Episode Details

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast, Benoy speaks with John Langhus who is the Chief Commercial Officer of Photon Vault.  Photon Vault is a developer of revolutionary thermal energy storage technology for the utility-scale market.   John speaks about their early stage energy storage technology, how they will produce green power cheaper than most renewable energy technologies, and federal incentives for their unique technology.

Benoy Thanjan

Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and he is also an advisor for several solar startup companies.  He has extensive project origination, development, and financial experience in the renewable energy industry and in the environmental commodities market.  

This includes initial site evaluation, permitting, financing, sourcing equipment, and negotiating the long-term energy and environmental commodities off-take agreements. He manages due diligence processes on land, permitting, and utility interconnection and is in charge of financing
and structuring through Note to Proceed (“NTP”) to Commercial Operation Date (“COD”). Benoy composes teams suitable for all project development and construction tasks. He is also involved in project planning and pipeline financial modeling. He has been part of all sides of the
transaction and this allows him to provide unique perspectives and value. Benoy has extensive experience in financial engineering to make solar projects profitable.

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 was the Vice President at Vanguard Energy Partners which is a national solar installer where he focused on project finance solutions for commercial scale solar projects.  He also worked for Ridgewood Renewable Power, a private equity fund, where he analyzed potential investments in renewable energy projects and worked on maximizing the financial return of the projects in the portfolio.  Benoy also worked on the sale of all of the renewable energy projects in Ridgewood’s portfolio.  

He was in the Energy Structured Finance practice for Deloitte & Touche and in Financial Advisory Services practice at Ernst & Young.  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. He has a MBA in Finance from Rutgers University and a BS in Finance and Economics from the Stern School of Business at New York University.  Benoy was an Alumni Scholar at the Stern School of Business.  

John Langhus

Chief Commercial Officer of Photon Vault

John is an experienced solar developer, entrepreneur, attorney, and business leader.

Building a deep background in corporate and transactional law, he practiced initially with the preeminent New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, working from Melbourne, Australia on an array of industry-leading cross border securities and M&A transactions. Later he spent ten years with NYSE–listed Forest Oil Corporation, culminating in the role of Managing Director of Forest’s International Business Unit, based in Cape Town, South Africa. He completed over $4Bn of acquisitions and divestitures at Forest.

Since 2013, he has focused on a mix of legal and business roles in the solar energy industry, working as a developer, owner, and consultant on more than 250MW of solar energy projects (over $500M of deployed capital), primarily as General Counsel and VP of Business Development with New Energy Equity of Annapolis, MD a national leader in the development of Commercial and Industrial-scale solar energy projects.

John l