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Energy Growth Consultancy

We work with COOs, VPs of business development, and founder-CEOs at renewable energy companies who've built something that works — and can't figure out why it isn't selling.

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Case Study 01
Residential Solar · Texas

A solar installer generating 2,400 leads per month was closing 4%.

SunBridge Residential had cracked the awareness problem. Google, referrals, door-to-door — leads were never the issue. But the pipeline looked like a leaky bucket, and nobody on the team could explain where the water was going.

"We had more leads than our sales team could handle. What we didn't have was a process that turned conversations into contracts."

— Marcus Delgado, COO, SunBridge Residential

The Diagnosis

Three weeks of pipeline audits revealed the same pattern: sales reps were pitching product specs to homeowners who hadn't yet decided to go solar at all. The top-of-funnel qualification was broken — leads weren't being scored by intent, just by whether they picked up the phone.

The Fix

We rebuilt the intake sequence. A 4-question pre-qualification filter — bill size, ownership status, roof age, decision timeline — ran before any sales conversation. Leads below the threshold went into a 60-day nurture track. Leads above it got a 15-minute "energy audit" call instead of a full pitch.

The second change was the proposal format. We replaced the 22-slide deck with a one-page savings summary showing the homeowner's specific bill, their estimated annual savings, and the break-even date. No more drowning in panel efficiency ratings.

Pipeline Metrics · Before → After

Close Rate

4%

Before

12%

After 90 days

Avg. Sales Cycle

47d

Before

19d

After

Monthly Revenue Impact

+$380K

incremental / month

Engagement Timeline

Week 1–2

Pipeline audit. Tagged 6 months of lost deals by failure mode.

Week 3

Pre-qualification filter built and A/B tested against existing flow.

Week 4–6

New proposal format deployed. Sales team retrained on intent signals.

Week 7–12

Close rate climbed from 4% → 9% → 12%. Cycle compressed.

Editor's note

The pre-qual filter alone accounts for ~70% of the close rate improvement. Most installers skip this step because they fear losing leads. They're losing something more expensive: sales rep hours.

3×

Close Rate

Residential Solar · 90 days

Case Study 02
Commercial Wind · Midwest

A 180MW wind developer with three projects in permitting limbo for 26 months.

Meridian Wind had the sites, the engineering, and the off-take appetite. What they didn't have was a permitting strategy that distinguished between the jurisdictions that wanted them and the ones that were using process as a veto.

Permitting Timeline · Before → After

Avg. Permit Duration

26mo

Before

10mo

After process rebuild

Projects Unblocked

3 of 3

within 6 months

Pipeline Value Unlocked

$340M

project value

Jurisdiction Triage Matrix

Cooperative jurisdictions4
Procedural delays7
Structural opposition2

Resources concentrated on cooperative and procedural categories. Structural opposition deprioritized for 12 months.

"Every month in permitting is a month of burn with zero revenue. We needed someone who understood that this wasn't an engineering problem — it was a political one."

— Priya Nambiar, VP Development, Meridian Wind

The Diagnosis

The company was treating all thirteen jurisdictions identically — same packet, same timeline, same community outreach budget. But the permitting landscape was heterogeneous. Four counties were procedurally delayed due to understaffed planning departments. Two were structurally opposed and no amount of process improvement would move them faster.

The Fix

We built a jurisdiction triage matrix — scoring each county on political receptivity, procedural backlog, and economic incentive alignment. The four cooperative jurisdictions got 70% of the team's bandwidth immediately.

For the procedurally delayed counties, we embedded a project liaison directly in two planning departments — a practice borrowed from infrastructure development that renewable developers almost never use. Permit timelines in those counties dropped from 18 months to 7.

Engagement Timeline

Month 1

Jurisdiction audit. Triage matrix built. Resources reallocated.

Month 2

Planning liaisons embedded in two key counties.

Month 3–4

First two projects cleared preliminary review.

Month 5–6

All three projects approved. Combined 180MW online.

60%

Faster Permits

Commercial Wind · 6-month engagement

Case Study 03
Battery Storage · Series B

A storage startup with proven technology and zero utility contracts after 18 months.

Voltara Energy had completed two successful pilot installations. Their 4-hour iron-air battery performed within 3% of spec. The technology worked. But their sales cycle was running fourteen months and every utility conversation ended at the procurement committee stage.

"We kept getting to the final stage and losing. The technology wasn't the issue. We didn't understand how utilities actually make procurement decisions — and we were pitching to the wrong people."

— Jordan Osei, CEO, Voltara Energy

The Diagnosis

Utility procurement isn't a single decision — it's a coalition. Engineering, finance, regulatory affairs, and the grid operations team all have veto power at different stages. Voltara was pitching exclusively to engineering contacts who were enthusiastic but had no budget authority. The procurement committee killed every deal without ever having met the Voltara team.

The Fix

We mapped the procurement org chart at Voltara's three most advanced prospects. Then we built a parallel engagement track — a separate deck and meeting cadence for finance and regulatory affairs, running simultaneously with the engineering conversation.

The second intervention was the deal structure. Utilities don't like capital risk on unproven vendors. We helped Voltara structure a performance-based PPA with a 12-month pilot clause — the utility pays only for delivered MWh, with a purchase option at month 13. This transformed the procurement committee's risk calculus completely.

Engagement Timeline

Week 1–3

Procurement org mapping. Identified 4 missing stakeholders per deal.

Week 4–6

Parallel engagement tracks launched with finance and regulatory teams.

Week 7–10

Performance-based PPA structure finalized with legal counsel.

Week 11–16

First 50MW PPA signed with Midcontinent utility. Two more in late-stage negotiation.

Deal Metrics · Before → After

Sales Cycle

14mo

Before

4mo

After restructure

First PPA Value

$47M

50MW · 15-year term

Deals in Late Stage

2 more

combined ~$90M potential

Procurement Coalition Map

Grid Engineering

Engaged (existing)

Finance / Treasury

Added in week 4

Regulatory Affairs

Added in week 4

Procurement Committee

Reached in week 8

C-Suite sponsor

Added in week 10

Editor's note

The performance-based structure is replicable for any storage vendor selling to regulated utilities. It converts a capital decision into an operating decision — a categorically easier approval path.

$47M

First Utility PPA

Battery Storage · 18-month cycle compressed to 4

Catalyst

Thirty minutes to find
where your revenue is leaking.

A Growth Diagnostic is a structured 30-minute session. We come in having reviewed your pipeline data and leave with a clear hypothesis about what's broken and what to fix first.

What happens in the diagnostic

01

Pre-session review

Before we meet, we review whatever pipeline data you can share — close rates, cycle length, stage conversion. We come in with a hypothesis, not a blank notebook.

02

The conversation

Thirty minutes. We walk through the hypothesis, pressure-test it with your context, and identify the one or two levers most likely to move revenue in the next 90 days.

03

The deliverable

A one-page diagnostic summary — where the leak is, what the fix is, and what it would take to implement. You get this regardless of whether we work together.

47+

Diagnostics completed

$2.1B

Pipeline influenced

100%

Deliver the summary