Watt It Takes: How Sunnova's John Berger Convinced Oil & Gas Investors to Believe in Solar
Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2018
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Watt It Takes: How a Texas entrepreneur with fossil fuel roots came to see solar and storage as the future of energy.
We feature a conversation with John Berger, the CEO of the residential solar-and-storage firm Sunnova, about his mission to convince traditional energy investors to put their money into solar. Sunnova has pulled in tens of millions of dollars from investors who once thought solar was laughable.
"I'm proud of getting a bunch of oil and gas money. I worked hard to get that money. And I want a lot more of it. The reason is that there's been a lot of success — whether you love it or not — there's been a lot of financial success in oil and gas and there's a lot of really talented companies that have built big companies. And we need them to start putting their money in this space," says Berger.
Today, Sunnova is the fourth-biggest third-party solar provider in America, according to Wood Mackenzie's U.S. Distributed Solar Service.
Berger’s path is different than a lot of others in residential solar, who’ve mostly come tech, finance, or the environmental world. In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch talks with Berger about his time at Enron, his belief in battery storage, his focus on resiliency in Puerto Rico, and his leadership strategy.
Watt It Takes is a collaboration between Powerhouse and Greentech Media. The series is recorded in front of a live audience at Powerhouse headquarters in Oakland, California. Buy tickets for upcoming events.
The Energy Gang is brought to you by Mission Solar Energy, a solar module manufacturer based in San Antonio, Texas. Mission Solar's high-performance solar panels have the highest testing ratings among any North American manufacturer in the market. Learn more about Mission's high-efficiency modules.
Listen to our previous episode of Watt It Takes:
- Nancy Pfund’s Pro Tips for Getting Started in Cleantech
- SunPower Founder Dick Swanson’s Guide to Launching a Cleantech Startup
- Lessons From the Fall of Sungevity
- Dan Shugar, the King Midas of Solar
- A History of Greentech Media With Scott Clavenna
- Sungage's Sara Ross on Starting a Solar Loan Company
- Jigar Shah on the Origin Story of SunEdison
- The Origin Story of Mosaic With Billy Parish
- How Roboticist Leila Madrone Built the Air-Based Solar Tracker Firm Sunfolding
- The Death-Defying Reinvention of Advanced Microgrid Solutions
- Assessing the Promise of Electric Buses With Proterra CEO Ryan Popple
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week on what it takes, how a Texas entrepreneur with fossil fuel roots came to see solar and storage as the future of energy. |
| 0:07.0 | You want to talk about resiliency? Resiliency is solar and batteries. |
| 0:11.0 | Not oil-fired generation with the wind up in the air that can get knocked down with just a little gust of wind. |
| 0:16.0 | That's not resiliency. |
| 0:17.5 | We're going to hear from Sonova CEO John Berger about how he convinced oil and gas diehards to take solar and batteries seriously. |
| 0:25.0 | Berger nearly started his career at Koch Industries where he had an internship out of school, |
| 0:29.5 | but he gave that up to be an energy trader at Enron. |
| 0:32.0 | We know what happened to Enron. When Enron went bust, |
| 0:34.8 | Berger went off on his own, starting three clean energy companies. We are going to hear his story and |
| 0:39.7 | how he ended up in residential solar. First though, a big thanks to Mission Solar for helping bring you this podcast. |
| 0:46.0 | You know, our guest this week founded a successful solar company in Texas in the heart of the oil industry. |
| 0:51.0 | While Mission Solar is another example of that transition. Mission operates a 200 megawatt |
| 0:56.0 | solar module plant in San Antonio, Texas, pumping out American-made solar panels for developers |
| 1:00.8 | harnessing America's abundant solar resource. |
| 1:04.0 | Find out more about Mission Solar's product line at Mission Solar.com. |
| 1:08.0 | Welcome to another edition of What It Takes, an interview series produced by Powerhouse in |
| 1:18.6 | partnership with Green Tech Media. |
| 1:20.6 | In this series we hear from founders of the most influential clean energy companies about how they do it, their backgrounds, their passions, their struggles, their deals. |
| 1:28.0 | This week, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch talks with John Berger, the CEO of Sonova. |
| 1:33.8 | Since launching in 2012, Sonova has become a top residential solar firm in the U.S. |
| 1:38.0 | And it's put a ton of focus on batteries and resiliency. |
| 1:41.0 | Berger's path is different than a lot of others in residential solar, who've mostly come from tech, the environmental world, or finance. Berger comes from power trading and oil and gas. Those are his roots. And once he realized how big solar could be, he spent a lot of his career convincing others in oil and gas. |
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