SMP 223: Farming the Sun: How Agrivoltaics is Transforming Energy and Agriculture

Episode Overview Benoy Thanjan welcomes back Dan French, Executive Producer of the Solar Farm Summit on the Solar Maverick Podcast and they dive deep into the emerging world of agrivoltaics—solar projects that co-exist with agriculture—and the role it will play in the energy and agricultural renaissance. Dan shares details about the upcoming Solar Farm Summit (Aug 4–7 at McCormick Place, Chicago), the largest agrivoltaics event in North America. They explore U.S. state-level leadership, global innovation, project economics, and transformative benefits such as water conservation, improved crop yields, and rural revitalization. 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 SREC 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 SolarCity 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.  Dan French – Executive Producer, Solar Farm Summit Dan French is a nationally recognized leader in renewable energy land use and the Executive Producer of the Solar Farm Summit, the largest agrivoltaics development conference in North America. With a career spanning law, brownfield redevelopment, and clean energy consulting, Dan has become a catalyst for innovation at the intersection of solar energy, agriculture, and sustainable land transformation. A former environmental and energy attorney, Dan has transitioned into a visionary market maker—organizing events that drive collaboration among farmers, solar developers, policymakers, and conservationists. His work has helped pioneer the concept of “multifunctional PV”—solar projects that generate clean energy while supporting agricultural yields, biodiversity, and rural economic development. Dan also leads the Virginia Solar Summit and has played a key role in revitalizing polluted and underutilized land through the Brightfields and brownfields-to-solar movements. A passionate advocate for community-based innovation, Dan’s events are known for mixing technical expertise with grassroots accessibility, always striving to "put farming first." Through the Solar Farm Summit, Dan is helping define the future of land use—where solar power coexists with food production, ecological restoration, and energy resilience on a global scale.   Stay Connected: Benoy Thanjan Email: [email protected]  LinkedIn: Benoy Thanjan Website: https://www.reneuenergy.com   Dan French Email: [email protected]  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-french-4354047/ Website: https://solarfarmsummit.com/ Dan’s previous interviews on the Solar Maverick Podcast https://solarmaverick.podbean.com/e/smp-46-why-brownfields-are-ideal-sites-for-solar/ https://podtail.com/podcast/solar-maverick-podcast/smp-140-agrivoltaics-one-of-the-next-frontiers-in-/