Benoy Thanjan

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and he is also an advisor for several solar startup companies.  He has extensive project origination, development, and financial experience in the renewable energy industry and in the environmental commodities market.  

This includes initial site evaluation, permitting, financing, sourcing equipment, and negotiating
the long-term energy and environmental commodities off-take agreements. He manages due
diligence processes on land, permitting, and utility interconnection and is in charge of financing
and structuring through Note to Proceed (“NTP”) to Commercial Operation Date (“COD”). Benoy
composes teams suitable for all project development and construction tasks. He is also involved
in project planning and pipeline financial modeling. He has been part of all sides of the
transaction and this allows him to provide unique perspectives and value. Benoy has extensive
experience in financial engineering to make solar projects profitable.

Before founding Reneu Energy, he was the SREC Trader in the Project Finance Group for SolarCity which merged with Tesla in 2016.  He originated SREC trades with buyers and co-developed their SREC monetization and hedging strategy with the senior management of SolarCity to move into the east coast markets. 

Benoy was the Vice President at Vanguard Energy Partners which is a national solar installer where he focused on project finance solutions for commercial scale solar projects.  He also worked for Ridgewood Renewable Power, a private equity fund, where he analyzed potential investments in renewable energy projects and worked on maximizing the financial return of the projects in the portfolio.  Benoy also worked on the sale of all of the renewable energy projects in Ridgewood’s portfolio.  

He was in the Energy Structured Finance practice for Deloitte & Touche and in Financial Advisory Services practice at Ernst & Young.  Benoy received his first experience in Finance as an intern at D.E. Shaw & Co., which is a global investment firm with 37 billion dollars in investment capital. He has a MBA in Finance from Rutgers University and a BS in Finance and Economics from the Stern School of Business at New York University.  Benoy was an Alumni Scholar at the Stern School of Business.  

Bill Short

Vice President of Power Marketing

Bill Short focuses on energy and environmental commodities hedging strategies for Reneu Energy.   He has over 40 years of experience working with electric utilities, Independent System Operator(“ISO”) and/or Regional Transmission Organizations(“RTOs”), generators, suppliers and independent power producers.  Bill is an expert on the operations of the restructured electric utility industry, especially the impacts of climate change and renewable portfolio standards mandates.  Bill directed legislative and regulatory initiatives in several Northeastern and Western states as well as in front of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  He worked successfully on the enactment of special purpose legislation or regulations for RPS for the states of California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island.

He was the Vice President of Power Marketing at Ridgewood Renewable Power.  He managed the sales of electrical products and renewable energy certificates from Ridgewood Renewable Power’s renewable energy power plants.  He worked for PaineWebber and Kidder, Peabody & Co. (now UBS AG) as Vice President of Private and Direct Investments.  He also was initially at Kidder where he was responsible for the due diligence and structuring of asset-based financings of landfill gas, hydro-electric, geothermal and wind projects.  Bill worked as project engineer at Ebasco Services and Philadelphia Electric Company where he was responsible for the analysis and design of nuclear power plant security and safety systems.  He has an MBA from the Stern School of Business at NYU, an MSE in System Engineering from University of Pennsylvania and BSE in Electrical Engineering from Duke University.

Steven Schwerd, LEED AP

Engineering Consultant and Principal of Schwerd Consulting LLC

Steve partners with Reneu Energy on consulting engagements where companies are looking for a team to analyze whether the company should go solar. With over 25 years in Consulting Engineering, Steve has proven accomplishments in Engineering design; project, client, staff and financial management; business development; Engineering operations; and firm leadership. Experience ranges from creating small MEP (Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing) departments to a Principal/Shareholder role as the Engineering Leader for a large multi-office, international full service Architectural & Engineering firm.

With Energy as a key focus, Steve became involved in renewable energy and design in 2008 as Solar PV became an increasingly viable option. He developed and led a full service Engineering team that emerged as a nationally recognized Engineering leader for Solar PV, having completed over 350 projects and 300MW across 25 states prior to his departure. Steve remains highly committed and active in the Solar industry and has worked with many leading solar companies across the country.

Li Wang

Marketing Director

Li has worked at several New York City public relations agencies and now runs the marketing functions for Reneu Energy. His areas of specialization include website design, copywriting, content, digital strategy, creative direction, SEO and social media marketing.