Ruggedized Portable Battery Power for Construction with Francois Byrne, Hybrid Power Solutions | EP202

In this episode, Tim Montague sits down with Francois Byrne, CEO of Hybrid Power Solutions, to discuss the company's innovative approach to decarbonizing mobile power and construction. Francois shares his journey from working on hybrid race cars to developing cutting-edge battery and solar hybrid systems that eliminate the need for diesel generators.

Hybrid Power Solutions offers a range of rugged, plug-and-play products that combine batteries, solar panels, and (optionally) diesel generators to provide cleaner, reliable power for construction sites, mining operations, and other off-grid applications. Francois delves into the challenges of transitioning clients from traditional diesel generators to hybrid systems, emphasizing the cost savings and improved working conditions these solutions offer.

The discussion covers the latest developments in battery technology, including lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and the pursuit of safer, fire-resistant alternatives. Francois also explores the potential of hydrogen fuel cells and other clean power generation methods to further decarbonize mobile power solutions.

Francois shares insights from years of experience in designing products that can withstand the toughest job site conditions. Whether you're a solar installer, developer, or energy professional, this episode offers a fascinating look at the future of mobile power and the energy transition.

Key Takeaways

1. Mobile battery and solar hybrid power systems can significantly reduce fuel costs, emissions, and noise pollution compared to traditional diesel generators on construction sites and other off-grid applications.
2. Combining batteries with appropriately sized diesel generators and solar can create highly efficient hybrid systems that minimize fuel consumption and maximize battery usage.
3. Overprovisioning Inefficiencies: Traditional diesel generators are often significantly oversized for actual power loads. Integrated monitoring in hybrid systems allows right-sizing capacity.
4. Cost Savings and Improved Working Conditions: Beyond environmental benefits, hybrid mobile power solutions can deliver 75-95% fuel cost savings compared to diesel generators.

Social Media Handles
Francois Byrne
Hybrid Power Solu

Transcript

Tim Montague: 0:39

Today's episode on the Clean Power Hour is a homecoming. I got into the solar industry in 2016 Because a gentleman named Paul Johnson called me cold called me on a Sunday, out of the blue. He found my phone number on LinkedIn and called me. And he said something that was very eye opening, and that was that we had reached grid parity with solar in the United States or in North America. Paul is Canadian. My guest today is Canadian. And a company that Paul works with very closely called Hybrid Power Solutions, dedicated to decarbonizing mobile storage or mobile power, for construction for off grid, and for all kinds of mobile solutions. But this is how the world works. If you're open to it, right? When opportunity knocks, you say yes, please, more. And in 2016, I did that when Paul called me. So thank you, Paul, for calling me. It's the ride that I've been on since then, is truly amazing. I have learned so much and met so many wonderful people. And I'm truly now part of the energy transition. All thanks to you. So with that, I give you Francois Byrne of Hybrid Power Solutions.

intro: 2:04

Are you speeding the energy transition? Here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts Tim Montague and John Weaver bring you the best in solar batteries and clean technologies every week, I want to go deeper into decarbonisation. We do two, we're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get together we can speed the energy transition.

Tim Montague: 2:32

Today on the Clean Power Hour, clean, portable power for construction and mobile applications. My guest today is Francoise Byrne, CEO of Hybrid Power Solutions. We're going to geek out geek out on the world of ruggedized portable battery storage for mobile applications. Before we do that, check out all of our content, cleanpowerhour.com. Give us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. And please tell a friend about the show. We do this for you twice a week, we really appreciate you being here. And reach out to me on LinkedIn, I love connecting with my listeners, or at the website, cleanpowerhour.com We have a number of upcoming events, check out the Events tab for all of our webinars. Francoise, welcome to the Clean Power Hour.

Francois Byrne: 3:19

Thanks for having me, Tim.

Tim Montague: 3:21

It was great to get to know you a little bit in our pre interview and looking forward to bringing this content to my audience. You know, I've been a fan of mobile batteries, since I got into the RV world a few years ago. And then I bought a portable power bank for camping. And, you know, these these batteries that are you know, as small as you know, a kilowatt hour or less. And then up to several 100 kWh are becoming more and more common. And our listeners you know in the construction sector in you know, our solar installer friends and colleagues will appreciate that, you know, when you're honest construction site, you have many needs for portable power for charging up your your tools. And many times you will have a mobile generator that runs on gasoline or diesel. And you're in the business of cleaning that up. So give our listeners a little background on yourself Francois. How did you get interested in energy storage? And then we'll go into the Hybrid Power Solutions.

Francois Byrne: 4:35

Yeah, sounds good. So so as to tell you a little bit about myself. So I kind of fell into what I do right now, to a certain degree. So you know, I did study renewable energy engineering back some time ago and really just did not like electricity. And I got a lot of that stem from just no lack of comprehension. But then I got thrown off on to a formula hybrid race car team and they don't do this anymore. They've kind of split it out. So it's no longer hybrid. It's either all electric or all gas and, and I was the only guy who they called electrical. So I had to figure out how to make a battery system that would win races and yeah, kicked, hollered and scream when they told me this and did a terrible job at the start but then really got to know batteries in an intimate manner and it opened up this world of whole li this can do some really really really cool stuff. And and then after that, I ended up becoming a practice owner for a Railway Company. And that's when I was like, you know, we've got this crazy potential and batteries, with these little tiny motors that we can grab instant torque, no emissions or low emissions, if we create a hybrid system, this is, you know, this is a winning combination. And then we were doing some prototyping, I got I got a patent, they're working at this company. And it was, it was, you know, this holy wow moment when we were presenting to clients that they're going. So you mean, I can, I can do this many things with this little tiny guy, and I just gotta pull the trigger. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, fast forward a little bit into 2015, and got on the intrapreneur, entrepreneurial voyage, if you want to call it that, and, and really was just chasing that, that opportunity that we that I really discovered early on in my career. And so start off with a kind of a mission, if you want to stay it and then became product. And that's what Hybrid Power Solutions is, today, we are really more than just a product, we actually, you know, solutions provide or at least that's what we're aiming for. And we build basically fuel free and hybrid systems from 3000 Watts Up to 150,000 watts. And obviously, you can scale up from much higher, much, much more than that. And yeah, and who we're geared towards, is, you know, we're not going to be your your, your utility scale provider, you know, we're not, we're not there to provide hundreds of megawatt hours of energy storage, what we're doing is we're basically eliminating the need for gas and diesel generators. And that's a super broad market. But it could be everything from military to mining to construction. I mean, there is not a single building that's gone up where they haven't used at some point, some form of gas or diesel generator, so put into perspective for you.

Tim Montague: 7:29

Yep. Yeah, when you look around at the built environment, you're looking at a sea of generators, basically, that was involved in the construction of that built environment. And we definitely want to and can now clean that up. I mean, one angle here is that you want to be charging that battery with renewable energy, if at all possible. That's sometimes possible, and many times not possible, until we completely green the grid, of course, which is also happening, you know, to the tune of something like 40 gigawatts of solar being added to the American grid this year, in solar power. So anyway, yeah, the the connection between electric, electric transportation and stationary storage is, you know, is very direct. You see, Tesla, for example, you know, going after cars first, but then stationary storage, and that's a big part of their business. And they are today, one of the leaders in stationary storage. So fantastic product overall. But Francois, why construction? What was it about that application that kind of sparked your imagination? Yeah,

Francois Byrne: 8:47

you know, it's, it's to go back a little bit. So, you know, seven, eight years ago, we found that the mining industry was just desperate for a solution that didn't have any fumes. It had nothing to do with the green aspect. And quite frankly, I really don't sell much on, you know, I don't say here, here's a clean power alternative, I say, here's something that's gonna save you money. Because then people start listening. And then I also say, this is a lot safer than what you're currently using. And you guys are gonna like it too. And, you know, this is the thing, right? I one part of my background I didn't talk about is I used to pull cable on a railway like digging trenches, right. And I was using a generator, day in, day out. And I was 10 feet away from this thing for 10 hour shifts. There is no other lesson in the world than discomfort when you're standing right near these super cheap, loud gasoline generators and needing to refuel them. And quickly, I realized that, you know, it's, it's, yes, okay. You know, people are, they love the clean thing, and it's a great marketing and you know, ESG departments are gonna love it, but you have to sell on, this is going to make your job cheaper. And your guys are going to be your Bear Grylls and they're going to be a lot happier. And, and that's where we saw this niche. They really needed to be changed in this massive art market opportunity. Right? Like, yeah, we can talk about construction all day long, which is fantastic. But think about the other applications, right? All these work crews that are just doing maintenance. I mean, if you're talking about solar panel farm, right, how many times do you require some kind of equipment lighting or power on site and you're having to roll in a diesel generator to put up your solar panel farm? I mean, it's it's kind of ironic in that we're aware we could offer you a solution that's going to overtime, save you, you know, 75 to 90% of your operating costs, and you don't have to hear this thing running In the back of your head all day long, right?

Tim Montague: 10:41

Yeah, the noise and the pollution from generators is very real and significant. And I'm curious how you explain this to a to a customer though today they've got a five kilowatt generator that is powered with fossil fuels. Tomorrow they have a what?

Francois Byrne: 11:08

Yeah. And and putting that making that transition to the client work links in their head is the biggest challenge we're going to have. And I think it's almost the same challenge that I'm going through with my friends and family right now about EVs, the upfront cost in the Eevee. Okay, it's coming down significantly, but it's still probably to what 20% minimum over what an equivalent gasoline cars gonna cost you. Sure. But I've, you know, I've got an Eevee. And I've saved over$6,000 In my first year, just in fuel costs alone, right. And so it's almost like pre paying for really cheap fuel down the road. And I think that's the best way to put this is that, hey, you know, we're going to, we're going to come in, and you're not going to have to change any of the ways you do things, we're not going to change the way you do things. Okay, but we're going to set this up. So you're actually saving a huge amount of money on maintenance and in fuel cost. And that's the easiest way to go. Now, then we start talking about okay, well, how are you going to do that? Well, we're going to do so your site, okay, we can get away with all the small equipment, they're going to run off of our three or 5000 watt unit generator. And the reason for that is because you need something portable, your guys are just using contractor lights, they're using coring drills, and small equipment jackhammer, stuff like that. So they're going to plug in rain to the 5000 3000 watts. Alright, now let's go to your your crane, you got an onsite crane and construction site, well, that's going to need some more power, that's going to be something a little bit bigger than that. So we'll do a larger system, for example, we've got 150,000 watt unit coming up, or we've got a 25 or 4000 unit that we've just built. And those are available in hybrid options. So right off the bat, even if we don't have space for any kind of solar, because these are all solar ready, they're all outdoor rated, they're dropping plug and play products, you can, even in a hybrid situation, you can save a huge amount of fuel. Using these products. I mean, power two is a great example there. I don't want to I don't even want to say they're competitors. But they do this really well where they drop it, you still have to have a diesel generator in rented diesel generator, but you can hook these up to these diesel generators. And right away, you've created a hybrid system that's saving you like 70% of your fuel costs, right? And maintenance costs, which is phenomenal. Then you add on our side, that one, the diesel generator is actually built in with the units. So it's all plugged in Wired In. Once again, it's that plug and play capability, right? You don't even have to have a guy on site, plug this thing in, it's all ready to go. They just flick on it's ready. But we also have that capability of adding soldiers. And we say, Okay, well construction site, how practical could a solar system be on on a construction site? Well, we're designing basically a half an hour array. So within half an hour, you could have a right now we're getting between 12 and 16,000 watts of array size in put up in half an hour. So yeah, so if you just give me you know, a footprint of 60 by 10 feet, and I'll put up an array that's going to save you 95% off your fuel cost. And we're still gonna have a diesel generator in the background that we've built into our system just for you just in case because you need to work 24/7 Right. And that's our approach, right? We understand what the client actually wants and needs. Because we've done it. And I think that's that's the missing piece of the puzzle for a lot of other manufacturers out there. Since

Tim Montague: 14:22

my audience, you know, really is solar installers, developers, financiers, EPCs, etc, right? Like when you say hybrid, they immediately think solar and battery. Now, are you when you say hybrid, you're also including a diesel generator in that equation, there's no reason you can't have a book, you know, this both end, right. But if you don't have the solar, are you saving money with diesel and a battery? I'm just I just want to make sure we understand the value proposition that you're making case for?

Francois Byrne: 15:02

Yeah. 100%. So that's a good question to the the why when we go on site, and we don't have the capability of putting in a solar array, which happens I mean, we've got downtown jobs or whatever, that you just you don't have that capacity to deploy a solar system. The diesel and battery combo is so effective, and I'll tell you why it's so effective, it is effective because construct one almost all industries overestimate their power consumption by over tenfold. If I go out on site right now and I go to a 25 kilowatt diesel tillable, which is The most popular diesel generator out there. It is typically running between two and three kilowatts on a 25 kilowatt diesel generator. And that is because rental companies make a lot more money if they come into that diesel 25 kilowatt instead of renting you a five kilowatt. Not only that, but the other thing is that okay, well, maybe I have that one piece of equipment I use for half an hour once a week, that's going to draw 15 kilowatts, so I need that 25 kilowatts. The beauty of batteries is that for that half hour job, I can feed it with 24 kilowatts continuous on on our spark one of our models, our most popular models, I can feed it with 24 kilowatts continuous and peak up to 48 kilowatts. But for the rest of the time that I'm averaging two to three kilowatts, it's just humming along really nicely and not wasting insane amount of fuels, that fuel because this generator has been designed for, you know, 25 kilowatts, not two or three kilowatts. So I think that's the beauty of batteries. And that's where you're going to see, you know, up to 75% reduction, using a generator battery system that even does that doesn't have solar at all, and then now you're pushing, then once you add solar, then you're really starting to push it right. So the entire numbers.

Tim Montague: 16:48

So what you're saying is when a diesel generator, I'm no, I'm no expert on diesel generators. Okay, so I and I would venture that many of my listeners are not either, but but they're, they're familiar enough to know what they look like and sound. Snow probably even worked with them. But but the generator is running at a minimum speed when the engine is on, right, it has to it has to mean to a certain RPM in order to run period. Right, exactly. And that's where the waste is coming in, right, because it's, it's actually consuming more fuel, ultimately, then you would by storing some of that output in a battery and then shutting the generator off. And using the battery, which has a much finer speedometer on it, basically,

Francois Byrne: 17:34

that's exactly and the best analogy I can make is, think about running your car, your gasoline car being on with your gasoline. And so turning your engine on to run your radio, that is what people are doing. And And the big thing here is you hit the nail on the head when you said you know, the turning off point, what we do with our diesel is when we're in hybrid mode with diesel and battery, we're putting one a much smaller diesel engine on there. So I can you know, on our 24 kilowatts, we do a six kilowatt diesel. And the reason we do that is because we just need to do average plus about 50%. And so average load plus 50%. And the reason we need the extra 50% is we need to charge the battery at the same time as well. Right. So we do that, and then we charge up the battery, it hits a certain percentage, we can dictate whatever that percentage is, and it shuts off. So on a site, it may only run 2345 hours a day, right on a heavy user maybe 12 hours a day. But that's 50% Less run time, not only that, I'm using a smaller generator, and I'm running it at the peak efficiency efficiency, we look at that efficiency curve and we can set the load the charging rates basically to that precise efficiency. Now the only thing on these 25 kilowatt generators and bigger is that they hate low low power consumption. So they are not meant to run at these two three kilowatt levels. They creates incredible amount of wear on the engines. And now with these new tiered emissions coming into play, they actually have to put load banks to run them at higher loads. Okay, so basically giant resistors are being put on these things, just so that they can just so that they can not ruin the engines and also meet their emissions requirements using death. So they actually have to waste power so incredible, absolutely incredible waste just they're burning through power just so they can meet these emission requirements.

Tim Montague: 19:33

It occurs to me that maybe this is why diesel locomotives are often hybrid diesel electric because of this phenomenon that you're talking about I don't know you know something about train so I would guess you might know this you actually

Francois Byrne: 19:48

get the main reason actually on the trains is the torque value so I mean that's one thing Electric is unbelievable at is instant torque right? So on trains, yeah, it's the minute you go from diesel to electric motor, you get you know, 1000s of pounds at zero RPM, which is awesome. The

Tim Montague: 20:06

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Francois Byrne: 20:59

Yeah, so it really is very situational. So for a lot of solar installers, commercial zones, such as I should say that are used to, in weird industrial, there's a lot of like stuff, we don't talk about that they're like, like, for example, municipal pumps. So there's a lot of municipal pumps that are run off of diesel generators, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 on a permanent basis, you probably don't even know about it, they're in the middle of nowhere. And that's why they're running offs, diesel generators are hooked up to the grid. But there's 1000s of these, we can in a matter of a day, or a couple of days, depending on how quickly you can still install solar panels. A solar installer can come up size up a system, an array, you know, maybe five 6000 Watts, because these pumps typically don't run continuously. They're on a float of some sort. And putting the spark whether rated all ready to go plug and play and then they're done. Right. And they've right there eliminated diesel generator that was running 365.

Tim Montague: 21:54

Okay, so you're not necessarily selling some portable racking solution for for temporary for a temporary solar installation is that I understand. Sure you can, you can do a ground mount, traditional, fixed tilt, ground mount solar array. Okay, fine. Yes. So that's our bread and butter in the solar industry. But when it comes to something that it needs to be movable, is there is there a good solution for solar in that world?

Francois Byrne: 22:24

There is three there, there absolutely is. And I can't say too much about it. Because it's in the design phase right now, it will be launching, probably in the summer, and it will be it will look very weird, but it is very cool. And you know, we've seen, I've seen a lot of other companies do this, where they have the kind of like, container, and it folds out and it's these big glass panels and five

Tim Montague: 22:48

b I think you're referring to Oh, yeah, five B is an Australian racking company that does prefabrication in the factory. And then the panels are all wired up like an accordion, and then they just roll it out. Exactly on the field. It's a real thing. And it's, it's used for large scale solar, I think mostly in other markets besides the US today. But like Latin America and Australia. Yeah.

Francois Byrne: 23:15

And then there's, there's, there's, I can't remember what the name is, but there is ones that actually melt these. So you basically ship a container like a 20 footer, and then it just got wings that kind of opened up, and it's already got pre built panels on the top. Sure. You know, I like that, like, it's, it's super cool. I think the issue with them is the mobility aspect. So, you know, the reason I bring up this, this pump in this more permanent solution is because our products live on in multiple different states, those temporary locations, and also the permanent fixed locations. So perfect locations, you're gonna go out there, you're gonna spend the extra time you're going to put up a proper solar array, and you're just going to plug it into this thing, okay, you ever need to move, you're just taking down the solar array, the spark itself was just, you know, forklift, and you're good to go. Or create. Now on a temporary job site, something that's, you know, sub two years, that's exactly what we're talking about now is we're talking about a some add on, I don't want to get too many details on it, but it is going to be a very similar to that accordion style panel array that that you basically filled out on site. And that's, as I mentioned, it's, it's, you know, my mission is a half an hour setup, to get you a 10 to 18,000 Watt array, which would be a game changer, I think, you know, it all comes down to we to make, you know, as an industry, we need to make clean power. Easy. Because the guys who have been doing this for 2030 years on construction sites, I mean, you try to talk them about a new tool, all right. It's, it's, they won't even give you the time of day, right? I'm not using that crap, right. So you, that's what you're going up against here. So you got to make it so easy. That even they can say, all right, that was really easy. Okay. Right. And that's, that's, that's the attitude, you know, I approach this in our whole team here approaches, it says, We're selling you a really cool hammer, like, that's, we're going to sell you the hammer the same way we sell our product, and it's because it's going to do something really cool for you. And it's gonna be really easy for you to use. And it's simple. We're not trying to say, here's the coolest clean energy thing, and we don't even price out or, like when we we create a solution for a customer say they, you know, got a whole construction site. We're not even going on the construction site and saying, you know, how many generators do you have or whatever we're just saying how many plugs do you need? Right, make it that easy. But then they can't say anything, you know, and, and the the really Big advantage I think we have as an industry is that we have data, right? Like these diesel generators are going out there and there's an analog amp meter, and voltage meter on there, that's as good as it gets. And so with these new system, these new products, we've got this whole telemetry telemetry going on in the background, right? Where we can tell, hey, these guys are using, you're not they're not using two three kilowatts, these guys are using 20 kilowatts, continuous, we're approaching the max load on our generator, or, you know, we want to call it a generator, or our alternative generator, it's time to ship a second one, we can do that preemptively, before you lose power before you overload your generators. Right. I mean, that's, that's game changing. And as a company, you know, as a business model, I think that's also game changing, right? You can be basically anticipating what the customer needs. And also in the opposite direction, right? We can say, hey, you're running a, you know, 24 kilowatt model where you could get away with our three kilowatt model. Let's save some money here.

Tim Montague: 26:37

The units come with built in monitoring, is that what you're saying? They do. So all

Francois Byrne: 26:41

are big ones right now come come stock standard. And then as of May of this year, all of our smaller ones and no price difference, but all of our smaller ones will include full telemetry.

Tim Montague: 26:52

Tell me more about that. Yeah, super

Francois Byrne: 26:54

interesting. So we're building out the back end for it right now, where essentially, your customer, you buy 100 units that could be of multiple different sizes, you log into you register them in, you log into your account, you can see all 100 units, and you can see every single one of them, which ones I've put in power, which one's taken in power, at what level which one's connected to solar, which one's not connected solar, which one's being used, you know, Cycle Count, that means really important. It's the odometer of the battery world, right? And so you can see, okay, hey, look, this crew is using it, like, if they've got 1000 cycles in two years on this thing, versus these guys use it seven times, why is that? Well, is that thing in storage, you know, in none, all we doing, you know, a Wi Fi base, because Wi Fi is it's it's useless outside the garage. So what we're doing is we're adding the capability of also doing self like cellular tower connectivity, as well. And then down the line to we may even add satellite connectivity, so you can see your units, and also where they go, that's probably a bigger one, you know, we have a lot of transits and stuff, you know, public public organizations who they just really want to know if these things are going home with anybody. So it adds that whole new level of of of connectivity that people are asking for, it also gives us the opportunity to do remote monitoring and troubleshooting, right? So somebody calls me up and says, Hey, I've got issues well, okay, what's the serial number, that they give out the semi serial number next thing, you know, okay, it's been reset, it was a firmware update we need to do and you're off to the races. And it just makes people ensures that people are operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I think that's a really important part here is that, you know, we we need to be focusing on making sure that these products, even though they may not be as well, as tried and true as as the diesel generators have been around for winter, coming up probably on 100 year, just like that, we need to make sure that with technology, we can ensure that if they do go down for some reason that we're getting in up and running as quickly as possible. And I think that's the big service aspect that we're going to be offering as well, not only through through this remote monitoring and troubleshooting, but also just being there. So that if a customer says, hey, look, I've got a unit down, I don't even know what the problem is, I'm just going to hand them a new one, or a loaner unit. And the minute they got that they're up and running right away, right away. Right, and then I'll take my time look at what happened, you know, picks that way.

Tim Montague: 29:18

So, what should people know about this segment? It is a unique segment. I think it's very interesting. I'm fascinated by making things, you know, more weather resistant and rugged, you know, let's face it, things get beat up. And on a construction site. They're getting lugged around, move, you know, dropped, run into, et cetera. What kind of challenges have you had to overcome to create very durable products? Oh,

Francois Byrne: 29:52

think the lesson here is that you can test all day long. for months on end, you can test in your little lab and try to do all your work, you know, to make sure it's it's shockproof, vibration proof, dummy proof. But until you throw it out there, you're just never going to know what you get in. I think that's like we've seen a lot of stuff. We've seen units fall off the back of a pickup truck because somebody forgot the tailgate down on the highway, right? Like that's the kind of stuff we're going up against. Or somebody drives a forklift through this thing. And those are the kinds of experiences you're never getting in the lab. And you know, you I sort of assume every time we we make A brand new product. Yes. Okay, I've got eight years behind us, you know, eight years of designing this and really knowing robust stuff. But we automatically know that in the first year, we're going to find a new way that somebody broke it. And instead of saying, Okay, well, hey, was the customers fault, we're just going to say, hey, we're gonna give you a new one. And we're going to really take this one back, because I want to see how we can make sure that this doesn't happen again. Right. And I think that's, you know, that he can only pay for it in time that experience right it's it's an I think it's it's really good that we've been in this game for so long, because we've seen all these different scenarios. And that's why you see a lot of people jumping in, and the consumer industry is a, I think, an easier market to go after. Because they, you know, they don't they want to deal with this crazy kind of stuff. And we have to deal with some crazy people, but they don't have to deal with some crazy situations at the spin.

Tim Montague: 31:31

So you're making products for consumers as well. We're not?

Francois Byrne: 31:35

No, so we don't target. No, we don't you know, all of our products are designed for professionals. They are professional, great. industrial commercial. Now, are there people who want that for their RV 100%. There are people who are you know, Outlanders or Outlanders, or now whatever the the new term for off roading and camping I can't remember what it's called, but overland overland overlanding. That's the one overland and yeah, so there's a lot of guys into the overland or people into the overlanding now. And that's kind of a community that that goes, Hey, you know what, I'm spending 50 $60,000 on a truck minimum. My Power Pack needs to be the same grade as my truck, and they want to spend a little bit more and get something that's going to power a jackhammer or a giant air compressor, whatever they need. But that's not our primary

Tim Montague: 32:20

industry. Sure. So when you think about decarbonizing construction, okay, I think this is a very worthy goal. But how far along are we on this journey? And what are the breakthroughs that you see coming? That are going to make that, you know, a faster reality so to speak?

Francois Byrne: 32:47

Well, that is a good question. You know, I think that there's two elements here. The first element is I don't think today's technology, let me rephrase that. I do think that today's technology is advanced enough on the battery and energy storage side, to meet the requirements that the construction railway mining industrial guys meet. Where there is a lack is in the I don't want to say recharging infrastructure, but in the service portion to the system. And what I mean by that is that, you know, energy batteries are only an energy storage device, they do not make energy. So you've got a couple of so so what are your other options? So you can do go down to you know, diesel fossil fuel backup of some sort? Yes, it's an efficient way, or you can do solar, but there's a lot of situations that those the solar, it's just not feasible. So what is that next technology that's, that's going to help us really create the perfect hybrid system. And, you know, I've had my hopes on hydrogen for a while, even alcohol based fuel cells, as a really nice alternative to a diesel generator, is the big issue here is the cost. I mean, the the you know, these these fuel cells, a 5000 watt fuel cells can go for$60,000 $70,000. Right. And that doesn't include your tank, and that doesn't include your your fuel. So you know, that I think, is where the industry if we want to really get rid of that diesel and gasoline generator, completely, you know, what I'm talking about? I think the best way to look at it is is really kind of like the EVS. We had hybrids first, right? We had that hybrid, and it kind of positioned the Eevee, as you know, a softer landing if you want. And that really, really helped. And I think we're going through that same transition right now we're going in through that hybrid approach where we can have solar sometimes, but a lot of times we're gonna still be relying relying on that diesel generator, that fossil fuel generator, but what is that next step? And I think that next step is going to be somewhere in that that hydrogen or other power generation capability that is truly clean. And deliverable. And or deliverable, I should say, because that's the thing, right? We need to be able to deliver fuel onto these temporary sites. Because we don't have we don't have the, you know, we don't have the luxury of being able to just plug into the grid. If we had that we would just plug into the grid from the start. Yeah,

Tim Montague: 35:11

I mean, I'm long on hydrogen. In the long run. I don't think it's going to be widespread in the next five years. Currently, you know, for batteries for your application. Lithium iron phosphate is probably the the industry standard. In terms of battery technology. Do you see any breakthroughs coming down the pike?

Francois Byrne: 35:34

i Yeah, there's you know, there's a couple companies working with and I can't spill the beans As on that, which have some really interesting technology, and I think the big breakthrough is going to come in the form of safety. I think we're going to see that also in the near future for residential and commercial energy, like fixed energy storage solutions, where lithium is just any lithium chemistry is inherently going to be somewhat unsafe. I'm not saying that it's, you know, it's dangerous. I think gasoline and diesel are much more dangerous. But what I'm saying is that to have a completely fuel, like flame free fire retardant battery, I think that's kind of the next step in technology. Because there is this apprehension about moving to a battery system that could technically, you know, catch fire, right? For sure. So you know, and this sort of leads into the conversation of of, you know, a lot of our customers are actually looking at this in two folds, are there for a product and maybe this is, the way that we help the industry transition is they're looking at this, okay, I've got temporary power on site, I purchased this product, or I rent it, or at least whatever it is, I get this product on site, I'm using it for my temporary power, I'm putting up the building. But then I'm taking the same system, and I'm selling it back to the customer that building and providing emergency backup power for that, for that building in a stationary application. That's where, you know, people go, Well, I just created, basically, I bought an asset and resold an asset. And at the same time, I got almost free power out of it for a year, two years, whatever it took me to build this thing. And so that's now now you're saying, Okay, well, I don't care about the Price Tag game. It doesn't matter if it's 20 30% More expensive from the start. I'm selling it off at the end of this thing. I'm not selling off any generators, that's a sunk cost. And most of my costs and fuels have has to be sunk. So that's, I think, where we're going to really see success. That dual use, right?

Tim Montague: 37:34

Interesting. Well, I I want all of our listeners to check out all of our content at Clean Power Hour comm. We've had a variety of storage technologies on the show, we've had zinc, we've had organic flow batteries, we've had heat batteries. And so the the energy storage space is, is blossoming and diversifying. Lithium Ion does dominate today. But in five to 10 years, something else will come along. There's no question about it. But connect with us on LinkedIn, and reach out to me there or on my website cleanpowerhour.com. Francois, how can our listeners find you?

Francois Byrne: 38:17

Yeah, so if it's up on our website, hybridps.c/. And yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. So Francois Byrne, just check me out there. And feel free to shoot me a message, if any of this resonated with you, especially if you're somebody who's you know, actually in the trenches doing this kind of stuff, we design our products based on your request. So if you got anything you would love to see out of a battery or out of a portable micro grid, just let us know.

Tim Montague: 38:43

Great. Well, thank you so much. I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Thanks, Sam. Hey, listeners. This is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you. I do this for you twice a week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey. And it would mean so much to me. If you would go to clean power hour.com. Click on the About Us link right there on the main navigation that takes you to the about page and you'll see a big graphic listener survey, just click on that graphic and it takes just a couple of minutes. If you fill out the survey, I will send you a lovely baseball cap with our logo on it. The other thing I want our listeners to know is that this podcast is made possible by corporate sponsors. We have chin power systems, the leading three phase string inverter manufacturer in North America. So check out CPS America. But we are very actively looking for additional support to make this show work. And you see here our media kit. With all the sponsor benefits and statistics about the show. You know we're dropping two episodes a week. We have now over 320,000 downloads on YouTube, and we're getting about 45,000 downloads per month. So this is a great way to bring your brand to our listeners and our listeners are Our decision makers in clean energy this includes projects executives, engineers, finance, project management, and many other professionals who are making decisions about and developing, designing, installing and making possible clean energy project. So check out cleanpowerhour.com both our listener survey on the about us and our media kit and become a sponsor today. Thank you so much. Let's go solar and storage