“We truly have reached a tipping point where storage is the keystone of our society’s energy transition – it enables continued growth in renewables while ensuring reliability and resiliency of the grid.”
-Cedric Brehaut, VP Solutions, Asset Management
Tell us about yourself and your background.
I’ve been in the energy industry since 2008, mostly on the solar side, and I’m passionate about renewable energy, grid modernization, and e-mobility. I’m a father of 2, and I practice martial arts.
What is your role at Stem?
I lead the definition of our asset management solutions, both software and services. Our primary targets are storage and solar asset owners, operators, and traders and our solutions help these customers optimize both technical performance and market revenue.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve worked on lately?
Our offerings for wholesale market trading and optimization are particularly interesting and exciting because they combine AI-driven storage economic optimization with self-service capabilities allowing sophisticated customers to configure their own strategies and let them ‘break the glass’ and take manual control over bids in situations where a human can make better decisions than the algorithm.
What recent industry trends have made a big impression on you?
The rapid growth of energy storage, particularly in grid-scale, front-of-the-meter projects, continues to surprise me – along with the sheer size of these projects – many of which range in the hundreds of MWh, sometimes multiple GWh. Only a few years ago, a 10 MWh project was considered large! We truly have reached a tipping point where storage is the keystone of our society’s energy transition – it enables continued growth in renewables while ensuring reliability and resiliency of the grid.
Any advice for newer professionals interested in this space?
Do something you believe in. Don’t be afraid to think differently. Challenge yourself and keep learning – I have learned a ton since I joined Stem two months ago, and I’m only scratching the surface. With the complexity of our industry and the level of expertise and knowledge at Stem, there is no end to learning and growing.
What about Stem would you want our partners and customers to know?
What you have seen from Stem so far is only the beginning. Some of our most exciting technology has lived “under the hood,” powering our remote operations and market optimization services. Our solutions are evolving towards a modular offer where customers also have the option to self-perform these activities using Stem’s software platform for asset performance management and revenue optimization.