Atlantic Power Corporation appointed James J. Moore, Jr. as CEO. Moore joins Atlantic Power from Diamond Castle Holdings, a $1.8 billion private equity firm, where he served as chairman of energy and power from 2008 to 2015. Moore has served as CEO of Catamount Energy Corporation and also served on the board of Comverge. Atlantic Power owns and operates 28 operational power generation projects in the U.S. and Canada.
JP Ross, the VP of strategic relationships at Sungevity since 2007, has joined Australia's Origin Energy as group manager of mass markets, according to his LinkedIn profile.
SolarCity's Erik Fogelberg was promoted from VP of commercial sales to senior VP of commercial sales and storage solutions.
Stephen Prince, formerly with Oracle, SAIC and Edison Enterprises in various C-level and VP roles, is now chief revenue officer at grid-scale energy storage developer Younicos.
Brian Matthay, formerly senior VP of environmental finance at Wells Fargo, is now managing director of strategic initiatives at Cypress Creek Renewables, a developer focused on utility-scale ground-mount projects from 2 megawatts to 10 megawatts in capacity.
Tom Weirich has been promoted to COO of the American Council on Renewable Energy.
The Solar Electric Power Association named Tanuj Deora as chief strategy officer and executive VP. Deora comes to SEPA from IHS, an energy research and consulting firm. Prior to IHS, Deora served under Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper as director of the Colorado Energy Office.
Utilidata appointed retired Navy Admiral and NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis to its board of directors. Stavridis is dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts and led the NATO alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013. Utilidata focuses on automated power conservation and management for utilities and industrial clients such as National Grid and American Electric Power.
EnergySavvy, a company focused on demand-side management enterprise software for utilities, named Michael Rigney as senior VP of client solutions, marketing, and regulatory affairs. From 2005 to 2010, Rigney held senior sales and marketing positions at EnerNOC. More recently, Rigney was VP of business development at Gridco Systems. Michael Albrecht joined EnergySavvy as VP of the client engagement team. Previously, Albrecht led national services teams for Microsoft. John Backus Mayes was hired as senior data scientist. Backus Mayes contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle during his time at CERN, and more recently developed algorithms for thermostat automation at EcoFactor.
Paige Carratturo, CEO of recruiting firm Enertech Search Partners, notes that in the midst of some smart grid consolidation (Silver Spring Networks acquiring Detectent, Accenture acquiring Structure, and Schneider Electric acquiring InStep) and an improved economy, the signing bonus is back. She writes, "Today, competition is high and companies are winning with cash." Her firm is seeing A and B Round companies and mid-stage startups offer signing bonuses anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 in order to remain competitive in a volatile market.
Jennifer Dunham was promoted to partner at Arsenal Venture Partners, where she leads the firm's Florida investment efforts. Ryan Waddington joined Arsenal Venture Partners as a partner. He previously was a co-founding partner of Michigan-based Huron River Ventures.
According to his LinkedIn profile, David Fernandez is officially finished with his tenure as president and COO of the micro-CSP solutions division at SunEdison (Sopogy). He's been VP of asset and risk management at SunEdison's YieldCo, TerraForm Power, since January of last year.
Onzo, a startup focused on energy data analytics, has named Spencer Rigler as CEO. Rigler was previously VP of energy management at Elster, a global provider of gas, electricity and water meters. As we've reported, "Hardware-centric energy management firms such as Tendril, EnergyHub and Onzo have had to make drastic pivots in product and channel strategy in order to stay in the hunt for the customer. Finding a profitable business plan that navigates utility spend cycles, regulatory shifts and energy customer behavior has proven challenging."
Smart Wires, a startup developing "power flow control" for the electric grid, named Tom Voss, former CEO of Ameren, as the new chairman of the board. Voss spent his entire career at Ameren, a regional utility. Smart Wires competes in a grid control sector with Gridco and Varentec and seeks to "address congestion and enhance the performance of...aging electric networks" with a device that mounts directly on transmission lines and allows an operator to "reroute the flow of power."