Clean Energy Future – An Introduction

"Clean technology is an area where the rules have yet to be established. There are new opportunities."

           – Bob Epstein, Investors see green in clean tech

              News.com, 20 July 2005

I loved reading this recent quote from Bob Epstein because it captures exactly the sense of adventure and unconstrained opportunity that have attracted me to clean energy. Following in that spirit, Clean Energy Future is conceived as a weblog about rules that have yet to be established and new opportunities yet to be realized. Through this forum, I hope to explore the business of clean technology startups—specifically clean energy startups—with a focus on how clean energy technologies are packaged and successfully brought to market as products or solutions.

In this sense, I hope to avoid what I think is the well-worn territory of many clean tech discussions by focusing, less on promising new lab results or billion dollar mega markets, and more on the strategy and tactics necessary to realize the promise of clean technology in the real world. I hope to cover the topics in a way that is interesting to other entrepreneurs and potential investors in clean energy businesses.

Let me briefly introduce myself so that readers can get a sense on the perspective I bring to this topic. I’m a serial entrepreneur and clean energy professional. I recently sold a commercial solar power business that I founded 4 years ago to Energy Innovations, an Idealab company. My background is in technology startups and I’ve had the good fortune to be relatively successful.

I’ve raised (or helped to raise) over $62MM in equity financing for startups over the past 13 years. One company I co-founded had an IPO in 2004 and another was sold several years ago to the one of the world’s premier marketing and media companies. I’ve also had my share of challenges along the way—my firsthand experience of a failed IPO registration and the collapse of a KP/Amazon-funded dot-com have helped to season me as an entrepreneur and a leader.

Functionally, the bulk of my experience is in marketing, business development, and sales with a good dose of general management and finance gleaned from my startup adventures. As an entrepreneur, I am passionate about startups and passionate about clean technology, but I have zero patience for dreamy ideas or unfocused execution.

As I look ahead to developing Clean Energy Future, I hope to spend time exploring some of my favorite themes in clean energy:

• Who are today’s clean energy customers? Who will they be in the future?
• How are clean energy (technology) purchases evaluated?
• What is driving clean energy markets?
• How should we think about price and value from a competitive standpoint?
• How are clean energy startups different from other types of tech startups?
• What are the “new rules” for clean energy startups? And are they really new?
• Is clean energy a product or service?
• Is it better to be developing projects or selling products?
• What size market is sufficient?
• How does energy regulation fit into strategy?
• How do you build effective clean energy sales organizations?

Throughout, my plan is to write with an open mind, exploring ideas more than providing definitive or complete answers. That said, I do have my prejudices and opinions that will no doubt surface over time:

• I prefer DG customer strategies over utility or merchant generator strategies
• I think commercial customers are much more attractive than government customers
• I prefer incremental business building rather than betting on the big bang
• I favor niche markets with well defined customers over billion dollar boondoggles
• There is no such thing as a "pure" energy market, all energy markets are shaped by government policies
• A technology is not a product
• There is no such thing as “the energy market” rather there are many energy markets

By examining these areas through the lens of my own experience, I hope to begin to shed some light on the new rules and new opportunities that clean energy offers to us all.

Regards,

Arno Harris