April 14, 2025
Brian Barker, the CEO of recently formed Aquila Energyare data obsessed: “Data are everything, right?” He claims. His team of 20 or so core employees are driving up mountains of data through different management levels on a certain project, because the company works to position itself in the heart of the US Solar + storage in the middle of the market.
To collect and analyze data, the company uses MS Project, Heavybid, ProCore, Sage and a PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, ACT) program to plan, perform and perform last-mile EPC work, to complete wasted time and efforts to maximize the ROI scheme for its IPP customers. “There is no software program that does it all,” says Barker.
Although the well-seasoned team has been jointly involved in more than 2 GW of solar installations, the Aquila target market is now the range from 5 MW to 80 MW that are too large for a small EPC and too small for a large EPC. This middle market quickly enough becomes the bulging bracket of solar energy, he thinks.
“We come in and help IPPs get through the last push on that last mile of development, through our technical and technical expertise,” says Barker. “We do not do the real estate area or the front-end lease agreements, or the O&M. But what happens to many IPPs is that they are quite overwhelmed. They buy or try to develop their own projects, and they simply do not have the technical or technical expertise to endure the final push.”
Adding value is what it’s all about.
“We determine what a value stream track is called, in which we look at what value we offer the customer throughout the life cycle of a project,” Barker notes. “We are strongly focused on value streams and process mapping and efficiency, so we can really evaluate value.”
Sweat the little stuff
Optimized design is something we are really concentrating on, “says Barker.” It not only enables us to come in and to get into projects early with IPPs, but it also enables us to develop and optimize the site in a way that many developers do not know how to do. We can take that completely through the value flow. ”
Statistics for the progress of each team member in a project phase help out extra value. Barker explains how Aquila Energy uses the most important performance indicators (KPI) to improve the process.
“You assign lead times and process times to each segment within the value stream,” says Barker. “By making KPIs, we can set goals, such as, if the process normally lasts 100 days, but we want to do it in 80 days, so we adjust the question:” How can we achieve that? ”
Aquila Energy creates what Barker calls, ‘Scoreboards’, and the company can follow those KPIs.
“Because we follow a critical path and methodology, we can actually complete projects for customers faster and put them on the grid faster to export clean electrons – or hopefully earlier and with the budget,” says Barker. “The focus is really on schedule and quality.”
Part of the task is the Chaos Ruzzle project on the market. “Planning of updates go to ProCore, our favorite software for construction management. And we use Sage for Job Costing Accounting, and those two integrate so that they can talk back and forth. The other piece we use is Heavybid, a really powerful estimate that we use to follow our progress,” explains Baker.
Building speed and safety
Speed in EPC work on a solar project can sometimes do the job quickly. “But then you can spend the following year making good,” warns Barker.
Following and analyzing the time required for every step of an installation forms a basic line for how fast enough is fast enough. Investigating pain points within the various tasks en route to a completed project and then performing correctly for the first time, Aquila saves time and money for the customer, says Barker.
“EPCs on many of the smaller DG projects, for example, have a superintendent who also acts as a safety manager and the quality manager,” Baker notes. “While with larger projects we have more than 15 quality managers to check every small thing that is done. And we also have several safety officers.”
Barker explains how the process works.
“For example, if we install a combination, we ask:” How long does it take to install? “Barker explains.” We ask “How long does it take to unpack it? How long does it take to get an inspection on it? How long does it take to actually pay it and to perform the quality controls on it? ” Let’s call it 1.7 hours per unit, and we have 35 of them on a project. When we get to the field, we can actually follow the time when we install that combination. [learning] curve.”
Aquila then takes that data to improve the estimate and benchmarking.
“For the first pair that we install, we see that they each take us for four hours. But while you walk the project, you have a working curve. At the end of the 35 you install them in less than an hour. So we take an average and find that 1.7 hours is the right amount of time to estimate, and we learn a process of continuous improvement in the quality of your customer, Benchking is the quality in the Benchkingje in the Benchkingje in the Benchkingje in the Benchkingje in the Benchkingking, -System. ”
De Western 11 first
Aquila, located in Vista, California, focuses his first regional footprint on the Western 11 states – from the Rockies over – to start with, says Barker. Projects are largely centered in California, Oregon and Washington, but the company has a permit to operate in Nevada and Arizona and is working on a license in New Mexico.
Since Barker is certified for a master’s license by the Non-Profit National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies (NASCLA), he can request a license to work in an extra American state without first having to do a difficult exam, he notes.
For the staff: “We are highly dependent on our Labor suppliers. We are part of ABC, so we are an open store. We offer a number of Reisman Electricians, but in the field we may need another five or six. We are also able to use students and student programs to meet both Ira and California State [labor] Standards, “Barker notes.
Team Unity is the key to rolling out a mid-market EPC, such as Aquila, from apparently nowhere. Barker, formerly the Bregego Solar President of EPC, attracted expertise from various companies to form Aquila.
“It is quite unique to have a team,” concludes Barker. “Aquila is still a startup, but our teams have been working together for more than 10 years. It is not only individual experience that counts, it is experience with working together. It is extremely difficult to hire one -off people and integrate them into your system. That takes years.”
