Interconnection: Renewable Energy USA
Welcome to Megawatt Recruitment’s monthly newsletter to keep you connected to what’s going on in the renewable energy industry in the United States and provide more insight, knowledge, and connection to the people and companies who drive our industry.
What People Are Talking About
- SouthCoast Wind agreed to pay a $60 million termination fee for its 1.2 GW offshore wind project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. This follows Commonwealth Wind’s successful termination in late August 2023.
- NY Offshore wind projects requested retroactive price increases in addition to interconnection costs adjustments and applying an inflation-adjustment mechanism.
- Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Goldwind proved it can install a 14.3MW offshore wind turbine in 30 hours, 40% faster than previously, by focusing on pre-assembly, modular design, and quicker tool disengagement.
- ESS Inc and Honeywell entered a partnership to advance development of an iron flow battery storage system with Honeywell investing $27.5 million into ESS common stock.
- Canada’s Northland Power completed FID for the 1.044GW Hai Long offshore wind project in Taiwan and is scheduled to go online in late 2026/early 2027; total project cost is around CAD $9 billion with $5B in non-recourse debt, $1B in pre-completion revenues, and the remaining from equity investment.
- TotalEnergies-owned Maxeon Solar signed an asset purchase agreement for California-based Complete Solaria’s subsidiary SolarCA LLC, allowing Maxeon to consolidate two major shingled-call IP portfolios.
- Insurer losses for underwater cables so high that insuring them is becoming prohibitive, another blow to the offshore wind industry at a time of skyrocketing costs
Recent Personnel Moves and Promotions
- Arevon Energy Inc hired Kevin Smith as CEO, formerly CEO of the Americas for Lightsource BP. He replaces John Breckenridge who retired after a successful 30+ year career in private equity investing and renewables.
- CEO of BP, Bernard Looney, resigned from BP following allegations that he did not disclose personal relationships with colleagues before becoming CEO. CFO, Murray Auchincloss, was appointed interim CEO while Kate Thomson was appointed interim CFO.
- Scott Wharton was appointed CEO of Tandem PV, a start-up that uses metal-halide perovskite/silicon tandems to upgrade silicon solar panels, previously at Logitech in California.
- Gwenaelle Avice-Huet was promoted from Chief Strategy & Sustainability Officer in Boston with Schneider Electric to EVP of Europe Operations, based in France.
- Joining Vineyard Wind as Senior Director of Grid Policy is Carrie Cullen Hitt, formerly Lead Transmission Strategy and Innovation Hub for Equinor.
- Taking on a new role on the Board of Directors of Maxeon Solar in Singapore is David H. Li who was recently President and CEO of Chicago-area HQ’ed CMC Materials, a semiconductor and energy materials supplier, that was acquired by Massachusetts-based Entegris in 2021.
- Maria Henry joined NextEra Energy’s Board of Directors. She most recently served as Kimberly-Clark Corporation’s Chief Financial Officer until April 2022 and EVP and Senior Advisor until her retirement in September 2022.
- Andy Geissbuehler left Atlantic Power Transmission, a Blackstone Infrastructure Partners portfolio company focused on developing transmission for offshore wind, to join WindGrid USA, owned by Belgian Elia Group, as Chief Executive Officer.
- Brookfield Renewable welcomed Lluis Noguera as Global Head of Development, a role he will fill concurrently with his current position of CEO of X-Elio, a Spanish developer of solar projects, with more than 2GW build or under construction, that was sold from KKR to Brookfield earlier this year.
- Arun Narayana joined RES as Chief Digital Officer from Anglo American where he was Chief Data Officer in Houston, Texas.
- Equinor hired a new VP of Operations for Equinor Renewables America, Sam Bryne, who previously worked for Vestas as VP of Operations for Vestas Wind Systems in Asia Pacific.
- Lightsource BP’s global Director of Construction, Apostolos Kotsaris, joined Belgium-based Aukera Energy, a renewable energy investor and developer, as Chief Technical Officer.
- From General Manager of Renewables for the USA with Mammoet, a heavy lifting and transportation provider servicing energy, infrastructure, mining, and shipyards, Brett Lovick joins United Renewables, a crane and lifting company dedicated to the renewable energy industry, as Vice President of Operations outside Houston, TX.
What the market is talking about: RE+ in Las Vegas
September saw 40,000+ renewable energy professionals attend RE+ in Las Vegas. As a first time attendee myself, the whole production was mind-blowing. And as the image above shows, I was not the only person itching to put my head down for a few minutes by the time Day 4 rolled around!
In the weeks leading up, the convention organizers and sponsors sent many enticing emails encouraging me to do things like visit the Grid Edge Theatre for a live microgrid demonstration and attend RE+ Tonight hosted by Kal Penn, the actor and activist most well-known for his role in Harold & Kumar go to White Castle and as Taj Mahal Badalandabad in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, but whose influence extended into the White House when he worked as President Obama’s Associate Director for Public Engagement where he worked to promote market-driven climate solutions.
I thoroughly enjoyed everything the event had to offer from the networking sessions to affinity groups to watching students race their hydrogen powered, remote controlled cars around a racetrack. It was surprisingly how many people attended the conference from abroad and I enjoyed reconnecting with people I knew from my time living in Singapore who had flown in from South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and Thailand. It was also great to meet and network with new people.
See you next year at RE+ in Anaheim, CA! And in the meantime, look for me at other upcoming events such as ACP in Boston and Offshore Wind Drinks in NYC.
Talent Acquisition Insights: The market is strong
Coming out of RE+, I remain convinced that the hiring market is strong. While there may not be as much chomping at the bit as last year when the IRA was first announced, there is still a lot of optimism in the market. The fact that RE+ has many exhibitors from OEMs across solar panels, inverters, racking systems, cabling, and ESS may have skewed the proportion of jobs we are seeing from sales, marketing, and business development, however, it shows that there is strong confidence that developers will figure out how to maximize tax incentives and credits to build projects and that OEMs are bulking up their teams to meet the demand.
Hot jobs!
- Business Development Manager, Solar Testing & Certification, California
- Director of Finance, Solar Developer, Non-profit, California
- Senior Electrical Engineer, Wind and Solar, Remote
- Partner/Junior Partner, Law Firm focused on Renewables and Cleantech, Remote
- Manager or Associate, Utility-Scale Solar Project Development, Remote, Texas
- Senior Analyst/Analyst for Project Finance, Utility-Scale Solar Developer – MD, CA, or South Korea
- Senior Engineer for E&C – Utility-Scale Solar & Wind Developer – South Korea
View our posts and Apply Now!
Thank you for joining us for another issue of Interconnection: Renewable Energy USA. We hope you enjoyed it and we look forward to keeping in touch and exchanging ideas, insights, and opinions. If you are a company considering hiring, we welcome the opportunity to present our services and capabilities. If you are a candidate, please check our jobs page or reach out to us to discuss your background, skills, and future aspirations.