Evelyn Carpenter on Community Trust in Battery Project Development

Invera Energy™ President & CEO Evelyn Carpenter explains how early community trust shapes the success of battery storage projects.

Invera Energy™ is a U.S.-based energy development company focused on large-scale infrastructure projects, including battery storage.

In ESS News coverage, President and CEO Evelyn Carpenter emphasized that community response to battery storage projects is often shaped before formal engagement begins.

She noted that early signals, such as emotionally charged meetings or rapid misinformation, point to a lack of established trust. “Trust is built relationally, not procedurally,” she said.

Carpenter added that proactive, transparent engagement is essential to building trust and ensuring long-term project success.

Read the full article here.

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Evelyn Carpenter, President and CEO of Invera Energy

President & CEO

Evelyn Carpenter

Evelyn Carpenter is the founder, President and CEO of Invera Energy™. Ms. Carpenter is an entrepreneur and pioneer in the American renewable energy industry, having built a highly successful consulting company, Solas Energy®. Since 2009, Solas Energy has worked on over 100 GW of renewable energy and energy storage projects in the United States, delivering expert consulting, due diligence, and project and construction management services to project owners and operators. The consulting services model offers access to senior-level project development and project management expertise on an outsourced basis, allowing clients to scale their businesses, manage growth, and mitigate risk in the evolving American energy industry.

Invera Energy will carry that success forward, bringing proven expertise to new clients and markets through a broader service offering. Invera Energy’s focus will be on grid reliability, generation and storage deployment, and data center support.

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Vice President of Project & Construction Management

Felipe Uscátegui

Felipe brings over 40 years of energy industry experience to his leadership role. His experience includes construction planning, engineering, and project management for the development and execution of more than 4 GW of utility-scale wind, solar, energy storage, and biomass generation facilities. Felipe’s conventional generation experience encompasses oil, gas, and biomass-fired power plants, and EPC BOP execution of simple cycle and combined cycle gas turbine power plants. His responsibilities extend to EPC proposal estimates, contract negotiation, scheduling, direct and subcontracted labor management, procurement, and overall project management throughout North America. He also brings a strong background in global management to his role, and fluency in English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

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Senior Associate and Interim Director of Consulting Services

Terri Denning

Terri Denning is a Senior Associate and Interim Director of Consulting Services. She is an expert procurement, contracting and risk management specialist with over 26 years of financing, deal structuring, and business development expertise in the energy storage and renewable energy industry. Terri most recently ran the risk management and contracting department for a global battery energy storage manufacturer. Prior to that, she led business development and contracting for a wind turbine manufacturer where she managed turbine sales, contracting, business development, M&A negotiation and due diligence. Terri’s prior positions included commodity structuring, deal management, risk management, and project finance for gas fired co-generation plants for a global energy company.

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Business Development & Land Strategy Manager

Michelle Nicholson

Michelle Nicholson is an experienced land and stakeholder consultation specialist with a demonstrated history of success in the energy sector, overseeing land acquisition, stakeholder engagement, and community sentiment initiatives for over 5 GW of wind, solar, and energy storage projects. Her expertise encompasses environmental consulting, due diligence, land control, and title review. She has a particular interest in stakeholder management, analyzing and designing effective communication strategies to assist in the permitting of projects. Michelle also supports business development and client engagement to ensure successful project delivery.

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Director of Project Management

Melody-Ann Cote

Melody-Ann Cote has over 30 years of project and contract management experience, 15 of which have been focused on the delivery of renewable energy and energy storage construction projects. She is an expert project manager, overseeing owner’s obligations under construction agreements, supply agreements, financing agreements, interconnection, and power purchase agreements, regulatory permits, and land agreements. She has successfully managed construction for more than 2 GW of wind and solar (PV) energy and 3 GWh of utility-scale energy storage projects. Her expertise includes budget management, with experience managing over $5 billion in construction budgets to-date. Melody-Ann provides clients with independent engineering (IE) review process management and financial management review services to support project construction.

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Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Jami Wong

Jami Wong brings more than 25 years of experience in developing new market entry strategies, building brands, and leading sales and marketing efforts in multiple industries, including renewable energy, semiconductors, software, robotics, broadcast media, and consumer electronics. She is responsible for Invera Energy’s new market entry strategy as it leverages its renewable energy roots into energy storage, conventional generation, data centers, and high voltage work. Jami also provides key stakeholder and community-targeted communication strategies for Invera Energy clients. Jami holds an international MBA and is multi-lingual. She has supported organizations throughout North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australasia.

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