there we grew our business and uh and scaled u you know for for a number of years and then anyway co brought me back to the US and had a crazy 9-year journey there and and and that's really where I got my entrepreneurial kind of

DNA uh or you know really got to to put my entrepreneurial skills to the test kind of being in a foreign country starting a business raising money um navigating like world decision world dynamics between US, China, and uh so happy to talk more about all that that journey, but that was uh that's kind of

what brought me back to where I am today. Oh, when when you were uh when you were a baby, Alex, were you looking around saying, "I can't wait to start a company," or did something happen in your life right around then where you said, "I want to be an entrepreneur." Great question. I think I'd always had

that kind of like entrepreneurial spirit. Um a lot of luckily I've got I grew up around a lot of entrepreneurs. So my dad, my aunt, uh pretty much all of my uncles and which are three uncles and um really four uncles and uh who are all one by marriage and who are all uh

um entrepreneurs and uh and then just just kind of thinking about what I wanted to do. I was always interested in like I don't know the maths and the science side of things, but I never really was excited by like the I don't I wanted to put I like the the application of things like real things touch and I

just felt like yeah business and entrepreneurship was kind of that intersection of like doing cool things um you know some element of like the future and technology but more about how to actually just like make things work. So I've always been in the all my businesses have been in that messy middle about taking like a technology

that's just one or two steps too early and figuring out how to make it kind of scalable. Uh, I've never really been great at taking something that's really mature and then like going taking that, you know, like growing that. Um, I'm not as good at the incremental growth, but I definitely feel like where I shine is in

that that that sweet spot where it's like just early enough, but it's still like a bunch of it's still messy. It's unsexy. There's a lot ofation of the industry or the market and but you can see that like if you figure out these things, wow, what's what's possible? So that I think that and I think that kind

of I don't know maybe there's just this connection to meaning and purpose that has driven me from probably since like my college age. I wouldn't say it was before that I was really that focused on it. I think earlier on in life I was more focused on just making money I think. But

but pretty quickly after traveling the world like around a bunch of cool places and just seeing what I don't know what matters a little bit more. I think that's where I started saying okay how can I how can I put do if I'm gonna have to work for a long period of my life?

how how can I do something that I actually feel good about? Um I like the I like businesses that you can the more you do, the more you sell, the more you make, whatever, the more good it's also indirect. So it's just like it's not as much as like a it's not really an impact

business as much as it is just like a business that's solving a real problem that people have, right? And yeah, at the same time, you know, solves a problem that makes money. Yeah. But you know, it does. So you know so and then was that 2011 company the first first company that you'd started

then? Yeah I technically started one uh so the I the real story is that when I met what landed in China I I started a consulting business with uh two other guys who um had been in China and we were bringing clean tech companies into China. So it was like a clean tech market entry

company called E8. Uh, and that was kind of our my first foray into starting a business. And I got really lucky and partnered with a a well a good friend for who I went to college with and then a a Belgian um national who had been like kind of a energy executive who had

taken some time off, wanted to start a business. So I had some good kind of like uh let's call them like mentors around me who were helping me kind of figure out actually navigate China, how to start a business. Um though I think it was more just the willingness to try.

You know, I was 24. I was like I had like nothing to lose at this point. Like I basically decided do I invest in myself or do I get an MBA and I decided all right let's invest in myself try and do the learning by doing and um worst case I learned. So that was my

strategy and just like allowed me to take some big risks and be overly you know and also being young and naive it's like oh yeah of course I can go to China and start a business. It's so easy and then of course you know you get into the realities and it's it's so much harder. Uh but then but then the

new the the progress even if it's incremental progress you're like oh we just did so much better this year than last year and it's like we can do even better next year and got a little bit into that trap of like and that's why I stayed nine years. I kept thinking it was going to be one or

two years and then it kept pulling me back. That's great though. Well, so so some something interesting that came of a um an interview slash a series of interviews uh with this company called Clean Tech Group that I did at the beginning of the year. in particular, I had an a conversation with Anthony

Diorsy who also spent some time uh living in China and he spoke to uh you know they they look at like a super macro level so they're going to you know their their perspectives really um high up but it was interesting to talk to him about his perspective of the difference in what you know environmental tech

clean tech climate tech whatever uh what it's like for that to develop in China versus the US, not only given um just very objective regulatory structures and how policies are are different and how that encourages market development in different ways but uh but also cultural differences and how people even approach entrepreneurship. So given that you

spent nine years in China and given that you've now been building Grid Vest in uh in the US for as long as you have, what has your personal experience been as an entrepreneur in those in those two countries?

just the difference between the two or Yeah. Yeah. Any anything notable about being an entrepreneur in China versus here? Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's interesting because it's just they both have changed and are changing so much. So like what I say today actually may not be true in three or four or five

years from now. Um because when I got to China being entrepreneur was like really looked down upon. It was like no no mother in China wanted their child to be an entrepreneur. It was like negative thing, right? And that was 2011. And then all of a sudden, you know, you have this tech boom and and VC money and all

this stuff. And now, of course, in China, it's also equally as I don't know, I guess you could say sexy if you want to to be an entrepreneur and attractive for young people and and parents are very supportive of it. And, you know, still not still lower risk. I guess the big difference is that there

is a level of like in general the average level of risk tolerance. Um, and the tolerance for failure I think is still not quite where it is in the US. Um there's a lot of reputational concern and and and uh you know they call it face orenza like you know you just don't

you don't the risk of a failure is is is scarier I think in general if you're if you're in China than it is in the US. Um and I think because there's a little bit I think it's just culturally there's a little bit more acceptance of that in the US and you can you know you fail

fast and fail and you can kind of still you can you can fail up right like there's a lot of a lot of failing up in entrepreneurship which is which is not a bad thing right it's like oh I had a big blow up but maybe there's some other opportunity someone else who wants to

pull you in because you had experience in in a certain way that they thought was interesting so I think that's a big one is risk I think the other is about speed so like in China one The cool things that I'd say is actually better is like China speed is a real thing.

Like things can happen. It takes it's harder I think to get things off the ground there. Not off the ground. That's I said it's harder to like scale things there because it's kind of like a winner take all market where like you're either kind of like get it's like you're either getting a huge chunk of the market or

it's like you're kind of getting eaten you're you know they're going to eat you for lunch. But if um so that's that's a hard part. But the other part is that like you know the speed of things is so amazing that like if you can just find that wave and ride it. It's like you can

the growth rates uh I've seen are are just astronomical for a number of businesses. Um you know even like back in the day I remember like bike sharing when it was when it first came out there's companies like Mobike and OPFO and these all these companies that were like where bike sharing was a really

cool thing. you you know you rent a bike, scan a QR code and and grab a bike and like in like 3 months it was like every city everywhere all like all the and then they were like all beating each other up for who can raise more and then they ended up a lot of times what

happens is Chinese companies end up merging together because they're they're so they're basically killing each other so quick with just overspending that they realize the only path forward is to join forces and like a lot of the biggest companies in China are mergers um clearly the Uber of China but so that's a big difference.

But back to like the the practical like day-to-day, I think the individual journey I think in the US is a lot more fraught with red tape. That's the other issue that I found is like the paperwork, the regulations, the permitting, the you know the rules basically and the frankly the rules are more enforced in the US. So it's a lot

more difficult to just be scrappy at the beginning whereas in China you can kind of just start anything pretty easily with a very limited budget needed and very limited legal costs. like the amount of legal costs in the US are are are pretty wild. Hopefully interrupted soon with AI. But um yeah, like that's a

big difference. The just the speed at which you can just like put out an MVP and try something out and like you don't need to have all the things lined up and it's a little more room for gray area there. So that allows you to kind of start and then figure it out and get

your permits and then figure out how to be compliant. Whereas in the US I feel like it's much more important to have everything lined up at the beginning which means you also need some funding which means you know harder to start a bigger business obviously.

Um so that yeah so those are a couple of the big differences. I think in general though there are mer like it's kind of the world is getting flat right like what the entrepreneur experience in the US and the entrepreneur experience in China is definitely becoming more similar than it was before. Um, and I

think it's becoming more global. Like Chinese investors are now looking at the US as a real market even with all the political stuff going on. And Chinese entrepreneurs oftentimes will move to the US just because they think maybe it's a better funding environment or maybe it's better for their business even though they

might be at a disadvantage being, you know, not from the US. Um, and uh, I I I advise a company that's that's actually basically founded by foreigners in China. Um, and they, you know, they're kind of trying to they have a they're they're navigating a difficult balance between how do you take advantage of the best of China,

which is like the R&D and the speed and the funding and the government support, but also how do you take advantage of the West, which is really good at commercializing technologies and VC funding for like more hard tech future technologies and interesting and and a little bit more risk-taking, I think, outside of China

too where like Chinese investors tend to want to see like, you know, things are a little need to be a little fully baked before they're willing to put in as much money. Whereas in the US, you can get a $40 million series A on an idea if you have the right if you have the right people

and team. So, you know, it's it's not saying that doesn't happen in China, too. I just think it happens in the US more often. So, so it's an interesting uh interesting time. Um it's all all kind of converging.

Nice. Well, that's I I just think it's such a uh it's such a cool and unique perspective to be able to uh have that much insight in uh in two very different places of the world and uh and and two places that are extremely relevant to, you know, the the industry that we're

talking about, which climate tech, you know, clean tech, whatever word you want to throw at also the future of the world. Let's just not forget that. Yes. Yeah. Just generally speaking, you're right. So, so then uh so then it brings us to um uh the end of your journey at China and the beginning of

journey at Gridfvest. What was how did that happen? Yeah, it was pretty wild. Um I went to so 20 you know a lot of everyone has their co story but uh you know I went on vacation in 2020 at for Chinese New Year January 2020 I left go to go to New Zealand got to arrive New Zealand and

they put me in a special line and I didn't know why and they told me about some virus that had broken out in China and oh that's interesting. Um, and then, you know, fast forward 3 weeks later, my all my all all the flights were cancelceled to go back when I was supposed to go back. So, I couldn't get

back to China, stayed in New Zealand for another month to figure out what I was going to do. Was either deciding to stay in New Zealand, which was very tempting and I kind of sometimes wish I had uh or or move move back to the US and so cuz I couldn't get into China and I wasn't

really interested in going back there at that time. So anyway, moved back to the US, uh, reset my my life, uh, states side, started over with literally like a backpack because everything I had was still in China. And, um, and yeah, it was a fun journey of figuring out what's next. Um, I did a little stint at

Weiwork, which was a which is a kind of an in between part of my journey. I was, uh, running B2B marketing for them. I so I kind of wanted a a real job uh, to help me have a soft landing, also to get some apply my skills in different ways, figure out what was going on in the

market in the US. Um and uh and just it was a really interesting time. We were cuz they were going their whole rocket ship up and and then kind of implosion back down. But um it was a really fun uh a fun fun journey to be a part of. But then in that time I kind of was was

still involved in my business in China uh and and and still kind of figuring out what was the application of renewable energy in the US. So I was kind of like let's call it market research time. And so I spent a lot of time there. And then once I left there in 2021, I um I basically took a year

off and just like took gave myself one year to figure out whatever it was that I wanted to do next. And um didn't I my my run rule was like I can do whatever work I want to do this year. I just don't have to work. Um but I didn't want to like rule out working either. So I

ended up which was kind of cool because I ended up getting pulled into a bunch of projects, consulting stuff like I was advising startup climate tech startups. So I got pulled into that climate tech uh advising that climate tech company I mentioned earlier. It's in between China and US. Um and anyway so through that I

I I started getting my kind of like feet wet again in climate world. Um in the startup world I was helping some people raise funding. Um and it was a really exciting time with a lot of that time there were a lot of checks being written and big climate tech valuations and it

was pretty wild. Uh was most of your work in the energy space. So yeah, I kind of after that first journey my you know my first two businesses all in energy I kind of decided that like you know I really want to work on climate related init you know issues initiatives and energy is the

like the subvertical that I think I have the most let's call it experience and value in and also I just think is the most challenging if we can solve that I think it solves so many other problems. So, I've always been like energy focused with like like a soft circle around climate environment. That's kind of how

I've defined the work I do. Um, and it's helped me cuz it's like otherwise even that is such a broad focus as it is. But if I didn't have at least that target like I'd be tempted to go into everything else from like you know an AI to Bitcoin I'd be like I'd be like

following everything you know because it's so exciting. But at least that lens gives me a little more like you know I don't know objective mission and and just clarity of what I what I want to do and should do and and it feels and then again back to that point earlier about the more you do the better you know

better I feel the better you know it net net for the world right I definitely see there's huge economic opportunities too it's not just for that so um but just to to get back to your question and then the last part of my journey was just I did end up doing a climate policy fellowship at the Aspen

Institute And so that was a really cool program that was like a three-month program. They pay you to essentially learn policy and become a policy expert of some kind. Not expert, but as much as you can learn in 3 months. And um and yeah, so that was really a great way to say that was the one area. Policy was

the one area I'd never really tried in terms of like moving the needle on. And like well now is a good time with everything going on in the world to learn about how to shift policy. So that kind of opened my eyes again to battery storage. I got access to a lot of data

sets and developers and just meeting people and realizing the same thing that happened with solar in China with the cost curve coming down, deployment going up, um, government supporting it, uh, businesses needing it, like economic economics of projects becoming really attractive. I saw the same things happening in battery storage and and yet

this the technology was still a little early. It was still a little expensive. It was still a little hard to get access to because it was all made in China. it was still a little um hard to get permitted because it's very few applications have been deployed and fire departments hate it and it's scary and

so I was like oh this is exactly like the problem that I can solve because it's again one or two steps away from being market ready it's like clear that it solves so many problems for the utility for increasing renewable energy for b for buildings for resiliency for for home like individuals who are

dealing with you know expensive power bills and and EVs if we're ever going to use EVs at scale like you're going to need batteries uh as to to support the grid and support your, you know, charging at home. And so anyway, there was like a million reasons and I was like, "Yeah, this is this is the area I

want to work in." And then I got really lucky and um someone from who I had known from the past emailed me out of kind of out of the blue saying, "Hey, I'm interested to to to do something in renewable energy and I like and and kind of uh as an investment and I was like,

I've been looking at battery storage and I have few some ideas within battery storage that um that maybe we should talk about." And so anyway, we ended up teaming up and that's that's became my business partner and he's the majority owner of Grid Vest. Uh and uh yeah, it's been a great journey working with him.

Um and we've gotten to kind of explore a lot of cool ideas. We've looked at early on we looked at acquiring some companies um that were like like early stage that we could like take on and then maybe grow. And then we realized that actually this model works well cuz he's an assetbased lender by trade. I'm this

kind of climate uh you know like energy uh sourcing and and deployment and financing and so we kind of teamed up where where we liked he liked batteries as an asset so he was comfortable lending on the batteries I had all the network of sourcing and and knowledge of how to deploy the deploy the systems and

so that kind of was that's the story that's how we kind of came to gridvest and that was 3 years ago we actually set up the business um we'd been working on about started about three and a half years ago technically but uh yeah so it's been a pretty cool journey in 24 25

and 26 we've each year we've kind of doubled our business. Um, nice. And, uh, yeah, so that's been exciting. And it's just been, um, it's been, you know, not it's it's not like hyperrowth in in the sense of like we're, you know, raised millions like, you know, tech VC money and we're going to go scale a

platform, but in terms of when you're, you know, moving big heavy 20 foot containers across the world, right? Right. Um, it's it's a growth rate that I'm happy about. And uh well so so I so I so so I think that perspective from uh uh the policy work that you did which is interesting that

you went from doing that to understanding the market in a sense of saying hey this is a solution uh that could really help this uh this particular market uh grow in the way that it is. So from that perspective um could you lay the foundation of what battery storage you know energy storage

like what like what is the space that we're talking about that you guys uh are operating in? Yeah. So I think like this space is is um it's unique. So where we sit is in between in in the battery storage ecosystem right you have like on one end you have residential which is like homes

right and on the other end you have utility scale which is like huge battery storage projects in the middle of nowhere like connecting to a utility. Um those two extremes are the where most of battery storage operates. That's where most that's a traditional way of thinking about how to use stationary storage which is you know when you're

using a battery not in basically an EV. Um and what we do is we're taking mostly everything else. We're focused on everything in between the resi and the utility scale which is like mostly it's commercial and industrial scale which is buildings and hotels and schools and factories. And then it's these smaller front of meter projects which is like

which means essentially small projects that are connected to a local utility. So not typically in the middle of nowhere. are smaller like 20 megawatt hours which is like maybe two to four containers of batteries um and you know connected in like a city or an urban environment where you need to either balance the grid or they're having

issues with electricity prices um and so that's kind of what we do is we serve that middle market because those that middle market is the one that's the most underserved and it's the hardest to actually get projects done so resi technology and products are really easy uh utility scale actually believe it or

not are also because they're only doing one thing it's like on, off, on, off, and it's very clear about how to design those. These in between ones are much more technically complex cuz you're, for example, when you connect a battery to a building, you're dealing with all the needs of the building, plus you're

dealing with the battery connected to the grid, plus you're dealing with typically having some kind of solar, maybe some backup generators, you know, you're dealing with like d, you know, electricity, like um there's so many different demands all at once. And it's just like the complexity factor goes way up, but the the scale doesn't

go up in in, you know, linearly. So like, you know, it might be five times the size or 10 times the size of a residential project, but it's 100 times as hard. So it's like most people stay away from it because it's just like the value. And then on the utility scale, same same. It's actually more complex

and smaller. So it's like why would I even touch those projects? But I think the interesting thing that's where all the I think that's where all the untapped value is in this ecosystem. Like there's so many um that's where like every build everywhere you look, every building, every house, every um school, every you know, street light,

every everywhere you look in an urban environment is like ripe for battery storage. Um and it would solve so many problems if we were able to deploy it um more seamlessly, safer, lower cost. Um, and so now it's like a hardware problem, but it's also now it's like a soft a soft cost problem,

which basically means like the installation, the permitting, the yeah, paperwork, the um, you know, even the labor and things like that. Like all the all the stuff that goes around that has nothing to do with actual batteries themselves. That's really where there's the next wave. Like batteries going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper and

cheaper and technology is going to keep getting better and better on a nice nice curve. curve. If you look at the curve, it's unbelievable to see how fast it's happened, even faster than solar in terms of the cost curve, like cost coming down.

And solar happened at like an insane never before speed. And so the cool thing is it's like, yeah, batteries have already we're starting to see that happen. And now it's the soft cost piece, which is like the next wave where if we can get that part easier and which really what GridVest is trying to do, that's the

market we're trying to serve, which is that mid-market. It's because think about it this way. you're you're you're most of these developers who developers are the guys who and gals who build the projects, right? So, they're the ones they're typically like five to 25 person companies or sometimes even smaller. Um that are really really they have the

hardest job I think on earth because they are dealing with every they're they're like the ones who are they're they're essentially their own entrepreneur. Like each project is like a startup. You set up your own entity. You have to raise money for it. You have to get all the permitting. You have to

get all the technical designs. You have to figure out the business plan. You have to get a customer, which is usually an offtaker, right? Like a building owner or a utility. You have to then go get the hardware and supply. You have to figure out the technology. So, it's like these developers are entrepreneurs and

they are usually really really good at what they do, but they need help typically because they're small and they're like navigating a million things, right? hard for them to go buy a big heavy expensive equipment from like a large Chinese battery manufacturer for example cuz there's just so many challenges time zones and and cultural

and and financial like they need to write big checks up front and then logistically how do you navigate that and bring those to your site and and then make sure those are the right batteries that anyway so there's a lot of the there's just it's hard to kind of encapsulate how many little things that

can can go wrong in in a project if you don't think about are there are there are there any competing solutions to not necessarily the specific um service that you guys are are offering, but just batteries as a whole, or is it really just either you're on board with the idea of a

battery or not? And then it's just different types of of ways of being on that train. Good question. Um I think so with regards to the battery side, I think it's there's not really alternatives. You're kind of like for example you can one one al okay there are some alternatives alternatives could be you

design use solar only right and and you don't use a battery uh the downside is that you're limited that will limit the size of the solar that you can use the amount of solar you can use and it it um it won't work when the power goes out the utility goes out and you economics

of that project may be less I think usually batteries help to increase the economics or improve the economics not always but usually um depending on the the utility rates structures and a number of things like that. Um, so that's one side is like you could go without a battery. Um, then there's obviously the alternative of like there

are alternative battery technologies, right? When I talk about batteries, I'm most often kind of referring to lithium iron phosphate LFP which is like the dominant formula for or chemical mix for stationary storage. But there are a bunch of other nonLFP battery options from like there's NMC which is like another classic chemistry which is

mostly used for EVs. There's a b sodium ion is like the next wave that's coming which is non- lithium which is pretty cool. There's solid state batteries which they're using for like electric flight and other kinds of like really power dense needs. There's um there's uh you know zinc batteries for long duration. There's you know redux flow

batteries. There's there's like you know so many cool different kind and then the company I'm advising kinetic you know they have a a flywheel energy storage battery using kinetic energy. So like there's batteries, not all chemical. Um there's gravity based batteries, there's there's hydro anyway. So there's just an infinite number and they're all really

interesting serve a role. I think right now LFP though has become the solar PV of of batteries because like there's a bunch of different kinds of solar technology too. solar thermal, there's different forms of PV like but solar PV, this traditional photovoltaic system that we use has become the dominant and it's been hard to disrupt even with

other technologies that so so yeah so I don't know if that's your question but no no so no that's great I I think uh so the um just the last one on this because so interesting is um are are you of the opinion that there's no because I am that there's no evolution of the grid. There's no

innovate that like where the grid needs to be to meet all of these new like if the economy is going to electrify. There is no evolution of the grid without batteries or optimizing battery storage. Yeah, I mean I would say that is 100% true. I think there is I mean you could totally do it without batteries. It

would just take a lot more time and a lot more money. So I think be a lot more inefficient. Be a lot more inefficient. And I think the reality is like we just don't have that time and we don't have that money.

Like if you could re if you had if you could like reset and you could rebuild redesign the whole utility grid from scratch like you might be able to do it in a way where batteries aren't that needed because if you could like for example putting loads near generation that's a good use or or figuring out

ways to make a really smart grid where it's all connected and then like you're when you need power like you know you you it connects demand and supply better. But the reality is our grid is not designed like that. Our grid is aging. our grid is um you know it's completely getting disrupted by AI data

centers and the only thing and I think the only thing you can realistically build in one or two years in the energy world is battery storage or solar you know right now like natural gas plants take multiple years nuclear takes like 10 years um you know hydro takes like 10 year like 5 to 10 years like every like

you know energy source you I guess coal is you know I don't even know if you can permanent coal anymore, but you know, you could it would still take multiple years. Um, every energy source is is just takes forever and except batteries are the one that you can actually deploy quickly. Again, paired with solar and it

really helps. Uh, and it solves the like the immediate pain points and reduces the amount that the utility actually needs to spend to upgrade their grid. That's the big thing people forget is like batteries. If you if the grid allows the utility allow uses batteries in the right way, it allows them to save

money. The problem is that most utilities don't want to save money or don't care about spending less money because they make the more money they invest the more money they can make back in a return this invested capital. So they're not really incentivized to be efficient. But if they were if they were

like hey your incentive is to like be as efficient as possible lower the cost electricity as much as possible. Then they the logical thing would be like all right let's deploy batteries in these areas where there's more power demand and that can meet because batteries can pick like cover the spikes of energy. It

can cover um the you know off hours of solar. It can cover grid outages. It can provide backup power. It can help to kind of bal clean the grid like when you have like these big frequency or voltage fluctuations. Like so it just provides so many different solves so many problems all together. So it's not

panacea like there are I'm not saying batteries are the answer to everything right like there are problems with batteries right they have they they're the chemicals that go into them are are not great. The you know they're they're heavy and take a lot of energy to transport. there potentially there are risks of of a of a

battery fire uh in you know in certain cases but again I think very low risk but um in terms of the tools we have in our toolbox like to me there's no there's no well no easier option there's no easier solution appreciate that well thank you for indulging my curiosity so at the

beginning then so with this middle that you identified I mean three years uh you know three years into grid you guys have identified this very clearly you know you speak to this middle when you had started uh I And it's possible because you came from uh doing all of this research and and uh and and

from the the policy perspective, did you have a clear vision of what this market was and how you were going to serve it or has that changed in the last 3 years? Yeah, great question. And I think that ties together uh also the question about like who do we compete against or what's

the alternatives for what we do? Because I think how we've evolved is definitely changed. Like there's been like two or three big big leaps, but the first leap was we started just by like the hardest part when we started was just getting access to the equipment. Like just finding the right Chinese battery

manufacturer, getting like building the relationship with them, contracting with them and getting a battery literally physically to this country. Like that was that was it. That was like what we did and we were really good at it, right? We're sourcing experts and then we also added this financing. We help you pay for it. But like those two

things that was it like we didn't do any we just sold the battery and that was it. We kind of walked not walked away, but like we kind of were like, "All right, here's your battery." But then reality of like, "Okay, next wave comes and it's like, uh-oh, batteries are hard. We need we don't just need a

battery, we need an inverter. We need an energy management system. We need the whole package." Um, and so that was the next wave of of of Gridfvest of like, okay, now we can't just sell a battery, we need to sell a solution. And then the third and then when was that? So that was probably like

you know pretty early on but like into four like after our first year our first year we were just like selling hardware or just batteries and then we're like okay we if we're actually going to grow this thing we have to like we can't just sell batteries like these customers need solutions they need actual it's got

seems like I mean a decently significant pivot to make yeah and it was I and that was still part of our learning and growth but it was also part of where the market was like people didn't know what they needed they were like I just need a battery get me a battery and we here I'll sell you a

you know and so um and then but And people realize even, you know, because a lot of most people in this industry are solar experts who then kind of add in batteries, right? They're like, I'm I know everything about solar, but then I'm like, yeah, but you and so they think they know everything about

batteries, but then the problem is that batteries are just technically more complex and there's more variables to figure out. So that's where we pivoted. Yeah. In 2024, I'd say to be kind of more of a full solutionoriented where like the whole package um and and becoming more technically involved too.

We started like actually providing commissioning services and supporting on like after sales because like initially it was like our manufacturers would do all of that but we realized like if we want to what these companies are mostly again that time we're mostly Chinese companies they need help managing all of that and and and our customers don't

really want to have to be going to a Chinese company to be getting support. So we're starting to become more of like a full you know again endtoend side of the of the battery eco life cycle. And then the last pivot which we're just still going through and and it's been a really crazy evolution and this is just

the nature of doing business in the Trump era and the renewable energy is having this whole foreign entity of concern thing that just happened. So basically with the one big beautiful bill that happened that came out last year first of all we had tariffs which were crazy right and we helped people navigate the tariffs and that was wild

but the even more complex thing is the changes that happened with the tax credit and renewable and and so what the big change was is that essentially if you want to get the tax credit the investment tax credit which is a 30% rebate on solar on renewable energy solar and and also on batteries um that

you have to use uh battery equipment from from a not from a foreign entity of concern which is basically any entity from China, Russia, uh I believe North Korea and Iran. So most batteries are owned man manufacturers are Chinese companies. So that created a huge complexity like how do you you either kind of have to decide do you work with

a Chinese battery or do you um go without the tax credit like if you sorry if you work with a Chinese battery you have to do it without the tax credit or if you go with the tax credit you have to find a non-Chinese battery to to to work. So there are very few out there.

There's some Korean manufacturers. There are a few emerging American manufacturers, but very very limited supply. So the supply has already been taken by like the residential and the utility scale market as I was talking about earlier. So it's a really it's been a huge pivot for us because we've had to pivot away just our whole

specialty was built around China sourcing where most of the best tier one manufacturers are. But now we've start added in a whole range of non-Chinese options from Korean manufacturers to now again emerging American manufacturers to American integrators who are buying Chinese battery cells and integrating them in the US. Um and so it's been a

big journey of like just the last year has been adding a ton of new battery manufacturers, figuring out new technologies, figuring out um who has what where. Basically that's ultimately the hardest challenge because these things are happening every month. It's like a new battery man battery factory plant opens up next month battery factory plant

closes like this merge with this company this company's going to come out with this new product and then and the last thing that's happening is at the same time the UL the underwriter laboratory is coming out with all kinds of new safety certifications and so each year essentially the the addition changes now

they just came out with addition six which completely rewrites the rules and there's all these new large scale fire testing where you actually have to ignite a battery system like literally like blow it up and watch see how it see how it performs. And so now it's like there's a whole new world of testing you

have these batteries have to go through and and so we're just helping navigate that and it's it's it's hard and another pivot cuz like that pivot has been like now we're not just this China sourcing expert. We're having to source from the whole world and having to have be able to not just build around three or four

companies. we're having to have like 12 to 15 companies that we now are sourcing from and working with and and so that's been a big evolution um as we've then kind of gotten more sophisticated with our our technical side. So I hope that's the you know hope we can stick with that for a while. we don't

have to. But who knows? I mean, you know, policies are going to change fast. Like, I don't know what's going to happen with the next administration. You know, it's going to be it's going to be very interesting. And these projects typically are planned in like two it takes at least about 2 years typically

for a project. So, like whatever people are starting to do now is not really going to get built till 2028 or or so. So, you know, could be even 2029 some cases. Maybe you could do some quicker than that. But like so they're already so really actually you do have to start thinking about what's going to happen in

the next administration and how to make the economics work well so so so with um within that environment. So first of all, thank you for walking through that because it is fascinating to think about I'm you know now I'm going to ask you within that context of how you guys are operating.

Two questions. The first is how are you approaching growth? You know, most specifically, you mentioned working with uh you know, large um uh like factories or like large uh real estate uh developers or these types of what's your experience selling into uh these segments of that that metal that you describe with all this complexity that

you just yeah went through? Um well, I'd say that there's two I guess main buckets. I mean one is like the offtakers, the ones who are the end users, the ones who are actually going to use the batteries and then there's others who are like the intermediators who are like building the projects or

the construction companies or the installers or the developers. Um so I think with like the the installer bucket ones who are actually building like they they're what's changed for them is is again just like they're also having to rewrite their sourcing and procurement approach. Um, and I think economics have been really hard to figure out because

they're having to model out scenarios that they don't really that that are really a little bit unsure like modeling. First of all, the big one is modeling it without the ITC, which I think is actually the future. I I'm actually a big proponent of developing projects without needing to rely on investment tax credit because that means

if you can get away from needing that to make your project economic, now these projects can make a lot more sense. like they're a lot easier to to to to scale because the paperwork of tax credits is very complicated. You typically need insurance from which is expensive.

There's a lot of limitations if you're going to use tax credits even though there's really they're really attractive too uh economically. So, but I think as we get away from tax credits for needing these projects to be honest and that's what happened in China, too.

Like when solar subsidies went away, nothing happened for like a year. Everyone kind of was crying and upset and oh my god, how is solar going to how are we going to make these projects work? And then the price of solar went down and people figured out how to make it work. And all of a sudden now all

these projects that were never going to be built before are now happening and unsubsidized solar became, you know, just China has completely um, you know, boomed since that in terms of solar. And so I think the same thing is going to happen in storage. just going to be like a this year and next year are going to

be a little like of a a weird gear shift where it's like oh no tax credits and do we try is it worth trying to you know hold on to them and and buy the buy from like non-Chinese battery manufacturers and and then it's but at some point it's going to go back into this world of like

the equipment's coming down in price so much and the the technology is improving so much it's just going to be like a matter of time before it's these project a lot of more projects become get unlocked. So back to your question though the the real estate developer side the end user side like they are I

think also they're facing the biggest challenge which is their electricity bills are going way up like they don't know why they don't know how to fix it but they know that like their electricity bills which tends to be a very large percentage of these of a commercial or industrial buildings like overall business is going way up like

10% 20% sometimes 30% a year um and so and I think that's not going to slow for the near term with all of the new data centers coming online. So how do you what do you do when your biggest line item your biggest expense has now gone up 30% and you have no essentially

ability to slow that down and often times because of computing demands and others other and EV charging and things like that like your your your electricity usage is probably going up a bit as well. So now that cuz we've electrified everything and so you're in this like perfect storm of like I don't

know most of these develop the real estate developers and building owners are like I don't know how but I need to lower my bill and batteries in California in particular like demand charges are one of the most expensive parts of electricity bill and that means essentially if you use uh demand charges your your whole electricity tariff

changes if you go above using a certain amount of electricity even for like a second. So anytime you if you spike to like you use normally like I don't know 1 megawatt and you go to 1.1 megawatts now you have you're at a new tariff and so you have to like the battery prevents

that that spike and so that allows you to stay at a lower tariff and that's one of the biggest ways to make that projects economic and help these developers and building owners save money. So are you are are you finding that people are receptive to this type of thing or are you finding resistance to these uh

to these ideas? people like ah yeah thank you but I don't know or people like yes you know this is relevant it's a good question I'd say like interested always interested no you know especially like hey I can save you money everyone's interested I think the reality gets scary for people the reality of like what does this mean how

much money am I going have to spend up front what are the technical risks how long is this going to take I think there's like uh people especially in the real estate game or building owners or you know business owners obviously it's short-term mindset, right? Like I don't have it's and a lot of times it's about

res energy and resources, not even just about money. It's like I don't have the bandwidth to manage this or I don't know like this seems like complex and it's changing a lot. Like I don't know how to deal with it. So there is a lot of that going on and I think that's where we're

where there is education that's needed is like look showing you here's all these other projects who's who are doing it. Here's all these here's how the economics that work for them. Here's some ways that we can help you derisk it. here are some ways that we can help you finance it so you don't have to come

out of pocket. So there's there's like definitely an education curve and it's it's a really um Okay. Yeah. And I think that what's going to happen is again is like once everyone you start seeing everyone else do it, it becomes very easy and very obvious and that's what happened with solar. That's what will continue to happen I think in

batteries. Um, and I what I think is needed is or what will happen, I think, is people are going to be forced into this because they're at some point they're going to become so desperate from electricity bill reprieve and it's not going to come anytime soon. So, this is going to be something that's going to

just they're going to have to do. And the cool thing is there's last thing I'll say is there's like more third party options. So, you don't have to actually even pay for it yourself. Like you could bring in a third party owned developer or someone who's doing like energy as a service. they could pay for

the whole system and then you just get the savings or some of the share the savings with them or get a discount on your electricity or there's a million ways to solve for this if you don't want to necessarily deal with it or take the risk um yourselves as like a building owner.

So so uh either pulling from the experience that you're having right now with grid with grid vest with this uh you know with with this educational curve with selling into these these pocket of buyers with uh or pulling from any experience you've had entering markets in the past. Is there a single thing, two things, uh, you know, however

you want to take it that you would say, uh, influences you, uh, or your, uh, growth strategy, go to market strategy right now, um, that if you were speaking to, you know, a room full of people that were, you know, doing similar work, I guess, in different industries, so they're not competing with you, but, you know, is

there anything impactful that you'd pull from your experience that you'd say, is really important that you've learned about growing in this way. Um yeah, I think like general advice of of and like what I've learned is um is the value of being nimble. I think the value of being like really looking around and and and not being um not

getting like hung up on what you've already done. It's like, oh, we did this and it worked. It's like, yeah, I know it did this and it worked. Um, but being really focused on what's coming next. Like I think you all in this industry and any industry really. Uh, but especially in just entrepreneurship in

general, I think it's so important with the world changing as fast as it is that you're just you're you're spending like a percentage of your time, I don't know what percent, maybe 30%, 20%. Really planning for like what's coming next. Um because I do think it's really easy to just stick with what's working now and

then all of a sudden you can find yourself like, you know, uhoh, like the little well we found of water is now dried up and we didn't plan for the next well yet. And so I think that's something that I just whether it's entrepreneurship or in in different industries, I I think is so important

and more so now than ever because of the fast speed of change. And I think AI is going to only accelerate that. Um, and I think it will just help to keep us as people relevant like even in your individual career journey. I would say that's a good use useful thing to do.

And um and I think when it comes to starting a business that is suffly saying it's helped me and and um and the last thing is like part of that is like following the curve like just trust the curve even if it's like crazy if it doesn't seem like it's possible. you're like just I mean it you know historical

data is a very very helpful not perfect but helpful indicator of what's to come and like if you can look at like this and you extrapolate it out and you can do some very quick math as to like okay at these different growth rates at the low medium and high what does this mean

like you can very I think have a pretty good sense of where things are going like I've been these little trends with solar and batteries and whatever like by the time I got involved in them I would for me it was obvious but most of most people around me did not see the obvious

didn't think it was obvious. And I think that's like that's often I think what's the magic of the entrepreneur entrepreneur mindset or journey is like being able to believe that yourself and your data and your analysis enough that you can say tell all these other people who are saying I don't know is it

really going to happen? Is it going to happen fast? Uh like what people would say about AI two or three years ago or you know autonomous vehicles you know 5 years ago or um you know name your technology.

It's just like I don't know, is it really going to happen that fast? And then all of a sudden it does sometimes even faster. And that um but I think that like the people who were saying that weren't like some magic geniuses who saw magic. No, they just like they trusted the what they the information

they had and they believed their intuition a bit, but they were like it wasn't coming from nowhere. It wasn't like they're just soothsayers. It's there. Like I can tell you the next if I bet if we were like you know if we were to look out four years from now like I don't know what the world is going to be

like at all but some trends that I could definitely I'd be willing to put some money behind and bet on based on those curves. So anyway that's hopefully uh something to think about. Well Grid Vest is one of those.

Yeah. There you go. Exactly. So I got Yeah. So I got So I got two final questions for you. My my uh my first one is as far as and you already spoke to the educational uh resistance you're feeling. So that's cool if that's the answer. But as far as growth goes as

far as entering this market, what is the biggest uh hurdle that you're facing and how is it also an opportunity? Yeah. Uh I think biggest hurdle is um yeah, I do think it's back to what I said earlier about this this this born entity of concern, this policy change around tax credits.

What does this look like for batteries uh going forward? And I think the opportunity is um is actually allowing us to become a better like more all-encompassing uh sourcing solution, which is kind of it's kind of where we needed to go ultimately, but it just is forcing us to do it a lot quicker than we would have

otherwise. Like we were going to go this direction and start adding in all these different manufacturers and doing a more full service solution. Like that was already kind of my vision, but I just didn't think it would be needed this quickly. And so it's forcing us to grow up and and be who we wanted to be

anyway. Um, and I think that's gonna I think other industries are are probably finding that they're in the same boat of like um they're having to be a little bit more who they want were planning to be but having to do it sooner in order to be able to play in the in this ecosystem

again especially with the speed of growth and and with AI. So uh that's uh yeah that's my answer. Awesome. Well, with the last the the my last question with all this uh work to be done, all this opportunity in front of you, what inspires you?

Um yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I want to just acknowledge that like it's definitely a wild time in the world. Um and it is sometimes like I've noticed myself in the last year or two, um the first times I've noticed like getting I'd always been pretty optimistic, excited, you know, believer in humanity.

First times where I've started getting like questioning things. I'm like, I don't know. Like, this is getting really wild and I'm getting like a little scared at times and I don't know where things are going to head from here and slippery slope and yada yada yada. Like, I can see how the doom the doom spiral

in my head can start. But I guess I my my what I would say to myself and also to others is just um trust the trust the process and like just know that this is the cost of progress like two steps forward, one step back. like we made a lot of progress in the last I don't know

I think of especially like you know in the early 2000s and mid 2000s and late like there's a lot of amazing change that happened and like this is a response what is going on in the world now I think is somewhat of a response to that progress or like a reaction to that

progress and so my my my response is like let's keep keep focused on like making the world a little better like being a little nicer to each other and uh and and solving real problems and I think we'll get ourselves out of this hole that we've dug um both in the US and around the world and uh and I hope

that uh you know we all can see ourselves as little change makers in that journey. Yeah. And cool. Well, if anyone else is inspired to go along Yes. If anyone else is inspired to follow along or get in touch, what's the best way to do it?

Uh best way to do it is probably find me on LinkedIn. Um Alex Shore, I'm the only one out there. Follow me. Feel free to connect with me. uh you know, send me a note of why you want to connect. But um I I'm definitely a big LinkedIn fan these days. And uh yeah, um I'll be

publishing some some some papers and articles on these topics soon. So or I have a few out already, but we'll be I'm going to be writing more about it. And uh Blake, you may have inspired me to even start my own podcast as everyone trend, you know, so I feel like there's so many things I want to talk about in

energy, so why not have an excuse to do it? Yeah. Good. Well, I'm glad, Alex. Well, thank you. Wow. I'm looking forward to the next one whether it's on yours or mine. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Really good to talk to you and uh I love what you're doing here.

Thanks. Me, too. Talk to you.