Catalyze executive discusses 2024 growth aspirations

Catalyze will close out the year with more than 100 MW of operating assets and ambitious growth aspirations for 2024.

“We’re looking to grow a couple hundred megawatts in 2024 and each year after,” said Terrill Laughton, Catalyze EVP and Chief Commercial Officer, in an interview with NPM.

The Boulder-based developer and independent power producer formed in 2017 with the development of their award-winning REenergyze platform. The company has since shifted to utilizing the software themselves to develop, build, and long-term own and operate their own DG, battery storage, and EV charging projects for commercial and industrial customers.

They work nationally with strategic partners across more than 15 states who own assets in multiple locations. They are most active in New York and California, according to Laughton.

They are actively following several states including New Jersey, Ohio, and California, to accelerate their capability of moving quickly with solar.

They look at their pipeline a bit differently than other developers, measuring the assets of customers they have existing relationships with. A preliminary analysis through REenergyze, found more than four gigawatts' of potential, Laughton said.

REenergyze software technology can identify solar capabilities of commercial and industrial properties by integrating hundreds of layers of data to pinpoint the best measures to take from a solar asset point of view. It reduces the costs, increases net operating income, and simplifies resource management while helping advance a business's ESG goals and enhance growth strategies.

“We can help build a strategy and a program over all their assets over the next five to ten years. That is part of our overall value proposition to them,” Laughton said.

Projects are developed at no cost to customers, who will enter into a long-term PPA or if there is a state program they can leverage, they will pay the customer the lease payment for using the property. While some customers are able to consume all the electricity, many of their customers have rooftops larger than the load they can consume.

“We will then look to leverage a community solar program or virtual net metering program to be able to maximize the solar capacity of an individual’s physical asset.”

In California, Laughton highlighted the Los Angeles Feed-in Tariff Program, where the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchases energy generated from an individual’s business’ renewable energy system to help the department reach their energy goals. The energy generated by the systems is purchased at a fixed price, subject to time-of-delivery multipliers, for a term of up to 20 years, according to their website.

“If you have a program in place that you can leverage, it’s very beneficial to be able to ensure that you can maximize the value of that footprint,” Laughton said.

Storage and EV

With pending proposals in states like California who is expected to mandate batteries with all projects, Laughton said they are focused on maximizing the value associated with each asset by implementing more battery storage systems with their projects moving forward.

They are also anticipating a larger focus on EV charging projects as the electrification of vehicles accelerates across the country.

“Especially as it relates to electrifying fleets,” Laughton said. “A lot of our customers are in distribution and warehouse spaces, and we know that those types of vehicles are going to be pulling into those buildings and they’re going to need the infrastructure to support the electrification of those assets.”

Global infrastructure investor Actis agreed to invest up to USD 300m in Catalyze in March, while the other shareholder in the company is EnCap Investments.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.


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