Entrepreneurship Is a Wake-Up Call with Curtis Craig

Entrepreneurship Is a Wake-Up Call with Curtis Craig

Intro: the great Mark Cuban once said, Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship. Not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 64 of the business development podcast. And I am incredibly excited for the show that we have today. I have somebody that I know that I've wanted to have on the show for quite some time. And I'm incredibly thankful that he has decided to grace us with his presence today. We are chatting with Curtis Craig of Inferno Solar based right here in Edmonton, Alberta.

They are leading the solar charge in Alberta, and I'm. I'm honoured to have him on. Curtis is a dynamic force in the field of electrical engineering and sustainable energy, boasting an impressive journey that spans back to 2007. With his wealth of experience, he embarked on a transformative path, establishing Inferno Solar in early 2019 to turn a lifelong dream of entrepreneurship into reality.

In a remarkable span of fewer than five years, Curtis, alongside the dedicated Inferno Solar team, has left an indelible mark on the sustainable energy landscape. Their tireless efforts have led to the successful installation of over 18, 000 cutting edge solar panels, generating a staggering 7. 5 megawatts of clean, renewable energy.

And roughly eight million kilowatt hours per year across the province. This remarkable achievement has also translated into an annual reduction of over 4100 tons of CO2 emissions, playing a pivotal role in the mission to decarbonize business in Western Canada. Notably, Curtis's outstanding contributions were recognized in November of 2020 when he earned a well deserved place among the prestigious top 40 under 40 in Canadian construction, an accolade that speaks volumes about his leadership and his impact in the industry.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Curtis is a multifaceted individual who finds solace and joy in various pursuits. When he is not meticulously quoting a project or engaging with clients, you'll find him on two wheels pedaling through scenic landscapes, testing his skills on the golf course, or relishing in quality family time as he strolls through the neighborhood with his beloved wife and two adorable baby boys.

Curtis's dedication to innovation, sustainability, and community both in and out of the boardroom makes him a remarkable individual whose journey continues to inspire and make a lasting impact on the world of clean energy and beyond. Curtis, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. How are you today? Well,

Curtis Craig: thank you for those kind words, Kelly.

Kelly Kennedy: No, man, thank you. You know, like, there's not a lot of people in your space. It is not, it is a growing space. And you know, it's like, whenever you don't, you know, me, I'm around the city all the time. I'm talking to lots and lots of business owners. I'm in lots of meetings. And basically everywhere I go that there's solar panels on the roof, it's Inferno solar that put them there.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, there's, there's a few of us in this space for sure. But I think that we're, we're making a pretty big impact.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah, no, I, so I've had the pleasure of knowing you. We met when I was working with Gordon Orser at IPEX systems a few years ago. So I've had the pleasure of knowing you for a few years and kind of seeing how far you've come in that time.

The landscape is definitely changing and you know, Inferno is making its mark.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, no, we're really enjoying it. It's it's a, it's a rapidly evolving space with really good tailwinds. You know, there's obviously a lot of societal pressure, investment pressure to meet various environmental, social governance, CSG, or corporate social responsibility, CSR goals.

So I, a lot of, you know, the bigger companies that we're working with. You know, publicly traded national brands. That's a big part of it is that their executive has set certain targets. We want to decarbonize X amount in the next decade and you know, the managers on the ground, the GM's of the stores, et cetera.

You know, they're like, how the heck are we going to pull this off? And that's where we come in as we try to provide value there of just like, you know, there is a way to do this. achieve those goals and save money. And that's really what's speaking volumes to, to our customer base. And I think a key to our success.

Kelly Kennedy: I think that this is a subject, I think a lot of people are trying to figure out how to do business cleaner. I, I really do. I, I think that that is the general trend of, of not just, not just, you know The political landscape. I want to say that genuinely businesses are trying to find ways to do business in an ethical, clean way, and not to mention, there's also value.

There's there's dollar cost value in doing things cleanly. You know, the reality is solar is an efficient way to save money over time as well, if done correctly. And I think that's something that your team probably puts in front of a lot of these business owners when they're building these buildings saying like, look, yeah, there's an upfront cost, but there's a long term cost benefit.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a big part of our success, I think, is that you can do two things, right? You can buy electricity from the grid. That's the old way, or you can buy some of it from the grid and a lot of it from a rooftop solar array. And that, you know, that's the new way, And just to talk about power prices from the grid side things in 2020, the on peak average price.

So that's the daytime price on peak. Average price was 54 bucks a megawatt hour or 5. 4 cents a kilowatt hour in 2022. It was 19. 2 bucks. Sorry, 192 bucks a megawatt hour or 19. 2 cents a kilowatt hour. So that's I don't know, quick math. That's four and a half times. That's huge in two years. So that's a big part of why people that that's the value proposition for solar is like, man, I'm getting hammered on my electricity bills.

Or maybe some folks are, you know, they're on a five year contract that they signed in 2019. Well, next year, it's going to be ugly, right? You're going to be like, Oh, my God, this is power's got up 4 times. What the heck? Yeah. So you know, that's part of the conversation for sure. And you know, what's not going to help that is we're in Ukraine, pushing up the price of natural gas.

That's what sets the price of power in Alberta. And then this carbon tax from the federal government, That's 15 bucks a ton a year. We're at 60 bucks a ton right now. We're at 45, I guess, last year. Or was it 50 last year? So it'll go to 80 bucks a ton next year. And that's gonna show up on the price of natural gas, which is gonna show up on the price of power.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, you know, like, we recently moved to, to West Edmonton, which has been awesome. But, man, like, the cost of power and, and utilities prices here is absolutely crazy. Like, Yeah, absolutely. Like I would say no question. The cost of energy, you know, in Alberta over the past two, three years has doubled, if not tripled, and it yeah, it's it hurts.

It's like everything in Canada right now is just so bloody expensive. The last place you want to get hit is on those bills that you have no choice but to pay.

Curtis Craig: No, it's yeah, so, you know, when I talk about tailwinds, that's, that's part of it. And then government, rightly or wrongly, and I'm not here to opine on, on various targets that have been set, but you know, there's the, when we talk about tailwinds, there's the, there's this decarbonization or electrification of Cars that's coming, you know, they're kind of saying, well, no passenger vehicles can be sold with a gas engine by 2035.

I think. Wow. Even by 2026, it's going to be 20 percent of all new cars have to be sold electric. Well, that's going to add a bunch of demand to the grid, which is going to show up in increased power prices. As well as you got the Fed saying, well we need to have a net zero carbon grid. I think also by 2035.

So all of this natural gas generation that just got built, whatever point is, there's a lot of tailwinds that are going to put upward pressure on power prices, which make generating power on your own roof. That's currently doing nothing but keeping the rain out. Yeah, maybe storing it on site. We're trying to figure out what is the value add of onsite storage and then you know, if you have to electrify your fleet, we're going to have to.

Generate onsite, store onsite, and then charge that fleet onsite. So those are the areas that I find really interesting.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, correct me if I'm wrong, Curtis, but like, you know, just judging from, you know, some of the discussions you're saying with that, with that extra demand on the grid, and we know, we know the grid as it is right now can barely handle any more demand than what we're already putting on it.

There's not going to be another option. Like, we have to have another option, and it feels like solar has to be it.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, it's going to play a part. You know, a lot of, a lot of different technologies will play a part. I think that we need to be encouraging connection between, further connection between British Columbia and Alberta as well.

You know, if we have, for example, great wind and solar resources, and good cogeneration resources as well that are not necessarily dispatchable, but then they have a wonderful hydro resource that is dispatchable. Well, maybe we can actually have like a daytime arbitrage where we're generating more power during the day, shipping some of that to BC that they think maybe they're shipping some back.

There's going to be a role for a lot of different technologies to play. I just want to challenge the thing about, like, the grid not having capacity. I know that. But, you know, from time to time, there'll be these, like, grid alerts and there'll be demand shedding and stuff like that. Yeah. But if we just look at the Alberta electric system operator page that describes how the system is performing today, well, we have 19.

7 gigawatts of generation capacity, and we're currently using. Looks like 9. 4. So we're using less than half. So on a hot day, everybody's air conditioning is running. Yes, that number goes up. And yes, they try to shed some of the demand that can be shed. But I don't think this is an existential problem. I think that.

Creative people will find opportunities here and there'll be a lot of money that gets made

Kelly Kennedy: by a lot of people. Yeah. No, I think you're right. And especially in Alberta, right? We are an incredibly innovative bunch. I'm very proud of my fellow Albertans. I think we do a great job. We have a massive booming tech sector here.

That's always finding new solutions. And we have companies like yours. That's also finding ways to maximize the next generation. And I absolutely love it. Can you take us back to the beginning, Curtis? Like what, what led you down this path to start Inferno Solar?

Curtis Craig: I've I've been a very independent, I would say, person for a long time.

And so I think it was kind of always in my, my DNA and my makeup to want to hang my own shingle up one day and go my own business in tandem with that our family. I would say has very strong sustainability roots, but from a different lens than you would expect, not from the granola eating direction, but from the my, my grandfather moved here from Carrot River, Saskatchewan in the 1960s, and he had 11 children and a big farm near Joffrey, Alberta, some of my uncles went on to work at the Joffrey petrochemical plant but We were an organic family before organic was a thing, because that's when you had no money and

a lot of kids, that's what you we have a two acre garden out there. So even as kids, we'd go out and plant potatoes and peas and carrots and dill and strawberries and raspberries. And like the whole month of August was like. Picking all this produce. So as a child, I absolutely hated it. Yeah, laboring in the sun.

You'd rather be at the lake or something. But yeah, like, you know, we, we kind of grew up with this kind of organic, sustainable lifestyle. My father's an electrician as well. And so naturally I followed him into the trade in high school. I don't think he thought I would be. I was maybe a bit lazy as a child.

So I don't think he wanted to bring me straight into the electrical company right off the bat. So, yeah, my first job was. My first construction job was sweeping floors for general contractor, but then once I proved I could get up and get on site for 7 in the morning every day, then he gave me a crack at coming to work for them and Red Deer at a commercial contractor called AAA Electric, and I did my apprenticeship there.

And I got my ticket when I was very young, 21. I think that's pretty young. That's pretty young. Yes. I had apprentices that were, you know, in their 30s and 40s. Here, I'm half their age. But but anyways I was seeing a girl at the time whose father was a journeyman carpenter and a civil engineer, and I credit him a lot, actually, with encouraging me to go back to university.

The words he used was get applied to engineering. It will take the ceiling off your career. And I really am very thankful for that advice, because, you know, it ultimately was true. And I eventually met my wife at the University of Calgary, got an electrical engineering degree, and then got into the workforce in 2015 as an electrical engineer.

So throughout that time, I had a couple of different job offers. One was with a company that does the engineering for hydro projects all throughout Canada. And unfortunately the projects were shelved and so that I never did get the job, but I kept trying to get into the renewable space. I was just very interested in electricity generation having done the wiring part of it.

I figured I kind of knew that, and I was interested in these big pieces of equipment, like these hydro generation plants, but ultimately I couldn't crack that. So I was working for a firm in Calgary that was doing a lot of work for the school boards down there and for. The recreation centers, and it started to kind of become a mandate to put solar on these buildings and there were a few folks in the firm that that had that specialization and I thought you know, maybe that'd be a quick path to the partnership was if I could be a leader in that space.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I, I took courses outside of work. I. I tried to learn as much as I could about the technology as fast as I could and ultimately what happened was a family friend knew that I was interested in this in my background and he's like, have you ever considered starting a solar company? And I was like, I mean, no, but I'm pretty young and.

Let's take a chance. You know, I kind of want to be my own boss anyways, and maybe you got this habit, this annoying habit of thinking I I know best. And I've been humbled quite a few times since starting this business. It does, it does take a team and you can't do it on your own and certainly not the best at everything.

So. But anyways yeah, so I, I did this project for a general contractor, Eagle Builders. I, I owe them a lot of thanks as well for being a loyal customer over the years. And got this first job with them, lost my shirt on it, but I got a second job, made some money on that, and then it's just been a snowball ever since.

Man, long story. Sorry about that.

Kelly Kennedy: No, no, I, yeah. So, okay. So. Tell me about that moment. Cause it's like, we all need that kick in the butt to start our businesses. Right? Like for me, it was the middle of COVID and I got kind of sat down in a room and said like, look, we don't know what the next year's look like.

You should probably have a backup plan. And you know, I'm incredibly thankful to this day. To that employer for doing that for me, because really he did me a service, right? He gave me the opportunity to take that step to kick me in the butt. And I talk about on the show all the time, but as entrepreneurs, we all have that kick in the butt.

Something gave us that little shove to make us take that step. What was it for you that, that, that really gave you that shove? Because, you know what I mean? It's one thing to be, to be said, to be told, Hey, have you ever thought about starting your company is a whole nother thing to take that jump. What was that moment for you, Curtis?

Curtis Craig: Oh I always say I'm a pretty impulsive person and I maybe don't think things through as much as I should and I was just like, let's see how it goes. Amazing. Yeah, yeah,

there wasn't a whole lot more to it than that, I think. Throughout my life so I grew up in Red Deer, Alberta, central Alberta, and they're very similar, I think, culture to Edmonton of about a blue collar entrepreneurialism, maybe compared to Calgary, which might be a little bit more corporate. Sure.

Yeah. Just, but, you know, all of the guys in Red Deer that were these huge success stories were guys that had gone out on their own and and taken a leap and a risk, trusted themselves to figure it out. And so I think and, you know, some of my. Good buddies growing up in high school, their dads had been like that.

And so I kind of had always maybe analyzed these guys. Oh, and you know, my father too, I think he kind of had an opportunity maybe to start his own electrical contracting company at one point in time and didn't cause he had three young kids at home. And that was. Risk a lot of risk, and I think that's growing up.

I've seen some of those regrets and I didn't want to have any regrets. So a long story short to just say, like, there was the foundation there to take a risk and. My wife and I you weren't, we're young. And so if, if it doesn't work out or if it didn't work out, I had faith that I'd be able to get back into the workforce.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no, it totally makes sense. You don't mean different people to their path is different. Like it's like you. You had it emulated for you your entire life. A lot of people don't have that opportunity. They don't get to see it in action. They don't get to see entrepreneurship. You know, I mean, I was one of those people who did, but on a very small level, my dad was an entrepreneur.

He had his own little maintenance firm growing up, but he only ever worked for one person. Like he just had one client that kept him on for 30 years.

Curtis Craig: It was the way it was.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's just the way it was. Exactly. So even though I saw it, I saw entrepreneurship. I saw that drive. I, it always looked like a job to me.

It, it like it took me working underneath a successful entrepreneur to be able to really see what, what I wanted to be the entrepreneur that I wanted to be, I think is maybe the better way of saying it.

Curtis Craig: Yeah. And, you know, like since starting this business, I wouldn't say that I ever envisioned the company doing more than, for example, I don't know, 5 million a year in revenue.

I was always just like, Oh, that would be a great. Place to get to, and then as I've you know, I've joined a few different groups like entrepreneurs organization, for example and then some of our customers been incredibly successful, started with humble beginnings and have done just have the most amazing stories.

So the Leckelt brothers Silent- Aire you know, took that from a family HVAC company, Alberta based, I think Drayton Valley is where they started. Sold to Johnson Controls for north of 500 million. And that's no secret, you know, but what a wonderful success story. We did a project for a little potato company.

And I don't know if you've ever met Angela Santiago or her and her husband Frank and heard their story, but it's so inspiring as well. Like they started with a little potato farm and now they sell potatoes all across North America and now like.

Kelly Kennedy: I was gonna say, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting them.

I do hope to. I have been to the new little potato facility. It's not done yet, but my gosh, it is gigantic. And if I know correctly, you have that entire roof full of solar panels, don't you? We

Curtis Craig: do. Yeah, I think there's about 3, 300 or 3, 600 panels on there. So yeah, I mean, and thank you so much to them for having the confidence us to deliver that project, but it is the 7th largest in Western Canada.

Rooftop array, and then it's the second largest built that's not a rec center. Wow. Municipal facility. So with like private capital, which I think is pretty admirable.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. And it is like, you know, it's like, you know, it's one thing to hear us talking about it, but this building is absolutely massive when you consider that it's for potatoes.

Curtis Craig: It's over 200, 000 square feet.

Kelly Kennedy: It is one of the largest buildings in Leduc at this point, it's absolutely crazy. Yeah, and you know, I just want to give a gigantic shout out because if, if you haven't had a chance, you need to go to the Inferno Solar website and see some of the work that they have completed, some of these gigantic rooftop solar arrays.

Curtis, they are amazing. They are impressive by any, by any feet. And I would say at this point, there's no question. You guys are the leader of rooftop solar in Alberta. If not Canada at this point.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, I think there's maybe i'm i'm just a little bit more cautious to to toot our own horn too loud, but there's some pretty legitimate companies out in ontario.

There's a few that have been around in Alberta for, you know, 15 plus years but a lot of them seem to have pivoted to. The big ground mount to raise, which are a bit of a hot topic in Alberta right now. You know, I, I've made the intentional decision to stick to the commercial and industrial building space because I believe in everything about it, you know, underutilized roof that's doing a very important job of keeping the wind and the weather out in the rain.

But, you know, that's it's not impacting anybody to put solar on top of that roof. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, the other benefit of. Locating the generation where the load is, is you don't need to upgrade the transmission network. You don't need to upgrade the distribution network, at least not as much. You can generate a rate where it's needed.

And I think that's a pretty powerful value proposition. And I think that's that's something that. You know, we hope to scale across North America one day, you know, I'm trying to think bigger after kind of seeing the success of silent air and little potato and through these other amazing businesses that are Edmonton based.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, like I agree, you know, like.

Rooftop solar is hurting nobody, period. You don't even see it half the time, unless you know, right? It's like, I get the argument for, you know, these gigantic megawatt fields full of solar arrays. I can understand that argument because it's visible, it's right there in your face, and you can't really miss it.

So I do get why, like, There may be some pushback on that front. However, I agree. I think rooftop solar, there should be nobody complaining about nothing. You don't see it half the time, and it is frankly doing nothing but benefit for the companies that have these rooftop solars. Not to mention, it benefits you if you're part of the grid because it's, it's kicking back to the grid as well, isn't it, Chris?

Yes, they are kicking back to the grid. And so I'm sorry. Stammering there. Most of our projects, in fact, all of our projects are grid tied. Well, what does that mean? So that means that when the electricity is generated on the roof, it will flow into the loads in the building. And if there is excess, which there often is, it flows out to the grid and it is recorded on a bidirectional meter.

The credits at the time that you're selling to the grid. Okay, so one of the great things about it is that you know, we've had these really high power price periods. And so if you're selling during that hour, you get the spot market price during that hour. So I'm just going to pull up the the, the trading page right now.

So.

The 30 day rolling average price is 18. 1 cents a kilowatt hour. Currently, as you and I are talking right now, and it's about noon the spot market price is 60 cents a kilowatt hour. Wow. So a lot of our customers are exporting right now, so they're getting 60 cents a kilowatt hour for those sales. They will then buy it back at night for like 5 cents a kilowatt hour.

Amazing. I mean, so it's an investment. It really is.

Curtis Craig: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I just wanted to show a picture because there you see that.

Kelly Kennedy: It is just popping up. Yes, I can see it.

Curtis Craig: Yeah. These are all your project for those of you who can't see this, but we had a airplane fly over the north part of this to you recently.

And there's a lot of these rooftop solar arrays. And I think what's pretty neat about it is they're all ours. So the message is spreading.

Kelly Kennedy: That's so cool. Curtis, can you send me this picture? And for those of you that are listening, I will put this picture up on a post following this on LinkedIn. So if you go to the business development podcast page on LinkedIn, you will be able to see this picture for Inferno Solar's work.

Curtis. I wanted to just ask, is there any difference, and like, you know, this is just me, naive, not understanding electricity, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, is there a difference between power that's generated from solar and power that's generated, say, at a generating station?

Curtis Craig: That's an interesting question.

No, you know, it's all just voltage and current, and where it's coming from. So no, there's no, like, physical difference in it.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay, yeah, I know it's kind of a silly question, but I just wasn't sure because, you know what I mean, they're generated in, in different ways. So I just wondered if there was a difference of, of type.

Curtis Craig: No, I think an easy, an easier way to try and visualize the electricity grid is by thinking of how water flows. In fact, like, when you're going through your apprenticeship, you'll often be told, well, voltage is like pressure, so, you know, you've got to have a sturdy enough bit of insulation to withstand that pressure.

Current is like flow, so it's so your amps, that's like how much water is flowing by, well, it's how many units of charge are flowing by. But if we think about the grid as a bathtub. Like, maybe you just picture a subdivision or a group of industrial buildings and the grid is the bathtub. Well, traditionally, you'd have 1 tap flowing into that, and that would be like the feed from the substation, which is in turn fed from the generators.

Yeah, and then you'd have a whole bunch of drains and those are the loads going up to the buildings. All that solar is doing is adding a few more taps to that bathtub and the water level never changes. It's just like the flow amounts will change, right? To keep that water level the same. Does that make sense?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, that actually is one of the better ways of explaining it. I, you know, I mean, I know I'm not alone in this because electricity, you know, I mean, unless you're an electrician, it looks like magic.

Curtis Craig: I mean, it kind of is, but yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: I always laugh. Cause I was fortunate enough to work with Gordon at IPEC Systems for a few terms and it was, it was amazing.

I got kind of a good crash course on electricity and and power generation and how power works. And I'll tell you what, like I had all that time and it still just seems like magic when you look at when you look at a big switch gear or control panel and you're like, how in the world does this thing work?

Curtis Craig: It still looks like it's just over at at Gordon's shop there at the end of the day, yesterday, he was showing me a project that he's really proud of. And yeah, we're. We're using them on a few projects going forward here. And yeah, shout out to Gordon just for being a creative problem solver and building us the equipment that we need.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, absolutely. Gordon is awesome. And I I'm hoping to have him on the show soon. I really am. I've been, he's so busy, you know, you gotta, you gotta give him less work Curtis, cause he actually is too busy. Cause I need to get him on this show, but he's too busy to come on right now.

Curtis Craig: One thing I think that the audience might find interesting is it's just.

Kind of going back to that power market piece for a second you know, a lot of people will ask us like, well, you know, do I need batteries? And I kind of talked about that grid piece. So we're trying to figure out. What's the value proposition of batteries? Because every time we've done that, the napkin map that hasn't really penciled out thus far, but I think with the way power prices are going it will.

And I also think that as like, loads start to shoot up. On the EV charging side of things, that's going to open up opportunities for batteries to alleviate other problems. Yes. Is

Kelly Kennedy: there... Sorry, Curtis. I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. I was just going to say, like, what is the issue with batteries?

Why are they not a great solution yet? You know, like, is it the technology's just not there? What is our challenge with batteries at the moment?

Curtis Craig: I think the technology's there. I think that the scale of manufacturing isn't. And therefore the cost is still high. And I think that folks are, you know, there's a lot of research going on into different chemistries still to try and find ones that are more cost effective to produce basically.

So, so cost is the main problem. I mean we have a partnership with Exro Technologies down in Calgary, who's manufacturing a very interesting battery product that uses second life cells out of EVs. Okay. So it actually has charge discharge unit that monitors each individual cell to say, because like when they come out of an electric car, they're going to have different wear patterns.

Sure. Some will be more warm. Some will be more new ish. And so they'll have to be treated differently to optimize that. So but yeah, I mean, like, these battery banks are 6, 000 pounds. They're both the size of well, they're about two and a half feet deep by call it six feet wide by eight feet tall.

Wow. And they're like 200 grand each. Oh, wow. So trying to think through, okay, what, you know, how much value is that providing? Cause ain't nobody giving me 200, 000 to return on it.

Kelly Kennedy: So yeah, yeah. Like typical business, you gotta be able to show the value.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, that's right. And then, you know, I mentioned before, like people are only buying solar from us cause we can show them our return on it.

Yeah, yeah. It's great to check the ESG box, but are you

Kelly Kennedy: guys currently doing residential solar? Are you sticking very much to industrial?

Curtis Craig: Commercial and industrial is what interests me the most. Why? Well, because if you want to put solar on a roof commercial industrial, you can do it probably a 1. 10 per watt would be the cheapest up to say.

You know, 1.50 1.75 would be a lot of projects up to, say, 2. 50 a lot for a more complicated job. Okay. Residential, I think you start at 2. you go up to 3. 50 a watt. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, you get a lot more impact per dollar spent on these big roofs.

Kelly Kennedy: And it's just due to the volume that you're installing them in, correct?

Curtis Craig: Yeah, I mean, there's all the fixed price of doing a job, right? Your permits, drawings, time spent dealing with the inspectors time spent designing, moving to site, de moving from site. When you put that over 200, 000 square feet, that's a much smaller percentage than over 2. Sorry, you put that over 200, 000 square feet, that's a much smaller percentage than over 2, 000 square feet.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes, I, yes, that, that makes a lot of sense. So I, I do want to ask you, you know, you started this in 2019. So literally the beginning of COVID. Tell me about COVID. What was COVID like starting a business, not just starting a business, but frankly, thriving? How did you do that?

Curtis Craig: Lots of lost sleep blood, sweat, and tears.

Yeah, it has not been easy. When we started in 2019, I hired a couple of electricians and we got to work on those projects I talked about, and there was some grant funding under the Notley government. It was like 30%. And yeah, as I was kind of going out on my own, that immediately dried up. And so I think what happened is we elected the Conservative government.

We had no problem with that, but that funding immediately went away and it was, yeah, had to kind of Reevaluate the whole sales proposal value proposition. So that was tough. Then we kind of get through that starting to get some momentum again. 2020 hits and COVID hits and. It's like being put in a washing machine, didn't know what side was up.

And okay, so, you know, what are the masking requirements? And do we have to change our hiring policies? And then there was a whole, like, kind of political bent to the whole thing. And yeah, it was really, really tough. I guess the good news is that everybody was going through it. All business owners were struggling to navigate the new normal.

And I think one of the reasons we were able to succeed through that is I'm a millennial. I've always been used to working on computers. And so we were ready to go remote right away. Yeah. Everything, all of our software is set up to work on the cloud and stuff like that. And so we just did that and then.

Great. Yeah, and then just hard work, perseverance, and trying to earn the repeat business of our customers and earn their referrals. And that's been really, there's not a whole lot of mystery to it. It's just trying to do a good job for people.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I just, you know what I mean? You have done exceptionally well.

Considering that, that timeline, the challenges that you faced. I know when we met the first time, masking was still a big thing. I know when we went to, we were, we were all wearing masks

until we sat down at our table. So I, I very much remember the time and I remember the challenges with that, especially for me, always advocating for in person meetings wherever possible.

Yeah, trying to get used to a team's environment and a lot more video calls and a lot less in person. You know, like you said, the work from home wasn't the challenge, it was the fact that business is built in person, relationships are built in person, and you need to be able to take that time to try to get together in a room.

And a situation like COVID makes that really, really tough. And yeah, just congratulations. You, you did an absolutely great job. And not only did you guys get through COVID, you grew through COVID, which is very impressive.

Curtis Craig: Yeah. And, and, you know, I really owe it all to our customers. Telus has been incredibly loyal.

I, I owe them a huge thanks. Eagle builders York Realty, the folks at Silent Air, folks at North American Construction Group. I mean, that's. We owe it all to our customers.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I agree. Any business does, right? Like the reality is you don't grow without customers. So I I'm right there with you.

I totally get it.

Curtis Craig: Yeah. I mean, try and take a partnership approach to it too. And, you know, try and have skin in the game too. Yeah. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. So tell me like, you know, obviously. Solar technology is changing and ever evolving. That tech is just always adapting. What has changed in the last five years with, with What's

changing? What's, what's getting better or what's you know, what is, what

is it all about?

Curtis Craig: So what has changed? The theme has been for constantly kind of higher wattage output modules. I wouldn't say that they're necessarily getting a whole lot more efficient, like per unit of area. Yeah, it's just that the manufacturers have wisely kind of decided, like, you know, if we make these things bigger, it doesn't necessarily increase the amount of labour that goes into a project.

But it does decrease other elements of it which drives the cost down. So that's been maybe the theme is just like bigger and bigger and bigger solar panels, which have higher wattage outputs. I see. On the, there's kind of I guess like 3 or 4 major parts to a solar system. You have your modules, aka your solar panels.

You've got your racking. That's what it all sits on. Yeah, you've got your inverters. That's what converts the direct current to alternating current. Direct current is what the solar panels generate. Alternating current is what the grid uses. And then you've got the balance of systems. So, you know, wire, transformers, breakers, et cetera, typical electrical scope.

So, yeah, so we talked about the modules are getting kind of just bigger, not necessarily a lot better. But that's also driven the cost per watt down. Racking. You know, we use mostly a Canadian manufacturer called Terrigen use a couple other manufacturers out of Canada as well KB Racking, HB Racking, a few other great partners and you know, what we're just kind of constantly focused on is, like, how can we make these systems super resilient in the face of increasing extreme weather?

Yeah, how? And so part of that is like, okay, all the materials aluminum aluminum doesn't rust. Yeah. You know, how can we over design them? Or what's our design best practice to optimize the amount of energy out? 1 thing that we do different, I think, from our competitors in the rooftop spaces, we get more energy out of a panel than our competitors do based on how we design.

How we string the panels, how we tilt the panels, space them, all that kind of stuff.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of science essentially that goes into making sure that they're set up correctly.

Curtis Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And then the final piece is the inverter that converts DC to AC. Canada is a bit of a funny market where we have 600 volt equipment.

A lot of our buildings are 600 volt. That as far as I know, it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. The United States is all 480 volt buildings. Okay. So that's a, that's a bit of a challenges. There's not that many people going after this market of 35 million people. When California alone has like 45 to 50 million people.

So a lot of the products are built for the U S market. And we have to figure out how to make them work in the Canadian market.

I see. I see. So yeah,

you're having anybody in the audience is big into power electronics, wants to manufacture an inverter together. Give us a call.

Kelly Kennedy: Calling all inverter builders.

Yeah, no, it's. So that's that's interesting. So you're having to figure out how to use technology that's not necessarily built for for our power systems and you're trying to figure out how to integrate them. That's got to be a challenge.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, and do it at do it reliably and do it at a good price.

Kelly Kennedy: That doesn't sound easy, Curtis.

Curtis Craig: There's nothing easy about this, this industry. I

 feel like, yeah, sometimes I wonder if it was the right one to go into.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, either way, you were successful. So I imagine that even if it wasn't, you would have figured it out. So, you know, I want to chat about.

Okay, you know, we've I think we've built a lot of interest in solar here, Curtis. I think we have. I think you've done a great pitch as to why we should consider it. Let's talk to our business owners who don't have solar on their roof right now. What would you tell them? What is what is an initial meeting look like?

And what does planning for a solar project look like? What should they consider? Are there things that they should be thinking about? Are there risks that they should consider?

Curtis Craig: Yeah, I mean some buildings just starting to get candidate. Lots of buildings are. And then there's kind of two different types of buildings.

There's ones that are being built right now. And then there's ones that are existing, existing stock. And so we like all kinds. We like retrofits. We like new builds. We prefer scale. So 10, 000 square feet and up, I would say, is kind of where we start to get interested and where I think we can provide a compelling solution.

We provide financing options, which folks are quite interested in. You know, the niche and the markets that the building types that we like are industrial powder coating. Welding, fabrication, even warehousing and distribution, refrigeration, data centers grow facilities you can use a little bit of power or a lot of power.

We can generally find a solution for you. And the returns are generally better than they are on the real estate itself. So that's compelling to a lot of folks, you know, like, if you if you think buying your own buildings, a good investment, well, putting solar on it, I can tell you it's a better investment.

Kelly Kennedy: I also imagine it adds to the property value quite a bit.

Curtis Craig: I think that is a little bit to be determined. We've been working with the brokerage community about like the transaction of buildings with solar on it, how it doesn't affect the value. Yeah. That's slightly murky still. I think that an educated buyer will see the value, but Yeah, we're still working through that.

You know, what it does affect the value on is if it's a leased building and this can impact the basic rent by definition, that makes the building more valuable. Yes. So a lot of our, our great customers have been. Landlords and tenants, and we've got a program that works for both of them very well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah.

Well, you mentioned that York Realty is one of your, one of your clients, right? And they're building these gigantic, brand new warehousing facilities. That would be an ideal client for you would be, you know, builders such as that, correct?

Curtis Craig: Yep, shout out to Hopewell as well. We're doing quite a bit of work with Hopewell this year on some spec buildings to help them achieve lead.

But yeah, it'll have the fringe benefit of also making that space more valuable to the tenants. And then, yeah, we've got Cameron Developments. Shout out to those guys. They've been a wonderful partner. I hope I'm not missing anybody there, but.

Kelly Kennedy: You'll remember right after the show and then you can shoot me a message.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, that's right.

Kelly Kennedy: You know what is the lifespan of these arrays? So, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, it's quite an investment to put them up. Do they last quite some time?

Curtis Craig: Yeah, the, the solar panels are made from aluminum and tempered glass and a little bit of polysilicon. And it's a, it's a very resilient product.

It doesn't rust. Yeah, it doesn't corrode. They have a 10 year manufacturer's warranty on like how it's constructed and then they have a 25 year warranty on the output. And these warranties are held by like, the very large multinational insurance companies like Chubb and Lloyd's of London and you know, the really big insurers.

And so what they're guaranteeing there is that after 25 years, that panel will provide 83 percent of what it provided on the 1st day. Yeah. So that's the degradation that we're talking about. And there's plenty of examples of solar panels working in hotter, drier or more humid climates that have been running for 25 to 30 plus years.

so, so there is the track record there. The weak points on the array will be the inverters like. Their warranty is typically 5 to 10 years, and they don't have any moving parts. They're kind of like a variable frequency drive, but people know what those are. Yeah. And you know, those things, they can last 10 to 15 years.

And I have seen inverters that are 17 years old still going, but generally we model, you know, we have to repair or upgrade those things sometime between year 10

and 15.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Are there like any risks and you know, I mean, I know that, you know, there's always risks and everything, but are there any things that like, you know, a building owner or a homeowner, you know, I think we're talking to a lot of homeowners to that have solar arrays on the roof.

Are there any risks to putting solar solar up Curtis?

Curtis Craig: I think if you go with the cheapest installer, you are exposing yourself to quite a bit of risk. We've all heard the horror stories of rooftop fires or leaks that happen on, I would say, more so a raise down in the United States because you know, they will use massive amounts of laborers that maybe haven't been trained properly, and there may be lacking a bit of the QAQC.

I think in Alberta, we have some of the strongest trades people in the world some of the best training and trades programs. I agree. So I think that it's a little less likely to happen here, but, you definitely want to go with not the cheapest provider. You don't want somebody cutting corners because like our systems, there are 1500 volts.

1. C. That's pretty spicy. Yeah, that's basically and you can weld with it, you know, if it's so you want to go with somebody who's taking care of your roof first and foremost putting something that's safe on your roof and is going to be around to maintain it. And

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. Okay. You touched on something that I've, I've always wondered about.

Okay. So we live in Alberta. We got 18 feet of snow. I'm exaggerating, but a lot. Do you, like, how do you maintain a solar system?

Curtis Craig: Yeah, for us, and we're honing our operations and maintenance program based on best practices from some of these amazing multinational customers we're working with. So we're building on the shoulders of giants, I would say, and then a lot of members of our team have come from I've been in the industry longer than this company's been around, you know, 7, years.

So our O& M process includes we want to retorque. The majority of fasteners every year because these things do get exposed to a lot of high winds and with wind comes vibration and with vibration comes loose bolts. Yeah, that is not something you want. It's a recipe for disaster. So that's part of it.

We want to visually inspect how the racking is interfacing with the roof. You know, you might put a 500, 000 solar array on a 5 million roof. So you got to keep that roof in good shape. Yeah. So that's another piece. We're also going to, we've bought some very sophisticated equipment to test all the DC wiring, make sure that there's no nicks in the insulation that can lead to shocks or fires.

And then finally, we're going to pull out some thermal cameras, look at the, the electrical cabinets, look at the modules. We'll even fly over with the drone with a thermal camera and look for generally heat as an indicator of something going wrong. Okay. Electrical system. Okay, so but but hang on, so I don't want to scare people off with that because that whole thing is about, you know, half a percent to 1 percent of the initial capital cost of the project.

So it's it's. Pretty negligible, and we build that into the financial models for everyone.

Kelly Kennedy: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, because, like, do you, are they self clearing? Like, do solar panels have the ability to melt the snow on them?

Curtis Craig: Great question. I'll share my screen again. Maybe that's not helpful for the audience, being that this is a podcast.

So, snow. This has been studied extensively by Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Nate, right here in Edmonton. They built two test arrays, one in Grand Prairie, one on the roof of the Edmonton campus. They put a bunch of panels at different angles and then they put microinverters so they could actually measure the output of each individual panel.

And then some poor soul had to go sweep the snow off of one row and leave it on the other row and then over four years they analyzed the output. The difference is less than four and a half percent. Wow, really? So, you know what my solution is, put 4. 5 percent more panels on the roof and you just got the same amount of energy out.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow, that's it, hey?

Curtis Craig: On an annual basis, that's it.

Kelly Kennedy: That is unbelievable.

Curtis Craig: So, let's think about that for a second. So, why is that? Yeah. Well, in the winter time here, we've got like 4 hours of daylight. Right. Sure. Basically live in a closet for a few months. Yeah. So, even though there's snow on the paddles, there's no sunlight to begin with.

But in the summertime, our inverters will kick on at like 4 in the morning, and they won't turn off until 11. 30 at night. Yeah. Days are so long, so you just make up for it seasonally.

Kelly Kennedy: Gotcha, gotcha. So, like, if you were to take it out over the course of a year... It's negligible.

Curtis Craig: That's it. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, and I don't want to BS people, but there's a very little production coming out of most rooftop arrays, December, January, February there's certain things you can do in the design to mitigate that.

And I think that we've, we've done that in our kind of unique design. And then you can always augment it with some solar panels on the wall because. The sun is low in the sky in the winter, that's going to do very well on a wall, and you know what doesn't stick to the wall?

Snow.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, that makes a lot of sense.

Thank you for clarifying, Curtis. So tell me, what does the future of solar look like? You know, like, what does the next five years look like? Are you able to read the future and let us know what that what that's going to be?

Curtis Craig: You know, it's a it's a bit of a challenge to focus a little bit in this space.

I feel like I'm kind of constantly pulled and look at different opportunities. What's the future hold? You know, generally speaking, I think we're going to continue to grow in this market and in others and what those verticals are going to be exactly. I'm still working out, but I think there's big opportunity in EVs And EV charging this big opportunity in more solar and in storing that energy with batteries.

And you know, creating more inertia in the grid would be a thing because the grid is a unique system. You think the road system has storage in terms of parking lots, the oil and gas system has storage in terms of tanks and gasoline tanks and fuel stations and stuff like that. There's inertia. But the electricity system power, that's feeding our computers right now is generated right now somewhere in Alberta.

Yeah, the inertia comes from actually big spinning gas turbines or increasingly will probably be met with batteries. So I think, there's going to be increased electrification, and there's a lot of opportunities for us in that space, and what those are exactly, I'm still working on.

Well, either way, it's going to be good, I think.

I think we're moving in the right direction. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.

For sure. I think, you know, a lot of people poo poo EVs, and they're like, the range sucks, and they use so many precious metals, and blah, blah. They're a blast to drive. If you like, like sports cars, quick acceleration, that thrill, like, I mean, most, most families are two car families anyways, get one for your in town.

Day to day. Yeah. And then have a gas car for the weekends. And one day the EV charging infrastructure will be there that you can maybe have two,

but...

Kelly Kennedy: That actually makes, like, the most sense. Totally. I totally agree. Because that's the argument, right? The argument is, well, yeah, what if I got to go to Calgary?

Or what if I got to go all the way to Grand Prairie and back? Then I can't. But yeah, it's like, most, most families have two cars anyway, so why not?

Curtis Craig: Totally. And I mean if you don't, you could rent the gas car on the weekend for sure. A couple hundred bucks. Yeah. And you're gonna save way more than that on, like I spent 600 bucks charging my car last year.

Kelly Kennedy: What Really?

Curtis Craig: Yeah. And I drove 20,000 k. That's amazing. A lot of it was supercharging too.

Kelly Kennedy: That is amazing. That's awesome.

Curtis Craig: I've taken it skiing in Jasper. I've taken it to Lake Louise for meetings. I've. Go down to Calgary all the time for meetings, and you have to plan your day a little bit differently, but I just line up when I need to eat with when i am going to charge.

It's not a rocket science.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah.

No kidding. No, that's awesome. So if you could give one piece of advice, Curtis to new entrepreneurs to just give them that little nudge. What might that be?

Curtis Craig: I think like it was a wake up call to me. Just it's not like Instagram entrepreneurs. It's a lot of hard work and it's not going to be easy, but you have to persevere and I think you need to surround yourself with people that believe in your vision as well because there's going to be hard days and you're going to need that encouragement.

Yeah. And I'm I've applied to the. You know, mentorship program, so I'm looking for a mentor to kind of help me take my company to the next level. And a big problem for me to, I guess, sorry, you know, I heard that like, Warren Buffett say something once upon a time that, best investment you can make in is in yourself.

So I'm taking more courses to become a better leader, to empower my people, to get out of their way, to trust them. That, cause that's maybe an area of weakness for me as I try to do too much myself. So yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: I think, I think that's an entrepreneur problem in general.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, you need to, you need to have some self awareness and you need to have some people to challenge you about like your strengths and weaknesses, and then you need to put yourself in your flow states of where you best 80 percent of the time.

Yeah, I'm trying to do all those things.

Kelly Kennedy: I agree completely. I, you know, I've had to do that a lot myself over the last year because, you know, operating, I've been operating my own business now for three years, pretty much by myself right up till this last year where I started to grow. And I, you know what I mean?

I have put an absolute ton of trust in our employees because I think you have to, you have to be able to trust them to move forward, to be able to take those next steps. And so I have had to work with myself to be able to relinquish some of that control and say, you know what, you got this. You just show me what it looks like when we're done.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, come to me with questions. Here's the guidelines I want you to work within. And, you know, but you can't I think what, what I've learned is people need to be given the opportunity to succeed and to fail and people need to be trusted. Sorry, what was the other piece?

Kelly Kennedy: No, that's okay. That's okay.

Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. People need to be given the opportunity. I think that's a great place to leave off. They need to be given the opportunity one way or another because they grow either way.

Curtis Craig: Yeah, and what's more frustrating than somebody micromanaging you? Stuff that fulfillment when you don't have agency to create and to do and execute.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely.

That brings us to the end, Curtis.

This has been episode 64 of the Business Development Podcast. We have been graced with the president of Inferno Solar, Curtis Craig. Thank you for coming on the show, Curtis.

Curtis Craig: Thanks for having me, Kelly. This is my very first podcast. I hope there's opportunity to do more in the future.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, I have a feeling you're going to do many, many more.

Until next time, this has been Episode 64. We'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization Is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.