Drafting vs. Engineering: Choosing the right partner for commercial projects

Stardust Solar Energy Inc. (TSXV: SUN) (OTCQB: SUNXF) (FSE: 6330) announced that it has reached 100 franchises globally with the addition of Durham, Ontario; Kitchener, Ontario; and New London, Connecticut in September. The milestone reflects the continued adoption of Stardust's scalable franchise model for residential and small-commercial solar-PV, battery-storage, and EV-charging solutions across North America.

"Reaching 100 franchises is a milestone that reflects rising demand for reliable, turnkey clean-energy solutions delivered by trusted local operators amid the rapid global adoption of solar, battery storage, and EV charging," said Mark Tadros, Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "Durham and Kitchener strengthen our Greater Toronto Area coverage, and New London extends our New England presence. As we scale, our focus remains on quality execution, unit-level performance, and an exceptional customer experience."

The new Durham, Ontario territory will be led by Daniel Esper, a Master Electrician and licensed electrical contractor with experience in both residential and commercial projects, enhancing crew capacity and service responsiveness across the GTA. The Company expects the Kitchener and New London territories to complement nearby franchise areas and benefit from supportive regional programs encouraging solar-plus-storage adoption.

Operating cadence and seasonality. Stardust typically signs new territories in Q4, conducts intensive technical and business training in Q1, and executes the bulk of field installations in Q2 and Q3, while continuing to sign, train, and install year-round to meet customer timelines. This cadence is designed to align franchisee readiness with optimal construction windows while maintaining consistent growth throughout the year.

Milestone highlights

• Reaches 100 franchises globally, adding Durham, ON; Kitchener, ON; and New London, CT in September 2025.
• Expands GTA coverage and New England presence with experienced electrical leadership in Durham.
• Maintains year-round signing, training, and installation, with peak field activity in Q2-Q3.

On September 9, 2025, the Company reported securing approximately $1 million in new signed customer contracts during August, bringing its total signed contract backlog to approximately $3.5 million as of September 1, 2025. The backlog represents signed residential and small-commercial solar-PV and battery-storage contracts scheduled to commence over the following 12 months. Stardust believes its expanding territory base, standardized playbooks, and centralized engineering, permitting, and procurement support position the Company for continued growth.

Stardust Solar | www.stardustsolar.com

Greenflash Infrastructure, L.P. (“Greenflash”), an H.I.G. Capital-backed energy platform, has successfully closed an innovative hybrid tax capital and debt financing for Project Soho – a 400MW / 800MWh standalone battery storage project in Brazoria County, Texas. The project is the largest standalone BESS currently under construction in TX and is ahead of schedule to energize in Q1 2026, and achieve commercial operations in Q2 2026.

“We designed this financing structure to be a scalable, repeatable template for our 5 GW near-term ERCOT pipeline,” said co-Founder and Vice President, Joel Chisolm.

The transaction included a preferred equity investment from funds managed by Wafra, Inc. (“Wafra”), a global alternative investment manager. Acadia Infrastructure Capital, L.P. (“Acadia”), a North American power infrastructure investment manager, invested preferred equity in Project Soho alongside Wafra. The preferred equity investment is structured to facilitate a tax credit sale to a leading U.S.-based insurance company.

The transaction also included debt financing led by Deutsche Bank which served as Coordinating Lead Arranger and Sole Bookrunner. Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas served as Administrative Agent, Collateral Agent and Depositary Bank.

“Our team at Greenflash combined innovative hedging and financing with world-class execution to deliver a superior outcome, and we are thrilled to have achieved this important milestone so quickly at Greenflash,” said Josh Prueher, co-Founder and Managing Partner.

“We are pleased to support Greenflash on their inaugural project financing,” said Jeremy Eisman, Head of Infrastructure & Energy Financing, Americas at Deutsche Bank. “This transaction further strengthens the HIG/DB relationship and represents our continued commitment to finance well-positioned battery storage assets that improve grid reliability.”

CRC-IB acted as financial advisor to Greenflash, with Troutman Pepper Locke serving as legal counsel. Latham & Watkins served as legal counsel to Deutsche Bank.

Greenflash | https://gfinfra.com/

Wafra | https://www.wafra.com/

Acadia Infrastructure Capital | https://www.acadiainfrastructure.com/

SES AI Corporation (“SES AI”, the “Company,” “we” or “us”) (NYSE: SES), a global leader in the development and manufacturing of AI-enhanced high-performance Li-Metal and Li-ion batteries, announced at The Battery Show – North America that the Company will be unveiling Molecular Universe 1.0 (MU-1) on October 20, 2025, its latest and most complete battery material discovery software and service platform. The Company also announced that, due to the popularity of the Enterprise tier, it has expanded its subscription offerings and hired a new business development lead to accelerate its go-to-market strategy in the battery industry and adjacent molecule-dependent industries.

MU-1 provides complete end-to-end material discovery capability, including literature research and solution recommendation (“Ask”), molecule search (“Map” and “Search”), formulation search (“Formulate”), and cell performance prediction (“Predict”). MU-1 has the potential to accelerate battery material discovery from years to just tens of minutes. The following link can be used to sign up for the live demo launch of MU-1 on Monday, October 20, 2025.

MU-1 now offers three sub-tiers within Enterprise, providing greater service at greater value. Molecular Universe has already helped several Enterprise customers address their battery challenges, including:

1. Energy Storage: improving low temperature cycle life of LiFePO4 Li-ion cells
2. Drones & Robotics: improving safety and energy density of high content Silicon anode Li-ion cells
3. EV: improving cycle life of low and medium content Silicon anode Li-ion cells
4. Consumer Electronics: improving high voltage stability of LiCoO2 Li-ion cells

Qichao Hu, Founder and CEO of SES AI, noted, “We’ve received a tremendous response to the Molecular Universe within the global battery community at the Public, Research, Explorer and Team tiers, as well as a large number of trial users in the Enterprise and Joint Development tiers. We have already generated revenue from MU this year from two Joint Development customers and are converting several Enterprise customers to subscriptions that are expected to generate revenue in the coming quarters. With the popularity of the Enterprise subscription option, we are expanding it to three sub-tiers which should broaden our reach within the battery industry.”

Hu added, “MU-1 is a quantum leap compared to our earlier versions with an enhanced Map, Ask and Search. We’ve also introduced Formulate and Predict which take us into the formulation and cell universes for the first time. These new features provided in MU-1 and the new subscription options will complement the acceleration of our go-to-market strategy in the battery industry and our potential entry into molecule-dependent industries such as specialty chemicals, personal care, and oil and gas. In addition to its own revenue opportunities, the Molecular Universe is also one of the building blocks that we believe will continue to provide us with competitive advantages in growing our electrolyte materials and our battery cell supply strategies for ESS, drones and robotics, consumer electronics and EV.”

MU-1 Feature Updates

Map: In Molecular Universe (MU-1), we are expanding the molecular databases to cover most liquid and solid battery electrolytes, including solvents, additives, diluents, salts, and solid-state materials. We are offering a one-million-molecule database fully viewable to the Public, and fully searchable to Research, Explorer and Team tiers, and a 200-million-molecule database fully searchable to Enterprise and Joint Development tiers with more in-depth properties.

Ask: MU-1 enhances Ask performance by integrating the latest GPT-5 models and SES proprietary training data including publications, patents, and human intuition. We are offering Lightning to the Public, and more advanced Pro and multi-agent Deep Space to Research, Explorer, Team, Enterprise and Joint Development tiers. Deep Space now has senior scientist-level agentic capability to understand users’ queries and recommend full solutions including detailed reasoning, experiments and predictions. Deep Space is also fully integrated with Maps, Predict and other features in MU-1, it is one step closer to full agentic capability that can outperform the very best human battery scientists.

Search: In MU-1, we are offering “Intelligent Find-Friends” that also takes into account the battery chemistry environment and desired performance for the molecules we are seeking, quickly identifying the top “friends” that are most relevant.

Formulate: Having mapped what we believe to be the world’s largest molecular databases, for the first time, we are venturing beyond the molecular universe, and into the formulation universe, which involves much higher dimensions of complexity. Electrolytes are more than just single molecules, they are formulations consisting of ions dissociated and solved by solvent molecules, which interact in various manners among themselves. Here we have developed advanced computation chemistry tools such as molecular dynamics simulations driven by polarizable force fields that have achieved unprecedented accuracy, scale and speed for prediction of formulation level properties including viscosity, solubility, miscibility, conductivity, etc. Users can enter their desired formulations, and we will compute their properties.

Predict: Having explored the formulation universe, we continue our journey into the cell universe, an even higher dimension of complexity. Ultimately the cell level performance is what users care about most, since the final product is neither a molecule nor formulation, but a complete cell. We are truly in uncharted territory, as currently there are no known methodologies for connecting molecule and formulation properties to cell performance, the interfaces and interphases are simply beyond what first-principle can predict. Fortunately, the power of AI and machine learning, grounded in our massive effort to meticulously collect cell experimental performance data over diverse chemistries and as functions of different molecules and formulations is showing promise. Users can select a particular cell chemistry and different unknown molecules from the Molecular Universe to see their impact on cell performance and accurately predict cycle life. Users can even blindly input data of early cell cycle life, and MU-1 will predict end of life, all without any prior knowledge of the input cell chemistry or test environment.

SES AI | www.ses.ai

Altus Power, a nationwide leading provider of commercial-scale power, announced the acquisition of three ground-mounted solar projects in Florida, totaling 8.6 MWs. The projects were purchased from Origis Energy and are already generating and delivering reliable power to a local utility through long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs).

“We’ve built a strong reputation for execution and responsible stewardship of the projects we acquire. This acquisition from Origis, one of our trusted partners, reflects that commitment as we expand our nationwide footprint, delivering incremental power where it’s needed most,” said Dan Griffin, Co-Head, Investment & Structured Finance, Altus Power. “Our team remains focused on disciplined investments aligned with our strategy, ensuring we deliver value to our partners, customers and the communities we serve.”

With this acquisition, Altus continues to strengthen its presence in Florida, underscoring the company’s commitment to building a diverse portfolio of clean energy assets, going well beyond megawatts to deliver economic, environmental and community benefits across the country.

Altus Power | https://www.altuspower.com/

PowerBank Corporation (NASDAQ: SUUN) (Cboe CA: SUNN) (FSE: 103) ("PowerBank" or the "Company"), a leader in North American energy infrastructure development and asset ownership, is pleased to announce that it has executed a lease agreement on a 6.9 MW DC ground-mount solar power project known as the NY-Crawford Rd project (the "Project"), in the Capital District, New York. The Project is expected to be eligible for incentives under the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority ("NYSERDA") NY-Sun Program.

The Company is in the process of submitting the interconnection application and has initiated the preliminary screening analysis as part of the initial interconnection steps. Assuming receipt of interconnection approval, the Company will work to complete the permitting process and secure the necessary financing for the construction of the Project.

Once completed, the Project will be operated as a community solar project. Community solar is a group of solar panels with access to the local electricity grid. Once the panels are turned on and generating electricity, clean energy from the site feeds into the local power grid. Depending on the size and number of panels the project has, dozens or even hundreds of renters and homeowners can save money from the electricity that is generated by the project. By subscribing to a project, a homeowner earns credits on their electric bill every month from their portion of the solar that's generated by the project, accessing the benefits of solar without installing panels on their home. This allows homeowners to realize a reduced cost per kW/hour from the power they consume versus standard utility rates.

PowerBank's proven expertise, with over 100 MW of completed projects and a development pipeline exceeding 1 GW, underpins the project's execution. Strategic partnerships and institutional-grade development capabilities position PowerBank to deliver reliable, high-impact renewable energy solutions.

The Crawford Rd Project advances New York's ambitious Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goal of 6 GW of solar capacity by 2025. As a national leader in community solar, New York accounts for nearly one-third of the United States' 6.2 GW of installed solar capacity, and PowerBank is honored to contribute to this transformative milestone.

PowerBank Corporation | www.powerbankcorp.com

A new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) finds that women hold 32% of full-time jobs in the renewables sector. Although higher than in other energy industries, the percentage has not changed since IRENA’s first gender analysis in 2019, confirming that no meaningful progress is made in women’s representation over the years. 

Building on the previous study, the second edition of Renewable Energy: A Gender Perspective provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of women’s participation in the renewable energy workforce, as well as the barriers they face.  It urges for effective measures to address the persistent lack of progress and warns that without greater gender equality, the energy transition will not be fair or sustainable, with risks of labour shortages and a lack of diverse perspectives.

The data shows the widest gap in senior leadership positions, of which women only account for 19%. Women are significantly better represented in administrative roles, where they account for 45% of the workforce. Their share drops to 28% in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related positions. It is lowest (22%) in trades, such as installers, machine operators, electricians and construction workers, which typically require technical certifications, vocational training or apprenticeships. 

IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera, said, “Advancing gender equality in the renewable energy sector depends on robust data, targeted policy interventions and active collaboration of all stakeholders. Our analysis is the only of its kind to fill this knowledge gap. Unfortunately, despite performing better than in fossil fuel industries, little progress has been made. The sector still has a lot of work to do. To realise the energy transition’s full potential, women must be recognised as equal partners and leaders in shaping the renewables-based future.” 

The lack of gender balance in the sector stems from systemic barriers that persist at every stage of professional development. Women continue to face bias and cultural stereotypes when they join the workforce; cope with growing challenges in balancing professional and caregiving responsibilities throughout their careers; and confront discriminatory practices and glass ceilings that hinder advancement into leadership positions. 

Women are frequently the primary users and managers of household energy systems, bearing the greatest burden of energy poverty namely in developing countries. In non-governmental organisations focused on off-grid and community-based projects, women account for around 35% of employees, highlighting significant potential to expand their leadership and decision-making in advancing United Nations sustainable development goal for universal energy access.

The study also finds disparities among different types of organisation. Private enterprises, which dominate the renewables sector, report the lowest levels of female participation at 25%. By comparison, non-governmental organisations show nearly 48% female representation, while government and non-commercial institutions report 37%. 

The report calls for both top-down and bottom-up strategies, as well as cross-cutting initiatives to overcome the barriers. Governments should enforce laws on non-discrimination, equal pay and access to education, while embedding gender equality into climate and energy policies. 

Employers must introduce flexible work arrangements, transparent recruitment and promotion practices, mentorship opportunities, and safe, as well as respectful workplaces. Educational institutions, trade unions, civil society and international organisations also have a critical role in dismantling stereotypes, expanding opportunities and holding institutions accountable.

Read the full report here. 

International Renewable Energy Agency | https://www.irena.org/

Fortress Power, a leading U.S.-based manufacturer of advanced lithium battery energy storage systems, partnered with TerraSol Energies to deliver a landmark solar + storage project for Team Toyota of Glen Mills. The installation features an 820kWh Fortress Power eSpire commercial energy storage system paired with a 700kW solar array, creating one of the region’s most efficient dealership energy systems. The project, celebrated at the dealership’s Team Green Event, showcases the power of clean energy technology to drive cost savings, reliability, and sustainability across commercial operations.

The new system—combining large-scale solar generation with cutting-edge energy storage—will help Team Toyota save over $2 million in energy costs over the next 25 years, while strengthening the reliability and efficiency of its energy use.

“This project is a perfect example of what can be achieved when three Philadelphia-area companies—Team Toyota, TerraSol Energies, and Fortress Power—come together with a shared vision for clean, reliable energy,” said Jing Yu, CEO of Fortress Power. “It’s a proud moment for local innovation and a demonstration of how collaboration drives progress in the renewable energy industry.”

The event was attended by PA State Representative Craig Williams, who serves on the Energy Committee and as the Republican Chair of the Subcommittee on Utilities. Representative Williams commended the project’s role in advancing sustainable infrastructure, noting the importance of local initiatives that reduce grid strain and support clean energy adoption.

During his remarks, David Santoleri, CEO of TerraSol Energies, thanked Team Toyota, Fortress Power, PECO, and other project partners for their collaboration in making the installation possible. He noted that the system will generate roughly 800,000 kWh of clean energy each year—enough to power more than 100 homes annually—and highlighted the importance of local partnerships in driving large-scale sustainability initiatives across Pennsylvania.

“With this system, Team Toyota will reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 400 metric tons every year,” said Santoleri. “This is a milestone project for Pennsylvania’s renewable energy movement, and it reflects how local businesses can lead by example.”

PECO Energy representatives were also on hand to present Team Toyota with a rebate check during the event, recognizing the dealership’s contribution to regional grid stability and renewable energy goals.

Fortress Power eSpire systems, designed for commercial and industrial applications, provide modular and scalable energy storage capable of integrating seamlessly with large-scale solar systems. By storing excess solar energy for use during peak demand, eSpire systems enable businesses to lower energy costs, enhance resiliency, and contribute to grid sustainability.

Fortress Power | www.fortresspower.com