Mr. Ansari is has been a technical entrepreneur for over 20 years, and a strong and life-long proponent of solar energy. While in college he designed and built a small concentrated solar powered micro-turbine generator to drive a solar reverse osmosis water desalination unit for use in remote areas. His focus then, which he still retains, was to address the two main problems that still face the world today: Clean Energy and access to clean drinking water.
Since that time Mr. Ansari has founded over a dozen successful companies in renewable energy, aerospace, alternative transportation, engineering and manufacturing, and global retail. He has led the development and commercialization of over 20 technical products in the clean tech and aerospace markets.
Mr. Ansari is currently the Founder and CEO of Suntrough Energy, Inc. a Chatsworth, California based solar energy Technology Company whose primary focus is nothing short of creating a paradigm shift in the way solar energy is deployed around the world. The company is founded on the fundamental premise that a sustainable renewable energy future for the world is rooted in the ability to deliver economics that are competitive with fossil fuels without government subsidies, rebates or feed-in tariffs. The company is commercializing two entirely new product classes in concentrated solar power including the fully-packaged 5 MW “plug & play” CSP power plant with combined distributed power generation and water desalination as well as a fully-packaged solar combined-cycle hybrid power plant. Domestically the company is currently developing a 100 MW portfolio of solar generating solar assets to build, own and operate in California. Internationally, it has over a 500 MW project pipeline in 12 countries spanning North Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. Mr. Ansari has built a world-class technology and project development teams. And he signed joint development agreements in India, Algeria, Tunisia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Ansari has closed a $125M transaction with an equity firm for a majority equity stake in the company.
Mr. Ansari was also the Founding CEO of eSolar Inc, a Pasadena, California based company considered as the world leader in solar thermal technologies, and often described as the “Google of Clean-Tech”. Under Mr. Ansari’s leadership, in just two short the company grew from a 4 person startup with under $900k of initial capitalization into the undisputed global leader in CSP with one of the most well-respected solar technology and project development 150 people strong teams in the industry. Mr. Ansari successfully raised $170 Million in equity from Google, Oak Venture Partners and NRG. The company delivered its first commercial demonstration power plant based on its ground-breaking new small heliostat platform architecture in August 2009. This is the only operating central solar power tower power plant in the United States. During this period Mr. Ansari oversaw the successful development and sale to NRG of a 550 MW domestic project pipeline, including negotiating and signing
PPA’s with Edison, PG&E and El Paso Electric. Purchased, developed, and permitted over 5000 acres of California solar sites, negotiated long term turbine supply contract with major equipment suppliers like Siemens, GE and other EPC contractors for its global business. Mr. Ansari also signed a 1 GW contract in India and today the company’s probability adjusted project pipeline of the company has grown to $9.5 Billion spread out over 14 countries, including a 2 GW contract in China. Apart from leading the major core technology development efforts Mr. Ansari championed a separate R&D division with the mandate to develop next generation technologies including high temperature Air-Brayton Engine solar technologies, high temperature chemical reactors for solar fuel synthesis based on the RED-OX chemistry with CO2 and Biomass feedstock’s.
Prior to this Mr. Ansari was the Founder and CEO of Omni Systems, a California based aerospace company where he led the successful design and development of NASA’s Lunar Prospector Spacecraft, a lunar resource mapping mission that was successfully launched in 1998. Mr. Ansari also led the successful development of several new short range tactical missile technologies including low cost G&C systems and propulsion systems.
He was also the primary investor, Founder and COO of Tesla Technologies one of the world’s leading manufacturers of compressed natural gas (CNG) products in the world. The company was founded just 18 years ago with three employees and is now the world’s largest manufacturer of Commercial-fueling station CNG dispensers in the world along with a full range of CNG products including compressors, station controls, automotive CNG conversion kits etc. The company has organically grown with zero debt and no outside equity investors delivering a 50% year on year revenue growth over the last 10 years to over $100 M in annual revenue. The company has been successfully operating since 1992.
Mr. Ansari was also Co-Founder of O’Green Compressor, an Oregon based company which pioneered the hydraulic compression technology for hydrogen and natural gas compression. The company developed the first commercial 300 CFM high pressure CNG/Hydrogen compressor and a 1.5 CFM compact home CNG compressor. He also was a Co-Founder of Eco-Fueler, another Oregon based company that has built small CNG based cars on a 3 wheel platform delivering 70 mpg. Mr. Ansari was also the Co-Founder and Principal of Broadman Communications Corporation, based in Dubai, a leading satellite equipment manufacturer and supplier servicing the entire Middle East. The company has been successfully operating since 1991.
Mr. Ansari’s entrepreneurial flair extends to non-technical ventures. He was the Co-Founder of a clothing designer label, as well as franchised restaurant chain, California Fresh, with multiple locations in Southern California and Melbourne, Australia. Mr. Ansari has also spent three years as the EVP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Energy Innovations where he led the engineering development of several CPV products including the conchoids-based concentrated PV product as well high concentration Gallium Arsenide based triple junction cell architectures. Mr. Ansari oversaw the production and manufacturing in China of all three different CPV products and negotiated long-term supply contracts with Spectrolab. Mr Ansari also spent seven years as a Project Manager at Hughes Aircraft Company in Spacecraft systems engineering. Mr. Ansari has a wide-ranging engineering and research background with several landmark publications in the field of heat transfer.
Mr. Ansari holds a BEME from NED University of Engineering & Technology in Karachi, Pakistan and an MSME from the University of Minnesota.
