Toby Corey has rejoined SolarCity as president of global sales and customer experience. Corey was head of SolarCity's sales and marketing organizations in 2012 and 2013. Prior to his tenure at SolarCity, Corey co-founded USWeb/CKS, a large web development firm. Corey takes over for retiring Chief Revenue Officer Hayes Barnard. Earlier this month SolarCity relaunched its residential PV loan with a simpler, shorter-term structure.
Rick Winter, the COO of flow battery firm UniEnergy Technologies (UET), has assumed the role of president as well. Previously, Winter managed Pacific Gas & Electric’s energy storage program and held executive positions at Primus Power, Deeya Energy (now Imergy) and PowerCell (now Vionx). UET claims to have 80 megawatt-hours' worth of energy storage systems deployed, ordered and awarded.
In other flow battery news:
- Rongke Power will supply its vanadium flow batteries for a proposed 200-megawatt/800-megawatt-hour energy storage station that will provide peak-shaving for China's Dalian peninsula. If built, it will be one of the world’s largest energy storage deployments. Rongke supplies cell stacks and capital to UET.
- In November 2009, Primus Power was selected by the U.S. DOE to receive a $14 million award as part of a $47 million project to commercialize a 25-megawatt, 75-megawatt-hour energy storage system for the Modesto Irrigation District. Primus also received $2 million from the ARPA-E and $1 million from the CEC for the program. The system was intended to defer the potential installation of a $78 million, 50-megawatt fossil fuel plant. According to a May update in the DOE energy storage database: "Project was never built and will not be built."
- RedT Energy delivered two of its 5-kilowatt/40-kilowatt-hour vanadium redox flow battery systems to a renewable energy developer’s site in Johannesburg, South Africa, to be connected to a 20-kilowatt solar array at a residential development to time-shift excess PV and provide backup power.
- GTM Squared published a flow battery industry survey late last year.
TenKsolar named Jeffrey Hohn as CEO. Hohn previously served as VP and GM of 3M's renewable energy division. He succeeds co-founder Joel Cannon who will serve as tenK's CSO. TenK offers high-efficiency photovoltaic systems for commercial rooftops, carports and ground-mount projects. Investors include Goldman Sachs, Oaktree Capital Management and Greencoat Capital.
Sunverge Energy named Clinton Davis as its senior VP of product and program management. Davis joins Sunverge from ABB, where he was most recently VP of generation and renewable industry solutions. New York utility Con Ed, SunPower and Sunverge just formally announced a $15 million virtual power plant pilot, part of New York's Reforming the Energy Vision effort, which will outfit about 300 homes in Brooklyn and Queens with leased high-efficiency SunPower solar panels and Sunverge's lithium-ion battery energy storage systems.
Lori Sinsley is now head of corporate communications at Stem. Sinsley was previously principal consultant at All Things Green PR. Stem, one of the leaders in the emerging behind-the-meter energy storage business, is still looking to address some irregularities that occurred during a recent big-money offering of renewable energy subsidies in California. As we reported, Stem and one other firm were able to secure the first 56 applications in the Self-Generation Incentive Program solicitation and monopolized the online submission process for the first two or three minutes of the live opening.
United Wind, a provider of distributed wind energy, hired Joseph Yurcisin as its VP of business development. The Brooklyn-based wind developer offers a lease program for end users to generate on-site power from distributed-scale behind-the-meter wind turbines. Yurcisin previously served as senior VP of sales for NRG Home Solar. United Wind also hired Philip Futernik as CTO. He was most recently senior software engineer with Harris Corporation.
Ricardo Graf is now VP of project development at GCL New Energy. He was previously regional director of development at SunEdison.
Tendril named former RWE executive Ivor Kusters as VP of European sales.
***
Enertech Search Partners, an executive search firm with a dedicated cleantech practice, is the sponsor of the GTM jobs column.
Among its many active searches, Enertech is looking for a VP of utility sales:
The client designs innovative programs for electric utilities that let consumers turn smart thermostats, water heaters and other products into virtual power plants. They are the leader in managing connected devices for the energy industry.
This client is seeking a VP of Utility Sales who is a player/coach to build on their track record and extend their lead in next-generation IOT markets. Looking for 10+ years selling enterprise software into big companies or selling any technology into the energy industry.
***
Ahmad Chatila, still CEO of bankrupt renewable energy developer SunEdison, has resigned from the boards of the company's two YieldCo spinoffs, TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global. The developer's restructuring advisor, Rothschild, "has set a deadline of June 20 for indicative non-binding bids for seven of the bankrupt renewable energy company's business units," according to SparkSpread.
ComEd’s senior VP of strategy and administration, Kevin Brookins, was elected to serve as first vice chairman of the board of directors of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, an association that "focuses on ensuring that African Americans and other minorities have input into the discussions and development of energy policy, regulations and environmental issues."
From last week's column:
Nest just announced that Tony Fadell, its CEO and co-founder, is leaving the company.
The smart thermostat maker achieved some early success and was purchased by Google for $3.2 billion in early 2014. According to a number of reports, Fadell's management style caused some friction at Google and with the management of Dropcam, a home video camera firm acquired by Nest for $555 million in 2014.
According to The New York Times, Fadell said, “I’m a guy who’s at the beginning of things. I don’t like to do maintenance mode. It’s not what gets me out of bed.”
The Information, which broke the news, suggests, "Tony Fadell’s abrupt departure as CEO of Nest offers Alphabet an opportunity to reboot the troubled connected-home unit, hopefully salvaging something from the $3.2 billion purchase two years ago. One question is whether Alphabet will take that opportunity or instead cut its losses and sell."
Homes consume approximately 20 percent of all the energy in the U.S., and a good portion of that power is consumed inefficiently. But home energy management is a tricky market. Microsoft killed off its home energy management product, Hohm, because of less-than-overwhelming response. Google killed its version of same, the Powermeter. Tendril, a startup going after this market, had its own near-death experience.
Marwan Fawaz is joining Nest as CEO. Fawaz was previously executive VP of Motorola Mobility and CEO of Motorola Home.
Also: Meet the queen of sh*tty robots.