How Commercial Property Owners Can Slash Energy Bills With Solar,Batteries & Energy Procurement

Brad Stutzman (00:00)
Yeah, so O3 Energy, we’re a renewable energy services company. We focus on working with real estate owners that have a high cost of electricity or energy. What we try to do is we work with them to bring down that overall cost, ⁓ help them increase their NOI and move forward just to create a bit more efficiency for the property. So we can do that through a combination of things. ⁓

We offer on-site solar generation, know, with rooftop parking canopies and then ground mount systems as well.

Michelle Tack (02:11)
Hi everyone, I’m Michelle Tack. I’m the podcast leader for today from Real Estate Pros. We’ve got a great operator today, Brad Stutzman, who is in energy renewable capabilities for commercial properties. Brad, say hi.

Brad Stutzman (02:29)
Hey, thanks for having me, Michelle.

Michelle Tack (02:30)
Absolutely. I’d like to have you and it’s like that you’re doing something good for the world with the renewable energy. I’m very impressed by that. For people that don’t come from your world, can you just explain what your business is and what markets you serve?

Brad Stutzman (02:48)
Yeah, so O3 Energy, we’re a renewable energy services company. We focus on working with real estate owners that have a high cost of electricity or energy. What we try to do is we work with them to bring down that overall cost, ⁓ help them increase their NOI and move forward just to create a bit more efficiency for the property. So we can do that through a combination of things. ⁓

We offer on-site solar generation, know, with rooftop parking canopies and then ground mount systems as well.

So working with apartment owners, hotels, manufacturing facilities. ⁓ We also offer energy storage, so battery energy storage solutions to help with demand charges. Sometimes the energy costs aren’t always the cost of the electricity.

Michelle Tack (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

Brad Stutzman (03:45)
but there may be a lot of demand charges there for those building owners. So we can attack those through batteries. And then lastly, ⁓ we can also work with utilities in the deregulated states to offer energy procurement. So going in and negotiating a better rate with the utility and getting a better rate for that property.

Michelle Tack (04:07)
So you are national, but it depends on if they have deregulation, correct? But you could do the rest for the rest of United States? OK.

Brad Stutzman (04:12)
Well, for that one service, yeah, I mean, we can offer solar and batteries.

We also operate in Mexico as well. We have an entity down there in Mexico. yeah, so yeah, the only thing that we can offer in non deregulated states is energy procurement. And that’s because the utilities in those states have

Michelle Tack (04:21)
wow, I didn’t know that. That’s awesome. That’s great.

⁓

right, makes sense. What I thought was really interesting when you were talking and shared with me is the multitude of services that you offer.

and the ability to get the footprint down to, you’d share with me that at one point you could only get, tell what the energy consumption was, for example, an apartment building to the common area, but now you’re able to do that down to the apartment level, what have you.

Can you talk a little bit about how you’re doing that and how your operation runs smoothly to be able to facilitate that?

Brad Stutzman (05:58)
Yeah, no, absolutely. we rolled out last year, we rolled out a program with some newer technology. We call it the solar split model. ⁓ What we can do is we can work with ⁓ building owners that are non-owner occupied or multifamily wherever the tenants pay the electricity. Traditionally, if you’re not using the electricity, what is the point in installing solar? on the…

Michelle Tack (06:05)
Mm-hmm.

Right, exactly.

Brad Stutzman (06:23)
Yeah, so on those multifamily properties, we were only able to attack the common areas. And sometimes that created a very small size system. So if the multifamily owner wanted to install parking canopies of solar parking canopies to provide covered parking for their tenants, you know, that may not be a big enough system to really make it matter. Now, with the solar split model, they can install solar to cover

the consumption of the entire building tenants and all. And then they’re able to basically meter or sub meter what’s going to those individual ⁓ tenants ⁓ units and build them accordingly based off of their usage. So it just adds more with as technology advances.

Michelle Tack (07:11)
Yeah,

that’s amazing. You have a lot of parts to your business. You’ve got to be aware of government laws. You’ve got to be aware of changing, I would think, prices. We talked about that. That’s another thing that you can do. There’s a lot of elements and different elements to your business. How do you keep that running smoothly from an operational standpoint?

Brad Stutzman (07:35)
Yeah, so yeah, I mean, there is always a lot of moving parts in this industry. know, it’s very heavily, ⁓ you know, based off of regulations, government policy, tax code, because there is a tax credit. So it keeps, you know, it’s a lot of education, you know, throughout the week. You know, I attend a lot of webinars.

and classes in my spare time whenever I have gaps. So, you know, it’s just keeping up with all of that and implementing that within the business.

Michelle Tack (08:06)
How about the software side? I gotta believe that you’ve got some software involved that really is critical to your business. Can you talk to that in terms of just operationally?

Brad Stutzman (08:15)
Yeah, so we use a few different softwares. ⁓ We have a software that we use for initial ⁓ designs. So to do an initial design on a building to see, hey, this is how much we can, how much solar we can fit on the roof. This is how much we can fit for parking canopies. This is how much it’s going to produce, ⁓ you know, and then, you know, this is how much we can offset from the building.

So then we take that information, put it into a proposal to give to our customers. And then once we do the installation of solar or batteries or generators, then we have a monitoring system that is another software.

Michelle Tack (08:39)
You

Brad Stutzman (08:55)
that keeps up with remote monitoring. So we know if the system goes down, if there’s an issue with production, what the production is on a daily basis based off of the weather, all of that. So I would say those are the key, ⁓ key softwares that we use on a daily basis. Yeah.

Michelle Tack (09:12)
Awesome. Thank you for

that. You know, for every operator, matter what business they’re in, you know, there’s always, there’s always been and always will be something that went wrong.

maybe ideal went sideways or, you know, maybe it was something of your product that went and you had to pivot quickly to address the situation. Has anything like that happened recently that you talk to and, you know, how you used your skill to overcome it?

Brad Stutzman (09:41)
Yes, so I mean, there’s always something popping up with us. the you know, we used to have a residential division to the company as well, where we focused on single family homes. And, ⁓ you know, about two years ago, interest rates really started shooting up. And, ⁓ you know, we tried all sorts of different things. We ended up closing that portion of the business.

But those are the things that kind of pop up, you know, throughout. ⁓

throughout the year. Same thing with government policy, right? Over the past year, we’ve had two government shutdowns, which really affected our business. had a few ⁓ clients that we had received grants for for their solar systems. And with the government shutdowns, was, you know, nobody in the ⁓

nobody in the office for, for, for two months, at the USDA. We kind of get ahold of anyone. So, you know, those are some things that just, you know, you have to work through them, figure out how to, how to proceed forward. But I feel like that’s the same with, with any business, right? ⁓ no matter what it is, whether or not it’s an energy, you know, if it’s in manufacturing, anything else, it’s always going to be something that you have to, work through.

Michelle Tack (11:08)
Right.

It is, yep.

And I think in, maybe I’m just inputting this, but it’s also being speed to the time. It’d be great if you could, this could be pre, you know, could.

Brad Stutzman (11:41)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Tack (11:41)
prognosticate

that this was happening and we all love to think about analytics that we can do there. But it seems to me that you’ve also been willing to change quickly, that you’ve acted upon things quickly when they happen. And, you know, kudos to you. In terms of…

Brad Stutzman (11:50)
Right.

Michelle Tack (11:57)
You know, we talked about opportunities in the future in terms of you bringing out more products, et cetera. How about, one of the things that I really think about and that we don’t talk enough about is how we use our network. And I don’t mean, it doesn’t, know, when we think of network, a lot of us in real estate, they give like a, know, certain elements. You’re in the service part of real estate, ⁓ but it could be, you know, your neighborhood. It could be, talked to an ex-professional athlete

Brad Stutzman (12:00)
huh.

Michelle Tack (12:27)
last week and he was like, look, I talked to other professional athletes and that’s my network. So it doesn’t have to be the traditional methodology. I think that people think of going to a real estate, you know, seminar or what have you. Can you talk about Brad, the types of things that you do to create a network that’s helping you, you know, in your business?

Brad Stutzman (12:48)
Yeah, I mean, so, you know, there’s the industry network, you know, I got all the industry events, keep up with, you know, what other groups are doing within our industry. You know, that’s a little bit of that education that we talked about earlier as well. ⁓ You know, I have ⁓ I still keep in contact with, you know, my fraternity brothers from college and they’re all, you know, entrepreneurs or, you know, real estate owners. And, you know, I have one friend that, you know, has a,

Michelle Tack (13:00)
Yeah, exactly.

good, good for you!

Brad Stutzman (13:17)
multifamily fund and a self storage fund and, you know, yeah, talk with him all the time about his properties. And he’s introduced me to some people. Yeah. So, you know, and then there’s always the word of mouth, right? Our customer network.

Michelle Tack (13:21)
that’s great.

That’s great.

Right.

Brad Stutzman (13:31)
So, you know, we work with one customer, they enjoy what we did for them and the savings that we were able to give to them. And they recommend, you know, one of their friends who’s in the same industry, know, hotel owners, it seems like they all know each other, you know, multifamily owners, it seems like they all know each other. Yeah. So, you you talk to one, you do a good job for one, and they’re going to refer you to the next one.

Michelle Tack (13:47)
Yep, they all know each other, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Stutzman (13:55)
So those are the networks that we try to keep in touch with. And then it’s just about constantly reaching out to them as well. Make sure that they don’t forget about you, even if it’s just to say hi.

Michelle Tack (14:03)
Right.

Yeah, I think that’s really important, Brad, because I hear a lot. I obviously I talk to a lot of different people around, very successful people like yourself in business, ⁓ but somehow it’s related to real estate. And I talked to a gentleman last week, he goes, you know what?

It has to be consistent. The network you can’t just he goes, I get people calling me all the time that just want something from me, from my network, and I will help them. But it’s, you know, take, take, take versus really willing and understanding that you need to be of service to others. If you’re not really willing to do that, it makes it really tough to build a network. It’s not all about the dollars to start with. Sometimes it’s about, hey, I have this knowledge about X of solar energy.

Brad Stutzman (14:37)
Right.

Michelle Tack (14:49)
we can talk about that, right? I mean, and I’m sure you’ve probably incorporated that throughout your 13 years of business.

Brad Stutzman (14:56)
Yeah, yeah, I know the example was just the other day. I’m stuck in with.

group, they focus on accounting

one of the guys at the accounting firm had just started a side business doing pest control. And I was like, oh, you know, I know, you know, a few property owners that, you know, most of my family owners that, you know, made me pest control, you know, let me make an introduction, you know, shoot it, you know, introduce them through email. A couple of them were like, yes, I can’t keep a good pest control person. It’s just been so difficult and I would love to talk with you and, you know, made that connection.

Michelle Tack (15:50)
well.

Yeah, that’s interesting.

Brad Stutzman (16:10)
those two talked, you know, but it’s, you know, it’s things like that. You know, it was just making that connection. Now, whenever, you know, both of them think of me, well, he sent me this person or, you know, they introduced me to this person. And so it builds that goodwill.

Michelle Tack (16:16)
Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Before we close, I want to make sure that you’re able to give your contact information, whatever you’re comfortable with, your email, what have you. And if you could spell that out so people know what that is. So Brad, can you go ahead and do that for us?

Brad Stutzman (16:44)
Yeah, so our website is O3Energy.com and that’s the letter O, the number three, energy, E-N-E-R-G-Y.com. ⁓ Our social media is the same thing, @O3energy. And if you want to reach out to us, it’s just [email protected].

Michelle Tack (16:49)
Mm-hmm.

Brad, you’ve been a great guest. appreciate it. I love talking to people that are doing some good to the world in terms of renewable energy and saving people money at the same time. So thank you very much for being here. And for those that are on the podcast and have enjoyed today’s podcast, please continue to subscribe. And those that have not, we have a bunch of operators like Brad who have great information and knowledge. Please subscribe to Real Estate Pros. Thanks again, Brad.