Solar panels get dirty — an issue known in the industry as soiling. Soiling degrades performance, and thus revenue and profit for utilities and commercial producers. Cleaning solar panels at scale is an expensive operational cost, making it critical to optimize when to clean.
The problem: current solutions available to the industry not only struggle with reliably assessing soiling losses, but also lack the ability to optimize mitigation strategies for the best financial returns. This means that cleanings are not being done when they are supposed to, and the industry is losing billions a year.
The solution: Using data analytics and machine learning, Solar Unsoiled combines operational data from solar farms, localized weather data, NASA’s global climate model, and satellite imagery to build accurate predictive soiling models for any location in the world. We have created the first comprehensive solution to soiling that enables our customers to proactively mitigate soiling losses.
Soiling is just one of the many causes of degradation in performance of solar energy production. Beyond soiling, we are on a mission to expand our ML-driven approach to optimize all aspects of solar energy performance and minimize operation costs. Our vision at Solar Unsoiled is to become the go-to platform for robust modeling and operation of commercial and utility solar projects. This is a huge opportunity in an industry that is projected to triple over the next 5 years to $25B in annual revenue in the US alone.
We are an early-stage startup stemming from years of research and innovations at Duke University, with a handful of pilot customers who are seeing early success with our nascent product. We have seed funding (from a leading utility-scale solar company and Techstars) to grow the team and bring our innovation to market. We are looking for team members who want to make a positive impact on the renewable energy future, and to own and grow an innovative company to commercial success.
<aside> ✨ No open position for you? If you resonate with our mission and believe that you would be a great fit, send an email to [email protected] and pass along any information you believe is relevant.
</aside>
We are a currently a small team of two:
**Michael Valerino,** PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, is a leading industry expert, and is deeply engaged with commercial and utility solar companies, understanding their operational pain points and ensuring that the promise of our technology is meeting customer needs. He is based in Durham, North Carolina.
Alexandra Rivera, Co-Founder and CTO, is the bridge between our cutting-edge research and usable software. She is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Mike Bergin, PhD, Co-Founder and Science Advisor, is an expert in air pollution, remote sensing and data networks. His research at Duke University in particulate matter physics, chemistry, and optics is the foundation of our models of impact of atmospheric conditions on solar panel soiling.
Drew Shindell, PhD, Co-Founder and Science Advisor, is a world-recognized climate modeling expert frequently contributing to UN Climate Reports and his research has >70k citations. His expertise in climate models provides key scientific insights to our models.
Joshua Miller, Board Member and Advisor, is a successful entrepreneur with demonstrated expertise in commercializing academic research in ML and AI. A serial entrepreneur and investor, he has been on both sides of building SaaS companies.
Ben Davidson, Board Member and Advisor, has built a career in the solar industry. His current role as VP of Legal & Operations at Cypress Creek Renewables makes him a valuable advisor for shaping our current and future products.
Harold Nyikal, Advisor, is a software engineer and leader with 16 years of experience at top global software companies.
Nate Schmidt, Advisor and Investor, is the Managing Director of the Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator. He has founded, advised, and invested in multiple companies in the energy/climate/sustainability space and is an expert in building startups.