Liam Ryan of Streetleaf: The Solar Streetlight Revolution Hidden in Plain Sight

Streetlights are one of the most overlooked pieces of community infrastructure. Most people only notice them when they fail. But for builders, developers, utilities, municipalities, and storm-prone communities, streetlighting can quietly shape project timelines, infrastructure costs, public safety, resilience, and long-term operating models.

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Liam Ryan, CEO of Streetleaf, a Tampa-based company building off-grid, solar-powered streetlighting systems with integrated batteries, controls, remote monitoring, and a managed service model designed to remove the friction of traditional grid-tied lighting. 

Liam’s path into clean infrastructure was anything but conventional. After studying economics at Cornell and working in wildlife conservation in Mozambique, he returned to Tampa during the pandemic and began exploring a streetlighting challenge tied to land development in Florida. What started as a practical problem has grown into a national infrastructure story, with Streetleaf now working across builders, developers, utilities, public spaces, and resilience-focused applications. 

The conversation goes far beyond solar panels on poles. Liam explains why the real competition is not just the grid, but the cost and complexity of trenching, conduit, utility coordination, delays, maintenance contracts, and long-term community fees. Streetleaf’s model is built around a simple but powerful equation: if the solar panel, battery, controls, and communications stack can cost less than connecting a streetlight to the grid, the cleaner option can become the practical default.

Wes and Liam also dig into storm resilience, one of Streetleaf’s strongest proof points. In hurricane-impacted communities, Streetleaf’s off-grid lights have continued operating when conventional grid-tied systems went dark, turning streetlights into visible anchors of safety and continuity during outages. Liam shares how events like Hurricane Ian, Helene, Milton, and wildfire recovery work in Hawaii shaped Streetleaf’s product, operations, and sense of purpose. 

This episode also explores what it takes to sell new infrastructure into conservative markets. Liam breaks down how Streetleaf reduces adoption risk for builders and utilities, why managed service matters, how national relationships with major homebuilders helped shift the company from early adoption to mainstream credibility, and why “smart infrastructure” only matters when it creates real value.

If you care about renewable energy, distributed infrastructure, resilient communities, land development, utility innovation, or the hidden systems shaping how we build, this episode will change the way you look at the streetlight outside your window.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why streetlights are a hidden infrastructure bottleneck
• How Streetleaf’s off-grid solar streetlights change project economics
• Why trenching, utility coordination, and delays create hidden costs
• How solar streetlighting supports hurricane and outage resilience
• What conservative buyers need before adopting new infrastructure
• Why managed service can accelerate clean technology adoption
• How Streetleaf is scaling through builders, developers, utilities, and municipalities
• What “smart streets” should really mean in practical terms
• Why the future of infrastructure may be cleaner, simpler, and more distributed

Links:
Liam Ryan on LinkedIn
Streetleaf's Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

Transcript

Wes Ashworth (00:25)

Welcome back to Green Giants, Titans of Renewable Energy. Today we're joined by Liam Ryan, CEO of Streetleaf, a Tampa-based company rethinking one of the most overlooked pieces of community infrastructure, the Streetlight. Streetleaf builds off-grid, solar-powered streetlighting systems with batteries, controls, remote monitoring, and a service model designed to remove the friction of a traditional utility-connected lighting. What started as a very practical land development problem in Florida has turned into a national infrastructure story.

With Streetleaf now working across builder, developer, public realm, and resilience use cases. This conversation is about much more than lights. It's about hidden infrastructure costs, utility bottlenecks, storm resilience, disaster recovery, the psychology of adoption, and what it takes to make a clean technology feel like the obvious default. With that, Liam, welcome to the show.

Liam (01:12)

Awesome Wes. Excited to be here.

Wes Ashworth (01:14)

Yeah, glad to have you. Before we get into everything you're doing we'll start just a little bit with your path. So your path is not the typical founder story. So you studied economics, spent time in conservation work in Mozambique, then came back to Tampa during COVID. How did experience the way you see infrastructure, land development, and energy access?

Liam (01:33)

Yeah, so obviously my path is a little different So to start off with, like you said, was working in a conservation company in southern Africa in in a country called Mozambique, up until the pandemic. So if COVID-19 never happened, I probably would still be doing that. Would not be talking about Streetleaf and street lights with you today. so everything happens for a reason. So I ended up moving back to Tampa, Florida, where I'm from, where I grew up, and was literally sleeping on my parents' couch, waiting for this whole COVID thing to blow over and to restart my life in conservation and and move back to Africa when an issue with streetlights in one of the real estate projects that my family's company was working on was had an issue. So it was actually one of their projects where this issue around street lighting with a local rural utility kind of came to the forefront. And I'm summarizing a lot longer conversations, but the gist was like, hey, you know, you like green energy. You you work for a conservation company. Like go see if there's a business here. So what started as kind of a a side project and to kill time while I waited for COVID to blow over has grown into to Streetleaf and kind of the impact we've had over the last six years.

Wes Ashworth (02:41)

Yeah, such a cool story. I love those. And I I always tell people like, don't be so dead set on your journey. You know, I think it often unfolds right in front of you and you have to take those opportunities as they come up. It's not always how you planned it or how you saw it, but you gotta just take those next steps and look for that opportunity. So I love that. I love that story a lot. take me back to the moment Streetleaf really clicked for you. What was what was happening on the ground that made you realize street lights were not just a utility line item, but a real infrastructure problem hiding in plain sight?

Liam (03:09)

Yeah, so when it really clicked was actually the first project that I went and looked at the solar streetlights we installed. So we weren't even called Streetleaf at that point. We were still figuring out a name, but the community needed streetlights, so we put kind of like the first version one streetlight out there. And I remember walking through the community at night. I actually had a like a a buddy with me and We had grown up, we were both like really passionate about sustainability, conservation, and our take on urban sprawl specifically, which is just known as a as a big issue, specifically in states like Florida, was very negative. But when I'm walking through this project at night, looking at all these new homes going up and our streetlights there, it kind of put a lot of that in into perspective for me. One, about how easy it is for our streetlights to go in and be lighting that streets at night.

I was grateful for that because I was walking through a a half-built construction site at at eleven PM midnight. So not the the most comforting place to be without light. But two, it was like, hey, these communities are where first-time home buyers are going. Yes, there's a lot of things around urban sprawl that impact the environment, but if homes need to get built, let's at least do one thing in the right direction that makes them more sustainable. And that's really what we're focusing on Streetleaf is let's just focus on our one small little problem is street light and try to make as big impact as we can.

Wes Ashworth (04:30)

Yeah, I love that. Take that that again, one small problem, huge impact, and just really hyper focus on that. And again, that journey is so cool and and just how it all came together. so we'll talk about this. So most people never really think about street lights, you know, unless they're missing or broken. why is that invisibility part of the opportunity?

Liam (04:47)

Yeah, so I heard somebody in one of our customer meetings when we first started this use this term and I've and I've liked using it ever since. And he used the term like urban clutter. So whether it's streetlights, whether it's kind of big gas station or fast food signs, like people just get used to the the urban clutter or just kind of like the infrastructure clutter that they drive past every day. And so in my mind that's why something like street lights has been ignored for so long.

Unless like you said, hey, the power is out, there's a big storm coming through and then something like street lights not being on, people suddenly are paying attention. But it's just one of those things that have just faded in the background because it's not a sexy item, but it's something that's kind of crucially important to society.

Wes Ashworth (05:28)

Yeah, absolutely. I like that sort of or urban clutter, right? I think that's a powerful point. And and people tend to ignore something. doesn't mean it's unimportant. You know, those are typically, you know, great opportunities as you've you've found for yourself. So love that a whole lot. So we we talked a little bit about your personal path and origin story, kind of gives us you know the human and business context and how it all came to be. I want to make now the the product concrete because this is not just about, you know, solar on a pole. The real question is is how Streetleaf changes the economics, installation process, and operating model behind community lighting. For someone hearing about Streetleaf for the first time, what exactly are you building and what makes it different from the conventional way communities get streetlights?

Liam (06:05)

Yeah, so after we've conquered getting past people's perception of over urban clutter and getting somebody to think about streetlights for the probably the first time in their life, what you're asking  is the key question. And the way I frame it is really solar streetlights, specifically Streetleaf solar streetlights, are one of those things that solar and battery powered technology today, without Any subsidies or incentives is more cost effective than the grid tied alternative. And really what that comes down to is there's a metal pole and a light bulb going on for the streetlights. All of the extra hardware we're putting top on top of that, the solar panel, the battery, our power electronics and control system needs to be more cost effective than digging a hole, running wire, running conduit, and tying that light into the grid. And that that's really kind of our equation at the end of the day.

Wes Ashworth (06:52)

Yeah, I love the foundation. Like as is, it's more cost effective than the conventional option. Again, kind of an ignored problem. People just don't think about, but how great it is to come in with a solution and solve this. And you know, also help with clean energy initiatives and all of that that goes in as well. So you've you've described the core equation very simply. So everything you add to the pole, the solar panel, battery, controller, communication systems. does have to beat the cost and complexity of digging trenches and connecting to the grid. tell us, can you expand on that a little bit more? Like where does that equation work best today and and what all goes into that?

Liam (07:26)

Yeah, so that equation works best, as you can imagine, in kind of like the Sun Belt, the southern cities. and that's where we're focused as Streetleaf. That's also where the majority of the growth over the last five, ten years has happened in the United States. And we partner with home building companies, land development companies. So it's been kind of our focus of hey, the fastest growing areas are also the sunniest areas. that's where our value prop makes the most sense.

We could still like we talk all the time, like, hey, we can install a Streetleaf light from Miami to Minnesota. Just that equation, the extra hardware we're putting on top of the metal pole and the light bulb is gonna be more expensive in Minnesota to light the same type of roadway that we would be lighting in Miami.

Wes Ashworth (08:05)

Yeah, absolutely. important context there. And I I love that sort of use cases where it makes the most sense, but obviously can work anywhere. When you're presenting this the first time, like what's the first sort of skeptical question you usually hear from a developer, a municipality, or utility? And then how do you answer it now compared with how you maybe answered it in the early days?

Liam (08:23)

Yeah, so the first question always with solar street lighting is how do I know it's gonna work twenty-four seven, three sixty-five? And that's the question we get all the time, and that's what our team needs to address. So the quick answer is, hey, our products are designed to have three to five day of battery backup. So even in December during the least sunny day, that light is still gonna turn on for three days if we get no sunshine. Where that really kind of takes the conversation though, specifically where we were born out of in Tampa, Florida, is during hurricanes or kind of high wind events. So to date we've been through six plus named storms, another 10 plus tropical storms. And what we've seen as far as far as failure rates is significantly less than what grid tied lights have been in their downtime versus what our lights have seen. And that's just been a huge selling point. So the conversation At first is always, hey, how do we know they're working? And we're able to quickly pivot it to like not only are they working, they're working when the old school system is consistently not.

Wes Ashworth (09:23)

Yeah, absolutely. So we're talking better, better solution overall, which it's again, you know, that's that's a win-win for everybody. And I think that evolution is important because that early skepticism often tells you where the market still needs education. And so when we're able to tell them like, nah, it's actually more resilient than the current solution, actually more cost effective than the current solution, that's when it really, really starts making sense. And that that adoption curve gets more simplistic, and helps you scale.

So streetlights, you know, as most know, like they have to satisfy codes, lighting standards, community expectations, weather realities, and and economics. what does maybe good enough mean in this category? And and where does good enough really not cut it?

Liam (09:59)

So good enough doesn't cut it if the light is just not doing what it's intended to do. So when we first got into this business, it was in this original development. Like I said, it was just a side project out of a development in my family's development company, and I got involved after I moved back from working for a conservation company in Africa. So the reason I even ended up getting involved that the development was even looking at it.

Is the off-the-shelf solar street lighting products at that time couldn't perform to like a high level. And what that means is not just, hey, out of the box are those lights gonna stay on, but hey, over five, ten, fifteen years, is this product still gonna be working? And that's what we were trying to solve for then, and that's what we're solving for our customers today is hey, it's not just about the product, but it's also about the long-term maintenance and service. So Just like what a utility would do with their street lights, Streetleaf make sure that light is always on and we take care of the maintenance, we take care of the servicing that light, so the community doesn't have any downtime.

Wes Ashworth (10:59)

Absolutely. A very important distinction. And it's one of those infrastructure doesn't get much credit when it works, but it loses trust immediately when it fails. So how important that is. so you've started to talk about this. You've pushed this managed service model rather than only selling hardware. Why was that important? And what does it change for a customer who does not want another, you know, asset to maintain?

Liam (11:19)

Yeah, so we were just inspired by how utilities have treated street lights for the last twenty, thirty years. So it's a little nuanced depending where you are in the United States, but in most locations, specifically in the southeast or in the more heavy heavily regulated utility states, utilities actually attempt or pretty much always own and maintain the majority of the infrastructure.

And they lease it, service it, maintain it for those cities, those counties, like those municipalities. So we took what the utilities were doing with street lights, where they're literally just leasing it to the city or to an HOA. And we're like, hey, we can do that, but do it with faster response time and a superior product, or in areas where it doesn't make sense for us to do that, we can sell our lights to the utility and they can provide that to the customer too. So like there is nuance on how municipalities, how utilities handle street lights. So we've created our model. Basically that's us focusing on the product is always working. Whether that's working with utility, whether it's working directly with us, like that's really what we're focused on.

Wes Ashworth (12:21)

Absolutely. The the service model feels like a major part of the adoption story. You're not only changing the technology as you described, but you're really changing that buying experience for the utility. I think that's a big unlock. And we see it like a lot of clean technologies failed, not because the product is wrong, but because ownership, maintenance, and risk feel too complicated. so you know, easier you can make that. I think that's that's a win for everybody. So now that we we have a bit of the model on the table, I want to get into the part every customer eventually cares about, which is cost. And we we started to touch on this a little bit, but Not just purchase price, but the hidden economics of of delay, coordination, trenching, maintenance, and the default utility model. so let's talk about the kind of cost in the real world. When a builder compares Streetleaf against trenching, wire, conduit, utility coordination, delays, and monthly utility charges, where does that kind of hidden math usually show up? And what makes your product just so much more cost effective?

Liam (13:11)

Yeah, so that hidden cost, even in these examples where the utility like is owning and like leasing a street light back to a city or back to a developer or home builder, that hidden cost just eventually reaches the the consumer, the homeowner. So I'll use like a Florida home builder as an example. So what utilities will do is Or anybody, it doesn't be utility, there's private companies who do this as well with n with standard grid tied lights. Is they'll charge upfront fees to put in the infrastructure that the the developer will front a couple thousand bucks per home site. And then there's still that long-term maintenance contract, as well as just the energy that goes into powering the street light. So what that means is the developer, home builder has to pay for the infrastructure. So that will get baked into the future home price.

And then there's still a monthly fee that the community pays and they're on the hook for for for ten plus years. So what we do is we eliminate the upfront cost. So the city, the developer is happy. And then our monthly cost is typically the same or less. So the community is either paying the same or less and getting the superior product that we've that we've already been talking about. So that form looks different in different parts of the country, and how street lights are just handled locally. But that's kind of like the the essence of it is removing those costs that eventually trickle down to the individual homeowner, whether that's existing homes or like in these new developments, as well as kind of minimizing the the monthly ongoing costs as well.

Wes Ashworth (14:40)

Absolutely. It's a great reminder. I think infrastructure costs is often buried across different budgets and timelines. And street lighting looks simple until you kind of unpack the whole process and look at that. But if you you have a solution again that that really isn't any additional cost, if sometimes cheaper or maybe the same cost, similar to what they're used to, but a again, a superior product, more resilient product, cleaner product, all those sort of things. You know, again, this is why this solution makes a lot of sense. so you're you're selling into industries that are maybe not famous for changing quickly, utilities being one of those, but what have you learned about getting conservative buyers to adopt a new infrastructure standard? And and we talked about too, just kind of like a whole new buying process. Like how do you get them to to be open to that?

Liam (15:18)

Yeah, so like you have to cover their ass. It's easier now because we have over fourteen thousand streetlights deployed. We have some big name customers in the home building and utility world that we're working with. So that makes it easier for people to feel like they're to be frank, their ass is covered. But at the beginning it was difficult. So we had to like de risk. our customers and put like that risk onto us as much as possible. when it comes to like providing the light, making sure everything's working, ongoing kind of costs or services, is that was what we're really focused on is everybody's gonna say no if there's an increase in cost or it just feels risky. So we're just trying to minimize that as much as possible for our customers, which is a lot easier said than done. And it took us a long time, but we think at least for some of the customers we talked to that we're kind of we're figuring that out, I guess.

Wes Ashworth (16:05)

Yeah, absolutely. Really useful lesson. Like simple, but very powerful of like, you know, cover them, make it easy, make it safe. But I think can be used for the broader clean energy sector is better technology is rarely enough by itself. That adoption path has to feel safe. and the hardest part is often, you know, not necessarily proving the product works, it's making that switch feel low risk. So I like that. In the early days, you know, what did customers maybe misunderstand most about solar street lighting?

And what do they misunderstand maybe less now?

Liam (16:32)

Yeah, I mean in the early days we'd get simple questions like, Hey, the light needs to be on at night, but the solar panel only works during the day. How's the light work? And things like that. So just we we'd have to just explain like the the basics of our system, like, hey, our lithium battery is what is charged during the day and that's what powers the light at night. Little basic things like that. that I think a lot of people in the renewable space in general would see as obvious, but people who never think about it won't.

And then as we've gotten more traction, as just solar street lights have become more prevalent, those type of questions are gone. People understand it. It's really around cost and timing and things like that. So I know I'm jumping around on your question, but this just got me thinking on kind of your hidden cost comment too, is whether it's a city project, whether it's like a private development, there's carrying costs.

Of like delaying a project. So something as simple as street lighting causing a couple month delay, that might be more costly for the project than buying all the streetlights outright tomorrow. Like so it's really just speed and like making sure you're meeting customers' timelines is also like a hidden cost and where people push on, definitely at the beginning, but also specifically today as well.

Wes Ashworth (17:45)

Yeah, absolutely. it's encouraging overall. I I guess, you know, showing that the conversation has moved for some of those like really basic like questions like how does it work at night? To starting to get into more of those sophisticated types, questions and and answers. And and I think to your point earlier, it's like, all right, well, if it works and it's easy, like why do I care? it's great, you know, but but you know, less questions there. And I'm sure too is adoption has happened, you have more use cases to go to, people see at other places, that familiarity builds. like anything in any new technology, just start to become more comfortable, more familiar too as well. So your company now has landed national vendor relationships with DR Horton, Four Star, and Lennar. which of those moments changed the internal psychology of the company the most? And and what did it prove?

Liam (18:27)

Yeah, so obviously very exciting. That's help has helped us go from just being in Florida to now ten plus states. But that also has kind of gotten us to be just really aggressive about how we look at like the value of our lights in certain markets, as well as kind of like how we really need to scale our business. Like we're not a software company, we're literally putting in street lights into the ground and that's kind of the value we're building. And that takes time, whether it's ordering materials, whether it's coordinating with the project and literally installing them. So it's okay, how do we replicate what we've done in Florida and just roll this out as quickly as possible in these other states, using these big home builder and developer customers as kind of our backbone to do that.

Wes Ashworth (19:09)

Yeah, absolutely. It feels like the classic kind of crossing the chasm moment. You know, once those major builders adopt something, the conversation with the rest of the market changes and people want to know who else is doing it. At what point, you know, if you think back, did you feel Streetleaf was moving from just early adopters into this more kind of mainstream acceptance? Like what changed in the sales conversation or how'd that sort of all come to be?

Liam (19:31)

So I would say the national vendor agreements with like DR Horton, Lennar are definitely a big step for that. But also, I mean, to put it bluntly, these home building companies are not known for their their warm hearts and their sustainable approach. They they want to build homes. And so the fact that they're using our product ties into like, hey, their values, they are looking for more sustainable options, but also means hey, we're bringing value to their communities, to their customers today as well. So kind of something we stress on at Streetleaf about being sustainable. It doesn't just mean around kind of our manufacturing and our products, but it also means about like the business and how it works for our customers too. So I thought that was a really big step for us to show hey, these very serious home building companies are now taking us seriously.

Wes Ashworth (20:16)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's that's often a moment a company becomes a category. You know, the product moves from that sort of interesting alternative to more of a practical default. and kind of seeing that more and more. So that's awesome. Utilities, as we know, kind of are often treated as the default answer for street lighting. What do you think utilities maybe still misunderstand about this market? And and where do you think they can become partners rather than obstacles?

Liam (20:38)

Yeah, so utilities are the best at what they do and obviously like they're the backbone of of the energy grid. I know they're taking a lot of heat for everything going on around just energy demand around data centers and things like that. So little old streetlights are definitely like long down their their list of priorities that they need to tackle in the next decade. but utilities have been great partners for us. It is a weird customer. Each state treats utilities a little differently. The rules around them are all different. And that kind of doesn't necessarily lead for them to be early adopters, if I'm being honest. So same comment about our early customers kind of covering their ass. I wouldn't say we're trying to cover utilities ass, but what we need to show them is hey, there's customer demand for what we're doing. A lot of our early conversations around utilities, the kind of de facto utility response in my opinion is we just are following what our customers are demanding from us. And so that's what we're looking at. I'm like, well do they even know that Solar Street Lights is an option? So where we've been successful is we've found that demand and we've just like handed it to them. It's like, hey, in your territory, these customers want our products. If you want it, here you go. so basically almost like bringing the horse to water a little bit. and then once people get on board with our product, they rightfully have very serious kind of testing protocols and things like that for vendors. So once we get through those hurdles, it's been it's been great.

Wes Ashworth (22:01)

Yeah, I like it too, just framing up it's sort of in their language, how they're thinking about it and and bringing it to them in that way. And and as you said, kind of bringing a horse to water. But you gotta do what you gotta do. And and I like that the adaptation and figuring it out and making that work. So we've talked about sort of cost and adoption are are one side of the story. The other side is what happens when the grid fails. And so we touched on that a little bit. But for a company selling off-grid infrastructure, storms, outages, and disaster recovery are not side stories, they're some of the clearest tests for the entire value proposition. And so resilience is easy to talk about in a sales deck, but hurricanes and grid outages are where the truth really shows up. So what did major storm events teach you about the value of of keeping streetlights on when everything else goes dark?

Liam (22:44)

Yeah, so it was actually during Hurricane Ian a couple years ago and then we saw the same thing during Helene and Milton last year, or if that was two years ago, time time is flying. but during Hurricane Ian, I remember we sent out folks on on our team to go just drive through communities that were the most impacted. All of our lights are connected to our communication protocol and we're able to see live kind of how they're performing.

But that being said, that performance data doesn't see everything as far as like, hey, are there trees down by the lights? Is there anything else kind of going on that could be a potential hazard? So we had our teams just go check check the projects that were really in the storm's path. And what we found in the communities where the power had been off for a couple days is the the streetlights on those streets were literally kind of the only source of light, which meant at night families were Eating dinner, having a picnic under them, kids were playing under them while like the sun was going down. So it was like the community was literally outside under the streetlights because that was the only source of light or source of safety while the grid was still down. So we thought that was really powerful, but it was also just kind of gave like myself but also members of my team like additional drives and like backup to what we're saying around our our streetlights being resilient.

Wes Ashworth (23:58)

Absolutely. Very powerful story. I think it's where resilience becomes tangible. You know, it's not just an energy concept, it's a safety, recovery, and community confidence issue and and really brings that value into focus. So when the grid is down, a working light can become one of the most visible signs that a community still has some stability. And as you said, families kind of like congregating underneath underneath those lights that are like these are the only lights available, and having dinner or, you know, spending time with their family or neighbors. So I think that's that's huge, huge value there for sure. In these storm, prone communities. We know, you know, Florida, there's there's a lot of them just hurricane risk and everything else. How do you quantify the value of lighting safety and and continuity during an outage, especially when those benefits don't always show up in a, you know, simple CapEx comparison.

Liam (24:39)

Yeah, so the way we have quantified it has more been around like our uptime that we've reported to customers and kind of some of our utility customers specifically. I can speak to that a little bit. but besides that, it's been a little bit more of like the value add. I was focusing on like the cost and the savings of what we see on street lighting and then, hey, plus the the lights stay on no matter what, even when the grid is down. And that story has become more powerful, not just in states like Florida.

But in states like Texas, which went through their their coined Snow Mageddon a couple years ago, where the grid was down and the utilities charge customers a lot of money. And then there's the wildfires in California, like every state, it seems, is having their own resilience story that they can relate to as it relates to like the lights being on. And then as relates to uptime, some of the original hurricanes that we went through, like Irma and Ian on the west coast of Florida. when we were first launching, we saw like a five percent failure rate during those, which was great, but was a little higher than what we were were wanting. And then subsequently, the next couple of storms the next year, we got around one and a half percent. And then during Helene and Milton, which were by far the biggest storms we ever dealt with, and they hit in back to back weeks, we had less than one percent failure rate. So our team was able to kind of learn from every storm we've gone through and like kind of built on our resilience of our lights. that hey, ninety five percent is great, but ninety nine percent is a whole lot better. so that's really kind of where we've been pushing on our side too.

Wes Ashworth (26:07)

Which is incredible. Like 99% in the middle of a hurricane is just just a crazy stat. Like that that that says a lot. And I think overall, like thinking about it's such an important point because resilience benefits are often underpriced until the moment they're needed. And that value of continuity is is easy to ignore when normal conditions everything's working, everything's fine, and it's just impossible to miss during a crisis. So just how much value that you have and and having that.

Ninety nine percent is is pretty incredible. So you you've also been a part of a project connected to wildfire recovery in Hawaii as well, too. when you know, wire free infrastructure matters in in a very different context. So, what did that project maybe teach you about designing infrastructure after disaster and and maybe just shed a little light on on what what all happened there as well, too?

Liam (26:52)

Yeah, so that that was what you're alluding to is a really cool project. So we were part of like Hawaii Homemades project for some of their temporary housing after the the Lahaina wildfires a couple years ago. And I remember reading about it in the news, but I didn't actually realize until they reached out to us for the project that the fires were actually started by overhead lines. Or that's what people think was the reason behind them. So our lights being off the grid. literally no wires was a big attraction. But then also, as you can imagine, infrastructure costs on a volcanic island is incredibly high. So the fact that we were skipping that part really helped on their equation because it was a great project, but it's being run by a nonprofit. The state of Hawaii is funding parts of it. There's a bunch of other kind of other funds and non profits being involved. So cost is We were able to help on the costs, but also able to just like help on the overall vision of what the community was trying to represent.

Wes Ashworth (27:47)

Yeah, absolutely. It's such an interesting use case and and dealing with one, you know, the wildfires, which are becoming more and more common in our our everyday life, but also the terrain and and dealing with volcanic rock and and that sort of things, it brings a very different reality. What did that kind of experience teach you or reveal about the operational side of scaling physical infrastructure, especially when you're you're dealing with some different terrain and and kind of all that goes into that?

Liam (28:10)

Yeah, so I think we broke like seven drill bits on our on our auger trying to drill into volcanic rock. So our operations manager who was overseeing the project, we thought we're gonna take two weeks to do the installation. Typically in most construction sites it takes us a couple of days to to get our lights out there because they're that quick to install. We're like, Hey, it's a little bit more difficult.

It's like a couple hundred lights, like we'll we'll get in and out of there in two weeks. A month later, we're still dealing with kind of broken drill bits and figuring that out. I didn't quite feel sorry for the project manager having to stay an extra couple weeks in Maui, to oversee the project. Like I wasn't quite here for those complaints, did learn a lot of like, hey, this is completely different terrain and just building conditions that we've been in the past.

Scaling this business is not as simple as us just putting stuff in a container and shipping it to the address. There's a lot of local challenges that we need to make sure we're ready for when we're quoting customers when we're doing things like that too. So it was definitely a lesson learned and but it was a really cool project to be a part of.

Wes Ashworth (29:09)

Yeah, I love those real life lessons and the need is there, but you do have to kind of figure it out a little bit as you go, you know, and kind of build the plane as you're flying it. That's that's just normal. and I think those field lessons lead naturally into scale and is no longer just proving that solar streetlights can work. The bigger challenge is proving that the business, financing, supply chain, service model, and operations can scale with the ambition. And so being now at the scale where the challenge is not just proving the product, it really is you kind of proving the operating system behind the product. What is the hardest to scale? Is it financing, the supply chain, installation, monitoring, maintenance, permitting, customer education, mix of all those? Like what what are you seeing?

Liam (29:46)

I mean, It's a mix of all those. I mean, we're like a a hardware business, there's servicing components, so like we've been able to tackle all those problems, but as we get bigger, like those problems change, become more complex. But I mean that's kind of part of the fun and part of like growing a business.

Wes Ashworth (30:02)

Absolutely. And I think it's kind of answer people need to hear because scale is usually less glamorous than the product story. It's it's systems, discipline, execution, kind of working on all those things at the same time and and constantly improving. So your your products today like work especially well on smaller and medium road applications. I guess what has to change technically or economically for solar street lighting to move deeper into larger roads, highways, and and more demanding applications?

Liam (30:28)

Yeah, so the more demanding applications, really what that means in in the street lighting world is is more light. So when you need more light, you need more power. To have more power in a solar and battery powered street lighting scenario means you need a big battery and a big solar panel. So it's really just balancing that cost equation. I was explaining of putting extra hardware on top of a streetlight and making sure that makes sense for the project.

When you start talking about highways and things like that, the size of solar panel and batteries are are getting closer to like the residential size systems. So integrating that into a product that is not only cost effective but scalable and kind of meets different states' DOT requirements is a challenge. Definitely one that we're very intrigued by. Maybe I'll be on your podcast a year from now and have a very different answer and a little bit more detail.

But that's really the equation. It's the exact same process, but having that the product that is out of the box, the easy button for our customers to use, that's also something that is part of the challenge, not just making the product work from a technical perspective.

Wes Ashworth (31:29)

Yeah, it's it's an important frontier. And I'm excited to watch the journey and see you see you solve these issues and and develop and evolve as you go. But you know, every infrastructure category has these sort of threshold moments where the next application requires a real step change. I think as we're seeing too, like technology continually getting better and and all that as well, too. I think we'll open up a lot of doors as well, you know, in the future. But thinking about Streetleaf, like you sit at this kind of interesting crossroads.

Like a lighting company, infrastructure as a service company, resilience company, and maybe eventually, you know, a broader sort of smart pole platform. where do you draw the line today between focus and future optionality?

Liam (32:05)

Yeah, so everything you just mentioned, we chat about and other crazy ideas internally. But it is really about focus and what we're delivering value for our customers today. and the rest will sort itself out. That's our opinion. Like, hey, it's good to think about them, it's good to have like a plan to incorporate them, but let's focus on where we bring value and where we bring in I mean, honestly revenue for the company today.

So that's kind of hey, we're we're focusing on kind of our customers that we're talking about, the home builders like Lennar and DR Horton, bringing value to them, bringing value to utilities and municipalities as well. And as Streetleaf gets bigger, as we install literally more street lights into the world, we get that many more options to not only bring in like cool, exciting product features, but other kind of adjacent businesses or disciplines that we can venture into as well. But really at the end of the day, if we have fourteen thousand street lights in the ground. If we don't increase that number, no reason of thinking about anything else.

Wes Ashworth (32:59)

Yeah, I think the balance is so important. The optionality is exciting, but focus is what allows companies to really execute. And it's a classic scaling challenge. You know, I think those platform possibilities are real, but the core use case has to stay enough to earn the right to expand and and kind of get into those things. So when people hear smart streets, you know, they often jump straight to maybe sensors and cameras and parking and data. what does smart actually mean to you in street lighting right now?

Liam (33:24)

Yeah, so I'm a little bit of a contrarian for kind of smart infrastructure, smart streets, like IoT, all that. But it's like I almost think something needs to be just completely dumb for it to be smart. And that sentence on its face is a little bit absurd. But what that really means is Hey, the streetlight just needs to work. Sensors, hosting data, connecting it to cellular, that all has costs. Who's gonna pay for those costs? What is the value of with that? and I think that's where a lot of smart city applications, smart streets, whatever you want call it, they get distracted by kind of like the glitz and glam and the excitement on features, but don't really hone in on the value creation and for who specifically. So for example, like all of our street lights are connected remotely and we're tracking their data. We do that to back up what we're doing. but I would rather all of the street lights out of the box be plugged in and everybody believes in Streetleaf in the system and we don't even have to look at that. So it's a balancing act of like minimizing costs to bring maximum value.

So yes, cameras and sensors and everything, there are a lot of possibilities. And we definitely want to bring that into our products and look at that in the future, but it can't just be unintentional and just like grabbing everything. It has to have value. So I I know I'm not saying anything too profound, but a lot of like smart city applications of like, I mean, I drive through a parking garage by my house in Tampa, and It has red and green lights out front of every parking spot showing you is it open or is it not? I was like, I don't need that. I can see if there's a car in there. so it's like getting that kind of noise out of the way and focusing on what like again, I see I keep going back to value, but brings value. that that's what we what we at Streetleaf believe is smart, not necessarily just adding more features.

Wes Ashworth (35:10)

Yeah, I love that so much. I like the way you went with that. I appreciate it because you know, smart city become can become a buzzword quickly. And to your point, you know, you have all these things where you can overcomplicate things, add a bunch of costs that really doesn't create value. And then what's the point? So I like that. I like that focus on simplicity. I like the the openness to adopt those technologies where it really makes the most sense and creates value, but not unnecessarily just to overcomplicate things and and add unnecessary cost as well too. So I like I like where you went with that a a

Liam (35:37)

Yeah, my team is gonna use that to be smart, you have to be dumb line like internally on like some bit. So maybe we shouldn't publish that one, but I'll leave that up to you. But yeah, I'm gonna get quoted on that on that line for sure.

Wes Ashworth (35:49)

Love it. I love it. I might just have to keep it in now. let's go back to 2020. Like you you again, your plan was not to permanently stay where you are, and and this has just evolved kind of beautifully, and and you've taken the opportunity and run with it. But what have you changed your mind about since 2020? Either about the technology, the customer, or the pace at which infrastructure markets can change?

Liam (36:10)

So in 2020, I thought solar street lighting had its place. Like, hey, there's outdoor lighting everywhere. Think Walmart parking lot, think highway street light, think just out in your backyard of your home. And I was like, hey, solar street lighting has like their very specific niche. And that's kind of where it makes sense for the customer, makes sense for the company, and hey, it's kind of like just a small but exciting opportunity.

As the years have developed, as solar panels have gone cheaper or remained cheaper, same thing with lithium batteries, that addressable market has really expanded. And so I've just changed my mind about where solar lighting makes the most sense. And again, we're talking about focus and we're focusing on our customers, but we do see massive opportunity for where solar lights can have a big impact and kind of replicate what we've been able to do in the community so far.

So I'm not sure if that totally answers your question, but I I've changed my mind about really what the market is addressable for at Streetleaf, but also just in solar street lights in general.

Wes Ashworth (37:07)

Yeah, I think the that kind of reflection is valuable. You know, the market teaches you things that really no original business plan can fully anticipate. And you see that with these success stories. It's about like the adapting to what the market is telling you and evolving, you know, as it as what's coming to you and what you're seeing. But I I think it's one of the most useful founder lessons is knowing what stayed true, but also being honest about what reality forced you to rethink and revisit as well too. So throughout this conversation, so we've covered the origin, the economics, the resilience case and the scaling challenge. I want to close by looking forward because if Streetleaf is right, this is not just about one company. It's about what communities should expect from basic infrastructure over the next decade. And so if Streetleaf succeeds at the level you want, what becomes normal in 10 years that still feels unconventional today?

Liam (37:55)

So it will go against a little bit of what I said at the beginning around urban clutter. But if Streetleaf is successful, part of that urban clutter where people are no longer thinking about it is seeing a solar panel on top of not only a street light pole, but seeing like a solar panel and battery on top of a lot of key infrastructure elements. So right now when people drive through communities we're in, they go, wow, like there's solar panels on top of these lights. Like what what's going on here? if we're successful, that's the norm and that's part of the of the background noise that we had to see through to see the opportunity.

Wes Ashworth (38:27)

Yeah, I like that. It just becomes the norm, right? It's not anything where it like catches your attention and you're like, look, a solar panel on that street light. It's just like, yeah, of course, that's normal. so I th I like that. I think it's a compelling vision and and one to look forward to. And a great way to think about progress. You know, I think adopting sort of a future model and and a future product and it becoming just just a normal part of life that we accept. For builders, developers, municipalities, and clean energy leaders listening.

What's the one assumption about infrastructure you would challenge them to rethink?

Liam (38:55)

I mean my my scope is so narrow. I'm just I'm just the simple Streetlight guy. but I guess my challenge would be around upfront costs and like kind of the stakeholders of who needs to pay it. I think that's really where Streetleaf has been successful is finding where renewable energy is more cost effective because of the infrastructure costs. Again, in my small little narrow world powering the light bulb on street light is not the cost, it's the upfront infrastructure. So finding similar applications where renewable energy technology today is cost effective, I think is key. And that might start small, but I think it can grow quickly and compound not just streetlights, but a lot of other exciting applications.

Wes Ashworth (39:37)

Yeah, I like it. Just the the street light guy, but you're you're a lot more than that. I like the perspective. I think translates across a lot of different areas as well too. a couple couple more just more open questions. So we've talked about a lot, but anything else, you know, listeners that are out there, just things you would want them to know about Streetleaf, things that maybe we haven't gotten to cover, anything you wanna to leave the audience with as well?

Liam (39:57)

I guess the the gist would be hey, like coming to you soon, if you don't see Streetleaf outside your window yet, expect it here in the in the next coming years.

Wes Ashworth (40:04)

Absolutely. It's a really cool product. I want just more people to be aware of it and see it. And we'll we'll link your website and other things as well in the show notes too. I encourage everybody to go check that out and and learn more about the technology. It's a great solution as we've we've talked through. Makes a ton of sense. Obviously great for clean energy, great for resilience, cost, you know, all those kind of pieces that we care most about. any other kind of like final words of wisdom, advice, anything that gives you hope, things you're looking forward to, and anything else kinda to add?

Liam (40:32)

I mean, I'm an optimist, so everything gives me hope. so I I mean nothing too much to add, honestly. I thought I think we covered a lot.

Wes Ashworth (40:39)

Yeah, absolutely. I'm an optimist as well. I think you gotta be in in this industry and connected to it. Just that eternal optimism will take you far. So Liam, I thoroughly enjoyed this. It has really been a great conversation. Thank you for taking something that most people overlook and just showing how much is actually hidden inside it, whether it's cost, resilience, safety, adoption, and the future of distributed infrastructure. For everyone listening, if this conversation challenged what you think about streetlights, utilities, or the hidden systems behind community development.

Please share the episode. And as always, subscribe, rate, and follow Green Giants Titans for Renewable Energy wherever you listen. With that, we'll see you next time.