RGS Energy, a provider of solar installation and financing for homes and businesses, has named Dennis Lacey as CEO, succeeding Kam Mofid, who has left "to pursue other interests." Mofid had been CEO since July 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to joining RGS Energy in April as president of RGS Energy's Residential Solar Division, Lacey held a number of senior executive positions including CFO and EVP at Imperial Bancorp, a $6 billion publicly traded commercial bank acquired by Comerica.
Primus Power, a firm developing grid-scale energy storage utilizing flow battery technology, named Richard Brody as VP of business development and sales. Brody joins Primus from a business development position at SustainX, an isothermal compressed air energy storage startup. Prior to that, he was VP of business development and strategic marketing at battery maker PowerGenix. He also spent nearly a decade at UTC, serving as president of international operations in Moscow, then as VP of international business development at UTC Power.
Proterra, a maker of all-electric municipal buses, added Matt Horton as VP of sales. Horton comes to Proterra after five years as CEO at alternative fuels retailer Propel Fuels. Proterra CEO Ryan Popple, like Horton, is also an operations professional and former VC. In June, the company raised $30 million in fourth-round funding co-led by KPCB and GM Ventures. The firm has raised a total of more than $180 million in VC funding from investors including Hennessey Capital, NMT Capital, Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, 88 Green Ventures, Vision Ridge Partners, Edison Energy and Constellation Technology Ventures, the VC arm of Exelon. Because buses drive fixed routes at moderate speeds and most bus routes are less than 30 miles long, they're an ideal application for electric vehicles. The relatively predictable short distances traveled allows Proterra to minimize the size of the battery pack, so the vehicles use battery packs in the 54-kilowatt-hour to 72-kilowatt-hour range. As a point of reference, the Tesla Model S has an 85 kilowatt-hour pack.
A123 Systems LLC, a designer and builder of lithium-ion batteries and systems, named Patrick Hurley as CTO. Hurley has had technology leadership roles at Air Products and Chemicals and most recently Johnson Controls, where he was executive director of global core engineering in the Power Solutions division.
We reported on algae farmer Heliae last year when the startup raised $80 million from two $20 billion food conglomerates, the Mars family and the Salim Group. At the time, Dan Simon, the CEO of Heliae, told GTM that the algae industry is now in its second generation. I was here for Algae 1.0, and I must say, it wasn't pretty. According to the website Biofuels Digest, CFO Craig Johnson is now the interim CEO of the company, while CEO Dan Simon has moved into an advisory role. COO Adrian Galvez stepped down "to focus on other professional opportunities" earlier this month.
Interactive energy platform designer Innovari added Brent Hodges as senior VP of strategy and markets. Hodges was previously with energy management firm Tendril, where he served as GM of its Australia and Asia-Pacific territory before taking over as SVP of the company’s retail business. Prior to his time at Tendril, he was the director of smart energy strategy and development at Reliant Energy. Innovari claims that its "solution attacks the electric grid's core problem -- the load duration curve -- unlocking access to affordable capacity that improves system utilization, reliability, and financial performance."
Last week, Dana Hull of the San Jose Mercury News reported that Steve Case, former chairman and CEO of AOL, has been added to fuel cell powerhouse Bloom Energy's board of directors, joining VC John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor; and Scott Sandell, a partner at VC firm, NEA. According to Hull's reporting, "It was Powell who first reached out to Case about joining the Bloom board." Case is now chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, an investment firm with stakes in Zipcar and LivingSocial. Bloom's most recent funding source is Exelon, the Chicago-based competitive energy provider, which will seek to finance 21 megawatts of Bloom's fuel cell deployments.
SolarCity continues to draw employees from Vivint Solar. The latest to make the move is Thomas Jones, formerly director of operations at Vivint Solar, who is now director of business intelligence at SolarCity.