Solar Power in South Carolina: Insights from Clay Sikes and Doug Baird of Coastal Solar Power, LLC
Tuesday, April 4th, 2017
South Carolina CEO spoke with CEO Clay Sikes and CFO Doug Baird of Coastal Solar Power with a heavy presence in South Carolina. During our time together, Sikes and Baird share the history of the company, their vision, mission and values, and the exciting projects they are working on in South Carolina. Sikes and Baird also share news of their new solar mobile unit they are showcasing at the Vidalia Onion Festival.
Investing in Solar Power
Sikes offered, “We started investigating Solar Power in the spring of 2014. Our model is built off of a business model of servitude to help businesses impact their bottom line using solar power. We created a business model to improve the bottom line by saving tremendous amounts of money in taxes and tremendous amount of money in utility bills. That model is really catching fire.”
Clay Sikes is the principal owner and CEO of Coastal Solar Power, LLC. He founded the company in 2015 through the acquisition of Coastal Solar Power Company of Savannah, a four year old solar company. Coastal Solar Power, LLC is a division of The Sikes Group, an industry leader in real estate for the last 46 years including real estate marketing, land acquisition and commercial development.
Sikes has closed over $500 million in real estate transactions throughout his career, and leverages this business expertise and financial strength in leading the Coastal Solar team. Sikes currently owns and manages hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial retail space (shopping centers), climate-controlled storage units, thousands of acres in timberland, and an international gold fund in Europe. Sikes buys and sells large timber tracts throughout the Southeastern USA, actively engaged in purchase and sale of timber, commercial development, and brokerage in both South Carolina and Georgia.
Coastal Solar provides energy and cost savings solar energy solutions for a wide range of clients including homeowners, business owners and farmers. Their main office is located in Hinesville, GA with satellite offices in Hilton Head, South Carolina and Mobile, Alabama. Coastal Solar offers any size utility scale and commercial solar projects anywhere in the U.S. Sikes and his team offer comprehensive solar energy site assessments and custom implementations with viable renewable energy alternatives that provide savings in time, money and energy consumption.
Sikes added, “We create opportunities for others to come and join us with a unique gift mix. When you can find out what someone is made to do or gifted in and place them in that arena, they excel. Many people don’t know what their gift is. When you awaken that it takes life from mundane to extraordinary and exciting. They accomplish what they have never accomplished before and they earn what they have never earned before. “
“My life matters more now. We work to put something back into place for future generations. When I grew up, there weren’t any mentors in our community. I always said as a young man, if I’m ever put in a position to reach out to my community and fill that void, that’s what I want to do. I’ve had a passion awakened that I didn’t know I had.”
Sikes continued, “Many people don’t understand the principles apply in the grind of business. Being able to take those principles and march into the business community allows us to mow down the competition. A great example would be this. My grandfather died when I was 12. Back in the day, the sheriff was a leader in the community. But, they didn’t get paid very well. My grandfather’s chosen profession was buying and selling land. He would buy property, and there were always people ready to buy a property he wanted to sell. It occurred to me I witnessed something special. Here’s the reason why he was able to always sell his land. I never sell my land for the most money. I always sell my land for the lowest money. Leave room for the next man to make money. We are applying this back to solar, not charging the most we can, but charging the least we can. And, to provide the greatest service we can, not just to our employees and the people we serve, but also to make our community.”
“When your business changes from making money to serving others, the money takes care of itself. When you are serving, money will chase you down. My mouth and my feet are one in the same. I’ve been on both sides and have never been happier.”
Sikes concluded, “Our guys see it in me, they see it in themselves, and our customers see it in us. When you are serving and not selling, you develop relationships. Everything that happens at Coastal Solar is happening relationally through a network of people who trust and care about one another.”
Doug Baird serves as CFO for Coastal Solar Power, LLC. Prior to joining Coastal Solar, Baird founded SwiftTel Communications, a facilities-based CLEC. He also co-founded BlinkMind, The World’s First Cloud Based Video Conferencing Company. Baird is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in telecom, backup generator, power factor correction and finance who enjoys finding unique ways where businesses can maximize savings and return on investment with renewable energy products.
Baird shared, “We have a small in-house team of 15 with backgrounds in engineering, sales, education and management, and contract with other folks as needed including sourcing local talent. We have a solar engineer with 20 years of experience in the coastal region. We nicknamed him the grandfather of solar. He really adds a lot to our team and capabilities.”
Baird continued, “Our boutique approach to customizing solar solutions for a company’s specific needs including their specific financial needs is really our value proposition.”
Baird offered, “One of the unique financial benefits we have is the ability to finance our commercial projects 100%. The customer doesn’t have an out of pocket expenses.”
What’s Trending in Solar
Baird noted, “I think the trends in solar energy power are in consolidation. Solar panels are producing more energy now, and in a smaller space; and battery integration.”
Baird offered, “Solar energy in the manufacturing industry represents a great opportunity especially in South Carolina. The manufacturing companies can realize the same rates of return as the farmers with 15% to 25% savings. We love to work with the CPAs and tax planners to customize a solution that fits nicely in their portfolio. “
“We work with shopping centers too. They are a great customer because they have a lot of roof space. That is usually an indication of a good fit for our solutions. We work with anyone who has an electric bill and has concerns with profitability; we can help them. “
Baird, “We have a lot of projects in South Carolina that we are working on including some utility scale projects that we are really excited about. South Carolina is one of the areas where we are really focused and excited about.”
Coastal Solar Mobile Unit to Debut at Vidalia Onion Festival in April 2017
Baird described, “We focus on the agricultural market in many ways. We are showcasing the mobile solar unit we designed jointly with (former state senator) Tommy Williams and Clint Williams in April in Vidalia, Georgia. We just thought that the Vidalia Onion Festival was a great place to showcase our new mobile solar unit. We have a lot of onion growers that see the benefit of it.”
Baird continued, “Farmers can achieve anywhere from 15% to 25% internal rate of return by implementing solar into their business. We love to help farmers be more competitive.”
“Imagine a big solar unit on an 18-wheeler trailer bed. That’s the mobile solar unit they can pull with a tractor. It unfolds with motors and opens up like a flower blooms so the solar panels appear. It folds back up so it can be moved.”
Baird explained, “Solar power is generated from the panels and is used to power pivots and motors, and supplements the energy for those pivots saving them money. In some cases it allows them to water their crops at times they normally wouldn’t be able to water.”
Sikes described, “The solar mobile package design came from my daughter’s dream. We sketched it out and had engineers start planning and designing it. It started about a year ago and we’ll roll it out at VOF next month. This was designed to serve an industry that has been tremendously underserved. The folks that work in agriculture have extremely high utility bills. The value of a mobile unit is that it can be pulled to multiple locations and provide multiple power sources. When you pull a solar mobile unit out to any farm, field, barn or building to power their equipment you save them significant dollars. There are many different power applications on farms and agricultural installations. Our vision is to make our mobile package as common as a John Deere tractor.”
Sikes continued, “The heart of it is that the CEOs and CFOs we work with. Most of them don’t care about a renewable energy tag for their company. What they are really interested in is how you can help them improve their bottom line. When you have manufacturing facilities, medical facilities, and large businesses you generally have very high utility costs. Take a 30% tax credit on the investment itself, and accelerated depreciation and the 179 rule which has been raised to $500,000. You can quickly see how you can mitigate a tremendous amount of utility costs as well as business expense. When you can keep that money and have more disposable income, you can create more jobs, invest back in your community, and do many things.”
Sikes offered, “There is so much disinformation and misinformation revolving around solar power. When you are creating a business model it’s one thing to be fair on your prices. What I am doing to get the best of the best and be as fair as I can. My business model is really the fairest out there. Most of my competitors pay big sales commissions to reward sales. I pay well to reward servitude ……What ever the company makes I give them half of it. I give them the most that I possibly can. I give the people the opportunity to create their own businesses… The strength of our model is a recreation. To see some of our employees come in and succeed and make $500,000 with a future to grow that. It’s not about the money. This is about finding and giving people the opportunity to find and share their gifts.” Sikes described.
Sikes shared, “65% of the world’s population doesn’t have electricity. Image the possibilities of a mobile solar unit to other continents and communities. What is solar energy or the sun’s energy, or the son’s energy; it brings power and light. I have a global vision for this company as a result of my desire to serve.”
“We have had colossal financial failures. Hardship and difficulty is a wonderful teacher. To embrace those things and convert the destructive energy into something that’s positive into something that builds. I want to serve until the last breathe is in me. That’s my passion,” he said.
Sikes concluded, “I have an advantage that a lot of people in business don’t have and that’s advanced information. I speak from my heart. I am doing something that is much bigger than I am.”
For more information visit www.CoastalSolar.com. The company is also giving away over $10,000 in prizes in April including Benelli shotguns, Bahama cruises and cash. To learn more visit www.12MonthPowerBills.com.
Reach Doug Baird at dbaird@coastalsolar.com, and Clay at clay@coastalsolar.com.