by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 08, 2026
Photo voltaic engineer and ABC Photo voltaic founder Brad Bartz will ship a keynote-style discuss titled “The Palos Verdes Landslide: Who Turned the Energy Again On?” throughout an upcoming group occasion at AltaSea on the Port of Los Angeles on March 14, 2026. The presentation blends scientific storytelling with real-world engineering expertise, exploring how elementary physics ideas translate into resilient vitality options.
Bartz, who based ABC Photo voltaic greater than 25 years in the past, is thought for emphasizing sensible deployment of photo voltaic and battery applied sciences below difficult circumstances. His upcoming discuss begins with a stunning place to begin: quantum mechanics.
“Solar energy begins with a quantized vitality switch occasion – what I name a microscopic fist struggle between mild and matter,” Bartz explains. “Billions of those tiny interactions occur each second, and collectively they create the electrical energy that powers our properties.”
The presentation traces the scientific lineage from Max Planck’s introduction of vitality quanta to Albert Einstein’s rationalization of the photoelectric impact – the phenomenon that makes photovoltaic electrical energy attainable. Bartz makes use of analogies starting from chocolate milk separation to ping-pong ball photons to assist audiences visualize complicated bodily processes.
However the central narrative strikes past concept.
The discuss attracts closely on Bartz’s firsthand expertise throughout the Palos Verdes landslide, the place widespread infrastructure disruptions created pressing demand for various energy options. In line with Bartz, the disaster revealed each the constraints of conventional mills and the potential of cell photo voltaic battery techniques.
“We realized that energy does not simply must be generated – energy wants to maneuver,” he stated.
That lesson led to the event of Rolling Battery, a cell photo voltaic vitality platform designed to quickly deploy clear energy to properties and services with out trenching or gas provide chains. Throughout early deployments, Bartz reviews that cell photo voltaic techniques restored energy to a number of residences inside a single day, demonstrating a brand new mannequin for distributed vitality resilience.
The idea has since developed into ongoing installations at AltaSea itself, the place moveable photo voltaic battery techniques are presently supporting tenants navigating grid interconnection and allowing timelines. Bartz notes that the success of cell vitality options on land has impressed a maritime imaginative and prescient as properly.
His discuss will introduce the idea of Floating Battery – a distributed vitality platform designed to help the rising adoption of electrical boats by offering bidirectional charging functionality and daisy-chainable energy networks throughout harbor environments.
“Electrical vessels are coming, however charging infrastructure stays the bottleneck,” Bartz stated. “Floating vitality techniques will help bridge that hole whereas offering emergency energy resilience for coastal communities.”
AltaSea’s present rooftop photo voltaic set up, consisting of roughly 3,000 panels related on to the grid, serves as a real-time demonstration of distributed renewable vitality integration. Bartz emphasizes that though the system feeds energy into the broader utility community, native buildings are successfully powered by daylight by grid stream dynamics.
The presentation concludes with a broader philosophical message linking quantum-scale vitality interactions to community-scale resilience.
“The landslide did not simply transfer land,” Bartz stated. “It moved energy – and as soon as energy can transfer, the whole lot modifications.”
About AltaSea on the Port of Los Angeles
AltaSea is a public-private ocean innovation campus targeted on sustainability, marine science, and blue-economy know-how improvement.
About Brad Bartz: Brad Bartz is founding father of ABC Photo voltaic Integrated, a renewable vitality engineering firm specializing in photo voltaic and battery techniques for residential, industrial, and resilience-focused deployments.
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