Gabriel Phillips hails from Westport, but he spent most of the past 20 years outside of Connecticut building a resume full of commodities trading and energy services experience. Now he is coming back to the state as CEO of Catalyst Power Holdings, an independent provider of commercial electricity and gas and distributed energy solutions. In this role, Phillips has an eye toward providing what he considers much-needed choice in the energy provider market for midsize businesses.
Phillips is looking to serve “anybody larger than the pizzeria or laundromat “, but smaller than an investment grade company with millions of end users. For the many businesses that fall in between those points, Phillips said there is little choice of electricity and gas providers. That situation makes it harder to decarbonize because no matter how interested an owner is in fighting climate change, they aren ‘t in a position to pressure their electric company into changing its policies.
“Typically, in a privately held enterprise the owners have more supply options, including renewables, at their homes than they do for their business, ” Phillips said. “We view that as a crime, and we want to help solve that with a focus on decarbonization. Our customers get more options from us than their regular retail electric supplier. ”
Catalyst Power offers three options for their customers, ranging from turnkey solutions to establishing their own microgrid.
“The lowest involvement from the customer would be our community solar subscription, ” Phillips explained. “We subscribe them to an asset that ‘s elsewhere but in their utility jurisdiction. ”
Phillips observed this option is already immensely popular with his company ‘s existing customers in New York, where the business is subscribed in funding a local solar farm which confers green energy credits representing the farm ‘s contribution to the grid. According to Catalyst Power ‘s website, those credits will reliably cover around 10% of a business ‘s electric bill. Philips also said that businesses will have the opportunity to not only save money, but also to make it.
The second option they offer business owners is hosting one of the community solar farms they provide subscriptions on their roof. Catalyst Power will option the roof of viable buildings and lease them out to install solar panels. The lease rate is determined in part by how many panels can be installed and local power prices, but Phillips pitches it as a way to take advantage of federal grant money without wading into the complications of leasing solar panels directly.
“Unfortunately, ” Phillips said of traditional solar power arrangements, “this industry has a significant barrier to entry purely due to complexity. ”
The leasing option also lets businesses turn the federal solar power incentive under the Build Back Better bill into a direct payment from Catalyst Power instead of a tax credit, streamlining the process of making full use of the credit.
Catalyst Power ‘s most involved option is the installation of a full microgrid. Phillips stressed that his company designs grids not to put customers on “islands ” of power, but to make them all around more resilient. The microgrids retain a utility connection, which will also make it easier to integrate with Non-Wires Solutions which Connecticut is looking to invest in.
In addition to solar panels, the microgrids feature a battery array to provide storage or a back up fossil fuel generator. Phillips said most customers prefer not to “put their supply of eggs all in one basket, ” so instead of generating 100% of a customer ‘s electricity it will ensure that the bulk of its power is coming from whatever is currently the most economical option.
Catalyst Power already has 4,000 customers in New York, and Phillips is hoping to bring a bright and clean future to his home state.
