Interview with Kaveh Kamooneh - Better Tomorrow Solar
In today’s interview, we have Kaveh Kamooneh, Founder of Better Tomorrow Solar.
| Can you introduce yourself and maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and the company?
I’m Kaveh Kamooneh. Together with my wife, Roji Aldashi, we founded Better Tomorrow Solar back in 2018. We’re proud to be a female-owned and operated energy business right here in Atlanta, Georgia.
Originally from Iran, I moved to the US during high school in 1978, just before the Iranian Revolution. After finishing high school in Los Angeles, I earned a philosophy degree from Cal State Northridge and later pursued my education in the same field at Columbia University, graduating with a PhD in 1999.
I taught college for 15 years and following a stint in real estate investing, I entered the solar industry motivated by the urgency of the climate crisis. We now have two kids in college.
| Is this your company?
Discover your solar saving potential
Yes, I partially own Better Tomorrow Solar.
| Can you talk a bit about the company? How was it in its early days, how it grew to where it is right now?
Roji and I have been a good team. Roji’s 25-year career in brand marketing has brought tremendous value to Better Tomorrow Solar as a leading solar installation company. Her expertise is invaluable.
Together we launched Better Tomorrow Solar in 2018, before the onset of COVID—a timing that brought both challenges and unexpected opportunities. Navigating through those initial hurdles wasn’t easy, but we made it through. I think in the long run we are better for it.
We are in general optimistic about the growth of the company because we are optimistic about the growth of clean energy, specifically solar energy. It just makes a lot of sense. Generating electricity from solar is the cheapest form of electricity generation in most situations. Moreover, the evidence for devastating climate change is becoming increasingly clear to more people. Rarely is the cheapest option also the highest quality one. When the two align, the opposition eventually falls off. The obstacles against clean energy are neither economical nor technical.
The only obstacle to a full transition to clean energy are fossil fuel interests. Those interests are, to be sure, deep and well entrenched, but their demise seems inevitable to me.
| Were you a part of the solar world before entering this company, or is this something you just started out?
My interest in solar was sparked when I was in high school and learned that President Carter had installed solar panels on the White House roof. In 2005, when renovating our family home, we bought a small solar system and paid about four times what solar costs today. In 2016, the company I hired to expand my system took over eleven months to complete the project. That motivated my entering the solar industry in 2018 by starting Better Tomorrow Solar. We were determined to do better. I think we are succeeding!
| Can you tell me more about the services you provide? Can you maybe talk us through each of these services?
Our mission is crystal clear: to empower communities across Georgia with sustainable energy solutions. Whether you’re seeking to power your home, business, or non-profit with solar energy, we’re equipped with the expertise to deliver. From the initial consultation to seamlessly connecting to the grid, we ensure a smooth process. This includes custom-designed systems tailored to your specific needs, navigating permits effortlessly, precise installation for optimal performance, and swift interconnection to start harnessing solar benefits promptly. In addition, we provide advanced backup battery systems and electric vehicle chargers.
| What about your team? Do you have full-time employees or work with contractors?
We’re fortunate to have built a fantastic full-time team consisting of sales people, a designer, marketing specialists, electricians and a dedicated installation crew.
For bigger projects, we bring in trusted contractors with whom we have successfully collaborated previously. Having the same trusted people performing our installation is essential to quality control and accountability.
| Do you have a lot of competition over there?
When we started out, there were a handful of local solar companies competing in our market. The Georgia Public Service Commission approved a limited net-metering policy. Net metering is where the utility company purchases excess production from a solar owner at the same rate as it sells power. Such a policy increases the value of solar to homeowners and so increases demand. Solar companies from other regions set up in Georgia in anticipation of greater demand for solar. The new companies were often less scrupulous in their sales and marketing practices. Many local companies could not compete and thus folded. When it became clear that net metering in Georgia would not get extended, the larger companies saw little reason to stay. Many customers ended up with poorly designed and carelessly installed systems and no backing from the installation company. That damaged the reputation of solar as a whole in the state. This is an example of regulators intending to do some good, which ended up having harmful unintended consequences.
We have recently experienced a few bad quarters and that has driven more of the competition out of the market. But things are stabilizing and more companies are coming back in.
In the future, I expect to see growth in demand and consolidation of solar companies. That would follow the trajectory of other nascent industries. We position ourselves as a local company with the ability to ride through the ups and downs of the solar market. We focus on Georgia and don’t sell in other states.
| We can say you’ve been in the business for a long time, right?
By the standards of the solar industry, yes we have been around for a long time. Most of our competitors now have entered after we have. Many of the ones that were around when we started are gone. So much changes so quickly that it does feel like a long time.
| Can you maybe tell us a little about the changes you’ve witnessed through these years? Changes that may have made your business (and the installation process) easier, harder, etc?
Solar modules get progressively more efficient, providing more capacity for the same area. Increases in module efficiency are gradual. It does not double like the increase in micro-chip capacity. It doesn’t follow Moore’s law. The current photovoltaic material has a theoretical limit to how efficient it can get, and actual modules are getting closer. Different photovoltaic materials promise to go above that limit. We wait in anticipation.
Changes in battery technology too are both in terms of increased capacity and occasional changes in chemical composition. The most recent change in battery chemistry has eliminated the need for cobalt, a chemical the extraction of which is problematic both environmentally and socially. The exciting storage technology in late stages of development is solid state batteries. That would be a leap forward rather than a gradual change.
There are other technological changes. New racking systems make roof leaks rare and installations easier.
On the regulatory and legislative front the biggest change has been the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) at the Federal level. This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation in US history. Its full impact is yet to be felt. Georgia and the southeast region are, and will be, the disproportionately large beneficiaries of the legislation.
Unfortunately, our State leaders continue to favor entrenched fossil fuel interests over clean energy. Gas and oil companies have more money. But the clean energy sector is rapidly growing as a percentage of total energy production. 85% of all new generating capacity in 2023 was renewable energy generation.
| While we’re on the subject of money… do people still think they have to be super rich to be able to afford a solar system?
Solar is, by a significant amount, the cheapest form of energy generation. The levelized cost of electricity generated by solar is currently anywhere between half to a third of the average cost of electricity supplied by utility companies.
The reputation of solar being expensive is because the solar purchaser has to in effect pay for 35 years plus worth of electricity generation all upfront. Solar is essentially a finance problem.
We look for and are often able to offer finance options where the bill saving from solar is greater than the payments on the loan. With no upfront payment this is a win-win situation for those with sufficient credit.
For those without sufficient credit, we are currently able to offer a lease option, the Georgia Bright program. We hope that provisions of the IRA will allow additional options to lease rooftop solar systems.
| What are your thoughts on the rest of the United States, about solar energy in general? And also, what are some of its major challenges?
I am optimistic about the wide adoption of solar all over the country and the world. As I mentioned before, the vast majority of new generation capacity is in renewable energy. That might temporarily dip a little due to the misinformation funded by fossil fuel companies about the country needing significant new demand for electricity. But it is hard to imagine that the trend to more renewable energy will be permanently reversed.
Optimism about the transition to clean energy is not necessarily optimist about climate change, nor is it a general utopian view. Climate change is upon us already and there are other significant sources of emission other than the generation of energy. So a clean energy transition will not circumvent climate change. It is only part of the solution.
The most difficult challenge to the growth of solar, or renewable energy in general, is fossil fuel interests. Our energy consumption over the last century has concentrated a significant amount of wealth in that industry. Naturally, they will use the power that wealth can command to preserve their position. One of the main benefits of solar technology, incidentally, is that it has the potential to distribute that wealth a little more evenly since the generation of energy will be more evenly distributed.
| What about the future of your company? Do you have any plans? Are you thinking about it at the moment?
For us, it’s all about sustained success through a solid commitment to our customers’ needs. Transparency is the key to helping people grasp the benefits of solar energy and making informed decisions.
Our goal is simple: we want to make solar energy accessible and affordable for as many folks as we can. It’s about spreading the word and paving the way for a brighter, cleaner future.