Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Next guest
Speaker 1: comes courtesy of one of our technical directors here at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio, Sebastian Escobar. Yes, we listen to everybody on
Speaker 1: our team. He read about an interesting startup that's already
Speaker 1: raised millions of dollars and helped homeowners use evs as
Speaker 1: backup power for their homes. This is innovative. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: called Decibel, And we got a Mark Andre Fourge, the
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of the company. He's talking to us
Speaker 1: all about how homeowners can use evs as backup power
Speaker 1: for their homes. Let's talk about bi directional charging. Mark, Andre,
Speaker 1: It's great to have you with us. He joins us
Speaker 1: via zoom from Montreal. So, Mark, what's the problem that
Speaker 1: this is trying to solve here? I mean, obviously it's
Speaker 1: if your power goes out right, you can use the
Speaker 1: big battery that you've got to continue to power your home.
Speaker 1: But why is this so much more challenging than than,
Speaker 1: you know, just simply flipping a switch. Well, you're absolutely right, Um,
Speaker 1: the second largest as a purchase for any family is
Speaker 1: or car, and the car sets in the driving most
Speaker 1: of the time. And right now California takes its Florida
Speaker 1: with hurricanes, we have lots of blackouts. The concept is
Speaker 1: very simple, how to use the energy from the ev
Speaker 1: to power the home during a blackout. Already pay for
Speaker 1: that energy, already pay for that ev so I want
Speaker 1: to leverage it. It's looked at simples some papers. But
Speaker 1: now we need to combine the technology from EVY that
Speaker 1: is still in this infancy, and of course the world
Speaker 1: of regulation inside homes to make it universally compatibles. And
Speaker 1: this is really what we have achieved with our disabled
Speaker 1: technology and our disabled platform. We create a universally compatible
Speaker 1: solutions that can take the energy from the EVY to
Speaker 1: power your home during the blackout. So this is this
Speaker 1: essentially you know people by generators right just in case?
Speaker 1: Is this essentially kind of forward looking alternative energy generator?
Speaker 1: Is that basically how we should look at it. I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the use case. But Discabel is
Speaker 1: a four in one device. We do much more than this.
Speaker 1: The Discabel is a home energy stations. It's also your
Speaker 1: solar energy, it's your blackout power using your EVY or
Speaker 1: your stationary battery. It's also your home energy management system
Speaker 1: all combined into a single unit. So not only we
Speaker 1: can use we can charge your car fasters, we can
Speaker 1: use the energy from the EVY to power your home
Speaker 1: during a blackout, but also we can charge your EV
Speaker 1: using your solar energy that so far is still free
Speaker 1: and non taxable. Okay, So help me imagine what this
Speaker 1: looks like here because you said it's also for use
Speaker 1: for solar How do you how do you? How does
Speaker 1: that work? I mean, is the idea that you have
Speaker 1: a solar power You have solar panels at your home
Speaker 1: and those charge your your e V and the EV
Speaker 1: is that power station in your home. Absolutely correct. You
Speaker 1: put solar panel on the roof of your home and
Speaker 1: it's going to generate absolutely enough energy to charge your
Speaker 1: EV and some leftover of the energy for your home
Speaker 1: or vice versa. And the car here is used as
Speaker 1: a battery to start this excess energy. Are for examples
Speaker 1: to use this energy to reduce your energy invoice as
Speaker 1: the time of high costs like dinner time, to use
Speaker 1: your car as a battery, use seller to charge it,
Speaker 1: reducing your costs and protecting your ast. So okay, so
Speaker 1: it's not just for emergencies now, it's the idea is
Speaker 1: to offset the higher costs that you have of power
Speaker 1: to so it takes off the grid. So it takes
Speaker 1: off the grid a little bit. Right, Well, it's it's
Speaker 1: a combinations. It's a combinations. Right. The grid right now
Speaker 1: require massive infrastructure investment. So we cannot go without the grid.
Speaker 1: We we need the grid in in North America. Remember something,
Speaker 1: there's one billion dollars a day of fuel. Let's go
Speaker 1: to the gas station every single day to power passenger car. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine all those cars charging at home in the near futures.
Speaker 1: In a decade or a decade or so, we're gonna
Speaker 1: need major investment in a generation at the home levels.
Speaker 1: This is where this about home energy stations makes so
Speaker 1: much sense. We can differ infrastructure costs for the utilities,
Speaker 1: luring the rates. Therefore leveraging your assets in the drive
Speaker 1: ways enderating more clean energy and being more resilient energy. Mark,
Speaker 1: doesn't this wear out the battery? Well, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: the good questions. The answer is very likely. I can
Speaker 1: say that to you. Well, it's very simples. When you
Speaker 1: drive your cars on on on the highways right now,
Speaker 1: you're using your battery right now to move your cars
Speaker 1: to power your home. It's impressive, but we only use
Speaker 1: a fraction of that energy power to power your home.
Speaker 1: It's funny, but it's take less energy to power your
Speaker 1: home then pushing your t V on the highway. Therefore,
Speaker 1: the usage of the battery is way less than driving
Speaker 1: your car on the highway. And still it's to your
Speaker 1: own benefits. Is to power your home during a blackout
Speaker 1: is to reduce your energy invoice, and therefore it makes sense. Okay,
Speaker 1: we sall have a bunch of more questions, which means
Speaker 1: you can't go anywhere. We're going to come back and
Speaker 1: continue our conversation. We are talking with Marc andre Fourge.
Speaker 1: He's the founder and CEO of the Montreal, Canadian based
Speaker 1: Decibel and we're going to continue this conversation because I
Speaker 1: want to get into costs sustainability right like, I want
Speaker 1: to see kind of the full loop when it comes
Speaker 1: to sustainability. I want to get right back to our
Speaker 1: guest still with us, as Mark andre four Je, founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of the Canadian based Decibel UH he's with
Speaker 1: us still via zoom from Montreal. Hey, um Mark, So
Speaker 1: you're talking about what you guys are doing and these
Speaker 1: home energy stations and basically you know, making it possible
Speaker 1: to use your e V right to charge and power
Speaker 1: your home. Where are you? What's the growth of the business,
Speaker 1: what's your plans for coming into the US market. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to announce that about two months ago we
Speaker 1: US cuts or certification on our platform, one of the
Speaker 1: most stringent certifications for our platform to allow us now
Speaker 1: to communicate with utilities in real times. Following the certification
Speaker 1: of this platform, later this false, we're gonna start to
Speaker 1: roll out device and we're gonna start with California, following
Speaker 1: by Texas, Florida, in New York. When when does that happen?
Speaker 1: So this fall. Later this falls, we're gonna announce different
Speaker 1: pilot project and collaboration with different partners in California. So
Speaker 1: the first unit is going to be delivery and owns
Speaker 1: in California this fall. Texas may follow in Quan with
Speaker 1: Florida and Texas in Quan. Three Do utilities hate you though?
Speaker 1: Because aren't you basically making it so? And forgive me?
Speaker 1: I go extreme occasionally, you know, aren't you making it
Speaker 1: so individuals can kind of be independent? Right, there's solar
Speaker 1: panels on your roof, it's recharging everything, and then they're
Speaker 1: tapping into that power. I don't know what about that
Speaker 1: Texas grid. It's it's you know, it needs all the
Speaker 1: help get right. Yeah, you can be surprised that I
Speaker 1: still have friends in the in the utility business. The
Speaker 1: fact is no, Uh, we may say a love eight relationship,
Speaker 1: but most of the utilities really appreciate what disavel can offer.
Speaker 1: Lets me explain, when the utilities want to interact with
Speaker 1: homes today, nobody takes the call. There's no engineers, there's
Speaker 1: no CFO at home right, So if the utilities want
Speaker 1: to have the support of homes today to maintaining the
Speaker 1: energy cost, a device need to exist inside your homes.
Speaker 1: This is exactly what the disabled home energy station is.
Speaker 1: So if the price of electricity go very high on
Speaker 1: the market and they want to support and want to
Speaker 1: give you back money, for example, to use a little
Speaker 1: bit of energy from your ev the discavel and energy
Speaker 1: station is going to basically automatically react to that call
Speaker 1: and if you agree to it can push back energy,
Speaker 1: reducing the stress on the infrastructures, reducing the energy cost.
Speaker 1: This is really where the complimentaryy when the grid happen.
Speaker 1: But wait, what am I missing? Because I'm just thinking
Speaker 1: you're then taking essentially money away from a utility. No, right,
Speaker 1: because you're not. Because you because it gives an individual
Speaker 1: or a homeowner the ability to pop off the grid. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: the price of electricity vary during the day, of course,
Speaker 1: when you have a lot of for example, renewable generation
Speaker 1: solar generation. At noon, the cost of energy on the
Speaker 1: old sales market is quite low. However, at dinner time
Speaker 1: we all cook dinners, we have the path, we have
Speaker 1: a high demand for electricity, putting the grid at stress.
Speaker 1: Utilities want to try to level up or flat this curve.
Speaker 1: This is exactly where the home energy station come at
Speaker 1: play for them, right, use it and re resell it
Speaker 1: at dinner time. Okay, let's talk Tesla here, because this
Speaker 1: is a company that has a power wall. It's a
Speaker 1: battery for your home. Got solar small part of the business,
Speaker 1: to be sure, compared to the vehicles that it sells.
Speaker 1: But what's going to stop Tesla from building exactly what
Speaker 1: you're doing at decibel and including that as part of
Speaker 1: a supercharger, because I look at this on your website
Speaker 1: and it looks like it's a supercharger, But couldn't Tesla
Speaker 1: incorporate the technology you have and therefore bleap frog you
Speaker 1: bypass you? Well, we we share a common passion with
Speaker 1: Tesla is to serve their homeowners with more cost effective,
Speaker 1: renewable and relable energy. The difference is Tesla, of course
Speaker 1: is virtically integrated to the Tesla technology, where decibel is
Speaker 1: a universal for in one devices. We support all evs,
Speaker 1: we support all solar installers, and we support multiple brand
Speaker 1: of storage. So it's kind of an open eco system
Speaker 1: versus a closed ecosystem maybe, but agree. The second point
Speaker 1: is also we have seventeen families of patents that basically
Speaker 1: passionately developed over the last seven years that also provided
Speaker 1: we can build this disable at the price point of
Speaker 1: the market. Compare today, what's the cost the cost for
Speaker 1: right now the discable are sixteen. If you look at
Speaker 1: our website at discabele dot energy, we this is an
Speaker 1: upscale unit is designed for solar storage a V and
Speaker 1: minds haunted us three thousand's per feet and up and
Speaker 1: this unit if you fully install, is an average twenty
Speaker 1: less expensive than the competitions. Why power of integrations we
Speaker 1: mix four different I can say that four different use
Speaker 1: solar bi directional EV charger, blackout power energy management into
Speaker 1: a single box. That dramatically reduced the installation cost the
Speaker 1: number of hacks that do be moved. That is the
Speaker 1: power of integration. So and averagely to percent less expensive
Speaker 1: than a comparable system by the competition. Two. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what is cost? Give me real money here? Okay, So
Speaker 1: the discabelue and its start at five thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: after that the costs me very according to the number
Speaker 1: of solar panels gonna put on your house, the installation costs,
Speaker 1: and if you decide or not to put permanent storage
Speaker 1: into your home, So a typical installation can go as
Speaker 1: high as thirty thou dollars can be as low as
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars, according to your need, according what is
Speaker 1: good for your family. It does. But what is important
Speaker 1: to remember here return and of an investment for your
Speaker 1: system is usually between three to five years, and this
Speaker 1: system is designed to last ten to fifteen years, so
Speaker 1: it's going to generate more money than you're gonna pay
Speaker 1: for it. Are there any tax incentives in place now
Speaker 1: in different states in the US or as part of
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act that this afternoon was assigned into
Speaker 1: law by President Biden that will help offset some of
Speaker 1: these costs? Absolutely, I just give you the full cost
Speaker 1: right now. I must say in some county in the US,
Speaker 1: the sum of the system is very close to almost zero,
Speaker 1: or with return of ensmissement, that's going to be less
Speaker 1: than the years. Absolutely, in the Biden Inflation Reddiction Act
Speaker 1: of three and sixty nine billions or something, there's a
Speaker 1: large aspect it's gonna go as up as twenty eight
Speaker 1: thousand dollars cash back per house in desk program. If
Speaker 1: you consider everything very interesting. Let us know as you
Speaker 1: start to move into the United States, as you said
Speaker 1: in the fall, California, Texas, Florida, New York, you're communicating
Speaker 1: with the utilities, and so you're gonna move along. Let
Speaker 1: us know as you roll it out. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear uh more. Mark, Thank you so much. Mark Andre Fourge,
Speaker 1: founder CEO at the Montreal, Canadian based Decibel joining us
Speaker 1: there for you, Zoom, you're ready to go solar? I'm
Speaker 1: that we thought about it once when we redid our roof.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're a small row house. We don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of roof space, but we kind of wanted to. Um,
Speaker 1: so I think technically we could. We're trying to do
Speaker 1: it on our condom. Are you trying to do it?
Speaker 1: We just can only get like five kind of electricity
Speaker 1: based from the sun. That's it, right, because because there's
Speaker 1: not electricity all right,