A smart panel adds a few thousand dollars to an already expensive project, so Matt asks the awkward question straight out. Reynolds Holmes, VP of Product at SPAN, answers with a test: will you add an EV, a battery, a heat pump, or a new AC in the next ten years? If yes, he argues the future proofing pays for itself, and he explains why judging the decision on twelve months of old utility bills is backwards math. Matt also pushes on privacy, local API access, and what happens to your hardware if SPAN ever disappears.
Chapters
- 00:00: Intro
- 02:49: Reynold’s Holmes Interview
- 47:13: Feedback
Transcript
Intro
Sean Ferrell: Today on Still To Be Determined. We're talking about mawwiage. Hi everybody, I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi, I write some horror. In fact, I have a book coming out next year, April 2027 In the Fields We Thirst. Hope you'll be interested in checking that out. More on that as we move closer to that date. But for right now, who am I? Well, I'm the co host of Still To Be Determined, which is the follow up podcast to Undecided with Matt Ferrell which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. And today I was a surprising intro for Matt because he did not expect me to use that voice. He did not expect me to say the word marriage. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about the marriage between new tech and old tech. We're talking about smart home technology that allows you to do a better job of monitoring and controlling how your home is using its electricity, but still relying on the older tech of 20th century circuitry and breaker panels and all that stuff that you don't want to rip out and replace with newer tech. That's right. We're talking about something that was revealed to Matt years ago. How long have you been using the tech that we're going to, that you're going to talk to Mr. Holmes about in this conversation?
Matt Ferrell: Probably about five years, I think it's about five years, yeah.
Sean Ferrell: And how did you first find out about Span?
Matt Ferrell: When they first came on the scene, they reached out to me because I had put out a video about my Tesla powerwall installation was a complete disaster. The company that put it in it was not Tesla. The third party that put it in screwed it up. They reached out to me saying we can fix that. And I was like, yes, please. So they came out, they fixed it, they upgraded my panel to the SPAN panel and I got to experience it and was blown away by what it did. So it's like I'm gonna a fan of the product ever since.
Sean Ferrell: Matt recently had an opportunity to sit down and talk with Reynolds Holmes. He's the VP of Product development at Span, which is of course the home of the Span panel. As I mentioned, the Span panel is a smart panel that is effectively the brain of your electric home and it allows smart usage and monitoring even with older infrastructure from older homes. Matt and Reynolds talked about where residential electrical infrastructure is heading, including talking about AI and data center grid strain, what those mean for you at the level of the single home panel. Reynolds also shared the one smart home move he tells friends and family to make. And he also talked about the one thing everybody overspends on. If he says books, I'm in trouble. On now to Matt's conversation with Reynolds Holmes.
Reynold’s Holmes Interview
Matt Ferrell: Reynolds, I'm so excited to have you join me today. We were talking before I hit record. I'm a SPAN customer. I had a SPAN panel on my previous house. I have two SPAN panels on my current house. But before we jump into talking about SPAN and what smart home energy management means for anybody that's listening or watching this, I wanted to kind of talk about you just a little bit because your career, when I was reading about where you forked, you have one of the clearest storylines I've ever seen in anybody's career in the industry before. It's, it's fantastic. It's almost like a three act structure to your career. I mean, you had Tesla Energy and then you went to Gaf and now you're at span. I was hoping we could kind of go through those kind of three chapters one by one. Like what, at that stage in your career, what was the thing that you were trying to crack?
Reynolds Holmes: It's funny that you mentioned the three acts. That's how I've been talking about it recently. So I'll start a little bit earlier because I think it's, it's funny how I ended up there. I'm an EE by trade. Like, I studied solar cell fabrication. Right. I know all about band gaps and, you know, different junctions and all of the science behind it. And the first job out of school, as any typical engineer would do, was sell in solar door to door. And that'll make sense a little bit with the next phase around that. But first phase of the career again was Tesla, but before that it was SolarCity. And I think I've always been passionate about kind of renewables. I'm a geek when it comes to energy generation. And solar is just so unique. It's not heat spin up a turbine, it's hey, light hits something and some magic effect, photoelectric effect, makes electrons flow. And so it was clear I landed at Solar City. And, you know, whether it's happenstance, luck, it was all about construction and deployment. And I think that resonates a lot with maybe what I've heard about your experience on the installation side of. It's different to make a product than it is to think about how it actually gets installed on a home and some of the challenges involved, not only with the construction side and it fitting and sizing and all of those elements, but also on the, the permitting side, how you fit around some of the limitations on code and standards through that. And I think that dovetailed into Tesla Energy. That's actually where I met Tesla first. Some of the folks who eventually originated span, but the mission has always been how can I get more renewable energy deployed? And so first it was finance and construction at Solar City. And you know, we had a meteoric rise. We deployed more renewable energy on the residential side than any company had ever done before.
And kind of the evolution into Tesla was how do we take more control of the products that are used to generate that energy. So solar roof, powerwall, wall connectors and the charging products, those are white labeled PV panels, is how do you sell that ecosystem to give customers the maximum benefit and really pioneer some of the energy storage solutions around that, again in the vein of battery became an enabler for solar deployment and renewable energy did that. And I think, you know, I'm a solar guy, I'm passionate about that. And I think, you know, Tesla at the time was very focused on Model 3, as they rightly should have been. And I took a chance to join GF Energy and there was really taking the learnings around solar roof. One of the challenges there was how do we make it more ubiquitous, how do we make it more integrated? And Gaf gave the opportunity to tie it with North America's number one roofing type asphalt shingles. And so we designed and developed a product, Timberline Solar, which we launched in 2022. And really the aim was don't solve the product side necessarily from a visual aesthetic aspect. Saw the integration side and the big labor challenge that was out there. And so being able to take what is a dominant labor force and roofing and leverage that to figure out whether or not innovation could happen, not on the pure hardware product side, but also on the evolution of the way that stuff gets deployed in the channel that deploys it. And so targeting roofers, roofers do, you know, millions of roofs a year. There's also 80 million single family homes in North America. And so being able to tackle a product that had a fit on 60 million of those single family homes and design and develop that. It was all about how do we crack the code on the installation labor and get something that you know, is a no brainer.
If you need a new roof, what better time to install solar than when you need a new roof? And how do we give an elegant product that installs seamlessly with that roof that gives the peace of mind of being covered by the number one Roofing company in. In North America. And then lastly, I think, you know, I say this and it's. It's said lovingly, but I think, you know, you'd know best is, I think then the challenge became, when I was seeing is what the bottleneck was, it was no longer about products. We have a bunch of solar roofs. We have a bunch of different solar panel products. We have more batteries than I've ever seen. We have EV chargers out the wazoo. The real bottleneck was how do we deploy that on the grid in a seamless way and enable customers to get more electrification, get more DERs on their homes without some of the challenges that happen when you're trying to jigsaw a new electrification product into an old infrastructure that wasn't built for that. And Span already had a great product and a great solution in mind. And now this next phase of Span is how do we kind of pour, you know, rocket fuel or rocket energy on that and be able to tackle what is an even more challenging problem, which is not helping the homeowner side, but being that handshake between the consumer and the benefits they get, and also the electrical grid.
And how do we improve that infrastructure and give utilities avenues to be able to help homeowners deploy without some of the typical challenges that they're running to and running into with their infrastructure?
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because it's like, it sounds like your thinking has shifted a little bit each stage. Tesla was very focused on how do we get the solar out there. And then with Gaf, you had, how do we make this work as well for installers and get it installed as quickly as possible. And now you're stepping into the home and that bridge to the utility of trying to do the energy management side of things, of, okay, you got the electrons flowing in from your roof, they're getting stored into a battery, and then the grid needs what it needs. How do you orchestrate all these things together in a more seamless way? I just, I just love that through line of tackling the different problems as the industry has been evolving over the past decade or so.
Reynolds Holmes: And it's been amazing to see it, like, live it firsthand of, like, that quick evolution of that. Not a lot of industries move as quick as, you know, the. The electrification, we're going to broaden it out now. And so being able to tackle those different pieces and seeing the variety of solutions that are out there, I'm stoked about what I'm doing now, and I'm also stoked about the future.
Matt Ferrell: I mean, it's one of those things that like on my videos, like I talk about the solar panels in my house and somebody might go, Wish I had $30,000 to install solar panels on my roof. And I'm like, yes, I hear you. And it's like, but there are things around these technologies, especially when it comes to energy management, that are a lot more affordable and still can have kind of a bang for a buck even without putting solar panels on your roof. And that's kind of, to me, where SPAN kind of steps into the picture, because this is kind of like that missing piece of the puzzle that we've been talking about. So like for someone who's got like a breaker box in their home from 1987 and like what is the. Can you kind of explain to people? I mean, I know what the answer to this is, cause I'm living with it. But can you explain to people like what is a SPAN panel? Actually get them that they can't today for somebody who's got like really old panel.
Reynolds Holmes: Yeah. And I love that you use 1987. I think I got one in a previous house that I lived in that was maybe from the 50s. Right. Expand. They expand way back in the, in the decades.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Reynolds Holmes: And so SPAN, at its core is a, is a solution for being able to digitally manage the energy that is consumed at a house to be able to tap into the unused capacity that exists in a electrical panel today. As you can imagine, the software technology when those panels were first introduced into the home to manage the inbound electricity just didn't exist. There was no digital way to manage that. And so the old school methodology that's still in place today is you're dealing with theoretical loads, you're dealing with the what ifs, you're dealing with safety mechanisms that you want to use when you have the absence of real time data. And what SPAN panels are able to do is give real time information flow on the electricity that is being used inside of a home to be able to tap into that sometimes up to 80% capacity that exists inside of that electrical infrastructure and electrical panel already on a day to day basis and be able to do that in a very, very safe way through a controlled system included in the SPAN hardware.
Matt Ferrell: An example would be my previous house when I moved in. It was a 1950s home, ancient panel in there, and it had 100amp service. And one of the first things we had to do was hire an electrician to come in and upgrade our service to 200amps. It was expensive. It was very expensive to go through that process. And something like this, in theory, you could keep that hundred amp service. You upgrade the panel with the smarts and the intelligence because you're basically only. The 200amps is basically just throwing more capacity at the problem. And so with a hundred amps you might be just fine if you can intelligently manage what's using what when and trying to control that flow.
Reynolds Holmes: Yeah, exactly. And I get you hit it maybe one, one layer deeper on that is I think about it as if I don't know how much water I need to carry. I need the biggest bucket possible. Right. So I can accommodate all situations. And, and that's often what happens with, you know, the load calculations that are used to size that that load. Right. And so you're going to do a variety of calculations. They're all built on these disaster scenarios. And so yes, span gives you actual data that you can look at and actively manage those bits and pieces. If you're adding additional electrification loads into your home, to be able to again manage that intelligently so that you never hit that full top line capacity and gives you much more freedom to add things like solar, like batteries, like induction cooktops, like electrical water heating without some of the consequences that, you know, I'm glad that you experienced that. I wish you didn't have to. Right. I would get ahead of that.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Reynolds Holmes: And you don't always have to upgrade your service and the cost of that service upgrade. It's not about the homeowner cost only and the consumer cost. It's also about the tax and the burden on, you know, the utility and infrastructure around that and then the time lost around customers who either don't get to deploy that renewable energy quickly and get the benefits of it, or even customers lost just because the burden of that cost makes them, you know, abandon their electrification journey, which is the real travesty I think in this.
Matt Ferrell: That's an interesting point. It's not just the homeowner trying to save them. Not a $15,000 upgrade where they could spend a couple thousand or a few thousand with something like a span panel. It's also the utility side because they have to support that tunerdamp upgrade or whatever it is, which costs money to the utility. And on that side of things, it complicates the whole picture. That's interesting. So it makes the electrification of the grid easier across the board.
Reynolds Holmes: The thing that I'm most stroked about again is that, and try not to lead too far forward into this, but I Think, you know, in previous phase of my career and in solar guys, the OG solar guys, I think it was always like an us versus them. Like we're against the utility, right? We're trying to like disrupt the monopoly, et cetera. When I think as we get to this now next phase of electrification, they, they gotta play in harmony, right? If it doesn't work for the grid, there's just natural incentives that are gonna be pushed against, right? The ability to add more electrified loads to push customers along that journey and really get the benefits of re what renewable energy can do on the grid out there. We gotta make this a harmonious system where it works for the grid operators, it works for the utility and it also enables homeowners to get more of the benefits of renewable energy. So it's playing both sides. It's no longer an us and them, right? Consumers versus utility. It's hey, how do we manage that handshake and make it very easy for both parties to safely, securely be able to kind of help more customers get EVs, help our customers get solar, help customers deploy bigger batteries. That ultimately is a pathway for relieving the strain that is currently on the grid. Not because they can't handle the electricity flow overall, it's because it needs to be actively managed. Because there's time bounds, there's time domains, there's active controls that are needed so that the utility can do what they need to do to keep everybody energy on while still enabling again, customers who want to go electric to be able to, to go electric.
Matt Ferrell: I don't know if you're familiar with Karl Rubago. Yes, a few months, a few months ago I interviewed him, I did a video on the kind of internetification of the grid. And what you are describing right now is what I talked with Karl about. It sounds like what you're talking about is the Internet ification of the grid, where the panel, it's a two way communication device. It's not just for the homeowner, it's also for the utility. And the two can create a wonderful harmony of how energy is flowing in and out of the house and gives levels of control to the homeowner and the utility. So it acts as a node, kind of like an Internet node.
Reynolds Holmes: Exactly.
Matt Ferrell: Kind of what you're getting at.
Reynolds Holmes: Yeah, exactly. And I think it's that interoperability, it's that, you know, two, two way communication, the pivot maybe that happens at that meter which is really this awesome transition point between kind of the utility and the delivery and then the consumption and has become a two way pivot point for also pushing energy back to the grid. And so I think about it exactly as you know that the internetification of electricity and having something like, I think on the podcast you mentioned like an energy router. Right. I think that's the terminology that he was using there that can efficiently control traffic across both and either hold traffic and flow traffic in a different direction so that everything can be managed in harmony. And that's why like the mission of getting a SPAN panel on every single home, it's not just homes that are trying to electrify, they can get the benefit. It's homes that maybe are not yet on the electrification journey. It's that network effect of being able to help grid operators and help the utilities manage everything as a whole and enable and future proof homeowners that might not go electric today, but definitely want to in the future. And now we have a more intelligent grid that's managed at that grid edge that enables that for everyone. Right. Not just the person who maybe is midstream on a project and is avoiding a service upgrade.
Matt Ferrell: Well, that actually jumps into one of the new products that exist now that didn't when I got my panels, the span edge. Could you kind of explain like how that fits into the puzzle? Because that's something very different from the span panel.
Reynolds Holmes: Yeah. And so I think it hits on. So my time at Gaf was figuring out a way where the problem isn't the hardware solution. The problem is how you are able to deploy it and how do you simplify some of the installation methodology to make that more universally deployable. And so SpanEdge is a new product in the Span portfolio which is, you know, a panel specifically, a smart panel specifically designed for deployment by utilities. It connects to every home through the meter itself, through a collar that we designed, developed and provides a input panel for any future electrification loads that a homeowner might need in the future while still giving those same benefits of being able to control the max amount that that service draws, helping that utility. But we simplified a ton of things around the installation methodology to focus on deployment not through a certified electrician, but the ability to deploy it through a utility technician. We've simplified things like pre wiring. It's hung on a French cleat, which is an awesome, very easy way to mount that panel without all the tools associated with typical electrical or electrician crew. And it connects seamlessly through the existing meter infrastructure that utility tech works with every day. And that's really again truly marrying this. We want to exist on both sides to help utilities be able to enable homeowners to electrify and then also enable homeowners who are maybe in a crunch, right. To be able to have a solution that lowers the cost of that electrification. It's like we're just adding more kind of pieces of the puzzle to solve that on both sides of that meter. Right. And truly be that bridge or that electricity router at the home.
No matter whether it's coming from a utility being able to to save cost on their side and give the benefits to all rate payers or an individual homeowner who's trying to electrify and save on a ton of cost and future proof their electrification journey. And so EDGE fits in the portfolio in a seamless way and again solves this expanded opportunity for where we are seeing utilities need smarter digital solutions to manage energy at the grid edge that can benefit the grid as a whole.
Matt Ferrell: So my understanding is that the Edge product is more provided by the utilities to the home, is that correct?
Reynolds Holmes: Exactly. And so, you know, we're leveraging and we've announced several partnerships with long standing incumbents in these various spaces, both on the electrode distribution side and then electro metering side. And, and so you know, Landis and Gear is a partner, is a great partner for SPAN to expand kind of our, our opportunity to address some of these very challenging grid challenges that utilities are facing. And Edge is that utility deployable solution for them.
Matt Ferrell: To step back in the home a little bit from a homeowner's perspective. Because I know a lot of people that are going to be listening to this, they have solar on their home. They may be interested in a SPAN panel, but they see a little bit of sticker shock, how much it might cost for a certain panel to get it installed. Now you spent years at Gaf and then moved to the panel inside the home. Did it shift your view on where the leverage is in the home to change like this? Did it change your thinking for a homeowner?
Reynolds Holmes: I think it changes my thinking because one of the things I was conscious of is the bundles and the ecosystems. And I think you were a prime example of you were thinking about more than just solar when you were thinking about doing these upgrades to your home. You were thinking about batteries, you were thinking about multiple things that you wanted to do to electrify your home. And so I, I think it changed my thinking a little bit from solving for just the distributed energy resources that are being deployed by a homeowner. So the solar and storage but also thinking about the benefits that we can provide just in general for the load and the usage. You know, one of the things I'm really excited about is the opportunity that we have to change the way that people use electricity and with new time of use rates. And some of the insights, and I think you are a customer, some of the insights that we can provide as we add more sophistication to the home app and what you can get from a utility rate standpoint, from a data standpoint to help you save money, I think it changes the way that I think about the effective cost for a customer who is getting a SPAN panel. And I also think it changed the way I think about future proofing a home too. When you spend the 20, 30 thousand dollars and we got to work on that, that's a different problem. Maybe that would be phase four of this too is when I think about that, I think about the future proofing, right? The thing that pains me the most, and I'll get into it, and I think all solutions are great solutions if they're trying to solve the electrification problem. But one of the things that I think span addresses very nicely, even though the price point is a little bit of a premium, is it's a solution that allows you to add more later.
Because oftentimes most homeowners electrification journey starts at one place but is a continual add over time. You started with solar and storage, but somebody might start with EV charging and then EV charging leads to solar, and then solar leads to batteries and battery leads to an induction cooktop and that electric water heating. And so all along that journey, the thing that I think I'm conscious of, and I've seen it in the past, where you know, that customer is sold the most cost effective thing that solves that one problem that they have today. I think we're trying to solve the future problems to again enable that next phase of the electrification journey to be just as easy right as the third phase and the fourth phase and the fifth phase of that. And I think that's where the benefits of, you know, the span panel, the energy management system that we have in there, the PCs load control that we're, we're able to, to provide for homeowners really gives that future proofing solution that might be a premium at the first install, but you know, eliminates that additional cost for the next item to be upgraded and the next item to be upgraded, the next item to be upgraded. And so I think it's a very just maybe different approach mentally for me to think about the lifetime value of that. Especially now that we're seeing, you know, the resurgence and all these awesome products on heat pumps which I think you did an episode on recently and induction cooktops which I'm super stoked about. Some of the cool solutions that are that are out there today. Even the, you know, the SPAN alum that has that plug in solution on the energy storage side, I think those are the kind of things that the inevitable fact is that every homeowner is, is going to have multiple things that they deploy in their home.
How do we make sure that we're giving that SPAN homeowner and that future customer the easiest time to be able to get that next phase done right and not have the continual 30,000 spend here, another 10,000, another 20,000 where you're redoing things that could have been handled right the first time.
Matt Ferrell: I know how that goes.
Reynolds Holmes: Exactly.
Matt Ferrell: Do you have any advice to like a homeowner that's trying to figure this out? Because I know, I hear from homeowners that have looked into span, because I had a span, talked about it and they were interested but then they had kind of that sticker shock. It is a premium. Don't know if it's right for me right now. Like what's your advice for people to figure out for themselves whether it's worth it or not worth it at the moment given their situation?
Reynolds Holmes: Yeah, I think, I think the way to think about how SPAN can benefit them and maybe not the most intuitive way. And some of my solar buddies who are trying to close deals on this moment might not like me after this. But that's part of the deal is I think about, you know, most often it's can I get, you know, six months or 12 months of utility bills? It looks in reverse. It looks at what you have done, not what you're going to do in the future. And so I think about it as a. Do you think that you're going to get an electric vehicle in the next 10 years? Right. Use a times a span that is is further out. Do you think that you're going to add batteries to the solar system, you know, in the next 10 years? Do you think you're going to need to upgrade your AC unit? Think about all the things that could happen in the future and think about whether or not the investment in making that a much, much easier decision for you at that future time is the right call. Because if the answer is yes to any of those questions, I guarantee you, and I've seen it with some customers where they do the, you know, the like for like upgrade sometimes it's not necessarily increasing the service size, it's, it's changing something so you can get the right kind of layout of that electrical infrastructure to be able to deploy, you know, an energy, a battery system and then have to redo it later when they're adding that next one. And so I think about the math being less about what my problem is today, but think about in the very near future, five, ten years from now. Do I think that I'm going to electrify? Do I think that something is due up for an upgrade? Because that's going to be the, the, the thing that pays dividends in the future is making that investment now in a span panel as a part of an existing install.
And I'll say that of, you know, from a $30,000 kind of full system upgrade for solar and storage, you know, adding another, you know, two or three thousand dollars to future proof yourself in the grand scheme of things, I think is the right move. You know, I'm biased for sure, but I even think that if I wasn't biased, I'd be educating a customer on thinking about their future needs so they make the right decision today. Because the worst thing in the world again is the customer who kicks themselves for not getting that extra peace and making their lives easier. And I've seen it all too many times, right? It's the classic, once you, once you have solar, sometimes your energy consumption maybe boosts a little bit, right? It's like, because you have those, you know, renewable energy, electrons that are flowing, you know, you, you use energy in a very different way. And so I think spending a ton of time, if you're a customer and asking your, your rep, your contractor who's helping you make these decisions around what the future looks like versus thinking about just the past.
Matt Ferrell: It's, you may be biased, but that's the same advice I would give of you set your ultimate goal of where you want to be in 10 years and, and then you can step back of like what's going to happen? What do I need two years from now, five years from now, seven years from now to get to that goal and it'll answer the question for you. Once you do that, it's like that makes it very clear. And Speaking of that 10 year horizon, I do have more of a little bit. It's not a pointed question, but I hear lots of concerns about this around any kind of technology that is Internet connected, it's got proprietary technologies and communicates with servers what happens in 10 years if span fails? Like what happens to all of our SPAN panels? What happens to all of this infrastructure that we've spent money on in our homes? Like, what would happen?
Reynolds Holmes: Well, first, you know, it's my part of my job to make sure that the day never comes. But I think ultimately the investments that we've made and I think one of the things that's been, you know, this next phase of growth and also scaling up is when we are working with our utility partners, when we are working with, you know, these larger initiatives, we have to ask ourselves that same question. And so we've taken a lot of steps to make sure that, you know, in the event that SPAN doesn't exist anymore, that all of the, the right information is held in a vault, digital vault somewhere that that can be recreated so that our customers aren't out of support. We also have spent a ton of time and investment in our architecture to make sure things like the onboard controls and some of the, you know, the base intelligence software that exists on that extends beyond needing 100% connectivity to still provide the value that homeowners get and experience today, regardless of whether or not, you know, SPAN exists in the future. And so I hope that day won't come. Right? But I think we're making, we have made the right investments in both longevity and a protection of our future customers, whether or not we are around or not, to make sure that the continuity of those benefits that homeowner gets are still there. Right? They may not get another, you know, upgrade from that, but the benefits that existed when they bought the panel still exist in the future. And then we've made sure that we've built the architecture so that, you know, we, we, we built those products to be replacements for the existing, you know, 20, 30 year old panel that exists there today.
So from a base functionality and features, it will always be, the safety mechanisms will always be there, right? There will not be a, you know, a need to replace all those elements to make sure that you still have safe electrical flow from the grid to your, to your home. And my hope is that, you know, over time we talk 10 years from now, Matt, and we do, you know, the, the alumni, the alumni episode. And you know, we've enhanced those features and benefits. And I'm actually excited because I think some of the things you talked about in that original video four years ago when you got that, you know, first SPAN panel, I think the improvements made along the way, the integrations that we're investing in to give more control for our homeowners. Some of the API work that we have done to make that local control possible for homeowners who are maybe more on the tinker side and want to connect it to various systems, I think that work and those features will evolve over time. Right. We expect it to be much more of a active, you bought it day one. But it gets better over time than not. And so I'm excited about the things that we already have cooking that we will release. I'm excited about the, the, the things that have been released since the original inception and I think customers are getting more value out of those span panels. And my hope is if we do this thing right that, you know, the bridge that we build between the consumers and utilities to solve some of these problems means that we maximize that value both for new customers and existing customers. So that that next piece, I don't know what you're looking at now, like I don't know how much you've outfitted or you got the perfect setup and you've already thought seven years from now.
But as you get that next, you know, electrified load, hopefully it's, it's just as seamless as, you know, the one that you got right after you installed that spam panel.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, that's one of those things I always ask companies now when they have like talked to a company that made a smart water heaters Cala systems here and one of the first questions I asked them was is there local control? Is there a way to see this in my home assistant and not talk over the Internet like oh yeah, we're home assistant fans, we're going to have home assistant integration. I have my span panels locally accessed into my home assistant and I've got energy dashboards that show me per circuit directly in home assistant. Like I love the fact that I can pull out the span panel app, get some nice graphs, some snapshots of what's going on. But then I've also got stuff logging into home assistant where I can trigger automations based on like a dehumidifier has been running too long and I can send a notification to myself of like, hey, what's going on with this dehumidifier? Check it out. So I just love that it's baked into there, which is one of the reasons I love the span. It's like it makes me feel very secure that if in 10 years it's not going to happen, let's hope it doesn't happen. But in 10 years, knock on all
Reynolds Holmes: the woods you got.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, yeah, I still would have local access to my Span panel. So it's like it's baked into the product, which is fantastic.
Reynolds Holmes: And that's where we're all tinkerers too. I think that's the thing that I love is that the team at SPAN is just as excited about the things. There's more people with panels, and I think that's one of the things that I think is awesome too. Our engineers that are working on these products are also customers themselves. So they live and breathe the experience and what are the things that they would like? I think, you know, it's not always as a product person, it's not always best to develop features based on what you believe. Right. You want to validate that. But sometimes the validation that happens through the experience or the lived experience from our employees is. Is awesome. It helps us understand where the pain points are and what people really want. And it helps us understand some of the things that maybe an engineer wants and needs. That lines up really well with some of our best, you know, and early adopters and users that are out there in, in the market.
Matt Ferrell: And you touched on it just a little bit, but can you touch on it again? Like, and then there's also a concern when people have products that are Internet connected around privacy and security around their information that's being sent out there. Like, like how has SPAN handle that aspect of things?
Reynolds Holmes: We follow kind of the, the, the industry standards around information security, SOC compliance. And I think a big part of that is there is a heightened need. The consumer protection is very, very important and we take that seriously. And you know, we're in compliance with both state and federal laws and stipulations and standards around that. But there's also, when we think about deploying from a utility infrastructure standpoint, you know, we take that security very seriously. And I think one of the benefits of our engagement with the utilities is, you know, customers get the benefit of that. We are taking those precautions to make sure that, you know, our security features, both from a control and outside use, but also interior to our panel and product security, but also from like a digital and cloud security that we're taking all the right precautions and baking that into our process and understanding and the things that we develop not as an afterthought. And so, you know, electrical consumption data is for some people, innocuous. But I think we take it very seriously around making sure that our consumers and the, and the customers that buy a Span panel feel like their information is secure. Right. So we took a lot of thought around, you know how we release that API and as we make improvements and bring that to more panels, you know, it's a big consideration in our roadmap around the aspects of security and have dedicated kind of teams within the organization that are fully focused on.
Matt Ferrell: So I want to circle back again to like how your, your mind has shifted over the years based on what you've been doing. I've had experience with local permitting issues that have constrained what I wanted to do on my home. Things like that. I'm curious what your personal take is. If somebody gave you a monkey's paw or a magic wand or a wish, like what's the dumbest thing about residential electrical infrastructure that you would fix tomorrow with a snap of a fingers if you could.
Reynolds Holmes: Aside from the entire permitting process or the differences in permanent process. Right. I think you know, one of the biggest misconceptions and you know, experiencing it for the past 16 years. And again I was a site designer, I was calling local hjs. I spent way too much time at the City of LA's building department. Right. Love those guys. Right. But same time, spend more time than I'd like around that is I think, you know, I think there's a place for permit reviews. I think there's a need for checking compliance. I think it's just natural is like you want things to be deployed in a safe way, you want things installed by the right people. But I think if I wave my wand, I think standardization of that across the board is what's needed. Right. This is outside of just SPAN in general. It's just every local jurisdiction is different. Right. I worked with thousands of HJs, we call them HJ and whether that's a utility and the rules around, you know, mins and maxes. Right. I think you were talking about that too around some utilities are 110% of your past 12 months. Some have no cap, some have a system size cap which kind of doesn't make sense because you know, 5 kilowatts facing different directions produces a very different amount. The variety that a contractor needs to account for just to get a customer system installed is vast. And I think that's one of those areas that it's been a back of mind focus. I have a couple buddies who are, who are in businesses today that are really focused on how do we streamline that process. Both from an information hunting to know what the rules are. But I think even more things like SolarApp, things like the standardization around a permit process. Right. I was early on with the city of LA developing kind of the express plan set and what things could be kind of over the counter permanent without a whole bunch of plan review.
But I think if I, if I could wave my magic wand, it would be consistency around jurisdictions and utilities, around what isn't, is and isn't allowed, and specific sets of rules that can be very easy to automate and, and drive compliance to because at least in the United States, the cost of equipment, sans tariffs and the recent thing has been coming down, but the cost of installation maybe is not. And it's because of all these soft costs that, you know, increase the effective cost for that customer. I'll tell you what, if that cost of that same system that you got for 20, 30 grand start to turn into five or 10, I'm going to be able to accomplish my mission, which is to get a lot more customers and a lot more homes with batteries and solar systems on them. And so that's my wave the magic wand. I think that applies across the board. I'd love that for, you know, the EMS and PCs capabilities for, you know, smart or intelligent grid edge infrastructure too, but just streamlining people's understanding and education and the rules and requirements around permitting that I think, you know, are a big inhibitor today. And yeah, I mean, that's my answer. That probably was the answer for the past 15 years. I truly sat and thought about it.
It's been a pain point for a very, very long time.
Matt Ferrell: Well, it's funny is that you've got it from the industry side and from the homeowner side. I'm waving that monkey paw around saying the same thing. It's the permitting process is ridiculous and it's part of the reason why things are so expensive. And you look at countries like Australia which have streamlined the permitting process and their solar is a fraction of the cost of what it is here.
Reynolds Holmes: Yes.
Matt Ferrell: Why can we not do the same thing? We should be able to do the same thing. They already have the blueprint. We just have to copy the blueprint.
Reynolds Holmes: Exactly. And I spent a good amount of time and it was actually a slight aside is in my time at Tesla, we, we actually, after the acquisition of SolarCity, you know, there was a, a ton of effort spent on like, why is this so expensive? Right. It's a typical first principles thing of like, this makes no sense on why this expensive. We know the product, we know the install, like, why can't we do this at a cheaper cost? And we brought the team from Australia, the Tesla Energy Australia team out to Palo Alto and I think it came down to that it came down to. We showed them the permitting work that was required and I think they were like, oh my God, we get it now. Like it's not. We have to solve it from a macro sense. If that exists. Like we understand why it's really challenging. I think that, that, that is the point and they have the model. How do we replicate that? I think there's things that need to be changed around the American mindset potentially. But I think we, there's a pathway and we just, we're getting closer every day to, to solving that, but it can't happen soon enough.
Matt Ferrell: Well, my last question for you is that after doing like this for a decade, what the one move that you tell friends and family to do first around electrification and the one thing that everybody tends to overspend on that they don't need to.
Reynolds Holmes: Yeah, you know, I borrowed this because I think the time and this is where the span panel helps a bunch in this. And I think I wouldn't be doing the role justice if I didn't say, hey, the first step is getting a really good understanding of your electrical usage. And so when you think about the dollar spend, it's like again, if you're going to do a full construction project and spend 20, 30, if you're already committed to that, if you know that you're going to do that, I think doing an upgrade like something to a span panel to give you an enormous amount of insight in terms of how you're using energy. A roofing contractor that we used to work with, our solar roofing contractor we used to work with at Gaf used to say, like his motto is reduced before produced. I think oftentimes there are things that we can do within the home. Right. We think about solar and storage as a way to save money. It's like, oh, you produce your own energy and you're going to save this much for paying the utility. But sometimes, especially with the amount of technology that's coming out, being able to upgrade your HVAC, which might be a slightly lower cost, but gives you the best bang for your buck, or replace out those lights that maybe you could still use an incandescent light bulbs and you really got to switch to LEDs. And I think something like the span panel and that technology gives you an incredible amount of granular data and insights to understand how you use energy. And you might actually recoup the effective costs of that span panel upgrade just by taking the information that you're getting from that and making those infrastructure changes to the loads that you have in your home before you go and deploy solar and storage systems. I think you should do both. Right.
But when I think about the first thing, it's really that insight and information that allows you to make much, much more calculated and informed decisions on how you want to approach your kind of renewable energy and maybe energy generation and storage decisions later. I'll say this. Everything revolves. And I that's why my point earlier to revolve around it is every home is a good home for a SPAN panel for that exact reason. Because it's not necessarily about enabling a solar and storage install. It's about giving homeowners the insights around how they use energy and a very, very smart system to be able to manage that energy more actively, to be able to reap some of those benefits without maybe having to deploy something like solar and storage yet. And then once you're there now, you have a really good baseline understanding of what the benefits you can get from a 20 or $30,000 upgrade to your, you know, solar and storage or renewable energy generation system for your home.
Matt Ferrell: It sounds like a I'm making a bad dad joke, which I kind of am when I say this, but when people ask me this stuff, my answer is usually like, when it comes to energy, Knowledge is power.
Reynolds Holmes: Yes.
Matt Ferrell: It's like you, you, once you understand how your house and your life is using energy, you start to see all the places where it's like, why am I doing it that way? I could cut 50% of the energy over here by doing something different. But you don't know that because we're living in a house that doesn't have any of that information. So with Knowledge Is Power, is there anything we haven't touched on that you'd want to touch on?
Reynolds Holmes: The landscape around some of the things that we're doing in relation to helping maybe the much more tangible right now problem around load growth related to AI. I think some of the solutions that Naspan is bringing to the table are meant to assist again, all parties in that. And I really wanted to, to maybe stress that that point is, you know, span is, is we're a hardware product company. That's where our origins came from. The Smart panel is our, you know, we, we upgraded and brought, you know, digital solutions and innovation to, you know, a, a product that's been out for 100 plus years and hasn't had any reinvention in, you know, generations. But I think as we think about some of the benefits of how that technology can be used to alleviate some of the pain points around AI. I'd be remiss to say again, SPAN is evolving into a solutions company around electrification and we're expanding that to cover the different domains of how we can help the grid and help consumers on both sides. Right? Both from staving off increasing rates, giving more control over their energy usage, enabling electrification and also taking a very, very different approach to how we guide maybe the, the data center world around maybe a different product and a different way of, of accomplishing meeting the needs that everybody UI are using around the various kind of uses around AI, but doing in a way that really protects the overall infrastructure and gives that benefit to, to everybody without that really, really big burden on the utility and ultimately, you know, consumers.
Matt Ferrell: Ties right back to what you said in the beginning about it's not just the homeowner, it's the utility. It's that whole kind of relationship of how the energy's flowing and managing that through smart solutions. Love it.
Reynolds Holmes: Absolutely.
Matt Ferrell: Absolutely love it. Well, thanks for joining me today. It's been fantastic chatting with you about this. As you know, I am a little bit biased. I like my span. I've had it on two different houses. It's a great product. I love it. Thanks so much for joining me. It's been great talking to you.
Reynolds Holmes: I really appreciate it, Matt, and super excited again, I said it before we started jumping on. I'm a huge fan watching a lot of your content and looking forward to the alumni episode at some point in time in the future too.
Feedback
Sean Ferrell: Our thanks to Reynolds for sitting down to talk to Matt and I hope everybody enjoyed that conversation. Do you have any questions or follow up to that conversation? Jump into the comments right now. Put them there. We always go into the comments and we love to hear what you have to say. In fact, to prove that now before we end this episode. That's right, we're going to dive into the comments on Matt's most recent. This is his episode which took a look at some surprising eco friendly projects that go on at Disney. That's right, that Disney, they're not just making movies, they're not just running amusement parks, they're also doing sustainability research and implementing them at their theme parks. And Matt basically broke in, snuck around until security grabbed him and threw him back over the fence. No, that's not what happened. They invited him down, they showed him around and Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, although I know I'm not. That's why I'm saying this, they told you you can talk about anything and ask any questions that you want. And they were very, very open in their responses. I remember you saying when you got incredible experience because of how open they
Matt Ferrell: were, even before I got down there, when they reached out to me asking me if I was interested, I was like, well, what can I see? And they were like, what do you want to see? So it was just one of those of I'd love to see what you do about X, Y and Z. And so they lined people up for me to talk to and I was able to ask any questions and they were super candid. I wasn't expecting that from such a massive corporation that tends to be very controlled in their messaging. They're very controlled in their messaging and I wasn't expecting them to be so just open. Do what you want to do, who you want to talk to, what do you want to find out? Even after the visit, I kept hitting them up of like, do you have stats on this? Do you have information on this that you could share? And they got me more and more information as I was putting the video together. So I was pretty impressed.
Sean Ferrell: That's really wonderful. And we'll talk about. I think our conversation now, based on the comments that I've pulled from this episode, will revolve largely around that interaction with a corporate entity. We live in a world where corporate entities are by their nature secretive and our interactions with them are by and large, especially in this moment, not pleasant. We view them with suspicion and we don't believe that there is motivation to do anything for the public good at their center. So we'll be talking a little bit about that as we get into some of these comments. The first one I wanted to share was just a kind of almost a message you could put in skywriting over the beaches of Florida. From Nathan Longhair. The one lesson all companies should take here is stop chasing next quarter, chase next decade. I really, really like that. Nathan, thank you for that comment. I feel like the video and the projects that you were able to take a look at are a demonstration that in these cases, Disney is doing just that. Really trying to measure how do we make sure that the park is in and of itself sustainable and how can we share that in a larger environment so that more than just the park are sustainable, that our lifestyles might be sustainable. Chris team jumped into the comments to say it's a shame they didn't consider putting solar panel sunshades all over all of their parking around the park. Solar energy production at the point of use and guests not getting back into the mobile furnaces that would Be a win win. I absolutely sounds like a great idea to me. I just hazarding a guess here though. I gotta think solar panels above a parking lot. You gotta put em at a height that's above the cars. So you're talking about maybe 15, 20ft. All those panels sitting there in hurricane country.
Matt Ferrell: That's a solvable problem.
Sean Ferrell: I'm fascinated that you say that. That's. Educate me.
Matt Ferrell: I have spoken to companies that make these racking systems that go over parking lots of parking lots. And they're designed in ways that have different ratings and different capabilities. And some of them are 100% capable of handling like hurricane category, category 2 hurricanes. They can withstand incredible amounts of wind and hail and all these kind of things. So it is solvable. And I had the same exact thought as Chris team but when I talking to them it made sense why they're not because like we just talked about how corporations are for profit money. They're gonna. It comes down to money. That's why it's not over parking lots. It's most likely not over the parking lots because think about how much construction would have to happen to run all the power lines through existing parking lots. How much logistics and disruption that's gonna cause to put all these systems up. It would be awesome not to get in your car and have it feel like a 300 degree furnace that you're getting into.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: So it's a win win for a user experience. But from a cost perspective it's far easier for them to coordinate with a third party that builds the panels for them off site. And they have a power purchase agreement so it's maintained by this third party. It's not directly on the property. It's easier to maintain and there's a whole bunch of like money, money, money. That's why they're not doing it over the parking lots. It's perfect spot because they have huge, huge parking lots. They could do it in the parking lots. But I understand from a financial point of view why they shouldn't. It's one of those what we're just talking about. It's like the, they're doing good stuff. It's like they could do it better. But we have to understand, you know, what is it? Don't let perfect the perfect. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: Which is a perfect segue into the next comment from JG. JG writes this is leading by example. I'm not a fan of Disney Corporation for several reasons. But it's great to see them doing what they can and getting smarter while doing it. Most Companies only care about their bottom line, while Disney definitely does. It's good to see them wasting money in quotes to try to improve where they can environmentally. It's an incremental process, and they seem to have a good handle on it. Thanks for the video. I think that's a terrific encapsulation of what we were just talking about with any progress is progress. Any needle move is in the right direction. Is a needle move in the right direction. And it made me wonder. You. You do a lot of research, you look at a lot of different projects, you look at a lot of different technologies, and the introduction into not only our lives, but the corporate lives, the companies that say, okay, here's this thing we're going to implement. Are there any companies that you know of that are doing projects like this, like Disney, that would be surprising for our viewers and listeners to hear about those companies that are like, oh, they've got devil horns. They're. They're one of the bad ones, but they're doing something just like, oh, that's really good. Not to say, and therefore we should forgive them all their evils. But to say, yeah, it's not always black and white. There's sometimes progress being made in surprising places, and we should embrace it when we see it and we should applaud it when we see it because maybe that will provide opportunities for more of that.
Matt Ferrell: It's not going to be surprising when I say this, but there's two companies that jump to mind. It's Apple and Microsoft. Apple's one of the largest companies in the world. They're like almost a $5 trillion company. Like, they are loved by many, hated by even more. Like, they are very divisive. They are doing a lot of really interesting things around sustainability. And when I say sustainability, to be very clear, it's not just about, like, energy. It's just about taking a holistic view of everything. Like, when a product, end of life, what do you do with it? Apple will take them all back. They'll break them down. They'll take the components out that they can reuse or recycle and put it into new products. They're doing that, not using plastic, any of their packaging anymore. It's all paper products. They're one of the first companies that's done that kind of, like wholesale across their entire product line. So it's like they're doing a whole bunch of stuff that's like, you got to applaud them and say, that's fantastic, even though you hate them for reasons X Y and Z. You can still applaud them for the good things they are doing, but still hold them to account. Microsoft's the same thing. They've got some. I've, I've spoken to them a couple times. They have some really interesting around energy initiatives that they're doing that are really good, like around their data centers and around their corporate offices. Like what they're doing for trying to hit their sustainability targets in the Next by like 2030, 2035, that kind of timespan. They're doing a lot of good things too, but they're also doing a lot of stuff that makes you go, whoa, I get why the pitchforks and like bull devil horns come out when people think about Microsoft and Apple. But at the same time, we should say more of that.
Please applaud them for when they do things right, not just for when they do things wrong. So I think for me, that's kind of where all this kind of falls. Disney's in the same camp.
Sean Ferrell: Finally. I wanted to share this just to applaud your audience, your viewers and your listeners. I'm always impressed when people show up like Piratekd, who says, this is amazing. I just finished up a two year thesis on exactly this. I'm currently completing an environmental studies master's degree in Tokyo and my thesis focus was decarbonizing legacy infrastructure, focusing on theme parks. After working for the Walt Disney Company for 14 years, with family working for Disney since the 1970s, I too saw the massive potential that decarbonizing theme parks can have. This is amazing to see. Also, super surprising, the transparency that Disney provided you. That's a full circle right there. We started talking about the transparency, we ended talking about the transparency. So thank you, Pirate, for that comment and best of luck on finishing up your thesis. I'm just always so impressed when people are jumping into the comments and being like, as somebody with a doctorate in this, and I'm like, oh boy. And then here comes, Here comes Sean to talk about it.
Matt Ferrell: Look at the big brains on Brad.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, look at the big brains on Brad. Indeed. So thank you everybody for those comments. We really do love seeing them. Jump into the comments here. Let us know what you're thinking about. Is there anything you'd like for Matt to follow up with in his conversation with Mr. Holmes? And we look forward to seeing what you have to say about that. As always, liking subscribing, sharing with your friends, commenting, those are all very easy ways for you to support this podcast. If you want to support us more directly, you can click the join button on YouTube. Or you can go to StillTBD.fm, click the join button there. Both those ways allow you to throw coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts. And then we get down to the heavy, heavy business of talking about the fact that it is a small world after all. Thank you, everybody. We'll talk to you next time.
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