Episode Details

Episode Summary

Reneu Energy’s Benoy Thanjan and Suzanne Waters talk in detail about what landowners need to know about going solar. They discuss the reasons why a landowner should look into going solar for generating income through a utility scale or community solar project, a description of different incentives available, and logistically how they would go about doing it. 

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.

Suzanne Waters 

Suzanne Waters is an experienced solar professional with a broad knowledge of the industry, including project development administration, marketing best practices, financial strategy, and team leadership. Before joining Reneu Energy, Suzanne worked as the Business Development Manager and Proposal Team Leader at Vanguard Energy Partners, a national solar developer, and their affiliate firm, Vanguard Energy Capital. She oversaw proposal development and contract execution, and collaborated on structured finance for large scale, multimillion-dollar projects. In addition, Suzanne has extensive experience in many aspects of the PV industry, with unmatched enthusiasm for its capabilities and  a BA in Economics from Rutgers College at Rutgers University.

Insight from this episode:

• The many benefits of leasing your land for solar projects.
• Federal incentives for solar systems owner such as the investment tax credit.
• The effects of the investment tax credit and the current safe harboring trend on the availability of solar panels. 
• The difference in the residential vs. the commercial investment tax credit percentage drop-down. 
• Other federal incentives such as MACRS (“Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System”) 
• The impact of state level incentives.  
• Infrastructure and types of systems for solar farms.
• How landowners would go about qualifying their land and what makes a location ideal for utility scale solar projects
• The importance of accessibility and proximity to transmission infrastructure 

Quotes from the show:

“The system owners can recover their costs up front instead of over a 20-25 year period which is pretty much the life of the system. So, that’s something that definitely makes the projects more attractive to system owners.” Suzanne Waters, Episode #39  

“The cost of panels have decreased. The efficiency of the panels are going up. It makes the whole situation a win-win” Suzanne Waters, Episode #39  

“The federal incentives make up 50-60% of the cost of the project and that doesn’t include the sta