Customer-Centric Solar Development with Erica Brinker - E136

In this episode, Erica Brinker, Chief Commercial and Sustainability Officer at Chaberton Energy and board member of the Coalition for Community Solar Access, shares her unique career journey and insights into the renewable energy sector. The conversation covers:

• Erica’s early roles in the fashion and luxury goods industry, followed by her transition to healthcare technology, aerospace, and eventually renewable energy, reflecting her customer-centric approach throughout.
• Navigating the challenges in renewable energy including the complexities of stakeholder engagement, from landowners to policymakers, and the importance of understanding diverse priorities to drive successful projects.
• How Chaberton prioritizes markets, balances risks, and integrates policy insights to develop high-quality solar solutions tailored to different stakeholder needs.
• Erica’s work with the Coalition for Community Solar Access and reflections on how industry collaboration drives impactful policy changes at state and federal levels.

Check out Chaberton Energy at https://www.chaberton.com/.

Tune in now for an insightful conversation about shaping the future of clean energy!

Paces helps developers find and evaluate the sites most suitable for renewable development. Interested in a call with James, CEO @ Paces?

Transcript

00:01.85

James McWalter

Hello, today we're speaking with Erica Brinker, Chief Commercial and Sustainability Officer at Chaberton Energy and a board member for the Coalition for Community Solar Access. Welcome to the podcast, Erika.

00:11.70

Erica Brinker

Thanks for having me.

00:13.18

James McWalter

Great. I guess to start, we'd love to hear you know a little bit about ah the kind of work you did before you joined Chaberton. Chaberton is a great developer. um you we We work with Chaberton for a little while now, um but I think you've kind of ah you know a very interesting kind of pathway into product development, so I'd love to learn a bit about your background.

00:29.92

Erica Brinker

Sure. Well, if we're going to start way back in the beginning of time, I actually got my start in the fashion and luxury goods industry in New York City. I work for Ralph Lauren, Tiffany, and Kate Spade, and there it was very purely marketing and product management, driving sales, understanding the customer. I think the theme that you'll see throughout my career is that I've always been very customer-centric and kind of customer-centered in my approach to problem-solving and increasing revenue opportunities and looking at new business vectors.

01:02.11

Erica Brinker

um From there, I was recruited out to Arizona for a healthcare care technology company. We had a bunch of startups and, um, it was there, uh, here in Arizona, where I was, um, i I also decided it wasn't challenging enough to have a full-time job. I went and got my MBA, my executive and MBA full-time too. And after that, I was ready to move anywhere in the world. And, um, I ended up finding a job in my backyard, uh, at Honeywell Aerospace, which is headquartered here in Phoenix, Arizona.

01:31.89

Erica Brinker

um I spent my first five years in the aerospace industry learning a ton on product management and you know Honeywell for anybody that doesn't know is on every major aircraft platform. And so really getting to know customers and products and understanding the different decision makers. And then I moved into um the chief marketing officer role for the software business and also launched Honeywell's rebrand, I think back in 2019, so had a nice 10-year run there. And because of COVID, I kind of started thinking about what I wanted to do more long-term with the rest of my career. And the solar industry and renewable energy in general um stood out to me in particular as something I really wanted to actively pursue. And there were a few folks from Honeywell that had moved to a company called Array Technologies, which is a solar tracker manufacturer.

02:29.63

Erica Brinker

and one of the largest in the world and they they needed a chief commercial officer and head of ESG and so it was just right time, right place and um being able to lead an organization from product management, government relations, ESG, commercial operations, ah marketing and um government relations, all those functions at ah at a public company that had just IPO'd. There were lots of processes that I needed to get in place, ah lots of leaders that needed to be hired so that we could really drive the the next phase of growth for the organization. And from there, um you know, my curiosity became very peaked because we had two kinds of customers at ah Array. You were either an EPC, Engineering Procurement Construction Company,

03:19.45

Erica Brinker

where we may sell to you directly or you were a ah developer. And the developers piqued my interest because what ah really stood out to me is that it was the top of the food chain for development and solar. And a lot of the decisions or most of the decisions were being made by developers. So I knew in my next step of my career, I really wanted to move to a developer and serendipitously um ah ah recruiters had actually reached out for this opportunity at Chaberton.

03:47.66

Erica Brinker

how I landed there. And it's been a great learning opportunity. It's also been a big change because it's the first time in a while where I'm back to driving revenue on kind of a service business only, there's not like a product per se. And so that's been interesting to apply kind of my product background to a services, a purely services organization.

04:09.91

James McWalter

Yeah. And yeah the kind of role the developer plays is so interesting. you know If you go to any of the big conferences, like RE+, and Paces, we have our little booth. I'm sure Ray had had bigger booths.

04:20.14

James McWalter

But we're all trying to attract the developer to stop by.

04:22.60

Erica Brinker

Yes.

04:22.66

James McWalter

right Because you know in the end, they need they're the ones who are going to do all the work to get the stealing ground. right you know if if If the developer does not achieve that outcome, like nobody's making any money in that hall, right and then in the and the big kind of conference hall.

04:28.86

Erica Brinker

That's right.

04:36.23

James McWalter

um Yeah, I think, like you know, you could have mentioned this kind of customer centric view, right? And so when you're moving, you know, and and you kind of alluded to, it you're moving out of a product into, you know, services and delivery of outcome type business. ah Yeah, I guess, like, how, you know, what lessons have you kind of applied and what what is relevant to pull from, you know, more product oriented or your organizations into places like a developer like Chaberton?

04:57.76

Erica Brinker

It's amazing how similar things really are. ah you know I always say that when you're taking a new job, a lot of your functional excellence applies. And so you might be applying it to a new area of interest or a new industry or a new vertical, but it's really 90% core functional prowess and then 10% trying to learn the ropes. I think the best practices around product management apply very much to services when you think about segmentation, so that's something foundationally that we really focused on when I came on board. Who are we really targeting? Is it the landowner? Is it our end buyers? Is it you know politicians who are decision makers and where we can actually do business? And the answer is all of the above, but what's the level of effort that we want to place on each of those?

05:48.83

Erica Brinker

in investment, and then what what also do they care about? Because if you put one message or one product or one um offering out in front of everybody, it's not going to be appealing to everyone. And so you have to find what are are the things that compel them in their decision making? What are they judged on? What does success look like? So for example, um a farmer in any given state They have either water usage rights issues or they may have trouble with a crop that year. So there's revenue uncertainty. Solar for them is an answer to some of that uncertainty and that lumpiness and their revenue. And so that's a way that we can actually deliver something to them to even keep their land and their family for the next generation or two. ah Whereas when we go talk to businesses about solar ah solutions, it's really about

06:44.09

Erica Brinker

offsetting carbon emissions and pursuing their sustainability goals and creating energy efficiency, particularly if youre you know you have a high load. And so really understanding each of those stakeholder groups, I think is core in any business that you're in, and it's a best practice in any business that you're in. And so using those product management best practices actually apply no matter what you're selling.

07:08.71

James McWalter

I think a lot about selling as, you know, there's kind of fear-based selling and there's like hope-based selling, and neither are better and and worse than the other, right? But if you're going into somebody who's really motivated by hope and you're trying to sell them fear, um that's not, you know, or the risk, that's not going to go well, and then vice versa. And I think like the farmer versus like the commercial building, like that dynamic, right? Like the farmer You know, they're not looking, you know, they're, they're, they're thinking about the risks, the downside risk. They're thinking about, you know, this very, very low margin cashflow business that they have, you know, folks on the podcast are well aware. I've always talked about my farming background in Ireland, right? So like, you know, know, know how lean these things can be.

07:45.68

James McWalter

um And there's not typically a sustainability officer at the family farm, right? And so um so going in with a um you know like a like ah ah mindset around selling to a different segment you know that that doesn't work, it just means you're going to have to cut of these negative outcomes.

08:01.20

James McWalter

And it's something also, you know, we think a lot about, you know, at Paces, you know, what, like, and I think this one funny example is like, you know, we use a lot of AI in the products. We never talk about AI to solar developers, but, you know, data center developers who, you know, on the load side, they love talking about AI, right? So like, even though the product is the exact same, it's like how you talk about it, and like what things you surface versus say, hey, this is like less important. So for solar developers to talk about automation.

08:24.53

James McWalter

for so data-centered developers to talk about AI, right? and like And this is the kind of thing, way of navigating.

08:27.49

Erica Brinker

Thank you.

08:29.94

James McWalter

um You mentioned these two other, I guess, stakeholders. It's like kind of the the politician and policy stakeholder, and then like folks who are like the off-taker. I guess, like how do you kind of think about those folks and like how to bring the product mindset to those other stakeholders as well?

08:42.35

Erica Brinker

Yeah, so for policy stakeholders, whether they be government officials or otherwise, you know, county commissioners, and even the community, I mean, those, those we kind of think about those as a unit when we're going into a new market or a new county. ah You know, it's, it's very much a, you want to have in some cases, a one to one conversation, or in some cases, maybe a one to many in one to one, there are particular decision makers that have maybe an oversized ah stake in how decisions get made. So looking at what happened in California this year, where you know we were all hopeful that it was the next gold brush in community solar, one person made a decision that changed everything in the trajectory of like all of us developers in the community solar space. And so really understanding, first of all, that matrix. ah That's an extreme example.

09:39.20

Erica Brinker

I think on the other hand, when you talk about maybe a county that's, for whatever reason, placed a moratorium on solar and you're going into a community, you're going to community meetings, you're understanding what their objections are. you know where Where's the NIMBYism coming from? Is it purely aesthetic? Is there some other thing that's happened previously that may have impacted the way that they're viewing these projects in their community? and so You really have to understand that. those those are Those are things that take time. You can't kind of paint all of these different situations with a broad brush. So we talk a lot about prioritization and in those kind of markets where you know do we think we can transition these particular counties into a place where we can do business? Do we think we can get them there? Can we pilot one project, show them the success, and then leverage that for other opportunities in that same region? And so it's it's an intricate and delicate approach that's

10:37.52

Erica Brinker

You know, it it it does not require brute force. It's quite the opposite. It's a lot of sensitivity and empathy to perhaps, you know, some of it's just understanding about solar. Do they understand what solar brings? Have they been given misinformation in the past that maybe we need to clarify? So with those stakeholders, I think at's some you know that that's a it's a tough decision. It's a case by case decision. It's, you know, the effort, it's a high effort bar.

11:07.14

Erica Brinker

to to get things over the line. When you talk about off takers, they're all different. you know Our project buyers all have different priorities. Some of them, you know do you have um purely cost buyers? Sure. Typically, our buyers are ones that want high quality projects that provide very high productivity and high yield. um They know that they're getting a quality product from us. um We have in-house engineering.

11:35.01

Erica Brinker

We have our own proprietary software that we use that optimizes projects that if put um given to another developer in the exact same amount of land would produce 20% more because we've designed designed it to be optimized not only for productivity, but also for the financial model. And so that's what our buyers have come to count on us for.

11:57.47

Erica Brinker

ah We also have to be sensitive to the types of projects that they're looking for. Some are looking for particular markets, some are looking for particular delivery systems. Maybe they'd like battery storage, or maybe they have a really tough location or market. like For example, um we have projects where we were able to make a floating option for them where ah you know traditional ah solar just wasn't possible. And so we really work really closely hand in hand to understand what our buyers are looking for, even as we're going through the development process so that we're able to develop something that they're really excited about taking on.

12:38.80

Erica Brinker

I can't hear you.

12:41.83

James McWalter

um Yeah, that that makes sort of sense. I'd love to get back to the the software because I think it's super interesting and and I've actually seen seen the software. and It is a very, very powerful tool that that that you've built in-house. You kind of mentioned like the California example. ah you know How do you kind of think about market risk? you know When we ah you know first just sort of paces,

13:00.98

James McWalter

you know We started just in New York State, right you know one of the very, very tapped over markets. And then we basically added geographies based on what developers are looking for. And there was a wide spectrum of risk. right So some folks are like completely frontier markets. There's not even a community solar bill you know in in any state legislation. But land is super cheap. There's a lot of interconnection.

13:22.27

James McWalter

let's buy up some yeah long lease options. Then you have like the very, very tapped over markets like New York. And then you have something in between where there's like you know state bills that have maybe a community solar law in the lower house, but it's not at the governor or or the state senate.

13:34.12

James McWalter

um And developers have different approaches to this. I guess at a high level, how do you kind of think about assessing risk? What makes a good market from your perspective?

13:39.82

Erica Brinker

Yeah,

13:43.14

Erica Brinker

yeah we we do have a pretty balanced approach. ah you know I think we have a pretty strong risk tolerance, but in a very balanced way. We think about our markets as kind of your transactional, the ones we're transactioning transacting in today. We have prospective markets where we're actively originating, but maybe haven't sold a project yet. And then we have those kind of new upcoming markets that don't have a program yet, but we're watching them. And so we've a really measured approach in that the way we look at the megawatts. So my team as chief commercial officer is to make sure that we're originating in the right places and then exploring the right markets.

14:23.41

Erica Brinker

We want to make sure we're keeping our developers busy with what we can develop now. So more than half of our portfolio are markets that have programs. um you know ah Almost 70%, I'd say, is is markets where we can actually transact today. So ah that's one requirement, I guess, of the overall strategy. But I guess the other thing that we think about is entering markets that have attractive market um characteristics. So is the community solar program based on retail rates ah rather than wholesale? Do we think we can have a significant piece of the market? You knowre you don't find Chaberton right now in most of the Northeast because those are older markets. The margin profiles aren't as attractive.

15:10.54

Erica Brinker

There's lots of competition there. And so that those are places where, unless we feel like we can really make a great impact, we're not rushing to them. And so that's why you see us as the number one developer in in Maryland and and one of the fastest growing in the country is we've really tried to enter those markets where we feel like we can go in pretty strong. ah But we do have a risk tolerance. you know We did go into California before there was ah a bill passed, um and we would do it again.

15:36.59

Erica Brinker

I think at some point we'll be talking about there being a bill in California. It might be a couple of years. But what all of these markets have in common, whether they are actively transacted in or not, is that they have interconnection challenges. So, um you know, a lot of the challenges are the same. It's, you know, can you play the long game? Can you be fiscally responsible and and make sure that you're addressing that balance between what you can sell today and what might you might sell five years from now?

16:06.63

James McWalter

You mentioned you know interconnection problems and challenges. These are these are you know across the industry. um They vary a lot. ah Things like information is very, very varied, of course. you know Like in some geographies, there's minimal information from the grid. you know you have to figure things out, hack things together, and then once you get down to the jurisdictional level, um you know, you have these kind of permitting constraints, etc. How do you kind of think about, you know, the types of information that, you know, need to be aggregated for when you're making these kind of, you know, market level decisions, right? um Because, you know, in cases it doesn't do anything at the market level, right? You know, we can be helpful at the individual site level.

16:45.91

James McWalter

But like those kind of market-level decisions, you know folks will sometimes have full-time policy teams. ah Some folks will you know be very, very you know building like tons of different pro formas across like all these different kind of models of different project types. There's only going to be 200 megawatts in a given program. right like you know If we can't capture, to your point, 20% of that, maybe it's not even worth going in. um So I guess like you know as you kind of think about the the kind of combined strengths within the Jabberton team when you're doing this kind of market selection, yeah what what, I guess, are the highlights?

17:16.37

Erica Brinker

Yeah, so we do tackle it you know from the top down and then the bottom up. Top down, we do look at policy. We do have an in-house policy team. We also use partners for policy so that we can understand you know what that looks like. ah When we build a strategy for an existing or a new market,

17:34.30

Erica Brinker

It's comprehensive. it's you know what What are the characteristics of a great property in that market? um What are the utilities and the characteristics of those utilities and their history in working with us in community solar? um What are the interconnection costs and what is our ability to have transparency in the wait times? um you know One thing that we've seen over the years is particularly, you know we're only five years old, but Interconnection cues have increased exponentially because of the the general demand for energy. And so what I think the statistic that I saw was there's over 1700 of gigawatts of solar wind and storage in the interconnection cues, which is up like almost 30% year over year.

18:25.77

Erica Brinker

I mean, those are those are huge wait times. And so we do view our carrying costs, too. I mean, certainly, you could go into all 50 states and ah go find cheap land in places where there aren't programs. But what are your carrying costs going to look like over the long term? And what's the likelihood of those those markets actually popping? And so a lot of what we do is um really forcing um prioritization. you know We'd love to do it all, but you can't afford to do it all. And part of good product management rigor and in my team, I really talk ah a lot about having a general manager mindset.

19:07.58

Erica Brinker

What are the top things that you're going to do to actually move the needle, whether it's to close megawatts or open new markets? And and those are the things that we focus on. We have to be ruthlessly always reprioritizing because as you know, this market and this industry is extremely dynamic. Things change day to day and we have to have a foundational structure and an operating system in place that allows us for flexibility. ah call I call it freedom in the framework. um We have a framework and then we have to figure out how to create freedom within it.

19:37.82

James McWalter

um Very similar to some of the things we say in-house, so like prioritization and alignment. Prioritization and alignment, that's just like the constant refrain. And then the other one is structure is freeing, right?

19:50.28

James McWalter

And so you want to, you know, one of the ways you got to think about it is like you add structures or things so that people can like not have to worry about certain things, right? Like you don't need to potentially invent a new way of, you know, paying people their wages, right?

20:02.65

James McWalter

you know, that's been solved, right?

20:03.79

Erica Brinker

Yeah.

20:04.45

James McWalter

You don't have to get super, you know, innovative on that. But the things that kind of can drive the business forward can have like two to 10x type outcomes, you want to have a high degree of flexibility. And there's one thing that, you know, I've always I've found, Johnny, let's say paces, but more previous roles is that There's often this um tension between you know the overarching team, where a lot of folks will crave like the security of you know a very, very tight, solid plan. um But then also, they're like, oh, I also want the flexibility to like make alterations. and And those things are in this kind of constant tension. And you know one of the things is I've started kind of leading teams and all this kind of thing is like trying to like find the spot so that you know folks can understand the trade-offs. It sounds like you guys are are doing a great job with that. you know I guess, how do you kind of think about you know

20:48.94

James McWalter

getting folks within a team to like understand those trade-offs when it makes sense to be more flexible versus you know hold the line on certain structures.

20:56.62

Erica Brinker

Yeah, we we think about it a lot. um I think, one, for my market managers who are in the markets every day, we try to create guidelines for them so that um it's not a Mother May I situation every time we need to go sign a lease. We have guidelines for different characteristics of different sites. And so long as they fall in those characteristics that we've outlined, just send me the lease and I'll sign it.

21:25.08

Erica Brinker

um If there's something exceptional, then we manage to that exception as needed. I'm a huge fan of the 80-20 rule. There's a book out about it. It's incredibly impactful so that you don't find yourself, particularly in a startup, managing to expectation. I think so or it's managing to exception, because managing to exception is exhausting for the organization. It makes everything a one-off. And what you want to try to do is get everything to that 80%. And then on the 20% of things that do require more time,

21:55.77

Erica Brinker

at least that's not your 80%. And so we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we have enough structure so that folks feel like their day-to-day job is very much up to them. ah The goals are clear, the guidelines are clear, and we have released them to the wild, and we just want you to go do what you're good at. The other thing that we've spent a lot of time doing in the last year and a half, and my team in particular, is looking at standard work.

22:24.35

Erica Brinker

What are the things that are weighing our market managers down? Market managers are in the field a lot. Market managers, I want them to be in the field a lot. I want them to be spending time with landowners and businesses. What I don't want them spending time on is highly repeatable tasks and paperwork and things that they might be batch processing that they kind of dread or don't like about their work.

22:48.38

Erica Brinker

so while things like entering opportunities into Salesforce might not be optional. There's lots of other things that I've pulled off their plate and put on an and an operations team so that they can spend all of their time being with the front end decision makers and our stakeholders. So whether that's landowners or policy makers or our trade association, I want that high value work to be where most of their time is spent and the rest of it kind of pulled away so that

23:19.02

Erica Brinker

You know, when we're talking about how to spend your time and where it's most valuable, their choices are all high value options. Not, should I do this interconnection application um or these 10 interconnection applications, or should I go meet with a landowner? That's a no brainer now. we've We put a system in place where they don't have to make that decision anymore.

23:37.54

James McWalter

Yeah, the you know, one kind of method I've seen but folks kind of apply is, you know, if if anyone's doing something two or more times, is it auto automated or offloaded, right? Like, you know, and and you kind of kind of take it through from there.

23:49.94

James McWalter

I also love that as you started that answer, you know, so much of ah when people try to say, you've got to move fast, right? I think people think a lot about ah just like your action should be fast, but it's like less about that.

24:01.66

James McWalter

It's more about the decision making happening at the right level of the team, right?

24:02.65

Erica Brinker

Yeah.

24:05.07

Erica Brinker

Yes.

24:05.45

James McWalter

Because if folks are empowered to make decisions, and it doesn't have to go through two, three, five, 10 stages, and you know you you've you've been at senior levels of public companies, I'm sure there was a lot of different sign-offs and so on that had to done for often fairly mundane things.

24:20.85

James McWalter

I was at a public company as well for a while in a much more junior role. um But you know why do these large organizations and large bureaucracies move slower? It's because decision-making is slower, because you just need to get so many sign-off.

24:29.19

Erica Brinker

That's right.

24:32.18

James McWalter

And so you know one of the things that I think is really difficult because a lot of companies say, hey, come in, make mistakes, you're going to be supported. But then people do make the mistake, and you know, and then they're like, oh, no, no, no, that was too much a mistake. And I think like a thing that I've often kind of tried to kind of initiate is you have to give people, especially new people, like the psychological safety that nearly no matter what the first mistake is.

24:54.75

James McWalter

They're good. You're like, yep, I'm happy you made a mistake. You know, what did we learn from it? Let's move on. Because if, you know, if, you know, if I ever like jumped down on somebody's throat for like a minor mistake in their first couple of days, they're like, okay. And now, and now all the negativity of them, like being slower to make decisions, slower to take on risk is now born for your organization.

25:13.68

Erica Brinker

Yeah, i but that really resonates with me. um We do say at Chaberton that we want to fail faster. And so that is ah the the three founders of the company ah all came from places where they they learned lots of best practices, but they also learned what they didn't want. And I know even in my own background, um if you wanted to pursue a new ah business or a new opportunity. It was what I might characterize as death by PowerPoint. like How many PowerPoints can you make to justify this investment? and in Sometimes the system is created so that you lose your will to live and stop asking. right so you know Good ideas get crushed because the effort in trying to do it is so such a tremendous undertaking that it just simply doesn't happen because you you have a core job that you need to do.

26:07.55

Erica Brinker

but On the other hand, we also just want to make sure that our team feels really empowered to go try new things. and But let's not try it forever. We're a big fan of piloting. I mean, think about going into new markets. You can read the legislation. You can look at the the regulation. But you still don't know what it's going to be like to be in that market until you start originating and you start developing projects. And so the way we think about it is kind of like,

26:37.58

Erica Brinker

You know, it's kind of that old land and expand. So we want to pilot and then we want to decide no or a go or no go. Do we want more of this or we want less of this? um And so, and that's like a cross-functional decision. That's not just does origination really like originating it's.

26:53.31

Erica Brinker

what What does the AHJ behave like? um Do our buyers like this market? And we have that constant feedback loop. Even in Maryland, where we're the largest developer, county by county, doing business there is incredibly different. And so, you know you might sign a property two years ago and it's finally being developed now and then it gets sold the following year. So we might get information that, you know what, that was a great ah great experience, great margin profile. Let's go back to that county and and continue developing. And so that 360 feedback is constantly happening cross-functionally to inform my even my front end team to continue to finally tune where where they're hunting.

27:39.13

James McWalter

Yeah, and Aleko, all the folks at Chaberton we interact with, like the the the town density is super high, and yeah and everyone's so sweet. like everyone Everyone's like excellent at their jobs, and just like the the nicest group of people. And we have many a fun ah photo, with the not just with you, Erica, and the person at at our on our team also called Erica, and and I think you've gotten to know each other, and other folks like Albert and so on at Chaberton who have all been great people.

28:05.25

James McWalter

um You mentioned trade groups. you know you know I know that you, I mentioned that you are a recent board member for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, or CCSA, and I think you've spent some time with the likes of SIA, et cetera, in in the past. I guess before we get into the specifics of CCSA, you know trade groups like have different levels of impact in different industries. You've worked you know in fashion and in aerospace and you know, all these other, you know, in solar trackers, et cetera. I guess, like, how are you going to think about, like, where trade groups ah perform excellently and when they do perform excellently, like, what is their actual impact on the industry?

28:41.85

Erica Brinker

I wanted to cough before I answered so. um Trade groups really vary by industry. um And you have to take it on a case by case basis. I mean, I would even say moving from array technologies where, you know, 90, 95% of the business was utility scale, and then there was a portion of the business which um did service community solar.

29:06.71

Erica Brinker

SIA was the you know basically the trade association of record for a lot of what we were doing in utility scale, ah making the transition to a community solar developer because the the the organization really depends on new markets opening. And because we all are a small part of any given state market,

29:32.40

Erica Brinker

We depend very heavily on CCSA, and that was one of the reasons that we decided to run for a seat on the CCSA board because um state level state-level policy, state-level regulation makes or breaks markets for us. And so we believe that we don't want to take a backseat and wait for other developers to make decisions for us. We want to be ahead of it. We want to be in the conversation.

29:57.95

Erica Brinker

Like you said, we have a lot of talented folks on the team who've been doing this for a long time. And so we felt like it was important to have a voice. ah I do think, though, trade associations are a lot like gym memberships.

30:12.19

Erica Brinker

Just because you have a gym membership doesn't mean that you're going to be fit.

30:15.84

James McWalter

Mm hmm.

30:16.06

Erica Brinker

um You're going to get out of it what you put into it. And and that's true of CCSA and SIA. I think both organizations are excellent. I mean, SIA, we were highly engaged.

30:26.86

Erica Brinker

on Build Back Better and then what what turned into Inflation Reduction Act. you know Without their advocacy, I don't believe that the solar legislation would be where it is today without CS spearheading that and uniting the organization and the industry around what the important um milestones and um you know guidelines were for IRA.

30:52.23

Erica Brinker

At the same time, it doesn't mean that we all agree. And yes, there were disagreements. And that that's the that's one thing that I think is tough for any trade association to balance. I've actually worked in-house in a trade association. It was a technology association, and it was a trade org, and it was a C3, C4, and a C6. So doing lobbying and and balancing everyone's views, I think that's the tough part is you know everybody's not going to agree, but can we get to something where you know, what are the of the things we have in common? What are the places where we're just going to have to go on our own? Because if something's important enough to you, and and this happened during the IRA, 90% of what SIA was advocating for, we agreed with. And um we we thought it was, you know, great for the industry. There was like maybe 10% where we thought this is a high priority for us. Domestic manufacturing is really important, and we're going to go do some other lobbying on our own. And and that's okay to kind of have a bifurcated strategy.

31:49.91

Erica Brinker

But I really firmly believe that you should be part of your trade association, that you shouldn't be riding on the coattails and membership dues of others. um it The onus on you is being part of the industry, particularly in what we're doing, trying to create an energy transition. um It's part of our responsibility, and I think that's what you find about the solar industry in general, is that we're passionate about it, we're passionate about an energy a clean energy future. We're passionate about renewables being a big part of the energy mix. And so I think it's important for all developers and all of us in this industry to really come together to drive change.

32:28.57

James McWalter

I i had just, you know, because paces we started Paces like a month before the Face Reduction Act passed, and I was at RE Plus the month after that. And, um you know, you had the the the head of...

32:40.45

Erica Brinker

Great feeling that time. That was like, yeah, it was contagious.

32:43.32

James McWalter

it was it was It was, but it was also um the the the yeah a senior person, Sia might've been the chairperson. She was up on stage and you know her whole message was like, we're now here, right? you know We were always like the you know the little guys in the corner trying to like just get attention. And now it's like hundreds of billions of dollars with other kind of spend potentially a trillion dollars over the next you know decade. um We're here, now let's like prove that, you know We as an industry deserve to be here, deserve to be in these very, very senior you know conversations at all levels of government.

33:18.89

James McWalter

um and you know like yeah the It's like been completely fascinating for us, where you know if you open up any newspaper, you go onto any website, people are talking about the power system. They're talking about data centers. They're talking about renewables. right like This stuff has all like become the kind of conversations that people are having about any topic in a way that just wasn't true to you two years ago. And a lot of that, I think, has been driven by a trade dis association than were minor members and are in our own right at some of these folks as well.

33:45.46

Erica Brinker

Yeah, so Abby Hopper as

33:47.62

James McWalter

Abby. Yes.

33:48.20

Erica Brinker

yo Yeah, Abby Hopper, SEIA, I have a long list of wonderful things I could say about her. She actually just stopped in her office a couple months ago at an ah our All Hands company meeting. um you know Without her leadership, it wouldn't be possible to have a voice like this. When you think about the 100-year history that oil and gas has um in lobbying and creating policy,

34:14.29

Erica Brinker

um We have to all be combined as a voice because how can we have an equal voice with ah with an industry that's been around for you know over 100 years and is steeped in history and investment and has a lot of dollars to support um their efforts. And so that's where people like Abby driving that change are so critical. I think the other thing that has been tremendously helpful and again, powered through trade associations and through all of our own interactions, the way that we interact with county states and and federally every day is making clean energy less partisan. I mean, clean energy has increasingly become bipartisan and and that's largely in part to the kind of policy making that we were doing um just as an antidote that um Abby shared with our team. You know, traditionally she had gone to the DNC conventions and this last year she was also

35:12.24

Erica Brinker

a part of the RNC conventions and that's so critically important. you know This is energy security, energy independence in this country is not a partisan issue. And so it's also been so helpful to have trade associations that are pushing this both with the right and left to take this off the table as something that's Republican or Democrat, but really something that we all want as a country and really need.

35:39.44

James McWalter

I mean, to to do any of the kind of big plans that like both sides of the aisle have, you need ubiquitous cheap energy, right? ah You know, you're not you that is the the necessary, if not sufficient condition for everyone's kind of like up to the right plans.

35:54.29

Erica Brinker

That's right.

35:57.79

James McWalter

You kind of talked a little bit about, you know, kind of where the industry is right now. and Do you have any, you know, half takes about where the industry is or where it could potentially be going over the next couple of years?

36:07.89

Erica Brinker

I love hot takes as a buzzword, just in general, by the way. um Well, this might not be a popular opinion, but I guess that's what hot takes are about, right? um I guess my hot take, and and this is maybe just counsel for our whole industry,

36:24.41

Erica Brinker

I think in general, if we want to be taken seriously like other industries and and solar is becoming more mature as an industry and and you know we have moved from the kids table to the adult table, we have to be realistic about what the transition looks like. We could cannot flip on a switch tomorrow and be 100% renewable energy. I wish that were the case, but it just simply isn't.

36:49.92

Erica Brinker

and so I think for us to be taken seriously by stakeholders that may be skeptical of our industry is to be realistic about what is possible and what that from getting from point A to point B really looks like and that means natural gas and that means other traditional energy sources globally until we can get to a more sustainable source 24 seven. And so I just think we have to not be so black and white and come to the table with compromise in mind and understanding that reality does play a part in what we're trying to pursue long-term. I would just not lose sight of the long game.

37:28.62

James McWalter

Yes, we um we are seeing like a paces, all of the natural gas for large scale behind a meter data centers. And a lot of these are folks are trying to do 100% natural gas. And so it actually came out today um for folks listening the podcast is probably a month or two, you know, previous or a few weeks previous, but we co wrote a white paper with stripes. ah climate team and and a few other partners about how ah you can get to a a levelized cost of energy with renewables and gas for large-scale, plus 100 megawatt data centers um and exactly what the cost curve of that is once you hit a certain level. But the idea that because data centers require so much uptime, you have to have some gas. And so you know in a world of like people are looking at building these projects, 100% gas, we're like, look, if we can get to 55% renewables, 45% gas, that's like a massive win.

38:16.34

James McWalter

relative to just being, hey, it has to be 100% renewables, and the levelized cost of energy is going to be way too high to support that. um So yeah, so I think, you know, being practical, thinking of all of this kind of energy deployment electrification as like a portfolio approach, and with the idea that, you know, if we can, yeah, and I would also, I'd much prefer to extend an existing natural gas turbine, and that are five years that build two more that have a 30 year plus lifespan, right? So it's also just thinking through,

38:41.14

James McWalter

let's not shut down that plant if we're gonna have to reopen a brand new one down the road in five years and then that we have the lifestyle of that technology to deal with. um And so I think it's like we just have to be very open-eyed about the trade-offs.

38:52.75

Erica Brinker

No, I 100% agree. Balanced approach wins the day.

38:56.77

James McWalter

There we go. um Well Erica, I've really enjoyed the conversation. um I guess before we finish off, is there anything I should have asked you about but did not?

39:04.53

Erica Brinker

Well, there it's two related thoughts. One, you talked about the high talent density of the organization and how everybody's really nice. And I just wanted to call out that that's actually by design.

39:16.27

Erica Brinker

Uh, we have three values, which is so refreshing because I've come from places that have 11 values and you can't remember any of them.

39:22.07

James McWalter

forty yeah

39:25.82

Erica Brinker

Um, and it's creativity, excellence and humanity. And creativity is really about being a problem solver, being resourceful. Excellence is like delivering the best possible outcome.

39:36.18

Erica Brinker

And humanity is about like hiring people that you want to be around and. hiring people that are great with stakeholders and hiring people that aren't just about making a sale or driving revenue, but treating people as people and not, you know, this.

39:50.99

Erica Brinker

putting them in the corporate sausage making machine. And so that's really by design. And as it's related to our people, we are growing very quickly. We are hiring. And so I would urge anyone to find me on LinkedIn. Um, I'm very active on LinkedIn. And so, and also look at our job postings because we're growing in different markets, we're growing in development, we're growing kind of across the board. So I would urge anyone to, if they're interested in moving into development or want to work for a world cross developer,

40:20.53

Erica Brinker

um to contact me, I'd love to talk to you.

40:23.64

James McWalter

And we'll include all those links in the show notes. um And for anyone listening to our fantastic organization, um definitely check them out. so Thank you so much, Erica.

40:32.11

Erica Brinker

Thank you.