Most clean energy companies fit into a category: developer, EPC, IPP.
My latest Scaling Clean guest, Daniel Dus, has spent his career working across all of them.
Daniel is the CEO of Cleantech Industry Resources and co-founder of one of our industry’s famous social gatherings: Solar Fight Night.
CIR is an on-demand operating system for clean energy project delivery, providing service to developers wherever they need it: everything from diligence to asset management.
We talk about why Daniel believes the future of the industry depends as much on community and storytelling as it does on technology.
Here are three takeaways from our conversation:
🔹 The traditional development model is under pressure. Daniel argues that many developers built for a different market environment. Today, variable project pipelines, tighter margins and permitting delays are forcing companies to rethink how they staff and execute projects.
🔹 AI is becoming an accelerant, not a replacement. CIR uses AI and software tools to advance nearly every workflow. But Daniel emphasized keeping the “human in the loop” still matters, especially when billions of dollars and critical infrastructure are involved.
🔹 Clean energy needs better storytelling. One of the strongest themes in our conversation was communication. Daniel believes the industry is losing ground to misinformation, despite having a fundamentally better story to tell around affordability, reliability, and energy independence. His latest initiative, cleantechfactcheck.org, is designed to help the industry respond faster and more effectively with a robust database of myth busters, videos, job boards and more.
We also talked about:
⚡ Why procurement inefficiency is costing the industry millions
⚡ What developers get wrong about operational scaling
⚡ Why community and relationships still matter in an AI-driven industry
⚡ How Solar Fight Night became one of clean energy’s biggest networking events
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I was a young manager just in my30s and sitting in a conference
room and historically would havegone into the conference room,
had a discussion and assumed that folks who had a point to
address would bring it up. But Ed points out that not
everyone is really comfortable in expressing their opinions in
that setting, right? And so he says, go around the
(00:20):
conference room and actively solicit feedback from each
individual person. The very first time that I did
that, the challenge that we werediscussing, the by far best
result came from the person who hadn't said anything until
directly addressed and solicited.
And this is Scaling Clean, the podcast for clean economy CE OS
(00:42):
investors and the people who advise them.
I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin. Each show we bring you usable
insights from tested leaders that you can apply to the
business of running your business.
Most companies in clean energy fit into a category developer,
EPC or IPP. My next guest, Daniel Deuce has
(01:06):
spent his career working across all of those.
Daniel's the CEO of Clean Tech Industry Resources and the Co
founder of one of our industry'smost cherished social
gatherings, Solar Fight Night Cir. acts as an on demand
operating system for clean energy project delivery.
They can plug into development teams whether they need
(01:27):
diligence and citing or construction and asset
management. It's a model that makes sense
right now when developers are under pressure to do more with
less. We talk about development
challenges and why Daniel believes the future of the
industry depends as much on us supporting each other and
building community as it does ontechnology.
(01:48):
Here's my conversation with Daniel.
I hope you enjoy it. All right, so let's go ahead and
get started with you and with your company, Clean Tech
Industry Resources. What do you do?
We are sort of like a choose your own adventure story for
energy project delivery. And so our customers come to us
with any number of various issues and we work to solve
(02:11):
those issues across the entire spectrum from early stage all
the way through construction management and delivery.
And it's full cycle though I heard you say through early
stage site selection, I was looking at some of your tools
earlier in the new the project sitting assistant, but you're
also helping owners who are operating, is that right?
Yeah, all the all the way through asset management
(02:33):
support. So you can think of us as a
turnkey developer or a turnkey construction delivery engine or
a turnkey IPP. It's just that we don't do any
of those things for ourselves. We only do them and provide them
to the market as a service. What's your most popular
service? Yeah, it's remarkably flexible
because it depends on the client's internal bandwidth,
(02:55):
their own capabilities, what they're best at, what they're
internalizing versus what they want to outsource, and the
status of their pipeline. But it can resemble with any
unique client, a sort of game ofwhack A mole where the bandwidth
constraint on the client side moves around a bit.
It might be engineering this week as they're rushing into
construction, it might be project financing and
(03:16):
structuring another week as they're moving into a financial
closing, and so on. So development as a service,
this is a new concept. How do you explain that simply?
It it is. It is.
I think we've created this as a sort of segment, if you would.
And so I think the simplest way to describe it is we are a
(03:38):
project delivery engine on a completely flexible basis.
So we've been called an operating system for project
delivery. We have been called a sort of
bandwidth relief valve by our clients often where we're
helping them solve their real time problems across the
portfolio regardless of what they are.
(03:59):
And you don't own and operate any projects.
That's right. Yeah.
We will never compete with our client base, which is the
industry globally. So folks in energy globally,
we're strictly sort of B2B. So we're helping facilitate
folks in the industry and their execution of their projects and
pipelines, regardless of the status, the state, the location
(04:20):
or the size. So extra arms, legs and brains
for developers who are short staffed or need help in
engineering or procurement or sighting.
Is that accurate? Yeah, that's right.
It does cover all of the workflows.
So internally, we have lawyers, we have procurement estimation
professionals, scheduling professionals, project
(04:42):
development, project management,program management, electrical
engineers, civil engineers, structural engineers, you name
it. Across the entire IPP platform.
We have all those skill sets internally and we provide them
as a service for our clients to access based on their needs in
the moment. Anything you don't do?
We do not do boots on the site, site studies.
(05:05):
So for example, we'll do the desktop portions of
environmental assessments, whichis about 90% of a report.
We don't do the site screening. Same thing with geotech.
We don't do on site geotech studies.
We will scope them, we'll RFP them for our clients and then
provide them with all the options in the marketplace and
coordinate those activities at cost to completion without any
(05:26):
markups or margins of any kind. But we don't do those
internally. So one of the other things that
you're pretty well known for is solar Fight Night.
So I'd love to hear more about that.
Yeah, it's definitely remains one of my favorite nights of the
year. You go through the year with all
these less than uplifting headlines in the media, and it
(05:47):
can be quite discouraging. But when you go to Fight Night,
you remember that there are so many good people fighting the
good fight to improve our world that it's just so uplifting.
But Fight Night was started, I want to say there were 14 folks
in a hotel room talking about how how to stay in business 18
years ago, how to exist in renewables, which barely
(06:09):
existed, and how to help promoteand grow the industry.
And at the time, it was really focused and remains to be
focused on making the connections that actually help
get these projects done and see them through to fruition.
It's also a celebration. It's just a celebration of the
people, the technologies that compose our industry.
(06:32):
And so that's certainly a part of it.
And then the last factor is we've begun raising as much cash
as we possibly can. We deduct the cost of the event
and then we donate what's left over to one of the fabulous
nonprofit organizations in our industry.
That's advancing our core mission as an industry, which I
would boil down to advancing or applying or supplying affordable
(06:56):
low cost energy to everyone, right, making it accessible to
everyone. So that's really the genesis of
Fight Night. It's also one of Cir. sort of
secret sauce items, if you wouldin in our execution process.
Do you find that it comes up a lot when you're talking with
customers or there's like a goodrelationship creator or
(07:16):
community creator there? Yeah.
It's a community creator. We have in our procurement
process over 63,000 vendor contacts and most of those come
from relationships made at and during the Fight Night execution
process, right. And so that really gives us
amazing reach into the supply chains globally, of course,
(07:39):
because folks come from all overthe world to RE plus and and
solar Fight Night. And it gives us amazing reach
into those relationships and it's people that get things
done. And so that's really where the
values created, but it's also again that sense of community
and it gives us something to talk about and bond around that
is not just let's do business together, right?
(08:02):
It's let's advance our mission together as an industry.
Well, I have to compliment you. I think that one of the big
things that we've noticed in AI,there's so many things with AI,
but what it's doing is people are visiting websites less
frequently to get information orget answers because there's an
automatically generated answer. And so we're finding that this
(08:23):
is affecting media outlets whereyou're seeing even the top tech
media outlets have more than half of a decrease in their page
in their site visits because people are just getting answers
right in AI. But there is a Harvard Business
Review article that came out about a month and a half ago,
and it said that the winners whoare going to survive are the
ones who create community. And so it's more than just
(08:45):
giving an answer. It's creating a space where
people feel like they can talk to each other, they can have an
experience. We certainly create experiences,
right? Last last September, we had a
sway pole performer. We had synchronized swimmers
that we flew in from California to Vegas.
We had the Joker who ran around giving folks tariffs for no
(09:06):
reason. We had the misinformation man
with the tinfoil hat and the Pinocchio nose talking about how
whales are affected by windmills.
And so, yeah, we certainly have fun with what's happening in the
industry at the time. And, you know, sometimes if you
don't laugh, you cry, right? And so that's we're really,
we're playing on that and havingsome fun with our challenges
(09:27):
because they're not going away, right?
So we might as well celebrate them in a way.
Yeah, you said it, Danielle. Well, let's keep moving here.
I want to hear more about your journey.
We heard the back story on SolarFight Night, but what about you?
How did you get to the place where you are today?
How did you become a CEO? It was certainly not a straight
(09:47):
path for a long time. I would say initially, from the
time I was 9 until I was 21, I was positive I was going to be a
lab scientist until I actually did HIV research at University
of Chicago. And in less than two weeks, I
realized that there was absolutely no way that I was
going to be a research scientist.
(10:08):
So repetitive, very little humaninteraction.
And so I dropped out of the PhD program that I'd started at
UMass Amherst in molecular biology.
And I became an entrepreneur because I had no other fall back
plan at all in mind. So thankfully the first
companies that I helped build were in software and then in
(10:29):
real estate where I got exposed to the trades and construction
and delivery. And then I found my passion in
renewables during my MBA programand launched my first renewable
company out of the Drexel Business Incubator.
Unfortunately for me, Melissa, this was headed, this was late
2006. And so it was headed directly
(10:49):
into the financial crisis, very bad timing.
And after that, I then set myself on a very specific path
to get exposure to each of the primary verticals in the
industry. And so first I would I acted as
CFO controlling corporate and project finance and then as COO
(11:09):
controlling construction and engineering and project
delivery. And then as ACSO at Safari
Energy, now Aspen, helping deliver sales and relationship
development. And then finally, as Chief
Development Officer at Dynamic, now under Pattern, leading
project development across the US and helping execute projects
in that capacity. And in each of those roles, I
(11:31):
learned from my amazing teams and our clients and our projects
and financers on how to execute these projects effectively.
So I was able to get broad but very deep experience.
And it was only after that, which took well over a decade,
that I felt that I was ready to truly lead a large team and
organization in the space as effectively as possible.
(11:54):
And so hence Cir. was born. If you could go back to the day
that you started the company, what advice would you give to
your younger self? I would say read the books.
Many of the transformational moments for me as either a human
or technical manager really happened when I was reading a
(12:16):
great book about a related topicthat was happening in real time
within the company. And so take the time, don't
regret the time. Super super, super valuable.
Give me an example like can you say more give like a specific.
Of course, of course, I love talking about my favorite
management textbook, which when I picked it up, it's called
(12:37):
Creativity Inc as a picture of Buzz Lightyear on the cover.
I did not know it was a management book.
I was running through the airport when I grabbed a copy of
it. It's by Ed Catmull who founded
Pixar, and he talks about the importance of creating
psychologically safe spaces. And this was long before this
was a popular, these were popular buzzwords.
(12:59):
But that book completely changedmy management style overnight.
And he has in this book a bunch of very concrete, actionable
items that you can try and test out as a manager to improve
outcomes. And so one example was I was a
young manager just into my 30s and sitting in a conference room
and historically would have goneinto the conference room, had a
(13:22):
discussion and assumed that folks who had a point to address
would bring it up and we'd discuss it and we'd leave with
meeting minutes and move into action.
But Ed points out that not everyone is really comfortable
in expressing their opinions in that setting.
Right? A type personalities are, but
not everyone is 1. And so he says, go around the
(13:43):
conference room and actively solicit feedback from each
individual person. The very first time that I did
that, the challenge that we werediscussing, the by far best
result came from the person who hadn't said anything until
directly addressed and solicited.
And so from that moment on, I realized that that type of
management technique and creating that psychologically
(14:06):
safe space to solicit feedback from everyone just was
incredibly valuable. That's a great example.
I love that story. I love it that you get sometimes
the best ideas come from like the most surprising places.
So let's go to the next question.
I want you to think about if there's any decision that you've
made in the last year that you think other people in the
(14:27):
industry would disagree with. Certainly coming out of the
OBBBA being passed, we accelerated hiring when many of
our clients were on pause or running for the nearest exit.
We felt that it was going to result in an enormous market
(14:51):
opportunity. And so we have doubled since
then from 70 to almost 140 folksand certainly turned out to be
very contrarian, especially in those first few months.
But we felt that the need for our solution in the market was
only increasing, right, that folks needed to get more
(15:12):
operationally efficient, needed to accelerate their projects and
they needed exactly that problemthat we set out to solve.
That's the problem that was sortof put in a pressure cooker by
the OBBA, right? Lower costs, move faster, move
more efficiently and improve outcomes and do so on a variable
cost basis rather than a fixed cost basis.
(15:35):
And so we made that decision andit was very hard because we were
also scared along with the rest of the entire industry.
And so I would say that probablywas the most contrarian thing
I've done in the last 12 months.Has it been the case that some
of the accelerated timelines anddeadlines have major services
(15:56):
more desirable for? Some customers big time, I would
say probably a full 20% or more of our over 225 clients now came
from there having to find a solution to fit a schedule need
that no one else in the market could meet and we could.
So that's a common theme among our sort of onboarding, client
(16:21):
onboarding and is really critical.
We have a 24 hour workflow. First of all, we have folks on
all three shifts. And so you can imagine that
alone can result in 3X the operational speed versus a
domestic only platform. And because of our advanced AI
and software adoption, we do move much faster than anyone
(16:44):
that's sort of competing in eachof the slices of development
work that we help lead on. So definitely that's been a huge
driver, yeah. So you work with developers all
the time. What in your view is broken in
the traditional development model today?
Wow. Yeah, that's a deep, deep
question. First of all, I want to say, I
(17:06):
don't think that any of the development shops out there set
out to be in the position that they are in today's market,
right? I don't think they did anything
wrong. They have simply found
themselves in a very different market dynamic.
And I made the exact I did the exact same thing building my
first large solar platform, 85 team members across legal and
(17:29):
engineering, master electricians, all of the skill
sets internally to execute. Because you were doing things
for the first time, you couldn'tfind good third parties to do
those activities. And so you really had to
internalize it and control execution and quality.
We're in a very different universe now with the quality of
(17:49):
technology and the quality of the global workforce in the in
the industry. And so the market is completely
shifted. So whereas that sort of 100%
higher to your maximum bandwidthneed environment existed and was
very valuable historically, now it's very inefficient and it's
(18:10):
very expensive, especially vis Avis folks competitors, right who
are adopting moving more in a high tech software AI forward
global workforce forward environment.
And so I think that's probably the key element that we're
helping our clients solve for and that we see as a issue sort
(18:31):
of historic markets and conditions versus current.
Does your model help developers think differently about how they
do business? Yes, we are helping developers
with a few key transitions. I would say 1 would be entering
new markets more effectively, whether it's geography as those
(18:53):
markets strengthen or it's technology sort of moving from
solar into battery storage or ifit's moving from residential
into commercial. We help.
We provide all of the necessary bandwidth support, intellectual
property to help those developers, builders make those
(19:13):
key market shifts. So that's certainly where we're
spending a lot of time. And they're adopting probably a
quite different model than they would have historically, which
would have been higher for this specific need and internalize
it. Now they can test the market and
then higher if that market growsand requires that full time
internal bandwidth. And so I think that's a valuable
(19:37):
option that's now available thathasn't hadn't been available to
those developers and builders before.
What is the most expensive mistake that you see repeated
across the industry? Somewhat loaded question,
Melissa. This is one that we're very
passionate about, frankly, because we are extraordinarily
frugal in our entire execution engine in process.
(20:00):
But there are a couple of buckets that I would say really
are pet peeves of mine. I'll start with procurement.
The and we do see very deeply into our client organizations
because we often end up acting as sort of an embedded layer or
execution engine. So with some of them, we have
their internal e-mail addresses where on their internal Slack
(20:21):
channels we get a really good look under the hood.
And in the procurement side. It is shocking to me how many
folks will go out to request proposals from two or three
potential suppliers, whether it's services or whether it's
OEM manufacturers, which really blows my mind.
(20:45):
And I know we're in a unique position because we do have
those 63,000 vendor contacts because of solar Fight Night,
but we're also in a very it. It still really blows my mind
that folks will keep their procurement processes to that
limited of ecosystem, especiallyon commoditized goods, right?
(21:08):
That that really especially irksme and some clients certainly
have very good reasons to do that.
They're operating in a very specific model or what have you.
But on average we, for example, for modules we go for to over
160 biddies globally. We need to find who is, who
(21:30):
wants the project, who's most efficient, who has a hole in
their schedule, whatever it might be, who's the best fit for
that project at that time. And and it's never, it's rarely
the same. We certainly see some
manufacturers emerge as a preferred vendor supplier
repeatedly, but often that's move, that's a moving target,
(21:50):
especially with FIAC and other constraints now.
And so that is a huge, huge point.
The other goes back to our pointabout adoption tech, tech
forward adoption and deployment.I can say that we are aware of
hundreds of millions of dollars of just engineering expense,
(22:15):
just engineering expense being wasted because folks are working
with historic partners that they're comfortable with that
they haven't taken a leap to a more tech forward stance and
approach to getting their projects design engineered and
delivered. And what's really compelling and
interesting about it is not onlyare there hundreds of millions
(22:37):
of dollars being burned there, but the outcomes are also worse
because the software, AI and other tools are so good, right?
And so those historic providers that folks are comfortable with,
have relationships with and relationships are valuable,
don't get me wrong, but the relationship cannot be at the
expense of the project, right? Or your project costs and
(23:00):
outcomes will degrade. And so there's a tremendous
amount of pressure across the not just the industry, but
society at large to drive the cost of energy down.
Now we're seeing it drive political outcomes.
So we really do, we really have to get more efficient and the
tools are there and they're available for every company.
So I would, I would add a minimum if you're dealing with
(23:22):
incumbent players, for example, on the engineering side, force
them to ensure that they're adopting the most advanced
technologies to advance these projects faster at lower cost
and with better outcomes. So that's just the engineering
segment, but it applies universally to every workflow.
We use AI and software in every single workflow across the
(23:44):
entire organization. So I would say those are the two
primary buckets that we shake our heads at pretty regularly
internally. I'm curious about this because I
think that across the board, I've found different levels of
engagement on AI among differenttypes of companies.
And I think a lot of people are curious.
I think people are also scared and I think there's trust issues
(24:07):
that come up with it. So have you noticed that and how
do you deal with it? Like have you ever noticed with
a customer, if they say, oh, youknow, I prefer these, you know,
these, this firm that I've worked with that I know, how can
I trust your AI? Have you ever had that that
question come up? Oh, absolutely.
There are massive data, very, very real data security issues.
(24:28):
We have been told point blank bycustomer after customer that
they are straight up violating our ND as right, they're loading
our IP into tools that do not protect that IP, right.
And so that's just happening, it's happening literally every
day. And so the concerns are
absolutely valid. Everyone should be asking their
(24:50):
counterparties what is your AI policy?
If they care about their IP in any way, they should be asking
what the IP and the controls arearound AI utilization.
And so that's absolutely critical.
Cybersecurity just is a whole nother rapidly emerging segment
here. We're in a critical
infrastructure environment and so super important and we still
(25:11):
see AI primarily being a probabilistic tool.
It's taking roughly the median of the intelligence that it is
consuming and delivering you that sort of middle Rd.
When you are deploying billion dollar energy projects, you do
not want the middle of the road,right?
When you have very important outcomes, you don't want the
(25:32):
middle of the road. You want the absolute best
subject matter expert driven outcomes.
And so that's why although we are AI forward, we've been
adding a new subject matter expert to our team every couple
or few business days and we'll continue to do that.
We believe that the human in theloop is extraordinarily
critical, but we do believe, andwe have seen and we see this
(25:57):
every day, that the software andtools are accelerants and that's
where we use them to be more efficient, more operationally
efficient, to accelerate outcomes, to improve outcomes.
Replacing humans, we do not believe, is the path.
Why hasn't a model like yours existed before?
We certainly come from a unique situation.
(26:19):
We spun out of what I had rankedbefore I left as the largest
global solar developer. And that developer is executing,
for example, a single project site that is 30 gigawatts of
renewable capacity. So that's the equivalent of the
entire United States combined solar industry in one single
site. So that's the scale of what our
(26:41):
team has worked on. And with our team in India, even
if you rewind 5 or 6 years, the domestic industry there was just
really getting started. And so that expertise, the
quality and the leading minds that are there now across
education and real life experience have really emerged
(27:03):
only in the last 36 months or so.
At the same time that we're seeing amazing software tools
emerge, which frankly many folksin the United States don't
necessarily want to sit in a software tool all day every day
for 40 or 50 hours a week, right?
It's not their calling in life. They may want to build these
tools, they may want to do strategic work with the outcomes
(27:25):
of these tools. But there is so much value in
having the sub, the subject matter experts operating these
incredible software tools. And so we find that available
overseas. So we're certainly at this
intersection of emerging talent and emerging software that has
facilitated the commoditization of so many professional
(27:47):
services. Folks are concerned that
knowledge is going to be commoditized at some point in
the future. We commoditized electrical
systems engineering 2 1/2 years ago, fixed price, any capacity
globally for any system size. The only organization still on
earth that we know of that I could give you a price to do
(28:07):
that right now and stand behind it no matter where it was.
And so complete commoditization of extraordinarily complex
professional services only possible through the evolution
of the global renewable market and all of the phenomenal minds
now at working in the industry and the software tools and those
accelerants. So certainly a unique situation
(28:29):
and the fact that we took and spun out of that mega scale IPP
and we started providing all of that IPP platform with
bankability sort of first, second and third priorities as
an IPP must focus on to the market as a service.
So we're the only platform that I know of in the world also that
spun out of an IPP and started providing all of those internal
(28:52):
capabilities to the market as a service.
And so it's certainly a variety of unique scenarios that allowed
for us to exist. So you've talked about AI tech
forward, software forward. Do you have your own AI or using
some of the popular models that people might know like Chad or
Claude? Like how are you using AI?
(29:14):
Sure. I would say we probably are
using every available large LLM that there is on the planet
right now. We find each has unique
capabilities. We're also customizing agents to
an intense degree. So for example, we acquired
Richard Matsui, founder of kWh Analytics and I think he was
risk officer at Loans Guarantee program.
(29:35):
We acquired his AI tools to underwrite, assess on underwrite
data rooms for project M&A and just project risk analysis.
And those tools now contain over20 unique agents, each one
highly specialized to specific purposes and outcomes.
So we can assess data rooms in hours instead of a month.
(29:57):
And that's of course a major accelerant, but they're highly,
highly specialized. Those reports still go through
subject matter expert review, confirmation and improvement.
Nice. I want to talk about marketing
now. What is the toughest
communications or marketing challenge that you're facing?
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm going to divide this one
(30:19):
into Cir. and then the industry.OK.
At Cir., what Jiggershaw says isessentially you're better,
faster and cheaper than any incumbent in most cases.
And so the only gap you have in the marketplace is trust.
Many of our competitors, for example, in the engineering
(30:39):
segment have been around for 120years.
And so obviously there's a big gap there.
And of course, how do you address address this?
It's through storytelling, marketing communications,
explaining how and why you achieve the results that we
consistently achieve. And so that's really a need for
(31:01):
us. We've had a $0.00 external
marketing communication budget and yet we have grown to 225
clients with a single U.S. salesrepresentative and business
relationship developer. But it is actually important for
us to take storytelling more seriously in a in a pretty major
way. So that's for us.
(31:23):
We have major pain points there.The industry, of course, we are
getting our butts kicked wholesale, getting our butts
kicked by the volume of capital that is being poured into media
influencers and pushing stories that we know to be unholy,
untrue in many cases. And so this is existential for
(31:47):
us. And of course, what's what's
really frustrating is our story so much better, right?
Like you can leave your ICE engine car on in your garage and
it will kill you and your whole family.
So that's your story. Our story is whole, wholly
better than that. And yet we're still getting our
butts kicked. And this is a matter,
(32:08):
unfortunately, of capital and political influence and and
media influence right now. And it's really, it's really
disheartening, but the another way to put it is traditional
energy net income for publicly traded companies in the United
States was more than renewable energy publicly traded companies
top line revenue and our top line and our net income was
(32:31):
negative as an industry for publicly traded companies last
year. Variety of reasons for that
depreciation and other benefits,but that's still a wide, a very,
very wide gap that we need to overcome with creativity,
resourcefulness, right? And that's where folks like you
are so critical. Yeah.
Well, thank you. I think I noticed one common
(32:53):
commonality between the two things that you just talked
about, both for your communication challenge with
Cir. as well As for the industry.
And that is that people fear change.
And so it's really hard, you know, if people are set in their
ways, if they're used to a certain thing, change is really
scary. And so it takes time to build
that trust. And it's through repetitive,
(33:16):
consistent communications that you're, you're able to actually
breakthrough that because it, itdoes take time.
So I want to move on to the final sections of the interview,
learning and development. Is there any management trend
that you are following or that you're aware of you might be
trying out or or one that maybe you disagree with?
(33:39):
I'm going to be very boring on this one, Melissa.
I am still using the same management consulting technique
that my grandfather used in the 1960s.
So he was a management consultant, I think for some
time. He was the president of the US
Management Consulting Board. They give the CMC certification
(34:00):
and he used what's called the top down, bottom up approach to
structuring any organization anddelivering on any sort of
corporate objective. Now what is interesting about
this is that most folks, most companies use a top down
approach. This is executive driven, market
(34:22):
driven and pushed down through the ranks for execution.
This is what you usually see bottom up.
You are incorporating the thoughts, the feedback from the
trenches, from the folks who aredoing the work in the trenches,
and you're giving them a seat atthe table in finalizing the
processes that the organization uses to execute.
(34:44):
And they might say something that you disagree with or that
kind of that you have to struggle through.
So, but usually there's there's something there, right For what
that's worth looking at. Yeah, so right now today I am
reading two books, 1 is the obstacle is the way and the
other one is the hard thing about hard things.
So both of those, to your point,are about the value being
(35:08):
created in the conflict and the tension, right?
Specifically, not only don't avoid that, but run straight at
it because that's where the goodstuff is.
That's terrific advice. I love it.
I love it. OK, so then the last question is
what do you do at work or in your personal life to stay sane
(35:29):
in this crazy busy world? What brings you joy?
It's really work and family and there's not there's not time for
much else right now. I love what we do as an
industry. I call it the push pull, and
it's pretty darn addictive. There's the pull of the
economics and the generational wealth creation, opportunity,
(35:52):
opportunity. And then there's the push of
we're literally saving the worldand saving the planet.
And so that gets pretty addicting pretty fast to want to
have and to see impact in those ways.
Was there anything else that you'd like to add for our
listeners before we end this interview?
(36:12):
I do like to point out that as of the time you publish this, we
will have just announced on solarfightnight.org that we
have, we have launched cleantechfactcheck.org, which is
a database and repository of every lie that we have seen out
in the world where you can rapidly cut and paste responses
(36:35):
to all of this lies and misinformation that's
circulating. So encourage folks to do that.
I know especially right after the OBBBAI was spending way too
much of my time drafting responses in different social
media platforms. And so we wanted to facilitate
this. And we have also databased all
of the industry videos that are telling the true story of the
(36:58):
industry, the farmers that we have helped, right?
The Republican folks who put solar on their rooftop.
And they say this is the best investment I've made in my home.
I'd, you know, I don't know why this is political.
And so those videos are all database and warehouse for rapid
access so that we can combat andtell the story more efficiently
(37:18):
and effectively. We've also databased all the
media contacts that we were ableto find in the public
environment and sphere so that folks and storytellers can
connect. We think that it is absolutely
critical. And we've also databased all the
recruiters and job boards that we've been able to identify
because we feel that the industry is going through pain
and we really want folks to findgood homes in their next
(37:40):
journeys if they've been disrupted by this turmoil.
So cleantechfactcheck.org recommend folks check it out and
help support us if we can raise enough money this year at Solar
Fight Night. The next level of this is to
hire up a team of passionate folks, interns, marketing,
communication folks and have them go out into the world,
(38:02):
utilize this information and respond in line to all these
lies that are out there programmatically.
We need to build an anti troll farm, troll farm for our
industry, right, and get the much better stories that we have
out in line and in response to the lies that are being
perpetuated by ignorance, special interest, what have you.
(38:26):
So hopefully we have a great solar Fight Night this year.
Hopefully, we're going to break over 3000 attendees and we're
going to be able to fund some ofthis additional response to
what's happening in the industry, in the marketplace.
Wow, this is incredible. This sounds like an outstanding,
outstanding tool. Well, this has been fun.
Thank you so much for joining me.
(38:46):
I really enjoyed our conversation.
Thank you, Melissa. Keep up the great job telling
the story of the industry and all of us in it really
appreciate it. Thanks.
For joining us for another episode of Scaling Clean, the
podcast for clean economies, CEO's, investors, and the people
who advise them. I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin.
Our producer is Claire Quirin. If you like what you hear on
(39:08):
scale and clean episodes, we'd appreciate it if you'd give us a
five star rating and leave a comment where you get your
podcast. And until next time, we wish you
all the best in the clean economy transition.
I was a young manager just in my30s and sitting in a conference
room and historically would havegone into the conference room,
had a discussion and assumed that folks who had a point to
address would bring it up. But Ed points out that not
everyone is really comfortable in expressing their opinions in
that setting, right? And so he says, go around the
(00:20):
conference room and actively solicit feedback from each
individual person. The very first time that I did
that, the challenge that we werediscussing, the by far best
result came from the person who hadn't said anything until
directly addressed and solicited.
And this is Scaling Clean, the podcast for clean economy CE OS
(00:42):
investors and the people who advise them.
I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin. Each show we bring you usable
insights from tested leaders that you can apply to the
business of running your business.
Most companies in clean energy fit into a category developer,
EPC or IPP. My next guest, Daniel Deuce has
(01:06):
spent his career working across all of those.
Daniel's the CEO of Clean Tech Industry Resources and the Co
founder of one of our industry'smost cherished social
gatherings, Solar Fight Night Cir. acts as an on demand
operating system for clean energy project delivery.
They can plug into development teams whether they need
(01:27):
diligence and citing or construction and asset
management. It's a model that makes sense
right now when developers are under pressure to do more with
less. We talk about development
challenges and why Daniel believes the future of the
industry depends as much on us supporting each other and
building community as it does ontechnology.
(01:48):
Here's my conversation with Daniel.
I hope you enjoy it. All right, so let's go ahead and
get started with you and with your company, Clean Tech
Industry Resources. What do you do?
We are sort of like a choose your own adventure story for
energy project delivery. And so our customers come to us
with any number of various issues and we work to solve
(02:11):
those issues across the entire spectrum from early stage all
the way through construction management and delivery.
And it's full cycle though I heard you say through early
stage site selection, I was looking at some of your tools
earlier in the new the project sitting assistant, but you're
also helping owners who are operating, is that right?
Yeah, all the all the way through asset management
(02:33):
support. So you can think of us as a
turnkey developer or a turnkey construction delivery engine or
a turnkey IPP. It's just that we don't do any
of those things for ourselves. We only do them and provide them
to the market as a service. What's your most popular
service? Yeah, it's remarkably flexible
because it depends on the client's internal bandwidth,
(02:55):
their own capabilities, what they're best at, what they're
internalizing versus what they want to outsource, and the
status of their pipeline. But it can resemble with any
unique client, a sort of game ofwhack A mole where the bandwidth
constraint on the client side moves around a bit.
It might be engineering this week as they're rushing into
construction, it might be project financing and
(03:16):
structuring another week as they're moving into a financial
closing, and so on. So development as a service,
this is a new concept. How do you explain that simply?
It it is. It is.
I think we've created this as a sort of segment, if you would.
And so I think the simplest way to describe it is we are a
(03:38):
project delivery engine on a completely flexible basis.
So we've been called an operating system for project
delivery. We have been called a sort of
bandwidth relief valve by our clients often where we're
helping them solve their real time problems across the
portfolio regardless of what they are.
(03:59):
And you don't own and operate any projects.
That's right. Yeah.
We will never compete with our client base, which is the
industry globally. So folks in energy globally,
we're strictly sort of B2B. So we're helping facilitate
folks in the industry and their execution of their projects and
pipelines, regardless of the status, the state, the location
(04:20):
or the size. So extra arms, legs and brains
for developers who are short staffed or need help in
engineering or procurement or sighting.
Is that accurate? Yeah, that's right.
It does cover all of the workflows.
So internally, we have lawyers, we have procurement estimation
professionals, scheduling professionals, project
(04:42):
development, project management,program management, electrical
engineers, civil engineers, structural engineers, you name
it. Across the entire IPP platform.
We have all those skill sets internally and we provide them
as a service for our clients to access based on their needs in
the moment. Anything you don't do?
We do not do boots on the site, site studies.
(05:05):
So for example, we'll do the desktop portions of
environmental assessments, whichis about 90% of a report.
We don't do the site screening. Same thing with geotech.
We don't do on site geotech studies.
We will scope them, we'll RFP them for our clients and then
provide them with all the options in the marketplace and
coordinate those activities at cost to completion without any
(05:26):
markups or margins of any kind. But we don't do those
internally. So one of the other things that
you're pretty well known for is solar Fight Night.
So I'd love to hear more about that.
Yeah, it's definitely remains one of my favorite nights of the
year. You go through the year with all
these less than uplifting headlines in the media, and it
(05:47):
can be quite discouraging. But when you go to Fight Night,
you remember that there are so many good people fighting the
good fight to improve our world that it's just so uplifting.
But Fight Night was started, I want to say there were 14 folks
in a hotel room talking about how how to stay in business 18
years ago, how to exist in renewables, which barely
(06:09):
existed, and how to help promoteand grow the industry.
And at the time, it was really focused and remains to be
focused on making the connections that actually help
get these projects done and see them through to fruition.
It's also a celebration. It's just a celebration of the
people, the technologies that compose our industry.
(06:32):
And so that's certainly a part of it.
And then the last factor is we've begun raising as much cash
as we possibly can. We deduct the cost of the event
and then we donate what's left over to one of the fabulous
nonprofit organizations in our industry.
That's advancing our core mission as an industry, which I
would boil down to advancing or applying or supplying affordable
(06:56):
low cost energy to everyone, right, making it accessible to
everyone. So that's really the genesis of
Fight Night. It's also one of Cir. sort of
secret sauce items, if you wouldin in our execution process.
Do you find that it comes up a lot when you're talking with
customers or there's like a goodrelationship creator or
(07:16):
community creator there? Yeah.
It's a community creator. We have in our procurement
process over 63,000 vendor contacts and most of those come
from relationships made at and during the Fight Night execution
process, right. And so that really gives us
amazing reach into the supply chains globally, of course,
(07:39):
because folks come from all overthe world to RE plus and and
solar Fight Night. And it gives us amazing reach
into those relationships and it's people that get things
done. And so that's really where the
values created, but it's also again that sense of community
and it gives us something to talk about and bond around that
is not just let's do business together, right?
(08:02):
It's let's advance our mission together as an industry.
Well, I have to compliment you. I think that one of the big
things that we've noticed in AI,there's so many things with AI,
but what it's doing is people are visiting websites less
frequently to get information orget answers because there's an
automatically generated answer. And so we're finding that this
(08:23):
is affecting media outlets whereyou're seeing even the top tech
media outlets have more than half of a decrease in their page
in their site visits because people are just getting answers
right in AI. But there is a Harvard Business
Review article that came out about a month and a half ago,
and it said that the winners whoare going to survive are the
ones who create community. And so it's more than just
(08:45):
giving an answer. It's creating a space where
people feel like they can talk to each other, they can have an
experience. We certainly create experiences,
right? Last last September, we had a
sway pole performer. We had synchronized swimmers
that we flew in from California to Vegas.
We had the Joker who ran around giving folks tariffs for no
(09:06):
reason. We had the misinformation man
with the tinfoil hat and the Pinocchio nose talking about how
whales are affected by windmills.
And so, yeah, we certainly have fun with what's happening in the
industry at the time. And, you know, sometimes if you
don't laugh, you cry, right? And so that's we're really,
we're playing on that and havingsome fun with our challenges
(09:27):
because they're not going away, right?
So we might as well celebrate them in a way.
Yeah, you said it, Danielle. Well, let's keep moving here.
I want to hear more about your journey.
We heard the back story on SolarFight Night, but what about you?
How did you get to the place where you are today?
How did you become a CEO? It was certainly not a straight
(09:47):
path for a long time. I would say initially, from the
time I was 9 until I was 21, I was positive I was going to be a
lab scientist until I actually did HIV research at University
of Chicago. And in less than two weeks, I
realized that there was absolutely no way that I was
going to be a research scientist.
(10:08):
So repetitive, very little humaninteraction.
And so I dropped out of the PhD program that I'd started at
UMass Amherst in molecular biology.
And I became an entrepreneur because I had no other fall back
plan at all in mind. So thankfully the first
companies that I helped build were in software and then in
(10:29):
real estate where I got exposed to the trades and construction
and delivery. And then I found my passion in
renewables during my MBA programand launched my first renewable
company out of the Drexel Business Incubator.
Unfortunately for me, Melissa, this was headed, this was late
2006. And so it was headed directly
(10:49):
into the financial crisis, very bad timing.
And after that, I then set myself on a very specific path
to get exposure to each of the primary verticals in the
industry. And so first I would I acted as
CFO controlling corporate and project finance and then as COO
(11:09):
controlling construction and engineering and project
delivery. And then as ACSO at Safari
Energy, now Aspen, helping deliver sales and relationship
development. And then finally, as Chief
Development Officer at Dynamic, now under Pattern, leading
project development across the US and helping execute projects
in that capacity. And in each of those roles, I
(11:31):
learned from my amazing teams and our clients and our projects
and financers on how to execute these projects effectively.
So I was able to get broad but very deep experience.
And it was only after that, which took well over a decade,
that I felt that I was ready to truly lead a large team and
organization in the space as effectively as possible.
(11:54):
And so hence Cir. was born. If you could go back to the day
that you started the company, what advice would you give to
your younger self? I would say read the books.
Many of the transformational moments for me as either a human
or technical manager really happened when I was reading a
(12:16):
great book about a related topicthat was happening in real time
within the company. And so take the time, don't
regret the time. Super super, super valuable.
Give me an example like can you say more give like a specific.
Of course, of course, I love talking about my favorite
management textbook, which when I picked it up, it's called
(12:37):
Creativity Inc as a picture of Buzz Lightyear on the cover.
I did not know it was a management book.
I was running through the airport when I grabbed a copy of
it. It's by Ed Catmull who founded
Pixar, and he talks about the importance of creating
psychologically safe spaces. And this was long before this
was a popular, these were popular buzzwords.
(12:59):
But that book completely changedmy management style overnight.
And he has in this book a bunch of very concrete, actionable
items that you can try and test out as a manager to improve
outcomes. And so one example was I was a
young manager just into my 30s and sitting in a conference room
and historically would have goneinto the conference room, had a
(13:22):
discussion and assumed that folks who had a point to address
would bring it up and we'd discuss it and we'd leave with
meeting minutes and move into action.
But Ed points out that not everyone is really comfortable
in expressing their opinions in that setting.
Right? A type personalities are, but
not everyone is 1. And so he says, go around the
(13:43):
conference room and actively solicit feedback from each
individual person. The very first time that I did
that, the challenge that we werediscussing, the by far best
result came from the person who hadn't said anything until
directly addressed and solicited.
And so from that moment on, I realized that that type of
management technique and creating that psychologically
(14:06):
safe space to solicit feedback from everyone just was
incredibly valuable. That's a great example.
I love that story. I love it that you get sometimes
the best ideas come from like the most surprising places.
So let's go to the next question.
I want you to think about if there's any decision that you've
made in the last year that you think other people in the
(14:27):
industry would disagree with. Certainly coming out of the
OBBBA being passed, we accelerated hiring when many of
our clients were on pause or running for the nearest exit.
We felt that it was going to result in an enormous market
(14:51):
opportunity. And so we have doubled since
then from 70 to almost 140 folksand certainly turned out to be
very contrarian, especially in those first few months.
But we felt that the need for our solution in the market was
only increasing, right, that folks needed to get more
(15:12):
operationally efficient, needed to accelerate their projects and
they needed exactly that problemthat we set out to solve.
That's the problem that was sortof put in a pressure cooker by
the OBBA, right? Lower costs, move faster, move
more efficiently and improve outcomes and do so on a variable
cost basis rather than a fixed cost basis.
(15:35):
And so we made that decision andit was very hard because we were
also scared along with the rest of the entire industry.
And so I would say that probablywas the most contrarian thing
I've done in the last 12 months.Has it been the case that some
of the accelerated timelines anddeadlines have major services
(15:56):
more desirable for? Some customers big time, I would
say probably a full 20% or more of our over 225 clients now came
from there having to find a solution to fit a schedule need
that no one else in the market could meet and we could.
So that's a common theme among our sort of onboarding, client
(16:21):
onboarding and is really critical.
We have a 24 hour workflow. First of all, we have folks on
all three shifts. And so you can imagine that
alone can result in 3X the operational speed versus a
domestic only platform. And because of our advanced AI
and software adoption, we do move much faster than anyone
(16:44):
that's sort of competing in eachof the slices of development
work that we help lead on. So definitely that's been a huge
driver, yeah. So you work with developers all
the time. What in your view is broken in
the traditional development model today?
Wow. Yeah, that's a deep, deep
question. First of all, I want to say, I
(17:06):
don't think that any of the development shops out there set
out to be in the position that they are in today's market,
right? I don't think they did anything
wrong. They have simply found
themselves in a very different market dynamic.
And I made the exact I did the exact same thing building my
first large solar platform, 85 team members across legal and
(17:29):
engineering, master electricians, all of the skill
sets internally to execute. Because you were doing things
for the first time, you couldn'tfind good third parties to do
those activities. And so you really had to
internalize it and control execution and quality.
We're in a very different universe now with the quality of
(17:49):
technology and the quality of the global workforce in the in
the industry. And so the market is completely
shifted. So whereas that sort of 100%
higher to your maximum bandwidthneed environment existed and was
very valuable historically, now it's very inefficient and it's
(18:10):
very expensive, especially vis Avis folks competitors, right who
are adopting moving more in a high tech software AI forward
global workforce forward environment.
And so I think that's probably the key element that we're
helping our clients solve for and that we see as a issue sort
(18:31):
of historic markets and conditions versus current.
Does your model help developers think differently about how they
do business? Yes, we are helping developers
with a few key transitions. I would say 1 would be entering
new markets more effectively, whether it's geography as those
(18:53):
markets strengthen or it's technology sort of moving from
solar into battery storage or ifit's moving from residential
into commercial. We help.
We provide all of the necessary bandwidth support, intellectual
property to help those developers, builders make those
(19:13):
key market shifts. So that's certainly where we're
spending a lot of time. And they're adopting probably a
quite different model than they would have historically, which
would have been higher for this specific need and internalize
it. Now they can test the market and
then higher if that market growsand requires that full time
internal bandwidth. And so I think that's a valuable
(19:37):
option that's now available thathasn't hadn't been available to
those developers and builders before.
What is the most expensive mistake that you see repeated
across the industry? Somewhat loaded question,
Melissa. This is one that we're very
passionate about, frankly, because we are extraordinarily
frugal in our entire execution engine in process.
(20:00):
But there are a couple of buckets that I would say really
are pet peeves of mine. I'll start with procurement.
The and we do see very deeply into our client organizations
because we often end up acting as sort of an embedded layer or
execution engine. So with some of them, we have
their internal e-mail addresses where on their internal Slack
(20:21):
channels we get a really good look under the hood.
And in the procurement side. It is shocking to me how many
folks will go out to request proposals from two or three
potential suppliers, whether it's services or whether it's
OEM manufacturers, which really blows my mind.
(20:45):
And I know we're in a unique position because we do have
those 63,000 vendor contacts because of solar Fight Night,
but we're also in a very it. It still really blows my mind
that folks will keep their procurement processes to that
limited of ecosystem, especiallyon commoditized goods, right?
(21:08):
That that really especially irksme and some clients certainly
have very good reasons to do that.
They're operating in a very specific model or what have you.
But on average we, for example, for modules we go for to over
160 biddies globally. We need to find who is, who
(21:30):
wants the project, who's most efficient, who has a hole in
their schedule, whatever it might be, who's the best fit for
that project at that time. And and it's never, it's rarely
the same. We certainly see some
manufacturers emerge as a preferred vendor supplier
repeatedly, but often that's move, that's a moving target,
(21:50):
especially with FIAC and other constraints now.
And so that is a huge, huge point.
The other goes back to our pointabout adoption tech, tech
forward adoption and deployment.I can say that we are aware of
hundreds of millions of dollars of just engineering expense,
(22:15):
just engineering expense being wasted because folks are working
with historic partners that they're comfortable with that
they haven't taken a leap to a more tech forward stance and
approach to getting their projects design engineered and
delivered. And what's really compelling and
interesting about it is not onlyare there hundreds of millions
(22:37):
of dollars being burned there, but the outcomes are also worse
because the software, AI and other tools are so good, right?
And so those historic providers that folks are comfortable with,
have relationships with and relationships are valuable,
don't get me wrong, but the relationship cannot be at the
expense of the project, right? Or your project costs and
(23:00):
outcomes will degrade. And so there's a tremendous
amount of pressure across the not just the industry, but
society at large to drive the cost of energy down.
Now we're seeing it drive political outcomes.
So we really do, we really have to get more efficient and the
tools are there and they're available for every company.
So I would, I would add a minimum if you're dealing with
(23:22):
incumbent players, for example, on the engineering side, force
them to ensure that they're adopting the most advanced
technologies to advance these projects faster at lower cost
and with better outcomes. So that's just the engineering
segment, but it applies universally to every workflow.
We use AI and software in every single workflow across the
(23:44):
entire organization. So I would say those are the two
primary buckets that we shake our heads at pretty regularly
internally. I'm curious about this because I
think that across the board, I've found different levels of
engagement on AI among differenttypes of companies.
And I think a lot of people are curious.
I think people are also scared and I think there's trust issues
(24:07):
that come up with it. So have you noticed that and how
do you deal with it? Like have you ever noticed with
a customer, if they say, oh, youknow, I prefer these, you know,
these, this firm that I've worked with that I know, how can
I trust your AI? Have you ever had that that
question come up? Oh, absolutely.
There are massive data, very, very real data security issues.
(24:28):
We have been told point blank bycustomer after customer that
they are straight up violating our ND as right, they're loading
our IP into tools that do not protect that IP, right.
And so that's just happening, it's happening literally every
day. And so the concerns are
absolutely valid. Everyone should be asking their
(24:50):
counterparties what is your AI policy?
If they care about their IP in any way, they should be asking
what the IP and the controls arearound AI utilization.
And so that's absolutely critical.
Cybersecurity just is a whole nother rapidly emerging segment
here. We're in a critical
infrastructure environment and so super important and we still
(25:11):
see AI primarily being a probabilistic tool.
It's taking roughly the median of the intelligence that it is
consuming and delivering you that sort of middle Rd.
When you are deploying billion dollar energy projects, you do
not want the middle of the road,right?
When you have very important outcomes, you don't want the
(25:32):
middle of the road. You want the absolute best
subject matter expert driven outcomes.
And so that's why although we are AI forward, we've been
adding a new subject matter expert to our team every couple
or few business days and we'll continue to do that.
We believe that the human in theloop is extraordinarily
critical, but we do believe, andwe have seen and we see this
(25:57):
every day, that the software andtools are accelerants and that's
where we use them to be more efficient, more operationally
efficient, to accelerate outcomes, to improve outcomes.
Replacing humans, we do not believe, is the path.
Why hasn't a model like yours existed before?
We certainly come from a unique situation.
(26:19):
We spun out of what I had rankedbefore I left as the largest
global solar developer. And that developer is executing,
for example, a single project site that is 30 gigawatts of
renewable capacity. So that's the equivalent of the
entire United States combined solar industry in one single
site. So that's the scale of what our
(26:41):
team has worked on. And with our team in India, even
if you rewind 5 or 6 years, the domestic industry there was just
really getting started. And so that expertise, the
quality and the leading minds that are there now across
education and real life experience have really emerged
(27:03):
only in the last 36 months or so.
At the same time that we're seeing amazing software tools
emerge, which frankly many folksin the United States don't
necessarily want to sit in a software tool all day every day
for 40 or 50 hours a week, right?
It's not their calling in life. They may want to build these
tools, they may want to do strategic work with the outcomes
(27:25):
of these tools. But there is so much value in
having the sub, the subject matter experts operating these
incredible software tools. And so we find that available
overseas. So we're certainly at this
intersection of emerging talent and emerging software that has
facilitated the commoditization of so many professional
(27:47):
services. Folks are concerned that
knowledge is going to be commoditized at some point in
the future. We commoditized electrical
systems engineering 2 1/2 years ago, fixed price, any capacity
globally for any system size. The only organization still on
earth that we know of that I could give you a price to do
(28:07):
that right now and stand behind it no matter where it was.
And so complete commoditization of extraordinarily complex
professional services only possible through the evolution
of the global renewable market and all of the phenomenal minds
now at working in the industry and the software tools and those
accelerants. So certainly a unique situation
(28:29):
and the fact that we took and spun out of that mega scale IPP
and we started providing all of that IPP platform with
bankability sort of first, second and third priorities as
an IPP must focus on to the market as a service.
So we're the only platform that I know of in the world also that
spun out of an IPP and started providing all of those internal
(28:52):
capabilities to the market as a service.
And so it's certainly a variety of unique scenarios that allowed
for us to exist. So you've talked about AI tech
forward, software forward. Do you have your own AI or using
some of the popular models that people might know like Chad or
Claude? Like how are you using AI?
(29:14):
Sure. I would say we probably are
using every available large LLM that there is on the planet
right now. We find each has unique
capabilities. We're also customizing agents to
an intense degree. So for example, we acquired
Richard Matsui, founder of kWh Analytics and I think he was
risk officer at Loans Guarantee program.
(29:35):
We acquired his AI tools to underwrite, assess on underwrite
data rooms for project M&A and just project risk analysis.
And those tools now contain over20 unique agents, each one
highly specialized to specific purposes and outcomes.
So we can assess data rooms in hours instead of a month.
(29:57):
And that's of course a major accelerant, but they're highly,
highly specialized. Those reports still go through
subject matter expert review, confirmation and improvement.
Nice. I want to talk about marketing
now. What is the toughest
communications or marketing challenge that you're facing?
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm going to divide this one
(30:19):
into Cir. and then the industry.OK.
At Cir., what Jiggershaw says isessentially you're better,
faster and cheaper than any incumbent in most cases.
And so the only gap you have in the marketplace is trust.
Many of our competitors, for example, in the engineering
(30:39):
segment have been around for 120years.
And so obviously there's a big gap there.
And of course, how do you address address this?
It's through storytelling, marketing communications,
explaining how and why you achieve the results that we
consistently achieve. And so that's really a need for
(31:01):
us. We've had a $0.00 external
marketing communication budget and yet we have grown to 225
clients with a single U.S. salesrepresentative and business
relationship developer. But it is actually important for
us to take storytelling more seriously in a in a pretty major
way. So that's for us.
(31:23):
We have major pain points there.The industry, of course, we are
getting our butts kicked wholesale, getting our butts
kicked by the volume of capital that is being poured into media
influencers and pushing stories that we know to be unholy,
untrue in many cases. And so this is existential for
(31:47):
us. And of course, what's what's
really frustrating is our story so much better, right?
Like you can leave your ICE engine car on in your garage and
it will kill you and your whole family.
So that's your story. Our story is whole, wholly
better than that. And yet we're still getting our
butts kicked. And this is a matter,
(32:08):
unfortunately, of capital and political influence and and
media influence right now. And it's really, it's really
disheartening, but the another way to put it is traditional
energy net income for publicly traded companies in the United
States was more than renewable energy publicly traded companies
top line revenue and our top line and our net income was
(32:31):
negative as an industry for publicly traded companies last
year. Variety of reasons for that
depreciation and other benefits,but that's still a wide, a very,
very wide gap that we need to overcome with creativity,
resourcefulness, right? And that's where folks like you
are so critical. Yeah.
Well, thank you. I think I noticed one common
(32:53):
commonality between the two things that you just talked
about, both for your communication challenge with
Cir. as well As for the industry.
And that is that people fear change.
And so it's really hard, you know, if people are set in their
ways, if they're used to a certain thing, change is really
scary. And so it takes time to build
that trust. And it's through repetitive,
(33:16):
consistent communications that you're, you're able to actually
breakthrough that because it, itdoes take time.
So I want to move on to the final sections of the interview,
learning and development. Is there any management trend
that you are following or that you're aware of you might be
trying out or or one that maybe you disagree with?
(33:39):
I'm going to be very boring on this one, Melissa.
I am still using the same management consulting technique
that my grandfather used in the 1960s.
So he was a management consultant, I think for some
time. He was the president of the US
Management Consulting Board. They give the CMC certification
(34:00):
and he used what's called the top down, bottom up approach to
structuring any organization anddelivering on any sort of
corporate objective. Now what is interesting about
this is that most folks, most companies use a top down
approach. This is executive driven, market
(34:22):
driven and pushed down through the ranks for execution.
This is what you usually see bottom up.
You are incorporating the thoughts, the feedback from the
trenches, from the folks who aredoing the work in the trenches,
and you're giving them a seat atthe table in finalizing the
processes that the organization uses to execute.
(34:44):
And they might say something that you disagree with or that
kind of that you have to struggle through.
So, but usually there's there's something there, right For what
that's worth looking at. Yeah, so right now today I am
reading two books, 1 is the obstacle is the way and the
other one is the hard thing about hard things.
So both of those, to your point,are about the value being
(35:08):
created in the conflict and the tension, right?
Specifically, not only don't avoid that, but run straight at
it because that's where the goodstuff is.
That's terrific advice. I love it.
I love it. OK, so then the last question is
what do you do at work or in your personal life to stay sane
(35:29):
in this crazy busy world? What brings you joy?
It's really work and family and there's not there's not time for
much else right now. I love what we do as an
industry. I call it the push pull, and
it's pretty darn addictive. There's the pull of the
economics and the generational wealth creation, opportunity,
(35:52):
opportunity. And then there's the push of
we're literally saving the worldand saving the planet.
And so that gets pretty addicting pretty fast to want to
have and to see impact in those ways.
Was there anything else that you'd like to add for our
listeners before we end this interview?
(36:12):
I do like to point out that as of the time you publish this, we
will have just announced on solarfightnight.org that we
have, we have launched cleantechfactcheck.org, which is
a database and repository of every lie that we have seen out
in the world where you can rapidly cut and paste responses
(36:35):
to all of this lies and misinformation that's
circulating. So encourage folks to do that.
I know especially right after the OBBBAI was spending way too
much of my time drafting responses in different social
media platforms. And so we wanted to facilitate
this. And we have also databased all
of the industry videos that are telling the true story of the
(36:58):
industry, the farmers that we have helped, right?
The Republican folks who put solar on their rooftop.
And they say this is the best investment I've made in my home.
I'd, you know, I don't know why this is political.
And so those videos are all database and warehouse for rapid
access so that we can combat andtell the story more efficiently
(37:18):
and effectively. We've also databased all the
media contacts that we were ableto find in the public
environment and sphere so that folks and storytellers can
connect. We think that it is absolutely
critical. And we've also databased all the
recruiters and job boards that we've been able to identify
because we feel that the industry is going through pain
and we really want folks to findgood homes in their next
(37:40):
journeys if they've been disrupted by this turmoil.
So cleantechfactcheck.org recommend folks check it out and
help support us if we can raise enough money this year at Solar
Fight Night. The next level of this is to
hire up a team of passionate folks, interns, marketing,
communication folks and have them go out into the world,
(38:02):
utilize this information and respond in line to all these
lies that are out there programmatically.
We need to build an anti troll farm, troll farm for our
industry, right, and get the much better stories that we have
out in line and in response to the lies that are being
perpetuated by ignorance, special interest, what have you.
(38:26):
So hopefully we have a great solar Fight Night this year.
Hopefully, we're going to break over 3000 attendees and we're
going to be able to fund some ofthis additional response to
what's happening in the industry, in the marketplace.
Wow, this is incredible. This sounds like an outstanding,
outstanding tool. Well, this has been fun.
Thank you so much for joining me.
(38:46):
I really enjoyed our conversation.
Thank you, Melissa. Keep up the great job telling
the story of the industry and all of us in it really
appreciate it. Thanks.
For joining us for another episode of Scaling Clean, the
podcast for clean economies, CEO's, investors, and the people
who advise them. I'm your host, Melissa Baldwin.
Our producer is Claire Quirin. If you like what you hear on
(39:08):
scale and clean episodes, we'd appreciate it if you'd give us a
five star rating and leave a comment where you get your
podcast. And until next time, we wish you
all the best in the clean economy transition.
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