Episode Details

Episode Summary

Lauren and Benoy share knowledge on topics from how the industry has seen new trends take effect because of the increase and decrease in tariffs, how the solar market continues to grow and create openings for niche companies, and how to approach not just becoming an entrepreneur but also being a female entrepreneur in a male dominated industry.

About our Guest:

Benoy Thanjan

Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and he is also an advisor for several solar startup companies. Reneu Energy is a premier international solar energy consulting firm and developer and the company focuses on developing commercial and industrial solar and utility scale solar plus storage projects. The company also sources financing for solar projects and hedges energy and environmental commodities. Reneu Energy has brokered $27 million in environmental commodities transactions.

Benoy received his first experience in Finance as an intern at D.E. Shaw & Co., which is a global investment firm with 37 billion dollars in investment capital. Before founding Reneu Energy, he was the SREC Trader in the Project Finance Group for SolarCity which merged with Tesla in 2016. He originated SREC trades with buyers and co-developed their SREC monetization and hedging strategy with the senior management of SolarCity to move into the east coast markets. Benoy also worked at Vanguard Energy Partners, Ridgewood Renewable Power, and Deloitte & Touche.

Lauren Carson

Lauren Carson, with over 8 years of experience in the solar industry, is the CEO of Kinect Solar, the leader of liquidation and wholesale business for electrical components and power generation equipment, transformers, electrical cable, and generators. They work with local installers and manufacturers to move excess inventory to their customers that span the globe from local installers in Austin to farmers in Belize and hotels in Fiji.

Insight from this episode:

• How the business market is affected by tariffs.
• How businesses can be impacted by local, state and federal policy.
• How supply and demand can affect the import market, pricing and drive new trends.
• Why tariffs affect where businesses start to pop up or move to.
• How to approach being a female entrepreneur in a male dominated industry.
• Strategies for finding a niche in the market.
• Reasons to start small and slowly scale as an entrepreneur.

Quotes from the show:

• “Our mantra is ‘We solve inventory problems’” Lauren Carson, Episode #22.
• “The solar panel market really is a commodity so supply demand dynamic impacts by local, state and federal policy are very very apparent.” Lauren Carson, Episode #22.
• “I’m seeing as well in the development cycle, everyone is adjusting their engineering to take advantage of these more efficient panels to get higher production from their solar systems to get a higher return.” Benoy Thanjan, Episode #22.
• “There’s been a massive jump in efficiency, I think there’s still a lot of people sitting on the older wattage panels and I think we’re going to continue to see those prices go down for the more legacy wattage panels.” Lauren Carson, Episode #22.
• “It’s extremely stressful at times; there are financial stresses and there are personnel stresses but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I think my favorite thing about having my own company is getting choose the people I work with.” Lauren Carson, Episode #22.
• Tips for entrepreneurs: “Staying scrappy and focusing on