The Cheapest Project Is the One You Kill in Week One ft. Even Kvelland | Soliverse Ep. 48

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0:00Even Kvelland: The cheapest project you will ever develop is the one you kill in week one, and everything else is going to be expensive. They were going to spend somewhere between five and ten million dollars on buying this project. That particular flaw that they had overlooked meant that the project couldn't be permitted. So, you know, everyone is optimizing for cost.

0:16In this case, this was millions out the window. These are the mistakes you cannot afford to do.

0:21Peter Pongracz: The best analogy for AI is you can get on the jet ski, but if the jet ski is pointed to the wrong shore, then you're not gonna arrive where you want to go.

0:27Speaker 1: Curiosity compounds, credentials don't.

From diplomacy to solar

0:33Peter Pongracz: So you didn't exactly come from like solar and renewables. You have a very different background, and what made you actually interested in renewables and what made you see other problems that the people who are in the industry didn't really notice?

0:48Speaker 1: Yeah, no, so I I've spent quite a bit of time in kind of energy more broadly, but I think, you know, and I think unlike maybe many other who are in renewable energy software, it's a bit sort of maybe a jack of all traits, master of of none. So my background spans diplomacy, business intelligence, consulting, but all of these with a fairly heavy exposure towards energy, but not necessarily exclusively.

1:17I think the renewable side especially picked up. I did grad school in New York, and that's really where I started to, I think it opened my eyes. I had a professor who wrote a book called The Solar Revolution, and he said, and quite bluntly, I'm not a tree hugger type of person, but you can't not see the fundamental shifts that's happening, and that's because the cost of solar is coming down so much, which then leads to this sort of famous learning curve, which then accelerates adoption.

1:48So uh I think he especially kind of opened my eyes to this, and then kind of secondly, meeting my co-founders uh Harell and John, and you know, really what we had seen was there was a I think a massive lack of uh abilities to understand early in the development of back then it was just solar, what are potential kind of fatal risks. So I think this was kind of the core sort of thesis and became like the mission of the company.

2:18And then I think maybe more explicitly we saw that you know, the engineers, they had CAD, they had PBSyst, but the people who were really deciding where to build, you know, typically the business development teams, they were relying on fairly primitive tools for the jobs at hand, such as Google Maps and sometimes even sort of a hunch. I think, especially in the early days, we would hear people, you know, literally with a old map and binoculars in a notepad, sort of you know, driving around the countryside in you know, Germany or France or you know, wherever, and sort of making uh making notes on a pad of like, hey, here we see the substation, you know, here we see the land.

3:00This could be interesting. So I think you know, very rudimentary uh for for many, um, but overall kind of just a lack of you know the actual tools to understand early in the development lifecycle, good project, bad project.

What origination involves

3:17Peter Pongracz: So it's kind of like treasure hunting in the old days, and even that in uh the most manual way, right? So it's quite interesting to hear that. And maybe if we are talking about the origination side of things that you mentioned already, like how would you define all the activities that are kind of attached to this whole idea of how do I pick the best site that I should build anything on?

3:39Even Kvelland: You know, it's been now six and a half years since we started Glint, and I think there hasn't been sort of like one moment necessarily for us where like, okay, now everything came together, but we've seen sort of a pattern, and I think we've seen an industry really maturing. So I think one of the things that was clear, especially back then, and I think that we worked a lot on is how do you understand up front, either if it's greenfield or if it's you buying MA at sort of ready-to-build stage, what are potential kind of fatal flaws in your project?

4:10So this is a significant cost, right? I think in the US, for instance, uh, where we're also active, you know, we've seen that all the capacited entered the interconnection queue between, I think it was like 2000 and 2020. And this is not just solar, but also best and wind. You know, 13% had been built by the end of last year. So the failure rate is so high.

4:33What we're trying to do is like, how do you really de-risk the project from day one but through the life cycle of the project in a cost-effective uh way? And I think it's naive to think that software is the end-all be-all, but I think software has a tremendously important role to play in de-risking, allowing you to, in a much more efficient way, move projects forward by dealing with both internal and certainly also external friction points.

Where the risk sits

5:02Peter Pongracz: I mean, before you even put any modules on the field or any uh windmill, uh what are they called, buildmill blade on on site, you know, like it's it's definitely interesting to see what will be the the main capex, right, before you even get to building. Because what people underestimate is that the time and the effort to get to the project as well, it's actually almost just as difficult as doing and building the project itself, right?

5:30Speaker 1: I think the actual building, especially when it comes to solar, like wind is a bit more complicated. Solar batteries, it's it's very very easy, right? It's and I think that's the beauty of the technology. I think you know, when we look at sort of technology more broadly and you know, in hardware technology, there's all kinds of technology risk. I wouldn't say that there's no technology risk in renewables and solar and batteries, especially, but it's you know, it's it's pillars and it's a frame and it's modules on top and some courts, you know, if you kind of simplify it down, or it's a container.

6:04So I think you know that is, you know, if you think of sort of risk when it comes to project development, it's it's largely de-risked when it comes to the actual construction. Understanding sort of earthworks, you know, what's what's there, that could be a risk. But that's why for us, we see this sort of curve of if you can't have time on the one axis from you know early origination through R2B, you know, the risk starts, it's very high risk in the beginning, and then you know the risk curve goes down.

6:34So what you want to do is, you know, again, the earliest phases, that's when you can control the risk more. So that's really where you want to take down the risk in any possible way you uh the way you can. And I don't think necessarily all developers and IPPs have been so aware of this. Of the course, there's a lot of good examples where many, many do, but I think these are the types of conversations that we have with our partners, you know, across, you know, from US throughout Europe, Australia.

6:59You know, how do we actually de-risk? And again, software plays a role, but a lot of other uh elements really goes goes into this, especially in the early phases of development.

7:08Peter Pongracz: Especially in markets like this, you know, 2026 is definitely not exactly a growth year, at least not in Europe and the US, right? So when it comes to de-risking, everybody's trying to find a way how to, you know, first of all, reduce the risk, but secondly also to to kind of reduce the capex as well, right? And and all of these components in the in the big picture add up, and and that that's going to make your uh make or break your project, right?

The $5-10M ordinance

7:35Speaker 1: Yeah, no, for sure. And I think to your point, right? I mean, we we do see sort of a bit of a I mean calibration to use that word of the industry. It's no longer sort of this gold rush that I think was a term we heard four or five years ago. We see consolidation in the industry. If we zoom back for a second, I think this is largely a kind of a healthy sign of an industry growing up and and maturing.

7:59And of course, it's you know, it's unfortunate for folks who are losing their jobs or even companies you know going going under. But I think on the on the topic of capex, right? And actually I was I was on the phone with um with a developer the other day, they were buying a uh a large solar invest project, and they said, you know, we we have a intense kind of due diligence process, yet we we failed to see a kind of a critical flaw in the project.

8:27And in this case, it was concerning a very fairly sort of esoteric local ordinance in that county, and they were gonna spend you know somewhere between five to ten million dollars on buying this project, but that particular flaw that they had overlooked meant that the project couldn't be permitted. So you know, everyone is optimizing for cost. In this case, this was millions out the window.

8:54These are the mistakes you cannot afford to do. So again, you need to understand your projects, you need to do the proper due diligence, greenfield, brownfield, MA, truly understand what are the risks, and then have a very clear idea of how we're actually going to mitigate this. So I think there's a lot of good companies doing this, but still, even sophisticated players, they get it wrong, right?

9:19So I think there's there's so much opportunity here to spend time together and still work on these uh these problems.

What isn't online

9:26Peter Pongracz: Yeah, and it partially also rolls back to the question of what is online, right, that you can capture with the software and mitigate with the software. And on the other hand, what is not online, so managing your stakeholders, your local community, etc. I I spoken to a US developer on the show, and he said before they do anything, they actually pay some visits to the local county, they try to find out you know what is the mindset, how people are perceiving these projects, right?

9:54So if you put a solar project next to my house, you're not gonna grow a second or third uh limb, right? And he said it's really worth uh it's waiting all to pay these visits. It sounds like you know, wasted time sometimes, but exactly to your point of your example, it really comes back to all these tiny, tiny nuances that are not online that that can make or break your project.

NIMBYism and the town hall

10:16Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I think that's true. And I'm and I'm really glad to hear you know that perspective. Because I think, you know, again, this is like another conversation that we have across all the markets in which we operate. And I think for many, it's all about the grid, and I think for sure that is that is right, but we need to sort of be able to think about a few things at the same time, and I think sort of community sentiment and local ordinances is one of those things that so often it's sort of pushed towards the end out at least too late in the in the process.

10:46So, okay, fantastic that you've managed to secure interconnection, but we do see, unfortunately, I think, you know, growing sort of anti-sentiment and sort of you know NIMBYism not in my backyard, for sure when it comes to data centers, but also when it comes to, I think, onshore wind we've had for a long time, probably less with batteries. We do hear it when there's been cases of you know a fire in a battery, and that of course will be all over the news, people will be afraid, and of course with with PV.

11:12So I think finding ways of you know bringing people in early. I think most people don't want to be told something. They want to be part of a conversation, right? And I again, I don't think you know a software is you know is the end all be all solution here, but I think even if for in the last maybe two years, you know, we've been addressing this question.

11:33And one of the things that we do with our partners is let's let's have them visualize the project. You know, I think seeing and sort of believing, especially if you're not you know very familiar with renewables, you might have a certain idea of what it is. You might have a kind of a negative view on this. So what we do is we equip our partners so that they can literally design it in 3D.

11:53That's fine, but go more beyond. So it's not just your your rows and your tables or your containers or your turbines, but kind of like playing a video game. It's like, hey, you know, we're gonna draw a you know a hedge row here, we're gonna then you know grow this. So you know, this is how politism is planted. And it sounds very trivial, but in our experience, it it really moves the conversation.

12:16So, you know, here you're in a town hall meeting or you're presenting this to local stakeholders, they see like, well, okay, but yeah, we were skeptical because of this you know 50 megawatt project, but the way you guys have thought about it, we can see that we're included. We can see that we're heard because the visual impact is taken into account.

12:36So I think that's very important. And we're launching a module which takes it even further where we're going into very specific on local sentiments and you know, digging into the regulatory data. So almost sort of like a radar that sort of you know pings, gives you notices of like what is going on, even you know, competitors in the same area, you know, how are they looking at it?

12:58So again, you know, we're we're innovating extremely fast, you know, pushing the needle to be able to uh you know give our partners the best possible ways of moving projects forward.

13:10Peter Pongracz: I'm actually thinking back to InterSolar, and uh we managed to have a quick chat there. But for me, the biggest learning piece was that I actually bumped into somebody from the organizers and they they told me that one of their biggest objectives is still community engagement and kind of debunking these issues that you mentioned, you know, that that still we need to put way more effort into educating the public at large, you know, people who are you know heard about solar but you know still didn't really dig into the details.

13:45And I think this is super valuable as well because we sometimes have this siloed vision of like we are talking to renewables people and we assume that everybody is like-minded to us, but we also need to understand that the general population perceives this differently, and we need to be able to express and communicate the value at and and the risks, uh, etc., to the general public as well.

The 40% cancellation study

14:10Speaker 1: And I actually read, um, I think it was just a couple of days ago, a study that came out. This was in the US, but I think the same is true for other markets. But you know, they looked at project facing significant local opposition. It wasn't just solar, it was solar best wind, maybe even data centers, but at least the first three, and you know, 40% of the projects were canceled because of opposition.

14:33These numbers will grow, right? So I think we have a responsibility, I would say, as an industry, to you know, take this seriously so we don't cannibalize our own markets here. And I think, you know, as a developer for sure, but you know, we're also uh, you know, as a provider, as a vendor, we have a have a role to play. So we all want to decarbonize the world.

14:52This is, for me, this is very personal, this is the mission of my life, but let's make sure we do this in the right way so we don't start slipping backwards. And I think you know, this can be done in any number of ways. And I think we see in certain markets where it's becoming more common to do these good neighbor agreements where where there is not just your own land that's being leased, but because of proximity to it, there is a monetary reward.

15:19That may not be the right approach in every market, but I think what it means is that these developers are taking it seriously. And so I think that with again kind of the way you design it and reduce the visual impact and allowing for positive community sentiments. I think it's it's it's so important.

Good developers vs cowboys

15:37Peter Pongracz: Yeah, and we've talked about the positives already, but maybe if you can we can also talk about the negatives. So, like, what's the difference between a successful or unsuccessful developer or good or bad developer in terms of their approach or mindset to these projects?

15:53Speaker 1: I do want to sort of also give some give some kudos because I think we've seen the industry come a long, long way. I think it's much fewer cowboys around now than it used to be. But I think you know, some of the for me signifiers of you're still not the professional actor that I think we as an industry needed to be is, you know, you don't have the right approach, right?

16:13So you're too careless in the way you go about again with community. I think if you you know you go and you don't have the right sequence in your development process, I think this is not necessarily bad, but I think you're gonna be losing out if you don't incorporate a kind of a grid first mentality. I think that's true in almost every market at this point.

16:34I think one of the mistakes we we see is again, you know, doing too shallow of an early analysis when it comes to the land, how much is actually buildable, what are the permit risks that we need to take into account. I think it's easy to sort of think, oh, you know, we have you know a good piece of land, but understanding, you know, really what are the setbacks, what are the slopes, you know, flooding, access in type of archaeology, endangered species, and you know, doing this upfront, don't wait for a very, very costly surprise two years down the road.

17:07The flip side, I think that you know the good developers, they have a good sequence of how they do this. I certainly also think that you know they understand the risks of not having the right well, we sometimes use the word tech stack, but basically what softwares do you use? It's so easy, especially in you know kind of larger teams. You have fragmented tools, you have, you know, this PDF you know ends up in someone's inbox, it's not connected to a wider platform, that person quits, there's no trace of it.

17:38Again, costly down the road because it doesn't live in a unified system. So I think you know the good professional actors, you know, they really focus on external efforts, how they're perceived, the community, understand you know, what it takes to not just connect to the grid in the first place, but you know in most cases at this point, it's a long waiting period from when you first get your approval to when you actually connect, what it takes to actually keep the project alive.

18:06And of course, their internal workflow is really streamlined so that they can do a lot of the important work early. So I was actually at um at Google a couple of years ago at their uh X, it's like they're they called the Moonshot Factory, and they had a kind of a whole saying around it was you can put a monkey on a on a pedestal and teach it to recite Shakespeare, but you know, training the monkey to recite Shakespeare, that's the hard part.

Hard part first

18:30So you want to make sure that you start with the hardest part, because otherwise you end up sinking cost and and time into something that may fail. And I think the same is true for renewables. You've got to tackle the hard part first. So I think the good developers they've cracked this and they know how to tackle this in the right in the right way.

18:50Peter Pongracz: Yeah, but it also comes back to human nature, right? So if you have a task that you're really dreading to do and you really don't want to do it, you're most likely to put it at the end of the queue. So you really need to fight against yourself and your ego as well to really tackle the hard part first, because if you have gone through a couple of iteration cycles, this will really pay off on down the line.

19:14Speaker 1: For sure. And I think you know, we're all to some extent sort of fighting our own human irrationality, right? So maybe without going too philosophical, but I think you know, there's some fairly kind of straightforward fixes here. And I think having a system, you know, like a could be a dashboard in your in your you know, in your project management software, just like, well, you know, these are the tasks that I need to complete in order to move my project over to the next decision gate.

19:39You know, that that forces you, right? So of course there's still room for procrastination, but I think you know, there are small things that we can do in which we can sort of design, especially if you're let's say head of development or the CEO, you you know, you design the right process where you try to mitigate the human error, the human procrastination fatigue elements.

20:03I think there's small sort of tricks that you can do that in fact can be quite powerful.

The de-risking checklist

20:08Peter Pongracz: Yeah, you you you mentioned this briefly already. So check your grid uh queue and check the buildable areas, talk to your community. But if you had to give a checklist to a developer on how to best de-risk your project, what would the components be there?

20:24Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think I would sort of probably five or six things that come to mind, and that's not gonna be an exhaustive list, but for sure, grid right capacity, is it available not just today, but you know, when you're likely to connect, so based on a kind of estimated timeline of your of your project. Of course, hard exclusion, so we talked about this already, protected designations, you know, species, heritage, flooding, can be military in many countries, aviation, understanding this and have a not just knowing it, but have a mitigation strategy and understanding how this actually factors into my project.

21:00I think understanding really the difference between oh, this land is nice versus like what is actually buildable and understanding yield and ideally, you know, CapEx, opex hurdle rates, you know, financial metrics also. I don't work in the fun in you know the financial terms, but understanding this early because we're building an asset and we're looking for returns.

21:22So I think here is also an opportunity to pull this in earlier than typically what we often see. Of course, any type of elements tied to site control, you know, landowners, what does this look like, especially if it's large large case PB? What is my method of going out and securing this and really down to sort of the demographics of each landowner? Maybe there is a generational shift at a farm.

21:48Maybe the current generation is more skeptical, the new one is more open. When is that happening? And then how do I go out and already start to cultivate the relationship with the next generation? Because that piece of land sits in the dead center of my project, and the whole economics of my project changes with or without that piece of parcel. Anything's related to the regulatory aspect?

22:13Is there any type of moratoriums, bans, setbacks, regulations you need to take into account other competitors, ideally? Not always so easy to find, but again, that's where we come in. And of course, last but not least, community. So what is already going on here, overall sentiment, and how do we actually mitigate this? So I think five or six pieces that are all really critical to uh to the success.

22:39Because you can tweak in AutoCAD, okay, you know, we're not sure about this project, so let's spend time from the engineering point of view to tweak it. We can do all kinds of you know fancy modeling in Excel, but if the fundamentals are weak, you may not have a project. You can sort of do all kinds of later stage optimization, but you want to get it right from the beginning.

Checklist order

22:58Peter Pongracz: Very true. And I think people really need to think about it this a little bit more holistically as well and look into the future and try not to jump the gun, right? Because you can assume I'm going to build this beautiful 100 megawatt project, but if it actually doesn't clear at the permitting stage, it's not going to work. And maybe coming back to your checklist, like do you think it is more important what is on the checklist or the order of the items that go on the checklist?

23:27Speaker 1: I think it's one of those like, well, you need to do both. Um so that's maybe a bit of a cop-out answer, but I think I mean for sure, like what is on there. I don't think you can invent sort of like an alternative checklist with none of the criteria mentioned and say, well, you know, this is gonna work. I think the order m matters, but I think what maybe matters more is that, you know, for some of these, you need to do it in parallel.

23:50I don't think it's there is a sequence to it, but but not necessarily quite as sort of you know sequential as I as I just listed them. I think again, the main thing is you know, doing it early and doing it thoroughly. So it's not just for Greenfield, but also for M ⁇ A. You need to understand all these different criteria, and you can't necessarily just rely on the on the report that you're getting from from the seller, but do your own betting.

24:15Make sure that you know, because we've seen time and time again, buying a project, you think you know it, you think it's good to go, it's not. So I think maybe more than anything is like be be thorough. I think that's the uh the main point here.

Floating solar to data centers

24:31Peter Pongracz: Maybe if we segue back to you guys at Glynn, so you obviously started with floating solar, which is quite a niche, and then you pivoted into groundmand, storage, hybrid, also data centers. And six years later now you are named number 27th on the hundred fastest growing uh startups in the Nordics by uh sifted and financial times. So, you know, how do these pivots happen?

24:55What kind of triggers this like almost seismic movement, but uh but it's definitely a different direction and a different problem stack to address?

25:04Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think kind of face value. I think you know, if you look at floating solar and data centers or you know, hybrid, I think you know, it's easy to sort of think, oh, these are two different worlds. And then I think in reality they're actually very similar because they're all working in it's like a it's a built environment, right? It's project management.

25:23Yes, they're different types of assets, they all relate to power, but I think we've always stayed very true to the core of what we're trying to do. And that is allowing you to understand what is gonna make or break your project, how do you de-risk this, and how can we actually equip you to do this? So that was true for floating solar back in 2020. That was true for you know ground-mounted PV when we did that a year later.

25:51That is true for you know for hybrid co-located data centers, you know, wind, all the sort of the assets that is within the in the powered uh powered world. So I think it's actually very, very familiar. And I think the second point is for us, it's not necessarily a secret SAS, but I think what has been very powerful is we think of it as a partnership with our customers.

26:15We're here trying to understand what are they trying to achieve. And we sometimes say, hey, you know, we're not the right partner. I think I uh I've been sold too many times in my in my life. If someone is sort of like trying to jam something down my throat, I say no, thank you. If someone is approaching me and say, Hey, Evan, what are you trying to do?

26:36And I say, Well, I'm trying to do this, and you know, this is a discussion, that is for me changes everything. So we kind of apply the same principle to how we run our commercial operations in in Glint. You as a developer, you as an IPP, you're trying to overcome some set of challenges, some internal friction, external, you name it, and by you know spending a lot of time with our customers across different markets, you start to see patterns emerging and you start to understand, okay, this is what no one has done successfully.

27:08So that's our job. We need to build this. And that also then means that yes, we have some visions of where we're going to go as a company, of course. But if you put your customers first and you're problem-oriented, that is a, I think, a fantastic way of building a business that has a large impact that is addressing the needs and creating value for your customers every single day.

27:32And that will then scale to a number of a number of areas. So I think it's really kind of these two things that we have that we've done that's you know made it uh made it very successful. And I think the most fun is still yet to come. So we've had a ton of fun, fantastic team from all around the world who come and say, Hey, I've done you know X, Y, Z in the past, and the number of people who have said, Hey, you know, I want to work on something that actually matters.

27:59It's so fun. And that you know brings a whole nother level of excitement in the office. People are rallying around the mission, and you come to work, you roll up your sleeves and say, Hey, I'm ready to go. I'm gonna build a line of code, or I'm gonna, you know, work with this developer to understand how are we gonna help them solve their pain points today and tomorrow.

28:20And I think that creates an unbelievable environment for the company. So I think as a founder, I think there's a lot of downsides to to starting a company. And I think if you ask my wife, you know, I probably work way too much. But I think one of the beautiful things about it is like you can design the company that you want to work on in yourself. You can invite the you know, your own colleagues, having really fun people to work with.

28:45So fun. And I think it makes for a unbelievably powerful mission when you you know say we're working something that matters, and we're working with great people. You know, that's that's the that's dynamite.

Mission first

28:59Peter Pongracz: I've been speaking to a lot of companies on the show, and uh, you know, now it's more than 50 plus, but even more in terms of overall discussions. And the the pattern I really seem to find, have found is that you know there are really two types of companies, the mission-driven ones and the financially driven ones. And you know, like the the the most successful ones can kind of merge the two, but I think the mission needs to come first, and people really need to be understood and and and they need to be able to see the goal at the end of the day, because I think that's that's the most important, and that's what's what's in the DNA of the most successful companies.

29:36Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And you know, and at the same time, you know, we're also very clear with our employees that you know we're not a nonprofit, you know, we're here to make money, but I think it's dangerous to put money first. And I think it's for most people exceedingly more motivating to work on a mission. Hey, we're going to the moon, and I want you to be part of the team, and you know, we're we're you know collectively gonna go there.

29:58And then I think you know, we've always said that you know the the more financial success that we have, but that means that the more impact we have. But it starts with the impact and it starts with the mission. But of course, they're very, very interlinked, but I think you choose sort of how you you tell the story, but I think even more importantly, you choose which one you put first.

30:16And I think you know, employees will see that, but also I think your partners, your customers, you know, like what are you guys really about? So I think authenticity is uh like always uh very important.

AI and the town hall

30:27Peter Pongracz: Yeah, and it's really difficult to fake, you know, if if you can do it, you need to be an actor, you know, not not in renewables, you know, and this is a and this is a different game. You get slapped a lot of times, and uh, as we talk about, you know, there is the solar coaster as well, but it's really a whole different animal. And when you speak to people who are really in it for the mission, it's extremely important.

30:47And especially in today's day and age of AI, you know, people and companies are trying to replace humans with AI. It works to a certain extent, but now you see the second wave of Silicon Valley of like, oh, we fired too many people before we will replace them with AI, and now we are hiring them back because it doesn't work. So I think AI is a fantastic tool for making your current team much more efficient and really punch above their rate, but it's not a replacement, or at least it's not a replacement yet.

31:18Speaker 1: Oh, I I agree. And I mean we were you know heavy in AI in many ways, both in terms of like how you know we do on the commercial side, but of course on the product side. And you know, Cloud Code has thoroughly integrated into our product and engineering team. I think we've always been building fast, but I think the velocity of development in the last year has gone up a lot.

31:43Again, coming back to how we work with customers, you know, we we want to understand like what are they trying to do. And you know, I think this is a very positive cycle where you can then very early build a minimum viable product, like an MVP. You get it out to customers and say, hey, this is early, but we want you guys to be part of the building because that's when we ensure that we're really addressing your concerns.

32:07They say, okay, this is great. You know, what about this? And then you know, that flywheel can then become really, really fast. And I think, yes, you can do it with it without AI, but it's so much faster with AI. And I think you know, there is for sure hype. And I think we see both kind of good and bad examples also with our partners and customers and how they're using using AI.

32:29And I think there's there's multiple things, you know, as part of, again, sort of your your development tech stacks that you can you can do well with with AI. That's also why we in Glint we allow for free API access. So you don't have to do everything in Glint. We don't think that's the right approach. You should be able to use other tools, you know, with us, alongside us.

32:49And I think, you know, again, Cloud is uh is very powerful and also other agents. And then I think at the same time, you need to be very clear of like, to your point, like AI is not going to replace us, right? I think that sort of conversation has changed in the last couple of years. And coming back to what we talked about earlier, like the human side in some ways is becoming more important because of AI.

33:10So I think you need to sort of understand how do we operate and sort of take the best from the AI. And in an increasingly digital world and an AI-driven world, how do we ensure that the human connection is still very much front and center? So if I'm gonna go out to a town hall meeting, I need to be there in person. This is not something that an AI agent can do because again, it's authenticity, it's trust.

33:35There's some of these things that AI is fantastic for, and there's some things that I think AI will never do. So I think you need to understand how to navigate these two sort of dimensions of the world we live in, and of course, when it comes to uh to renewable energy development.

33:52Peter Pongracz: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, you know, I think the best analogy for AI is, you know, if you want to swim across the pond or the river, you know, you can swim by yourself or you can get on the jet ski, but if the jet ski is pointed to the wrong shore, then you're not gonna arrive where you want to go. That's also very true.

34:07Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.

Commercial vs technical founders

34:09Peter Pongracz: I speak to many people, but mostly on the technical side, and you're more of a commercial co-founder, which is which is interesting. I've been selling software my entire career. And uh, you know, if you could pinpoint any of the learnings, you know, of how do commercial and technical founders you know complement each other, and where do you see like challenges that they couldn't see themselves?

34:30Speaker 1: One important aspect is that this is true elsewhere, but also true in our industry, right? So I don't think developers buy software, but they buy an answer that's they can defend this in an investment committee so that they can de-rist their project. So I think the main thing, and I don't think it's I think it's the same if you're technical or or or commercial, but understanding, again, what are they trying to do, and that means that you need to understand them as people, you need to understand them as a business and and their strategic objectives.

35:03So I think you can't you can't work in the space and not know the difference between megawatts and megawatt hours. So you need to, of course, have a certain technical knowledge. And I think the way you get it is is by curiosity, right? And I think curiosity is it's it's immensely powerful. We work with a lot of business development teams, we work with a lot of engineering teams, and what we're trying to do is, you know, how do you connect teams within an organization?

35:30How do you give them the same view? Yes, they're working on different stages, they're working on different tasks, but we want to streamline the way they work. So that means that we need to apply that understanding. We typically bring in multiple people from our company when we're working with uh with potentially new clients, so we can truly understand.

35:49We're three co-founders, and the way we thought about it is like we're very different and we complement each other. So there's sort of like a spectrum. We have my background, which is more within sort of the commercial and diplomacy side. We have on the other side, we have John, who was uh his mathematician, worked in machine learning before Glint, and then we have Harel, who was an engineer but with an MBA.

36:12So we thought like, you know, the three of us, we complement each other, and that also is how we built the company. So it's a lot of complementary skill sets because that is what is equipping you to again understand what someone is trying to do. That means that we can communicate in the right way, it means that we can understand it in the right way, it means that we can then build what actually is is needed.

36:37And then I think what the powerful thing is, it's you know, and Henry Ford famously said, you know, if I just listened to my customers, I would have given them faster horses, right? So I think there is an element of kind of taking an outsider look for us pollinating with all kinds of different people, which is what we've done in Glint, and say, you know, here is the car when the customer they had a problem, they wanted to go fast, but they couldn't imagine that.

37:02And I think that is powerful. And that's why we've had former opera singers, we have you know astrophysicists, we have any type of any combination of different people within Glint, because that is very powerful. So I think you know, you don't have to be technical to work in this in this space, but I think you need to be curious and I think you need to be willing to ask questions to uh to understand and and then willing to learn.

37:25Peter Pongracz: I think what's the most powerful is when you can give your customers the solution that they didn't know they needed. Because that's true understanding, right? That means you've done your homework right, that means you have done these type of conversations and you truly understand both the industry but their particular use case. And I think that that's extremely powerful.

37:46Coming back to your point of streamlining the BD and the engineering teams, that's not a not a small lift. It's easier than in smaller organizations, right? Because they're mostly physically closer together. But when it becomes a larger enterprise, it's really, really difficult because people are tend to be quite more sizable and everybody has slightly different incentive structures.

38:08So then your job is a little bit harder as well, right?

BD pre-design guardrails

38:11Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I think that's true. And then I think kind of by the same token, and this is sort of where I think we apply a bit of an outside view and challenge well, why does it have to be like that? Why why does it have to be that only an engineer can do a preliminary layout? We don't think that's true. But we're here to empower our customers to work in the most efficient manner to de-risk the projects the fastest they can.

38:40So, you know, super concretely, what that means to us is like, well, let someone from the engineering side, head of engineering, just set up a drop-down menu of these are the approved layout configurations for PV or BES or whatever have you. And then either that allows my colleague who's also on the engineering team to do a pre-design much faster. Or hey, let's work on, we have a we're we're we have a limited bandwidth in the engineering team.

39:10We're getting requests from BD folks from all the different markets and we're becoming a bottleneck. Well, let's then have them work within kind of the engineering and controlled environment, meaning, yeah, they can't do whatever they want, but they can do, hey, we've set the pitch is that this is the pitch distance. No, this is how we want the tables.

39:29And I think that's just one example. It's very trivial, but extremely powerful. And then, like, how do you connect them? So when the project then lands on the engineer's desk, it's not a cowboy project with all kinds of different configurations. Like, no, no, but this is what the engineer already approved. So then they can then take it further and then eventually go into detailed engineering.

39:49So I think this is where we where we come in and sort of sometimes challenge the kind of acceptable standards in a little bit, which I think has resonated with uh with many.

Curiosity compounds

39:59Peter Pongracz: Maybe from your experience, what sort of advice would you give somebody who wants to get into renewables or solar? What is perhaps the most important skill that they should really work on that that will really help them accelerate their career and make them more successful in the space?

40:18Speaker 1: I think you know someone told me many years ago four words, and they really resonate um well. And they said, curiosity compounds, credentials don't. And I think it's it's very powerful. And I think it's a little bit sort of analogous to sort of here's a fish or let me teach you how to fish, right? Find a way in which you like to learn. Find things that you care about.

40:37You know, if you don't like renewables, like, well, don't work in renewables. But if you think it's interesting, you know, find which aspects that you find the most interesting and start with that. And then I think for most of us, the deeper down in any type of knowledge or materials that we we work or or get, the more interesting it is. And for sure, we've hired, you know, let's say on the sales team, a lot of people who, when they started, they didn't know much about renewables, but they had a curiosity, they had a, you know, they had a drive to understand, you know, we'll teach them all the technical aspects, but I think it's hard to teach someone true curiosity.

41:11Curiosity and sort of the willingness to learn, it just goes so so far. And I think the same is true, you know, on the on the customer side, and curiosity to try new things, uh, stay competitive because you're daring to go and take a maybe a little bit unorthodox approach, maybe, but really going at it and asking questions, it comes off as maybe simplistic, but I think there's so much in there.

41:38So I think if you can apply it in the right way, I think truly, that's my my my best advice. And I mean, call me. I'm happy to happy to share. I'm European, but I think one of the things that I had lived many years in the US, and I think one of the concepts, especially in in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, that I think resonates a lot is this notion of paying it forward.

41:59So someone who is you know ahead of you in whatever whatever that means, you know, find, you know, do mentorship or you know, just say, hey, this is the way I did it. That may not be right for you, but let me have a I'm happy to pay it forward by by sharing from from you know from my my knowledge or my wisdom. Send me a request on LinkedIn, you know, send me an email, more than happy to talk.

42:21Peter Pongracz: Yeah, we will link to that in the show notes below. But uh that that's that's really true, what what you just mentioned, you know, pay it forward. Like I also try to live by this, and you know, it works from both perspectives. Also from the perspective of you doing good and collecting good karma, but on the other hand, from my experience, it really comes back hundredfold.

42:41If you just do it for the selfish reasons, you should definitely do it. And try to help that person, try to connect those people, try to create value wherever you step foot. And I think that really, really helps.

42:51Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that you're uh here to uh kind of the same um one, and I think it's very true. There's so much learning that you can do. Young people, especially, you know, super interested, they can challenge you again. The older you get, the more stuck in your ways you are. So finding people who can then say, Hey, have you thought about this? I think that's maybe even increasingly important the older you uh the older you get.

Will origination get solved

43:14Peter Pongracz: It's tricky to kind of break down your own you know walls, especially in today's world. That the only thing constant is change. So that that's something you really need to pay attention to because if you if you stop learning and stop growing, yeah, you're definitely going to be left behind. Yeah, 100%. We spoke about you know creating value and you know perhaps the bottlenecks of the industry, you know, one of them being origination.

43:39If you're looking into a crystal ball maybe three, five, ten years, do you think this issue will be resolved by then? And and what would be the kind of next challenge that we really need to unlock to get to 100% renewables?

43:53Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think for sure there's a lot of jobs to be done. I think right now grid is on everyone's minds, and right. Rightfully so, but I I'm confident that, you know, in in some years' time, that will be probably not solved in absolute terms, but a mitigated friction point. I think you know, we spent a lot of time and the way we built our product is again on sort of this is you know this handover between teams, the data risk allowing the smooth transition.

44:23I still think, and this is one of our main focuses now, I think, is on the external validation, external intelligence. So I think development, it's a bet on a moving world, you know, gritty capacity permitting, you know, who's developing next door. Almost every team is sort of making a bet on a snapshot on how they see it at a point in time. But I think the winner will be the one who can truly sort of apply a dynamic lens to this.

44:50And you know, I think this is again where AI comes in. This is what we're starting to do to deliver with our kind of next upcoming product releases, you know, almost like sort of live data. So you can make fast decisions, almost like the best traders are the ones who can move at the speed of light. And while maybe speed of light isn't quite where the developer needs to be, they need to have a sort of like almost like a command set or mission control of the decisions they're doing, aggregating all this external and internal and optimizing this.

45:25And I think that's where you know the best software that is AI powered and probably with kind of separate AI tools comes in. I think if I was a developer today, you know, I would for sure start by building my business around this because I think everything else is sort of secondary and we will solve it. That's really where it comes comes down.

Kill it in week one

45:49Peter Pongracz: Yeah, we've covered a lot of ground. We are slowly coming to the end of our time. If you had to give one pointer or one lesson learned from this conversation, what would it be?

45:59Speaker 1: Being thorough, scrutinize your your projects. I think that the cheapest project you will ever develop is the one you kill in week one, and everything else is going to be expensive. So optimize your internal workflows and certainly optimize for the external forces. Find the best of how are we leveraging software as an AI in the right way, and for sure, make sure that you do the job that needs to be done by you as a developer, by us as an industry, on community engagement and on the people side.

46:33So these two are in some ways in contrast to each other, but I think they need to be properly addressed on its own merits. So do the job thoroughly and build the best possible setup for that. I think that's my final uh final pick.

46:49Peter Pongracz: Excellent. So thank you for those uh those notes, Helen. And uh thank you very much for for being here with me today and uh sharing your knowledge. And I can't wait to do this again soon.

46:59Speaker 1: Yeah, no, this was my uh this was certainly my my pleasure, uh Peter. So thanks again for speaking to me and thanks for the job that you're doing in spreading the awareness of you know where we as an industry needs to uh need to go and in highlighting uh what uh has to um has to happen. I think that's a very important job.