After an eventful first year of operations, Houston-based renewable power company Rhythm Energy is eyeing expansions into new verticals and outside of the Texas market.
Rhythm Ops LLC, which offers renewable electricity plans as a retail electric provider in Texas, began selling electricity in February 2021 after it was founded in early 2020, said CEO PJ Popovic. Less than a month later, Texas was hit by a historic cold weather event that left huge swaths of the state's power grid in the dark for days.
Now, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February has caused even more disruption in the energy markets, Popovic said. Consumers are being hit with rising costs for energy and utilities, and those cost increases are contributing to high levels of inflation on other essentials.
Meanwhile, consumer interest and investment in renewable energy has seen notable gains during the pandemic. Although the renewable sector is also facing cost increases and supply chain challenges, this is an environment in which Popovic thinks Rhythm's value proposition becomes more clear for customers. As new utility-scale renewable energy generation and battery storage projects in Texas come online and intermittency issues are addressed, Rhythm believes pricing will continue to become more competitive for consumers choosing between renewable electric plans and traditional utilities.
"There will be, of course, rising costs of everything: all commodities, including renewables," Popovic said. "But I firmly believe renewables are, at this point, mature enough to be looked at. We can build more to free us up and ultimately have more security of energy supplies."
Rhythm is working to expand its renewable power customer base in Texas, but the company also sees opportunity in other U.S. states with deregulated energy markets. Rhythm is starting its efforts to expand into other states, including in the northeastern U.S., Popovic said.
Another area of interest for Rhythm is electric vehicles. Earlier in March, Rhythm announced partnering with New York-based startup ZappyRide to develop an "EV Hub" resource for consumers to find information on EV makes and models, pricing comparisons, tax incentive opportunities, at-home charging capabilities and other features.
Popovic said Rhythm wanted to give customers more ways to understand their potential cost savings when purchasing an EV and considering renewable power plans with capacity for EV charging.
"Retail energy providers are key to achieving those savings," Popovic said. "With both solar and EVs, people will not get savings unless we provide them ways to actually materialize those."
Rhythm Energy employs upwards of 85 people, up from around 50 employees in February 2021. Around half of Rhythm's employees are based in the firm's Houston headquarters, Popovic said. Rhythm plans to continue adding data engineers and development talent as it works to enhance its software and technology capabilities.
