The Environment+Energy Leader Honoree program is an annual list that recognizes the environment and energy “doers” who break the trail in creating new solutions, programs, platforms, best practices and products to help their companies – or other companies – achieve greater success in commercial and industrial environment and energy management. Meet the Honorees… is an ongoing series that will feature one E+E Honoree from 2022 each week. See the complete list of 2022 Honorees here.
Jeff Bishop is a clean energy entrepreneur and a leader in the US energy transition, focusing on the intersection of finance, commercial, technology, and policy and is the CEO and co-founder of Key Capture Energy, one of America’s largest owner/operators of stand-alone battery storage projects. Prior founding to Key Capture Energy, Jeff held senior positions at Brookfield Renewable and EDP Renewables – two of the largest renewable energy companies in the United States. In these roles, he was responsible for financial analysis, corporate development, and market design — focusing extensively on building new markets for renewable energy to compete in.
Take us through a typical workday. What are a few of your ongoing responsibilities?
Key Capture Energy, with a focus on developing, constructing, owning, and operating battery storage projects, has gone from 2 to 85 employees in 6 years – with the bulk of the hiring in the last 2 years during the pandemic. Any time a company triples in size, internal systems/processes/structures break, so much of my time is spent making sure we have the right team, procedures, and systems in place for the next ~150 in employee growth (at which point we’ll have to do it again).
I focus a lot on overall operations as battery storage revenues are only as good as the revenue optimization software and overall project operations. My happiest days are spent on policy/regulatory efforts at the state, regional and federal levels; a new technology like battery storage requires collective learning and collaboration to ensure that projects are paid for the services provided.
What are some of the biggest challenges your company/organization will be tackling in 2023 and beyond?
The large-scale storage sector is clearly needed: as more baseload coal and inefficient thermal peakers retire for economic reasons, there need to be resources that can balance increasing amounts of intermittent wind and solar. However – there are global headwinds as construction prices are up, electrical long-lead items have increased, and the cost of equity and debt has increased.
Our 2023 challenges are to continue prudent and profitable growth while setting the stage for the ability to quickly ramp up in 2024/2025 as overall market conditions change.
What was a successful project or implementation you worked on at your company that you can share? Do you have any tips that would help colleagues at other companies who are contemplating similar projects?
One of my favorite projects is the first facility that we developed. In 2019, Key Capture Energy constructed the first large-scale battery in New York that is still online today – KCE NY 1, which is 45 minutes north of Albany, NY. Getting the project online required an incredible amount of work among stakeholders, state regulators, policymakers, and engineers responsible for the state electrical grid. It required a very large community to do the first project like this, and KCE NY 1 continues to strengthen the electrical grid almost 4 years later.
Earlier in 2022, NY1 hosted Congressman Paul Tonko for a ceremony to honor his office’s work on clean energy and climate-positive projects.
What trends do you expect to see in the market in the next few years? What challenges will the industry face and what technologies or organizational changes will overcome them?
The energy storage industry will expand with the increased growth of new renewable energy projects. While lithium-ion has been the major technology in battery storage to date, the next decade will bring new technologies, such as new chemistries and new project types like hydrogen power. The entire energy sector will have to continue to work with regulators and utilities to weave energy storage assets onto the grid.
Tell us about a favorite hobby, passion, or book you've read recently that has had an impact on you and your work.
Over the last 20 years, every summer I re-read The Alchemist to make sure I’m on track with where I need to go in life. As I turned 40 this past year – that question took on a different level of introspection. I highly recommend folks read it if they haven’t already.
Connect with Jeff and the rest of his team at Key Capture Energy