Electrical engineer Mouli Vaidyanathan is getting national traction with his SolarPod modular solar panels. His company, Mouli Engineering, has installed systems in 33 states. Vaidyanathan became a solar entrepreneur nearly a decade ago after losing a job in the technology industry during the Great Recession. His installations require no bolting to the roof. The small-scale, plug-in modules are available at Menards, Northern Tool and Mysolarpod.com. He spoke recently about solar's future and his company.
Q: Minnesota's Ten K Solar suspended operations in May due to manufacturing-cost issues. Does solar not work in Minnesota?
A: Solar does work in Minnesota. Minnesota can generate [a lot] of solar power. In a typical home this can be 15 to 25 percent of electricity per year. The issue with solar is that it is not easily predictable from one day to another. However, it is very predictable over a year or even two-year cycle. The economics for solar are favorable today. Thanks to global demand, the economy of scale has pushed prices down. The payback is five to 10 years depending on where you live and electricity rates.
Q: So, the problem is that small solar-array manufacturers are at a disadvantage?
A: The top 10 solar-panel manufacturers in the world have more than 5,000 megawatts [MW] each of manufacturing capacity per year. Solar-panel manufacturing is all about scale. That means massive factories with large investments of capital. Single-digit megawatt manufacturing capacity … cannot compete in this market.
Q: Where are these huge solar-cell manufacturers located?
A: Most are in East Asia. They account for the majority of supply. Some come from Germany, and a smaller sum from the U.S.
Q: You have been a critic for years of the Made in Minnesota tax subsidy to Minnesota solar manufacturers. Why?
A: The Made in Minnesota solar investment from the state was $15 million to companies with manufacturing capacity of less than 5 MW per year.
This tiny capacity cannot compete with the large-scale global manufacturers in a commodity market. The purpose of Made in Minnesota was to create jobs, create a clean green economy and to replace partially the $2 billion per year of out-of-state coal purchases. Although well intentioned, it did not lay a foundation for Minnesotans to get aboard the renewable energy bandwagon. Neither did it create [sustainable] jobs in solar technology.
Made in Minnesota solar manufacturing was essentially assembly of solar-panel components. Second, since the scale of the solar-panel manufacturing was in the single-digit megawatts, they could not compete in price, distribution, and sales with large global brands. Third, Minnesota manufacturing costs were higher.
All energy sources obtain some sort of [government] incentives. However, the incentives should be backed up with sound business practice in scale, distribution, innovation and environmental benefit. The Made in Minnesota provided none of those attributes.
Q: Why was your company rejected for the Made in Minnesota tax credit?
A: Made in Minnesota solar manufacturing incentivized solar-panel manufacturing with UL 1703 certification for the solar-panel manufacturing. It excluded any other solar component such as inverters, racking and complete-system manufacturing in the state. We did not manufacture solar panels. We manufactured complete modular solar systems. Made in Minnesota administrators felt our manufacturing was outside of the legislative requirements. In retrospect, I am glad we did not qualify because the program marginally supported a handful of installers who had to satisfy a cumbersome bureaucratic process to satisfy the administrative process.
Q: How's business ?
A: We are a small company. About five people support our company part-time. They have been with us three to six years. We have slowly grown our innovation, accomplishments and brand recognition. We have also organically grown our revenue and ability to support more people.
SolarPod's goal is to find the optimum between innovation, costs, environmental protection and incentives. We have accomplished that through our products — SolarPod Grid Tied, SolarPod Standalone, Hybrid SolarPod and SolarPod Crown. In each of our products our focus has been innovation, simple on-site assembly, safe engineering, high reliability and low cost. We have been successful in placing SolarPod systems in 33 states. It is the only retail brand that is a true modular.
Q: How do you keep the arrays in place without bolting into the roof?
A: SolarPod Crown is the only self-ballasted, sloped roof racking solution in the world that has no roof attachments. An airplane gets "lift" from pressure differential between the bottom of the plane and top of the plane. In the SolarPod Crown, there is opposite lift in all wind situations. In other words, the pressure differential is such that the wind pressures are high on top of the solar panel instead of the bottom of the solar panel. Further, the wind design transfers uplift to downward force because of our smart bracketing. That is why we were awarded patents.
Neal.St.Anthony@startribune.com • 612-673-7144
