Episode 776

776: Can These Dragon Wings Revolutionize Commercial Solar? Ryan Wartena Is At It Again…

Published on: 2nd January, 2025

Despite decades of progress, the commercial solar market remains bogged down by slow development cycles and complex approvals, leaving millions of buildings and temporary power needs underserved. This challenge extends even to large-scale events like the Super Bowl & Burning Man, where fossil fuel generators dominate, contributing to significant carbon emissions. With the right innovation, this “messy middle” could unlock a massive opportunity for faster, more sustainable energy deployment.

Dr. Ryan Wartena, founder and CEO of Southern Beams Builds has developed Dragon Wings.  This novel modular solar generator unfolds from a shipping container to reveal 60 solar panels, roughly 30kW of power. Drawing on his background in electrochemical engineering and experience founding Geli, an energy storage operating system acquired by Qcells, Ryan has created a solution designed for applications as diverse as temporary power, EV charging, and commercial solar.  Dragon Wings have been deployed to support large public events from last year’s Super Bowl to Burning Man camps, and Dragon Wings shows the potential of scalable, factory-built modular solar.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

  • How Ryan is leveraging new composite solar panels, EV batteries, and factory-built design to scale this novel tech.
  • The role of Dragon Wings in replacing fossil fuel generators at public events like Burning Man
  • Wartena's entrepreneurial journey, including lessons learned from the successful exit
  •  of Geli and advice for other founders

Explore how Dragon Wings is advancing renewable energy deployment in the commercial sector and helping phase out traditional gas generators. Listen now!

If you want to connect with today's guest, you’ll find links to his contact info in the show notes on the blog at https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/.

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Mentioned in this episode:

CPS July 2024 V2

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About the Podcast

SunCast
Your resource for developing a clean energy or climate tech career
Nico Johnson takes you into conversations with those at the forefront of Renewable Energy.

SunCast gives an inside look into what is happening in renewable energy. From conversations with the biggest Solar Panel manufacturers in the world to the small startups creating the future of renewable energy, such as carbon capture and battery technology breakthroughs.

SunCast is dedicated to providing the knowledge, research, tools and expert guidance you need to understand, grow and be ahead of the curve in the fastest-growing markets in the world.

Featuring over 600 conversations, Nico has interviewed people from Tesla, SolarCity, Trina Solar, Meyer Burger, Conergy, SunEdison, Energy Vault and even the US Government... to name a few. Covering topics such as Solar Power, Wind Energy, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Carbon Capture, Finance, Hydrogen, and more.

You can watch SunCast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SunCastMedia

...or view the full archive of SunCast episodes here: https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes