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Rob Smith

Rob Smith

Rob Smith is a Renewable Energy Business Development Manager at ABC Supply Co., a 17-year solar industry executive based in Apex, North Carolina.

Apr 7, 2026

4:12
And you need to find partners that understand that stack and can help you dial in the value.
4:18
And I think you also need to consider why are all these incentives coming out? incentive rates or the utility rates are consistently going up across the country, whether it's 5% here, 20% there.
4:31
At the end of the day, the grid's being jeopardized with all these data centers, a lot of extra demand on the grid and the utility companies can't afford to upgrade all of those distribution lines.
4:41
Traditionally, utility solar was always upgrading all the transmission lines, adding new substations.
4:47
All that's good.
4:48
Most of that's been replaced at this point.
4:49
But you go into areas like New York City, New Jersey, the grid is almost 100 years old.

13 MINS LATER

18:00
And we need them too.
27:29
I just
27:30
hope you know I'm making them squirm.
27:32
I mean, last year, I mean, that's why you saw a huge influx of purchasing through distribution was everyone safe harboring.
27:40
But the guidelines were so vague that it's a lot of risk.
27:43
And if you're wrong, you're not just wrong, you're really wrong.
27:45
And you're stuck holding the bag with all this expensive product and you can't move it at all.
27:49
So we opted for the safe route and just kind of stay the course and keep pushing those name brands.
29:21
You need you have these buying signals that tell you, well, we can finally stock this because we have enough interest in it.

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