Aliya Bagewadi With Allume Energy

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Aliya Bagewadi with Allume Energy. Welcome.

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:00:45] Thank you so much for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about a Lume Energy. How are you serving folks?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:00:53] So a loom energy. We are a solar technology company, and we developed a breakthrough technology that enables renters and multifamily buildings. So tenants, residents, renters, commercial buildings to actually consume rooftop solar from a single rooftop solar system. So in this way, we’re unlocking rooftop solar for people living and working in multifamily buildings.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] Now, without this technology, how would like how would they utilizing solar in other ways? Like is it just solar for the entire building? And it’s not you’re not able to kind of share the savings amongst all the individuals. Like how does it work currently without a loom?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:01:35] Yeah. So typically without our technology, which is called the soul share. So without the soul share, you would otherwise need to have multiple solar systems per meter or per unit. And so if you have a building with 60 units, you’d need 60 solar systems. And in order for a tenant or a resident to actually consume that solar. But if you see solar on a an apartment, that solar is typically going directly just to the common meter, which is the building meter. So that is lowering the energy for the the building owner. But that is really just one account or one unit that is that is sort of being benefited by that solar. So our ambition is to share that solar with multiple units in the building to enable the entire people entirely in the building to benefit from the solar.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:28] So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this get started?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:02:32] So a loom actually started in Melbourne, Australia back in 2015. And the genesis is that, you know, Australia has some of the highest rooftop solar penetrations in the world. So 30% of all of their single family homes have rooftop solar on them, which is wild when you compare it to the 4 to 8% that we have here in the United States. So about five, six years ago, you really had this, this lingering question of, you know, we know that single family home owners are getting the benefits and the savings of rooftop solar, but people living in apartments, they’re not able to gain those thousands of dollars of savings and lower their carbon footprint, too. So how do we enable them to do that? So that is really the genesis, the sort of energy equity question of how do we enable, um, you know, people living in all types of buildings to be able to share and consume rooftop solar and, and also save their energy bills or lower their energy bills and also lower their carbon footprint.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] So, um, what’s your back story? How did you get involved with the loom?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:03:41] So, uh. Well, it’s. I met the CEO of a loom, a guy named Cameron Knox. And, uh, was really, uh. I really appreciated really the energy equity focus of the company. So we’re working primarily with, uh, affordable housing, low income, um, communities to to to lower energy burdens across the country. So in the United States right now, about one out of five families faces energy burdens, which means that they’re spending a high proportion of their income on energy bills. So, you know, a typical household or let’s say a, a, um, a wealthier household may, may spend about 3% of their income on their utility bills, on their energy bills. But a low income household may be spending up to 20% of their income on energy bills. And so that can create a situation where, you know, families need to decide between paying, you know, paying to keep the lights on or paying for heat or paying for, uh, cooling in their, in their unit versus paying for education fees or groceries or medicine. So that kind of, you know, the dire situation that really the country is in and the focus that this company has and is really what drew me to to working with the company.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:02] Now, um, I know you’re trying to penetrate the Georgia market. Can you talk a little bit about how Georgia was chosen and why you think there’s so much opportunity here?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:05:12] Yeah. Well, uh, a bit a bit of context. We’ve started in the southeast. Uh, our work in the United States started in the southeast of the US. So we’ve had projects so far in Florida and Mississippi, and Georgia is really, you know, what we see as the the enormous opportunity one, because, you know, there’s a lot of multifamily buildings in Florida. And two, perhaps more importantly, Georgia is doing and many of its cities, like Atlanta and Savannah are doing a lot of great work around, uh, this energy equity piece of, of, of creating benefits to low income communities. So, uh, because the cities have been prioritizing, uh, getting, uh, low income communities access to clean energy, it’s a really great opportunity for us to, to start working, um, in, in Georgia. So we’re really excited about Georgia.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:09] Now, can you talk a little bit I mean, maybe not name the names, but are there, um, companies that are are trying this or testing it at least, or like, where are you at in kind of growing the market here?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:06:22] Yeah, well, what’s great is, you know, we’ve gotten a lot of support from the sustainability offices of various, uh, cities and also, um, support from, um, you know, at the federal level with Senate offices. So that’s that’s been really wonderful and has sort of laid the groundwork for a lot of the a lot of the conversations with, you know, end users and end buyers who are the property owners, um, and, and also solar installers. So for them, they get to kind of, you know, solar installers typically have have had to turn away projects in the multifamily market and they don’t want to turn away those projects. So now for them, they’re quite excited that they can go after apartments and, you know, pursue these solar installations on them. So we’ve been having a lot of great conversations with solar installers and property owners to help them understand why it’s beneficial to them to share this solar with, uh, with their residents.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:19] Now, when you’re talking to the property owner, what’s kind of the pitch like, how are you? Um, kind of getting them interested in the benefits of this because like, because the savings goes to the, um, person in the apartment, right? So it may not trickle back to them, but I would imagine that’s a that becomes now a selling point when they’re trying to rent the unit or sell the unit.

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:07:43] Yeah. So typically that, you know, that it’s what we call like a split incentive has always existed where why would a property owner, you know, make this investment if the benefits are going to flow to the tenants? That’s always been a major issue. And it’s part of the reason why solar and multifamily hasn’t really proliferated. But with the soul share with our technology, we’re able to share the solar energy between, uh, between units and between meters. And so what that means is that the building owner can also lower their energy bills and share that energy with their tenants. So really, it’s a win win situation for the building owner. So what does the building owner get? Well, they get to put one solar as has been shown to increase the property values of um of buildings. So it can increase a property value by 4 to 13%, which is, you know, the having that value stabilization is is really important in this sort of economic environment right now. So they get that. Secondly, there’s a it’s really never been a better time to go solar because of a lot of federal tax credits that are available. So going solar now enables a building owner to pursue tax credits, federal tax credits up to 30 to 60% on the cost of the system.

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:09:10] That and and there’s also municipal incentives that are further helping lower this cost of, uh, pursuing solar. So in terms of the cost of actually pursuing solar, it’s there’s a lot of benefits right now to help cover those costs. Um, and in terms of the actual building itself, well, the building owner gets to increase their net operating income, which means the profitability of the building gets to go up so they can lower their energy bills. Um, and by sharing that energy with their residents, they get to have an, you know, a recurring revenue source for them as well. Um, and so, yeah, those are just some of the few benefits that a building owner can, can get in addition to sort of the, the, the marketing, uh, you know, the marketing ability of being able to tell, um, increasingly environmentally conscious, uh, tenants and residents that, hey, you know, I am, uh, you know, a more sustainable building. I’m lowering my carbon footprint with this solar, and you get to lower your carbon footprint, too, and have lower energy bills in the process. So, you know, it increases tenant satisfaction, it increases tenant occupancy. It also creates a new, uh, positive, uh, you know, news story and, uh, a marketing with for the building.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:33] Now, when you’re talking to the property owners, are you having are you talking directly or do you work through the installers who are talking directly, or is it a combination? Because I would imagine you have to educate these folks a lot about, you know, switching to solar and and that might take some convincing. And, uh, so how does that conversation go?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:10:56] You’re right. Yeah. There is a significant sort of education bit around this because we are new and we are a new product. And so we we definitely want to educate, uh, various, uh, community members and stakeholders that this now exists and it can benefit, uh, multiple parties. So but we at the moment are sort of, you know, our go to market, let’s say, is to talk to both installers to let them know that, okay, you can go you can pursue multifamily installations now, but also letting the property owner know that you can do this and it will benefit you and benefit your residents. Um, and, you know, make your, your building, um, more financially stable and profitable at the end of the day.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:43] So as your role as U.S. director of strategic partnerships, is that the conversations you’re having every day?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:11:51] Those are part of the conversations I have every day. I think what’s really cool about our product is, um, we are solving for the split incentive problem. So the the asset, any asset owner or a building owner can benefit, the tenant can benefit, governments can benefit, utilities can benefit. So that’s you know, that’s an opportunity for us to reach out to all of those different stakeholders. And that’s a lot of my job is to is to let people know that we exist and help them, help them understand why it’s beneficial to them and and how it can play into their, um, equity and clean energy goals.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:31] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:12:39] Uh, well, we we’d love to hear from anyone who’s interested in learning more. Uh, an email you can reach out to is info info at al-um. Energy a l l um e e n e r g y.com. Uh, or check out our website al-um energy.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:59] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Aliya Bagewadi: [00:13:04] Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:06] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.