Duane Duclaux Joins BrightNight as General Counsel
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Dec. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Today, BrightNight announced Duane Duclaux has joined its leadership team in the newly created position of General Counsel which will oversee BrightNight’s legal and regulatory responsibilities. In his most recent role, Duane was Deputy General Counsel at Castleton Commodities International (CCI) and provided legal support to CCI’s U.S. and international commodity trading desks with particular emphasis on participation in the U.S. electricity and capacity markets and electric generation project acquisition and support.
"BrightNight is delivering on a critical need: building capabilities to provide fully dispatchable renewable power that moves beyond intermittency," said BrightNight CEO, Martin Hermann. "To better serve our stakeholders and meet the expanding need of our rapidly growing business, Duane will bring a level of expertise and experience in the areas of structured products, trading, legal, policy, and governance. He will focus on converting our strong pipeline into executed commercial contracts, realizing opportunities in new markets and products, and enhancing our global operations. Duane brings a wealth of knowledge and depth that will help us as we build our customer relationships and differentiated model as a renewable independent power producer." Hermann emphasized the company’s focus on hiring stating, "We have built, and continue to enhance, a team of seasoned energy experts who understand the challenges our utility, corporate, and industrial customers are facing and how BrightNight’s dispatchable solutions and customer-centric approach are ideally positioned to meet these needs."
Prior to his 15-years at CCI, Duane served as Senior Counsel at Dominion Resources, supporting its unregulated electric power and natural gas activities. Duane began his legal career in the Washington, D.C. office of Thelen, Reid & Priest LLP for 4-years practicing in support of clients involved in the rapidly changing markets for electric generation and other energy infrastructure projects as the result of evolving regulatory policies during the deregulation of energy markets as the result of FERC Orders 888 and 636. Duclaux commented, "The evolving landscape for carbon-free energy and electricity and responsive legislative and regulatory policies at the federal and state level create tremendous opportunities for BrightNight and its solutions-based offerings. I welcome the opportunity to lead BrightNight’s legal department and look forward to bringing my industry experience to the team and our customers while delivering on the BrightNight vision for a carbon-free electricity future."
BrightNight also announced the departure of Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Ramkumar Krishnan. The company and Ram mutually agreed on his departure in support of Ram’s personal decision to leave the company and focus on the needs of his family.
As CTO, Ramkumar Krishnan successfully led the development of BrightNight’s green hydrogen business and the company’s engineering team that has built advanced software tools and capabilities. BrightNight’s proprietary tools help optimize the design of hybrid power plants including solar, wind, and energy storage for applications including 24×7 clean power for data centers, green hydrogen production, and increased renewable penetration for utility markets. Under his leadership, BrightNight has already built a multi-gigawatt (GW) scale green hydrogen project pipeline and is in advanced commercial discussions with multiple customers to build renewable power plants that deliver the lowest levelized cost of hydrogen. Krishnan commented, "I am incredibly proud of the BrightNight technology and engineering team and am confident that BrightNight will become one of the leading independent power producers (IPP) here in the U.S. as well as in global markets. I want to wish Martin and the leadership team the best, as the world needs clean energy now more than ever to tackle the climate change issues facing all of us." Martin Hermann further emphasized Krishnan’s contributions, remarking, “Ram built an experienced team that will continue to place BrightNight on the leading-edge of the transforming power markets. We wish Ram and his family all the best and are grateful for his contributions that helped build the foundation of what BrightNight is today."
Over the course of the past year, BrightNight has grown its platform significantly and executed on a number of key initiatives. In December 2021, BrightNight received a $500M investment from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). In February 2022, it announced its formal entry into the Australian energy market, adding to its rapidly expanding teams in the U.S. and across Asia including India, the Philippines, and Bangladesh. BrightNight is developing its 23 GW global pipeline and positioned to deliver dispatchable capacity in high demand regions for customers working to build new or replacement generation, meet sustainability goals, and deliver safe and affordable power.
BrightNight is the first global renewable integrated power company designed to provide utility and commercial and industrial customers with clean, dispatchable renewable power solutions. BrightNight works with customers across the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Asia Pacific to design, develop, and operate safe, reliable, large-scale, hybrid renewable power projects optimized to better manage the intermittent nature of renewable energy. Its deep customer engagement process, team of proven power experts, and industry-leading solutions empower customers to overcome challenging energy sustainability standards, rapidly changing grid dynamics, and the transition away from fossil fuel generation. To learn more, visit: www.brightnightpower.com
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