Ep. 1: Energy Costs, AI Data Centers & Why Grounding Matters More Than You Think

What This Episode Covers

In the pilot episode of Load Side, John Kimmes, Evan Zickefoose, and Allen Fromlath break down three topics that directly affect commercial building owners in Southern California:

Rising commercial electricity rates. SCE, SDG&E, and LADWP have all pushed through rate increases over the past two years, and more are coming. We look at what is driving the increases and what they mean for buildings running $3K to $100K+ monthly electric bills.

AI data center energy demand. Major tech companies are building out massive data center capacity across the western U.S. That new load is putting pressure on grid infrastructure and affecting rate planning across every utility in Southern California. We break down the numbers and what commercial ratepayers should expect.

Why grounding matters. Most building owners never think about their electrical grounding until something goes wrong. Allen walks through why proper grounding is the foundation of every safe and code-compliant electrical and solar installation, and what happens when it is done wrong.

Who This Episode Is For

If you own or manage a commercial building in SCE, SDG&E, or LADWP territory, and your monthly electricity bill is a significant operating expense, this episode was built for you. The same applies if you are evaluating solar, battery storage, or electrical upgrades for your facility.

Transcript

(0:00) Hair looks good. John, welcome guys. How you guys feeling? I’m feeling good. I was in the middle of home repairs. I had to stop right now. Like you’re I’m in like workout clothes. I worked out this morning. Allan’s in over working overalls. I don’t know. I got my bibs on and John’s probably running shoes and a collared shirt. He probably in my in my underwear. In my college shirt.

Well, I’ve done that so many times, dude. I’ve been like I work from home. I’m definitely wearing underwear and a pull shirt and be standing on my standing desk with like my under my boxers and my polar shirt on. Just just pray pray that your laptop doesn’t fall with like showing my workstation like of course you know I got cool workstation guys.

(1:00) Well let’s get into it. We got a few things on the docket today. You know mainly these business owners and the business that we’re in is that we’re trying to keep their rates down and save them money and their bottom line. And if you just look at the data, SCE rates up 83% in the last decade. That’s and 25% in just the last three years. That’s absolutely bonkers.

(1:35) So I just want to get your guys’ thoughts on this escalation and where you guys think it’s going in the future. So Evan, you know, you’ve been in this industry for a long time. So, you know, what’s your take on this and where are we going? To the moon. It’s always going to increase. The the rates are never going to go down nationwide. But for my like my standpoint is I kind of look at like energy costs like gas. It’s always going to like move around, right? It’s a moving target. It’s not necessarily it’s it’s not going to get cheap like gas moves like because gas obviously is based on like you know our oil production.

(2:23) Well, that’s what’s funny about it is like energy costs are kind of tied to to oil production and and it is taking that out of the ground too, right? But the but the difference is is like energy goes up and it stays up and that’s it. Totally. You know. Yeah. Because of the the the local utilities, that’s the only way they’re making money because of the better we do, the worse they’re doing. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean that’s the difference there is like you can you can I guess track the oil and and we we you know the whole Venezuela thing that happened and everything. So that that drove prices down a little bit but for whatever reason energy stays the same, right? And in some ways gasoline does too, right? It goes up, spikes like crazy, and then comes back down. But it never goes back down to where it was before. It’s always politically moved.

(3:17) Yeah. So, I mean, I don’t I don’t want to get into that, but I think that no matter what, energy costs are always going to rise and the demand is always going to rise. There’s just more people moving and being born, right? And and and technology gets better and better and and easier to access. More people are buying it. So, the demand increases, infrastructure needs increase. That drives costs up or at least according to the energy companies, right? They kind of have a monopoly on everything. So, I don’t know. I I only see it going up.

(3:55) John, the rate the that’s that’s very agreeable. The rate is not going down ever. And the question is what do these business owners really do about it? And currently, you know, the only thing that they can do is stop relying on the grid as much as possible because you have this new AI technology coming, right? And that leads us into the next story is that in California alone, they have 15 megawatts of AI data centers coming online in the next three years alone. And it’s like historically you would expect that these businesses should foot the bill for this infrastructure to be built out, but in reality it’s always the customer or the consumer on the bottom end of things that are going to pick up the bill. And that’s why you’re seeing these rates climb.

(4:45) So it’s, you know, do these business owners trust that these big AI companies are going to take care of the bill for them or do they do something about it now and try to get some solar or battery put on to not be as reliant on the grid? So Allan, what is your take with AI? Do you think that these, you know, behemoths like OpenAI, Claude, Google, are they going to pay some of this bill that, you know, is needed for their infrastructure? And do you think it’s going to be enough where it’s not going to bleed into affecting the the businesses and the homeowners?

(5:30) You know, I like to be optimistic usually, but in this particular instance, we’re talking about businesses that are putting this infrastructure in for themselves. If a large part of this cost would be repairing or or or making more robust the existing infrastructure or a different company. I just don’t see them doing that without getting something out of it for themselves too, right? Like like I think that that cost is actually going to get passed on to the consumers rather than rather than the businesses that are putting this in. So yeah.

(6:21) So I think that’s actually Yeah. And the political aspect of that like moves the needle, right? Because they had assistance like they used to with the purchase of that system or if there was requirements on new construction and there’s municipality requirements on the new construction to put it in. You know there it’s like it’s what moves the needle for them? It’s going to be the incentive to help a to to afford the system and build it to help them save, right? But then also the requirement of it because if you didn’t have it and it’s solely respon it’s solely on the on the building owner, you know, you got to now you’re you’re kind of you also going into the concept of, you know, what do they think about solar?

(7:06) You know, do they think of it as a as a waste? Some people, you know, hardcore are dreaming in the in the sense of where they don’t think solar has any benefit, you know, you know, and they think and they don’t fully understand it. They’re honestly not educated enough in my opinion. I think they need to really open their eyes and not just be listening to the propaganda out there about all the negatives because there are, you know, there’s are there are a lot of systems out there that are failed that are there that just not operating and just like there’s a lot of oil field that are not operating. And why is that? And that because if you’re dealing with a a poor contractor or you’re dealing with someone that can’t execute and get that system operational and that’s just like a flaw in the design and this is a developing trade.

(8:00) You know, renewable energy is is new to the world. So it’s it’s something that is still being mastered and you have to be a master of that product. You know, when lines were first being put out into the world, overhead lines, electrical lines, they were having issues. They still are. Look at Paradise in PG&E. A whole city got burnt down because of a transformer failure, right? Yeah. You know, so like there’s still so much we as a society, like even with our overhead lines, go throughout San Diego and Rancho Santa Fe, there would all of those overhead lines underground. All that structure is changing and so like well hold on with these AI data center AI data centers you know like it it it’s it’s tough because it should be politically motivated there should be some political help there on both sides but unfortunately there’s not so there just has to come down to a level of education that the end user has.

(9:02) They need to understand that these data centers are going to take up so much grid space. You need to have a source of reli of renewable reliability. You know, your our fossil fuel are are whether you fossil fuels or nuclear, you know, take up that roof space and put some solar on it. You know, why would you what are you going to do with the rest of that space? Use your parking lots for solar carports. Yeah. And and gain free energy from that. You know, the windmills. I can’t really I’m I’m uneducated so I can’t even see a whole bunch of that. Well, I on there fundamentally they have moving parts and that requires maintenance, right?

(9:47) Well, so a a system that’s not single or double access tracking is zero maintenance. You put it up there and then you just leave it up there until something happens. But it’s a lot less likely and a lot less costly than something like a windmill, right? And there are and there are is definitely you know, bees absolutely necessary on solar project on a roof, but it’s only like the once a quarter. You know, you’re not dealing with all the oil lubrications of a wind farm. You know, you gap solar, let it do its thing, let the sun build the free energy for you. It’s like that simple. Keep them clean from time to time. And if you have a facility manager, which on these big data center going to have a facility management team, you know, let’s educate them and not get them hands-on, but be able to visually inspect things. And if there’s an issue, they can call their contractor right away that they trust that has that that’s building a positive reputation for these solar systems that are doing positive things for these building owners and they’re seeing the savings, you know.

(11:03) So the on the all-in podcast Jimoth had a interesting take on it because it’s a demand problem as well on the whole grid that these AI data centers need the demand and so you need to get rid of demand to be able to balance it right so his theory was why don’t the these AI companies pay for basically all of the homeowners to get free solar and that would free up a bunch of demand space on the grid for their AI data centers because the amount of stuff coming that the AI is going to produce the AI data center is going to produce value that they need to actually give back to the American people. And so I thought that was I thought that’d be awesome. But at the same time, it’s like, you know, you know where this is going and it’s not going in that direction in my opinion.

(12:03) So, it’s like what business owners and homeowners can do is take it into their own hands right now and do something about it where they’re not going to get swooped into the increases of all these utility bills. And so it’s going to be a very interesting you know next 5 to 10 years watching this play out. And another interesting point is that 70% of US grid is approaching end of life. So all this stuff was built out in the 1950s 1970s and all this is going to have to get replaced.

(12:41) Like where do people think all this like is going to come from? I’m I’m 99% certain we’re paying for that, you know, or if we’re not paying for it now, we’re are we’re going to be paying for it. Our kids, our grandkids, yep, taxation, some form. This is something that Evan was saying earlier that made me think about that, too. The the infrastructure is not built right now because when they put it in 100 years ago it roughly it it they weren’t thinking all right well we’re going to have these big giant data centers that are going to suck 15 megawatts of power which is a tremendous that’s only like one that would be like one data center you know and and people want to put a bunch of them in like that’s so much power yeah they’re already going in they’re already going in right they’re being built right now exactly.

(13:36) Yeah. And so like I I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to pay for that in one way or another. And you know that mitigation being paid by the people putting the AI in I don’t think the argument well like well hey you could free up demand for yourself if you just pay for these solar things. I don’t think that’s going to work in their eyes because they they’re or at least if I was the owner of this AI market or at least part of it, you know, I’d be thinking, well, I’m putting these data centers in because my AI product is going to make people’s lives easier, which is true, right? Like that that is what they’re providing. But nobody a 100 years ago was thinking, oh, we need to design this grid so that it can sustain X capacity. They were just thinking, you know, we’ve got fossil fuels now. What can the fossil fuels output be possible maximum, right? And we’re approaching that earlier than they thought, right?

(14:33) So, bottom line, we’re paying for it in rate increases somehow someway through taxes, rate increases, especially with data centers going in. Yeah, I I truly think that the rates are at a low right now and they’re only going to increase. You know, supply and demand. You It’s like gas prices. You don’t you can’t you can’t complain about them. You just need it. You’re like, why complain about gas? Because you got to get from A to Z. Why complain about food price? You got to eat. Got be, you know, electricity. Every single even a rental unit to you like you have to have power, right? They make sure that you have those agreements in place. So, you’re subject to those costs whether you like it or not.

(15:26) And do you think you know with all this buildout of the AI data centers and stuff with the grid is that gonna affect our industry with interconnection timelines and you know do you think that’s going to have an effect on solar directly or do you think the utilities are good at segmenting those different market? I definitely think it’s gonna it always is interconnection always is a bottleneck and you know they they master it they they start hiring engineering technicians application tech engineers and they put them through a training cycle right and so there’s going to be new processes developed and introduced to new people.

(16:14) You know and again it’s just going to continue. We provide jobs for people and knowledge that needs to be obtained and it’s great because it be and they aspect opening jobs to the world and open up more knowledge to this world. But there will be a slight bottleneck. Our utilities understand that. They need to understand that like they become that bottleneck and they need to put forth the effort in making and knowing that we are upgrading this infrastructure. We will support that and that goes beyond the field you know that goes for administration that goes for the portals IT technology and it’ll be a great thing if that becomes a priority and and and a focus to our leaders.

(17:12) You know, if you’re if we have to if it comes out of our pockets, at least let let us feel good about who we’re calling, who we’re working with. Diligent communication. You know, we have AI to help with these things. So, like make it like Yeah. Show us that what we’re putting our money towards is is of benefit, you know, working for us.

(17:39) Yeah. So I think the big takeaway from both of these stories is you know as history shows take it into your own hands before you think somebody is going to give you something free for a big benefit of the AI data coming or you think AI is just American company they’re going to give back. Don’t necessarily trust that. Take it into your own hands before the the the buck gets passed off to you.

(18:13) So, moving forward into our next story, which kind of relates to it, is the the tax credit clock is ticking. And so, if you guys don’t know, in the solar industry, tax credits are set to expire. There’s this one big beautiful bill that is essentially killing the tax credit for the solar industry and we have until July to actually secure that. There’s there’s another deadline but July is actually where all the investors and everybody want to make sure the project’s in in time. So, do you guys have, any take on the tax credit? Any share your opinion on maybe the big beautiful bill, where the industry is kind of going after tax credits expire? Anywhere you guys want to take this, Allan?

(19:09) I’ll let you jump in here. Well, this has always been a moving target, too. Tax credits come and go and they get extended and all this other stuff. If you have a state one, federal one. Personally I just because I know the technology works, particularly this the the photovoltaic cells, they work, right? They generate power and you can see it. I’ve put meters on myself many times, right? So, I don’t like the idea of something ending that incentivizes people to to do something that’s good for their home, their wallets, and honestly, even the earth in a lot of respects.

(20:01) You know, there’s still downsized manufacturing things, of course, but you know, you you buy a solar panel and that thing’s running for 25 years. You don’t have to look at it again, right? So like I think that really does offset itself eventually. Like I don’t I don’t know the time or the numbers but that offsets itself. And so incentivizing that I think was a great thing. Getting rid of it I I’m not a financial savant enough to know whether or not that’s good or bad for the economy. But I don’t think that it was the best move to to disincentivize solar for at least even for at least the residential market anyhow, you know.

(20:47) And Evan, do you think that the free market can balance itself out if you know say the tax credits never come back? Can this technology get to a point where it is make sense you know without the tax credits? Absolutely. Yep. I don’t think the tax credit should move and dictate a company’s success. And unfortunately, the solar industry was saturated with what we call solar bros. And as the owner of Keen, like I’m going to be a little rough on the edges with this conversation. I’m just choose my words wisely.

(21:30) Yeah, I look at, you know, being in solar throughout, no incentives, and having the incentives and the no incentives. I never moved according to those incentives. It never was on my mind, you know, and maybe that was because I was never involved on the sales aspect. But I honestly I was involved on the sales aspect because I supported sales. And so I heard a lot I I would hear their their issues, but it was a different side of it. And so where I came from was always being exceptional to the customer. And when you’re exceptional to the customer, you don’t have anything to worry about. And so the tax credits that ended, sure, it, you know, we lost a market of consumers that relied on that tax incentive.

(22:24) But I don’t believe that others, we should be having to pay for others to want to add a luxury to their business or their home. I look at it as as if if I want to upgrade my HVAC unit, that’s my choice. If I want to put turf in my front yard, that’s a luxury that I have. If I want to put solar on my rooftop, that’s a luxury that I have. You know, I’m gonna have to pay to put that in. And now I know that I don’t agree with the what how the utilities increase their rates and I have solar on my home right now. So, if I were paying a utility bill of $7 to $800 a month, you know, as an American citizen, as a citizen of society, I know I have to pay my electric bill.

(23:20) So, I would look at it like I look at gas. If I want to drive to work, I know I’m budging into my lifestyle, you know, and so, for me, if I didn’t have solar and if I was not in the solar industry and I was looking at this, I wouldn’t look at, yeah, the tax incentive, I would make my decision faster if that tax incentive was offered to me because if it’s available, I’m going to make the smart decision. I’m going to take advantage of it. But even if it weren’t, I would still educate myself and want solar because I don’t want to pay the utility bills or the utility companies $800, $900. I don’t feel like there that’s highway robbery.

(24:03) And and so but back to the to the to the ITC, yeah, it hurt us for the people that were relying on that market. I was never relying on that market. I was always customer focused and making sure that we were always available and and I feel like everybody in as a tradesman should as a contractor should if you’re in it because of you you see that there is a market because of the ITC available to you for the wrong reasons for a consumer take advantage of what’s available to you. Things are going to come and go. But that’s that that’s all I got to say about that.

(24:44) Yeah. No, it’s great. It’s and coming July. Oh, Alan, you got Well, kind of wanted to say like, see, that’s the side I wasn’t thinking about is, you know, regardless of the incentive, it makes sense to go with the solar, right? Like, it still works. Your ROI becomes a little longer, but at the end of the day, you’re still you’re still getting that return on investment no matter what, right? So, yeah, I agree with you on that front that that’s that totally makes sense. But you had me think of something that I that I didn’t really quite understand.

(25:26) So, like in I I don’t know the specifics of it, but in some jurisdictions, they’re increasing the rate. And by jurisdiction, I mean the utility provider. Yeah. They’re they’re increasing their rate be on the people who have solar because it’s unfair to the people that don’t. So is that something that maybe we want to like comment on because I know that’s confusing to me. Confusing to me. Yeah. Well, they’re trying to take that away from people because it’s it’s NEM 2, NEM 3.

(26:02) If people don’t know what NEM1, NEM 2, NEM 3, this is goes back to getting in early is beneficial because NEM one is net metering. So, if you’re brand new to this stuff, when you put solar on, energy is going to get sent back to the grid, and then they’ll give you a credit for what you send back to the grid, the utility companies, and then you’ll get that credit, and then it’ll offset the rest of your bill when you’re using power at night in the winter. And when you got in the beginning, they were giving a one-to-one credit. It was, you know, wiping out your bill. All you needed was solar. Now, fast forward, we’re on NEM3. They’re giving you 25 cents on the dollar, and you have to have a battery for it to really make ROI sense.

(26:56) So, the grid’s wanting less and less solar because they don’t need the power during the day. They need the power at night or in the off times that solar is when it’s not producing. Right? So the grids and the utilities are making it less incentive for you to go solar. Meanwhile, the tax credits are going away.

(27:12) So wrapping this home to what this means for you as a business owner or even a homeowner is that use the incentives while they’re there. You know, you get you can get up to 50% back on your project through a tax credit if you go domestic content, right? So, that’s all going away. Get in before July of this year to get you in for commercial. We have to have you what’s that? For commercial. Yeah. For commercial. And we have to have you contracted at least a month or two in advance before that to be able to to make sure you’re secured. So, if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re like, “What do I do?” there will be a link below and you can contact us and see if this makes sense for you guys.

(28:08) But yeah, no it’s a it’s a it’s a vast changing landscape. And the one thing I wanted to say was I think where the technology is going, solar panels are becoming less expensive, batteries are becoming less expensive. It’s going to get to a point where the utilities are rising so much that and it’s going to get to the point where the model is going to make sense without tax credits. Like you’re going to want to go off-grid because it’s going to have ROI to your business rather than paying the astronomical rate that the utility is trying to charge you. So, yeah, we are living in a very interesting, time. So, can’t wait to see where it goes.

(28:58) So, going on to the next segment of the podcast. Cue the jingle. Code corner with Allan. Yay. This is my favorite part of the whole out finally. I think that for our inaugural episode I wanted to go to something that is universal. So I wanted to talk about grounding specifically and areas where grounds are increased.

(29:36) What for what for people out there? What is grounding? What does that mean? Grounding. Oh, right. Okay. So, in AC systems, alternating current systems, which is the electricity that feeds homes and businesses all over, different voltages, but all alternating current, you need to have a return to ground for safety purposes more than anything. But it also helps with electrical noise and keeps keeps sensitive electronics working for longer. And there’s there’s a lot of benefits that that could be a whole podcast by itself.

(30:14) But a ground wire is usually the green one you see running with the blacks, the whites, the reds, the blues, and in some instances yellow, browns, and grays and brown, orange, and orange. But anyway, so the grounds, they’re basically a return to earth. And by earth, I mean literal dirt, like the earth, an integral part of any electrical system.

(30:45) And in certain instances, you need to upsize these grounds to to keep with the electrical code. And in California, we have the CEC, the California Electrical Code, but most of the country has to abide by the NEC, National Electrical Code. But there’s three specific instances that I can think of that most people will miss. You guys have any idea? I know Evan has more of a chance of getting this, but I’m curious if you guys can guess like where you might need to upsize a ground. That is uncommon.

(31:26) Circuits. General housing circuits. Yeah. You go from a 50 to a 20 to a 60 amp. I’m talking Yeah. Well, I meant specifically like on any given circuit like so. Yeah, you’re right. The higher you go, the more grounding you need. But but like in any given circuit is there a reason like say you have a 20 amp circuit which in the electrical world you need 12 gauge a wire right AWG okay so you 12 for 20 amp but sometimes you’ll need number 10 and why is that for the distance. The distance. Yeah. There we go.

(32:14) Yeah. That’s awesome. If you go really really far, particularly at 120 volts, which is low voltage drop, the higher the voltage, the further you can go, voltage drop, you get something called voltage drop. Yeah, exactly. And what what’s really funny about voltage drop is everybody knows you have to increase the the phase conductors and the neutral, right? Because you have more balloon going that funny. But so you you you upsize the phase conductors to match this voltage drop. So you have less voltage drop, right? Less resistance on the wire because you have bigger wire. By the way, skin effect is another really fascinating thing. Maybe we can do that on the next one.

(33:05) But you upsize the phase conductors. Everybody does that. What they don’t usually do, what they forget to do is upsize the ground with it. In NEC 250.122B, it says you have to upsize the ground with the phase conductors if they’re being upsized for a voltage drop situation, which makes sense, right? Like totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want that ground to keep up with the phase conductors.

(33:33) Went out too. No, but you’re right. They do. People do forget that. They forget that all the time. Yeah, they want to account for that. Now, if they up if they’re overengineering, it’s based off of the name plate of the breaker, right? Yes. Yeah, it is. No matter. But also considering the distance. So, if you have a 40 with like a 300 foot run, you may think that that 40 amp takes what is it? A number eight wire, right? And I would take a a number eight ground, too. Right. For 40 amps, you could get away with 10, but 10. Okay. Better if you do eight. But you have to consider it with the bolt with the distance. Yeah. Because if that was if we had a 40 amp circuit that went 800 ft, you you know you’re that’s where the voltage drop has to come involved. That’s where the engineering, you know, that’s where people with the field engineering will get themselves tripped up and that’s where an engineer becomes involved that would have to actually guide them more on that.

(34:51) Yep. Exactly. And that happens common that happens often on build installations too because if you’ll have a company I’ve worked for several companies in the in the field days where I mean Allan we did this all the time working for a smaller company you know Allan and I worked in the field together for several years. Yeah. And it was a smaller company that wasn’t using a highly knowledgeable designer firm. They were subcontracting the designs out and it required a lot of field engineering. So when we had to change those when we had to change those designs and in field if we were ever put in a situation where we had to account for voltage drop you know that’s where people in the field miss that.

(35:40) Yeah. You know because of that’s where you need to bust out calculations and where engineering knowledge comes into play. So there’s a value in the field engineering of knowing that but you got to be like who you know we’re not paying you don’t want to be paying a field employee be doing engineering work okay I got a 400 foot run a 40 and you know like go bend that conduit and pull that wire like I paid this engineer to do that job you know so yeah that that’s a critical that’s a critical scope that is that is missed and can really affect like systems.

(36:19) And it does currently, you know, if your design is not accurate and there’s field changes, that’s where things got to slow down and they got to take those RFIs to the engineer and take those serious and people don’t, you know, it’s unfortunate that a lot of companies don’t do that. And going back to like the reputation that solar has, people just need to be educated to know that, you know, and the fact that they’re not, you know, it makes that big of a difference because these solar system, they will last you 20, 30 years if you take stuff like that into account. And that’s where you got to take these processes seriously. That’s why the RFI is so important.

(37:07) Oh yeah. It’s like that superintendent, that a foreman on site, he’s got to know if I’m going from a 100 foot run to even a 200 foot run, you know, are they taking into account the amount of bends, bends, the voltage drop, the pool boxes that you might need if it’s an underground Yeah. Pool. I mean, there’s a there’s a hundred things that could go wrong in an increase of 100 feet. Yeah. The critical critical planning is so important.

(37:36) Yeah. I that pops into my mind the way we’re talking about it’s the process and the friction of like a field guy going from his mind and what he needs back to us in the office or back to the engineer and then back to them, right? Like I feel like that gets lost because of that friction. And you know if we can take that friction out you know in the future I’m thinking like like we’ve talked about AI glasses right like they’re they film they’re filming what they’re doing and then that’s automat the AI automatically knows that that needs to go back to the engineer and that could happen almost like in real time without human intervention.

(38:19) Like that’s where I love that man I was just talking to Billy one of one of our foremen about that he, you know, is all about putting on the meta glasses and we were just talking about that, how that’s going to change how we interact with the field to the office and you will be the frontrunner of that and not only will that help with the operational efficiency, but we’re going to capture content from that too. And so yeah, you know, he can literally maybe there, you know, put on those meta glasses and that RFI and right away we’re capturing now and you’re able to tell him right in that moment, all right, I can approve of this, you know, and and it’s the same concept of having something in writing, you know, but now you got them on camera.

(39:09) Each other is you know you have everything you need to feel confident in that situation which will cut down that RFI time that we deal with between the field and the engineer you know which does that synergy gets damaged because of that timeline and so having having process technology like this that’s available to us as long as we take advantage of it and we use it to our advantage with you Oh, the ones that are in the proper reeies with good intent will use that because they need it, right? That’s going to be a huge advantage for the industry for the trade for engineers and the consumer because that bottleneck is no longer going to be such an issue. There’s going to be a solution to it. I mean, there is now.

(40:05) No, you’re you’re you’re so right. There’s a lot of momentum lost because you’re sending emails all the time in RFIs, right? And if anyone doesn’t know, an RFI is a request for information. It’s what contractors give engineers to figure out a problem in the field. And so like there’s so much time loss there because the field tech is going to describe it one way and the engineer is going to describe it another way and and then if it comes, you know, there’s even that loss. It’s confusing. You might be talking about the same thing and then well oops we said it the wrong way right like I just had that happen on on a project with regard to panel boards versus switchboards versus distribution boards we’re all saying different things right.

(40:50) But but at the end of the day it’d be crazy to have like glasses like he’s got glasses on I put glasses on and it’s as though I’m standing right where he’s standing right like and then I can see what the actual situation is and then they point it out and and talk to me and and me being in the field so long, like you mentioned earlier, Evan, it’s a lot easier being an engineer now that I know what they’re talking about and I can picture what they’re thinking and I and I know what it’s going to take and what radius bend and all that. So, that would be insane for for just like a time that like getting rid of that time lag and making a a project be as good as possible.

(41:32) Absolutely. It’s all the details constraint. The constraint is because the AI glasses only have so much battery life and so much you can only record so much time, right? It’s almost like it would be awesome if you know like cops have body cams, right? And they’re going 24/7 and it’s like if you would just the guys have body cams on and it’s it’s just being recorded all the time and that would give you such quality but it’s like a human couldn’t manage all looking at all that content but an AI could and an AI could know what to look out for if there were safety concerns to flag anything back to us if we need to jump in or whoever the project manager right.

(42:21) I’m just thinking out loud of like where the industry and where this tech kind of meets. But, back to the grounding. Wanted to show you guys this. This is, my my my grounding mat. I have a this little thing right here is plugged into the the ground of the socket. Yeah. Heck yeah. I put my my put my feet on it all day long and I ground myself. So, that’s all the grounding I know is how to ground myself.

(42:53) I bought a grounding sheet. But I didn’t like that it was connected to our grounding system because I don’t trust the builders of our home. Our you need to you need to go put a grounding rod in and run a copper wire. Exactly. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. I actually told my wife that, too. I said I will feel more comfortable about this if I drove ground rods six feet from each other into the ground and then I tied it in. While I know my house has a euper and I know we can we you could test the grounding and everything. I just would hate for like an incident to happen a lightning strike or something and then me laying on my bed.

(43:35) Could you imagine? No. He’d wake up a human sized chicken tender. Yeah. So, we took that grounding sheet back. But I honestly the grounding effects, you know, in in the body are are are very similar to what you’re accomplishing in a in an electrical system. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You’re grounding yourself to the earth. Yep. I mean, and electrical systems work very similar. Go ahead. That technology makes sense to me. I mean I don’t know the intricacies of it but it made sense to me because your body relies on electrical impulse right like you have electricity you have current running through you so why wouldn’t it make sense that your system needs a ground point too right to bleed to bleed that energy into the earth that’s the same way an electrical system works you bleed that energy that over voltage over current into the earth right as a safe spot because we’re a big ball of energy.

(44:43) This scientist took blood from humans like samples. It was like a study and people were like just 15 minutes of standing barefoot on grass, right? And like before they took the blood and then after and they put the the blood under a microscope and you saw the blood and the difference and it was just like before the blood was just all like the blood cells were just kind of like not moving and kind of stagnant and then after the grounding it was like open wide open they were flowing. It was it was radical to see. If I can find it I’ll link it below.

(45:26) I mean, even your body, your body when you go and put your feet into sand, natural sand, natural dirt, go hug a tree, your body will reduce an inflammation. That’s crazy. Enough AI. Go hug a tree. I mean, all right. Yeah, code corner is wrapped up. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. Took a tangent. Let me just mention the other two situations. This is important. Code corner is going way longer than three to five minutes. Sorry.

(45:56) Okay, we mentioned the one right that just voltage drop. Okay, the second one that a lot of people forget is when you have a separately derived system which basically means like a utility type system of electricity. So a transformer that is an isolated type is a separately derived system because you’re taking power and creating new power through induction. So there’s wire that’s not even touching each other. It’s just inducing a current in another wire. So you’re essentially creating a new electrical system. That would be a separately derived system. Another example of this would be a UPS uninterruptable power supply.

(46:44) The grounds for these systems have to be sized as though they were the utility grounds. So you size them per NEC 250.6, not 122. So you actually size them as a grounding electrode conductor, not an equipment grounding conductor. And that is something that a lot of people missed, particularly engineers, but it happens to to to the contractors too, obviously.

(47:16) And then the last one is radiology equipment. Super sensitive equipment oftentimes, this isn’t a code requirement, but oftentimes are the size of the phase conductors. So whatever the size of the hots are, you got that same size ground. That’s a best practice. That’s a best practice. Now, vendor sheets will always tell you what size ground they want, but I always engineer best practice, same size. You keep the ground the same as the phase conductors and you’ll never have a problem. Right.

(47:45) So, what does this mean for business owners to to find competent contractors? What can they ask their contractors to to maybe know if they know this kind of knowledge? Yeah, exactly. So, this isn’t so this isn’t stuff that’s hidden in the NEC. It’s just missed oftentimes. And what happens is you you have these data centers for example that have this these UPS’s and they’re improperly grounded and then you have transient voltage that comes through like an electric lightning strike and it blows your data center and everyone’s like well what the gap and why duh and it’s it’s because you didn’t have proper grounding. Lightning protection also makes a difference. And that’s deeply. Yeah, that’s critical in on larger systems.

(48:35) Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of things that go into it, but it’s really funny that like sometime like for example, I’ve worked on electrophysiology labs where they’re measuring people’s like heartbeats and electrical impulses in their body and things like that. So they they have all they’re hooked up to machines, super sensitive monitors, and it was like we’re talking micro ohms of of interference and and very small transient voltage spikes. Yet we’re creating static on these monitors. The solution, ground the crap out of everything screen ever. For sure. That makes complete sense, man. That is commonly missed.

(49:20) Yeah, all the time. I mean that that that’ll happen in our systems with dealing with communication as well. You know, a lot of in our industry and I know any business owner listening to this could probably go and audit their their battery and solar systems and if their communication wires are not separated in different and separately enclosed conduits, there’s risk of interference. Yeah. Of for the monitoring systems and they can end up getting poor or inaccurate readings. Yeah. Yeah. Easily. Yeah. It happens and it’s not something you can control or see either, right? It’s like electromagnetic.

(50:05) Yeah. You Yeah. You have to you’d have to have someone that would know better or or has a testing equipment that has done all that understand that or Yeah. Exactly. Or at least have the thought, right? Like you see this happen and you kind of just never forget and and and so it’s not something that’s common though because your common your coffee pot isn’t going to care, right? But your your million-dollar data center certainly will. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that makes complete sense, man. That’s a good one.

(50:38) Yeah, I love that. And so to wrap this all up today and our first episode, what’s the outlook here? What are the takeaways? Any final thoughts? Evan, I’ll start with you. The first Cloud Kings, I’m looking forward to it. Keen Energy has a lot going on this year and we’re going to be growing and we want to add to our community and to our trade our local community and our solar community and to our blue-collar tradesmen to our our specific trade electricians and having a safe space where we can talk, we can learn from each other, we can grow and we can keep the blue-collar trade alive and you know breed quality trades, men and women.

(51:42) And we’re just looking forward to a a successful year that leads into a generational success and wealth and being able to be a platform for electricians and business owners and technicians to learn, grow, and talk to each other.

(51:58) Allan, what takeaways do you have? What can business owners learn from this first episode? And yeah, my takeaway is I got to prepare less for the code corner. No, I’m kidding. If anything, we need to extend it. But I think business owners can take away that that there’s this is a very much an industry of like you you pay for what you get and and and there’s a lot of variables that need to be considered not just in the technical side but obviously in political and and financial and just the overall social environment side of things right.

(52:51) And so what’s I’m I’m looking forward to being able to like Evan said, just kind of teach and learn, right? That that kind of transaction has always been really natural for me and I and just I really enjoy it a lot. And so I I think that once we’re like really in our groove and we’re we’re we got this podcast like really moving fluid a lot more fluidly. Not that it wasn’t I mean I had a lot of fun. So, but but once it starts picking up and we start people chattering too, you know, the beginning this chatter and commenting on what we have to say, it’s going to be even more fun, right?

(53:36) Like I want to see even the dissenting opinions from what we’ve said today, right? Like I I’d like to get that feedback because it makes you grow. It makes you stronger. It makes you smarter. And that’s what we should all be and what we should all strive for is being stronger, smarter, and better than the person we were before, right? So, comment below if you want code corner to be longer or Oh, everyone does. No, we don’t even need that. No.

(54:03) So, recap in my my view is July 4th, 2026. That is the safe harbor date. If you’re thinking about going solar or adding battery and getting that tax credit, you want to be contracted at least a month or two before that. So, reach out to us below if you want a free analysis. And yeah, the the takeaway is the utility prices are never going down. They’re always going up. Take things into your own hands. No one is coming to give you a free handout. And if you’re a business owner in Southern California and this stuff matters to you, subscribe, hit the like button. If you want to come on the show, links in the description and we’ll see you next week. Thanks.