SMP 155: Capital Solutions for Real Estate for Solar and Battery Storage with SolaREIT

Solar Maverick Podcast

Episode Summary.

In this episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast, Benoy speaks with Laura Pagliarulo who is the President and Founder of SolaREIT. SolaREIT™ invests in land related to solar and battery developments through land acquisitions, lease monetization, and project re-powering. Laura speaks about many interesting topics like how their cost of capital is lower compared to development capital, why it is better for developers to lead with land purchase option than lease option with the land owner, and solar trends.

Benoy Thanjan

Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and he is also an advisor for several solar startup companies. He has extensive project origination, development, and financial experience in the renewable energy industry and in the environmental commodities market.

This includes initial site evaluation, permitting, financing, sourcing equipment, and negotiating the long-term energy and environmental commodities off-take agreements. He manages due diligence processes on land, permitting, and utility interconnection and is in charge of financing
and structuring through Note to Proceed (“NTP”) to Commercial Operation Date (“COD”). Benoy composes teams suitable for all project development and construction tasks. He is also involved in project planning and pipeline financial modeling. He has been part of all sides of the
transaction and this allows him to provide unique perspectives and value. Benoy has extensive experience in financial engineering to make solar projects profitable.

Before founding Reneu Energy, he was the SREC Trader in the Project Finance Group for SolarCity which merged with Tesla in 2016. He originated SREC trades with buyers and co-developed their SREC monetization and hedging strategy with the senior management of SolarCity to move into the east coast markets.

Benoy was the Vice President at Vanguard Energy Partners which is a national solar installer where he focused on project finance solutions for commercial scale solar projects. He also worked for Ridgewood Renewable Power, a private equity fund, where he analyzed potential investments in renewable energy projects and worked on maximizing the financial return of the projects in the portfolio. Benoy also worked on the sale of all of the renewable energy projects in Ridgewood’s portfolio.

He was in the Energy Structured Finance practice for Deloitte & Touche and in Financial Advisory Services practice at Ernst & Young. Benoy received his first experience in Finance as an intern at D.E. Shaw & Co., which is a global investment firm with 37 billion dollars in investment capital. He has a MBA in Finance from Rutgers University and a BS in Finance and Economics from the Stern School of Business at New York University. Benoy was an Alumni Scholar at the Stern School of Business.

Laura Pagliarulo

Laura is the founder and President of SolREIT. She has worked at CleanChoice Energy, SunEdison, and WGL. She is a results driven energy and environmental professional with over 15 years of experience in electricity and gas markets, renewable energy, carbon reduction, and energy efficiency initiatives. Laura has a proven track record with designing, implementing and managing programs.

Stay Connected:

Benoy Thanjan

Email: [e-mail]

LinkedIn: Benoy Thanjan

Website: https://www.reneuenergy.com

Laura Pagliarulo

Website: https://www.solareit.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pgrana/

Email: [e-mail]