SMP 145: US Community Solar Market Analysis

Episode Summary In this episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast, Benoy speaks with Sarah Moon who is the Co-Founder & Principal at Fieldworks Power.  Fieldworks Power is a forward-thinking distributed energy development company focused on developing community solar projects in the United States. Sarah discusses the different community solar markets in the United States, the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act(“IRA”) for renewables, and her entrepreneurship journey.   Benoy Thanjan Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and he is also an advisor for several solar startup companies.  He has extensive project origination, development, and financial experience in the renewable energy industry and in the environmental commodities market.   This includes initial site evaluation, permitting, financing, sourcing equipment, and negotiating the long-term energy and environmental commodities off-take agreements. He manages due diligence processes on land, permitting, and utility interconnection and is in charge of financing and structuring through Note to Proceed (“NTP”) to Commercial Operation Date (“COD”). Benoy composes teams suitable for all project development and construction tasks. He is also involved in project planning and pipeline financial modeling. He has been part of all sides of the transaction and this allows him to provide unique perspectives and value. Benoy has extensive experience in financial engineering to make solar projects profitable. Before founding Reneu Energy, he was the Environmental Commodities Trader in the Project Finance Group for SolarCity which merged with Tesla in 2016.  He originated SREC trades with buyers and co-developed their SREC monetization and hedging strategy with the senior management of Tesla to move into the east coast markets.  Benoy was the Vice President at Vanguard Energy Partners which is a national solar installer where he focused on project finance solutions for commercial scale solar projects.  He also worked for Ridgewood Renewable Power, a private equity fund, where he analyzed potential investments in renewable energy projects and worked on maximizing the financial return of the projects in the portfolio.  Benoy also worked on the sale of all of the renewable energy projects in Ridgewood’s portfolio.   He was in the Energy Structured Finance practice for Deloitte & Touche and in Financial Advisory Services practice at Ernst & Young.  Benoy received his first experience in Finance as an intern at D.E. Shaw & Co., which is a global investment firm with 37 billion dollars in investment capital. He has a MBA in Finance from Rutgers University and a BS in Finance and Economics from the Stern School of Business at New York University.  Benoy was an Alumni Scholar at the Stern School of Business.     Sarah Moon Sarah is the Co-Founder & Principal at Fieldworks Power which is a greenfield distributed energy development company focused on shaping new markets across the US. She was the Senior Director of Community Solar Origination at Distributed Solar Development.  She was the Director Of Business Development at Solstice which is a Community Solar Customer Acquisition Company. Below is an article that Sarah wrote about the extended value and growing importance of community solar.   https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/02/24/the-extended-value-and-growing-importance-of-community-solar/   Below is the article on Imposter Syndrome she was mentioning during the interview. https://news.mit.edu/2022/imposter-syndrome-upside-0415    Stay connected: Benoy Thanjan Website: www.reneuenergy.com Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: Benoy Thanjan Facebook: Reneu Energy   Sarah Moon Website: https://fieldworkspower.com/ Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmoon93/ Email:  [email protected]   Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on iTunes, Podbean, YouTube, and most of the major podcast platforms.   This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.