Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz returned to MIT at the end of the Obama administration last year to continue working on clean energy and nuclear security. He also became CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and CEO of Energy Futures Initiative, a nonprofit energy innovation policy institute.

Now, he's taken on another role as board member of one of the country’s largest utilities, Southern Company.  

Southern Company has made some cutting-edge moves into distributed energy, such as its acquisition of microgrid company PowerSecure. But its subsidiary Georgia Power has also pursued controversial and expensive new nuclear power plants.

“I have long admired Southern Company for its innovative approach to research and development within the clean energy space, and look forward to joining the board,” Moniz said, in a statement. “Tom is an industry leader and I’m eager to work with him and the entire board in helping Southern advance at a time of great change in the energy world.”

Adding to his to-do list, Moniz was also appointed to the advisory board of Terrestrial Energy this week. 

At Greentech Media’s Energy Storage Summit in late 2017, most attendees said they believed at least 40 percent of utilities would have energy storage in their integrated resource plans within five years. The growth of energy storage also means plenty of moves afoot in the burgeoning industry.

Marissa Gillett has joined the Energy Storage Association as vice president of external relations and Jason Burwen has been promoted to VP of policy.

Liquid air energy storage provider Highview Power has expanded into the U.S. with an office in New York and brought on financier Colin Roy as chairman. Roy previously helped establish German franchises of Merrill Lynch and SG Warburg and was a co-founder and CEO at investment bank Greenhill & Co.

Zinc-iron flow battery startup ViZn Energy Systems named Stephen Bonner president and interim CEO after Ron Van Dell resigned last month. Bonner is also chairman of the board. ViZn vowed last summer it could undercut the cost of lithium-ion storage and deliver its technology at 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, 20 percent below the 4.5-cent per kilowatt-hour solar-plus-storage PPA NextEra signed with Tucson Electric Power in mid-2017.

Ninety-year-old energy storage company Trojan Battery has a new president and CEO, Neil Thomas, who succeeds Jeff Elder. Trojan makes deep-cycle batteries for everything from solar backup to marine and oil and gas applications.

A much more recent entrant to the world of batteries, SolidEnergy Systems, has brought on energy storage veteran Bud Collins as COO. Collins joins the lithium-metal battery startup from NEC Energy Solutions where he was CEO; he was previously with A123 Systems and APC-MGE.

Another fairly recent market entrant, Romeo Power Technology, picked up Ned Horneffer in December as its director of business development. Horneffer was previously at Pure Energy Partners. Romeo is developing battery packs for everything from EVs to C&I applications to personal power options. 

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Enertech Search Partners, an executive search firm with a dedicated cleantech practice, is the sponsor of the GTM jobs column.

Among its many active searches, Enertech is looking for an SVP of project development.

The client is seeking an Senior Vice President to manage a large team to develop and implement ongoing strategy for a variety of technologies, industry segments and geographic markets, including a global reach. The ideal candidate for the role is highly analytical by nature, is a strong mentor and leader, has extensive energy contract negotiation experience and understands FERC policies such as PURPA. The SVP should have a strong track record of renewable energy project delivery (solar and/or wind required) and be a "hands-on" leader, active in all phases of the process. 

Enertech Search Partners welcomes Betsy Martin as managing director for Smart Cities and eMobility. Her 15 years of experience leading technical recruiting and building teams in Silicon Valley and Boston positions her perfectly to help Enertech continue to expand its service offerings. “The addition of Betsy to our firm will translate into a natural expansion of our successes in distributed energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles and grid transformation,” said Enertech CEO Paige Carratturo. Read more here.

GTM and Enertech recently surveyed hundreds of cleantech professionals in a wide variety of roles to understand how the industry is attracting and retaining the talent it needs to flourish. Download the free report here.

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In the solar world, Sunverge Energy hired tech industry veteran Jon Bode as CFO. Bode was most recently CFO of grid management software startup Nexant.

Former SunShot Initiative director Minh Le is now general manager of energy and environmental services for Los Angeles County’s Internal Services Department. He will be responsible for the county’s energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives including PACE and the Southern California Regional Energy Network.

Naveed Hasan has left Kaco New Energy as head of marketing for the Americas to join Sungrow USA as senior marketing manager.

Also in solar marketing, Tor Valenza is now director of marketing at SepiSolar. He was previously chief marketing officer of solar at Impress Labs.

Brian Scaccia has joined SunPower as corporate counsel, where he’ll focus on strategic M&A transactions as the company restructures. He joins SunPower from Cypress Creek Renewables. 

Solar Installers of Washington, a state trade association, has named its first executive director, Allison Arnold. She was previously head of policy advocacy, marketing and communications for the U.S. solar business of Mitsubishi Electric. 

New York utility Consolidated Edison has promoted longtime executive and electrical engineer, Timothy Cawley, to be its new president. He was previously president of Con Edison subsidiary Orange and Rockland Utilities. “We’re going to continue to innovate and use technology to give our customers more options, convenience and ability to control their costs,” Cawley said in a statement.

DER system provider EnSync Energy Systems has a new CFO, Bill Dallapiazza, who joins the firm from Franklin Energy Services. EnSync also promoted Kenneth Alft to VP of customer engineering.

Frederic Dross has left DNV GL as head of its module business to join global health and materials firm DSM as VP of technology Americas.

Jubran Whalan has joined distributed energy and power-focused private investment firm Constant Energy Capital as managing director. Previously Whalan was managing director at BP’s Global Structured Products division.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners appointed John Rosales, commissioner at the Illinois Commerce Commission, to its board of directors.

The Electric Power Research Institute has chosen Andrew Phillips as VP of transmission and distribution infrastructure. Phillips is filling the role left by Rob Manning, who was recently elected to the board of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.

Josh Cornfeld, a one-time GTM Research summer associate, has been promoted to VP at Marathon Capital where he is responsible for executing M&A and private placement engagements in the renewable energy and power sectors.

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As always, please send clean energy jobs moves to tips@greentechmedia.