Episode 65: Decarbonizing your house? Start with GoodLeap

Molly Wood Voice-Over:

Welcome to Everybody in the Pool, the podcast where we dive deep into the innovative solutions and the brilliant minds who are tackling the climate crisis head-on. I'm Molly Wood.

This week is the first of two interviews with companies trying to make it easier to decarbonize your house by working with contractors and homeowners to make it easier to install solar or batteries or heat pumps or other sustainability solutions to make your home more efficient or to generate renewable energy. Each company has a slightly different flavor but I’m interested in this topic because one, I want to do this I have solar but not a battery and I’m investigating installing a heat pump to electrify my heating and add air conditioning so that’s the selfish reason.

But the other reason is that if you read my newsletter, you can subscribe at everybody in the pool dot com, you know there’s a fascinating question about future energy generation and I think a very interesting trend right now is people generating their own renewable energy and all the mechanisms that will be created for sharing that energy, getting paid for it, balancing the grid with it. It’s a trend I’m calling B-Y-O-P or bring your own power. But I’m skipping ahead to part 2 of the interview here, for part one, let me introduce you to today’s guest  so we can talk about installing this stuff in the first place.

Dan Lotano:

Hi, my name is Dan Lotano. I am the Chief Strategy Officer at GoodLeap. And my role in the company more broadly is to help the sustainability movement on the residential side expand to the greatest possible extent it can, right? From helping contractors to helping homeowners throughout their journey and making these transactions as easy and understandable as possible.

Molly Wood:

Let's set up the kind of problem that we're solving here, right? Which is that we like live in these inefficient houses. We might want to do some kind of a retrofit or a remodel to introduce more sustainability features. Like kind of walk us through what you're trying to solve for. Like what a homeowner might be trying to do, what a contractor is facing that is tricky here.

Dan Lotano:

Well, first and foremost, we're just trying to educate people as to what's available or what's possible, right? So, you know, most people, when they say, hey, there's a problem with my air conditioner or I'm interested in going solar, or I just want to, you know, decarbonize my efforts, pick your solution. A lot of people start with just a simple Google search, right? Like, where do I go? Right? And then you're going to return whatever local counterparties in your area, or if you look for rebates or incentives, you're gonna get this dizzying array of options and apply here. And like, who do you trust and what do you believe in? And like, it's a very, you know, for such a great product, it is very confusing for someone who's not very experienced on that matter.

So for us, it's all about how can we, again, be that platform, be that technology solution that funnels all this information in a cohesive way back to the homeowner so that we can be that trusted partner for them. We've worked with contractors across the US. We track NPS at five different data points along the process so we know how good they're gonna be or what we can expect. Yeah, the Net Promoter Square, exactly, right? From contract signing to install to 100 days after, how's it going, right? And so we track all those data points

Molly Wood:

Net promoter score.

Dan Lotano:

And we have this amazing amount of data that we can then say, hey, these are the best installers or here's what you should do in this area. And we have various connections with all the rebates. So we know, hey, in this city or this location, you qualify for this or this is the type of income that you need to have in order to qualify for that. And we just try to take all the guesswork out of that for that homeowner. And so again, to help them along and to get to a yes.

Molly Wood:

So I'm a, we'll sort of walk through this from both ends, if you don't mind. So like, we'll start at the homeowner side. I'm a homeowner and I'm like, let's assume I just want to replace, right? Nothing, I would imagine though that most people show up there because something broke, but let's assume I'm like in the Bay area, it's getting hotter. I need air conditioning. As long as I'm doing that, I should look into like more efficient windows. I'm thinking I want a whole decarbonization situation. I go to the website and I'm like, help me. What happens?

Dan Lotano:

Well, so you have a couple of mediums, right? Like you can go to our website and, or you can download our app that then like allows you to say, Hey, I'm interested in learning more. Did you know, right? You can kind of search for different capabilities and then you can say, you know, who should I use in this area or what type of systems work for me? Or, Hey, based on your experience, a good leap of install. you know, working to have all these things installed across the country, like what does someone with my type of profile need? Right.

And today it's, it's, you know, admittedly still like in that early stages of, Hey, help fill out a form. You can call us, you can apply through some stuff to the app application so we can digest all that data and send it back to you. But the hopefully very near term future of that is more of this kind of AI driven LLM response of, hey, how do I go do this? Or this is what I'm looking for. And ideally, again, in the very near future, we're going to have releases that allow that homeowner to interact without having to necessarily call people and wait for responses so they can get the answers they need. But today, that is available as part of the process that they can go through.

Molly Wood:

So now it feels, it sounds like a little bit like Yelp, except that you have vetted the contractors and providers on the platform who are gonna get in touch with me..

Dan Lotano:

That's right. And then, you know, we, we have a very rigorous process to make sure again, once, once they're onboarded, right. We, we track all this net promoter score data and how they're efficient, their operations are, but even before they come on the platform, we're doing all sorts of vetting from financial statements to history, to reviews, to background checks, to make sure that these are again, trusted counterparties that both we and our homeowners will ultimately want to.

you know, arrive at their house and do things on their own and then, you know, interact with them for some.

Molly Wood:

Right. Okay. And then now talk to me from the contractor side. It sounds like, I mean, one obvious benefit is after I go through all that bedding as a contractor, I get business, but there's also this platform and infrastructure component to Good Leap, right?

Dan Lotano:

That's right. I mean, we aim to be kind of like the Shopify, if you will, of the residential energy space in the sense that using our platform and various counter parties and relationships that we have, again, you can go into that homeowner's house, right? You can knock on their door and through our technology platform, and you can create a design for their house. You can know how much expected savings they're going to have.

You can provide them options of, hey, based on the type of load that you have, are you gonna add a EV in the next year? Or do you like the crypto mine? Do you like the Bitcoin mine in your size? And give them a lot of flexibility and tools in order to create a system that's going to be right for that homeowner. And again, try to take the guesswork out of it and let them do what they do best, which is help sell, and then also go construct it and build these systems for these homeowners.

And then, you know, provide them payments and working capital and financing and you bundle that all together in this one stop shop and application that provides this seamless experience for them again, so they can focus on what they do best and let us handle kind of the business end of what you need to do to get that customer to yes and help them move on their sustainability journey.

Molly Wood:

All right. And then you have touched on the third big component of this, which is the financial services part of it, right? You are also in the financing business.

Dan Lotano:

We are, right? So we offer both loans and leases or power purchase agreements in certain areas. Again, our whole business is trying to get as many transactions as possible, right? So we don't want to be stuck in one different type of financing vehicle. We were somewhat agnostic as to what that homeowner wants, right? We want to give them choices. We want to give them options. Do you want to own the system themselves? lease the system, you know, do you have the tax appetite to utilize the credits? If not, we can do that for you. So, you know, we're, we're

Molly Wood:

What is that? What does that mean? The tax appetite to utilize the credits and then you can do that. This is all this stuff we all need. We just need you to explain like help. Yeah.

Dan Lotano:

So, yeah, so if I'm a homeowner, I have really two choices. I can take a loan in order to pay for the system. And there's no money that you have to pay today. It's typically a 25 -year loan that we can set you up with. As part of that, you, the homeowner, are entitled to the investment tax credit that's provided from the US government through the Inflation Reduction Act. But you know, one of the challenges sometimes people like, you have to have the taxable income to utilize that credit, right? You just don't take that credit and get a refund from the government. And that's one of those confusing pieces that people sometimes can get tripped up by.

So like, that's one option. Alternatively, you're like, Hey, you know, I really don't want to put debt on my credit report right now, because maybe I want to buy a new home or do some other thing down the road. I just want to get a cheaper form of electricity. And so this other product that we offer is a lease or power purse agreement, which you should really just think about as a rate switching type mechanism, right? Like, hey, today you pay, I don't know, 40, 50 cents a kilowatt hour in California for your power. We'll sell you power from the system at 25 cents or 23 cents, right?

And like, you're going to create savings from that. Additionally, because you're just leasing the system, you don't own it and good leap in this example does, we handle all of the tax incentives and the rebates and things like we help price those into your deal so you get the benefit of that. But we handle all the paperwork and administration pieces kind of to the side. So again, if a homeowner wants to go do those things and sees the benefit, like by all means, choose this option. Like we don't care. But if you don't,

Dan Lotano:

Right, and based on every individual circumstances, they may want us to own a system and take care of that all themselves. So again, we want to be agnostic, we want to provide choices, and we want to educate people on what is going to be most appropriate for you so that you're happy and satisfied and this isn't just a one and done type deal, we're going to have a relationship with you for the next 25 years. And if we can't build that trust from day one, we're never gonna. We're not off to a good start. It's going to be very hard to make you believe and trust us when it comes to further education.

Molly Wood:

It sounds like you're describing a scenario where the primary product that people buy through this platform is solar. Like, is that fair? Like, is this primarily an energy? How does it differ from a solar city or a sun run kind of interaction?

Dan Lotano:

It's very expansive, right? So solar is but one of the products that is offered on our platform. But we actually offer all sorts of different home efficiency products overall. So for example, if you're looking for a new air conditioner or a thermostat or roofing or windows or artificial turf, anything around that area, around sustainability, we also provide contractors the ability to help sell through our platform, through finance them through our platform, and can bundle in different combinations based on what the homeowner needs.

So solar and battery is, especially at certain locations, is a big product, but our home efficiency business has actually grown to be bigger than just our solar and battery business alone. And that speaks to overall vision around all things home and sustainability. Like we're not going to be one niche product with one type of financing. We want to be all things for all people.

Molly Wood:

Got it. And then is it the kind of thing where when people come, like that you can give them this sort of comprehensive plan and set of recommendations? Like it's, you know, maybe you came here searching for solar, but to your point about future proofing, you would say you might want to look at window coverings or things like that.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah, you know, we, we, we try to avoid like a upsell mentality, right? Like our goal is just, isn't our goal to be like, and add one more thing or buy now and get 14 .99. Right.

Molly Wood:

Well, yeah, but if I'm just like, how do I make my house more efficient? You could at least give me a list, it sounds like.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah, right. That's right. And again, a lot of that's driven by this, did you know like blog posts and articles and information of, hey, you've already started taking a couple steps down this journey. Like, here's what you've learned. There is so much more, right? And we talk about advancements in technology and we can get into like the virtual power plants. Like there is such a big opportunity for homeowners that get more engaged in their energy consumption and how they help and participate in the grid. And that's the type of education that through our website or our portal or app, you know, our homeowner app, like how do we present that in the most digestible way so that they understand and be like, I want more of this. How do I get there?

Molly Wood:

Yeah. Is there also an education component for contractors? Because that seems somewhat valuable. Like, a lot of these technologies are changing fast.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah, it's on the technology side. It's on the policy side. A lot, right? I mean, again, back to the kind of this dizzying array of different options and rebates based on where you are. It's really hard to keep track of that if you're the homeowner and it's not that much easier from the contractor side too. And so as you would imagine, a lot of education and we have a big policy team that does a fantastic job of tracking all these different state, local,

Molly Wood:

Right.

Dan Lotano:

national incentives so that we can educate our partners on good things and bad things, on what's the current rules and what's coming down the pipe and what should you be aware of just as much of what exists today. As we talked about, it's such a dynamic time in the energy space and the grid and on all the things that are happening. And policy is a pretty interesting thing as people evolve and the grid evolves.

So it's absolutely imperative that we educate people because again, they're kind of the front line on some of the sales effort. If they are not educated and they're not communicating effectively, someone may not choose to go down the path because they didn't know all the benefits that could be available or conversely, you don't want to mislead people to say, you can have this when that's not true as well. So there's a huge effort from our business development and policy team to make sure we're in lockstep with our installers and if we see something that's not great, right, or, you know, we make sure to try to correct it as fast as we can.

Molly Wood Voice-Over:

Time for a quick break. When we come back, we’ll talk about the policies and regulations that could make some of this easier and dig into the power demand of the future and who’s going to provide it.

Molly Wood Voice-Over:

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool. We’re talking with Dan Lotano of GoodLeap … which has made a specific part of its mission as a company  to engage on the policy side to make these home decarbonization changes easier for people.

Molly Wood:

I want to be cognizant that you're not on the policy team, but obviously that's such a big part of what you do. Like talk to me about that engagement and like, let's start with just the parsing because there's federal policy, but then there's state by state by state and sometimes even city by city when it comes to things like permitting, right?

Dan Lotano:

That's right. I mean, I so I've worked in the

Molly Wood:

Like you seem like a smart guy, but this sounds like a lot to take on. I'm just saying.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah, that's why you need a whole team, right? I've been in the energy space for about 20 years now. And I vividly remember my former employer, we had a political action committee, right? And it was basically like, hey, donate, not donate, but offer, contribute some of your paycheck in and we'll use this for varying efforts to understand different policies across set state, local, and union national stuff. And I just kind of, you know, like most young people scoffed at the notion of giving up some of my paycheck to start.

And then they would always show this PowerPoint that said, hey, here are the major moves in the company stock price over the last 20 years and how many of them were tied to legislative actions, right? Or policy actions and it finally clicked for me like, wow, like, you know, energy, again, it's a pretty exciting space. But when you realize how much of adoption and understanding can hinge on the right policy or changes there too, like you need to know, right? And so I kind of adopted the love from that at that point. And Rhonda immersed myself because like, man, if I don't know what's going on, how am I going to be good at my job?

And then like you said, it's difficult to keep track of all of these things, but I know from a GoodLeaps perspective, we are well immersed in all of these different matters. And when I speak to Julia Piper, who heads that group up, just all the different emerging different policies and how people are entering metering, which the pace of that and how it gets enacted is going to have a major impact on the growth of this business.

Molly Wood:

Wow.

Dan Lotano:

The silver lining is it's also going to face, of course, a lot of reform around batteries and grid support and demand response. And so there's, and how do you participate in those mechanisms, right? Versus just get stuck with the old, the old policy is that if you're not evolving and changing for, then you know, you're probably going to not have a great business model going forward. So we have weekly meetings that are run by that policy team.

Molly Wood:

Yeah.

Dan Lotano:

Which you can see the population the zoom windows is started with a couple and now they're like exponentially increasing And it's great to see it's great to see so many people in the company adopting us again most of all so they have a better understanding and then they can propose new innovative ideas out of that and they can go educate both our homeowners and our and our Contractors on hey, here's what's coming and this is what you need to be prepared

Molly Wood:

Yeah.

Molly Wood:

I would imagine that from that vantage, you're also gathering a lot of pretty valuable data in terms of being able to make recommendations about policies that might speed things up, right? I assume that's a part of what you're doing on the policy side. Is it part of the business at all? How do you think about that?.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah. I mean, so that, that meeting that I highlighted, that that's the form by which a lot of these things are done. So it's first and foremost, an education for the team on, Hey, here's various, bills or statements made by, again, pick your local, government agent. here's what's going on. Here's what people want to do. And then quickly working within the company, within other organizations in the industry, like hey, does this make sense? And was this intended to cover this piece? And should we give comments or should we go talk to this politician to make sure they understand this? Again, we're all learning.

This is evolving so quickly. Like nobody is the ultimate expert on these things, right? And it varies so much by location that we have these discussions, we formulate some ideas, and then Julia and her team are often talking to the various constituents and counterparties like just again, is this what you meant? And did you understand this element of it? So we don't push something through that, not we, but I mean, the whatever government or legislative body is pushing through. Like did they make sure there's no unintended consequences of the actions that they're trying to take. And we're thinking a couple steps out instead of trying to solve this narrow immediate.

Molly Wood:

It seems like there's a pretty intentional approach by GoodLeap, right? Like there's a universe where you set up this company and you just say, we're a marketplace and we provide this technology infrastructure on the contractor side and education on the homeowner side. And you could be a little more passive. Like you could just be like, whatever comes down the pike, we will adapt to. But it sounds like you have made an intentional choice as a company to also try to shape this in ways that are beneficial for the energy transition.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah.

Molly Wood:

and also your company.

Dan Lotano:

Exactly. Right. We want to be known as the thought leader and driver of a lot of the innovation that comes in this space. So if we are playing and you're right, we could very easily take a passive role and, you know, take whatever comes down the pike. And a lot of companies do that and they do just fine. But speaking for myself personally and the company, we want to be on that cutting edge of what's happening.

Molly Wood:

Mm -hmm.

Dan Lotano:

I've never been more excited about the energy landscape in the United States today and how quickly it's evolving and changing. And so like, it just excites me. I'm excited by the rest of the company who want it like, hey, let's, let's lead, right? Let's not just participate, but let's lead to make sure that this is, this is the best thing for all the counterparties and stakeholders involved in this space. And to me, like that's, that's an inspiring message right, that the company has and the culture that we have is like, hey, we're not, we're not just going to sit here and take whatever happens.

Like we want to be active participants and we want to create, right? So if we don't see something that, as, as good as we think it should be, or we have a misunderstanding, like let's participate, let's jump in, so that we can help shape and guide the policies that will ultimately lead to a more sustainable future for us all.

Molly Wood:

Right? What is not working from the kind of national vantage point that you have now? Like, what are the, I'm sure there are many, many things, right? But if you could sort of wave a magic wand, what are the things that would speed this up the most, you know?

Dan Lotano:

I think continued and we're starting, we're starting to see this happen more and more, but, you know, traditionally the, our industry has somewhat been at odds with the larger utility side, right? And like, there's just been like an either or them or us type mentality, which I, you know, certainly the residential energy side has continued to advance and very successfully. So, but I don't think we've.

Molly Wood:

Mm -hmm.

Dan Lotano:

come close to accomplishing what is possible until we can be in lockstep with those, the larger utilities. And so I think now, and we're speaking to many of them on a weekly, monthly basis, they're recognizing that the energy demands that are being put on them are unlike anything they've seen in the last two, three decades, right? And they're not, they're not well equipped to handle just the surge that's happening so quickly.

And then they have their various regulatory constructs that have to go through around rate cases and approval for new generation or transmission spend. And do they, is there land rights? Is there permitting? It just takes a long time. And as you know, technology doesn't really, you know, doesn't wait long, right? Like advances so quickly, like our regulatory framework does not match with the pace of technology advancement.

And so I think like traditionally that's been a big challenge of these two industries kind of butting heads and not being in sync or like, hey, is this the best they can be? But where I'm encouraged and we're seeing a lot of excitement is utilities starting to understand like, hey, this is a valuable resource for us. We can work very much with these partners to develop solutions that don't necessarily take customers away from us, but actually improve their broader rate make a rape because they don't have to go out and buy expensive generation somewhere else.

Molly Wood:

Right. Right. And to simplify this dramatically, we'll just say like for a long time, the opinion of utilities was like, look, we provide you with power. You pay for it. You don't need to be out here trying to generate your own power and undercut us and get cheaper power because that's bad for our business. And now utilities are like, I know we said we'd make all the powder and sell it to you, but we can't make that much. Yep.

Dan Lotano:

That's right. That's right.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah. And it's that recognition that I think is going to be such a turning point, both for utilities and us as a country, and then homeowners, because again, like back to the education thing, like again, yeah, utilities, we make the power, you consume the power, end of story. Right. And now it's like, well, hey, maybe both of us can make power. And if you are making the power, maybe you'll understand and learn a little bit more about what that cost of energy is.

You know, the unit I discussed, like I think people are going to know what a dollar per kilowatt hour is the same way they talk about a dollar per gallon of gas. In the very old people are already getting there as they become more educated and they work in unison with the utilities. Like that's exciting because now they know and now they're like, hey, I can send some of this energy back to the grid or I can store my battery because you know what? In 12 o 'clock when the solar shining, the utility doesn't need my power.

Molly Wood:

Mm -hmm.

Dan Lotano:

But my neighbor wants to watch the new Netflix season that, you know, if not season on Netflix that hit out and later on he might not be able to do that if I don't send some of this power back, right? Because the grid is being stressed. So I see that as like this perfect unison of homeowners and education and utilities and companies like us. Like there's no reason why we shouldn't be partners as long as we share it and what's possible when we advance the goal.

You could say that, you know, thank you to AI and crypto for kind of forcing what I thought was going to be the inevitable. Like a lot of, like a lot of, like a lot of change, like now it's like, there is no choice. We have to figure this out. And sometimes that leads to the best innovation. But, you know, we'll take it by whatever means necessary. Ultimately, it will be a great outcome for all.

Molly Wood:

Hmm, interesting.

Molly Wood:

Yeah. And it is funny, it does seem to be, we're a little bit far away from homeowners and contractors now, but like you're saying, the march to this kind of larger question of what the energy future looks like, that seems to be the conversation right now, this decentralization, the idea of more localized power generation and individuals understanding the power and the economic value of this resource.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah, it's like, it's the three D's, right? It's decentralized, it's distributed, and it's democratized, right? So how do we put all of this distributed energy out there in an affordable way for all the different stakeholders so that everyone can participate and everyone can share and nobody has to worry about resiliency and reliability of their power needs. And that's...

Molly Wood:

It's a sea change.

Dan Lotano:

That's a goal and mission that GoodLeap is committed to and trying to work with all these counterparties to how do we get there sooner? Because if you read some of the articles and the various papers, you would think the apocalypse is upon us with the amount of energy demand that's being thrust upon the nation now. I don't think it's going to get that bad, right? But I think there is just levels of demand that we have not seen for so long.

And if we sit on our hands too long and we don't take action and move down the path, like we might be in trouble, but it's exciting to see like just that quick recognition is as amazing as AI and what it could do for productivity and efficiency. Like it still takes so much more energy and people have figured that out really quickly and are making actions to fix it.

Molly Wood:

And if we can clear a path to, let's say, a lot more residential installation, that's a lot faster than having to spin up new plants, new major, huge renewable energy installations, God help us more coal plants, things like that, right? So this is also just a more efficient way, assuming we get more standardized permitting or at the city level or whatever more consumers interested. It feels to me like this is a more efficient path to quicker energy generation also.

Dan Lotano:

Yeah, I clearly you got to scale it quickly, right? A homeowner can have an operating system from, from the minute they sign the contract somewhere between three and six months, depending on the local jurisdiction, right? When it, when it's working well versus some of the transmission, they call them interconnection queues that you might burn, right? They don't need like, they stopped taking orders because the length is so long.

Molly Wood:

Interconnection cues, yep.

Dan Lotano:

You're talking about seven, eight years plus just to connect new generation in, you know, is it clean? Is it going to happen? Do they have a financial backing seven, eight years from now? Not just today. And, and is it going to be close to the load? So, right. Like, yeah, we can ultimately build 400 megawatt solar facilities out in the middle of the desert, but getting all that energy into the load.

Molly Wood:

Mm -hmm.

Dan Lotano:

like the homeowners, right? When the demand is high is not an easy fee. And that's what further gives rise to the benefit of this distributed energy is because like, Hey, it's right there again. Like I can inject energy back into my local grid where my neighbors benefit from that. And you've seen some work around like micro grids where it's community based and you know, I, it's not the solution, but it is certainly among the solutions that have to happen for us to, to fix this energy.

crisis.

Molly Wood Voice-Over:

That's it for this episode of Everybody in the Pool. Thank you so much for listening. Next week, I’ll be talking with Lauren Salz of Sealed, which has really doubled down on helping contractors untangle the complicated world of all these rebates and incentives so you can actually get them in order to upgrade your home.

Until then, email me your thoughts and suggestions to in at everybody in the pool dot com and find all the latest episodes and more at everybody in the pool dot com, the website. And if you want to become a subscriber and get an ad free version of the show, hit the link in the description in your podcast app of choice. Thank you to those of you who already have. See you next week.