SMP 156: How to develop Solar and Storage on Disturbed Land with AC Power?

Solar Maverick Podcast

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast, Benoy speaks with Annika Colston who is the President and Founder of AC Power. AC Power is an award winning NYC certified (“Women Business Enterprise”) WBE focused on converting low value land into revenue-generating solar energy sites. Annika speaks about many interesting topics like the complexities of developing on disturbed land, the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, and her suggestions to start a clean energy company.

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.

Annika Colston

Annika Colston founded AC Power to bring a unique vision to solar PV project development and management on landfill and brownfield sites. Annika has been developing alternative energy projects for nearly two decades and has experience across all aspects of project development. She has worked with all stakeholders needed to make alternative energy projects successful. These stakeholders include governments, local municipalities, Fortune 500 companies, landowners, utilities, and more. The breadth of her experience makes her capable of solving conflicts and bringing teams together to ensure success.

Annika has a unique ability to bring projects to operation on time and within budget. Ms. Colston has been a senior manager of four start-up companies that sourced private and public capital to drive investment in environmentally and socially beneficial projects. Annika has a long track record of successfully taking projects through the entire development process including origination, contract negotiations, due diligence, financing and investor approvals, permitting, structuring off-take agreements, equipment procurement, construction contracting, and operations.

Prior to AC Power, Annika was Vice President at PV Navigator where she originated and developed over 50 MW of solar projects on landfills and brownfields. From 2011 to 2014, Ms. Colston was President of C2i Methane where she developed and sold a portfolio of landfill gas to energy projects. Ms. Colston's work experience includes entities that were market leaders such as E+Co, which invested seed capital in sustainable development projects in Africa using innovative investment structures; EcoSecurities, a first of its kind company marketing Kyoto Protocol projects globally; and Blue Source, the largest carbon credit portfolio in the US.

Stay Connected:

Benoy Thanjan

Email: [e-mail]

LinkedIn: Benoy Thanjan

Website: https://www.reneuenergy.com

Annika Colston

Website: https://www.acpowerllc.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annika-colston-9681624/