Most of this past month has been spent working on getting more generation online. But I’m discovering that many of those projects will have much poorer returns than I’d initially hoped for due to high (only now confirmed) installation costs.

Most of this past month has been spent working on getting more generation online. It is a frustratingly long process, with far too much paperwork.

I’m aiming to build a new electricity and gas retailer here, but this isn’t my first rodeo. In fact, I’ve built and sold a company like this twice before! But this is the first time I’m doing it solo. Previously, I focused on the business processes and backend management and let my partners guide the marketing and sales efforts; this time, I get to manage it all.

As part of our new Backend agreement (signed earlier this month), I have certain, regular “performance thresholds” I need to hit. This is new, and I expect it will have a focusing function. Overall, I need to find a way to maintain bringing on just over one site per day for the next several years. This will likely be the primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI) I mention in these update. My initial target is to hit 120 sites by the end of June.

I am building a boutique energy retailer to provide a human touch to our electricity and natural gas bills, and to make sure that that money get reinvested back into our community. This matters because many of the established players are huge multinationals, with call centers on one continent and their head office in yet another, both far from Alberta.

But it doesn’t have to be like that: the money from our bills can grow our communities and our energy retailer can be human scale too.

Strathcona Power: Deep roots, New Power.