Green Giants – Episode 102

Wes Ashworth (03:19):

Yeah, it’s exciting to see just kind of each iteration of that getting better and better, making a bigger impact, continue to expand and obviously, you you know, meet your core mission. So I love that. We’ll get into more of that detail as we go as So, hitting kind of a real capacity wall on the grid. I guess help us understand that. What are you seeing that convinces you that this isn’t just another cycle and it’s something different?

Vinne Campo (03:39):

I I think for a long period of time, the US was in this flat load growth period for electricity and anytime there was an increase in demand, it was generally offset by whether it’s a new capacity build out or more efficient appliances. But this time is definitely different. And I I think you see it every day and everywhere, that not just the grid, but like transportation is electrifying at an incredible pace. progress and improvements on AI is like at a breakneck speed. And I I think we’re still in like the very early innings there and homes are electrifying, buildings are electrifying and the grid, was designed, you know, centuries ago is not designed for the moment today. And so we’re still in the super early innings of the grid, figuring out how do they support what is this new electrification profile. I I think where we are incredibly convinced when we look out, you can see in the demand projections, How much net new electricity do we need? Then if you take a first principles approach of how you get there, it’s just not possible to build enough base load capacity to get there. And so when we talk to utilities, when we talk to hyperscalers, the question everyone’s asking is how do we get more capacity in months, not years, or months, not decades in some scenarios? So that’s always the lens we’ve looked at it through. And our solution is how do you deploy tens and hundreds of megawatts in months, not years? And I I think that’s meeting the moment that we’re seeing right now.

Wes Ashworth (05:01):

Yeah, absolutely. It does feel very different this time. as we talked through just sort of how many demand drivers are just stacking at once instead of moving in isolation. But this is kind of a whole new era. seeing that, like as you said, not only the demand, but also speed and that demand for speed as well, too. So most people point to AI and data centers as the driver of demand. That kind of gets the most headlines and attention and no doubt like that’s for sure driving demand. But in your view, maybe what are the less obvious forces that are also stressing the system?

Vinne Campo (05:27):

Yeah, I I think AI and data centers probably get the most eyes on it, but that’s, you you know, that’s maybe 20 or 30 % of the new electricity that’s coming online. I I think when you look out, you you know, we’re still super early, but like transportation is electrifying at a very rapid pace. Like particularly buildings are electrifying and switching off different types of power into electrification. so when you really look under the hood, those are two of the biggest drivers. But what’s so interesting about that is that, you you know, if you I think about it, a data center that’s a very large load of power that needs to get delivered to like a very specific point. As homes electrify and as transportation electrifies, those are all millions of nodes on the grid where the demand is increasing. And so from a grid planning perspective, it’s very different to say, hey, for a new data center, I need a gigawatt of power. How do we go build that versus each of these homes is requiring more power? How do you supply that and not overload transformers or local transmission lines. And so it’s really like the micro and the localized level where you’re seeing that real impact. I I think folks are seeing it on their electric bills today. you know, like electric rates have continued to rise in the US. And I I think that’s a trend that’s going to continue. And it’s not because the generation costs have increased. It’s actually because the transmission costs and the grid infrastructure costs have increased to support that. And so our customers and utilities, they’re looking at like, what are ways that we can drive that down? We certainly I think the best way to do that is by deploying massive amounts of distributed energy in the neighborhoods and in the communities and have those local points on the grid. And you can really start to relieve stress and grid strain at the more localized level. And that ends up having like a very large system wide benefit.

Wes Ashworth (07:09):

Yeah, no great perspective and definitely gives a kind of a whole picture, holistic view of all those constraints and some of those like, you know, ones that I guess people sort of you know, but don’t really I think about doesn’t get as much attention, but it is, it’s all contributing and all a big part of what’s happening. From what you’re seeing from you with utilities on their side, how constrained is new supply really? Are we underestimating how hard it is to just build our way out of this?

Vinne Campo (07:31):

I I think we are. I think it’s two things. One is that it just takes a long time to build net new power plants now. That’s the reality of the situation is that due to permitting and interconnection, the interconnection cues are backed up for years right now. So it does take a long time to build net new generation. But I I think the thing that utilities are seeing, and you’re actually now seeing this in their dockets and their different ways that they’re thinking about evolving it, It’s not necessarily a net new generation problem. Like the grid is designed and built to support a peak electrical load. And it’s, you you know, it has to work on like the hottest of days in the summer and the coldest of days of winter. You can’t have millions of households go without power. So the grid was really built for that. Where we see them evolving is how do you maximize the existing grid that’s been built? You you know, in most days, the grid is, you you know, at best half utilized. So you have all this excess capacity that’s

It’s not being utilized. so where we really see utilities starting to look at it, this is true of what Xcel is doing. They’ve been very forward thinking. PG&E in California is doing things around this as well too. They’re saying, hey, we have all of these assets on the grid that either we have no visibility into, no ability to control, or no way to actually use those from a planning perspective. If you were to just take those assets, make them better utilized, you probably don’t need as much net new generation. to serve the networks and local communities. So that’s where we get really excited. It’s where I I think a lot of the forward thinking happening in the utility space is how do you take this grid that’s been built, that we’ve invested hundreds of billions of dollars of building, how do you make that more efficient? It’s kind of like our first port of call.

Wes Ashworth (09:06):

Yeah, it’s a really good take. You you know, again, I I think something that maybe lesser lesser known or talked about or thought about, but I I think it’s a super important part of the equation. You you know, I often say kind of like it’s an and not an or it’s like we need to do all of these all of these things in conjunction to really help and meet to kind of where it’s headed. But it’s going to be so interesting to see sort of like that that grid of the future. you you know, what’s gonna happen and, solutions like yours and when this is fully embraced and implemented, sort of what that looks like in the future. You mentioned something else with speed, right? Utilities, not usually known for speed, but you’re seeing some behavior change there. So what’s quietly like shifting inside these organizations and I don’t you know, are they starting to move a little faster?

Vinne Campo (09:46):

I I think they are. I think some of the utilities that we work with, they are very forward thinking. They know that there’s change needed. then to your point, they know it’s not an either or, but an any and all type solution. so most do have very innovative groups within that, looking at whether it’s virtual power plants, electrification, efficiency upgrades. They are looking into that. And what we saw, call it two to three years ago, was really pilots around

VPPs and rebate programs. And from their point of view, they’re looking at how do we establish a baseline? How do we actually get more devices that we have visibility into? And then what does that actually do? You’re now starting to graduate to the point now where they’re saying, okay, we’ve run those tests, we’ve established those baselines. We see like the actual results that these solutions can deliver. How do you take that from a pilot to a more, you you know, program-wide or utility scale-wide program?

And that’s what the next two to three years will be defined by, which is all of these very successful pilots that have happened all across the country, they’re now looking at from a very economic perspective. You you know, they’ve run the analysis and it shows that these programs work. Now they’re moving it out of a program budget or a rebate budget into like a broader scale deployment budgets. And that’s where it gets incredibly exciting is this shift from a pilot to like a full scale deployment. And that shift is certainly underway.

Wes Ashworth (11:07):

Yeah, exciting to see that shift. I I think that, for me, it’s a true signal of like the industry changing and evolving and what’s happening, what’s coming. As you start to see that even with utilities sort of being quicker, kind of moving, being more innovative, kind of embracing these ideas, trying to ramp them up as well too from their side. So a super interesting change for sure. If let’s say if nothing changes, right? So we’re talking about what is happening in these positive changes, but if nothing changes at all, We stick with what we’ve got right this second. Don’t do much different. Like what does a grid look like five to 10 years from now if nothing changes?

Vinne Campo (11:39):

I I mean, it’s a good question. It’s hard to tell. I I mean, I I think like… Because all of the progress we’re making as a country is predicated on our ability to rapidly grow our electrical supply. And I I think it’s our belief that the future of America’s economic engine is predicated on how do you very quickly grow the ability to produce electricity when and where it’s needed. So all of these, I I think all the really exciting things that are coming down the pipeline right now of electrified vehicles that operate autonomously, there are so many good benefits that come from that. that’s predicated on having like the electrical demand for it. And even with, you you know, what we’re seeing with AI and what that can do for so many different industries, the rate limiter there is always around, do they have enough electricity and enough power when and where they need it? And so, you you know, I I think maybe like the simplest way to put it is like all these like very exciting things like the rate limiter is the ability to generate electricity and progress will only be slowed by that. I, you you know, I I think that is probably the downside of the bear case, which is we as a country can’t grow as quickly into these really exciting areas that the country is certainly developing around. And it’s going to come at a higher cost to a consumer. The good news is that the utilities know this, and they’re in the pole position to solve this and are certainly looking at the ways to do that.

Wes Ashworth (12:58):

Yeah, absolutely. You really paint that perfectly by kind of spelling that out and talking through it. What’s possible? You you know, again, sort of like what’s limited if we don’t. then, you you know, obviously demand continues to go up and up and up and up. Nothing changes. You you know, then we start having some issues for sure. In addition to just not being able to really achieve progress, as you said, and tons of these phenomenal technologies that are coming out that need more power. So. it’s a problem. It kind of gives me hope, though. I I mean, you see like what’s possible there and you’re like, it doesn’t really make sense to not do it, you you know, no matter what side of the equation you sit on. So that for me gives me hope and seeing what’s what’s possible, what’s available. You you know, we talked about this demand really increasing, pressure starting to kind of build on the system. We’re talking about these innovative ideas, what’s coming and it’s interesting always how that pressure is changing, not just the grid, but the business models around it.

You’re really seeing a lot of these shifts. So the biggest evolution since we last spoke, is you moving from selling batteries to owning and operating them and some of these other business model shifts that you did. And you started to touch on that, but just what did you learn that really made that unavoidable? And tell us about that journey.

Vinne Campo (14:05):

I I think for us, we serve two unique customer segments. One is utilities that want capacity, but the other is that if you look at our business, we are installing and deploying batteries to homeowners that have a very specific need for it. And the thing that we saw is that on an elasticity curve, at a certain price point, every single house would have a battery. So if you could offer batteries at no cost, every single household would have one.

And the higher up that cost curve you go, the more like demand destruction that you get. When we looked at, you you know, I I think certainly residential solar, but also residential storage, you you know, our fundamental view is that that business model is broken. It’s so many disjointed parts throughout that process of like groups doing lead gen and door knocking. There’s third party financing companies. There’s installation. The list goes on and on so that there’s 20 different entities typically involved in installing a single battery and what does that do? It drives the cost up tremendously. We looked at it and said, if you were to verticalize all the parts that we I think that makes sense to bring in house and verticalize and then only outsource the parts where it makes sense to outsource, what does that do? And just running through that analysis, it shows that you can dramatically compress the cost, the delivered cost to the customer by about 50%. So the inevitable shift for us is as we were looking at, how do you actually scale? to tens of thousands of households, you have to drive the cost down. That’s what led us to the shift where we said, all right, let’s bring all of this in-house. Let’s be able to still earn a very healthy rate of return. But by doing financing ourselves, sales ourselves, and installs, all of those things, you can dramatically decrease the cost and then also dramatically accelerate adoption. So it felt inevitable that to get to mass scale, you needed to make those changes. particularly from the homeowner’s point of view, but also just to make the economics work.

Wes Ashworth (15:53):

Yeah, it’s a fundamental change and I love just because it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I I think some of the brightest companies in the space are starting to see this and see these signals and do similar things in different areas of just that vertical integration, kind of bringing it in, controlling more of the pieces with costs and everything else. I I think experience gets better as well, too, when you’re not having to deal with all these seven different providers for seven different things and all this disjointed kind of parts you’re talking about. people in a lot of ways would kind of want that more simplification as well in addition to cost savings. I I think it’s such a great track and one that tends to be a trend. And I I think it shows maturity and growth in the industry as well too as we’re seeing that. You said something to me in a previous conversation that kind of stuck with me is homeowners don’t want to actually manage or participate in these programs. Maybe it wasn’t exactly that , so clarify if you want to, but what do they want instead?

Vinne Campo (16:44):

You you know, if you I think from a homeowner’s point of view, you you know, if you ask someone like what they want from their electricity company, they’ll probably say like, I want to pay less, I want the power to stay on and if I need support, want great customer service. Like something along those lines, you you know, there are like really engaged early adopters that are saying like, hey, you you know, I want to be, you you know, sitting in the driver’s seat, doing the controls and optimizations myself because I I think that’s like, that’s really cool. And we agree, like, we I think that’s like, the super exciting part of our business, is how do you better use large fleets of batteries to stabilize the grid and do all the optimizations. But I I think for the most part, what people really want is they want the lights to stay on and they want to pay less. So we’ve taken that to heart. From our customer’s point of view, Haven is the single touch point they have throughout the entire process.

It’s why we introduced this very low cost monthly subscription offer, which says, let us do all the battery optimizations and grid optimizations, financing, let us do all that on the backend. And for you, you just pay very low monthly costs. Your lights will never go out when there’s a power outage. We’ll handle all the back end to help lower your bill. And so it’s all about customer simplicity. It’s a battery that we install on your wall. let us handle everything else. Let us make it a magical experience for you. And from the customer’s point of view, I I think that’s what they’re looking for, right? Which is like simplicity in the way their energy works and like a better customer experience.

Wes Ashworth (18:08):

Yeah, spot on. I’m smiling as you’re talking just because I’m like 100 % accurate. I I think for the overwhelming majority of those homeowners and things like that, that’s exactly how they feel and I think about it. It’s how I feel and I think about it. You do want that simplification and kind of not have to worry about it, right? So it makes all the sense in the world. You touched on this earlier, utilities that trial these programs, you see rebates. Now they want access to the asset itself and that’s also fundamental shift. Tell us a little bit more about that like where it came from but also just more in terms of like what they’re trying to do today.

Vinne Campo (18:39):

Yeah, I I mean, I think the way that we’ve seen the trend happen is like most utilities start with some type of like rebate or incentive program. They’re looking at like as a utility, what are my tools that I have in the toolbox to be able to drive deployment? It’s typically around like rate change structures or some type of incentive. And so the first tool that we’ve seen most utilities go to is some type of rebate. Some way to like drive the cost point down to get customers to adopt, whether it’s solar and batteries or EV charging, some type of electrification.

And then to get visibility into that. if you I think about it, 20 years ago, most homes didn’t have a smart meter. Utilities installed a smart meter so they can get better visibility into the data to be able to make smarter and informed decisions. And so we saw like V1, what I’ve called residential batteries with utilities is like a rebate type program, drives adoption, gets visibility into it, and then they’re able to measure it. And that’s like the first part of it. So now they have a baseline. They understand what a battery can do.

They’ve done some limited deployments or tests where they dispatch all the batteries and they can see, all right, I’m actually able to drive 50 or 100 megawatts at a single time in a given event. Well, now the question for them is, they’re asking, well, how do we, as a utility, it serves all of California as an example, like, how do I 100X that or how do I 1,000X that? So that has a real impact. where we see it gravitating towards in a lot of the programs we’re participating in, they I think of it as, you you know, as a utility, they buy power from large power plants. That same model works, but it’s really difficult to do. You have to go to every customer and say, let me pay you a dollar per kilowatt hour for every, everything that you deploy. That’s just like, it’s too messy. It’s too cumbersome. It doesn’t work for the utility. It doesn’t work for the customer. The alternative is that they can go to an aggregator like Haven and do the same thing. Say we need 50 megawatts in this specific territory and we want to be able to dispatch it when we need to and we’ll pay you a certain amount for it. We’re able to take that in that pricing. Bake it into our pricing models. Again, to the customer, they don’t see any of that. They just see $49 a month and $39 a month. Right. Like all the magic happens on the backend. But the utilities are able to now buy capacity. just like they would from a large scale power plant, but to do so at the aggregated residential level. But the key is to do it in the aggregation and to I think of a very large fleet of residential batteries the same way they would I think of any type of like larger scale generation and to give them the visibility and the controls to be able to do that.

Wes Ashworth (21:07):

Yeah, it’s super interesting and makes a ton of sense as you kind of like go through it and frame it up and how that’s happened. Let me I’ll backtrack a tiny bit. You you know, maybe for those that didn’t that maybe didn’t miss our first episode or things like that. And today is a little bit different. You’ve said it, but I’ll give you the opportunity just to kind of say it more, you you know, just simply and that way people follow it like today. If people are learning about Haven Energy for the first time, what should they know in terms of what do do and the product service you really provide?

Vinne Campo (21:36):

Yeah, Haven offers backup power as a service by deploying home batteries to customers. And we charge the lowest monthly payment in the industry to do that. It’s like probably the easiest way to I think of it. Like if someone wants backup power or they have a solar system and they want to complete their solar system with a battery, there’s a lot of different ways they can do that. By far the simplest is to come to Haven, we’ll give you an online instant quote. You can pay monthly for that.

That price will be in the markets that we operate by far the lowest cost that you can get. Haven will come install a battery for you. You’ll still have full control and access for that battery. When the power goes out, that battery kicks on. And then when the grid is up and running, we’re using that battery to stabilize the grid and offset costs.

Wes Ashworth (22:21):

Yeah, that’s perfect. I wanted to make sure we covered that just so people are following us and know exactly kind of how you enter this mix and what you’re actually doing. I’ll switch now to kind of getting back more into where we’re going. we’ve talked about this a little bit, you you know, in terms of there’s a subtle point that when we’re talking about sort of batteries, the location matters maybe more than capacity. Why does where the batteries sit matter so much. Like tell us a little bit more about that.

Vinne Campo (22:48):

I I mean, the way it works is usually you have like a large centralized power plant that produces however many hundreds of megawatts. That power then gets taken through transmission lines to local substations and then gets converted from AC to DC power and then gets delivered directly to the individual homes and buildings in that network. What happens when a specific node or a specific substation

As electricity demand grows, there’s certain constraints on how much power can actually get transmitted to those certain areas. How much power a substation can actually transform from AC to DC power. One of the ways that a utility could solve that is by expanding or building new transmission lines, which is incredibly costly, takes forever with permitting. They could redo a substation. Again, same thing, though, very costly, takes a lot of time. Or you can relieve that grid stress. right at the localized level. So by deploying thousands of batteries within a specific territory, you’re able to decrease the overall electrical load or electrical demand on that system and bring it down so that that same substation and those same transmission lines that were supplying the power before can continue to do it even as people electrify. And that’s why batteries are so important, particularly at the localized level is that not only to the homeowner providing backup power to the utilities and to the grid operators, it reduces the strain of the localized level and allows them to defer grid upgrades. I I think in national grid, it’s probably been one of the leaders in thinking about this. They run numerous what they call non-wire alternative programs. Really what those programs are designed to is can we use distributed resources as a way to instead of rebuilding different grid infrastructure.

They, I think, pioneered that model, but you’re now seeing a lot of other utilities taken and I think of whether it’s residential or commercial batteries as a non-wire alternative to building and the time it takes to rebuild a lot of this grid infrastructure.

Wes Ashworth (24:42):

Absolutely. It’s smart way to I think about it. And you’re hearing that more and more, you you know, become to the forefront and, and become a main, main point of like focus going forward as well too. if you I think about this at scale, right? And then I’m sure this is what you I think about every day. So how should we I think about this network of homes? You you know, it’s a thousand homes, 10,000 homes, whatever it is, you you know, is this actually comparable to a traditional power plant? Like, how, should we I think about it? If we are looking at that and looking at these homes that are, you you know, you’re, aggregating them. you’ve got a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand whatever whatever their number ends up being and beyond is it is it comparable to a traditional power plant?

Vinne Campo (25:17):

It’s certainly getting there. You you know, I I think if you look at where battery deployments are right now, they’re up 10X from where were three years ago. When you start to look out, they’ll be up 10X again from where they are today. And so when you start getting thousands of homes together and bundled, that does offset entire large generation assets. So you start getting 10, 20, 30 megawatts very quickly. The beauty of it is that you can’t go build a power plant just anywhere.

They typically have to be sited far away. There’s a lot of permitting around it. There’s no world where you could build a 10 megawatt power plant or a five megawatt power plant in a city or in a community. But you can very easily do that with residential or commercial batteries. You can go deploy five or 10,000 batteries. You can very quickly get 10 or 20 megawatts deployed right where it’s needed the most. There isn’t transmission loss on the lines. There isn’t grid upgrades. And so it truly is. It is today. particularly as you fast forward five years, you’ll have thousands of these micro grids, 10 megawatt micro grids, and all of these localized communities where there’s a real customer benefit, there’s a real grid benefits, and it’s deployed in weeks, not years.

Wes Ashworth (26:24):

Yeah, it’s a super powerful analogy and you can kind of see the power of this as it scales. You you know, we’re talking about kind of redefining the grid, you you know, as it were, and using these assets. And the other the other thing, which I I think you mentioned, too, is just, you you know, even if you wanted to build this new plant, it’s time. You you know, how much time is that going to take? You you know, it takes a long time to build those assets and get them going and get them connected versus batteries in a home and having those connected. much quicker as well too in terms of just scaling up that way. So if Haven works at full scale, what are you really becoming? Are you installer, a financier or something else just completely entirely? Like what does Haven become at full scale?

Vinne Campo (27:04):

Yeah, that’s a good question. I I mean, I those things are like parts of the business model. Like we are an installer, we are a financier, we do do grid services. Haven at scale is a large scale generation or independent power producer. And that’s like the way that I I think utilities I think of us, which is, we’re an entity that will over time have what is the largest aggregated fleet of residential distributed batteries. When you zoom out far enough, we’ll have a gigawatt of battery capacity under our control. we are, you you know, just as any large scale power producer in the US is like we are a large scale generation business by deploying thousands and thousands of residential batteries.

Wes Ashworth (27:41):

Yeah, I love it. it’s kind of redefining, you know, that becoming something this evolves and you grow. So we started kind of like the last time we talked, we were talking about sort of those earlier versions of the model and kind of what you were doing there. And I know those earlier versions leaned into the idea of, you you know, no cost battery and very specific markets, very specific segments as you shared. And now you’re offering that subscription starting around 49 a month. You shared that.

I guess what did you learn that kind of led you to shift that model and tell us a bit more just around the overall shift?

Vinne Campo (28:12):

Yeah, I I mean, I I think every continuous improvement of the business has led us to this point. The very first version was we had to learn how do consumers I think about batteries and we had to learn how do you install batteries and what goes into installing batteries. Then we had to learn how do you finance batteries and how do you drive down the costs. And then we had to learn how do you sell power to utilities and how do you control the fleet of assets and how do you have that right level of control.

I I think at scale and where we’re going towards, one of the biggest barriers to broader deployment is really around costs. And if you look at a single battery installation, 40 to 50 % of that is soft costs. And so the question is, on this continuous quest to land a battery at a better than any other alternative utility has, how do you keep driving down costs? Yes, there’s ways to push down hardware costs and labor costs. but we are increasingly focused. The model we have today is how do you drive down all those soft costs? So a customer should be able to go from discovery, like learning about Haven, all the way to getting a battery interconnected without ever actually needing to talk to someone from Haven or for there being a manual intervention. And of course, there’ll always be touch points. If someone wants to do that, they can. But the way that we see our business evolving, certainly on the tech side, You can imagine a world, there’s hundreds of steps to get a battery installed, but they’re all very manual steps. Like I have to submit this permits. I have to get an email from the city confirming the permits and then I have to schedule an installation. Certainly in the world of technology today and the power of agents, we have leaned very heavily into that. And so there’s, as we look at how do you mass deploy tens of thousands of batteries, it is through an automated deployment. So under the hood, A customer is a very seamless experience. get the information that they need. Behind the scenes, everything is working 24 seven, all fully automated to drive a project from discovery to interconnection, you you know, as fast as humanly possible.

Wes Ashworth (30:08):

Yeah, it’s an incredible shift, great evolution. like you said, makes tons of sense just for all around with customer and utility, you kind of everybody involved. It really does seem like a win win around that situation and ability to really impact just just more people, more homes, you you know, make that larger impact as well, too, which I know is true to what you want to accomplish in your mission. You mentioned to so California being the primary market right now.

Is it available in other markets and is that something that people can expect at some point? Like what does the future look like in terms of availability and other states or markets?

Vinne Campo (30:42):

Yeah, for sure. I I mean, certainly as we I think about it, you you know, when you zoom out and look at like Haven at scale, anyone anywhere in the US will be able to get a battery deployed by Haven and pay a very low monthly price for it. Today we’re starting or we’ve started in California. It’s been our home base due to, you you know, grid needs, the existing relationships we have, like the existing adoption of solar there. But we’ll very quickly be rolling this out. to new markets, new states, new territories, really under that same mission of how do you make clean, reliable power accessible at all? It can’t just be California. has to be every state. so California has been a, you know, it’s the best state to start for a variety of reasons. It’s also one of the trickiest from like an installation perspective and permitting perspective. And so we’ve cut our teeth in which is hopefully like the toughest market to operate in. at least from an installation and permitting standpoint, we’ve trained all our models on how to handle all these different exceptions. And so as we I think about rolling it out to new markets, which we’ll be doing later this year, all of that existing infrastructure is in place and it’s just setting up the relationships and the partnerships and expanding operations to new places.

Wes Ashworth (31:49):

Yeah, exciting to see that growth and we’ll stay tuned, kind of watch that journey and what’s to come and how it’s going to be available in other markets as well too. yeah, proving grounds. You’ve done it in in let’s say the toughest market there is and for a lot of different reasons in some respects. So that’s great and excited to see that expand. I’ll shift a little bit and I can’t go without talking a little bit about AI. So you’re now applying AI to automate some of that process and, and, you know, probably reducing some soft costs and things like that as well with automating some, sales pieces, design, install.

Tell us a bit more about that. Like what parts of the system does that actually remove and how does that work today with Haven?

Vinne Campo (32:23):

Yeah, I mean, over time, again, I I think you’ll be able to go from like going online, getting a very personalized customized quotes, all the way to scheduling your installation, all the way to getting it interconnected, like all very seamlessly, all about having, you you know, if you want to all without like having to interact with someone from Haven, we do see a lot of customers still want some human touch around them. You you know, it is a physical construction project on their home that they want to. you you know, make sure there’s someone on the other side of the company and just like get some questions answered. And so we always have like both of those options, but you you know, if you take like one very specific example, like ordering materials, you you know, the way it typically works is you have to go read the single line diagram, see what was approved, go place an actual order for a specific order dates, coordinate that with an installation company and have it delivered all a very manual process. that all could be fully automated end to end. And so what we’ve built is an underlying internal tooling system that underpins everything from the customer experience from like sales to installation. And that model just trains over and over again on every installation project that we do. So it knows, hey, in this specific city or this specific age day, this is what they need on permitting. And this is how far the battery needs to be from a window or a setback. And you just train that model over time. on every single project so that each project gets more efficient and it learns from the next project. so it’s certainly on the tech side, it’s we’re committing all of our resources right now, which is how do you dramatically accelerate the end-to-end installation process? Again, under the whole premise, how do you drive costs down to make it more attractive to utilities, to be able to sell more batteries? And that cycle goes around.

Wes Ashworth (34:06):

Yeah, so a big piece of that obviously and it’s super fascinating to kind of see how that happens and how you’re using it through that. Like if you get costs low enough, financing right, like what suddenly becomes possible that isn’t today?

Vinne Campo (34:18):

It all comes down to what the customer ends up paying. And all under the premise of like, is there a world where you can deploy batteries at no cost to the customer? And there is a world, depending on where utility prices end and what capacity ends up going forward, there are certain markets where that answer is yes, right? That was kind of what we were doing in California before this is that certain areas needed power. with such intensity that there was a cost structure in place where you could deploy batteries at no cost. As you continue to push on that and you continue to drive down all your other costs, how do you push from 49 to 29 to 9.99 a month? And that’s like really the trajectory that we’re on, which is from a customer standpoint, if you can offer a battery for less than a Spotify or Netflix subscription, the market that that opens up is very different than what someone pays for Disney Plus as an example.

$59 a month. And so it’s all a relative price point. And everything that we I think about is how do you drive that price point down for the customer to unlock the next customer segments.

Wes Ashworth (35:23):

Yeah, it’s super cool. I mean, you you know, it suggests I I think we’re closer to mass adoption than people think. Like as those costs get down, you start comparing it to some of those monthly subscriptions that a lot of people don’t I think twice about, you you know, makes it a very easy decision. So as you just, you you know, continue to to scale and and grow and to roll this out and this gets bigger and bigger and you you know, more homes, more homes, more homes. Where does this model get the hardest? You you know, regulation, utility integration, capital or something else?

Vinne Campo (35:50):

Yeah, I I mean, it’s a good question. And I I mean, if you I think about it, like, there are certain parts of the business that like can compound indefinitely things around like sales and operations, capital, like, you you know, the business model gets increasingly more efficient on like the capital side, like the larger that the business gets. And it also lowers your cost of capital when you’re financing $100 million of projects versus

$500 million a project. there’s certain things that actually get easier as the business scales. It also makes the business more defensible as well too. Where the challenges show up is that energy is effectively regulated at the localized level. Sometimes at the state level, sometimes at a utility level, sometimes even at an AHJ level. And so there is like very specific nuances to local markets. How do you have to operate?

Like the way you would offer capacity to a California utility is very different than the way you would offer capacity to a utility in PJM as an example. And so the core parts of the model stay the same of like providing a very low cost system to the customer. On the back end, like how do we work with utilities? What is it they’re solving for? How do you solve their specific pain points? That varies based on, you you know, is it a regulator or deregulated market? Is it you you know, IOU or investor owned utility versus not? That’s where some of those specifics come into play.

Wes Ashworth (37:05):

Yeah, some similar challenges, but again, you’re handling those and you make it easy for the customer. I I think that’s what matters. They don’t have to worry about a lot of that. So there’s a lot of talk around virtual power plants. We haven’t said that term yet as we were kind of talking through all those earlier things. Some people like, you you know, those in the industry probably, you you know, they you know, they’re familiar with what it is and how that it unfolds. But I I think the average person, maybe they have no idea. Is that term actually helpful or does it obscure what’s really happening?

Vinne Campo (37:33):

That’s a good question. when I think, or I I think probably when the industry thinks of like a virtual power plant, they I think of different assets that are participating to offset some type of electrical demand. And I I think that’s kind of like version one of what this could be. We certainly like the term a distributed power plant more, which is it’s something that it’s reliable, that utilities can count on. I I think one of the challenges with VPP adoption is that, the utility can’t count on that capacity being there. They can call on an event, but there’s still like customer participation required. Everything has to be set up correctly. To utility that’s moderately helpful. We are very much believers in what we’re building as a distributed power plant. It’s firm capacity, utilities can rely on it. We enter into pricing contracts with them similar to a large scale power plant. That I I think is the model going forward. From a utility standpoint, they need certainty. when the grid is stressed, that they have resources they can call on and they know the pricing around that. That’s where I I think the shift from virtual, which is very good in helping reduce demand when needed, to where it actually gets to real scale, which is large scale distributed power plants that work alongside centralized power plants. But you have these like fleets of decentralized power plants embedded in the communities. And that’s certainly the shift that we see happening.

Wes Ashworth (38:46):

Yeah, I appreciate going into that. I like the distributed power plant kind of term and thinking about that that way as well to stepping back a bit from the mechanics. You you know, this this only changes sort of who controls energy and how people experience it day to day. If this model scales, who ends up with more control over energy? Is it the homeowner or the utility? Like, how does how does that look in the future?

Vinne Campo (39:08):

I I think it depends, you you know, if you’re talking about like who controls the battery or who controls the home. I’m not sure that those are like that fundamentally different, but you you know, I think the promise that we always make to our customers that when the power goes out, like your battery will kick on and like power your home. So like that’s first and foremost, what’s important from the customer standpoint, from the utilities, they want, you you know, there just have to be guardrails in place around when and where they can actually call upon those batteries.

But I I think more broadly, if you take a big step back, a battery is one part of a much broader home electrification landscape. In 10 years, the majority of homes will have things like a smart thermostat or an EV or a heat pump. Right now, those are all such disjointed nodes even within a home. And where we get really excited, the battery, in our view, is like the brains or the operating system of the electrical capacity of the home.

Step one is like, how do you optimize that for the customer? But step two is how do you take all of those other assets that a home has? Again, if a homeowner doesn’t want to be controlling their battery and thinking about, you you know, what to do with their power, they definitely don’t want to be doing that 10 or 15 times across all these other devices. And so at some point there’ll be like an Omni layer that controls all of the assets in the home. And it talks to all the different devices. They’re all working in unison to like better optimize the home and drive down costs for the customer. then you can deliver more efficient capacity to the utilities.

Wes Ashworth (40:28):

Yeah, good, clarity there. And I I think that’s what matters. You you know, at the end of the day, I’m happy with that. Happy with that future, what that looks like. If you fast forward to, let’s say 2035 and beyond, what is a normal neighborhood look like if Haven succeeds?

Vinne Campo (40:43):

I I mean, look, I I think it took the US 50 years to get to 5 million homes with solar. It’s projected to add another 5 million homes in the next five years. And so like that cycle time is compressing dramatically. And if you look on the battery side, the growth is even much more exponential than that. And so right now where it’s one in 12 or 13 homes have solar, it’s far fewer that have a battery. Far, far fewer. One in 500 or one in a thousand. When you fast forward, by 2035 and call it 10 years from now, the number is going to go from 1 500 to 1 in 10 or something like on par with what solar has. so the market and the opportunity is enormous. is like first inning or like first or second inning of what the adoption of energy storage looks like. 10 years, like the cells and all the components that go into the battery will have compressed so dramatically that the cost of deploying a system will go from where it is today to you you know, a very small fraction of that. So I I think it’ll be more often than not, you have a home with a battery, you’ll have one intelligent layer that controls all that in the house. And that’s certainly the role that Haven intends to be, which is the largest developer and aggregator of residential energy storage in the U.S.

Wes Ashworth (41:53):

Yeah, exciting vision for sure. Is there a future where you see like every home in America has a battery? It’s just just normal part of it like do we ever get to that point somewhere down the line?

Vinne Campo (42:01):

I I think without a question, you know, it’s, you you know, we look at it as, you you know, most homes have a, you know, whether it’s a hot water heater, you you know, in certain climates in AC, you you know, it just ended up becoming like a, you you know, like a, such a no brainer part of the home. What you’re already seeing is like power prices diverge dramatically. Power is really cheap overnight, really expensive during the day. As that price spread continues to widen, the opportunity costs of not having a battery is only going to increase because the battery smooths that out for you. So the real inflection point will be when does it make economic sense to not, you know, when does it make economic sense to not have a battery versus having a battery? That day is coming. That day is not today. But that day is coming within a decade or so. And at that point, when costs get low enough, when there’s always an economic incentive, every home certainly will, without question, will have a battery installed in it.

Wes Ashworth (42:53):

Yeah, I love that. I agree that day is coming. I asked it because I believe that as well. I like the comparison like, you you know, an AC unit, a water heater. Like it’s just you don’t I think about it. You have one batteries, I believe will be the same way. So I love that. And that very hopeful future there. So I’ll end a little bit on personal note. So you’ve we touched on this first episode. We’ll retouch. So you’ve lived through outages growing up. You grew up in Louisiana, I believe.

And so you dealt with that firsthand, you know, and dealt with that personally, and now you’re building part of the system that could really prevent this. And I’m sure it’s, you you know, tied to a deep personal mission as well. What does solving this actually mean to you personally?

Vinne Campo (43:30):

Yeah, I I mean, it’s the reason we started out, you you know, building this business, right? Like I, I was in high school when Hurricane Katrina hit and we were without power for months. I lived in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. I was in Austin during the winter storm that then, you you know, it took down a large portion of the grid. I I think as a founder, you you know, you work a hundred hours a week, obsessing over a single problem. It has to be a problem that’s incredibly meaningful to you. The ability to provide, you you know, the energy of the future.

I I think that’s like, to me, such a meaningful and personal problem to get to solve. I’m also incredibly fortunate, it be remiss to not say like, we have gone on and built what is like an incredibly like passionate, dedicated and hardworking team that’s also very motivated to solve that mission. I have two amazing co-founders that are like 100 % committed to that same mission too. And so like the rewarding part for me, It started out, that we started to get to tackle this problem. What’s much more rewarding now is that like we have a whole team, that’s like building that shared mission together and working super hard to race to that day where every single home has a battery and the team is pushing super hard to be the leader there, to be the one that gets there first to drive that to happen.

Wes Ashworth (44:42):

Yeah, I love that so much. That personal connection, I I think just adds a different way to the work. And as you said, now building on that in a team that’s really bought into that, you you know, it means something is special and wanted to wanted to definitely touch on that. It’s a great way to wrap it up. But Vinnie, this was a great conversation. What stands out is this isn’t about one solution replacing another. It’s about the grid becoming more layered, more dynamic, more coordinated than it’s ever been before. For everyone listening, the big takeaway is this. The future of energy isn’t going to be defined by a single technology. going to be defined about how all of these pieces centralized infrastructure, distributed assets, software markets actually work together as one system. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow the show, subscribe, share it with someone that’s thinking about where energy is headed. And with that, we will see you next time on Green Giants.