Companies and developers often face a steep learning curve when implementing clean energy technologies like solar installations and EV charging. To get a fair deal, they must go through a complex bidding process that includes requests for proposals, bid evaluations, and ultimately signing contracts with suppliers.
Now, Station A, a startup founded by two MIT graduates and their colleagues, is streamlining the process of clean energy deployment: The company has developed a clean energy marketplace that helps property owners and businesses analyze their properties to calculate the profitability of clean energy projects, create detailed project lists, collect and compare bids, and select suppliers.
The platform helps property owners and businesses deploy clean energy technologies like solar panels, batteries and EV chargers at the lowest possible cost in the places where they have the greatest potential to reduce energy costs and emissions.
“We’re doing a lot to simplify clean energy adoption,” explains Manos Thalasis, SMArchS ’15, who co-founded Station A with Kevin Birkmeyer, MBA ’14. “Imagine if you were trying to buy a plane ticket and your travel agent only took you with one airline. It would be more expensive and there would be places you couldn’t go. Our clients want choice and easy access to the track record of everyone they work with.”
Station A is partnering with some of the nation’s largest real estate companies, which own thousands of properties, to reduce the carbon footprint of their buildings. The company is also partnering with grocery chains, warehouses and other businesses to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
“Our platform uses a lot of AI and machine learning to convert addresses into building footprints, figure out energy costs, available incentives, and where you can expect the best ROI,” said Salasis, who also serves as chief product officer for Station A. “Typically this would take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of consulting time, but we can do it very quickly and for almost no cost.”
Building the foundation
As a graduate student at MIT’s School of Architecture, Salasis studied environmental design modeling using satellite imagery and other data to understand how communities consume energy and propose clean energy solutions that could have the greatest impact. He says that classes taught by professors Christoph Reinhart and Kent Larson were particularly eye-opening.
“My ability to model thermal energy and simulate energy use in buildings started at MIT,” says Thalasis.
Birkmeyer served as president of the MIT Energy Club while at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also a research assistant for the MIT Energy Initiative on the Solar Future report and a teaching assistant for course 15.366 (Climate and Energy Ventures). He credits entrepreneurship classes taught by Professor of Practice Bill Aueret and sustainability classes taught by Senior Lecturer Jason Jay for shaping him. Prior to his studies at MIT, Birkmeyer had extensive experience developing solar and storage projects as well as selling clean energy products to commercial customers. The co-founders didn’t end up meeting at MIT, but ended up working together at utility company NRG Energy after graduation.
“As co-founders, we saw an opportunity to transform the way businesses access clean energy,” said Birkmeyer, who now serves as CEO of Station A. “Station A was born from a shared belief that data and transparency can unlock the full potential of clean energy technology for all.”
At NRG, the founders built software that helps clients identify decarbonization opportunities without sending analysts into the field to do audits.
“If we work with a large grocery chain or a large retailer, we use our proprietary analytics to assess their portfolio and make recommendations on solar projects, energy efficiency, demand response, etc. that will have a positive impact within a year,” Salasis explains.
These tools were a huge success internally, and in 2018 the duo, along with co-founders Jeremy Lucas and Sam Steyer, decided to bring the technology to Station A.
The founders started out working with energy companies but quickly shifted their focus to property owners with large portfolios and large corporations with long-term leases. Many customers have hundreds, or even thousands, of locations to review. Using just an address, Station A can provide detailed financial return estimates for clean energy investments.
In 2020, the company expanded its focus from selling access to analytics to building a marketplace for clean energy trading, helping companies conduct a competitive bidding process for clean energy projects. Once projects are installed, Station A can also evaluate whether they are achieving expected performance and track financial returns.
“When I talk to people outside the industry, they say, ‘What? This doesn’t exist?'” Salasis says. “It’s funny, because this industry is still so young, nobody has figured out how to have a transparent, large-scale bidding process.”
From school to the world
Station A currently has about 2,500 clean energy developers on its platform, including companies like HP, Nestle and Goldman Sachs, as well as several major real estate investment funds. Salasis said that if Station A were a developer, it would rank in the top 10 for annual solar installations.
The founders say their experiences at MIT helped them scale the business.
“A lot of these relationships came from the MIT network, through people we met at Sloan or through our collaborations with MIT,” Thalasis says. “A lot of this business is about reputation, and we’ve built a really good reputation.”
Since its founding, Station A has also sponsored classes at MIT’s Sustainability Lab, where Thalasis conducted his undergraduate research, and the founders say they use the skills they learned as students every day as they work to develop Station A’s services.
“All of our work on analyzing buildings is inspired by the work I did at MIT,” Salasis says.
“Station A is just the beginning,” Birkmeyer said. “The adoption of clean energy isn’t just about technology, it’s about making it seamless and accessible. That’s what drives us every day, and we’re excited to lead this transformation.”
