Green Giants – Episode 84

Martin Rogers (01:32)

I mean, I think there were a number of things, right? But I worked for a company called Schneider Electric fairly early in my career. Before that, I had my own business and I did that for 10 years. Fresh out of college, I was asked to join an electrical wholesale distributorship, which I joined and a year in, they made me a partner. So, I did that for 10 years and built up a nice little company in upstate New York. And then I was like, I don’t really want to stay in my hometown for my whole life, time to move on and try something else. I went off to Schneider Electric in Ohio and I was doing product development for them and ended up within two years, they asked me to move to Asia. I moved over to Singapore. And what do you learn? You learn that other cultures are quite interesting. You learn that not everybody runs like an American company and you learn that global means calls at three o’clock in the morning when people go, well, no, it’s only noon here. So, it does kind of throw a different curve to it.

So, I worked for Schneider for 15 years. I did product development for them. And then I was a country manager for them in Southeast Asia. I set up a factory with the team up in China. We developed a bunch of products in the area. We brought products from France in. We brought products from the US in. We had different standards that we had to meet and part of that was starting a service organization in Asia for Schneider. And I found that quite interesting, right? Because there was, first off, revenue to be made. So, you could actually make money from the service and there was a tremendous demand.

So, I worked for Schneider, came back to the US, worked in the service team for a number of years and then was on their global team out of Paris. I worked in Paris for three and a half years. And then I quit again to go start another business in the US, which had nothing to do with electrical, nothing to do with solar. I think I was just done for a bit. So, I took a very strange turn. I bought a wholesale supply house in Tennessee. I ran through that for a couple of years and my wife said, you should probably go find a job where you make money. So I went, and I thought I liked to be in the electrical field again, but I want to be in something different. And that’s when I started to investigate getting into the solar market.

So, I joined a company as their solar service team lead. It was a company called Power One, which was bought by ABB. I worked for them for a couple of years. I worked in Europe, quite a lot in Europe, because Europe was the big solar market at that time. And we did a lot of things around developing service offers and building out service teams. then within a short time, we were in the US and then we were in India and then we were in Asia.

So, it was kind of a repeat of some of my past, but just working around the globe for them. I left them after a couple of years and went to a company called Enphase. I’m sure most people know Enphase. I ran their global service and support. I stayed there for about four years. I enjoyed the job. I enjoyed the company. We were a good team. I learned a lot working there. And then I went to a company called Nextracker, which is now NextPower.

Next tracker makes single-axis trackers. It was purely utility-based. It got away from the homeowner’s side. It got away from that small installer side and started working with bigger utilities, which fell in line with my past. That’s what I did when I was at Schneider. So, I did towers, I did substations. I did a little bit of everything with Schneider.

So, I worked for them for four years and then SolarEdge came to me, and they said, well, we’d like to hire somebody to run our service and support. I looked into it. It looked like a challenge. I think it was an interesting challenge, but I also liked the fact that we had a lot more technology and a lot more interesting. Things had changed so much in solar from when I started to that particular point in time. You and I talked about it earlier, but the idea that originally solar was kind of the light was on or the light was off and that was it has now moved to batteries and backup interfaces and inverters and rooftop systems and just grid tie and VPPs and it’s so much more and you’ve really got to keep up with the technology and what’s going on and that’s what I enjoy about SolarEdge.

And then about a year ago, they asked me, I’ve been there about four years, and they asked me if I would step in as the country manager for North America and take over the whole team in North America. As you and I talked about, I was a little apprehensive, but at the same time, I just saw great things. I saw a great team. I saw great possibilities of where we could go, and it’s been a hell of a ride. I think you and I shared the fact that it was probably one of the most interesting, to use a bad word, years to go into the general manager position for a solar company in North America. Though there were a lot of things going on with the government, which I didn’t really know about, but obviously knew the peripheral and had to get involved in that. A lot of change in the markets, a lot of change in the people, and we developed a good team and we’re doing a great job now and I’m super proud of the team.

Wes Ashworth (06:24)

I love the path. Obviously, really impressive, just all your stops and what led you to hear some sound advice from your wife that you should probably go get a job making money. But hey, we won, we’ve got you in the solar industry, so that’s a win for everybody. So, I love that incredible, incredible journey. Having lived and worked across Asia, Europe, United States.

How did those global experiences shape your view of just how different regions think about energy?

Martin Rogers (06:50)

Well, I think that across the regions, there is still a common thread. It doesn’t really matter. It came at different times, like Spain started up pretty early and then Europe started to get into the fold and then Asia started to come on and then the US started to boom. So, everybody kind of came in at different times and with different tactics and where they were going to go. I think that when I look at it, it’s relatively homogeneous right across the world. People want to do the best thing that they can. They started off. This started off as the very green thing, like we’re going to create power and we’re going to create power in a very efficient and very green method.

Today, it’s more about we’re going to create energy, and it’s shifted pretty dramatically. It’s not that we’re not green; we’re still green. But the idea of where we are right now, whether it’s in the US or in other countries, just the tremendous amount of energy that we need and how it needs to be almost instantaneously on the grid to support the demands that we’re seeing, whether it’s in Asia or in Europe, with some of the issues that have gone on in Europe or in the US.

And even in the US, you see this huge emergence of AI, which is just a ton of power that needs to be on the grid. And when I look at it, there’s really no end to our appetite for energy, so whether it’s solar or wind or nuke or hydro or whatever, there’s a lot of different methodologies of developing energy. And I think every single one of them is super important, that it’s not their time in the limelight, but that they all become part of the limelight.

So, it’s not one over the other. It’s all of them. Get them all together. And I think that’s where we are kind of coalescing today, where we still have some conversation about the politics around it. But the reality is, most people understand that power is power, energy is energy. We need it now.

Wes Ashworth (08:25)

Yeah, I often say it’s an “and” not an “or”. We need all of it ⁓ for sure. But great perspective. mean, I think that global lens shows up in how you talk about the industry. And also, I think the ability just to spot patterns and pitfalls because you’ve seen them play out around the world. And especially too, just how those different areas were developing at certain different times as well is quite interesting.

What did those international roles just teach you about developing strong local leadership talent, just as you’re in those different countries?

Martin Rogers (08:47)

Look, to me, I think everybody intrinsically wants to do the right thing for their company, right? They want to be a good leader. They want to lead it in the right direction. I think if we look at people that work for us and we give them the tools to go do it and we acknowledge that they can make mistakes and it’s OK and they’re going to move forward and we’re going to go fix things, and we’re going to continue to move it on. But I honestly think that everybody that you work with, and maybe I’m a fool for it, but I think everybody that you work with really wants to do a good job. Whether they’re in Asia, whether they’re in Europe, whether they’re anywhere in the world. They want to do a good job. They want their company to succeed and they want to make sure that we’re making the right impressions on the market. I think that, as I look at it, the one thing that was a big learning event for me was patience. I would say when I left the U.S. originally, I was probably not a very patient person.

I think working in Asia for six years gave me a certain amount of patience that I probably didn’t have and an understanding of why it took it. Because you could go to one culture where you’re asking a question and they always tell you yes, but they don’t really mean yes, they’re gonna do it. They just mean yes, I heard you. You can go to another culture where they’re always gonna tell you no, and it doesn’t mean no, I’m not gonna do it. It means no, I need to think about it. I need to understand you better. I need to translate it.

But I think in general, I’ve always enjoyed working with the different cultures and the different people and understanding what drives them and motivates them and trying to put the right people in the right positions so that they could be the most successful where they were and give them the tools to succeed. And most people will go do it. ⁓ Yeah, I like people who are self-starters. I’m not a micromanager. Most people would tell you that. I think people know what they need to do.

One of the things that I think I’ve learned in my career is that upper management can have a quote-unquote idea of where we should go, but the middle management, who’s actually going to bring you there. So, they may manipulate it and change it, but at the end, you get to the end result that you wanted, but you’ve got to let them go figure out how to get there and not dictate how they’re going to move the ball forward.

Wes Ashworth (11:03)

Yeah, I love that a lot. I think just your take on leadership is very similar to what my own and the values that I have as a leader, and what you try to instill in people. And I agree. I mean, I do think most people intrinsically want to do well and want to do well for their company. And they’re more likely to rise to that expectation if you’re giving them that pathway and freedom and autonomy, not micromanaging them, creating a good environment and then, know, right person, right seat, just finding that right spot for them.

I’ve often said in recruiting, used to think there were bad jobs. Now I don’t think they’re bad jobs. I think they’re bad fits. And what somebody would call a bad job, another person would call their dream job. And it’s just a matter of lining those up sometimes. So yeah, love your take on leadership.

Martin Rogers (11:51)

And I agree. I think, look, some people get into the wrong job. There used to be a practice called the Peter principle. Maybe I’m showing my age here, but it was a Peter principle where you promoted people beyond their capability to do the new job. It doesn’t mean they’re the wrong people for your company. And it doesn’t mean that they can’t go back to the job that they were doing and succeed and do a great job at it. But I also think that it’s important to let people know if they aren’t doing what you need and to, what we call in this company, is biting the leather. Basically, saying to somebody, okay, this is not working the way we need it to work. These are the things that you can do to change. And I’ll work with you. And if not, then we can talk about other career things that you could do and make sure it works for you.

It doesn’t mean that everybody in your company is going to be in your company for 50 years, it’s not the way the world is anymore. It means that you’re helping them to move to their next level, whether it’s with our company or not. I mean, I want them to succeed as people and I enjoy that probably more than anything. When I see them succeed, they could be with me and that’s even greater but if they’ve left and gone somewhere else and they succeed, I’m happy for them.

Wes Ashworth (12:58)

Yeah, that’s great. I love that. And I think it’s a true care about the person when you’re, when you have that idea. I think what people don’t see, and I see this from maybe a recruiting lens sometimes, is that those people who have left, they carry this reputational brand with them, so that they were, that they’ll speak highly of you. They’ll speak highly of the company. They’ll speak highly of their time there. And that comes up, we have other candidates that are interviewing for your company. They ask other people, and they’re like, yeah, I used to work there. That’s actually a phenomenal company. I moved on because of this reason, but yeah, you should go there. So, it does, that makes a big difference, I think, in the end for sure.

Let me pivot a little bit. So, we talked a little bit about the solar coaster. You’ve seen those ups and downs. What was that first solar cycle that maybe truly tested you, and how did it influence the way you lead today?

Martin Rogers (13:43)

There were so many different things that happened in the last almost 16 years that I’ve been in solar. You start off, and there’s an incentive in North America and then they’re talking for years about that incentive going away and some companies are saying the incentive should go away and other companies are saying no, the incentive can never go away.

So, you would always have this kind of call it a land grab. Like, my God, the incentives are going to go away. Go do a land grab. Let’s go do safe harbor. Let’s go do these things to figure it out. So, the market would go up and down, and it would rise and fall with these kinds of conceptual things that were potentially going to happen. And I would say a lot of the solar coaster was potential things that were going to happen. And they weren’t ever necessarily real things that were going to happen.

When you looked at some of the interesting ones. We look at a project I did in Saudi Arabia. And you think, well, why would they do solar? Well, solar is the cheapest way to pump gas. I mean, that just makes sense, right? You wouldn’t even think of that as a market years ago, it didn’t make any sense at all. Or you look at areas where we think in the US that these are intrinsically poor areas for solar, like Texas or something like that. It’s a huge area for solar. It’s a great market for solar.

So, these are; it shows as a solar coaster, but the intrinsic line has always been up and to the right. And I laughed once because I read an article about people saying they don’t make money in solar. And my answer was, I’ve always made money in solar, so I don’t know about you, but I’ve always made money in solar. So, I think when we look at some of these things as they change, in particular coming into 2026.

So, we have big changes coming with the incentives in the market and we understand those changes. But I got to tell you, we meet with our installers all the time and they are adjusting, they’re finding different models, they’re thinking forward about how they can move this ball forward. Whether it’s on the residential side, which maybe is challenging in some markets, but less so in others. There’s a lot of battery attachment. There’s a lot of VPP coming on. These are huge pieces.

When we look at the commercial side, their power rates are not going to go down. These numbers for these roofs are, they’re incredible for these businesses of what they can put on a roof and either sell or utilize themselves. And there’s so much open commercial roof space or acreage, if you want an opportunity out there. It’s just mind-boggling. We look at some of the things when it comes to the political side and there’s a lot of talk, but there’s also just this huge need. And if you’re in a commercial business, you want to manage your costs. If you’re a homeowner, you want to make sure that you manage your lifestyle and that you can have the power that you need when you need it in, depending on the area, right? Maybe you need it in an emergency, like in Puerto Rico or in Florida. Maybe you need it for compliance in California, whatever.

These are huge changes in the market that are not going down into the right. They’re going up into the right. And yeah, maybe there’ll be a little bit of a hiccup here or there, but those hiccups are kind of quarterly blurbs, and then things get realigned. I’ve always looked at it like, when we look at the political landscape. For instance, when politicians make a change and everybody says the sky is falling.

The reality is, business people in the US and the world are smart and they go find a way. It may not be the way that we did it last month, but we are going to find a way and move this thing forward. And that’s what I see coming into 2026. I see another good year. I see people finding the way. I see people moving the ball forward and we’re just trying to be the best partners that we can with them.

Wes Ashworth (17:10)

Yeah, that is some of the best perspective I’ve ever heard on the industry. That is just gold right there. And I agree with you completely. I think for those that are paying attention, it is going up and to the right, there are slight bumps and things like that. They really do drive innovation. That’s where we really propel, and those tend to kind of like multiply as you go, which helps actually increase your progress. It’s not fun in the moment, but as you said, people are smart. People are innovative and creative, and some of the smartest, brightest minds I’ve ever seen in this industry that just figured it out and will figure it out. So, I love that. That’s a gold mine.

So, now we have a little bit of the foundation of your leadership journey and your perspective. I just want to get into how you approach teams, customers, and the operational heart of the industry. So, you take a long view of customer relationships, seeing solar as a 20- or 30-year commitment. How does that mindset just shape the way you lead and operate today?

Martin Rogers (18:25)

Look, I think the comment that I made when we talked originally, to me, I’ve always proposed when I talk at conferences or whatever that this is actually a marriage. So, we’re not in this for a transactional relationship that lasts for one sale and we move on and then whatever happened, happened. It’s not what it is at all. have probably some of the longest warranties in any business I’ve ever been in my life.

We have this commitment to the customer of sustained power and ability to make that power and utilize that power and reduce your power consumption from the grid. We have a marriage, whether we like it or not, and divorce is really not the option. It’s you are my partner, you’ve done a job with me, a project with me, or a hundred or a thousand or fifty thousand, and we have to be partners together. And by the way, I’m not going to love you every day. You’re not going to love me every day. We’re going to have our problems. We’re going to have our issues.

But I think if we keep the right mindset of let’s work together as partners across it, then we sustain this industry and we sustain our business model. And we understand that this is not a transactional event at all. It’s actually a long-term event between us. And that’s critical and that’s how I talk to our partners, and that’s why I think coming from the service side of this business into the general manager side gives me a different perspective on how we want to run the business and move the business forward. And I’m not saying that it wasn’t there. I’m just saying that for me, it’s right there, right really there. So yeah.

Wes Ashworth (19:56)

Now I think it’s a perspective the industry really needs more and more of that, that commitment to long-term relationship, viewing it as a true partnership. I joke around, but when me and my wife first got married, we were young, and I’d say like, hey, we’re either going to spend the rest of our lives happy together, or we’re going to spend the rest of our lives miserable together, but we got to work it out. We’ve got to figure it out. And so, when you take away just the easy out, that just like, no, we’re going to stick through this and some days we’re not gonna like each other. We gotta figure it out. I love that. That’s such a valuable perspective on how you treat your relationships.

I’ll ask you a little bit about team development. So, in an industry that really grows fast and unevenly. What does real team development look like for you?

Martin Rogers (20:38)

So, I think there’s a couple of things and I go back in my past. When I was hired in solar, there weren’t a lot of other people they were going to go find to do the job I was doing. They were looking at an industry that had similarities. So, I had worked in the variable speed drive part of the electrical business, which is basically an inverter turned upside down. So, they’re like, okay, well, this guy, maybe he knows enough, we can bring him in and you saw it across the business 15 years ago, 16 years ago, where it was like, eh, the guy can sell, so let’s bring him in. Ah, the guy can do this. Let’s bring him in.

What it really turned into was an industry that you really needed some specialization and you needed to go build that core up. And now I think you have that core. You have good, strong people who have been in the industry for a number of years, who really know the direction it needs to go in and where it needs to change and adjust. And it’s an idea of taking people like you, and I talked about with SolarEdge, taking people that I had worked with for four years and saying, these people actually have really good ideas. I’m going to move them up within my first couple of weeks of taking this job. They’re going to take on new roles because they know this industry and I don’t want to go hire from outside and try to figure out how to bring somebody up to speed in an industry that’s now 15, 16 years old, where getting caught up takes a year. You can’t do that anymore.

I think giving those same people extra responsibility and the ability like there’s nobody on my team that can’t just call me up there’s nobody on my team that can’t put a one-on-one on my calendar there’s nobody on my team that feels bad when they call me at seven o’clock at night but they know that I’m accessible and they know that I’ve got their back and they know that they can go you know succeed and I think that’s the key is.

Find the right people, find people with good industry knowledge and background and experience, and turn them loose. Let them go do their damn jobs. We don’t have to control everything at one point in the company. We have to control it across the company and do the right things. And we’ve got some phenomenal salespeople, phenomenal operations people, phenomenal service people, all the way through HR, marketing, product.

They’re just a great bunch of people who really want the company to succeed, and I don’t think, as a boss, you could ask for anything more, quite honestly.

Wes Ashworth (23:07)

No. Yeah, I agree. I think it’s one of those, it’s tough to do it first, but then once you do it, take the plunge, and then you start to see the success that people often rise to that. And you’re like, wow, that person has blown me away. Thank goodness we gave them that opportunity to move them into that role. It’s like once you start, then it snowballs and you start doing it more and more. And it’s cool to see that trend just coming back a little bit. I think it existed, that it sorts of went away and then now it’s back full force and you’ve seen that more and more, but I think it’s a great trend and hope that continues, but that’s incredible.

Martin Rogers (23:40)

I think the other thing is, and maybe I’m not the best at it, but I want to be and I keep trying. I mean, I’m getting old, but I’ve never given up or learning, you know, is communication. So, I do a thing every week called Ask Marty, where anybody in the company can ask me any question they want. Some of them are actually quite funny and have nothing to do with business, but I am. But today I had one that was like, OK, you’ve done your first year as general manager. What is your top 10 list? I thought to myself, oh my gosh, I got to think of 10 things. Dude, I thought of like a hundred things. I mean, I couldn’t be prouder of the team. I couldn’t be prouder of the share that we’ve gained, of the product we put forward, of the shows we’ve done, and of the effort we’ve made to influence the market. Just a great team. And I actually wrote at the end and said, okay, I can keep going if you want to ask for the top 50, top 100, whatever, let’s go for it. So very cool.

Wes Ashworth (24:12)

Yeah, I love the ask Marty bit and clearly, you’ve created an environment where people feel safe and comfortable to be able to do that. A lot of environments that are like, yeah, they asked me, but I don’t really want to tell them anything or ask them anything. But it says a lot just about the leadership overall in the organization. And really, as you said, that service mindset, thinking about the long-term relationship, combined with the leadership. I think that leadership and service create the backbone of this industry and really what success looks like.

Policy and economics create the weather conditions. And so, I want to talk about that a little bit. energy policy often feels disconnected from real-world energy needs. We’ve talked about that. I think those who are paying attention, we see it, like we need every electron we can. Why are we fighting this? Why are we making it a political battle? But it does feel somewhat disconnected.

What is one misconception about how policy actually gets shaped?

Martin Rogers (25:17)

Well, I mean, I think you and I shared that I’d been to Washington, D.C., a number of times this year, and it was quite interesting because we go in as a solar industry and we’re fighting for one particular part of legislation or a change in legislation. And when we go meet with our representatives who give us time, right, like they’re actually talking to us and they are listening. They’re actually fighting over 12 things in the same bill. It could be how much social security, how much Medicare, how much, it’s so many different things that they rise up to, to try to figure out the best way. And I think when we feel bad about some of the negotiation and how it happens, we have to realize that in the larger scale, there were a lot of things going on, and there’s always a give and take in politics.

I think that we’ve come into a time where the country realizes that it needs the energy. That’s super clear. The debate is what’s the best way to get it, and what’s the fastest way to get it. And we are quite literally the fastest and probably the best. And I think the numbers that are coming out today and stuff that you see on it, solar is winning in the world market. It’s winning in the U.S. market.

So, I think a lot of politics is rhetoric and I think some of that rhetoric gets translated and other times it doesn’t. If you’re a large utility, you’re not worried about what’s supposed to happen next week. You’re worried about a 10-year plan. If you’re a commercial building, you’re thinking about 10 years of your building. You’re not thinking about one week of your building. And even on the residential side, you’re looking at your bills every day and saying, what else can I do that would help me as an individual? And when it looks power is one of the biggest bills that people have in a lot of this country.

So, it’s always on their mind. It’s always something that’s there. It’s just finding the right way and the best methodology to get it out to the market. And people are like we talked about earlier, they’re going to adjust to policy, and they’re going to move the ball forward.

Wes Ashworth (27:25)

Absolutely. So, we’re going to, I guess, kind of the best way to frame things. So, we’re getting dragged into political debates. How can the industry communicate its value in a way that avoids political noise and really stays focused on reality?

Martin Rogers (27:37)

I think we start talking about electronics and we start talking about energy and energy production and the immediate ability to get energy on the grid. I think those are the focal points. I think talking about it like it was 10 years ago is passe and we shouldn’t, we don’t need to. We need to talk about what’s going on today, which is all about power and all about energy on the grid.

Let’s focus on what we really do, which is, you know, reduce people’s energy bills, give them energy independence, help the sturdy, the grid up. I mean, like BPBs, they’re not because utilities said, we have to go do this. They did it because they needed it. They want it. It helps them with purifying their power. It helps them with brownouts. These things are beyond anything in the political realm. These are things that need to happen.

So, I think that the industry, it was interesting when I got into it, because it’s like, is this going to be like a flash in the pan? Am I going to do this for a couple of years and then nobody’s going to want it? And that was 16 years ago, and people still want it, and people are still doing it. And it’s growing every year. So, I think we’re beyond the conversation. I think we just have to think as a group when we approach politicians, how to think about the conversation we want to have, which is not, my God, we’re the greenest, my God, my God, but it’s, my God, we’re the quickest to grid, by the way, you need us. So, let’s go work this out together and go figure it out.

Wes Ashworth (28:57)

I think your framing gives the industry a healthier path forward, focus on needs, sides, and framing up in a way that for it’s going to kind of like know your audience. It’s kind of sales 101. Know your audience, tailor to your audience, speak to their needs, speak to what’s important to them. So, I think that’s fantastic.

So, we talked about part of the evolution, just what’s happening. And again, I think those needs are increasing and increasing. utility rates are climbing sharply across the country. At what point did just sheer economics alone make residential solar just too compelling to ignore?

Martin Rogers (29:33)

Well, look, there are definitely states right now where it’s too compelling to ignore. I mean, I live in Tennessee. It’s not compelling enough not to necessarily ignore in Tennessee at this particular point. But guess what? We have a lot of hydro and a lot of nuclear here. So, we are going to be a target for AI, right? I mean, if I’m an AI place, I’m going to go look for a location that has a lot of inexpensive power. And that’s going to mean that they’re going to come in, they’re going to use that power, and the rates for everybody else are going to go up.

So, we know what the balance is. We’re going to be the ones who pay for this. When you look at places like Hawaii or California. There’s enough of a rate there that it makes perfect sense to do solar. When you look at Florida, the rates are there and the fact that you want resilience is there. Texas, you want resilience; you want to offset.

I think if we look at it again, this is not a one-year investment by a homeowner. This is a 20-year investment plus. So, the fact that you do it now and you get it on and you start getting your savings and you’re rolling it forward, it only compounds. Originally, the whole sale of solar was that your rates are gonna go up and there was this whole mystery of what your rates would go up.

Well, I’m gonna tell you they are going up. It may not have gone up so fast as we expected, maybe five years ago, but they are now going up very fast across the country in every area. So, you’re going to get to this parody sooner and sooner. I think if I was, if I was thinking about solar, I would think about I’d like to get there now and start getting this on my roof and on my system and start having it drive it in the right direction.

So, there’s a lot going on as far as the rate changes. I think it’s something like, and don’t quote me necessarily, but it’s a super high percent change across the US that has been asked for by the utility companies. Now it hasn’t been approved in every area, but it has definitely been asked for.

Wes Ashworth (31:28)

It’s good to hear. It’s hard to argue with math, right? Math maths, yes. You mentioned this a couple of times. I just want to get into it a little bit. So virtual power plants have helped stabilize grids during peak stress moments. What role do you see VPPs playing over the next decade?

Martin Rogers (31:35)

I think they’re going to continue to grow. We have, I think, 40 % of our attached batteries on VPPs right now. And that’s continuing to grow. The areas are continuing to grow across the country. They’re looking for VPPs and adding them. I think that the utilities see it as a dramatic advantage.  It’s not kind of a nice-to-have. It’s almost becoming a need to have.

And the more and more energy consumption that we have, the more and more opportunity we have to use VPPs to maybe not build out as much Gen. as we think we should or need to. And that controls costs and helps to keep costs in line. I think that when you look at the different utility companies that are involved in it, whether it’s in Puerto Rico or in California, across the country. I think there are five that we have major installations in five different states across the country and that’s continuing to grow.

So, I think that there’s a misnomer. By doing VVPs, you are actually helping to stabilize the grid. There were some writings about the fact that this is not good for the grid. It’s actually perfect for the grid. It’s exactly what the grid needs. I think that, again, utility companies are not looking at a year from now, they’re looking at 10 years from now.

They get it, right? They understand where they need to be. And whatever the political thing is, whatever the fresh phrase of the day is, they don’t really care. They’re looking at a much longer timeline. So, I think BPPs are here to stay. I think that the interaction that we have with AI, with our own AI and how we’re interacting with the grid continues to change and improve. And I think that the demand from the grid will become a higher level, so you need to have the technology behind it to support it.

Wes Ashworth (33:32)

Yeah, VPPs are here to stay, as you said, at one of those kinds of quiet breakthroughs and so I appreciate you just kind of clearing that up and giving us some perspective.

Let’s shift a little bit into the parts of the market you seem fired up about, especially commercial rooftops, storage, manufacturing, and product innovation. So commercial rooftop solar is one of the most underutilized assets in the country. What do people still misunderstand about this opportunity?

Martin Rogers (33:53)

Well, I think they may misunderstand the math and they haven’t really done the math. A lot of companies that you work with have hurdle rates. If their hurdle rate is an ROI of one year, then chances are we don’t qualify for their hurdle rate. They’re looking at other investments that bring in something in a more immediate timeframe, a faster timeframe. But I do think that as these utility rates change, that’s going to shift their ROI, whether incentivized or not.

I think the fact that we are a domestic manufacturer is certainly huge in leveraging our opportunities for these rooftops. But I think that over time, the idea of that hurdle rate shifts and companies are looking for where they can make investments. And by the way, not everybody who owns the roof is the one who owns the solar on the roof.

So, these other companies that are investing in your roof, they’re renting your roof space and going off and selling the power. So, I think that as time moves on, people will realize that this real estate is the easiest real estate to get to, to add to, and to power off. And we’re seeing it.

I mean, we’re seeing it globally for sure, but in North America right now, it’s just a booming opportunity, whether it’s a carport opportunity where we’re really well-positioned or a rooftop opportunity. I think the other one is the distributed generation opportunities, the small call it 20 meg and below plants. These are great opportunities for people, and it’s a great utilization of the roof, the carport, and most of the time, the land that they’re doing the DG on is not the greatest land anyway. So why not? And if you throw into that the fact that we’re now doing floating, we’re doing agri-PV, these are all areas that people were like, you can’t put solar over the top of my plants. The reality is, you can, and it’s actually been proven to be quite good for the plants. So, I mean, this is a shift, man. So, I love these shifts.

Wes Ashworth (35:45)

The potential is incredible. If you just think about every commercial rooftop that’s out there and, for the most part, just unused, just sitting there fairly blank, the amount of unused real estate is just wild to think about. And I think the potential is there. So, I love that. Just your clarity on the point. I think it’s going to make a few listeners rethink their strategy; there’s plenty of opportunity there.

Martin Rogers (36:02)

For commercial storage, it ties back to having a storage opportunity, not just that I’m storing my energy, but I can use it for peak shaving. I can use it to do my demand response, but I can also use it for backup. I have that capability. So, we’ve also announced that we’re making partnerships in the data center world with some of our technology, which is super cool. That’s a, first off, it’s a huge growth opportunity for anybody that gets into it. But secondly, the whole idea of running a DC-based data center just makes sense. Why were we converting it and then converting it again? So, these are great opportunities for companies.

Wes Ashworth (36:47)

Yeah, absolutely. And one of those opportunities you had mentioned too is that the storage demand has just exploded. I think most of us in the industry are paying attention to know that. But what has really triggered this rapid shift from really optional to essential?

Martin Rogers (37:09)

Well, I think some people want it because they want security. So, they want the storage and security. If I look at residential, they want security in some areas, but they also have a need to put storage on to put solar on in other areas. It’s kind of the mandate from the local geography. From a commercial building, it is a demanding response, peak shaving.

You know the ability to have on-demand backup power when you need it. It gives them an ability to flex differently and I think that’s what they’re looking at, right? So, we’re seeing a much higher attachment right now with storage when it comes to the commercial side and we’re definitely seeing a huge attachment rate on the residential side. I mean, I wouldn’t call it a hundred percent, but there is a lot of attachment on the residential side.

Wes Ashworth (37:55)

Yeah, it’s almost like it went from like an upgrade to almost a requirement, zero to hero, really quick. We talked a bit too, but just around manufacturing, what you’re doing there. So, scaling inverter and battery production is no small feat. What does responsible scaling look like without sacrificing quality or reliability?

Martin Rogers (38:13)

So, for us, we now have three main plants in the US. We have a plant in Salt Lake City for our battery, our energy storage. We have a big plant in Texas for our single-phase, and we have a big plant in Florida for our three-phase and our optimizers. I think that the really interesting part is that we use the same third-party people to move our facilities into the US, which are all kinds of US-based companies anyway, but moving on to an on-shoring. I think when you are on-shore, you shorten your supply chain, which is great and good for the customer and good for us as well. I think when you have certain participation levels for incentives, when you onshore, but you’re also bringing technology back to the US,

I think if you look back five years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody making hardly anything for solar in the US, and now you find a resurgence. I also think that the fact that you can be more environmentally conscious, maybe in the US manufacturing facilities and maybe in some cases you’re actually forced to, which is okay.

I think we tried to be that way anyway, but I think, environmentally, you have shorter supply chains, which automatically helps you on an environmental side. I think you have localized material content. You’re actually giving jobs to more and more people. So, you can count the jobs we have, or you can count the jobs that we not only have but are also added to that local economy that came on because we moved those facilities into the US.

At this point, we’re actually starting to export from the US, which I think is amazing. So that’s a huge shift and a huge change. I think that when we look at our manufacturing, we have a new product coming out, and I talked about it a little bit, which is called Nexus. It’s a fully integrated kind of thing; we call it a Lego because you kind of Lego the pieces together. But the fact that you’re making that all in the US allows you to really maximize your manufacturing capability to understand what your market demand is, to go fill that demand and not go do things that you would have done differently.

So, let’s say you were making that in a plant in Asia and a plant in Europe, and then you try to bring them all together and they’ve got to all shift across the world to get to the same spot at the same time. It’s a bit of a large challenge. Now, the main plants being built in the US are shipping across the world, it’s a much more holistic view of how we are approaching solar and how we go about managing that supply chain and managing that chain with our installers and our customers. So, it’s super exciting. I think we’re adding to the capacity in every one of those facilities. So, it’s huge.

Wes Ashworth (40:50)

Yeah, very, very exciting. And it’s cool to see that. I think I appreciate the inside view, just kind of sharing through that. I think local manufacturing has such a competitive edge. Obviously, your perspective shows why. And exporting for the US in solar is still rare. It’s kind of a quiet flex there. So, no small accomplishment. It’s incredible. And then obviously, just designing, as you said, sort of like the Lego, that stackable system, just a part of mass adoption and just making it easier and easier.

Martin Rogers (41:18)

It’s so interesting how Solar started off as this very utilitarian-looking device on a house. And now, you and I also talked about the fact that our competition is good too. They’re good at what they do, and we need to learn from what they do. And I think we have learned from what they do and we’ve learned from listening to our installers and we’ve made those adjustments in this new product line that it’s kind of an appealing product. It looks good on a house. It makes sense, and kind of flows with what you’re trying to do in an environment.

So yeah, we’re super excited about that launch of that product. We also launched something called Single SKU recently, which is just one SKU. You put on the power that you want by scanning the barcode that you need. It reduces the inventory for installers and distributors. It’s a huge shift in the market. And that’s what our new product will be, that way as well.

Super cool to go from you know 17 parts down to three, I mean, it’s like that. That’s a big win for everybody.

Wes Ashworth (42:15)

Absolutely. Huge win. And as you mentioned there, I know you have a positive view of competition. Even when strong players push the market forward. I agree. I have the same mentality. How has real competition just made SolarEdge and the broader industry better? Help us just share a bit of your insight on that.

Martin Rogers (42:20)

Look, I think some of our competitors have come out with some very strong products in the last couple of years that made installations easier, or they made adding the battery easier. And I think for us, we had to get through a generation to get to the next generation. And now we’re kind of playing the same way. But when we looked at it, it’s like, OK, what is the best of what they’re doing, and what’s the next step?

I think it gave us a clear path to what the next step was. If you go back, you would see this very industrial style way of things being manufactured or thought of, even. It was interesting to me. I worked for an inverter company that actually hired Ferrari to do their design. Because they saw it earlier on, in Europe, the inverter, in a lot of cases, was inside the house.

So, they wanted it to be visually appealing. They thought about those things. Whereas in the US, it’s like, we all have big garages. We have this, we have big sides of the house. And we didn’t give it that kind of thought. And now we’re starting to think those ways. And I think that’s the competition. The competition drove us. And the competition is driving the acceleration and the battery adoption. And we’re working right with them and getting our adoption at the same level. But it took a couple of good players out there. And I think when we came out originally, back when I was at Enphase and SolarEdge kind of came out of the woodwork, and it was like, my God, what just happened? These guys really have something. It was a different technology at that time, and it made a lot of sense.

Now, we’ve adapted that technology. It’s still there. The base core technology that we use, but the look and feel and the install ability are critical. And I think we’ve talked about it in the past, but what the market is going to require going forward is a high level of installability. It’s got to be quick, it’s got to be seamless, it’s got to work, and that’s what people are looking for. And I think we’re hitting it right on the nose.

Wes Ashworth (44:27)

Absolutely. It’s great stuff. I think that perspective is really healthy for the industry. Competition grows. The market makes everyone better. We all improve with that methodology. I think the importance of just all those things, even being aesthetically pleasing. I’ll tell you about the next generation coming up below, my daughter. She reminds me constantly how much she values aesthetics. It needs to be aesthetic. Needs to look good. So no, that’s awesome. I love that.

Final question, any other parting words of advice, positive notes to leave the audience with, anything you didn’t get to share that you want to add in?

Martin Rogers (44:58)

I mean, just a quick summary. I think our market, our industry, is robust and will continue to find pitfalls and overcome them. That’s just what we are and how we work. I think when you’re thinking about your teams and stuff. My advice is turn them loose. Let them go do what they do best and guide them on what you want, but let them find the path to get there.

And make sure that you just take out the roadblocks for them so that they can succeed and be the best at what they do. I think that we are in a global world, and as we look about, manufacturing or whatever, I’m super excited that we’re able to bring it to the US, and I’m super excited that we can export it. This is a huge shift for all of us. I personally think that this industry has long legs.

I used to work for Schneider, as I mentioned before, and I was always amazed at how many small circuit breakers they made every single day. And I’m like, where are these things going? And when we look at solar now, it’s like, OK, we know there’s a baseline for the year of what’s going to get installed, and it’s going to continue to grow. And I’m just excited for everybody that’s in the industry that we can all participate in this.

We now know that this is a true market and a true growth market and it’ll go up and it’ll go down, but it’ll continue to grow up into the right. So, I guess my mantra would be up into the right. Let’s go.

Wes Ashworth (46:20)

Up and to the right, up to the right. Great, great words there. Great way to wrap it up. Marty, this was absolutely fantastic. Your experience, your clarity, and your steady optimism give the industry something very valuable. Thanks for sharing your story, your insights, and your perspective on where the solar world is heading.

To everyone listening out there, if this episode gave you something to think about, which I’m sure it did, subscribe to the show, rate the show, and pass it on to someone else who cares about where renewable energy is going next. And with that, we will see you next time on Green Giants.