Former oil CEO acquires a taste for solar construction

Steve Newby’s path to entering the solar industry wasn’t one marked by high ambitions to green the grid. He worked for 25 years in oil and gas, with a decade of that time spent running Summit Midstream Partners, a company responsible for building multi-billion-dollar pipeline projects.

Instead, Newby saw growth potential in solar, something he still considers to be a young industry. So, he formed Bravo Infrastructure Group, an investment firm, intending to acquire solar contracting companies in the Atlanta, Georgia, region.

“I like to tell people I started an oil and gas company under Obama and a renewables company under Trump,” he said.

The first company Newby purchased was Sunshine Solar, a commercial contractor, in 2020; and shortly after, Bravo Infrastructure acquired Radiance Solar (No. 56 on the 2024 Top Solar Contractors List), a longstanding Southeast EPC, in late 2022.

“We had a belief that we wanted to vertically integrate,” he said. “We were getting asked by our customers to provide services, and we wanted to integrate into the EPC world from a subcontractor, because we wanted to control our destiny a little bit more.”

Over the last year, the companies combined their services under Radiance’s name, handing over existing projects and duties and orienting itself for a new mission. Newby’s goal is to make Radiance a solar EPC equipped to install distributed generation projects up to 30 MW in scale nationwide. He believes the DG market is underserviced and wants to jump at the opportunity to expand there.

One area for growth within that space is building solar canopies on parking lots and garages. Carport projects only account for 10% of Radiance’s total solar output now, but Newby made a move to boost that last year when Bravo Infrastructure Group acquired Atlanta solar carport manufacturer Quest Renewables.

“I built billions of dollars of energy infrastructure over my career, and solar is the hardest thing I’ve ever built,” Newby said. “Not because of engineering or technical aspects or hardware. That is pretty easy, frankly, vs. other things. The hard part is the logistics and supply chain.”

Now, Bravo Infrastructure and Radiance have some control over their supply chain.

Radiance was Quest Renewables’ biggest customer. The carport manufacturer was born from a Dept. of Energy grant-funded project administered by Georgia Tech Research Institute to build new technologies to make the solar market more competitive. After taking a hit financially during the pandemic, Quest Renewables was seeking an acquisition, and Bravo Infrastructure made the purchase.

“We’ve installed a lot of canopy systems — pretty much everybody’s system. We like Quest the best,” Newby said.

Compared to solar arrays with similar generation outputs, carports require some heavier lifting. Erecting and attaching structural supports on blacktop parking lots or multistory, concrete parking decks typically means using some style of crane powered by a certified operator.

While owned by Bravo Infrastructure, Quest is still operating independently. The manufacturer can sell to anyone, with the added ability to include installation services through Radiance. For Radiance, Quest carports will always be the first choice, but if a customer prefers to use another canopy system, Radiance won’t turn down the project.

Newby said he had no interest in starting a solar equipment manufacturer. Quest already had completed the research and development, made the designs and arranged manufacturing contracts to make its carports. Quest was an intellectual property that Radiance supported, and a logical addition to the Bravo Infrastructure portfolio.

After acquiring two solar installation companies, consolidating those services and buying a specialized solar racking manufacturer, Newby said he’s shifting the focus to growing the business and taking on solar projects across the country.

“We’re really a company that’s only a year and a half old, right?” he said.

This story was featured exclusively in our 2024 Top Solar Contractors issue. See the issue and full list of top U.S. solar installers here.