Energy job moves at Fluence, Avangrid, Sunfolding, Sunrun, juwi, BEI, Energy Foundation, Kanin Energy

Avangrid named Dennis Arriola as CEO. Arriola joins Avangrid from Sempra Energy where he served as EVP and chief sustainability officer. Arriola was CEO of Southern California Gas, EVP and CFO of SunPower, and senior VP and CFO of both San Diego Gas & Electric and SoCalGas. Avangrid has $35 billion in sustainable energy assets and operations in 24 U.S. states.

Rebecca Boll is joining Fluence, a Siemens and AES company, as chief product officer to lead strategic development for the utility and commercial and industrial energy storage markets. Before joining Fluence, Boll was CTO for the digital buildings business at Schneider Electric. Prior to that, she was CTO at GE Licensing & Technology Ventures.

Janice Tran, former director at Generate Capital, is CEO and cofounder at newly formed Kanin Energy — aiming to help heavy industry monetize waste heat and decarbonize operations.

Energy Foundation elected Rose McKinney-James, managing principal at public policy and advocacy firm McKinney-James & Associates, as board chair. She succeeds Bill Ritter, Jr., former governor of Colorado.  McKinney-James is the former CEO of the Corporation for Solar Technology and Renewable Resources, and former director of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry. McKinney-James said, “We have an opportunity to advance a refreshed and accelerated clean and equitable energy future at this pivotal moment in our country’s history.” McKinney-James is a former commissioner with the Nevada PUC.

Sunfolding named Bruce Sohn, former First Solar president, to its board as independent director of the motor-free tracker startup that has won $32 million in funding from investors including G2VP and Macquarie Capital. With a claimed 26 projects operating or under construction as of last year, the startup’s air-powered single-axis tracker technology replaces motors, torque tubes, linkages, gearboxes, bearings and more, according to CTO and founder Leila Madrone. Jurgen Krehnke, formerly of KACO and SMA is CEO. Saul Griffith is chairman of the board.

Derek Noble is now VP of channel partners at Sunrun. Noble was most recently senior national sales director at SunPower.

Philip Trajkovski is now a development engineer at juwi Inc. He was previously with Enel X where he developed over 30 MW of front-of-the-meter energy storage projects.  

Rob Hensley is now project manager at BEI Construction. He was formerly with Vista Solar. BEI surpassed 200 MW of installed distributed solar last year

Toby Patterson is now director of business development at Zero Mass Water, a startup attempting to develop and sell “solar” panels that generate pure, potable water. The startup just won a $50 million funding round led by Blackrock. Patterson was previously with Enel Green Power and Nextracker.

Dina Ahmed is now project support manager at Arizona solar installer, Icon Power. Ahmed was previously with Katerra, and before that Tesla.