We had a chance to hear the story of two solar industry leaders this week. Founders of Go Green Solar and Planet Plan Sets, Deep Patel and Jeff Spies, are two solar veterans who have been in the solar industry for over a decade. They provide two important services for the industry, helping the long-tail solar customers (independent contractors, developers/builders, and DIYers) get modular equipment solutions (think IKEA of solar) as well as accompanying plan sets.
Go Green Solar calls itself the IKEA of Solar. Planet Plan Sets is run by one of the most passionate and engaged executives of the industry, Jeff Spies, whose team provides a critical service to independent solar installers and builders. In this 47 minute conversation, we covered everything from the founders’ background to the history of the solar industry, to the unique ways Go Green Solar and Planet Power Sets are collaborating to serve the industry.
The topics we covered in this interview are below:
- Personal story and background of Deep Patel, Founder of Go Green Solar. (2:33)
- The history of the solar industry (4:38)
- 6000 BCE Solar in China (4:45)
- 1921 Einstein’s discovery of the Photoelectric effect (5:53)
- 1954 First Commercialization of Solar Cells by Bell Labs (6:27)
- 1958 First solar-powered satellite (7:55)
- 1970 Big oil goes into solar (8:48)
- 1979 Back to the land movement. Hippies start buying solar panels (9:45)
- 1990s Big oil exits solar (11:01)
- 2006 Governor Schwarzenegger signs the Million Solar Roofs Initiative (11:37)
- Story of Go Green Solar
- How Deep Patel started Go Green Solar by doing his own DIY project (12:20)
- Volunteering in the industry and Growing Go Green Solar over the years (13:20)
- Involvement with the City of Los Angeles and the State of California (14:22)
- Deep’s visits to The White House to talk about distributed energy (14:43)
- Deep’s involvement with the California Solar (and Storage) Industry Association and at the Federal level at SEIA (15:02)
- Friendships & relationships in the solar industry (16:20)
- Solar Pioneer Parties (17:15)
- The origins of the Solar Industry (17:55)
- State of the solar industry today
- Dec 2019 California reaches one million solar roofs (18:44)
- Cost of Solar Today (~$20k) (19:46)
- The vision of the Distributed Grid (20:30)
- Go Green Solar
- How Go Green Solar makes it easy and simple for customers to go solar via solar kits, engineered systems, and high-quality customer support (21:00)
- Solar-in-a-Box (IKEA of Solar) and Go Green Solar’s customers
- Go Green Solar’s market strategy and segments (21:36)
- The relationship between Deep Patel & Jeff Spies and their companies, Go Green Solar and Planet Plan Sets (25:33)
- Planet Plan Sets (28:57)
- Jeff Spies background and his various contributions and roles in the Solar Industry (29:20)
- Solar Roots: The Pioneers of PV — A documentary about the TRUE story of the early days of the solar industry (30:49)
- Planet Plan Sets company overview. And how they serve their customers. (32:20)
- Plan Set Generation process (32:57)
- Why use Planet Plan Sets for generating plan sets (33:33)
- Key Elements of a Plan Set (34:05)
- Cover Page (34:15)
- Site Plan (34:30)
- String Configuration (34:53)
- Array Layout (35:08)
- Structural Details (35:32)
- Attachment Details (35:38)
- Electrical Plans (35:50)
- Back feeding to the Main Service Panel (36:10)
- Safety Labels Placards (36:20)
- Prod Spec Sheets (36:26)
- Certifications Docs (36:29)
- The story of how PPS helped a solar installer in a unique ground mount system issue and related codes and standards issues (37:05)
- The rapidly changing dynamics of the industry (39:15)
- The current state of solar energy storage and its constraints (39:30)
- Main service panel related constraints (40:45)
- Residential demand charges (42:25)
- The future of the industry as players acting as Energy Service Providers (43:40)
- Jeff’s parting words on the intrinsic rewards of being in the solar industry (45:37)