Companies and developers often face a steep learning curve when installing clean energy technologies akin to solar installations and EV chargers. To get a good deal, they need to navigate a posh bidding process that involves requesting proposals, evaluating bids, and ultimately engaging with a vendor.
Now, Start Station A, founded by two MIT alumni and their colleagues, is stopping the technique of providing clean energy. The company has developed a clean energy marketplace that helps property owners and businesses analyze properties to calculate returns for clean energy projects, create detailed project lists, collect and compare offers, and choose a provider.
The platform helps property owners and businesses deploy clean energy technologies akin to solar panels, batteries and EV chargers at the bottom possible prices, in places with the best potential to cut back energy costs and emissions.
“We are doing loads to make clean energy adoption easy,” explains Manos Saratsis March ’15, who co-founded Station A with Kevin Berkemeyer MBA ’14. “Imagine when you tried to purchase a plane ticket and your travel agent only used one carrier. It could be dearer and also you wouldn't even have the opportunity to get to some places. Our customers wish to have multiple options and simply learn in regards to the track records they work with. “
Station A has already partnered with a number of the country's largest real estate corporations, a few of which have hundreds of properties reducing the carbon footprint of their buildings. The company can be working with grocery chains, warehouses and other corporations to speed up the clean energy transition.
“Our platform uses loads of AI and machine learning to rework addresses into constructing footprints and understanding their electricity costs, available incentives, and where they’ll expect the best ROI,” says Saratsis, who serves as Station A’s head of product. “This would normally require tens or tons of of hundreds of dollars of consultation time, and we will do it so quickly with none money.”
Building the muse
As a graduate student in MIT's Department of Architecture, Saratsis studied environmental design modeling and used data from sources akin to satellite imagery to grasp how communities use energy and to propose probably the most impactful potential clean energy solutions. He says classes with professors Christoph Reinhart And Kent Larsen were particularly eye-opening.
“My ability to construct a thermal energy model and simulate electricity consumption in a constructing at MIT,” says Saratsis.
Berkemeyer was president of the MIT Energy Club on the MIT Sloan School of Management. He was also a research associate on the MIT Energy Initiative as a part of the Future of solar Report and a teaching assistant for Course 15.366 (Air Conditioning and Energy Enterprises). He says classes in entrepreneurship with Professor of Practice Bill Aulet and in Sustainability with senior lecturer Jason Jay were formative. Before studying at MIT, Berkemeyer had extensive experience developing solar and storage projects and selling clean energy products to business customers. The eventual co-founders didn't transcend MIT, but after graduation they worked together on the utility company NRG-Energy.
“As co-founders, we saw a chance to alter the best way corporations approach clean energy,” said Berkemeyer. “Station A was born out of a shared belief that data and transparency could unlock the total potential of unpolluted energy technologies for all.”
At NRG, the founders built software to discover decarbonization opportunities for patrons without having to send analysts to the sites for in-person audits.
“If they were working with a big grocery chain or large retailer, we’d use proprietary analytics to guage that portfolio and provide you with recommendations for things like solar projects, energy efficiency and demand response that may produce positive returns inside a 12 months,” Saratsis explains.
The tools were an enormous success throughout the company. In 2018, the couple, together with co-founders Jeremy Lucas and Sam Steyer, decided to bring the technology out into Station A.
The founders began working with energy corporations, but soon shifted their focus to real estate owners with huge portfolios and enormous corporations with long-term leases. Many customers have tons of and even hundreds of addresses to guage. With just the addresses, Station A can provide detailed financial returns for clean energy investments.
In 2020, the corporate expanded its focus from selling access to its analytics to making a marketplace for clean energy transactions and helping corporations complete the competitive operations process for clean energy projects. After installing a project, Station A may also evaluate whether it’s achieving its expected performance and generating financial returns.
“When I refer to people outside the industry, they are saying, 'Wait, doesn't this exist already?' “Says Saratsis. “It's sort of crazy, however the industry continues to be very nascent, and nobody has been capable of discover a method to do the bidding process transparently and at scale.”
From campus to the world
Today, around 2,500 clean energy developers are energetic on Station A's platform. A variety of large real estate investment trusts also use their services, along with corporations like HP, Nestle and Goldman Sachs. If Station A were a developer, Saratsis says it will now rank in the highest 10 when it comes to annual solar deployments.
The founders credit their time at MIT with helping them scale.
“Many of those relationships come from the MIT network, whether through people we met at Sloan or through exposure to MIT,” says Saratsis. “So much of this business is about popularity, and we've established a extremely good popularity.”
Since its inception, Station A has also sponsored courses on the Sustainability Lab at MIT, where Saratsis conducted research as an undergraduate. As they work to expand Station A's offerings, the founders say they’re leveraging the abilities they gained on daily basis as students.
“Everything we do in creating analyzes is inspired not directly by the things I did at MIT,” Saratsis says.
“Station A is just getting began,” says Berkemeyer. “Clean Energy Adoption shouldn’t be nearly technology, but about making the method seamless and accessible. This is what we do on daily basis and we’re excited to guide this transformation. “
