Slashing CO2Solar power’s overtime shift.
Big Picture
AI, EVs, and the electrification of heavy industry are going to need a whole lot of power that the grid currently doesn’t have. Yet while gas turbines are sold out into the 2030s, solar is a ready-and-waiting generation source that can come online at the speed and scale the moment demands. The catch is that today’s solar plants hit capacity factors around 20% and go quiet by dinnertime. To serve always-on industrial loads, solar has to start behaving more like a power plant.
How it Works
Early EVs replaced engines with batteries, but tried to change little else. Then Tesla came along and redesigned the entire car around the battery, and the result is the most popular EV on the road. Likewise, 1AP rethinks solar from the ground up, shaving cost at every step. Exhibit A: Custom controllers monitor each panel for faults at a quarter the cost of off-the-shelf systems. The result is 60% capacity factors, six-plus hours of peak output, and dispatchable solar that beats gas peakers.
Unfair Advantage
Tom Buttgenbach knows the economics of a solar plant down to the cell. He spent fifteen years building Avantus into 7GW of solar and storage behemoth before selling to KKR for $4.6B. Along the way, he made a long list of ways to improve solar plant design, construction, and performance. The result is 1AP. As the business gets going, Tom will start by repowering many of the already-interconnected solar-plus- batteries power plants.
03
Times higher
capacity factor than conventional solar
TOM BUTTGENBACH CEO & CTO
Tom holds 40 patents in solar architecture and a dual PhD in physics and Astronomy from Caltech. Before Avantus, he ran a family office investing in energy.
JORG HEINEMANN PRESIDENT & COO
Jorg brings 30+ years of experience scaling high-growth companies across the clean energy value chain.
1st Avenue Power unveils the first fully integrated clean power system of the AI era
PR Newswire
Why America’s AI leaders are pumping billions into solar + storage
SEIA