SPAN's Arch Rao tells Sara Gutterman how the company's reinvented smart electrical panel lets new and existing homes go fully electric by measuring and controlling every load, avoiding the expensive power-line and service upgrades that full electrification usually requires for homeowners and builders. He also discusses growing utility interest in smart panels and SPAN's role in the all-electric, solar-plus-storage Vision House Las Vegas project.
00:00:01:21 - 00:00:22:24
Sara Gutterman: Artem, so excited to have this conversation with you, because the building industry is really experiencing transformative change, and span is just right in the thick of that change with your advanced technology solution. So can you tell us a little bit about those solutions and how you are playing a pivotal role in the transformation of the built environment?
00:00:22:26 - 00:00:46:07
Arch Rao: I spent we are on a mission to enable artificial of all homes, and that spawns from the idea that if you're continuing to be dependent on natural gas to power everyday lives, we are contributing to climate change in a negative way. And I think there's a very simple opportunity for us to transition to a fully electric lifestyle. But that does require us to think about the infrastructure in our homes and the electricity grid beyond that.
00:00:46:08 - 00:00:58:15
Arch Rao: So we've reinvented the whole electrical panel to make it more accessible for every home, new or old, to become fully electric by using technology built into the panel of measuring and controlling every load in the home.
00:00:58:17 - 00:01:08:14
Sara Gutterman: Have you seen increased consumer awareness and adoption and demand for your smart panels, and just demand side energy management in general?
00:01:08:17 - 00:01:35:01
Arch Rao: I think there is a natural progression we're seeing in terms of customers adopting electric vehicles, not not just because they're electric, but because they are functionally comparable or if not better than the existing gas powered vehicles. And now they're becoming more affordable. It's also now true for more and more appliances in your home. If you think about heat pumps for air conditioning, induction cooktops for cooking, electric water heaters for for your water heating purposes.
00:01:35:01 - 00:01:54:06
Arch Rao: So I think those are technologies that are now becoming more available and more affordable. So we're seeing a natural progression of customers adopting these technologies. But the missing link is that when you adopt these technologies, you're adding a whole lot more demand for electricity in your home. And that cannot be easily met by just adding more power capacity to your home.
00:01:54:07 - 00:02:13:08
Arch Rao: That's a fairly expensive and time consuming process. You have to run new power lines to your home, and if you're building a new home or a community of homes, you have to bring in nearly twice the amount of power capacity into every single home in a community. Span allows you the opportunity to fully electrify without having to spend money on those expensive and time consumptive power line upgrades.
00:02:13:09 - 00:02:23:19
Arch Rao: Because we become essentially the control center, the power control system for all these devices in your home, sitting right at the periphery between the grid and the devices in your.
00:02:23:22 - 00:02:30:15
Sara Gutterman: So there's not just a benefit for home owners and home buyers, but also for builders. Talk a little bit about that.
00:02:30:17 - 00:02:50:29
Arch Rao: In some cases, the economic value to the homebuilder is very significant right out of the gate. So to give you an example of one of the home builders we're working with here in California, and they build homes across the country as codes and standards are evolving to a point where homebuilders now have to make homes either fully electric or future electrification ready.
00:02:51:03 - 00:03:16:10
Arch Rao: That's not placing a significant high burden of responsibility on them to now bring in not two amps of power carrying capacity into a home, but nearly 304 hundred amps of home. That means you're spending more money on materials, spending more money on larger panels, spending more money on the labor required to bring these power into your home. But you're also potentially spending more money on the interconnection with the utility.
00:03:16:10 - 00:03:35:29
Arch Rao: So larger transformers and more cost to bring in power to the whole, whole community, if you will. All of those costs can be avoided out of the gate at the design stage by using a technology like span, just like you would install any electrical panel into a home anyway, and that's been a significant driver of adoption with new home builders over the last, last year for us.
00:03:36:05 - 00:03:39:22
Sara Gutterman: What kind of engagement are you getting from utilities recently?
00:03:39:23 - 00:04:06:14
Arch Rao: We're moving to a model where utilities are seeing the value go beyond just that customer to the network of customers behind the distribution substations. There's avoided cost lately. So they're looking at ways to rate pace the solution. So think about how we saw the evolution of the mechanical electrical meter to becoming a smart meter, if you will, and that natural progression is going from a smart meter to a smart panel that becomes a utility solution for all customers.
00:04:06:16 - 00:04:41:25
Sara Gutterman: Now let's talk about the vision House Las Vegas project that we collectively are doing with these are homes. We really believe that this project is raising the bar on the national production builder, showcasing that net zero all electric, smart connected, solar plus storage powered healthy homes have a place in attainable housing and I would love to hear your thoughts on this project, but you're excited about what Span is going to contribute to it and how you feel like it is helping to raise that bar on the building industry.
00:04:41:27 - 00:05:03:04
Arch Rao: Look, we really appreciate the leadership of folks like companies like these are that are not just talking about it, but showcasing what the value to the customer can be with solutions like this and and that. It's not just about being environmentally conscious. It's not just about, well, that's important. There's also a very clear economic rationale for customers to make this shift.
00:05:03:05 - 00:05:28:28
Arch Rao: Right. And in a lot of cases, as with most technologies, it's about customer education. It's about builder education. It's about contract education. So having a showcase where we can demonstrate there is a fully electric home that is managed by span, powered with solar, backed up by a battery, and can have no negative impact on your daily day. Life, in fact, can have a fairly positive impact on your day to day life.
00:05:28:28 - 00:05:37:07
Arch Rao: While saving you money, I think, is a very compelling vision, so I'm really glad to be partnering with you. And these are to be demonstrating this together.