Top industry award for leaders in clean energy and climate tech recognizes Avantus as Company of the Year; Avantus’ Gautham Ramesh as Rising Star

LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif — March 1, 2023 Avantus, (formerly 8minute), has been selected as the winner of The Cleanie Awards® 2022 Company of the Year in the Enterprise category. Avantus was recognized for its major technological advancements and bold vision for a new energy economy powered by reliable, affordable, zero-emission energy. In addition, Avantus’ Senior Manager of Energy Systems Engineering Gautham Ramesh was honored as a Rising Star Under 30 for his leadership in the design and development of advanced controls for Avantus’ smart power plants. The Cleanie Awards is the leading awards program focused on recognizing innovators and those delivering on the promise of a clean energy future; out of hundreds of nominations, Avantus and Ramesh both received the highest honor, Gold.

“We launched Avantus to redefine what it means to be a leader in the clean energy transition,” said Dr. Tom Buttgenbach, CEO and Founder of Avantus. “This past year was especially momentous for us on our journey to becoming the first pure play clean energy major; we expanded our technology and development portfolio, pioneered new land conservation efforts and are on our way to building an operational portfolio of smart power plants across the Western United States. I am truly proud to lead this exceptional team that includes trailblazers like Gautham Ramesh, who work every day to usher in a new era of energy, where power generation and delivery is not only clean, but also lower cost and far superior to fossil fuels.”

In 2022, Avantus rebranded from 8minute to reflect its expansion beyond solar development to include innovative clean energy products and services. Most notably, Avantus’ smart power plant technologies integrate renewable energy production and storage into one seamless, intelligent system that can provide flexible, predictable output to the grid and helps utilities and corporate energy customers dynamically manage load. This advanced ecosystem of products, services and technologies can meet the diverse needs of any utility, from baseload to peak load, in addition to green hydrogen production and solutions for other energy-intensive industries. Avantus’ suite of proprietary design tools and technologies will be deployed against the company’s industry-leading development pipeline, which now exceeds 50 gigawatts (GW) of system capacity, including 42 GW of solar and 78 GWh of energy storage – capable of providing low-cost clean energy to 30 million people day or night.

Avantus has led the industry towards unprecedented milestones, including developing the largest solar cluster in the nation in 2012 and the first operating solar plant to beat fossil fuel prices in 2016. Its team of engineers and developers continue to raise the bar for low cost and reliability, and Gautham Ramesh has been instrumental in this effort. As Senior Manager of Energy Systems Engineering, Ramesh leads the development of Avantus’ optimization software for solar, energy storage, wind, and green hydrogen assets. He began his career at Avantus as an intern, and over his five years at the company has quickly risen through the organization. His work is advancing the integration of historically intermittent renewables into power grid operations and setting the bar for state-of-the-art energy market optimization. Ramesh holds eight patents in clean energy power plant design and controls — with more patents currently pending.

“Looking back to my very first days as an intern and a storage software engineer, it’s been an incredible journey with Avantus,” said Ramesh. “I am truly honored by this recognition, and I couldn’t have gotten here without the continued support of the whole Avantus team. This award recognizes the amazing potential of my entire generation of engineers, scientists and researchers to combat climate change and accelerate the adoption of reliable and affordable clean energy.”

Avantus was selected by a cohort of peers including judges and leaders representing a cross section of the cleantech and renewable energy sectors. Marking its most competitive year yet, The Cleanie Awards doubled its number of submissions over last year with nominations from Fortune 500 companies, investors and start-ups across the energy spectrum. For a full list of winners, visit thecleanieawards.com.