Zaid Ashai, CEO of Boston-based solar and storage developer Nexamp, addresses employees during a town hall. (Courtesy: Nexamp)
Zaid Ashai, the cerebral CEO who built Nexamp into a forceful DG platform, joined Episode 76 of the Factor This! podcast to share his outlook for the crowded community solar market, the potential impact of Donald Trump returning to the White House, and why, now, solar is only the beginning. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Zaid Ashai is one of those executives who you can tell has it all together.
That’s clear from the performance of the company he leads, Nexamp. Over the past decade, Nexamp cemented its reputation as a community solar titan. And it’s also apparent in Ashai’s own resume— including diplomas from little-known institutions like Brown and Harvard.
“They’re just schools,” Ashai said on the Factor This! podcast from Renewable Energy World, attempting to, with a laugh, downplay his world-class education.
The modesty isn’t an act, though.
Ashai isn’t the type to lean toward the limelight. But his cerebral approach to clean energy deployment has allowed Nexamp to achieve the heft often thought to be reserved for utility-scale players.
Nexamp is valued at “well over” $1 billion, Ashai said, a milestone that earns privately held companies the “unicorn” moniker. Not bad for a supposed small-time player. A household name in the Northeast’s first-mover community solar market, the company’s reach has spread across the country with more than 1 GW of projects in operation or construction.
And Ashai’s pursuit of scale only begins with solar.
Watch the full episode on YouTube
Building a ‘virtual utility’
Ashai said he envisions a future where “virtual utilities” are commonplace. He’s doubtful that utilities are equipped to meet the needs of the energy transition.
A day will soon come, he said, when vertically integrated energy companies marry generation, energy storage, demand response, and consumers to leapfrog distribution utilities altogether by interacting directly with the transmission system.
That reality would require a monumental shift in regulation and therefore is likely years away if not more.
“It’s a grid question, and I think this is a fork in the road,” Ashai said. “It’s fundamentally flawed.”
That fork will lead consumers to make a choice: maintain the status quo or pursue an alternative to the traditional utility business model, Ashai said. Even the alternative, however, requires buy-in from policymakers and utilities.
Ashai said he is adamant that utilities should focus on poles and wires. He believes generation and customer engagement should be left to third-party solution providers, like Nexamp.
“I’m not a marketing guru, but this is what excites me,” Ashai said. “How do you connect community solar to the rest of the electrification efforts in our country? I think there’s a really good story to be told there.”
Sustainable growth and the Trump effect
Ashai recalls a recent conversation with a small developer. He shares it with a smile, but it really isn’t funny.
“One line I heard… was ‘Survive to ’25,'” he said. “I thought that was clever. And there’s some truth to it.”
For more than a year, developers have struggled to adapt to high interest rates and inflation which, in combination, have chocked project pipelines. And, now, the chance of a change in the White House is sucking up much of the oxygen in cl
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