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Sean Swentek: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Future Current. I’m your host, Sean Swentek. Today, I am joined by Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Omnidian, Ray Szylko. Ray, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show today. I’m excited to have a chat with you. Welcome.

Ray Szylko: Thanks, Sean, and props for pronouncing my name properly. That’s the old Eastern European way. Nice job.

Sean Swentek: As a fellow whose name used to be Swentek, I’ve got a little bit of experience in Eastern bloc pronunciations, so I am happy to jump in on that. Ray, you’ve been around since the beginning—ten years at Omnidian. Omnidian was built around a problem that most of the industry wasn’t talking about. There were plenty of installations happening, but what happens to a solar asset after it is actually installed? There was this gap between deploying assets and making sure they perform. Why did that gap exist, and why did it matter so much to you and the other founders?

Ray Szylko: I will answer your question, but more importantly, there is a missing question: why did we get here? One of the challenges was that people were not leveraging technology to manage the performance of the system. Instead, all the capital was going into the upfront installation. The solar industry was in a gold rush, focused on the sale, the install, and the next fund formation.

The gap existed because the incentives were totally front-end loaded. Developers were paid to build, and investors were focused on the tax equity flip. No one was talking about year seven, year twelve, or year twenty-five because of the myth that solar has no moving parts and just works.

This myth created a massive vacuum in accountability. It matters because solar is not a passive product; it is a high-performance power plant. The industry assumed solar was set and forget. In reality, we focused on the wedding—the install—and forgot about the marriage—twenty-five years of operations. An unmanaged asset, just like an unmanaged relationship, isn’t just inefficient; it is a financial liability. We built Omnidian to be the accountability layer the industry ignored.

Sean Swentek: That is the first time I have heard the marriage analogy, and it could not be more accurate. Thank you for sharing that. That was the beginning ten years ago for Omnidian, and while this industry is decades old at this point, it still continues to mature. Bringing us to the modern day, there has been a lot of policy upheaval lately, including the BBBA, alongside shifting regulations. As a result, we are seeing bankruptcies and a lot of M&A activity. How did the post-install gap you identified early on become the center of the storm we are seeing today?

Ray Szylko: We are on this beautiful thing called the “solar coaster,” which is often driven by changes in legislation or incentives, creating a boom-and-bust scenario. Many in the industry, myself included, want to move away from relying on incentives and instead have projects compete on their raw economics. Incentives are given to an industry to help it achieve scale. We have passed that scale point, and we are ready to phase them out. However, because incentives still exist, any change to them creates a storm—and that is the storm we are in right now.

Between the BBBA—or the “big bad bill” or “big beautiful bill,” however you want to call it—and rising interest rates, the notion of “set and forget” portfolios is gone. These portfolios are hemorrhaging value. When companies go bankrupt or M&A heats up, the industry finally realizes that unmanaged assets are a liability. Portfolios currently up for sale are often underperforming, which creates an upside for the buyer if they understand the opportunity. The simple truth is these portfolios underperform because they lacked proactive oversight.

To summarize this shift, we are moving from a growth-at-all-costs era to a yield-at-all-costs era. Bankruptcies leave behind orphan systems, and M&A sometimes creates Frankenstein portfolios with dozens of different hardware brands. Omnidian provides stabilization; we turn chaotic, distressed portfolios into predictable, bankable assets.

Sean Swentek: That last point is critical because you mentioned opportunity. I am hearing that upwards of thirty percent of all large portfolios across residential and C&I in the US are either up for sale or being shopped. Since you are the connector to the financial markets for us at Omnidian, when you talk to a financial partner looking to either acquire or divest of a distressed portfolio—especially on the acquirer side—what are the things they need to look at that they cannot see on a spreadsheet? They might see the theoretical opportunity, but what are the hidden risks they might not be aware of?

Ray Szylko: We have many clients who leverage us for advisory services because when a financial partner looks at a spreadsheet, they only see theoretical yields and a P90 estimate. When we analyze a distressed portfolio, we look at what the data is not telling them.

One major gap is maintenance debt. We analyze the history of “no-fault-found” truck rolls. If a portfolio has high O&M spend but stagnant performance, they are chasing ghosts rather than fixing the core problems.

We also map out component failure rates. We track specific failure rates of inverter batches across different climates. A spreadsheet will not tell you that a specific 2019 inverter model in Arizona is a ticking time bomb, but our data does.

Finally, we evaluate system health decay. We look for signs of systemic neglect, such as cabling issues or connector mismatches, which are leading causes of thermal events. These never show up on a P&L until a site goes dark. We have helped multiple clients unlock value in these portfolios by being a trusted partner and advisor.

Sean Swentek: You mentioned these advisory services, and Omnidian has been productizing these bespoke advisory offerings for transaction participants. As you noted, we are not a monitoring-only service; we provide assurance around the ROI of these assets. During a high-stakes transaction, what does that advisory relationship look like in practice? What do you and the rest of the team bring to the table that is unique, beyond the technical mechanics you just described?

Ray Szylko: In many of these portfolio sales, an Independent Engineer (IE) report has already been created. The value Omnidian adds comes from our extensive data points. During a high-stakes transaction, our advisory relationship is not just about a standard report; it is about de-risking the terminal value. We provide buy-side technical due diligence that translates technical jargon into financial outcomes.

This relationship allows the acquirer to bid more aggressively on underperforming portfolios because we have created a locked-in turnaround plan. We act as the technical fiduciary. We do not just provide a report; we deliver a remediation roadmap. We tell the investor exactly what it will cost to fix the portfolio, and then Omnidian is willing to guarantee its performance.

Sean Swentek: I love that. You have been focusing on the buy-side. What about the other side of the transaction? Is there value that Omnidian can bring to those who are divesting of a portfolio—perhaps not because of any bankruptcy-related risk, but simply because they are looking to refocus their strategy? Is there a role for Omnidian on the sell-side as well?

Ray Szylko: One of our primary theses when we launched Omnidian was that to bring more capital into the market, the industry needed independent, third-party servicers. In mortgage, auto, or credit cards, third-party servicers exist so portfolios can be easily bought and sold by new market entrants.

In solar, you deal with two main risks: performance risk and payment risk. When we started, we focused strictly on performance risk. Today, many investment funds have reached the end of their life cycle and are looking to sell, or operators want to divest. If you only have internal servicing, you have a limited pool of buyers because they must also stand up technical performance and asset management. But when Omnidian is attached to a sale, you open it up to a much larger capital markets universe of buyers.

Sean Swentek: So the portfolio becomes much more attractive because a buyer who lacks the technical expertise in managing those assets has a built-in partner ready to go. Is that correct?

Ray Szylko: Exactly. They want to clip their coupons and hit their ROI targets without standing up complex operations. That is our job; we are there to support them.

Sean Swentek: You mentioned O&M providers who chase ghosts on site. Many traditional O&M providers focus purely on a break-fix model because they lack the technology or expertise to diagnose the underlying issues. Omnidian has positioned itself as a single-source, end-to-end asset management platform for both PV and BESS assets. What is the importance of bringing the financial side of the equation into view for our clients? What does it mean to look beyond kilowatts produced and focus on the actual financial impact of those assets?

Ray Szylko: Most O&M today is break-fix: someone calls, you send a truck, and it is treated as a cost center. By bringing the financial side into our ecosystem, we turn O&M into yield management.

For a client’s bottom line, the traditional break-fix model is far too slow. If an inverter is down for three weeks while you wait for a quote, you have lost your margin. By integrating our guarantee and insurance layer, we align our profit with the owner’s production. If the asset does not perform, we are willing to pay. This alignment is how you scale distributed energy at the speed the market demands. If you do not link the mechanical fix to the financial outcome, the client loses margin every hour the sun is shining.

Sean Swentek: Ten years in, Omnidian is now overseeing three gigawatts of assets across residential and C&I. We manage a massive asset count of smaller residential systems alongside larger C&I systems up to 20 megawatts, all within distributed generation. We have found a sweet spot working with clients who want to scale from managing a handful of sites to hundreds or even thousands of sites. When you speak to a developer or investor making that rapid transition, what do you advise them on regarding what will break first in their asset management strategy, and how does a single-source platform like Omnidian mitigate that risk?

Ray Szylko: When a client moves from ten sites to a thousand, the first thing that breaks is human attention. You cannot have a person monitoring a thousand different dashboards. It looks nice, but the moment you rely on a human to watch a dashboard, you are opening yourself up to failure. You need technology to manage that scale.

What breaks next is the service chain. Regional providers get overwhelmed, and technical dispatches default to whoever is simply available. Our platform prevents false positives with intelligent alert suppression and prioritizes remote remediation. We use machine learning—which we have been training for ten years—to filter out environmental noise like snow or passing clouds. This provides a single source of truth, replacing dozens of separate portal logins and establishing a unified standard of care across our clients’ portfolios.

Sean Swentek: It is an AI-powered tool built well before AI was a popular industry buzzword.

Ray Szylko: We were an AI company before “AI” was even a standard term.

Sean Swentek: I want to add a quick follow-up question on a topic near and dear to your heart: backup servicing. While our large investor clients and partners typically have a primary servicer, backup servicing is an incredibly important risk mitigation factor. Omnidian holds a unique position in this space. Could you share how you think about backup servicing and its importance in the market?

Ray Szylko: Absolutely. This goes back to the two types of risk: performance risk and payment risk. We are on the “solar coaster,” meaning companies fail. When we started, we were in the middle of a downward turn on that coaster and saw SunEdison, Sungevity, American Solar Direct, and others go bankrupt.

During those times, there was this notion of a transition manager or transition agent stepping in to find a provider, basing their actions on their knowledge of billing and collections. Managing that tape is relatively easy, but that is payment risk management, not performance risk management. To effectively manage a solar system, you need vast amounts of data. During those early bankruptcies, we realized that performance data did not exist. This penalized the investors backing those developers, and their returns were severely hampered.

In response, we worked with the investment community to help develop—and I would argue we were first to market with—a backup servicing offering specifically designed to manage performance risk.

When a developer runs into trouble, we see a consistent pattern. We saw this with the SunPower, Swell, and PosiGen bankruptcies. First, service activity stops because it is viewed as a cost center, causing deferred maintenance to build up and negatively impact returns. Second, institutional knowledge walks out the door as employees focus on their own survival.

The core philosophy of backup servicing is ensuring that, first, performance data is secured and accessible before any issues arise. Second, that this data can be seamlessly instantiated on our system or another provider’s system. Third, we write a transition plan addressing operational details that are often overlooked. Finally, we test those transition plans so we can confidently tell investors that if something goes wrong, we have their back. One of Omnidian’s primary roles is to protect investor capital; it is about securing ROI, and that is our job.

Sean Swentek: I love that you brought it back to ROI, Ray. You mentioned earlier our purpose-built AI platform, Resolve, which has been around since the beginning. It has been trained on over 500,000 asset-years of data, which is an incredible number.

Ray Szylko: We actually have significantly more than 500,000 years of data.

Sean Swentek: How many asset-years of data do we have?

Ray Szylko: We have over a million years of asset data.

Sean Swentek: Wow, that is double what I estimated. When you look across that massive dataset, what patterns do your engineering, technology, and product teams consistently see in underperforming portfolios that owners might be missing on their own?

Ray Szylko: The simple answer goes back to ROI. There is a very consistent pattern: owners miss the slow bleed. While most owners notice a total blackout, almost all of them miss the three-to-five percent degradation caused by issues like potential-induced degradation (PID), subtle soiling, or string-level failures.

These micro-losses can be remediated. When looking across our three-gigawatt portfolio, these minor inefficiencies add up to millions of dollars in lost revenue. This is an ROI equation. Our job is to manage performance because it translates directly into returns for our clients.

We look at our platform through three layers. First, we ingest the actual performance from a site, which contains unique fingerprints of data and anomalies like soiling or string-level failures. Second, we create a digital twin of the system and overlay solar irradiance data. We find this to be a much more cost-effective way to manage an asset than installing a hardware pyranometer at every site. This tells us what the system should be producing. Finally, we look at what the client’s financial model anticipated.

We triangulate these three data points to design a recommended remediation strategy, ensuring the site is returned to the exact ROI the company underwrote.

Sean Swentek: That underwritten ROI is critical, and we are asking clients to place a lot of trust in us when we say their systems will perform because of our technology and services. On top of that, Omnidian provides a performance guarantee where clients are reimbursed for covered energy shortfalls at the end of the year. Not everyone in the industry offers this, and Omnidian’s guarantee is highly competitive. How did you and the other founders get comfortable putting skin in the game with this guarantee, and how does that change the dynamic for your clients?

Ray Szylko: We have ultimate confidence in our data. When you have analyzed nearly half of all residential systems ever installed in the United States, you understand risk profiles better than anyone else. We know the math better than the underwriters.

This changes the dynamic, moving our relationship from a standard vendor to a true fiduciary partner. We allow our clients to stop worrying about system uptime and start focusing on revenue certainty. Ultimately, this is an actuarial problem. Because we understand exactly where the risks reside, we are fully comfortable providing that performance guarantee.

Sean Swentek: Distributed generation has grown significantly over the years; it is no longer just single solar assets on homes or local businesses. We now see massive portfolios of larger, aging assets. We also have community solar, which is expanding rapidly and involves highly nuanced operations like subscriber management. Additionally, BESS is growing fast in our space and is frequently paired with solar. As distributed generation becomes more complex, geographically distributed, and reliant on older assets that require repowering, how does Omnidian adapt its approach to solve these multi-layered challenges for clients?

Ray Szylko: My role as Chief Strategy Officer is to look ahead at where the industry is going and determine how Omnidian can best serve our clients. Looking out over the next ten years, I see a decade defined by complexity and integration.

With BESS and community solar, we are moving beyond standalone solar into complex, multi-asset sites. Managing BESS requires an entirely different dataset and operational focus, including battery cycling, state of health, and grid services optimization. We are also looking at adding EV charging to support clients who are expanding in that direction.

Omnidian’s growth goals have remained consistent since day one. Our vision is to be the operating system for the energy transition, providing portfolio assurance globally. We want to ensure that every kilowatt-hour promised is a kilowatt-hour delivered, creating a world where renewable energy is as bankable and predictable as a blue-chip bond.

Sean Swentek: For those who have followed Omnidian’s trajectory, they know that in our early years, we were highly focused on technical asset management—proactive monitoring, remote remediation, and standard O&M. As Omnidian has transitioned into offering full-suite, end-to-end asset management, including financial asset management for both residential and C&I customers, what unique benefits will surprise clients who have never worked with a single-source partner before?

Ray Szylko: I would encourage you to bring one of our clients on the show to speak to that directly. If I were to summarize their feedback, it is about the peace of mind Omnidian delivers. It is the value of working with a trusted partner who is aligned side-by-side with your performance targets.

It simplifies operations. We do not necessarily perform every single financial or physical service in-house; instead, we leverage strategic partnerships and manage those entities ourselves. This provides the client with a single point of accountability—”one throat to choke”—and it is our job to ensure every partner performs to standard.

Sean Swentek: I love that. Ray, you mentioned advancements across asset classes and technologies, including EV charging, BESS, and community solar. Omnidian has also grown geographically, particularly over the last four to five years. Can you discuss the strategy behind this expansion and what you envision for Omnidian’s future geographic footprint?

Ray Szylko: This ties back to our broader growth strategy. Omnidian’s vision is to be the operating system for the energy transition, providing portfolio assurance globally. When we evaluated which international markets to enter first, we chose Australia.

Australia is incredibly attractive. Compared to the United States, where residential solar penetration is still sub-10%, Australia is closer to 40% penetration nationwide. Even more incredible, the cost to install solar there—whether residential or C&I—is less than $1.00 per watt. In the US, utility-scale is around $2.35 to $2.75 per watt, while residential is closer to $3.85 to $4.00 per watt. There is a lot to learn from a market that has crossed a chasm the US has not yet reached.

If we want to build a global footprint, we had to start somewhere with favorable regulatory frameworks, strong economics, and structural similarities to how we operate in the US. Australia was the perfect launchpad. We also have a highly global investor and customer base, including European utilities, European banks, South American conglomerates, and Asian financial institutions. We are seeing a strong pull from our investors and our clients worldwide.

An interesting anecdote from our Australia expansion: the client searched globally and concluded that no other company offered what Omnidian does, prompting them to partner with us. Our investors and clients did the search for us, confirming that we are unique in what we do.

While the upfront solar “gold rush” continues, we remain committed to the long-term lifecycle of these assets. Our technology and datasets help us understand performance better than anyone else, ensuring we deliver the ROI our clients require.

Sean Swentek: I love that. You often describe Australia as a “postcard from the future” for the solar industry. Could you expand on what that phrase means to you?

Ray Szylko: If you look at the United States, customer acquisition costs (CAC) and financing costs are dramatically higher because the industry is still maturing. To quote one of our team members, John Blattner: “In the US, solar is sold. In Australia, solar is bought.”

It is bought because the costs are so low; they have eliminated heavy customer acquisition expenses. A homeowner in Australia can purchase a residential solar system for under $10,000 and have it operating. When you make that capital investment, performance becomes incredibly important to you.

Because market penetration in Australia is so high, the general public already knows that the myth of “25 years of no moving parts and zero maintenance” is false. They understand that systems do break, which is why they need a partner like Omnidian to both monitor the asset and actively remediate performance issues.

Sean Swentek: That is beautifully said. Ray, your career speaks for itself and your business acumen is second to none, but what I appreciate most is your focus on the human element of business and the importance of building a company around its people. Culture is the special sauce at Omnidian that often gets overlooked due to our technology focus. You recently attended our annual company gathering where our team celebrates this culture. Can you speak in your own words about why culture and people are so important to you?

Ray Szylko: When people ask me what keeps me up at night, my answer is always our employees. It is incumbent upon us to ensure our employees are happy because a happy employee leads to a happy client. This is reflected in our public ratings and our customer CSAT scores.

When Mark, Dave, Brad Davis—our other co-founder—and I started Omnidian, we knew we wanted to build something different. Throughout my career, I have worked at both great and not-so-great companies, and the defining differentiator was always culture. Research shows that the number-one factor in a startup’s success or failure is its culture. We defined our core company values before we even launched because we knew our business strategy would pivot and we would face market fluctuations. If we held true to the core belief that a happy employee leads to a happy client, we could navigate any storm together.

We have received numerous corporate awards, but the one I hold most dear is the annual “Top 100 Places to Work” survey in Washington State. It is entirely employee-driven and anonymous. We have made that list for eight consecutive years, often ranking as the number-one company. That tells me we have built a culture where people genuinely want to be. Since they choose to dedicate their careers to Omnidian, it is my responsibility to provide an environment where they can thrive.

Sean Swentek: That is beautiful, and I believe you have. For my final question: you oversee our business development team and are always on the cutting edge of what is next in our industry. If you put on your prognosticator cap, what does the future of renewable energy and Omnidian look like over the next five to ten years? There is a lot of discussion around geothermal, small modular nuclear, and even space-based solar. Keeping it practical, what are you most excited about?

Ray Szylko: The future will certainly be complex with new technologies and ideas emerging, and AI is already changing the game in how we visualize and remediate performance issues. What I am most proud of is that Omnidian is a technology-driven services company. We use technology to identify problems and our physical services to resolve them. It is not just about the software; it is about executing end-to-end. As our COO, Dave Kenny, simply puts it: “Find problem, fix problem.”

We will continue to apply that philosophy to every asset class we manage. While there will always be a shiny new “gold rush” with capital flowing toward speculative ideas—like space-based solar—at the end of the day, it is the performance of the operating asset that dictates financial success.

Whether we are managing solar, BESS, EV charging, or eventually geothermal, we will remain focused on the renewable energy lifecycle. We have no intention of expanding into nuclear or other sectors where established companies operate fantastically. Our niche is, and will remain, maximizing the performance of renewable energy assets.

Sean Swentek: I love that. You beautifully summed up the value Omnidian brings: pairing powerful technology with expert humans who simply care more. That is the core of our story.

Thank you, Ray, for joining me today; it has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you to our audience for tuning into another episode of The Future Current. My guest today was Ray Szylko, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Omnidian. For all our listeners, we will see you next time.

Ray Szylko: Thanks, Sean. It has been a lot of fun.