Rethinking buildings as power plants is an essential part of reducing the emissions footprint of buildings. Despite the economic viability of deploying solar at a majority of commercial buildings in the U.S., less than 1% of commercial buildings have onsite solar deployments. The problem is particularly acute at non-owner occupied buildings due to the split incentive problem.
This is exactly the problem that King Energy is trying to solve. I found the company when I was seeking companies enabling a future where buildings act as distributed power plants. I was fortunate to learn that they were hiring on the finance team, and recently joined the firm to take a crack at solving the split incentive problem and accelerate the deployment of solar.
How I Approached the Decision
When considering my next career move, I knew that I wanted to work on a climate postive mission. In addition, I narrowed in on the intersection of early stage startups, fintech, and software as the best opportunity for growth while also adding value right from the start. King Energy fit perfectly within these search criteria.
Yes, King Energy manages solar development and the complexity of permitting and interconnection, tenant management, EPC, and procurement relationships. However, the company’s competitive advantage will be built on repeatable processes to 1/ underwrite and finance new projects at an attractive & viable cost of capital and 2/ systematically identify buildings with the highest ROI, acquire properties and tenants efficiently, and manage the complexity of billing at multi-tenant properties.
In addition, the long term opportunity here is to couple solar deployments with storage, EV chargers, other efficiency upgrades. In doing so, potentially developing enough capacity & density to operate virtual power plants that can participate in demand response and grid optimization.
What Got Me Excited
I loved everyone I met through the interview process. I feel energized and fortunate to have the chance to build King with John, Brian, Mike, and the rest of the team!
Deploying climate solutions will require tapping into capital sources along the funding continuum including project finance. Venture capital alone won’t get the job done. The project finance markets across most of solar are mature, but not so much in the rent-a-roof business model that King is pursuing. In my role at King, it’ll be fun to try to unlock project finance and leverage incentives in the IRA for multi-tenant commercial solar deployments. I’m excited to build expertise in renewable energy capital markets and in financing mechanisms that will be critical to deploying climate solutions for many decades to come.
I expect the path ahead for King to be really hard. There are more ways this could go wrong than it could go right. But, it’s a problem worth solving and I’m grateful to have the chance to take a stab at it. If you’re considering a career transition into climate and think I could be helpful, I’d love to chat!