Startup Spotlight #60: Creative Renewable Solutions

Creative Renewable Solutions helps clients by creating innovative clean energy products.

Nov 28, 2020

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I got the chance to speak with Andres Alvarez, a founding employee of Creative Renewable Solutions, about what he’s working on at his company, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.

Creative Renewable Solutions is a clean  energy company that helps businesses, utilities, and clean energy developers achieve their unique sustainability and performance goals.

Alvarez is the Research Director at Creative Renewable Solutions LLC. Both a computational scientist and an energy market specialist, he is committed to creating clean energy solutions through rigorous data analysis and deep industry research. Prior to joining Creative Renewable Solutions, Alvarez worked at Avangrid Renewables in the origination of new products and technology group where he focused on strategic planning and techno-economic modeling of renewable energy systems, battery storage, pumped hydro, and emerging technologies. He has four years of energy industry experience, working at companies, institutions, and government agencies such as Iberdrola, the MIT Energy Initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy, and Argonne National Labs.

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Startup Spotlight: Creative Renewable Solutions

Creative Renewable Solutions founding employee Andres Alvarez.

Problem: The U.S. must accelerate the energy transition towards clean, reliable, cost-effective, and equitable power in order to meet Paris Climate goals. To achieve this goal, renewable developers will need to effectively navigate a market with constantly evolving policies, regulations, technologies, market structures, and energy needs.

Market: According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, U.S. clean energy investment totaled $72 billion in 2019 alone and was dominated by wind and solar investments. Globally, clean energy investment totaled $333 billion in 2019.

Solution: At CRS, we are merging data science with commercial experience deploying renewables to provide advisory services for renewable energy developers. We integrate big data and industry models that are typically siloed in energy companies to highlight the value of our client's renewable assets and to remove barriers for deployment.

Team: The team consists of Gerry Froese, Barrett Stambler, and Dillon Stambler. Together our team has over 75 years of combined experience in the renewable energy space, accumulating specialized knowledge in clean energy development, origination, product structuring, and project finance.

Recent Success:

Alvarez: One thing our company has been really successful at is developing renewable and storage models that are much more accurate to how utilities and project operators would actually use assets. Our team has a wide range of experience developing and selling gigawatts worth of renewable power, and we really leverage that knowledge when we consider what services or products renewable energy assets can provide. This helps us avoid the pitfalls that we sometimes see in academia or other commercial solutions, where values streams generated are not realistic or even applicable to the project at hand. This really enables us to be more creative and precise with the clean energy solutions we propose to our clients.

Recent Struggle:

Alvarez: As an engineer, I love the complexity and my mind tends to try to find the most precise answer possible when given a complex problem. But in reality, that is not always a practical approach or even what our clients really need. At the end of the day, our biggest priority at CRS is making sure our clients are getting value from our advisory services. And at times, that means that simplicity is much better than complexity (a motto I am still trying to internalize).

Founder Advice:

Alvarez: While I know this is an old record for some, I really can't emphasize how important it is to build a strong team that has complementary skills. While everybody at CRS has renewable energy experience, we all come at it from very different angles (customer, market structure, project finance, operations). We are constantly challenging each other's assumptions, resulting in final products that are well tested and thought out. As you think about growth, consider your team's existing weaknesses and how a new team addition would help close the gaps in expertise or skills.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Alvarez: Here are three founders you should check out next!

Brad Schiller, Founder of Prompt: Prompt helps thousands of students become better writers through their technology platform.
Ashwin Datta, Founder of Instinct: Instinct is creating wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to revolutionize wildfire detection and environmental monitoring.
Louis Perna, Founder of Accion: Accion is redefining the performance, efficiency, and scalability of spacecraft propulsion systems and expanding what’s possible in space.

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