Companies and developers often face a steep learning curve when installing clean energy technologies, such as solar installations and electric vehicle chargers. To get a fair deal, they must navigate a complex bidding process that involves requesting proposals, evaluating bids, and ultimately hiring a supplier.
Now, startup Station A, founded by a pair of MIT alumni and their colleagues, is streamlining the clean energy deployment process. The company has developed a clean energy marketplace that helps real estate owners and companies analyze properties to calculate returns on clean energy projects, create detailed project listings, collect and compare offers, and select a supplier.
The platform helps real estate owners and businesses adopt clean energy technologies, such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicle chargers, at the lowest possible prices, in locations with the greatest potential to reduce energy costs and emissions.
“We do a lot to simplify the adoption of clean energy,” explains Manos Saratsis SMArchS ’15, who co-founded Station A with Kevin Berkemeyer MBA ’14. “Imagine if you were trying to buy a plane ticket and your travel agent only used one airline. It would be more expensive and you couldn't even get to some places. Our clients want to have multiple options and easily know the history of anyone they are working with.”
Station A has already partnered with some of the country's largest real estate companies, some with thousands of properties, to reduce the carbon footprint of their buildings. The company is also working with supermarket chains, warehouses and other companies to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
“Our platform uses a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning to convert addresses into building footprints and understand their electricity costs, available incentives, and where they can expect the highest return on investment,” says Saratsis, who serves as head of product from Station A. “This would typically require tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting time, and we can do it very quickly for almost no money.”
Building the foundation
As a graduate student in the MIT Department of Architecture, Saratsis studied environmental design modeling, using data from sources such as satellite imagery to understand how communities consume energy and propose the most impactful potential clean energy solutions. It says classes with teachers. Christoph Reinhart and Kent Larson were particularly revealing.
“My ability to build a thermal energy model and simulate electricity use in a building began at MIT,” Saratsis says.
Berkemeyer served as president of the MIT Energy Club while at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He was also a research assistant at the MIT Energy Initiative as part of the The future of solar energy report and teaching assistant for course 15.366 (Climate and Energy Companies). He says classes in entrepreneurship with Professor of the Practice Bill Aulet and sustainability classes with Senior Lecturer Jason Jay were formative. Prior to studying at MIT, Berkemeyer had extensive experience developing solar and storage projects and selling clean energy products to commercial customers. The eventual co-founders didn't cross paths at MIT, but ended up working together at utility company NRG Energy after graduating.
“As co-founders, we saw an opportunity to transform the way companies approach clean energy,” said Berkemeyer, who is now CEO of Station A. “Station A was born from the shared belief that data and transparency could unlock the full potential of clean energy technologies for everyone.”
At NRG, the founders created software to help identify decarbonization opportunities for clients without having to send analysts to sites for in-person audits.
“If they were working with a large supermarket chain or large retailer, we would use proprietary analytics to evaluate that portfolio and come up with recommendations for things like solar projects, energy efficiency and demand response that would generate positive returns within a year.” Saratsis explains.
The tools were a great success within the company. In 2018, the pair, along with co-founders Jeremy Lucas and Sam Steyer, decided to move the technology to Station A.
The founders started out working with energy companies, but soon shifted their focus to real estate owners with huge portfolios and large companies with long-term leases. Many clients have hundreds or even thousands of addresses to evaluate. Using addresses alone, Station A can provide detailed estimates of the financial performance of clean energy investments.
In 2020, the company expanded its focus from selling access to its analytics to creating a marketplace for clean energy transactions, helping companies execute the competitive bidding process for clean energy projects. Once a project is installed, Station A can also assess whether it is achieving expected performance and track financial returns.
“When I talk to people outside the industry, they say, 'Wait, this doesn't already exist?'” Saratsis says. “It's a little crazy, but the industry is still very nascent and no one has been able to find a way to run the bidding process transparently and at scale.”
From campus to the world
Today, around 2,500 clean energy developers are active on the Station A platform. Several large real estate investment trusts also use its services, in addition to companies such as HP, Nestlé and Goldman Sachs. If Station A were a developer, Saratsis says it would now be in the top 10 in terms of annual solar deployments.
The founders credit their time at MIT for helping them scale.
“Many of these relationships originated within the MIT network, either through people we met at Sloan or through engagement with MIT,” Saratsis says. “A lot of this business is about reputation, and we've established a very good reputation.”
Since its founding, Station A has also sponsored classes at MIT's Sustainability Lab, where Saratsis conducted research as a student. As they work to grow Station A's offering, the founders say they use the skills they gained as students every day.
“Everything we do around building analysis is inspired in some way by things I did when I was at MIT,” Saratsis says.
“Station A is just getting started,” Berkemeyer says. “Clean energy adoption is not just about technology – it is about making the process seamless and accessible. “That is what drives us every day and we are excited to lead this transformation.”
