Green Giants – Episode 61

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (02:03)

Sure. So ironically, that book actually came out a week before Lehman Brothers went down in September 2008. I didn’t read the book until a couple of years later, but that book essentially was all about three mega trends. One of them is that the world is getting hotter. So that’s about climate change. The world is getting flatter, which is about globalization and everything moving faster. And then the third part is that the world is just getting crowded, which is population growth. And one of the things that it just highlighted for me was that there are many problems out there, and that we could solve those problems through sustainable business solutions. And that’s what made it exciting for me.

Wes Ashworth (02:43)

So, tell me about that first entry into solar and kind greater renewable energy industry. How did you first get started? Was it like a connection or referral, or how did that all come to be?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (02:54)

No, that was actually a college best friend of mine. So, my college best friend was living in Massachusetts at the time. And he’d been wanting to do something with me, and I wanted to do something with him. And after I read that book and I started telling him about some of my ideas, he said, you know what? Why don’t you move over here? And why don’t we start a solar company in Massachusetts? So that’s how I got started in solar.

Wes Ashworth (02:57)

Yeah, so kind of going through those 12 years running that solar company, how did that prepare you for your role now at Above, and what lessons did you bring with you?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (03:26)

Yeah, so we started it from the ground up. So, we went through all of the phases of having to start a company, having to scale the company, having to hire, having to fire, and build out processes. You know about the solar coaster.

So, we figured out how to ride the solar coaster. We went through expansion. We went through retraction. So, we went through a lot of different things. And where Above is right now, it’s essentially, I call it a startup without a startup. And so, I think I can take a lot of the lessons I’ve learned from my previous experience and help Above expand in North America.

Wes Ashworth (03:42)

Yeah, a couple of questions to follow that up. One, tell me those early days, you know, because we have a lot of startups in the space, a lot of early-stage companies, a lot of companies that maybe haven’t gone through as much of that solar coaster yet and haven’t learned how to ride the solar coaster, as you said. Tell me about those first few years, just what it was like, what you went through, what the journey was like?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (04:18)

I’ll tell you I’ll go back to the very beginning. In the very beginning, we were actually on the roof. I was actually installing. I had a special ringer on my phone. I was expecting my first child, and I was literally on the roof, and my wife said okay, but I need you to be able to respond. So, the first few years were very hands-on. Like I said, we were installing. I remember I had never done a site audit in my life, and all of a sudden, I’m on a very high pitch roof, and we took seven hours. I’m not proud to say this.

But we took seven hours to do it and figure it out. The point there is that we actually rolled up our sleeves and we were doing everything ourselves. And so, I went from installer to field manager to operations manager to sales manager. And I got to see a lot of it. Some of the things we saw over time were inverter manufacturers having problems and module manufacturers having problems. Hiring, very, very difficult to hire. We went through tax credits being there, tax credits not being there, and a lot of volatility. That’s the solar coaster. Massachusetts-specific, there are incentives. Some of those incentives are there, and then all of a sudden, they disappear. For the short term, and we’re experiencing a little bit of that today, with the possibility of tax credits disappearing, there is a rush. But with the rush comes a need to move really, really quickly.

And then it’s not stable. It’s not, it’s very hard to build an optimal business when you have that kind of volatility. So, you have to be nimble. Anyway, that’s one of the things that having gone through the years of Solar Coaster, there’s a lot of experience that I can pull from there.

Wes Ashworth (05:48)

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of companies start, not many scale, and not many sustain. What do you think, having gone through that, like for you personally, what were the keys to success? What was in the secret sauce of actually making it?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (06:03)

Yeah, it sounds simple. We all know what to do. The execution is harder. So, you need to manage expectations properly. You need to execute, and you need to keep repeating it. So, you’ve got to find that client, you’ve got to deliver for that client, and you’ve got to keep coming back. It’s easier said than done. A lot of it is about building the right teams and ensuring that there is strong alignment between teams.

And I think that’s a problem we’ve had in our industry where there’s still misalignment across lots of different segments within our industry. I’ll take the, we’re not a residential-focused company, but I’ll take that because that’s a visible one. For a long time, it was very aggressive sales tactics because it was basically the next gold rush. Let’s just sell as many projects as possible. So that, well, that’s one of the lessons for me. It’s basically, we need to make sure that people are very clear on their roles and that they understand how they fit in the overall product, which is ultimately delivering a high-quality solar project for a client.

Wes Ashworth (07:00)

So, you brought up the talent side, and of course, that’s near and dear to my heart, so I got to ask a follow-up question there. When you’re hiring those people, thinking about a growing company, a company in this industry as well too where you deal with the volatility, you deal with the ups and downs, you deal with all these kinds of factors, what are some things you look for in the intangible traits of a great employee for you?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (07:21)

Number one, I think I’m going to look for curiosity. If there’s like, curiosity is what I really look for. Another one is just a willingness to get feedback, and you can tell if people start getting defensive, you can ask questions about experiences and prior. And if it’s always a they, they, they, then I’m like, well, that’s not a team player. So, I’m looking for someone who’s curious. I’m looking for someone who is a team player. And then the other one is someone who’s looking more to add value than to take value. And what I mean by that is there’s an entitlement mentality, and often that does not lead to people who are all rowing in the same direction. And so that’s what I go for. If there are two people for the same role and one has a much better resume, but the attitude is just not there, I would rather spend more time training that person. That’s the ideal.

Wes Ashworth (08:08)

Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. And those two, like the first who you hit on curiosity and are just really open for feedback without being defensive. Like, man, you have those two traits. You can do a lot with that person. You really can. And to be that, like even if they don’t have all of the perfect skills and all this sort of stuff, like you’ve got those couple of pieces, you can you can really take a lot. So, I think that’s awesome. And truly, you see the ones that succeed versus the ones that don’t. A lot of it does come down to that. They’re hiring really good people, the people that are culturally in line, the boat, like you said, rowing in the same direction. That’s hugely powerful. And some of the people underestimate that, especially early on.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (08:50)

Yeah, especially when you basically have that urgent need to fill seats because you’re running behind. We made that mistake. So, it’s not like you’re not going to make a hire just because you have to. But then, if you’re going to do it, then be prepared to backfill really, really quickly. So, it’s a tactical hire, no way it’s not an ideal hire.

Wes Ashworth (08:55)

Yeah, absolutely, 100%. And I wanna go back to something else you said. You described Above as a startup without being a startup. I love that phrase. What does that mean to you? And then why is that model so appealing?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (09:20)

Sure. So, the startup without a startup part refers to, we talked about teams here, right? So, it has a really strong team. It has a top-notch team. It has a well-established technological platform. It has clients. It has a leading position in Europe. So, it’s been around for a while. It was actually the first company to commercially deploy drones for aerial inspections.

It’s just not that present in North America. And so here we are, a relative startup, but over there we are well established. And so, for me, that’s super exciting because I don’t have to start something from scratch. I’m not looking for product market fit. I’m not looking for new technology. And the company is really well-positioned to continue innovating. That’s the exciting part.

Wes Ashworth (10:01)

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I think that’s a good recipe for success with a startup that’s not really a startup, is you have all that backing, you have the reputation, they’ve proven it out, but it is new, new to North America, which is cool and exciting. That’s a really fun kind of journey. Hard work, but fun nonetheless. Something else I wanted to hit back on, too, so your background kind of starting in finance and out of the industry. How does that help you today in what you’re doing, and having some of that mindset and experience? Yeah.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (10:33)

The banking background? So, the part that we never even covered is that, actually, I’m one of those third-culture kids. My father was a UN diplomat, and so I literally spent my life traveling. And so that was exposure to different cultures, to different geographies, and this provides a bit more context for the hot, flat, and crowded. But for me, it’s always been around finding business solutions to problems. And the reason I go for that is because I believe that unless something can pay for itself, it’s not a sustainable solution. And we have enough of those problems, and I used to have lots of these arguments with my father. My father used to say, we need people like you going to the UN, that may be, but that’s not a profitable enterprise. It’s not going to be sustainable.


So that was the thing. It’s just my mission; my mentality is all about finding a win/win approach that creates profitable, sustainable solutions. Now, profitable doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t have a mission. It doesn’t mean you’re not doing it for the greater good. And so, when I overlay that attitude with the banking and the banking gave me a great appreciation for what made businesses work and businesses fail, I spent years financing private equity buyouts and then years restructuring some of those home loans. And then a couple of years selling those loans off in the market during the banking sell-off. So, I saw a lot of the variables and I wanted to do something that was closer to the action, that was like okay, instead of just moving money around, let me use these skills, let me use my attitude, my experience of drivers, and that is what I’m doing today

Wes Ashworth (12:07)

Yeah, that’s awesome. I can see how all of those components can really fuel, you know, what you’re doing today, and just the mindset, the experience, kind of seeing it from all sides of the equation. And the finance side, just the bank side, that is just making a profitable business, where you can make a business case for it is really important and going to be even more important as we go forward. So, transitioning a little bit from your personal journey, I want to explore Above’s innovative approach to solar asset management. You guys are doing some cool stuff.

So, for listeners who may not be familiar, what exactly does Above do, and how does your technology help solar asset owners build and operate better plants?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (12:42)

Sure. So Above, I’ll go back to what it started doing. It was basically the first to use drones to inspect assets. And it started with operating assets at the time. It started in Europe. European assets are a bit older. It started assessing operating assets. And then it essentially went from, OK, we now see a problem, but how can we identify issues earlier on in the process? We also noticed that a lot of the issues are not purely from the operational phase. In fact, a lot of them stem from design issues, construction issues. So, what Above has done is develop a full suite of services. It’s around digital. It’s around connecting aerial inspections with field inspections and creating a digital twin.

So, a platform that allows you to integrate all that data in a geolocated component level to facilitate asset management, to facilitate prioritization of tasks, to facilitate identification of problems early, and then create actionable items so that you can make it easier for your O&M to go fix problems. So, it really is about data blending and making it easy for the identification and prioritization of tasks.

Wes Ashworth (13:55)

Yeah, that’s a great overview. We’ll dig a little bit more into it. So, you’ve emphasized the need for long-term condition monitoring in solar. Why is that so critical right now, and how does Above enable it?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (14:07)

Sure. So, I think it’s not it’s not a surprise that our industry is very focused on the build side. Especially with ITC, there’s a lot of upfront let’s build let’s build let’s build, so a lot of money is spent on that, and then O&M budgets don’t necessarily have as much weight on the O&M side. On the other hand, coming back to the importance is you’ve got a lot of focus on uptime, a lot of focus on inverters, combiners, because that’s easy. I will say it’s easy to measure. However, the bulk of the investment is in the modules. That’s the main, you’ve got inverters, you’ve got combiners, you’ve got trackers, you’ve got modules. The modules are the ones that produce that power. And so long-term condition monitoring of the modules is essentially, let’s say, it’s essential because otherwise you’re flying blind. And what we do is we make it easier for that long-term condition monitoring because you need more visibility. Inverters, SCADA, they’re not giving you component level. They’re not giving you module visibility.

And without that module visibility, you will only notice there’s a problem much later, when you have a massive system failure because of a batch problem that went unnoticed for years.

Wes Ashworth (15:13)

It is super cool, just all the technology and how it’s all used. And I love just hearing companies like this and learning more about the product. And you’re like, my gosh, it’s something you weren’t necessarily aware of or didn’t know existed necessarily, but it’s good stuff. I want to explore the idea of factory-to-field traceability. Can you explain, again, scanning serial numbers, building that digital twin, how does that create a stronger, smarter solar asset? If somebody had no idea what any of that means, like give us just the full rundown.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (15:41)

Sure. So, in the utility-scale solar space today, it is more common than not for asset owners to pay for QA. So, for quality assurance at the factory, sometimes even on delivery. But often that stops there. The module condition stops. Now, by scanning serial numbers on site and having that geolocation, and then measuring progress. Well, so you scan the serial numbers that gives you a baseline, and then you keep overlaying data. During construction, there could be aerial inspections, there could be on-site inspections, and you keep overlaying data. All that can go to the component. Then you have your thermography. All of that can go in the component. And then you establish a module cohort that is representative of different bombs and batches on site. And then you can do more exhaustive testing. And all of that is geolocated.


And so, from the factory, you know specifically all the way to the field, so you can trace it. And if there are specific issues that are unfolding over time, then you’ve got your early warning indicators. And that is what we’re trying to do is to empower our clients to really identify things early on by connecting all those dots. And the serial number scanning is really what facilitates the factory-to-field platform.

Wes Ashworth (16:55)

Yeah, it’s cool stuff. And something you’ve shared with me that I just love the way it sounds, and I’d love to just hear more about it, is that you’ve said the industry is drowning in data but starving for insights. What does that really mean, and what’s the biggest misconception about data in solar today?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (17:11)

Yeah, I think I’ll start with that end, which is the biggest misconception around data is that more data means better decisions. I don’t think that’s true. I think teams have too much data and they don’t necessarily know how to prioritize or how to make sense of it or understand which variable actually has stronger correlation.

That to me is the biggest misconception. Just get more data. Okay, but what are you going to do with it? It’s not about data. It’s about actionable insights. So, you need high-quality data to start with. Aerial inspections are one source of data. Ground robots. That’s another source of data. Humans. That’s another source of data. SCADA. That’s another source. So, it’s about the different sources of data, data blending.

And then drawing those actionable insights. And there’s another component. You may have actionable insights, but how do you make it easy for people to decide which things need to be addressed? That’s one. And then you need to make it easy for the follow-up. So, data by itself isn’t sufficient. What you really want is high-quality data that you can prioritize for dispatching.

Wes Ashworth (18:16)

Yeah, no question. And I would say that’s a problem right now, like across every industry there is, right? Like everybody’s got all this data, and you’re like, well, what do you do with it? What does it mean? What could I draw from that? And what is the real insight? And then what’s the actionable item that you kind of take away and work from it? But yeah, I agree. I mean, I think.

The drowning in data is certainly true, I think, across the board. But any company that helps you just sort through it, navigate through it, really know what to do with it and what to take away from, I think that’s huge power and value today. Another thing you mentioned earlier was that Above was the first to use drones for commercial thermographic inspections in solar.

Tell us, I guess, first, like what it is, how it works, and then how that innovation has evolved? And maybe what’s the next iteration? Where’s that headed in the future?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (19:00)

Yeah, sure. essentially, we’re doing an aerial inspection. So, we’re flying drones, and there are different levels of thermography. There is an IEC level, which is a higher resolution that allows you to identify less visible anomalies.

So, if you’re going for warranty claims, generally that’s a good idea. And then you have an intermediary one that still gives you module-level anomalies. And then this is all about analyzing heat signatures. Aerothermography is looking for variances in heat signatures. So, it’s looking for unusual patterns, and it can be caused by cracks, or it can be caused by soiling, or just by module defects. They can be caused by trackers being misaligned, caused by strings being offlined. So, there are different levels of thermography inspections and different use cases. So, we started by purely looking at thermography because there were issues on the back end in Europe. And then we’ve evolved so that we’re not just doing thermography, we’re doing topographical surveys, we’re doing damage assessment.

Nowadays, we’re talking about hail, we’re talking about tornadoes, and flooding. We’re doing erosion assessments; we’re doing sinking table assessments. So, there are a number of things that we can do with that. As far as innovation, we’ve innovated on the inspection side. We’ve also innovated on the software side and the creation of a really powerful digital twin, combining all of those different data points in and of itself is innovative. The next layer is integration with different equipment. For example, we’re talking about robots and SCADA, and then creating automation. So, I think that’s the next layer of innovation.

Wes Ashworth (20:41)

Yeah, it’s one thing I love about the industry. It’s highly innovative and moving really quickly. Some industries, and maybe it’s just because it’s newer in the grand scheme of industries out there, right? They’re much, much older industries. They tend to sometimes be a little stuck in their ways, resistant to innovation and change, but this industry is like full on it, trying to innovate, trying to push ahead, trying to see what’s next. And it’s exciting. It’s exciting for anybody to be a part of. So, I appreciate you getting more into that.

To transition a little bit to talking about misaligned incentives. So, you’ve highlighted the gap between asset owners and O&M providers. How does Above’s data help bridge that divide?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (21:21)

Sure, so we create transparency, visibility, and we make it easier to measure performance. Asset owners generally care about long-term performance. O&M providers are generally dealing with tight budgets, and they don’t necessarily get measured, nor do they get compensated for performance improvements. They are really measured by uptime availability, generally speaking, right? And so, what we do is we make it easier to bridge that divide by making it easier to measure performance, which is hard generally, and by forcing that transparency and visibility. That by itself is not enough. We actually need to better align long-term incentives between asset owners and O&M providers, but we do facilitate this through the provision of information to help with that.

Wes Ashworth (22:10)

And you touched on this a bit just there and then a little bit earlier, that industry is a bit slow to adopt a mindset instead of just focusing on uptime. I guess why do you think that is and maybe what’s changing now?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (22:24)

Yeah, so there are certain things that take a while to change. And the industry is used to moving fast. And it’s all about speed of installation and getting that COD in there. And the investments are, for the most part, on the install side.

There’s a lot more dollars going there. So, O-19s are not necessarily that well-staffed. And with the budgets being that thin, you have to prioritize your headcount. What do you go for? Also, short-term versus long-term.

If you’ve got an inverter out, that’s a much bigger impact than having some modules that are underperforming. I think those are some of the causes, and it’s just taking a little while. But as portfolios get bigger, as institutional investors are more exposed to the asset class, and we’re looking at longer-term PPAs and it’s all about that yield. And if tax credits, if I’m not saying they should, but if incentives do go away, then performance is going to become a much greater focus. It’s already starting to get there.

Wes Ashworth (23:18)

Yeah, I kind of I’ve seen that trend as well, I kind of hoping you’d mention that as well, too, and just seeing that, it just becomes more and more important and will be as we go. Another thing you’ve mentioned, which you see, is the challenge of poor-quality output in the early stages of manufacturing as we scale US solar. When is a change for quality to match that growth?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (23:37)

Yeah, it’s inevitable that any young industry goes through the learning curve. Talk about, I’m going to say China, right? Just because China has been producing modules for decades. So, they’ve ironed out a lot of kinks. And I’m not going to quote any specific players out there, but there are some recent reports that talk about the percentage of modules that are coming out and have failures when they do the inspection. It’s pretty high.

Wes Ashworth (24:00)

Yeah, very high.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (24:02)

North of fifty percent, and we’re talking players that have been around for a while that have been producing volumes and volumes and volumes of modules. So, to expect that we here in the US will be able to produce modules with flawless quality right away, it’s not happening. So, we should anticipate, and we should do everything we can to catch quality issues prior to installation. So that’s one. And then we should be monitoring the quality of those modules more closely and establish a program that keeps a close eye on the development of those modules to see how they actually perform in the field.

Wes Ashworth (24:36)

Absolutely, and hopefully that does happen, right? I mean, I think it will obviously, it’s a natural evolution of things, and you see these industries come along. It’s nice when we learn from the mistakes of our past and the mistakes of others as well, and what went well, what didn’t, and you can kind of be a little step ahead, but we’ll see. But thinking about innovations, we touched on that a minute ago. How do you see, just when you think about autonomous drones and robotics and AI like there’s so much technology innovation happening. How do you see that shaping the future of solar asset management? If you fast forward down the road, what does it look like?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (25:16)

Yeah, I think we could. I’d like to see fully autonomous sites. I think you could have that. We already have the technology, by the way. I didn’t mention autonomous drones earlier, but drone in a box, autonomous drones, that’s already there. The way I see it, it is all predicated on having a really robust digital twin with all of that geolocated component-level data, so that you could have the following. You could have SCADA triggers and alarms, and then you can have a drone, depending on the nature of the alarm, the drone flies and does a little mission it then assesses and it sends a task to someone all autonomously all automatically without waiting for a human being to review that’s where we’re going we’re close the technology is already there you gotta iron out some kinks but that’s where I see that it’s really about blending technologies ground robots have a place autonomous drones have a place humans have a place but instead of being the humans in the middle it’s more the humans thinking bigger picture and really using their brains for more advanced analytics even. Just reviewing the data, right? Because we all think, oh yeah, AI and automation are fantastic. But no, it’s great. But you still need people reviewing it to make sure to calibrate it.

Wes Ashworth (26:16)

Yeah, you still need a pilot. Preferably a smart one that’s curious and has all those other traits that you mentioned earlier. That’s it. And sometimes we get so caught up in that, think humans, like what’s the next greatest thing? And we want this like an all-or-nothing solution. And what you’re saying is more like blending these different technologies.

Like there’s a place for all of it. And I hear that more and more, you know, the more I talk to people, too, which is cool. But we have a tendency sometimes to just get tunnel vision, where like, this is the next greatest thing. This has got to be all it is. And you’re like, no, it’s a piece of it. A piece of the puzzle.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (27:04)

Yeah, I was going to add one thing there if you don’t mind, which is blending technologies, but I also think it’s about an ecosystem.

So ultimately, we need to build an ecosystem that delivers the best long-term outcome for every solar asset that we’re talking about. That’s not a single player. It’s not a single company. It’s they are the best-in-class providers for each of those things. And there may be some consolidation, but at the end of the day, not everyone can do everything perfectly. And so, I think what we as an industry need to do better is the integration of different stakeholders in an ecosystem that facilitates data transfer more seamlessly from in between different phase. We didn’t talk about that, but there are a lot of drops when projects move from phase to phase or from early-stage developer to late-stage developer to EPC to O&M, right? I think we need a more seamless ecosystem.

Wes Ashworth (27:50)

I agree that the term that keeps coming up a lot lately is partnerships and how important partnerships are in the industry. It’s something you’ve seen. We’ve noted that you’ve seen this in oil and gas, and how they do things. And I think there’s a lot we can learn from that. But you’re hearing that come up more and more. And it’s probably because the pain is coming up more and more as people are talking about it. Thinking about that, like just the current state of things, any current debates or industry narratives that you think are just misguided or maybe even dangerous?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (28:21)

Yeah, I think I would say the biggest one is when you’re thinking QA, QC, good enough is acceptable, just it’s good enough. I think that’s very dangerous because it may be good enough, but it’s not. We’re talking 30-year assets. And I think that is one of the biggest issues that we are seeing is just relying on, I’ll give you an example.

You don’t have the resources to QC everything on the site, so you go and check 1 % okay in some cases, up to 10 % if they’re really concerned, 20 % now there’s a trade-off right, and it’s expensive to check everything manually visually, but you could leverage different technology like drones to do more qc on site so I think that’s one that concerns me because people are just thinking all right fine I’ve done and checked that box. Box checking exercises is probably the biggest one.

So, the other thing I think that’s misguided or dangerous is that just focusing on SCADA is sufficient. SCADA doesn’t give you module-level issues. It often doesn’t give you string-level issues. And so, just purely being reliant on SCADA information for health assessment, that’s not good enough. And the third one I wanted to bring up, I kind of alluded to this earlier, is that AI and automation, so you have a bunch of data and you just throw it at AI, that to me is a fallacy. I keep playing with co-pilot and chat, and boy oh boy are there mistakes. So, I believe in the future of automation, but we can’t just rely on If you don’t have great data going into it, all you’re doing is scaling inefficiency

Wes Ashworth (29:59)
Yeah, garbage in, garbage out, right?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (30:01)

Correct.

Wes Ashworth (30:03)

What can we do about that? I mean, I’m sure a lot of people are experimenting with AI, putting a lot of data in, trying to get some stuff out of it. Like, what advice would you offer?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (30:11)

I would offer the advice that we actually follow ourselves as an organization. So, we leverage automation. We’re big on automation. We believe that we have to leverage technology. Start with you need good data. So, start with good data. Capture good data. That means not just the detail on the data, but the breadth of the data. So, we’re talking about data blending. Capture good data. Then use automation. Use your machine learning, but calibrate it. So, what we do is we have humans that review automation, and then you have that feedback loop so that you keep improving, and as your data set grows and you have more interaction and more improvements, then your automation becomes more powerful. So, we practice what we preach, and that’s what we’re doing.

Wes Ashworth (30:52)

Yeah, good sound advice there. Another question. So, for developers, owners, and operators listening, what’s the biggest blind spot they have right now that they need to address from what you see and your thoughts on that?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (31:06)

Yeah, I think I have to say this goes back to the module level. The focus is so much on the inverters, on the combiners, on the trackers, and sometimes, modules have issues for years that go undetected. So, I think that’s one that we are concerned about and actively trying to promote greater awareness about that, so modules. The other one is it’s that data and keeping track of what happens in the previous phase. Not just between organizations, but also within the same organization.

You know all about talent. You know how talent moves if the organization hasn’t been able to successfully document the right data, that gets lost into somebody’s head in somebody’s spreadsheet. So, I think that’s the other blind spot is people aren’t paying enough attention to ensuring that they’re documenting things for the future, assuming that the people who built that won’t be around. You have to assume that everybody’s gone.

Wes Ashworth (31:57)

Yeah, exactly. We see this all the time. You have somebody who’s got just all this internal knowledge and experience, and they know exactly how to interpret something or go through some process or do something else. Now, all of a sudden, they leave, and you’re just left in a lurch, and somebody’s there to pick up the pieces.

Not only does it hurt you in the short term, too, it also hurts you from the recruiting aspect of getting that new person in that’s got to walk in, step in those shoes and sort of start untangling that spaghetti and figuring out what in the world happened here and all that sort of stuff. So, there’s a big risk there for sure, we see that. So yeah, not to keep you up at night thinking about that, but having talked about the technological landscape, the industry as a whole, those sorts of things. I want to shift to your personal leadership philosophy and vision for the future, which I think is always great to capture and very important, and we can learn a lot from.

So, you’ve spoken about focusing on fewer priorities and doing them well, and this feels so critical and important in today’s world, where it’s like everything is important, everything is thrown at you. Just even in every industry, it’s like everybody comes up with a million ideas, right? And you should be doing all of this, and it’s tough to sort of prioritize and focus that down. Thinking about that, you’ve done a good job at focusing on fewer priorities, doing them well. How has that philosophy shaped your leadership at Above?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (33:21)

Yeah, it really is the foundation of how I lead. I lead by example. I ask my teammates. I ask my organization. I have an opinion, but I don’t just say this is what we’re doing. I have learned through years of knocking my head against the wall that I may be right and my idea may be right, but if I don’t get buy-in from the team that needs to execute it ain’t happening. I’ve also learned that at times I’m going to be better at executing that task than somebody else, but if I’m doing it, they’re not learning, and if I’m doing it, I’m not doing something else that only I could do, so those are just some of the things.

I practice what I preach. I’m also a challenger. I’m a challenger in the sense of I challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone. And I challenge everybody that I operate with to get out of their comfort zone. The balance is not to push too far, but to make it a little bit just enough. the other thing I think is you need to give people permission to push back.

I’m a passionate individual. When I talk, I have action, I have energy, and I bring that to everything I do, and I move fast. So, I always tell people, if I’m moving too fast, please slow me down. If you think I’m talking out of, tell me, right? Because I want you to slow down so that you understand what we’re really trying to get at. And there are many ways of accomplishing the same task. That takes another one. I try to prescribe less on how to do it and more with the outcomes that I want to see, and then give people agency and how to accomplish that.

Wes Ashworth (34:54)

That’s a leadership master class right there. It’s funny as you’re going through those things, I’m like, man, I’m working on the same thing. That’s exactly like right out of my life. And it’s not easy. It’s easy to say, it’s easy to hear. It’s definitely harder to really practice it and live it. But it’s cool once you start doing it. There is a little bit of pain in the beginning, but then you’re like blown away sometimes. Like I’ve had people on my team where I’m like, oh my God, like thank God I gave them that liberty, the room to fail.

Of course, the guidance is there, the support is there, but they did that better than I would have, or they had some idea and they thought about that a different way that I would have never seen. You do see some short-term pain, right? The mistakes happen, or there are things where, yeah, they don’t maybe do it as well as you the first time. Eventually, they may surpass you. Those are tried and true, just cool things. And I’m glad to hear that come out too, because those are also a lot of the traits when you hear companies growing, scaling, making it, doing great things, a lot of those key traits are there.

Sometimes that’s what’s missed. They’re like a great product or service; everything should have worked. You’re like a business case. Why didn’t this business make it? They should have made it. And sometimes it comes down to that owner operator or that visionary, what have you, not getting to the point of what you just mentioned. So yeah, that’s awesome, really, really powerful stuff.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (36:15)

Let me add one thing, as you were summarizing. There’s another aspect of it is the time to solution, right? Time to execution. It’s the more people who are going to execute or are closer to the action understand, the more they can pivot. And the more of an issue comes up, so the nightmare that’s everybody’s nightmare is that the client has a problem and then comes to talk to someone, and then that someone goes to someone else, and then goes to someone else, and two weeks later, you still haven’t resolved it.

We need to empower; we need to make it clear what their sandbox is and give them the room to go for it. And we need to make it comfortable for them to fail as long as it’s not a critical failure. If this is mission critical you can’t fail here but most things are not. And you just need to give them permission to fail but to take action. Otherwise, people are just pushing one envelope to the next.

Wes Ashworth (36:58)

Yeah, that’s good stuff. love all of that. Staying, getting a little practical for somebody entering the solar industry today. And I, that’s another thing I’m passionate about. I want to get more people in the industry than we can. We need all these bright minds from all other industries. So, what’s the best advice for building a career that has both impact and staying power? And we mentioned the solar coaster earlier, but how does somebody get in this and stay in it long-term?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (37:34)

Yeah, so one advice I wouldn’t give is to have your entire career mapped out. I don’t think that’s necessary. I think it’s important that you have your filters and you know how to make your decisions, what’s important for you. So that’s important. So that you know when there is a pivotal moment and you’re going to have to make a decision, then you have your filter. So that I think is, and if you have it all mapped out, that’s okay. But you also shouldn’t feel the pressure to do it. I go back to that curiosity.

You have got to scratch that itch and go for something that you’re curious about, because when you’ve got two people side by side and one is curious about a particular thing and the other one is not, it shows not just in the level of energy but in the output. It’s not always the case, right? I’m generalizing. It’s not always the case, but that’s true. So, I think it’s bringing that curiosity.

Another one is to look at whether you have things that you know you enjoy, do a little bit of thinking about what are the types of activities there’s a lot of different roles in solar a lot what are the types of activities that you want to explore you don’t have to commit to a 10-year career doing something I think you should do at least a year otherwise it takes a year to learn it takes another year to start getting and then three years you’re swinging right so less than three years on each role I kind of red flag for me but look at something that you want to actually do.

The other advice is don’t go in expecting the world. I’ve seen this, and it is a bit generational. There are some people who wanted to demonstrate, want to add value, want to perform, and let the work speak for themselves, and others just want to have everything ahead. It’s that entitlement mentality of, I showed up for work. I deserve a promotion. No.

I think you just need to be willing to learn to put in your time. I’m not full old school here, but I believe that you need to give the goods before you start asking for promotions. The other one is that you really need to know that, in most cases, it’s about teamwork. Very few areas in the solar industry are about an individual contributing and having a final output. Very few areas. It is about a team output. And so, the A players, they’re all in it for themselves. I would be cautious with that kind of attitude. So, I would promote people to think about how they can add the most value to the team. Yes, you need to focus on your priorities personally because you need to deliver. But then, who else can I help?

Wes Ashworth (39:56)

Nah, that’s good stuff. I love all of that. Yeah, one thing I explain sometimes to people is like, you visualize these quadrants, right? And each square has a different description, but the top square is things you really are good at, naturally kind of good at, and things you enjoy doing. If your job probably is not gonna be 100 % of that, you know? But if you have a job where a lot of it is in that box, you’re gonna be really happy and fulfilled. There’s another square of like, things you’re really good at, but you hate doing. They just steal your energy; they steal your joy. Your job probably is gonna have some of those things, but if you have it where 50%, 75 % of your job is that, then you’re not gonna be really happy. And then you get into things you’re not good at, but things you really love and enjoy doing. Those are great learning opportunities, maybe something to explore educationally or for training. And then the things you stay away from, things you’re really bad at, and you also don’t enjoy doing. That’s just, career doom if you’re there all the time.

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (40:49)

Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t do the quadrant exercise. I do a Venn diagram where you have three little circles. One of them is passion. What do you really love? Another one is competence. What are you really good at? And the third one is impact. Like you’re delivering value and I’m at a different stage in my career, but I try to spend more of my time in that middle. And I think if you’re too far off, if you’re not in the middle, you still need to be within two of them to your point. Otherwise, it’s just not sustainable, but there is value in doing what you hate. Just is value. If anything, it gives you a full appreciation for what you don’t want to ever do again or for what somebody else has to deal with. So, you put yourself in their shoes. So, there is value in doing things that you’re not good at.

Wes Ashworth (41:35)

Yeah, no, agreed. I have something on my desk that says “embrace the suck”. Sometimes you gotta embrace the suck. Not everything’s gonna be all fun and games. Sometimes you just gotta do hard work you don’t like doing occasionally. sometimes, but agreed, there’s a value there as well. Another question, kind of as we get closer to time, a couple more here. How do you personally define success in the renewable energy space? What does it mean to you?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (41:41)

Yeah, I think ultimately my measuring stake or what I would like to see the industry is, did we find a place where solar is accepted, it works reliably it is sustainable. It’s delivering the goods. I think that’s success, and that requires us to focus more on long-term rather than just short-term decisions, and I would like to play a role in doing that.

Wes Ashworth (42:21)

Yeah, and maybe this kind of dovetails into that, but you fast forward 10 years, what does the solar industry look like if we get it right? And what’s your boldest prediction?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (42:32)

Yeah, I think solar will be the cornerstone of our infrastructure. Solar plus energy storage it will be an interconnected grid, a much more flexible grid. But solar can play a significant role there.

We have a long way to go there, but we need more technology. We need better integration. And remember when I talked about alignment between different stakeholders and that ecosystem? That’s what we need. But we’ve got all the pieces. We just need to keep pushing in that direction.

Wes Ashworth (43:04)

Yeah, I love that. That’s good. Final question. Thinking about it, when it’s all said and done, you’re retiring and out of the industry. What’s a legacy you hope to leave behind in the renewable energy industry as a whole?

Daniel Mello Guimaraes (43:17)

For me, it’s a question of I would like to help solar get there. And I think to get there, we need to create winning teams, we need to create strong alignment, we need to improve transparency, we need to increase visibility in underlying issues that become problems later. So, it’s really to help the industry mature. And if I can help that on the business side, but also if I can, I like coaching, I like mentoring, I like I really enjoy seeing people grow, they don’t have to work with me forever, I take pride in seeing them accomplish success elsewhere. I want to help people find their sweet spot and deliver good in that way that which is the other thing that moves me.

Wes Ashworth (44:00)

Yeah, I love that. It’s really powerful, and I can feel that I’m a lot of the same way and just hardwired that way. So, it’s good, good stuff there. With that, we will wrap up today’s conversation, and Daniel can’t thank you enough. Just your candor, clarity, you’re a fun guy to talk to, just the ambition you bring to the renewable space, your journey really from banker to solar pioneer to scaling Above, really does offer a powerful blueprint for anyone looking to drive real change in energy.

For our listeners, as always, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, give us a rating, check the show notes for some links as well, and share this out with your network, and we will see you soon.