Never in history have renewables entrepreneurs seen such good times. But who are they? Where do they come from? And why are they arriving in a flood at renewable energy's front gate?
We hear a lot about the job-building benefits of renewable energy when it draws manufacturers and developers to local communities. Less talked about are those who arrive well before the shovels, steel, factories and jobs. These are the green energy entrepreneurs – the creative thinkers and risk takers responsible for the rise of clean energy ventures over the last decade.
Ron Flavin is positioned at renewable energy's front gate, so he has a good view of who enters. Flavin, who has worked in the U.S., the U.K., Colombia, Peru, Switzerland and Spain, acts as a consultant and grant writer for renewable energy start-ups, an entrepreneurial enterprise in its own right that has kept him busy in recent years. "They come from everywhere, and not necessarily from energy," says Flavin, who has attracted $100 million for his clients. He assists not only those you would expect — engineers and inventors — but also some that are surprising: Hollywood studio executives and military experts.
Others entering the industry are veterans of energy, finance, agriculture, telecommunications, high tech, science, transportation, construction, nanotechnology and commerce, all drawn by enormous opportunity, as the largest economies in the world spend an expected $2.3 trillion over the next decade to revamp industrial-age energy apparatus into cutting-edge technology.
Green energy entrepreneurs emerge from throughout North America, Europe and Asia, but they tend to congregate in high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley, an area of California becoming as much about energy as it is the internet. "You can't throw a softball around here without hitting another solar company," says Dan Shugar, one of the solar industry's early pioneers and now chief operating officer of Solaria, a Fremont, Calif.-based company that makes silicon photovoltaic products.
Having tackled "computers, software, and the internet, the new area is renewable energy," adds Gary Price, partner in Sensiba San Filippo, a California accounting and consulting firm that has helped many Silicon Valley energy startups.
We hear a lot about the job-building benefits of renewable energy when it draws manufacturers and developers to local communities. Less talked about are those who arrive well before the shovels, steel, factories and jobs. These are the green energy entrepreneurs – the creative thinkers and risk takers responsible for the rise of clean energy ventures over the last decade.
Ron Flavin is positioned at renewable energy's front gate, so he has a good view of who enters. Flavin, who has worked in the U.S., the U.K., Colombia, Peru, Switzerland and Spain, acts as a consultant and grant writer for renewable energy start-ups, an entrepreneurial enterprise in its own right that has kept him busy in recent years. "They come from everywhere, and not necessarily from energy," says Flavin, who has attracted $100 million for his clients. He assists not only those you would expect — engineers and inventors — but also some that are surprising: Hollywood studio executives and military experts.
Others entering the industry are veterans of energy, finance, agriculture, telecommunications, high tech, science, transportation, construction, nanotechnology and commerce, all drawn by enormous opportunity, as the largest economies in the world spend an expected $2.3 trillion over the next decade to revamp industrial-age energy apparatus into cutting-edge technology.
Green energy entrepreneurs emerge from throughout North America, Europe and Asia, but they tend to congregate in high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley, an area of California becoming as much about energy as it is the internet. "You can't throw a softball around here without hitting another solar company," says Dan Shugar, one of the solar industry's early pioneers and now chief operating officer of Solaria, a Fremont, Calif.-based company that makes silicon photovoltaic products.
Having tackled "computers, software, and the internet, the new area is renewable energy," adds Gary Price, partner in Sensiba San Filippo, a California accounting and consulting firm that has helped many Silicon Valley energy startups.
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