3 Women-Founded Climate Tech Companies Driving Energy Equity Through Partnerships w/Fortune 500s

3 Women-Founded Climate Tech Companies Driving Energy Equity Through Partnerships w/Fortune 500s

Looking for some inspiration? In this episode, Catherine McLean spoke with leaders of 3 women-founded climate tech companies that are driving energy equity through partnerships with local communities, & organizations like Microsoft, T Mobile & Okta. Hear how: Dana Clare Redden at Solar Stewards is integrating renewable energy credits into underserved communities; Laura Zapata at Clearloop is transforming renewable energy landscapes in areas like rural Tennessee, making solar projects an engine for economic growth; & Sean Kenney at Emrgy is bringing distributed hydropower to water systems. All 3 companies are part of ACORE’s Accelerate Program, which provides a robust community & resources to enable clean energy innovators to thrive.

Transcript

Catherine: Hi, I’m Catherine McLean, Founder and CEO of Dylan Green. And today I have with me the ACORE Accelerant founders. These are just a handful of ACORE Accelerant founders who’ve gone through the program that we want to highlight. The first person we’ll mention is Dana Clare Redden, who is the founder of Solar Stewards, followed by Laura Zapata, who’s the founder and CEO at Clearloop, and then Sean Kenney, who’s director of strategic growth at Emrgy, and then last but certainly not least, Constance Thompson, who is the SVP of equity and justice at ACORE, who’s made all this possible. Thank you for joining me today. So we can start in that same order if you like. I’ve invited you all here today because you’re successful founders of renewable energy companies and are part of ACORE’s Accelerant membership program.
Dana, can you start off, please, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company?

Dana: I’d love to, and thank you, Catherine, for having us, and thank you, ACORE Accelerant program, for another opportunity to share about our firm. Thank you, Constance, for leading the program, and I heard about the BOSS community meeting the next year, five-year anniversary. I hope we can do something fun there. Solar Stewards is one of the first member companies of the Accelerate program. I believe we graduated in 2022. It’s all been a little bit of a blur. We’re a social enterprise based in Atlanta, Georgia. We connect corporate renewable procurement with opportunities in historically excluded communities for our product, social recs, our platform, the Solar Stewards marketplace. In the marketplace, corporates who are looking to buy renewable energy can buy that energy directly from these community-serving projects, and then 100 percent of that revenue then gets transferred to the project and the community through a community benefit agreement. So we’re just excited to facilitate more equity in renewable energy markets and spur more projects, particularly distributed generation in communities that have been historically left behind.

Catherien: Thank you. Laura?

Laura: It’s so good to be here, and it’s always such a nice time to be able to see everybody. Dana and I go way back to before ACORE, and we just happened to find ourselves also as founding members of ACORE Accelerate, and so happy to see all the growth and progress. I can’t believe it’s been five years. Really, really proud to be part of this because there’s a lot of conversations around renewables that have happened over the past five, six years, but it really has evolved, and now there’s some real action happening, and it’s particularly around equity. I think Dana and I found ourselves in a lot of panels where we were relegated to the sidelines a bit to talk about equity, and people were like, what in the world is equity? I remember Dana had to show a little picture to explain what equity was about, and now it’s just mainstream parlance. But Clearloop, our focus is really to help decarbonize the grid. That is really the explicit focus, is how do we decarbonize the grid in a way that expands equitable access to clean energy by focusing our efforts in bringing solar projects to life in communities that are otherwise getting left behind, that are very fossil fuel heavy, and using the climate dollars of organizations of all sizes to help fund those projects so that we can really focus on efforts on accelerating decarbonization, expanding access to clean energy, and really having a true net zero future for everybody to enjoy, because if we don’t have equity, we don’t have a net zero future. So I’m really, really thrilled to be having this conversation with you all today.

Catherine: And where are you based, Laura?

Laura: We’re based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Catherine: Nashville, Tennessee. This is quite the southeast, because Sean, you’re Atlanta, right? But this is like the southeast. I was going to say it’s more team Atlanta versus team Nashville here.

Catherine: Yeah, I’m in D.C., so we’re a team against everybody, I think. No, I’m joking, I’m joking. So Sean, please tell us a little bit about yourself and Emrgy.

Sean: Yeah, no, it’s great to be here, and I’m standing in for our founder and CEO, Emily Morris, who’s out sick today, but glad to be here. Emrgy was part of our cohort in 2022 and graduated this year, sadly, but we’re very much still involved with ACORE and all that they do. But Emrgy, in its essence, is a tech provider and the project developer in the renewable energy space.
Our kind of unique segment is water infrastructure, and so water infrastructure and its kind of non-traditional hydro sense being like reservoirs and canals that service a lot of our domestic water needs in this country. Previously, the thousands of miles in this kind of real estate segment has been used for other purposes, not power generation. And so we see that this is actually a new kind of developing asset class for renewable energy project development, whether it be through the kind of the tech that we provide, which is a kind of novel turbine, does well with hybrid systems with solar and battery. And what we really like is these canals and this water infrastructure tends to be in communities that are more rural. They service agricultural communities, they service farmland and farmers who tend to be kind of the population that may be underrepresented and in the highest need of probably power resilience and are honestly pretty price sensitive when on the consumer side. And so that’s a nice pairing of stakeholders for where the resources for what the tech that we do and to where the kind of end consumer and customer is looking for value.

Thank you for that. Constance, do you want to share some words?

Constance: I wanted to kind of set the stage here both for our members. These are all alumni members of the program that are all companies owned by women and clean energy.
And the impact that women are making in this space is transformational. It’s been accelerated. And part of today’s discussion, I’d like to be just that. So please brag, please brag about what you’ve done and what you’ve done to transform because it’s just been amazing how women companies are leading that and just incredibly proud of the work they’re doing. So I just wanted to make sure that we kind of centered on the fact that these are all women-owned companies making transformational impacts which are unprecedented in this space. So I’d like to focus on that today.

Catherine: So what are key problems in the energy sector that you all are aiming to solve and how do you feel like you’re uniquely positioned to do so? Dana, do you want to start?

Dana: So what problems are solar stewards looking to solve in this now massive climate economy? It’s multifaceted, I will say. And I think we know, as Laura was saying, that journey of learning the intersectionalities of all of these issues over, since before the racial reckoning, but certainly since then. One of which is just the industry itself and the practitioners that are able to participate in this industry. And so with an incentive, like a social rec, we’re able to call attention to those intentional projects that have diverse teams. And I think we know at this point that those teams are very valuable. They outperform other teams. And just demonstrating that to the industry and the marketplace, that those teams have an additional value and being able to bring that revenue in to showcase that value from a buyer’s perspective.
Also, the distributed energy resources, we know that those are going to be a very critical part of our grid mix in the future. We also know, speaking of the Southeast, we also know certain regions of the country, it’s a little more difficult to get those projects done. But they are imperative to an equitable grid future and equitable climate future, not to mention the value that distributed energy resources bring to grid services resiliency, which is a direct correlation to disaster response and health. And then of course, an ownership proposition when you can have those power generating assets located on your church or on your community center. And so through social recs, we’re able to incentivize those projects where there’s maybe not a recent incentive or excuse me, a local incentive or a renewable portfolio standard in that particular area. So I could go on, but those are just our priority.

Catherine: Thank you. Laura?

Laura: Yeah, I think if you think about where we are in time, we’re transforming the way that we make electricity, all of us turn on the lights, and we expect them to turn on, we power our phones and turn on all of our devices. And we just expect it all to happen. And we don’t really think about, well, maybe now, the ones of us sitting here are thinking about it a little bit. But you don’t really think about most people don’t think about where that electricity is coming from. And what we’re experiencing in this country is a total transformation of how we make electricity. And so whether it’s more renewable energy sources or different types, like Sean was talking about his business, or distributed and locally sourced and created versus a giant transmission, big utility scale projects we’re really changing the way that we make electricity. And that means that we’re transforming our economy.
And so I think there’s a massive opportunity for all kinds of entrepreneurs to really dig in here and try to figure out what is our stake, and how do we bring our creative juices and our ideas into the mix. And so for us, what I did not come from a science or engineering background, it really came at this from a communications background. And I think, when we talk about climate, when we talk about the kind of climate economy and the growing climate industry, like the way you phrased it Dana, one of the things that I think sometimes is missing is like, how do we make sure that we have more people that are participating in getting access to the kinds of investments that we’re seeing, because these are big infrastructure investments that are happening.
And so for us, the way that Clearloop has positioned itself is basically focusing on three key areas, we look at how sunny a place is, so look at irradiance. That’s we’re using solar as our primary source of how we want to decarbonize and generate energy. We look at emissionality or the local, the local marginal emissions, how carbon intense is a grid in a particular place, because we’re making electricity from different things across different parts of the country, some are more fossil fuel intense than others. And then three, we look at the distressed community index, and it’s just a way to basically look at what are other socioeconomic factors.
And to Dana’s earlier point about intersectionality, we’re not surprised to see that fossil fuel dependent communities are also those that have been underserved and under resourced for generations and have persistent poverty, and often are communities of color. And then, but they’re not lacking in the resource that we need to make that electricity, which is sun. And, and so when you look at those factors, the southeast middle part of the country is really where we see that that is true, right, where these factors all you know, irradiance is high, we get lots of sun, where we have still a lot of fossil fuel dependence and carbon intensity of the grid, when we turn on the lights, we have a different impact on our communities in places like the middle of the country, like here in Tennessee versus California, in three, the distressed community index.
So I think we really try to position ourselves as like, how do we get really smart about the using data to to focus our efforts and investments in infrastructure in a way that brings more people to the table, whether that’s more communities to the table, and also more corporates and other organizations that are looking to invest their climate dollars in something meaningful, and we’re giving them something, something meaningful, by deploying more solar in these communities.

Catherine: Thank you for that, Sean.

Sean: Yeah, so some of the key problems, I guess, in the sector that that we see is there’s, there’s this kind of like hub and spoke model that’s kind of been around for a while.
And that has a certain level of like, a fragile system, a part of the electrical supply. And so now we’re seeing kind of an emergence of distributed energy resources that are rightfully bringing power closer to the end consumer. But the pain point within that is utility scale projects have a much easier time of spreading some of the fixed costs of like interconnection, and just general utility acceptance, and other fees, a part of the kind of commercial development that distributed generation is burdened by.
And so what we’re trying to do, and what we’re driven to do is to kind of recognize that provide a solution in the hydropower segment that is a bit more continuous, and that continuous nature of that water resource can give nice base load power, can drive kind of your LCOE down, so that some of these price pressures are less impactful. And so, we’re trying to solve it through kind of a new view on conventional hydropower in a more modular way. So, the turbines that we’ve made are kind of these small five to 20 kilowatt turbines, that’s, you don’t just use once, you use it in an array of 20 to 50 of these that can be distributed, but also tend to be a bit smaller, but you can move a bit faster.
And so, I think some of the challenges we are excited about solving is that we’re seeing this fast clip of power demand happening, but a slow to respond utility scale deployment because of what’s going on the utility regulation side. And so a quick way to cover that gap on the demand is through a distributed way where they may not have as many kind of interconnection queues, smaller project sizes, smaller cap backs, more distributed to quickly kind of meet some of those market needs.

Catherine: Constance, can you explain what ACORE’s Accelerant Membership Program is and how it supports Cleantech founders?

Constance: So, because I get so excited about the work you all are engaged in, I want to pitch back to Dana, Laura, and Sean to talk about some of the projects and the impact of the projects that you had, because I think it’s a perfect complement to what each of you just shared. And you guys are working on some pretty innovative things I’d like to share. I’d like to have the audience here, and then I’ll answer the question about what is ACORE Accelerant.

Dana: Yeah, absolutely. Solar Storage is really exciting. Several projects that we’ve been working on for years, and we all know in this industry, these projects do have quite a bit of a timeline. And so, two of the ones that I’m excited to talk about today, one of which is in Indiana.
There’s three school districts that have had solar, and now they’re leveraging the solar that they’ve done with PSG Energy Group to fund more curriculum activities. So, these three schools, they’re going to be, one of them, we just got their community benefit agreements, is going to use some of the revenue to pay for a full-time school nurse. Critical. I mean, everybody has a, remembers getting sick in school and wondering, uh-oh what’s going to happen? Who’s picking me up? And so, that’s exciting. One is going to use the Social Rec funds for extra robotics activities. I believe it’s an after-school program. I remember loving those, just any type of Lego or hermit crab that I used to play hands-on in school. So, that’s exciting. And then more STEM activities, and the off-taker there is T-Mobile, very excited for their leadership. You know, their brand is all about inclusiveness and serving various telecom populations. And so, this is just an extension of their overall corporate responsibility, engaging as a member in the Solar Stewards Marketplace.
The second one I would love to highlight is with the City of Salt Lake in Utah. What a great community. They have solar on their Sorenson Multicultural Center, who gave me such a warm welcome earlier this year when I got to visit. Smelling the pool, seeing the kids running around. I got a little misty-eyed, took me back to times at the YMCA with my thoughts. But that system has been performing, and now they’re using their Social Rec revenue to create an energy equity fund in the city. And through that fund they’re able to receive revenue from multiple grants and things that they’ve won. They really needed a dedicated fund. And with their community benefit agreement, they included a number of programs that they already have.
So, one of the things that we like to highlight at Solar Stewards is typically, and not typically, pretty much all the time in every community, there’s always someone doing excellent work already. Let’s just support them. And so, that includes a homeowner program for people, particularly elderly folks to receive funds to do home upgrades. That includes some energy equity education. And then, of course, some programming at that Multicultural Center. And Okta is the offtaker of that. They’re a tech company. And again, their dedicated climate action has really been centered on equity. And we’re part of a number of solutions that they have chosen as well.

Catherine: Thank you for that. It’s just so mind-boggling to me, because you said a school nurse. I thought to myself, gosh, I thought every school had a full-time school nurse. I mean, it just really puts things into perspective.

Dana: It sure does. And initially, one of the schools asked us, can we use this for a mental health counselor? And I was just like, wait, wow. And then I started to connect– we talk about the intersection of health and energy all the time. I would not include mental health. So, one of the things that I love about this work is being able to meet other innovators like on this panel today and through the ACORE Accelerate program, but also just to always increase my learning of what communities are dealing with and being able to provide at least a part of a solution.

Catherine: Laura?

Laura: Yeah. Well, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to invite Constance to a couple of our community events. Clearloop has been around for a little bit over five years. And in those five years, we have about five projects online. I think we’re going to get the fifth one online this coming week or so. And those are five solar projects across mostly Tennessee. We have first one in Jackson, Tennessee, one in White Pine, Tennessee, which is east-west Tennessee, and then Paris, Tennessee. And then this year, we got to flip the switch on three projects in one community, Panola County, Mississippi, which is right outside of Memphis, which is where I grew up. So, it’s very near and dear to me. But what was cool about that and what’s been cool to see about, I guess, cool is the right word. But exciting to see around all of these projects is who’s supporting them and then what did they look like in all those various communities. So, Panola County sort of gives a really great example of, in a reflection of what we’re intending to do and what we’ve done.
It has never seen a solar project in that community. It’s a community that’s sort of at the intersection of the Appalachian foothills and the Mississippi Delta. It’s a very diverse community, sort of teeters majority-minority. And it’s been highly agricultural and somewhat industrial. And they never saw a solar project in their community. And when we first approached the community, the idea was like, look, we think the solar project can be an economic development tool. We don’t have a whole lot of them, because this was three years ago when Clearloop was just two years old. And we were trying to figure out, is this something we believe that this can stand out as something that the community can leverage to bring other folks and kind of show itself for innovators and welcoming of new industries. And so we, by the end of this year, this community will have not one, but three solar projects, which is really exciting.
And they’re supported very differently. One project, which is about six megawatts DC, about a thousand or so homes are going to be powered with that project for the next four years, every year for the next 40 years. Same, there’s another project, which is really exciting when you think about that: real infrastructure and real locally sourced power. A lot of years.

Catherine: Lots of years, a lot of elected representatives during that time.

Laura: A real legacy that project, first project is actually connected to a substation that’s named after the gentleman who helped bring electrification to that community. And so it was like this whole, beautiful, full circle, like never could I have imagined that that’s what we were, we were doing, but it was a way to show electrification and energy has always been a source of economic development and sort of to industrialize and bring communities to the future. And this was so cool to see the first solar project connected to this legacy. But what was cooler, I guess, I don’t know, maybe there’s a better word, I’ll come up with something. But what was really amazing about this is that that project was supported by 30 different companies, big and small.
And so all of these different companies are using it as a way to hit their climate goals. And so it was companies that just had a few thousand dollars to companies that had a few hundred thousand dollars that could support in a way that they were buying the environmental attributes that are coming off of these projects and helping us build and support that project.
And then the other one was done by a wholesale buyer. So it was Microsoft that supported that project. So they bought all of the wrecks from that particular project. And now it’s a calling card for Panola County, Mississippi to have the name Microsoft associated with their community. They have all these other companies that now have a reason to be invested and pay attention to what’s happening in Panola.
And then the third project that is about to come online is a project that’s supported by Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt has made a carbon commitment for every year they want to be carbon neutral. And so the remaining sort of carbon that they see, they’re putting it against these projects. And this third project is buying all the environmental attributes from that project as well. So it’s a really amazing thing to see that one community is seeing all this real investment, not just on the projects, but through the attention of these organizations.
And the final thing, and I know I’ve gone on and on, but Panola County was just wonderful and such an emblematic place for the rest of the work that we’re aiming to do and what the country could really look like. They decided to change their logo, their seal, to then incorporate solar panels as part of it. And so they have giant magnolias and they have row cropping as part of it. But then they also in the center have all these solar panels and the sun, because what they wanted to showcase was that their community is not only known for agricultural roots, but now that they’re harvesting from the sun and that they want to be showcasing their innovation. And never in my wildest dreams. I still get around it because, like never in my wildest dreams, I think that this community would embrace us with such amazing hospitality, talk about Southern hospitality, but really showcase and sort of own this and leverage it as a way to bring more attention and investment to their community. And so I’m excited to see what happens over the next 40 years in Panola County and other Panola counties across the country.

Catherine: Well, that is extraordinary. You changed the coat of arms or the seal of the city. I don’t know how you beat that one. That’s pretty impressive, Laura.

Laura: Yeah, we’re saying yes in my backyard.

Catherine: That’s a, yeah, that’s an unbelievable story.

Constance: The look on people’s faces in these communities, they’re just not understanding what solar technology is. They previously viewed it as something that never interacted with them. They wouldn’t benefit. That’s something over there that other people do to do whatever they do. But I mean, in Salt Lake City and I want to be in Salt Lake City, seeing an African-American woman coming and saying, look here, you’re of an age where you’re retired. Yeah, you’re retired. And what I’m doing is going to help you be able to retire in place. You don’t have to go anywhere. I’m about to save you some money. You can save and be comfortable. Laura’s events, having been there, the people in the community just can’t believe this is happening. It’s almost like some superstar has descended upon them with this amazing project that’s going to help them, their children’s lives and their government. And to see the diversity of people at that Panola County event. It just was like, I don’t even know if they talk to one another outside of these things. I mean, I don’t mean coming in. I don’t know if they even kind of have a relationship, but they were all together eating the same food, looking at the same solar panels, hearing for 40 years. What? That’s me, my children’s, maybe my children’s children. They don’t benefit from this. It’s technical. It’s in the community colleges. This is the work that small to medium sized clean energy companies are doing that corporations are struggling to figure out how to do. They are the innovators on the ground. So when you talk about a just transition and equitable transition, this is what it looks like with less than this amount of money that you normally get. This is how to call to attention these companies who say we have a commitment to equity and justice, but nobody sees it. This is how they’re doing. They are actually educating these people while pushing back a little bit, but also educating these communities on the benefit. It is amazing the impact that they are making. So if you could include some pictures or video with this, it would. I mean, the impact of this would be great. And oh, yeah, they’re companies that are led by CEO Clean Energy Founders. I don’t think the people get that. Yeah, I’m sorry. Sean, it’s your turn.

Sean: The interesting connection there is like we have farmers who are receiving water from basically our customers, these water districts that will host a project of ours. And they’ve come to us with quips and quotes that say we’re generational farmers and we’ve been looking at this water in our backyard for 50 plus years and saying, I think there’s more to be done with this water than just irrigating crops. there is embedded energy in this water that we even have seen the water wheel from way back when do something with to kind of translate that into mechanical energy. And so that’s kind of like a similar example in our space. And so one project that we’d highlight is there’s an Oregon Oregon water district that is very excited about a larger scale project that is hybrid and throughout their district. They’re interested in doing both a hydropower turbine array as well as a solar component. And they want to demonstrate that they can be a leader and a first adopter in the water infrastructure.
And to look at that infrastructure, which has been around for probably close to 100 years, some of the oldest districts can have a new life in modernization. and I think this project is unique for us because it’s in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Interior that’s actually receiving funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. And so it’s putting those dollars to use. And what I love most about this project is it’s charting a path for all the material to be supplied domestically through the domestic supply chains. And so it’s putting all the tenants that were the backbone of the IRA into practice, and we’re seeing it come to life pretty near two years to the anniversary of the bill. And to me, this is a testament to kind of the growing sentiment of how modernizing this kind of water infrastructure can be can be and this water infrastructure can be a role in kind of energy supply mix and both seeing both the public and private stakeholders kind of saying yes to it has been quite validating for us.

Catherine: Let me ask you, just curious, just going back to the kind of the examples we were using with smaller communities. Do you think you’ve been able to make these inroads because there’s more trust there because of you being maybe a smaller company or you may be being a diverse person? They feel safer to let you in. Do you think that matters? How important is that?

Laura: I think we may be out of order at this. OK, our approach has always been just my philosophy is to use a friend to get to make a friend. And you really got to build trust and build a relationship. Like I said, we reached out to the Panola County Economic Development Team in I want to say summer of twenty twenty one. And here we are sitting in the summer, fall ‘24. So it really took a long sort of dedicated conversation and discussion and trust and relationship building. And I think that was really important to me personally. And so I don’t know. And we were actually during that time we were bought by large independent power producer Silicon Ranch. So we’re a wholly owned subsidiary. But in that time, I think what was really important and clear to me and something that now the Silicon Ranch CEO also says a lot is we have to have a social license to operate. So have we actually been the neighbor that we really want to be? Have we actually shared who we are and what we’re trying to do and learned from the community about what’s going on there? Or are we just saying, hey this is good for you.
Just don’t worry about it. And let me take over your land and put something you don’t recognize or necessarily understand. Nobody appreciates that. And so I think our approach has been very intentional on building that trust because it’s fundamental to doing business, not just doing business. And I think that it wasn’t it’s not always warm and fuzzy. People are very skeptical. there’s been a history of mistrust and. And extraction from communities. And so who’s this new finagle to person bringing this fancy new thing to my community and why are you doing this to me? I think we’ve got to recognize that. And so it doesn’t it’s not always open arms. I’m always a little skeptical. And I think it’s up to us whether or not we want to. The success of this transition will really depend on can we recognize that from the beginning and that it’s not transactional? It’s relational.

Sean: To add to that, from our view, like with a newer technology in kind of these modular hydropower turbines, there’s a perceived risk of like what is this new thing and why do I need it? But I think a little bit of what I was going to echo was when some of the customers or communities interests are really, really heard and also baked into the project early on, then we kind of feel the adoption and trust kind of comes shortly after that. And so a lot of our work especially if it’s associated with any kind of federal funding and has community benefit plans. And sometimes, unfortunately, those can be an afterthought. But we’ve seen a lot of fruitful relationship building when those are included, even a part like kickoff or even introduction. You know for example, our groups that their main job to be done is to move water from point A to point B. They’re very operationally focused. And so when we can kind of assure them that their day to day water operation will be unimpacted and that they’ll be seeing an upside and either revenue share or renewable energy generation or utility meter offsets or whatever the kind of deal structure is. They’re much more receptive to that. I definitely know what was just shared.

Catherine: I just love Constance. Like, honestly, this woman, if I’m ever having a bad day, I just think of Constance, like you are just such a bright light in that smile. I just can’t even.

Constance: Are you hearing what they’re saying? They are saying things that people thought never would be possible. They are saying things that companies are struggling with. Can’t be happy. Can’t be happy.

Dana: I appreciate the thought and focus on how special, small and women and minority businesses are in this space. Because I think you’re, as was said, exactly right. It’s kind of our superpower to be able to really connect with communities and in ways that maybe large energy infrastructure has not been able to before. And I think that a lot of that stems from lived experience. if you’ve had instances in your lived experience where you felt you weren’t listened to, you were excluded, you were taken advantage of, it just gives you a little bit more empathy, power to understand how someone might be feeling on that other side of the aisle. And just as Laura said, it doesn’t give you some automatic green light. It’s certainly not a red carpet everywhere you go, because all communities are different. But I definitely appreciate the challenge to connect and continue to learn. I learned fairly recently that some communities just really aren’t down with renewable energy credits.
So that’s more of an opportunity to have some conversations, talk about understanding where they’re coming from, agreeing in some places, and also offering up those opportunities for innovation where we can say, well, I hear you, and I totally understand why you feel that way. There are certain mechanisms that have been used to greenwash in the past very negative outcomes. What if we did it differently in this way? And so I think if that can be modeled throughout our industry, that’s really going to set us on the course for where we need to go for success.

Laura: Yes. One thing just to make sure that we put a very good point on, we don’t always have to be small or medium sized, right? We can be big and we can scale. And that is what’s important. It’s an important point for all of us, I’m sure. We want to show that this is not just one or two projects, right? Like, yes, we highlighted some and we’re younger in our life as entrepreneurs and as businesses, but that does not preclude scalability and replicability. And next year, we’re going to have, like I said, we have five projects on the ground now operational. Next year, we’ll have five. So we’re doubling right there. So I think it’s also really important for folks that are tuning in or listening to these kinds of conversations that it doesn’t always have to be just this tiny thing that’s special and unique is that the ethos and the lens of the lived experience is around connection and understanding that you really that that is fundamental to being successful in the community. And that does not make it replicable. Unique community by community. But that sort of appreciation or emphasis or the team that you’re building that’s focused on those communities that if you make it fundamental, then it’s very much scalable. So we make a point that women led or founded businesses don’t always have to be small or medium.

Catherine: I like that. Thank you very much, Laura. Constance, you want to add anything?

Constance: I totally agree with Laura. I just had a conversation maybe like a week ago with one of the GGRF recipients, and you were talking about how their investment levels tend to be a little more at a different level. But also there was this agreed upon perceived bias that small and medium sized companies are where it’s at. And it’s like, why do you think they’re in this business to grow? Like they’re going to be big by the time you’re able to give them some money. So and the person kind of agreed, you’re right about that. I never thought of it that way. So, yeah, boy, exclamation point, exclamation point, Laura, to that exclamation point.

Catherine: Yeah, to that. Can you all tell us a little bit about how you wound up getting involved with ACORE and how you wound up getting into the clean energy industry in general? Great. Dana.

Dana: Sure. I always love giving a shout out to my home part of the country, Western Pennsylvania, Appalachia. As you get older, you kind of realize how things really did shape you. I think Laura said we’re still on the younger side, right? We’re still hanging on to that. But it has been some time and I’m just so proud of energy communities now, like the one I’m from in Johnstown, PA, that are just really exploring new economic opportunities in this clean energy revolution. But I will say for the ACORE program entrepreneurship can be a pretty isolating choice. And I mean, yes, the time you spend on your business, not spending with other people. Usually. But also the people that are in your sphere that aren’t entrepreneurs, just sometimes this can’t relate to some of the things you’re talking about or you’re checking an email, your whole mood changes kind of thing. Yeah. But the Accelerate program has just really given me personally that community and opportunity to really just be amongst folks that just totally get it.
I mean, I remember we all went out to dinner that one time, Laura. And it was just a lot of unsaid stuff that you knew other people understood. You didn’t have to. And so that’s one of the things I really treasure with the Accelerate network. And it also allows you to really understand your obstacles and successes and in a much better frame, because when you’re an entrepreneur, you can sometimes be your toughest critic. You’re just really always about what you mean. I mean, yeah. And so I’m just saying, wow, this really is this. I’m not the only one with some of these challenges and even better. How can we collectively work on these challenges? Yeah. Has just been a game changer for my business. And also, I’ll say my mental health.

Laura: Yeah, I think so. My journey to this was also personal. I think that just like Dana was driven a lot by my own community, my lived experience of like I wanted to figure out a way to give back to the community that helped raise me here in the South. I grew up in Memphis and it was an opportunity to figure out how we get all these private companies that say they want to do good things for the environment, to do that in a way that brings investment into my neck of the woods and the South and the Mississippi Delta specifically. And so that was the thread. But it was not a linear process to get to be an entrepreneur at all. As I’m sure all entrepreneurs, unless you are told that you are an entrepreneur from day one, but not linear. My background was really in communications. I did corporate and political. And here I was trying to figure out how do we make it really easy for people to understand that they can put their climate dollars to work in a way that helps bring more solar projects to communities that need them and sort of like figure that out. And then the good news is there’s lots of experts out there that are willing to talk about the science and help you understand the research. And we built that into the business.
But it was just sort of a personal desire, less climate specific, though, that is the world that we’re in. But much more about these communities that would otherwise like the same story would be written that the same communities that are left behind would be getting left behind from this particular clean energy infrastructure investments and in transition. And then the way that I found ACORE was I’m not really sure how it all came together, but I was really glad to see that there was somebody that was putting that I was at that DC fancy of an organization that was explicitly focused on trying to bring together entrepreneurs of diverse backgrounds in this clean energy space. And this was if you think about it today in twenty twenty four. And it feels like that is a thing. But back in twenty nineteen, not so much in 2021-2022, it was just sort of like I guess we should probably focus on equity and there are some founders out there that we should probably bring to the fold. And in the fact that there were so many of us, I think that that was the thing that really felt less lonely for me. I was sitting in the middle of the South, sort of talking about climate and trying to bring these projects to life and trying to convince corporations to give us their dollars to help us bring these projects to life. And I had met Dana, but never in person. We were very virtual. We were on panels together.
And then it wasn’t until ACORE and part of that was pandemic related. But that really, I think that the most fundamental thing for me has been this joy of black and brown founders coming together and people of color coming together and really getting excited about what we’re doing and feeling less alone. And so whenever I will get a chance to get together with either the alum class or the new class, it just feels like there’s so much joy in what we’re doing. And it energizes me all over again for the work that we get to do. And I can’t wait to one day do a deal with many of my peers. We don’t know how to do that yet, but it’s a really exciting thing to just know and be like, hell, yeah, I know that person and they’re doing amazing. And like, yes, let me amplify the work that they’re doing. And I think that that has been incredibly empowering, at least for me.

Catherine: Thank you so much for that.

Sean: Yeah, so many common themes here. So, I mean, I think a little bit of my arc will kind of touch on some of the similar topics, but my fabric for my early career was as an environmental engineer. So kind of environmental sustainability. It’s always kind of been kind of core to my character. But when I had exited grad school in 2020 and joined this startup, I was kind of looking for a way to kind of get smart quick and always always like finding my watering hole of like high quality information from trusted and experienced professionals. And ACORE was one that quickly came to the surface. And ACORE Accelerate was that opportunity for me to jump in and learn at a really rapid pace and actually find a way to incorporate that back into my business in a uniquely fast way. And so after joining the Accelerate program, I was incredibly happy by the amount of kind of like minded professionals in this cohort. And we’re all kind of overcoming similar challenges together.
And there was a certain energy and spark in that that always kind of fueled the gatherings and the engagements. And so I think part of that group kind of came together and formed a collective voice to go make specific asks to big big players in the kind of financial and policy world that ACORE also brings together. And so I think there was kind of this very kind of organic yet productive way in doing that. And because if enough of our cohort members had similar thoughts and similar challenges we’re not alone. And it’s actually worth kind of approaching the right solution for that in industry. And so I think it was incredibly fruitful. And looking back on my two years, I wish I was still back in the middle of my two year period. But that’s a little bit about how we came to the program and how we’ve really seen a lot of benefit from it. So we’re just we’re running out of time.

Catherine: We just have a few more minutes. And so what I’d like to end with is just any advice that you all may have for other people who want to do this.

Dana: I’ll just quickly say that you can overcome the fear. I don’t think I really knew what fear was until you put your stuff on the line as an entrepreneur. And then what is that weird feeling? I feel awkward. And oh, that’s fear. But particularly when you have a community that understands how that support system works, you can face it, overcome it. So don’t be afraid to take a risk and make sure that you embrace the communities and people around you. Now, let yourself receive help. Sometimes I think it could be easy to feel like you have to do it all yourself. And that’s entirely untrue. And I just wanted to thank in the same vein, this opportunity to share insights and have a couple of laughs and see all of you again. It’s always a pleasure.

Laura: Yeah, I think it is absolutely true. None of us have done this alone. And so I think that the advice for me is like, we need more people to get in there and figure out how to beat back climate change? How do we actually have a just transition? We haven’t figured it out. We don’t have the answer yet. And so we need more creative entrepreneurial people to lean in here and figure things out alongside us. I like to say that we have great ideas, but we don’t have all the great ideas. And so this is a huge opportunity in our economy, in our history. Like we were talking about transformational change in communities and systems in the way that we just make electricity in this country like that has not been done for generations. And so like here we’re at this critical time. Yes, it’s scary. And there’s this crisis of climate happening.
But at the same time, that means that there’s a great deal of opportunity for all of us to figure out how to get your talents and your creativity in there. We need it. We need that sort of diverse perspective, lived experiences to help us solve a lot of the challenges that we have ahead. And then the good news is that there’s also a lot of infrastructure now that has been built. A core accelerated program has been around for five years, and they’ve really figured out a lot of secret sauce organizations and government agencies and others that have really tuned in and tried to figure out what the support infrastructure is. So I think the good news is that there are some pioneers that have been in our head and have figured out some of the kinks. There’s probably still some kinks and more support infrastructure that we could use. But there’s a path that has been charted, which is exciting.

Sean: Yeah, I’d also agree with Laura that in times of system disruption, there’s a lot of opportunity. So I think it encourages us, encourages us to be bold. And I think the other piece of advice is to always be testing. I think there’s only so much you can get done through desktop analysis like get out there, talk to your end users, and drive relationships there. Their pain points that need to be solved will essentially come out of the woodwork through that. And so that’s my little my little nugget. I guess in closing, this has been a bunch of fun. Thank you. Thank you for putting this on.

Catherine: You’re so welcome. It’s really important to me that we would like to do this every year. Like, I want to keep going. Like, that’s what I was saying to Constance. I don’t want to just talk about it once and then that’s it. Like, I want to keep talking about it. We will continue to do that.

Constance: Catherine, I would just end by saying this is ACORE Accelerate. This is the experience. This is the ecosystem. This is the impact that members are making. It’s not really about the program. It’s about the members. And this is an alumni award. We do a graduation ceremony and everybody gets awarded. There’s datas. I’m so happy to see it’s on your desk. That’s great. And if people want to apply, applications are open for our next cohort. October 17th is the deadline. acore.org/accelerate.

Catherine: Thank you so much.

Constance: Thank you all.