Last week, Sunrun named Bob Komin as its new CFO. Previously, Komin served as CFO of Flurry, a mobile application analytics and advertising firm acquired by Yahoo in 2014. Prior to joining Flurry, Komin held CFO roles at Ticketfly, Linden Lab, Solexel, Tellme Networks and XOR. According to The Wall Street Journal, residential solar installer Sunrun is going public later this year. Sunrun has collected $300 million from venture firms including Accel Partners, Foundation Capital, Madrone Capital Partners and Sequoia Capital, valuing the firm at $1.3 billion. The timing and pricing of the IPO have not been revealed. In February 2013, Sunrun acquired REC Solar's residential division (solar sales and installation), AEE Solar (distribution) and SnapNrack (mounting systems). That made Sunrun a vertically integrated solar installer with trucks, as well as a financier with a direct sales force like those of SolarCity and Vivint.
Asim Hussain was promoted to VP of marketing and customer experience at fuel cell manufacturer and energy provider Bloom Energy.
SolarCity, the leading PV installer/financier, promoted Shaun Chapman to VP of policy and electricity markets, and named Marco Krapels as senior VP of structured finance and strategy. Previously, Krapels was a partner at Pegasus Capital Advisors.
Jay Levin, formerly director of business development at Clean Energy Associates, is now VP of development at PSEG Solar Source. PSEG Solar Source develops, constructs, owns and operates solar facilities outside of PSE&G's service territory. The firm operates 10 projects totaling approximately 110 megawatts of solar PV.
Reporter Matthew Wald, most recently covering energy at The New York Times, has joined the Nuclear Energy Institute as senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning. Here's a link to some of Wald's writing at the NYT. Wald holds a certificate in auto mechanics from the Providence Vocational Technical Facility.
Smart Wires has named utility executive Bob Suehiro as its VP of customer support and installation. Suehiro is a 37-year veteran of Pacific Gas & Electric and was most recently director of electric transmission operations and projects. 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."
Solar Power Inc. (SPI), a PV project developer, named Yue Dong as CTO. Dong joins SPI from Lvmama.com, a large Chinese B2C online travel agency, where he served as CTO. SPI also operates an online energy e-commerce and investment platform, Solarbao.
Coda Energy announced the appointment of Paul Detering as the company’s first CEO following its move from electric-vehicle manufacturer to a battery-based energy storage provider. Before joining Coda, Detering served as CEO of REC Solar, Tioga Energy, Blueleaf Networks and Wildfire Communications. Detering founded Tioga Energy, a VC-funded commercial solar developer. Under his direction, Tioga Energy secured corporate funding from MEMC, NGEN Partners, Nth Power and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, in addition to project and tax equity capital from De Lage Landen Finance, PNC Bank, Wells Fargo Bank and U.S. Bancorp.
Array Technologies (ATI), a solar tracking systems leader, named Thomas Conroy as president. Before joining ATI, Conroy was CEO of Wind Tower Systems, a firm developing a new-technology utility-scale wind turbine tower product, which was later acquired by GE. ATI founder Ron Corio will remain as CEO. The company has shipped more than 2 gigawatts of its tracking products for utility, commercial and residential solar PV systems.