ErbWire WN 12 – Gifts: Renewable Energy Scholars Award
October 31, 2011
Jon Koch
Despite a sluggish economy, beleaguered federal loan guarantee program and an uncertain regulatory environment, the US Renewables Group (USRG) remains bullish on the renewable energy industry, says Jon Koch, Erb ’96, managing director and co-founder of the New York City-based firm. Founded in 2003, USRG is one of the largest private equity funds focused solely on renewable energy. USRG has mobilized more than $1 billion in equity and debt commitments to invest in renewable power, biofuel and related infrastructure.
USRG is championing renewable energy’s future in another way: The Renewable Energy Scholars Award, a merit-based grant for entrepreneurial Erb Institute MBA/MS students who want to pursue a business idea in the field of renewable energy, energy efficiency or carbon mitigation, or write an essay suitable for publication on one of those topics.
Koch, whose family also contributes to the Renewable Energy Scholars Award, remembers the financial support he received as a student. “We had scholarships and teaching assistant positions. We also received a terrific education from business and natural resources leaders, including Stuart Hart, now at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Gregory A. Keoleian, who co-directs the U-M’s Center for Sustainable Systems.
“Michigan’s financial support helped me get on my feet. Seventeen years later, I want to stay connected to the Erb Institute and make sure students enrolled at Michigan receive support and feel that the university is behind them,” Koch said.
USRG encourages entrepreneurship and professional development among MBA students by requiring award recipients do something akin to what is required in the real world—convince people they have a good idea, develop a business plan, articulate progress and make a final presentation.
“I have been impressed with the quality of the students and their work product,” Koch said. “They’re much farther along than we were as students.” Students dive into the real issues of the day—from examining the impact that electric vehicles may have on the development of California’s electrical grid to projecting financing for renewable energy development under feed-in tariff scenarios.
“Students are on the cutting edge in their thinking,” Koch said. Brian Moss, Erb ’12, and Hanns Anders, Kripal Kavi and Mark Leo, all Erb ’11, authored an essay about the impact of electric vehicles on the electrical grid. Mike Ott, Erb ’12, presented an analysis titled “U.S. Project Finance for Renewable Energy Development under Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Scenarios,” in which he concluded that small-scale projects offer attractive opportunities under FIT scenarios and predicted that “green” asset-backed securities might emerge from a comprehensive FIT system that encourages investment in renewable energy technologies.
Three other Renewable Energy Scholars Award winners, Adam Carver, Erb ’12, and Hunt Briggs and Paul Davis, both Erb ’11, have launched their own businesses. Carver’s Impact Everyday, a credit card redemption program, is tied to credit cards or merchant loyalty programs. It allows shoppers to use traditional reward “points” as a funding mechanism for deploying clean technologies ranging from a solar rooftop on a school to an energy efficiency retrofit of a religious center, funded by a pool of reward points as the loan principal.
Briggs and Davis are part of a student team that founded ReGenerate, an innovative, waste-to-energy startup firm serving the food service industry. ReGenerate designs, markets and leases on-site waste management systems that reduce the cost and environmental impact of organic waste disposal for supermarkets and institutional cafeterias. Using anaerobic digestion and aerobic composting, ReGenerate’s Compact Organic Waste System (COWS™) transforms food waste and other organic material into hot water and organic compost.
Each year the Erb Institute presents up to four Renewable Energy Scholars Awards of at least $1,000. “We hope the awards help students pay their bills and relieve some stress,” said Koch. For some recipients, the award has led to summer internships and introductions to USRG’s portfolio companies.
For more about USRG and Koch, see US Renewables Group and the Spring 2010 issue of Dividend magazine.
