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Josh Porter and Jason Verkaart welcomed Jing Tian, chief growth officer of Tigo Energy onto the SunCast podcast earlier this year. They talked about the Tigo EI Residential Solar Solution, a complete solar plus storage solution that recently received approval by HECO (Hawaiian Electric). The approval gives Hawaiian installers and homeowners access to the Tigo home energy management solution. In this interview, Jing covers the Tigo EI Residential Solar Solution, module-level monitoring enabled by Tigo TS4 Flex Module LevelPower Electronics (MLPE), how Tigo technology reduces truck rolls, and much more.
Below are a few highlights from the podcast:
HECO approval and what it means:
“Hawaii is an environment where there are a lot of early adopters in PV,” said Josh. Hawaii has been a leader in residential solar adoption. As of 2021, 17.5% of electricity came from solar sources. It also has the highest adoption rate of any state in the US, as we pointed out in this PowerMagazine article. With its inclusion on the HECO list of approved solar products meeting mandatory functions specified in Rule 14H, Tigo and its distribution partners can now provide solar installers with a flexible and reliable solar-plus-storage solution.
EI Residential Solution:
The Tigo EI Residential Solution includes the EI Battery, EI Inverter, and Automatic Transfer Switch and Tigo TS4 Flex MLPE. On the podcast, the topic of safety came up with respect to product selection and design.
Tigo has always held safety as a main pillar of business and that has not changed with the deployment of our battery systems. Jing explained how Tigo chose lithium iron phosphate (LFP) as the main battery component, as it does not require additional coolant. Josh chimed in that it is appreciated by the safety guys and first responders “you guys are fire suppression experts, that’s Tigo”.
Energy Intelligence Software:
Jing also talked about the experience of installers and homeowners when they use the Tigo Energy Intelligence monitoring platform. “In the app, the power flow diagram can tell you your energy consumption, how much you use from PV, whether you’re charging or discharging the battery when you're in backup mode and from the PV to the batteries. It’s always really neat to watch what the user experience is like.”
The three touched on the usefulness of monitoring from different perspectives. From an installer’s point of view, “a truck roll is expensive, you have two guys and x amount of time to a place,” said Josh. “Then you have to go out and diagnose, maybe you have the stuff you need to fix it or maybe you don't. The expenses can really stack up a lot with a truck roll.”
Closing thoughts
We enjoyed getting a chance to be part of the conversation with theSolarCoaster team and are excited to see Hawaiian homeowners get Tigo solutionsfor their solar projects.
If you’re interested in listening to the entire podcast, check it out here.
