Top Reasons Why You Should Switch to Solar with Jake Kissack

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE: 
Welcome back and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show home of the guaranteed sold program. Oh, well buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio. And if you have any questions, just give us a call at 7999596 or check us out online at Teamlally.com.

ATTILIO:
Our guest today grew up in the sprawling 3000 acre Angus cattle ranch nestled in the picturesque rolling hills of Wyoming. He studied at the University of Wyoming and abroad in Spain, and earned a master’s degree from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Four

ADRIENNE:
years ago, he received an invitation he couldn’t refuse to leave the ranch and see how many people he can help with solar. And now he is Go Local Powur solar consultant. Please welcome back. Our guest, Jake Kissack.

ATTILIO: 
Hey, Jake.

JAKE: 
Hey, guys.

ADRIENNE:
Yes. Welcome back.

ATTILIO: 
You know, when I first met you, you told me a different story that is in the intro. That’s in the intro. Intro you said your girlfriend was married to a local farmer. And the dad came at you with a shotgun and said you gotta marry her

JAKE: 
not in my ranch.

ATTILIO: 
Like with living, you know, on a big Angus ranch like, hey, you need to marry my daughter now. No, know. But you got an invite. So you went from one beautiful part of the country to another part. And here you are

ADRIENNE: 
educating everyone here in our islands about solar. And you like you’ve helped us our clients in so many different situations because it can be kind of confusing.

ATTILIO:
It is. Unconfused us with this solar stuff, Jake. Well,

JAKE: 
I I’m coming in to give you guys a little fun perspective today. On what is Go Local Powur. So many of you have you guys been to Home Depot as of recently.

ATTILIO:
Yeah, I think I saw I saw one t shirt. Polo shirt. So

ADRIENNE: 
you guys are in all the Home Depot’s? Yeah you got a little stand over there.

JAKE:
You’re in we are in many of the Home Depot’s not all of them but all throughout here Maui, so Oahu Maui Big Island, and we’re expanding to all the Home Depot’s and go local power, you’re going to see us as soon as we as soon as you guys walk into Home Depot, a lot of people like Oh, who are these guys. And it will say that there’s a solar and how to get solar on your home. So there’s going to be our awesome solar advisors there to help people walk through what’s going on what’s new in the market, and really let them know what how much solar can save them by giving them and energy savings report and set them up with a solar consultant that can walk them through how much they can save by going solar this year, as Hawaiian Electric is rolling out a bunch of programs where rates are can go up to can go up three times compared to what they are today. And so it is a it is a time where a lot of people who used to push solar off are now saying it’s a good idea to look in it this year. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
you know, I ran into Charlie a couple of Home Depot, and I was like, hey, where can I find some doorstops and some Tenpenny nails? And he was super helpful. No. And then I realized, Oh, you the solar guy, but he was like, No, I can still come back. But super friendly. I don’t know if his name’s Charlie. I just made that email. But he was right at the Walmart greeter.

ADRIENNE:
You mentioned people that are like, wanting to get solar now maybe I pushed it off. But what about the people that got solar maybe 10 years ago? And because that would this was me. And like the system was not producing as much as it was before and the bills are going up? Like when

ATTILIO:
you when they get real high electric? Yeah, like what the heck was on my roof?

ADRIENNE: 
What kind of programmed

ATTILIO: 
kind of programs like the Ghostbusters of solar?

JAKE: 
Well, what we know is Hawaii has a super aggressive goal to be 100% renewable by 2045, which means that all the power is going to be renewable in just over a decade. So really, there’s only two kinds of people here that own homes in Hawaii, that are homeowners there are those that have solar and those that don’t have solar yet. And for those that have solar, and they’re saying, oh my gosh, I have solar, but that was built 1015 years ago, of course that system was built for the home and the needs of the time. So likely they still are getting a bill even though the system is that maybe purchased. They are still getting a bill from Hawaiian Electric every month and they’re saying oh my gosh, I need more horsepower. I need more energy coming and you know I’ve been getting a lot of power outages so I’d like to add a battery. That’s where we come in. For those that have solar on the home that want to add more Power onto their system. And there are multiple, there are multiple different programs that Hawaiian Electric is literally rolled out, one of them was just an April 1, where there were you can expand your current system, and have Hawaii have a partnership with Hawaiian Electric, to where that your old system can get can get expanded. Okay. And there is specifically for those listeners that are in Maui, there’s a very unique opportunity that they have anyone who has gotten a system back, when did you get your system installed? Your first system installed, Adrienne,

ADRIENNE: 
oh, I want to say it was like 2008 was Windows one. Yeah. Yeah,

JAKE:
you are in the first you are in the first wave, there’s probably many listeners who were in that same wave. And they got that golden ticket called the NEM, or net metering system. So they added solar to their house. And then they were able to get get power at their house for just no money because they bought the system. And then the solar provided them all the power that they needed. So those are, those are golden ticket systems. Now, if you’re living in Maui, and you got your system installed before 2015. So anybody who has panels on their house before 2015, is now in a super unique opportunity that expires in roughly, it’s going to it’s going to expire based on how many people apply for the new program. Open or it’s June 30 is the absolute deadline for customers to reach out and say, hey, I want to expand that golden ticket. So you can if you are a current owner of solar on the home before 2015, you got it installed, and you have that golden ticket, you can expand that in Maui in a very significant way. And so if you’re in that customer, and you want to expand that system, please call because there is limited space. And June 30 is the absolute cut off before they say hey, no more expanding of that golden ticket. So

ADRIENNE: 
that’s only for Maui not on Oahu.

JAKE: 
That is just for Maui. For them. There’s like a VIP level battery expansion that they have. And that’s different. That’s different for the other islands. But here No. So you’re here in a wahoo, you can still add on to your system, it will look different. But for anyone who wants to add power to their current to their current system, they can they can add both battery storage because I’ve talked to many people. And the number one issue they have is okay, I have a bill. And when the grid goes down, I lose power at my home. So many people who have solar on their home want to expand the amount of power that they have to get rid of their Hawaiian Electric Bill. And when there are there are now more brownouts and blackouts than ever before post the Maui fire, that urban wildfire they changed how they do power outages. When there’s high winds, they they shut the grid down. So people who had been since August of last year have been experiencing a lot of power outages. So no people.

ADRIENNE: 
So now now’s the time

JAKE: 
to get the battery time to get a battery, look into how to look into battery look into the cost of it. The return on investment is typically 10 years or less. So for those of you who are thinking, like what do you guys think in the homeowner? Are you going to stay in the home for 10 years? Those are things to consider with the solar consultant and an advisor like myself and my team that go local power, we can help you walk through those and answer those questions. But now’s the time for sure to look at it

ADRIENNE:
and do an analysis, right? You do the analysis and you’re like alright, if you’re gonna be here this amount of years for sure. Then it makes sense. A great

JAKE: 
return on investment. Yeah, so yeah. And yeah, go ahead.

ADRIENNE: 
Oh, I was gonna say I, I got this weird letter from Hawaiian Electric. That was very confusing. And I actually took a picture of it. And I immediately sent it to Jake because I didn’t know I was like, why? I want they want me to change off of my net metering arrangement. So I want to alert any of our listeners that got this letter. Yeah, okay.

JAKE: 
So here’s, here’s the letter, what it says at the top is it’s gonna say aloha. And it’s from Hawaiian Electric. This is the paper copy. And it says to better serve customers. The Public Utilities Commission has approved a new smart renewable energy program and bring your own device which is called B Y O D to replace existing interim programs starting April 1. So this was just rolled out just 10 days years ago, everybody got emails and then paper flyers who, who, who had panels and then expanded like you did with a battery bonus program where you added more solar as well as a couple batteries to your system to where you have backup Adrian at your house where you didn’t before, and you have more power because you added more panels to your current to your to your old net metering system. So you expand your system got that battery storage. So anyone who is in that, who’s in your category and a customer like you, they will get this, this letter, the BYOD, they will get that letter. And it is a bit confusing online. I, as far as all the research that we’ve done, this is not a great option for about 95% of the customers, there may be a small fraction of customers who would be like, Oh, this would be a great option for them. And the reason why I say that is because the BYOD program, you’re opting out of battery bonus and into the BYOD program, which is not as lucrative. And you you end up kind of burning up your golden ticket that you have with net metering, which you of course opted into expand when you when you got the battery on your home and plus new panels. So this BYOD program is one that has been blown up in April. And it does not seem to be a great program. As of now things might change. But as of right now, it does not seem like a customer facing good program. And a good option for many of the customers that I talked to because many of them, of course want to keep good rates at their house. They want to use power their own house during blackouts.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, let’s unpack that a little bit because I read the letter too. So they’re wanting you to. So when you do net metering, there’s a manual style meter on the side of the home with the little spinning wheel. And with net metering, you’re actually reversing that correct?

JAKE: 
Yep, that’s right. Yeah. Yep, that’s right.

ATTILIO: 
So you’re turning back the dials? Like, it’s like going backwards? I’m younger? No, I’m getting older. No, I’m younger. And so what with time of use, they need those smart meters, which are digital. So it may right now at the bottom, it did say that this is optional, you do not have to participate. And that’s the part that people missed. And then got swapped out on because I think they did the Smart Meter swap out. They’ve been doing that for a couple of months. I didn’t know what it was, I thought they were upgrading the system. So if I know and I could opt out, maybe I would opt out. But I didn’t know. And so now I have like, big brother meter on the side of my house. He sees me when I take all my garbage cans. He knows what I’m not on him nice. Oh, no, no, that’s that was. But that that’s the way that they can do that they have to do the time of use with the digital meters. They can’t do it with the manual ones. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah,

JAKE:
that’s right. Everyone moving from analog meters to digital meters, because during during COVID. Many of you guys in the months of June and July, you know, they couldn’t get out the meter UPS couldn’t get out and read the meters. And so they gave projections on rates. And then after that, they’re like, Okay, we need to start. After that it was implemented, that everyone will be getting moving from analog into digital meter, which is okay, they can digitally spend that backwards with net metering, rather than physically. This new BYOD program. Many people are getting letters calling in asking about it, we do talk one on one. But it seems to be about a 90 to 95% of the people that we talk to are like, Oh, that makes no sense to me to move over. And so that’s the message that I wanted to communicate to the listeners there. If you have, if you were opted into the battery bonus system. That’s a great program, you got opted in for a great, a great program there. Stick with that one. If you have more questions. You can of course, reach out to me and find me on the advisors. We trust the team Lally page, and reach out to me my personal phone number is on there and happy to answer any questions that listeners it’s super easy.

ATTILIO:
Get the All I gotta do is get you a copy of your electric bill. That’s right, because it’s all on there, which you need to analyze to give them a nice report. And I’ve seen the reports you guys give their super you hear you know, here’s a comment I got from a client that we introduced to you guys. And when you all went through the report, they’re like, and they had solar. They’re like, wow, so if people didn’t explain it as easily and in a way that makes sense to me that explain any

ADRIENNE: 
of it. Yeah, we’re like completely clueless as to what they had had. Yeah. And just Yeah, they were so good. Well, we

JAKE: 
get our reps. All of our reps have gone to Harvard, and to the best Ivy League schools so you know how We roll around here Go Local Powur. Now we have some really smart reps, I really, I really, really enjoy the people that that we send out and the customers that we talked to

ATTILIO:
local power. Yeah has a has as backed by a company that has been spending millions of dollars updating the software, this back end software to support you all to make it as user friendly and as intuitive and for the consumers to really easily understand it. We sell homes all the time. And we’re looking at, we like we got to the point right now where we don’t want to comment on what’s on the roof. We just tell the buyers, you need to read the paperwork that came with this system between leasing, Power Purchase Nam battery,

ADRIENNE: 
if it’s owned or leased. Yeah, how that all work.

ATTILIO: 
There’s so many different variables on what’s on people’s rules. Besides just the hardware,

ADRIENNE: 
it can be very confusing. Yeah, it’s good to have someone like Jake, on your side. Yeah.

ATTILIO:
Like the Science Guy. You’re going to explain the solar?

JAKE: 
Yeah, well, and that that leads to that second, like said there’s two groups of people in your listeners group. And those who don’t have those have no solar, but will eventually since by 2020. By 2045, everyone will go solar, maybe 100%. Renewable. So we’ve talked about the customers that have power, have solar on their home and want to have wanted to expand it, they have the bill, so they want to expand it, we can help them. Yeah, and as well as those who have said yes, not not yet for solar. Yes. And this is the year there’s some brand new, awesome tech that came out, our company sat down and is the first one to be able to bring the Tesla Powerwall three so many people have the Tesla Powerwall two on their home but man Tesla, Tesla just came out with a Tesla Powerwall three battery and it is awesome. The Tesla Powerwall. Two is was was awesome as well, it’s still a great battery, and many people still get that in the Tesla Powerwall three is just really a neat and neat battery. We had a whole conference and things that listeners would want to know is oh my gosh, it is. But this this battery is a bit safer. And it is as well has a bit more storage capacity with it, which

ATTILIO: 
is just really nice. I think we need to do like a Korean drama, you know, right at the end, you gotta leave them hanging so they want more, because we’re coming to the end of our show. So next time that Jake is on we’re going to be talking about the Tesla three, how energy efficient it is and how it helps your kids stay off their iPhones and do their homework.

ADRIENNE:
Thank you.

ATTILIO:
Okay, thanks, Jake.

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