Mateo Jaramillo, VP of products and programs at Tesla Energy, is leaving the company, as confirmed by GTM. With Tesla since 2009, Jaramillo spoke at GTM's Energy Storage Summit earlier this month. Here are a few excerpts from the conversation.
"Maybe it's our perspective informed from the vehicle side, but as Carla Peterman, one of the commissioners here in the California [Public Utilities] Commission likes to say, electric vehicles are the gateway device for energy literacy. Everybody can tell you what the price of gas is for their conventional car -- and almost nobody can tell you what the marginal price of electricity is that they pay in their home. But, when they switch over to an electric vehicle, guess what? They know exactly what rate tariff they're on, they know exactly what their options are available to them, and they start to take on these other activities like energy efficiency and solar and other stuff. I think with that sort of mind shift, you do get people who want just an easy, reliable, integrated experience."
"The energy market dynamics will certainly shift. The network operators, however, are not going away anytime soon. The natural monopoly function, and that regulated natural monopoly function is also not going away."
"That's sort of the beauty of the 50 state laboratories that we have, different models pursuing different paths. Texas being an energy-only market, Germany looks a lot like Texas. It's probably the only way in which Germany looks a lot like Texas, [with] highly competitive retail markets, highly competitive generation markets, and then sort of established network operators. The state of Texas has done some good things to really incentivize renewables, and the output, and specifically transmission build-out. The result is that, of course, they have a lot of renewables, and now you're seeing merchant solar come for the first time in a major way in any U.S. market. I think that a lot of states are looking at Texas."
"The important thing to keep in mind is that energy storage will participate no matter what the structure of the market is. No matter what path on regulation is taken, you can come up with a solution that works for incorporating energy storage because it provides value to the market."
Prior to Tesla, Jaramillo was COO at Gaia Power Technologies. (The full transcript of the conversation with Jaramillo and Sonnen CMO Philipp Schröder, as well as the video archives of the Energy Storage Summit, are available to Squared members.)
John Woolard, VP at Google, has left the firm. Woolard, the former CEO of BrightSource Energy, joined Google as VP of energy in 2014. While at BrightSource, Woolard led the development, fundraising and construction of the $2.2 billion, 392-megawatt Ivanpah solar thermal power plant, a first-of-its-scale power tower project. Google was an investor. In April 2013, BrightSource pulled its IPO due to unfavorable market conditions.
We suspect we'll see both clean energy industry vets return to these pages in 2017.
Anne Smart was promoted to VP of public policy at EV charger firm ChargePoint. As Jeff St. John just reported, "After years of fighting over the details of Pacific Gas & Electric’s plan to bring up to 7,500 electric-vehicle chargers to Northern California, EV-charging providers and consumer and environmental groups are praising a new compromise plan that has just received approval from state regulators. On Thursday, the five-member California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved a decision directing PG&E to move ahead with what will be the country’s largest utility-led EV charging deployment."
“We believe that the commission accurately reflected our concerns on competition and customer choice,” said Smart, adding, "This really does create a national model that other utilities and states should look at." California currently leads the country in electric vehicle ownership, and Gov. Jerry Brown has set a goal to have 1.5 million EVs on the road by 2025.
Jed Dorsheimer, previously a lighting market analyst with Canaccord Genuity, is now VP of the commercial office vertical at Acuity Brands. Way back in 2009, Acuity bought Sensor Switch, a maker of motion-controlled and programmable sensors, for about $205 million. Acuity Brands also bought Lighting Control and Design, a maker of light-dimming devices, digital thermostats and related software. Adura Technologies, a startup in the networked lighting space, was acquired by Acuity Brands in 2013. Acuity also purchased eldoLED, a maker of LED driver electronics, in 2013, and acquired Distech Controls, a maker of energy management and building controls, for approximately $252 million, in 2015. Acuity now has about 15 brands under its roof, all involved in some aspect of the lighting ecosystem.
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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 Head of Data Analytics -- Distributed Energy
The client is one of the world’s leading integrated energy companies looking to expand the team for an internal startup. The parent company expects to invest about $1 billion into this early-stage business focused on distributed energy for large energy users. By combining traditional and renewable power, energy efficiency, demand response, generation, advisory services and big data and other digital assets, they help their customers capitalize on the new and more flexible energy landscape and move from consumers to prosumers and even grid service providers.
The client is seeking a Head of Data Analytics who will be responsible for setting the global strategy/vision and establishing data analytics capabilities. This individual will be a key member of the Technology & Product Development team and will have a significant role in building and maintaining world-class data analytics and business intelligence.
This is a rapidly growing team with tremendous leadership and fantastic technology solutions, backed by a global energy company.
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Yoky Matsuoka was hired by Apple to help run its health-tech business -- but, just six months after joining, she has left the firm, according to Bloomberg. Prior to Apple, Matsuoka was VP of technology at Nest.
David Crane of Pegasus Capital Advisors (and former CEO of NRG Energy) has joined the board of directors of Vote Solar, a national nonprofit solar advocacy organization. He joins Danny Kennedy, Kate Gordon, Kris Mayes, Sheridan Pauker and Sanjay Wagle on the board.
Justin Raade, formerly of defunct molten salt energy storage firm Halotechnics, is now VP of engineering at renewable process heat startup Sunvapor.
Amit Rosner is now the venture developer at innogy's Innovation Hub. Previously, he founded Yeloha and was an early employee at SolarEdge. With a $3.5 million investment led by Carmel Ventures, Yeloha was a peer-to-peer network that let people participate in solar, whether or not they owned their roof.
From the previous jobs column:
Steven Chan is the new CEO at inverter firm Sungrow North America. Chan has had executive stints at Suntech, Andalay Solar, NRG Residential Solar and GCL Solar Energy. In July of this year, Sungrow allied with Samsung SDI in a joint energy storage effort.
London-based Telensa, a maker of networked LED street lighting with smart city applications, named Will Franks as CEO. The firm provides connectivity and control for over a million streetlights worldwide, competing against firms such as Silver Spring Networks, Current/GE and Philips. In January 2016, the company raised $18 million in equity and debt from Environmental Technologies Fund and Silicon Valley Bank.
SolarCity has started the hiring process for its $900 million solar module factory in Buffalo, New York by holding "workforce information sessions" in advance of hiring 1,460 workers, 500 in manufacturing jobs starting at $12.50 an hour, according to reports by local TV news station WGRZ. But according to The Buffalo News, the hiring is happening "amid recent scandal that contractors working on the Tesla-SolarCity plant in Riverbend have not been paid by the state since September. This comes after New York state officials said payments have been held up because of extra scrutiny they are receiving in the wake of the corruption charges that have been filed over the process used to select the general contractor for the SolarCity project."