SunPower Renewables believes in developing last-mile service with Lithium-ion and Solar 

Rahul Kale, Founder & CEO, SunPower Renewables and Nitasha Badhwar – Co-Founder & Head of Strategy, SunPower Renewables in an interview with EPR Magazine.

Kindly walk us through your company’s key profile and your focus? 

Rahul: Sunpower Renewables is an Australian company with its headquarters in Melbourne. We develop and manufacture portable lithium solar generators. We have integrated all the different components of a solar power plant, along with battery storage, into a single compact device. So, all you have to do is connect a solar panel to it and charge from the grid. The unit is very sleek, compact and well designed with lithium-Ion battery storage; and it allows you to charge any electrical appliance with that unit.

Nitasha: We are creating a situation where a customer can choose according to their energy needs. If you’ve used a diesel generator or an inverter, you get a set number of sizes, and choose accordingly. And if you’re using diesel, you’re burning that much diesel each and every time, no matter how many appliances you’re using. So, our energy is actually not one size fit for all, it’s more bespoke energy customised according to your requirements. So it’s sustainable in every sense of the word.

How do we deal with the geographical challenges in terms of attaining power stability?

Rahul: I think there is a misconception that solar only works when the temperatures are high. Solar is most effective when the temperatures are in the mid 20s; so, solar can generate power even during winter and during the monsoon, especially due to the installation and ambient temperatures. So generation might be limited during the monsoon, which means, you might be able to have generation for around 300 days out of 365 days. And our products are portable units that can withstand and work in temperatures as low as -50°C and as high as 50–55°C and they are built to withstand these extreme temperatures. 

Nitasha: While building these machines and products, we considered the variability and power, and if a solar panel can withstand it, our machines should be able to couple with it.

What kind of technology have you been using and how is it helping you to attain maximum efficiency in your products? 

Rahul: Our products really became viable when lithium-Ion batteries became commercially viable. In 2015-2016, the price of lithium-Ion batteries was reduced, and that’s when we could start developing our product. Also, using good quality lithium-ion batteries has been the key enabler for this product, which allows for energy independence. The batteries themselves have a lifespan of 10 years or more, with an efficiency of more than 90 percent. Our innovations are integrated well with the other components of a solar plant and the heat management of the unit to allow the portability.

Nitasha: I think we’ve also been lucky that we had a lot of R&D focus at a time where smart technology has been growing, as it allowed us to take all the components in a traditional solar plant, small/large/medium/micro-sized, and are portable with a very slick design, which you can use and move with you at any point anywhere.  

We also have a lot of clients who prefer to put this machine outside the petrol pump or in their private premised. Moreover, we have customers who come to me and say that they want to keep their machines right next to them. It also has a start-up tablet capability that allows you to optimise your power.

What are the challenges to meeting the demands in a cost-conscious country like India?

Nitasha: Definitely, people are cost-conscious, and that’s actually something that all of us can support; as pandemic has hit various industries and people at large. So it’s important to be conscious of about it. Another important thing is, we have reached grid parity, and the price of panels and lithium-ion batteries has dropped significantly to the place from where it started. We are now in a position where customers have come back to us and mentioned of being able to save over 70 percent of cost with solar. It’s an amazing thing, because if anything supports uptake, it is that you are able to save on the bottom line.

Rahul: Traditionally, solar power was used to power the supplementary power in India, and in most markets. However, due to the seamless cut off, our unit has actually put the petrol pump nozzle on our machine. So, even when there is no electricity they don’t have to run the diesel generator and can still keep pumping and selling fuel. And not only is there a 70 percent reduction in cost, they’ve actually reported an increase in sales by about 20-25 percent. It is a very cost-conscious market. And I think most people now want to go green. But obviously, the cost becomes an inhibitor.

If you look at our products on the smaller range, which is the portable side, we are on par with, say a home inverter, UPS kind of a solution. Compared to a diesel generator, we have a payback of about 8-9 months, which I think given a 10 year lifespan for most people; and if you get rid of the operational headache, it’s still a viable investment. And most people are now transitioning to that space.

Nitasha: In keeping with sustainability, we see our vision for the business being very holistic. If it matters to us, it has to matter to the end customer. What the end customer is experiencing is something that has to come back to R&D. It has to be further developed, it has to be optimised and it has to be solution-oriented. And what we’re seeing is that finally, because we have reached grid parity a couple of years ago, the projects are all-encompassing and the products are in a position where, not only are people saving on costs, they are also increasing sales. So it’s coming quite well together.

What are your plans, projections, and offerings to the industry? 

We were heavily focused on R&D, and by putting our products out there, we’ve had a lot of feedback from customers. They come to us and ask us to develop last-mile anxiety with EV cars coming into the market. We’ve also had customers who deal heavily into the port industry, asking us to build products just to boost cars to get them off the ship. So what we are really looking at is everything in the last mile. We’ll definitely go into specifics with you, hopefully in the future, but for now, represent last-mile anxiety for electric vehicles. Electric vehicle owners, we’re looking at the last mile, with ports left.