Unlocking Land for Solar with Scott Aaronson - E139

In this episode, we sit down with Scott Aaronson, founder and CEO of Demeter Land Development, to explore his unexpected path from criminal defense attorney to renewable energy land origination expert.

Scott recounts how his real estate ventures led him to community solar development, shedding light on the evolving challenges of securing land for distributed generation (DG) projects. He discusses the industry's transformation from old-school, door-knocking tactics to a highly strategic, data-driven approach.

We cover:

• How his unique legal background can be applied to land origination
• The biggest challenges in permitting, interconnection, and competition
• How personalized landowner outreach makes a difference
• The future of DG renewables and what trends to watch

Scott emphasizes the importance of local relationships, policy awareness, and strategic first-mover advantage in emerging markets. He also shares how Demeter’s partnership with Paces has helped streamline operations and accelerate growth.

If you’re involved in solar development, land acquisition, or renewable energy policy, this episode is packed with valuable insights!

Connect with Scott here!

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

Transcript

00:03.21
James McWalter
Hello, today we're speaking with Scott Aronson, founder and CEO of Demeter Land Development. Welcome to the podcast, Scott.

00:09.47
Scott Aaronson
Hey, thank you for having me.

00:11.59
James McWalter
Amazing. I guess to start, can you tell us a little bit about ah how you, you know, your early career and how you ended up founding Demeter?

00:19.45
Scott Aaronson
Oh, gosh. Kind of an interesting story. So i um i was an attorney. and I still am an attorney. I was an attorney in the Detroit area. I was actually mostly focused on criminal defense at the time.

00:33.10
Scott Aaronson
I got into real estate a little bit. bought a hostel in in Detroit and some other real estate properties, which I still own by. And one of these guys that stayed in one of my places was a landman. Actually, he was in the oil and gas landman business.

00:52.70
Scott Aaronson
He was ah you know somewhere in northern Michigan. I'm a Michigander. Someone in northern Michigan somewhere in northern michigan getting, I think, gas leases.

01:04.68
Scott Aaronson
And, you know, he we became fast friends. And as that work kind of dried up, he got into the renewable business. He became the the director of land and legal for a small company.

01:17.17
Scott Aaronson
um And he called me. He said, hey, you're hey Scott, you're these one of these entrepreneurial types. I got to wait for you to make a lot of money. You know, of course, thatt that and pitch that you always hear.

01:25.58
James McWalter
Sure. Mm-hmm.

01:28.42
Scott Aaronson
He goes, i just, you know, I just need some land. and You know, I need some guys to go out with me and and get some land and and and sign these folks up for for what I was later to find out was community solar in Illinois.

01:43.52
Scott Aaronson
So, you know, we didn't know what we doing. He didn't know what he was doing at the time either, which, you know, so we didn't have a lot of the the setups that we have now, like PACE's, in you know, at the time we didn't really have any of that. so we were, I went to Illinois and I started knocking on doors and trying to find trace three phase lines with my with, you know, driving around in my car and signing up folks.

02:07.04
Scott Aaronson
um What happened?

02:08.54
James McWalter
and I guess that that was about seven seven-ish years ago now, seven race.

02:11.13
Scott Aaronson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's about seven, seven-ish years ago. You know, eventually what happened was I had certain ideas how to how to run the the land department. And eventually came to a point where he said, hey, this isn't your land department. If you want to run your own land department, do it, but you're not doing it here.

02:27.68
Scott Aaronson
And yeah from that point, the meter was demeter was officially born.

02:27.73
James McWalter
Mm-hmm.

02:32.37
Scott Aaronson
And I said, okay, fine, I will. And you know yeah I met a ah partner mine who works with me on a lot of this stuff, works who worked at a e a software company that sold three-phase line data, and which no longer exists.

02:52.06
Scott Aaronson
And and And together we you know we kind of worked and and grew the company, our land origination company into what it is today, which is you know a team of 12 to 14 folks that that do mostly DG land origination work.

03:09.11
James McWalter
That's amazing. I guess like, you know, in the kind of day to day now, right? Do you find you're ever using that legal background in, you know, in the work you're doing at Demeter? Obviously, you're not providing legal services, I don't want to overstate.

03:23.24
James McWalter
But I guess like, how has that, I guess, influenced how you've you know built and kind of developed the offering over the years?

03:29.39
Scott Aaronson
I think, you know, it's it's funny because if you, I was kind of, you know, i graduated law school in 2010. And at that point there was a real sour taste. and Anyone that was a lawyer at that point had a real sour taste in their mouth.

03:41.36
Scott Aaronson
And, you know, while my work, it does is doesn't require a law degree, a lot of our, a lot of our land agents actually have law degrees. And I think it adds, if if nothing else, it adds a level of credibility to the work that we do.

03:55.10
Scott Aaronson
um you know Like you said, especially as a lawyer, you have to be real careful about saying that you're providing legal advice, essential especially when you're providing legal contracts. And I'm also a licensed broker, too, but you know which complicates things more.

04:09.46
Scott Aaronson
but But, yeah, I mean, I i know that when developers come in and developers come in and they say, oh, he's a lawyer, and a lot of our team are lawyers, it's a real possibility.

04:21.55
James McWalter
That makes lot of sense. And so, you know, you kind of started this kind of door knocking, know, running around Illinois. You know, I think the, you you primarily focus on the DG um segment of the market, you know, talk me through kind of, i guess, how much competition has changed on the development side, right? So how developers, how competitive things were back when you first started the meter, how things have shifted, what the landscape looks like, you know, are there, you know, as kind of different markets have evolved?

04:52.58
Scott Aaronson
So we didn't re we had a really low tech approach when we first started this. Um, and with that low tech approach, we, because of how we worked, we were still relatively successful.

05:04.72
Scott Aaronson
Um, but that, that also, I think had to do with the fact that there wasn't the same level of competition as there, there is now as competition gets better, that low tech approach doesn't work. You really need to have tools and good tools. And you need to kind of, you need to really know what you're doing in order to, to, to, to make a good approach.

05:23.33
Scott Aaronson
So like, you know, back in the day, I used to, I didn't know anything about the interconnection when I would talk to folks. I didn't even check, you know, I'm almost embarrassed to say this. I didn't even check for like, you know, a lot of wetlands and floodplains and Tobo and off like, there's a hundred different, and you know, is there oil leases underneath? There's a hundred different things that you need to check for back then.

05:42.64
Scott Aaronson
Didn't check for any of that. And, you know, nowadays is is we went from just a one man shop working for somebody to the, to where we're at now. We do all, all of, All of those things.

05:54.43
James McWalter
And I guess, you know, it's because of that kind of competitive pressure between developers, you know, the best sites, right, are in some cases, if it's a new market, they're very rapidly consumed.

06:05.93
James McWalter
In kind of more established markets, you often have the same sites getting ah pursued by lots and lots of different folks, right? um And so, you standing out from the crowd is, you know, is of key importance.

06:18.43
James McWalter
I guess what are kind of, I guess, for some of the biggest challenges slowing down land acquisition and early stage development that you guys see today?

06:25.65
Scott Aaronson
So the the biggest thing slowing it down is, I guess it is, I think it's something that Paces is working on. It's the whole point of Paces. It's like, it's inefficiency in information, right?

06:38.07
Scott Aaronson
Like the first issue that we have is the first issue with DG markets that we have is, is where are the three phase lines? That was the question in 2017. That was the only question in 2017.

06:51.26
Scott Aaronson
You find the three phase lines, and you get all the sites and then you work on interconnection later. You work you worry about non-ministerial permitting, about HJs and all that type of stuff later.

07:02.35
Scott Aaronson
um You worry about everything later. that first prompt That first leg of the stool is the most important thing. nowadays that can't Nowadays, with the amount of competition you have, even in new established markets, that can't that that simply won't work.

07:15.27
Scott Aaronson
you need to know you know You need to have good AHJ data, non-ministerial permitting. you It helps if you get better you know, ah pre-applications, you know, better data about substation capacity from a really early perspective.

07:31.43
Scott Aaronson
um And then, of course, three-phase lines, distance to three-phase, all the things that you know, you won't know exactly how it affects you until later, but you got an idea because you've worked, you know, you've worked in that industry, you know.

07:44.35
Scott Aaronson
And, you know, yeah, so that's, that's it's a whole different game. And if you know those things, if you if you're able to know, if you're really able to understand your market, you're really able to so have all that information that you can provide to your landowners, and you know it that, plus understanding some fundamentals of speaking farmer and understanding how rural America works, you're going to be in a really good place.

08:07.87
James McWalter
yeah

08:10.13
James McWalter
I guess on that last piece, you know I think this is something that um yeah folks have listened to this a while, and you know I think you know you're aware. So I grew up on a farm, but in a different country, right? ah But farming, you know farmers in Ireland are not super dissimilar to farmers anywhere else.

08:25.67
Scott Aaronson
Yeah.

08:26.02
James McWalter
They're working very, very hard, very long hours, low margin business, very tight familial ties to the land, right? And the relationship for that.

08:36.47
James McWalter
um But like a lot of places, you know, folks are aging out. And, you know, I was the last, I was the last son to to not farm. And so we sold the family farm and I'm the eldest son, you know, so you have like, you know, and that's like not an uncommon thing.

08:48.75
James McWalter
um especially in in parts of the United States where a lot of these projects are being targeted. ah I guess, like, you know, what is the, you know, ah generally your kind of approach to engaging these folks? And then also, you know, in the seven years since you've been kind of doing this work seven or eight years, has your kind of messaging to these folks, the landowners themselves, the farmers have had to change?

09:08.02
James McWalter
Yeah. yeah

09:11.45
Scott Aaronson
Yeah. So the, so our approach, you know, the answer is yes. so Our general, our general approach has been pretty simple in in a lot of ways. Our our general approach hasn't changed.

09:25.99
Scott Aaronson
Find good sites, you know, do an outreach, do an outreach. That's, that's not a tip. You know, sometimes I see our competitors and they have these form letters and it doesn't name's not even in there, information's not even in there, and it's just like, hey, call me, you know, and it's it's very impersonal.

09:43.02
Scott Aaronson
our our Our approach has always been really to to to make it a personalized thing, you know, whether that be calling them, but but, you know, or going, doing community meetings, calling them, writing a letter that's actually a written letter, that's a big thing that we do, um,

10:01.66
Scott Aaronson
And in terms of how it's changed, as i did as our as we get better and as more information is available, the biggest change that I see is what's in the letter. Generally, what's in the letter now has and and what we're able to provide is a lot more detailed information. Like, you know, I got 10 of my competitors that are writing general letters. Hey, call me. You can make a lot of money.

10:22.76
Scott Aaronson
Our letters are like, hey, you're on x y and Z substation. we we Sometimes, if if the information double. You're on X, Y, and Z substation. We might have substation capacity of X. We're in this area. We have these amount of of projects. you know You have an opportunity here because of this, this, and this.

10:40.31
Scott Aaronson
And in they see our letter with with with me actually writing and then following up to them afterwards. And then they see these other letters. And they just put they put all the other letters in a big book full of stuff. And they might give me a call back.

10:52.33
James McWalter
Yep. And I guess like from the typical moments when you kind of get somebody on the phone or, you know, they call, call you guys back based on this, like, you know, highly detailed letter, um you know, all the way through to getting folks under initial contracts.

11:07.63
James McWalter
um I guess like any learnings that you've had over the years as you kind of streamline that process.

11:11.74
Scott Aaronson
Yeah. Yeah. In the beginning, it was, if you, if I was going to pitch you what we do in the beginning, it would have been, you know, I speak farmer and that would have been, you know, I speak, I speak farmer.

11:22.64
Scott Aaronson
You don't, you know,

11:23.11
James McWalter
That's enough. Yeah.

11:24.41
Scott Aaronson
yeah that that would have been our thing.

11:25.50
James McWalter
The big city boys. Yeah, yeah. What's that?

11:29.03
Scott Aaronson
And while that's still true, what I pitch people now, you can't grow a company off of just pitching. but you know What I pitch now, what I pitch our our company is not only do we speak farmer, but but we're all about process.

11:43.14
Scott Aaronson
So you know back in the days when it was just me, there was no process. Now and with my team of folks, it's it's what happens is instead of just writing a letter and me saying, hey, here's a site,

11:54.56
Scott Aaronson
you know, it first it gets screened through Paces, right? so So Paces has all their buildability screens and now they're getting permitting stuff, which is really helpful from and a whole bunch of other stuff that we use with Paces.

12:06.19
Scott Aaronson
After Paces screening, we have, you know, we send out letters. we They respond. When they respond, um you know, our agents will screen it.

12:20.18
Scott Aaronson
We have an administrative support staff people that that screen it check again for buildable, for you know, have a whole list of questions that they ask, buildable acres, you know, topo, floodplains, all that stuff that, that, you know, you don't really think about right away.

12:34.44
Scott Aaronson
Then it gets, you know, then it generally at some point gets screened at, for the HJ. So that, that usually involves, you know, we'll have a base, we can have a basic idea through, through zoning ordinances and stuff. We find out, right.

12:48.52
Scott Aaronson
But that always involves a personal phone call to the, to the zone where we get an idea of like, Oh, yeah, it's in the it's in the, we have an ordinance for it, but we haven't approved one of these.

12:59.04
Scott Aaronson
you know We have 30 of them, and we haven't approved one of them ever. And that's, you know what's the use of setting up land if that's the case? So you know it goes through this whole process um that's a well-organized process, you know and that's, that I think, one of our core advantages and and why most of the developers we work with really like us.

13:19.78
James McWalter
And I guess like, what are some the kind of the main reasons why the projects will fall out where, you know, cause you're doing that and that, that kind of just initial secondary set of ah diligence um is a permitting, you know, cause often maybe the interconnections will still take a little while like that, you know, depending on the study, but I guess like, what are the the reasons projects fall off at this stage?

13:35.44
Scott Aaronson
yeah

13:39.95
Scott Aaronson
so So there's, you know, I guess there's really, i would say if it was a stool, I always liked this the stool in it and you had the three pillars. You know, one pillar is is is land, meaning actually having the land, you know, and then environmental stuff on the land. and And the other pillar is interconnection. And then the other pillar is AHJ permitting.

14:05.36
Scott Aaronson
used to be back in the day that that the number one thing that would determine a good site is permitting. So that's why a lot of folks go through the whole process. They do say, okay, we wait until we have permitting.

14:16.50
Scott Aaronson
We did it. We spent all this money on system impact studies and feasibility studies and all this, and we're ready to go. Now we go and get, park and now we go and get HJ permit. And that's no longer the case anymore. Now I would say if that they're almost equal.

14:30.47
Scott Aaronson
So, i mean, I'm not saying you don't do any, any work with interconnection, but, You really have to, you know, I would almost say that you do you do the interconnection in the in the permitting at the same speed.

14:44.47
Scott Aaronson
So once you have a basic understanding that, yes, it's possible, you got to work on on permitting right away because it's very, it's one there's a lot of misinformation campaigns.

14:44.96
James McWalter
Yep.

14:54.59
Scott Aaronson
I'm on all of these Facebook groups that talk about how, you know, solar is stealing the sun or, you know, they, you know, the whatever the complaint. And a lot of that's actually funded by, if you're listening in the industry, ah no, a lot of that's funded by you know fossil fuel and politics and all sorts of stuff.

15:13.58
James McWalter
yeahp

15:15.41
Scott Aaronson
But yeah, it is a

15:15.94
James McWalter
what

15:18.42
James McWalter
Yeah, I guess when you enter like a new market from, let's say new HJ, is it better to be first like to that HJ or way later, right? Because like first, there's maybe there's nothing about solar, you know, you're kind of like having to figure it out from the scratch versus maybe much later. it's There's a well-established structure that maybe things are a bit clearer on. I guess like generally, which is it better to be early, you know, early to the process with an HJ late or something in the middle?

15:44.30
Scott Aaronson
really depends. It depends on the project. It's certainly, if you're going to an AHA after, if somebody messes up, there there's just like anything, like there's good farmers and bad farmers, there's good developers and bad developers.

15:56.30
Scott Aaronson
And if you're, if, if someone has a horrible experience with a developer and you're going after them, that's a real, that's a real issue. And, but there's, you know, on the flip side of that, if, on the flip side of that, if you're going after a developer where everything worked like they wanted,

16:13.11
Scott Aaronson
That's great. or Or if you're, you know, if on the flip side of that too, like there's there's a lot of risk of in being first. um You know, there's a lot of education, in HJ education. There's a lot of, and and and those are, anytime you got to educat educate, it's always a really costly thing, especially if other people pay it away. Now, I, you know, I, it's part of what Demeter does for some of our developers. We do the HJ process as well.

16:40.67
Scott Aaronson
And I've been in in some markets where where we were first, and i think it really helped out because we did it the right way. you know The right way, meaning there's there's two ways. there's the way like There's the basics, like, oh, I'm just going to fill out a form for a special use permit and get that taken care of. Then there's the right way, which is like community meetings, talking to people, talking you know figuring out what the local politics are, um you know talking to neighbors that might complain and you know seeing that there's an easy way to work out a solution.

17:10.74
Scott Aaronson
stuff like that. And if you're the first person in an AHA and you do everything the right way, and in you know there's always a risk, but but it could work out very well for you and set the path for a lot of projects going forward.

17:23.82
James McWalter
it It is this challenge though, right? I mean, I think you alluded to it, but you have, you know, the the soft costs with development are not going down, right? You know, every time a ah you know, development occurs because the success rate for that project getting to NTP, you know, is is lower than we want, the industry wants and so on.

17:43.16
James McWalter
You know, a lot of the kind of, I think, historical reason for the interconnection then permitting sequencing was because, you know you didn't want to spend a ton of time on permitting and doing permit the right way, as you alluded to, because it's a lot of human hours, right being at those meetings and all those kind of things, um if the interconnection was like not going to work out and not going pencil.

18:02.13
James McWalter
I guess, like how do you kind of think about you know that piece? right yeah the like I think when I've talked to folks who are at the HJs, like as we're kind of trying to think through better ways and better solutions that PASIS could build, yeah the the overriding thing is we want developers to engage with us earlier.

18:18.43
James McWalter
And it makes complete sense. And I always just also say, I'm like, that's all makes sense. But like the the the cost of the developer, right? If they've got x number of projects and the low percentage likelihood of some of them, especially the earlier stages, you know, they can't send somebody down there ah to spend, you know, two weeks getting to know everybody and going to the local diner and all those kinds of things. so um You're obviously kind of like doing a lot of that work today.

18:41.31
James McWalter
guess like, what are the signals that it's worthwhile to go that deep in a community so early?

18:46.98
Scott Aaronson
it's always a matter of a chicken and egg. There's no right answer. Like, you're right. Like, why, how could you justify doing all that work and then, and then having that interconnection?

18:59.87
Scott Aaronson
Or, or, or the ah alternative, how can he justify um you know, the opposite of that? And there there's no, so I think the first thing, I think, you know, you, you kind of take it in incremental steps, like,

19:14.03
Scott Aaronson
What I would do is I would look at, I guess what I would do, you know, obviously get a pre-app. If pre-apps are available in some markets, they aren't. You know, I'd get a pre-app, I'd look, i I guess there's no right answer, but I would take both of them and in in incremental steps at the same time.

19:34.78
Scott Aaronson
Bottom line, it's a risky business and and you're going to have stuff fail. You're going spend a lot of money on interconnection and then and then have AHJ stuff fail. And you're going to spend a lot of money on AHJ stuff and have interconnections fail.

19:47.97
Scott Aaronson
It's just a really risky business, but i but we're all in it. in the And, you know, I'm going to keep going in it. I mean, I'm going to keep it in it. So...

19:57.22
James McWalter
I guess, and, you know, because you're dealing with so many different AHAs, and again, this ah is a problem that that we were always trying to kind of navigate at paces. um I guess, you know, there are hundreds, thousands, mean, there's many thousands, right? But, you know you guys, I'm sure, are directly involved in dozens to hundreds of AHAs and and kind of going deeper with that.

20:14.87
James McWalter
um You know, how much of, like, that, you know, stock farmer yeah or even, like, trying to find the right person on the ground who actually can, like, help navigate the process? um I guess, is there any kind of specific examples where,

20:26.80
James McWalter
you know, having those kind of relationships help move a project forward.

20:30.12
Scott Aaronson
Yeah, it's the same. It's the same. That's why we do it. I mean, the the the talk farmer thing, the the reason that we're good at what one of the what I talk about process, but the other reason that we're good at what we do is because we have you know this ability to talk farmer. And and the farmers are in these local AHA communities are the same people that are sitting on the planning commission.

20:52.97
Scott Aaronson
They're the same board supervisors. They're same board supervisors. They're all the same folks. So if you could talk to the farmer, you could talk to the planning supervisor. And yeah, it's a big part it's a big part of of of being successful.

21:09.87
Scott Aaronson
and And actually, you know in ah in a lot of in a different way, that's it's it's also the same thing with interconnection, right? Like, you know, being nice to the person that's doing me the, to the engineer that could give you little tips and advantages of you know or in You know, instead of just saying, well, you're going to need another system impact study, they say, well, you're going need know another system impact study.

21:30.10
Scott Aaronson
But, you know, my thought is if you're going to do another system impact study, it's still going to be this expensive cost, you know, so you shouldn't waste your money on You know, that little extra bit, they're going to say if you're nice to them and if you have that interpersonal relationship, and that might save you $5,000, $10,000, you know, which is a lot of money.

21:46.74
James McWalter
Yeah.

21:47.11
Scott Aaronson
given And then times that by 20, and that's, you know, you start getting into big money.

21:52.10
James McWalter
100%. know, one of the things we we say a lot of places is like, know, we're trying to automate as much desktop work as possible. But the reason for that is to free people to do people things, humans to do human things, right? Because, you know, the, that like, and that, you know, older engineer sitting at the utility who knows that, you know, it's not showing up in the in the system study, but what I know that that transformer is like, out you know, is past its you use by date. And we know, and you know, I'm pretty sure like that substation actually doesn't have the capacity that it might look like at the pre-app.

22:21.56
James McWalter
Like those kind of relationships that come from, know, long hours, like make so much difference. And I guess like a lot of it is like trying to reduce the friction on everything else so that folks have the time freed up to be able to do those like more in-depth kind of relationship-based problem solving.

22:37.71
Scott Aaronson
Absolutely. and without Without you guys, like I wouldn't have time to do that. i mean if If I was still doing what I used to be doing, I'd be managing a team of folks that are trying to figure out where three-phase lines are.

22:48.69
Scott Aaronson
and or or so like if if you know

22:49.26
James McWalter
No, sorry.

22:51.78
Scott Aaronson
When I go into a state, I might go into a state and you know i might have you know I have a lot of development partners, and which gives me a little bit of an advantage for what I do in terms of scalability.

23:02.10
Scott Aaronson
but If I go into state, I might have ah state i might have four or 5,000 letters that I'm sending out to folks in the state. And if all those letters aren't well screened to begin with, I'm chasing my tail and building interpersonal ah relationships with folks that that I don't need to because they're not the right sites. They're not the right HJs. They're not the, sometimes they're not, you know, the right utilities.

23:29.54
Scott Aaronson
So yeah, it's it's really a huge help.

23:33.78
James McWalter
And I guess, you know, in the last couple of years, I think there's there's been, know, you guys have been doing it longer longer than we have, of course. But, you know, I think one of the things that I've kind of noticed, there's kind of these emerging mini cycles of like consolidation in the industry.

23:49.43
James McWalter
and then kind of expansion. So you see some of the larger developer ah companies, you'll have a handful of folks break off, start our own two to three person development shops, right? And you see like the total number of firms expand.

24:00.77
James McWalter
um Some of them make it, some of them don't, some of them get reacquired by larger entities, right? So you have like this kind of interesting, you know, expansion and contraction of like just the total number of companies out there. um I guess, like, have you seen something similar? And I guess, like, how do you kind of see generally, what are the kind of bigger market shifts that you're kind of see coming for, i guess, DG renewables over the next couple of years?

24:22.46
Scott Aaronson
I, it's interesting. Yeah. So I do see that it's really interesting. Cause you'll get like, you'll be working with somebody one day with with this big organization and then they'll, well, the next day, you know, it they're like, Oh, I don't work there anymore. I work for, it'll be some, some other organization name that you've never heard of. And then you look into it a little more than like, Oh, they just put on their website like a week ago, you know, like they're just, and, um, so that's, that's always very interesting.

24:48.18
Scott Aaronson
You know, it's so that that's something, you know, I think in my line of work, which is mostly in the DG land origination side, although we're starting to get into doing some utility scale stuff for clients do.

25:00.52
Scott Aaronson
um in In my line of work, the biggest issue has, and I think anyone in DG will tell you, has been installing legislation. If there's no more business, you know, if there's no more, you know, business to do with in installing legislation, then, know,

25:17.79
Scott Aaronson
you know, what are you going to do? So, you know, they need to be, so one answer to that um that I've seen that's starting to just become a trend is is these, like, purple projects, which which some developers are able to pencil. Now, they don't, you know, doing purple, you know, a purple avoided cost project on a DG is, like,

25:40.42
Scott Aaronson
a lot, you know, you're not getting these crazy debt fees, like you're getting doing like Illinois community solar, but, but, you know, a lot of ah some folks that are, that are waiting for legislation, like, well, I'm just, what do I do? And they're, they're starting to take some of their, their, their positions and they're starting to turn them into purple projects.

25:58.06
Scott Aaronson
And, you know, I, I think that that's a very interesting way to go. You can, a lot of times you could find additional opportunities. You know, if that's the case, I can market my project differently.

26:10.17
Scott Aaronson
you know i could mark i mean i could mark I could differentiate. If you come to me and you say you want to do a purple project in ah in the market, I could differentiate that from the 40 other letters that these guys have and say, well, hey, they're all waiting for for legislation to pass and we're able to get started building this thing right now.

26:28.59
Scott Aaronson
and you There's only going to be one project on this entire line, so you know all those all your buddies that are all on that line that have all gotten letters and signed up with folks, they're going to be behind you in that The flip side, obviously, that nobody likes to hear is wholesale rates. There's not big money in big money

26:47.64
James McWalter
Yeah, I think another thing, I guess, you know, that that's always been interesting since we've we've kind of worked with you guys, i think a couple of years now, um you know, where Demeter goes, the market often follows like a year later or six months later, you know we you you know, we obviously never share information between customers, but I would like notice that you guys would be looking at states that ah we would hear not too much about it from other people.

26:59.68
Scott Aaronson
just

27:10.20
James McWalter
And then like six months later, they become like a hot stage, right, where you have like lots of folks kind of like looking at those. um And so I think like, you know, having you learned from you guys a lot over the years, like I think you guys have really embodied like understanding principles around first mover advantage, right? And new markets and all those kinds of things.

27:26.96
James McWalter
I guess like what, what, you know, how much of that is, you know, you guys kind of thinking through ah particular strategies and understanding state level legislation, how much of that is as you work with your developer partners, they, you know, they're kind of like interested in frontier markets or, or is it a mix?

27:41.74
Scott Aaronson
A lot of our partners, we have to really push to go into markets because, you know, it's you hear of new like legislation. We know what's, I know what's going happen. Like it's not, but in actually all of our developer partners know what's going to happen too.

27:54.91
Scott Aaronson
The problem is the developer partners have to go to investment committees. They have to go push it up the line, you know, but sometimes this process takes six to eight months to get into a new market. And like, that's, that's one of the reasons why folks, some of these smaller, some of these folks,

28:09.66
Scott Aaronson
You see that new kind of thing of some of these folks breaking up into the smaller, these smaller groups because they say, well, I could do what I don't need to have all this bureaucracy. um But, you know, on the flip side, like, you know, in terms of Demeter, Demeter doesn't have any of that, you know.

28:26.04
Scott Aaronson
If we need to go into a new market, we could go we could go into a new market when all these other folks are talking months and months. I could go into a new market in a week and a half and I could get up 5,000 letters.

28:37.40
Scott Aaronson
And actually, I could have never done that in 2017. That's another big thanks to your software because without the ability to do all that stuff like the three-phase lines and following...

28:51.85
Scott Aaronson
you know, parcel and getting that into a mailing list. Like i used to have those bailing lists used have to take me months when I did that on my own. But, but now, you know, I could do that in a week, a week and a half. And, you know, and we have the manpower, you know, if, if you don't have, you know, a lot of folks that have developers that are doing ah a ton of other tasks, you know, it's, it's not that easy to be like, Hey, I'm working in New York, you know, this new market, you know, that's put manpower but to this new market, which may or may not go, but, you know, you you come to someone like us and we can have,

29:22.40
Scott Aaronson
you know, five folks on it, six folks on it that are spending all their time doing that and and do that in a matter of weeks.

29:29.90
James McWalter
Right. And, you know, we don't get into the details, but I think what a lot of kind of, you know, these kind of approaches is like, because so much of it is success based, right? Like you're really de-risking for the developer, like the outcome, right?

29:42.00
James McWalter
because

29:42.47
Scott Aaronson
Yeah.

29:42.97
James McWalter
um Because they can now use you guys and work with you guys as an extension of your team um without, you know, having to put a huge amount up front.

29:50.91
Scott Aaronson
Yeah, absolutely right. We do, it's, it's you know, success-based, we all work on success-based, which is great because that means, when I say success-based, that means that we get paid back end, a little bit of money on the back end, and we also get paid when a little bit of money when when you actually have site control.

30:08.16
Scott Aaronson
But all of our team also work the same way, and that's actually, for our team, it's it's very difficult to find land agents that were willing to do that because, you know, especially if you, a lot of these land agents come from oil and gas, they all like their fat day rates of like, four you know, and I don't, I want to do very little.

30:22.56
James McWalter
Mm-hmm.

30:24.20
Scott Aaronson
I want to work at that C level, right? I don't want to work too little, too much that I'm going to be out of the job real quick. but I don't want to work not enough where I'm going to get fired. So you get that C level work with what we do.

30:36.06
Scott Aaronson
It's like, no, our, our, all of our agents, they get paid a percentage of the backend fee and, and they get paid a percentage of what they come in and, you know, they, what comes in and,

30:48.60
Scott Aaronson
And you generally get the guys that are like, well, yeah, I could i could go and you know live in a camper. And although they none of my guys live in campers, but

30:56.99
James McWalter
Yeah, but but but but get on the road as needed, right?

30:59.89
Scott Aaronson
yeah, I could live in a camper for two months and and sign up 20 of these deals. you know And and you know so we get ah we get a lot of superstars. And I think the results you know our speak for themselves and in terms of the list of clients and and how successful we've been in the industry.

31:12.56
James McWalter
Yep.

31:17.18
James McWalter
I guess like you know thinking kind of broader lens on the on the industry, um you know it's changed a lot. um There's lot of things happening in the industry. You have like more large-scale macro and geopolitical things. You've had you know federal dollars moving in and out. You've had you know more competition. you know some of the things we've talked about.

31:37.40
James McWalter
guess any hot takes you have about ah where DJ Renewables or the wider industry is today?

31:43.00
Scott Aaronson
I have no idea, man. I don't know if I should admit that. yeah I don't think, you know, I've talked to people that are a lot smarter than me. I've talked to people that that's only job is to work on this policy.

31:53.72
Scott Aaronson
One of the best parts about my job is like, there is always noise, what I call noise. Like one day a market's hot, the next day a market's not, you know, I don't have to listen.

31:58.52
James McWalter
Mm-hmm.

32:04.34
Scott Aaronson
I try, I just think, you know, the the basic fundamentals are that the the technology is great. The technology is rapidly decreasing in cost to the point where, where where like, you know, a good example is like these these purple projects, right? Like, who would have ever thought you could do a project that avoided cost a couple years ago even, right?

32:26.10
Scott Aaronson
But now, you know, everything in, you know, all this political stuff, all this other stuff, it doesn't, you know, it's very hard to stop.

32:37.22
Scott Aaronson
It's very hard to stop what's best for for for society, and ah not just on ah what's cleanest for a society, but also what's most economical for society. And as these technologies improve, it's gonna be the most economical way and the cleanest way.

32:52.20
Scott Aaronson
And when that happens, it's like, you know have all the noise you want with everything else. you know I'm just gonna be your lane guy in the middle in the meantime and keep getting as much pieces of lane as I can for good quality, well-screened pieces of lane that I possibly can.

33:08.50
Scott Aaronson
And it will all work out in the future.

33:10.48
James McWalter
and and deploy lots of watts and and and go from there.

33:13.09
Scott Aaronson
Yeah, exactly.

33:13.40
James McWalter
um Fully agree, its Scott. um I guess before we leave off, you know, re-enjoy the conversation, is there anything I should have asked you about but did not?

33:21.73
Scott Aaronson
No, I, um you know, I, thank you for having me on the podcast. I want to emphasize that what I said about, about, about our, our relationship with Paces. I'm not just saying that because I'm on podcast.

33:33.91
Scott Aaronson
Like I, it, I mean it, you know, we have a great relationship with you guys. Like, you know, I, and, and that relationship has saved me hours and hours and hours of work. It's really, I don't know if I would have figured out a way to do it without you guys, but I don't know how, if I would have been as as successful as I am now.

33:51.28
Scott Aaronson
I don't know if I would have been as quick as I am now without, without using all of the data. And yeah, so super thankful about that. Obviously, you know, If any of your people want to talk to me about about getting into market in a couple of weeks instead of, you know, eight to 12 months after all the good land is taken, you know, you know, you know who to call. Just go give me a call. and And we'd love to.

34:14.39
James McWalter
Yeah, well... Yeah, we'll we'll put your the the contact details in in the show notes for the podcast.

34:17.91
Scott Aaronson
like

34:19.67
James McWalter
And I really appreciate the kind words. you know i think when you first saw the product, I think we had a product out six, seven months at that point. And it was, you know if you're not embarrassed by your early product, you didn't try enough things kind of thing.

34:33.38
James McWalter
um But you guys, yourself and and and the wider team and and Steve and those folks have been like incredibly generous with their time, helping us to do better every day and and you know try to be the best that we can so that you can do your jobs ever better.

34:45.42
James McWalter
So no, really, really appreciate all all those kind words and and may have worked together for many more years.

34:51.00
Scott Aaronson
Absolutely. Absolutely.

34:53.41
James McWalter
Perfect. Thank you Scott.

34:55.19
Scott Aaronson
All right. Thank you. Take care.