Microgrids

00:00:08:16 - 00:00:22:26
Sara Gutterman: I'm Sarah Gutman, CEO, Green Builder Media. I'm here today with Hank Rogers, the founder and CEO of Blue Planet Energy. Can you give us a brief version of the origin story and tell us what makes you eye on technology different?

00:00:23:02 - 00:00:45:04
Henk Rogers: I have a foundation in Hawaii working to end the use of carbon based fuel, and we passed a law that helped the solar industry. And the city said, no, no, no, no, no, we can't handle that much variable power on the grid. And so there was, there was they stopped doing grid connect and grid tie. And so I said, how are we going to pass this point?

00:00:45:05 - 00:01:05:02
Henk Rogers: So I said, well, maybe I just need to get everybody to defect from the grid. So I took my ranch off grid. I took my home in Honolulu. Off grid. And other people started asking me, you know, can you do that for me? Can you do that for me? And so then we spun off a group and that became Blue Planet Energy.

00:01:05:05 - 00:01:30:28
Henk Rogers: So the the reason we ended up with lithium ferrous phosphate is I asked for first of all, I asked for a battery that was going to be made by a company that was still going to be around 20 years from now. Second thing is a chemistry that I don't mind having at my ranch at the end of life that is nontoxic and, well, that's not going to hurt the environment.

00:01:31:00 - 00:01:39:25
Henk Rogers: The third is that was really nice about the the theme iron phosphate chemistry is that they never catch on fire.

00:01:39:28 - 00:01:46:20
Sara Gutterman: Tell us a little bit more about why blue iron is optimal for off grid applications.

00:01:46:23 - 00:02:11:15
Henk Rogers: You know, some some of our businesses replacing lead acid batteries for people who are are not near the grid. So when you compare our batteries, for example, to lead acid, we're much smaller, much lighter, and we don't have any nasty acid. I mean, the lead and acid, they're already nasty. But our technology was built to be off grid in the first place because my ranch, I took my ranch off grid.

00:02:11:15 - 00:02:35:06
Henk Rogers: We are not connected to the grid at all. And so the control system, basically we call it grid optional, is that we can connect to the grid and we can have the software updated through an internet connection. But it doesn't have to be that way. And there are other batteries where if you're not connected, your battery is not working.

00:02:35:13 - 00:02:49:22
Henk Rogers: So, you know, in a in a power outage, what do you do in a pot root is you're supposed to be completely grid and dependent. And so we made sure that our batteries run no matter what happens.

00:02:49:23 - 00:03:23:20
Sara Gutterman: We were so excited to utilize Blue Planet Energy system, the blue ion technology at our off grid compound, Mariposa Meadows for Green Builder Media's vision housing and Meadows for particularly that reason. Where do you see you know, as battery storage continues to get R&D investment? And as we're seeing even the oil companies now starting to put funding into battery storage because they see the importance of that sector and again, kind of streamlining the adoption of renewables at mass scale.

00:03:23:25 - 00:03:28:05
Sara Gutterman: Tell us a little bit about your vision for the overall segment.

00:03:28:08 - 00:04:04:02
Henk Rogers: The future is microgrids. You know, we we still live in a world where there are single point of failure that that power islands or cities or whatever. So the future is more local, localized microgrids that require local storage. And then if there's a reason when you don't have enough, you can borrow some from the neighbor. So the grid should be connected and they should, I don't know, be indestructible like the internet.

00:04:04:04 - 00:04:28:24
Henk Rogers: You know, the internet doesn't have a single point of failure. If a server goes down somewhere, the rest of the internet takes over and and data keeps on moving and should be that way with energy. And the answer is we need to figure out when the peak loads are and and manage the people. And there's got to be times when the grid says or the microgrid says, you know what?

00:04:28:26 - 00:04:39:18
Henk Rogers: Don't do your laundry now or, you know, don't don't use your microwave or whatever it is. There's got to be little thing that makes sure that we don't have to overbuilt.

00:04:39:19 - 00:04:51:04
Sara Gutterman: Obviously, we have this inflation reduction Act that was passed. And share your thoughts on on the IRA and anything that you know that.

00:04:51:06 - 00:05:24:13
Henk Rogers: This is this is wonderful. I mean, I didn't frankly speak frankly speaking, I didn't I didn't think that we were going to get here. But, you know, and we were so sorely lagging behind our commitments in the, you know, in the Paris Agreement that this is sort of music. And if we actually carry through on the investment to switch to renewable energy, we will be the most powerful country in the world.

00:05:24:13 - 00:05:42:16
Henk Rogers: When we put our mind to it. In this country, we can do anything, and so we can show the world, and then we can start being the exporters of renewable energy technology. Once the government has finally said, yeah, we'll actually help you get this business started.

00:05:42:18 - 00:05:55:20
Sara Gutterman: Tell us what you see for the future of renewable energy adoption in particular, but specifically battery storage technology in the next, you know, 1 to 5, ten years.

00:05:55:22 - 00:06:26:26
Henk Rogers: I like to use the word exponential growth. I would say that, you know, if we double the business every year in ten years, we will have a serious amount of renewable energy. We'll be limited by by some of the resources that go into it. Now, I think that new technology will will come through. I think lithium ion phosphate will basically become, for the time being, until we discover something better.

00:06:26:29 - 00:06:50:22
Henk Rogers: The standard for stationary, for stationary storage. You know, climate change is on a on a curve getting worse and worse, but we're on an even steeper curve of coming up with solutions. So I want people to understand that we are doing this. This is not something I don't have hope. You know, people ask me, do I have hope?

00:06:50:28 - 00:06:53:21
Henk Rogers: I said, no, I don't have hope, I have determination.