Adapt Energy with PanTech Design

Rolling blackouts are a big topic of conversation right now, with Texas and California facing potential summer blackouts due to heat waves. But most people don't understand why they're necessary and what they achieve. One crucial question surrounding blackouts is whether or not power grids can get to a place where they're not needed.

Adapt Energy's experts and thought leaders bring knowledge and understanding to home automation energy solutions, but Jorge Ortiz brings an additional level to the conversation – his own experience. Ortiz is a Florida homeowner who powers his home through a combination of solar and battery power and the home automation control of Adapt Energy. He shared his perspectives with Troy Morgan, CEO of PanTech Design, and host James Kent.

In February of 2021, Texas went through an energy crisis, with many residents experiencing rolling blackouts. PanTech Design CEO Troy Morgan joined host Tyler Kern to talk about this phenomenon, what rolling blackouts are, why they occur and how solutions like microgrids and energy automation can help reduce them.

Although the idea of perfection is a subjective one, when Troy Morgan and Alex Teague envisioned their ideal Adapt Energy system, they knew they wanted it to be a reliable one above all else.Morgan and Teague, who are PanTech Design's CEO and COO respectively, then began designing their product with the end in mind.They realized, for example, that a reliable product is made of reliable parts. As a result, the Adapt Energy system is made up of “all industrial-grade components.”“There's a cost associated with that, but we were willing to add that extra cost to have that reliability,” Teague said. “And the solution that we have is made to last probably longer than any of the other components in the whole environment.”“We have more than a hundred systems out there, and we have not had one single component failure – not one,” Morgan added. Although he conceded that this will certainly change over time given the sensitive nature of electronics, he maintained that the position that the company is in today is a reflection of the choices that Teague made during the design process.Another reason for their system's flawless performance can be seen in PanTech's quality control process. The company employs a “double QC” check, where Teague himself conducts one final check of every system before it's shipped out to the end user.“The person who designed and engineered it is also the one testing it to make sure, before it gets shipped, that it's 100% perfect,” Morgan said.Subscribe to the Adapt Energy podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to explore new ideas in energy automation technology and stay up to date on the latest changes in the industry.

Companies like PanTech Design rely on marketing agencies such as One Firefly to help them bring their solutions in home automation and energy management to a market that's gaining momentum every day. Ron Callis, Founder and CEO of One Firefly, joined Troy Morgan, Founder and CEO of PanTech Design, to discuss today's home automation and energy management trends. “Once you connect an energy system to a home automation system, you achieve a device-level type of control,” Morgan said. "You can change the dynamics of the whole energy profile of the home by telling the home automation system it's time to do something, and that home automation system decides what to do." According to Callis, now is a perfect time for home energy companies to enter the home automation market. “We see well-known brands across the country starting to fully get behind home energy management as a category of discussion. They're moving product and integrating it into their projects,” Callis said. “I certainly see the market growing quarter over quarter.” With consumers showing a lot of interest in battery storage and other home energy management solutions for their homes, are businesses ready to meet those needs? “Consumers are the ones driving the questions to the developers, the builders, the architects and the people they are working with to build their dreams in terms of their homes,” Morgan said. “And it's that, I think, that is driving the contractors to learn more and start to look for products that can accomplish what consumers are asking for." A customer may want to have a continual power supply available for their home in case of an outage. But achieving that may not be cost-effective, which is the challenge the industry needs to solve. Companies such as PanTech Design are helping people to accomplish these goals with real technology solutions.

PanTech Design sees the future, and it is one of energy monitoring, load control and ensuring clean and constant power flow for commercial and home consumption.Troy Morgan, Founder and CEO of PanTech Design, and Joe Piccirilli, Managing Director and CEO of Rosewater Energy Group, popped by Adapt Energy to discuss the importance of maintaining clean and constant power within an unreliable grid. Piccirilli, a 50-year veteran in the consumer electronics industry, noticed that, as more and more IoT products entered homes over the past decade, dissatisfaction from consumers was not uncommon. But was it the products themselves not functioning correctly, or was it a lack of consistent, clean power reaching those devices to blame?In 2012, Piccirilli founded Rosewater to solve such power problems.“[I said], 'I am going to design and build the best, most complete, energy management, power quality device in the business,'” Piccirilli said. Four years of development and testing later, Piccirilli's product became a reality. Morgan pointed out another need for stable, constant and clean power - the enormous stress put on the grid due to warm weather temperatures, especially in extremely hot locations. Coupled with the unexpected increase in home power use due to people working from home during the pandemic, and power grids can get unstable and experience fluctuations and outages.“When that occurs, and especially now,” Morgan said, “everybody has to use their air conditioners. And when these air conditioners all kick on and stay on for an extended period, people will see the grid go down.”If populations are growing, home sizes expanding and power needs increasing while power grids age, how can people maximize their power efficiency? One solution is an energy and storage solution designed for residential and light commercial use.The right unit can protect and enhance the performance of all home and office electronics while providing an uninterruptible power supply with zero transfer time and a large amount of battery backup to ride out power failures.

Troy Morgan, CEO, PanTech Design and Blake Richetta, CEO, Sonnen USA kicked off the first episode of Adapt Energy with a discussion on the rise of home energy storage and why the viability of solar depends on it. A few years ago, PanTech Design began developing energy automation systems to work within the home energy management space. And Sonnen is a legacy player in the residential energy storage industry at a mere 10 years old. Sonnen uses lithium iron phosphate batteries to connect to the grid and optimize and harmonize solar energy, specifically in residential applications. “Energy storage is not just a trend,” Richetta said. “It is an essential evolution of the very way that we produce and consume energy. There is no renewable energy transition without energy storage.” The increasing demand on utility grids has caused more frequent power outages, and today's customers want uninterrupted power. “People are looking more toward home battery storage as a method of reducing downtime during these types of outages,” Morgan said. One of the premier benefits of energy storage systems is maximizing the efficiency of solar and wind energy. “These types of energy systems are decentralized, flexible and much more resilient,” Richetta said. The capture of energy at multiple nodes versus one centralized point can help reduce power loss over a large portion of the grid during large-scale power outages. When it comes to solar energy, Morgan wanted to clear up a misconception. “People assume, because you have solar power, you have power available all the time," he said. "You are off the grid and don't have to buy power from the utility company, and if the power goes out, you have power. That is not the case.” To get the most out of a solar system and utilize the generated power, a home energy storage system is required. An energy storage system allows usage of the generated power by both the home and the grid when power is needed, not when it isn't.