Investment Considerations
- Correlate sells, develops and implements clean energy solutions.
- The company offers its customers a more cost-effective and reliable clean energy option.
- Correlate provides services to commercial, industrial and residential customers.
- The company aims to achieve high growth by creating efficiencies in a fragmented market.
- It is scaling implementation through customer aggregation via a defined M&A strategy.
Correlate Energy Corp. (OTCQB: CIPI) is a publicly-traded company strategically positioned to capitalize on America’s unstoppable trend toward decentralized energy generation.
The energy grid in the U.S. is insufficient for the booming clean energy trend, and current infrastructure is limiting green energy distribution. Constructing the needed infrastructure to address this demand imbalance will cost billions and be far too slow, positioning decentralized systems, like those on offer from Correlate, in a key position for heightened demand.
Correlate has identified several key economic drivers powering the decentralized energy trend, including:
- Real Cost Savings – Customer pays zero money down and gets an instant electrical price discount to current rates.
- Massive Project Investment Funding – The International Energy Agency estimates that over one billion dollars per day will be invested in solar energy in 2023.
- Consistent Long-Term Incentives – The Inflation Reduction Act is a game-changer, supercharging renewables with $1.2 trillion in tax credits for 10 years of market support.
- Robust Customer Demand – Wood Mackenzie expects the U.S. solar industry to nearly triple in size over the next five years.
Correlate’s team of multi-decade experts who have worked with renowned global brands are positioning the company to make the most of this opportunity while consolidating a fragmented industry. Collectively, the team has developed, financed and deployed over $2 billion in clean energy projects to date.
Three-Pronged Strategy
Correlate is leveraging a three-pronged strategy aimed at driving shareholder value:
- Sell – Correlate seeks to finance, develop and profitably sell localized clean energy solutions and microgrids to industrial, commercial and residential customers.
- Retain – Correlate plans to retain ownership of some of these energy systems and thereby realize ongoing, reliable cash flow.
- Acquire – Correlate seeks to acquire proven renewable energy companies in order to exponentially grow earnings per share for investors.
This strategy is enhanced by current investment trends. Clean energy earnings are being sought after by investors. In Q4 2022, the median EBITDA multiple for green energy companies was 12.3x, according to Finerva.
Market Outlook
Over the next decade and beyond, renewable energy growth is expected to come primarily via decentralized systems like those offered by Correlate.
The Inflation Reduction Act enacted in late August 2022 is likewise expected to drive growth for the company by providing new tax incentives that reduce costs for clients and/or elevate returns to investors.
Commercial buildings consume more than 35% of the generated electricity in the U.S. and are underperforming in energy efficiency at every level. These buildings waste energy, emit too much carbon and are too costly for owners and occupants, but retrofits are not happening at the rate or scale needed.
In today’s real estate market, portfolio property owners own most commercial buildings, yet most building efficiency work is focused on single buildings, thereby missing the distinct needs of this owner class which are very different from traditional owner-occupiers. The diverse nature of commercial buildings, combined with technology and performance uncertainty, make simple energy optimization initiatives – which could greatly reduce energy use and improve building value – financially unattractive, resulting in slow adoption rates. CIPI’s financial instruments and software breakdown this issue, known as the ‘split incentive’, unlocking the majority of the addressable market.
A key portion of Correlate’s strategy relates to consolidation of what has been a fragmented industry. By uncovering opportunities to improve efficiencies through strategic M&A activities, the company intends to enhance profitability throughout its operations.
Management Team
Todd Michaels is President and CEO of CIPI and founder of Correlate. He formerly served as Vice President for Innovation at SunEdison and Senior Director Distributed Solar at NRG Energy. He founded Correlate in 2015 and has 16 years of experience in the energy industry. He graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. in Computer Information Systems.
Channing Chen is CFO at CIPI and Correlate Inc. and brings over 16 years of experience in the solar industry as a developer, financier, and business unit leader. He has held executive management roles at Solar Power Partners (acquired by NRG Energy), where he was a founding employee, SunEdison, and NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG). Most recently, Mr. Chen was founder and Managing Partner at Breakaway Energy Partners LLC – a distributed energy financing and market-making platform. To date, Mr. Chen and his teams have raised over $1.5 billion in financing across residential, commercial, and utility scale solar and energy storage projects representing over 400 MWs. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Chemistry from the University of California at San Diego and an MBA from the University of Southern California. He is also an advisor and early-stage investor to several startup companies in the renewable energy space.
Dave Bailey is Chief Revenue Officer of Correlate Inc. With over 15 years of executive sales, supply chain management, and energy efficiency experience, he is responsible for ensuring the success of the National Commercial Sales Unit across multiple regional project teams. Mr. Bailey created and launched the Transformation Services team while at Wesco for its multibillion-dollar Distributed Energy Resource division, formerly Westinghouse. His focus was on IoT-enabled efficiency and plant floor automation-based services. Before that, he spent several years in Global Account Sales Management, with GE Supply as a Program Manager, and is a Commercial Leadership Program graduate. Mr. Bailey received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky.
Jed Freedlander is the company’s Chief Development Officer. He has a background in infrastructure development and investment and a strong legal, commercial and finance acumen. Mr. Freedlander has a proven track record in leading complex public-private partnership (P3) and energy transactions and is instrumental in driving Correlate’s strategic development initiatives.
Roger Baum is Executive VP Operations at Correlate. With over 20 years of experience at Core Construction, he brings to the company a wealth of knowledge and a strong track record in delivering successful commercial construction projects.
Jason Loyet is Director of Solar Energy for Correlate Inc. He is a cleantech executive with over 20 years of experience leading high growth solar energy and software start-ups. Mr. Loyet is a U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Catalyst award winner for his work building the Solar Site Design technology platform. Before joining the solar energy industry in 2005, he founded and sold two software companies in the streaming media (GlobalStreams) and newspaper publishing (MyCapture) industries. Mr. Loyet currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Solar Energy Industry Association (TenneSEIA).