Zelestra's global development team - Shaping the Future

Zelestra’s Development Team

At Zelestra, development sits at the heart of our mission: to make decarbonization a reality for our partners. As energy markets continually evolve, our global development teams are advancing projects that allow us to deliver integrated solutions across solar, wind, and energy storage, with a focus on ensuring we have the options needed to meet the demands of our customers.

In this edition of Shaping the Future, we highlight how our development teams are driving innovation across technologies and regions, combining global expertise with local execution to accelerate the energy transition.

In conversation with Jaime Burguete CEO of Spain & Chief Global Development Officer, Zelestra

We spoke with Jaime Burguete to understand how Zelestra is shaping its global development strategy in a fast-changing energy landscape.

Could you explain what development means in the renewables and what it involves?

In renewables, development is the process of transforming opportunities into ready-to-build projects. It includes site identification, permitting, grid access, engineering, and commercial structuring.

At Zelestra, development is driven by our customers. We design integrated energy solutions combining solar, wind, and storage that are tailored to each client’s needs and enable long-term decarbonization.

Where are we today in terms of our development pipeline?

We have built a strong, global pipeline of over 33 GW across our key markets in Europe and the U.S. This diversified pipeline reflects our evolution into a multi-technology platform, with solar, wind, and storage at its core. It means we have options available to meet any complex challenges that customers present to us.

What are the key questions or priorities currently shaping our development strategy?

Our strategy is focused on three priorities.

First, delivering customer-centric solutions that respond to increasingly complex energy needs. Second, advancing hybrid and multi-technology projects to provide more reliable and flexible renewable energy. And third, scaling our pipeline in high-growth markets while maintaining strong execution and long-term value creation.

Development in Action

As we identify projects and start to being them to life, we understand the importance of building strong relationships with communities and stakeholders - and we make a commitment to ensuring our projects deliver a social dividend. Scarlett Alvarez Uzcategui , Chief Stakeholder & Sustainability Officer at Zelestra, oversees our work in this area.

In this video, Scarlett highlights how stakeholder engagement and building positive relationships are embedded from the earliest stages of development ensuring our projects not only meet customer needs, but also create lasting value locally.

Spotlight: U.S. Development

In conversation with Emily Burks , Chief Development Officer, U.S.

As the U.S. energy market continues to grow, we spoke with Emily Burks about the opportunities shaping renewable development and Zelestra’s role in this evolving landscape.

What are the biggest opportunities right now for renewable energy development in the U.S.?

The single biggest opportunity is powering the AI revolution and Zelestra is uniquely positioned to lead it. AI is fundamentally reshaping U.S. energy demand, with data centers now accounting for roughly half of all new electricity consumption growth in the country a trend that shows no signs of slowing. This is playing out across the entire U.S., but perhaps nowhere more visibly than Texas, where ERCOT expects demand to surge by 25-30 GWs by 2030, driven overwhelmingly by data centers and industrial users and the large-load interconnection queue has nearly quadrupled in just the past year. Across all of our markets, the story is the same: hyperscale tech customers require large-scale, reliable clean energy solar, wind, and storage working together and they need partners who can deliver at scale. With Zelestra's diversified portfolio spanning multiple U.S. markets and a full suite of renewable technologies, we are positioned at the center of what may be the most significant build-out in the history of the U.S. power sector.

How does Zelestra ensure projects move forward efficiently while prioritizing communities and environmental stewardship?

Responsible development is at the core of everything we do. From the earliest stages of a project, Zelestra works closely with local stakeholders to ensure that community and environmental considerations aren't an afterthought they're built into how we develop. A great example of this philosophy in action is our Reclamation solar project, a 200 MW facility that will be built on a former coal mine. Rather than leaving that land idle, we're transforming it into a clean energy asset that brings meaningful tax benefits and good paying jobs to the community.  It's a powerful illustration of what responsible renewable development can look like revitalizing land, supporting local economies, and advancing the clean energy transition all at once. This is the standard we hold ourselves to across every market we operate in.  

How is battery storage shaping the next phase of renewable development in the U.S.?

Battery storage has moved from a nice-to-have to an essential component of modern renewable development and at Zelestra, it's making up a growing share of our portfolio. The reasons are compelling: BESS enhances grid stability, allows clean energy to be dispatched when and where it's needed most, and makes renewable projects significantly more reliable and competitive. For hyperscale data center customers in particular, storage is often the difference between a project that meets their 24/7 power requirements and one that doesn't. Beyond the technical benefits, the economics are increasingly favorable the Investment Tax Credit runway for battery storage gives us a real opportunity to continue driving down costs and improving project returns over time. As AI-driven demand continues to reshape the U.S. power sector, BESS is becoming one of the most critical tools we have to deliver the kind of firm, flexible clean energy that the market is demanding and Zelestra is leaning into that opportunity in a meaningful way. 

Looking ahead, what excites you most about Zelestra’s role in the U.S. energy transition?

What excites me most is the convergence of opportunity and capability and I mean that in every sense. The market need is undeniable: AI-driven demand is reshaping the U.S. power sector at a pace we've never seen before, and the need for large-scale, reliable clean energy has never been greater. But what truly sets Zelestra apart is our people. We've tripled our headcount in under a year, with roughly 70% of new hires coming through internal referrals a testament to the culture we're building and the caliber of talent we're attracting. These are experienced professionals who want to move fast, execute at scale, and be part of something meaningful. It's what makes us one of the fastest growing clean energy players in the U.S. and more importantly, it's what will keep us there. Combined with a growing pipeline and an integrated portfolio spanning solar, wind, and storage across multiple U.S. markets, I'm incredibly optimistic about what Zelestra will deliver in the years ahead.

Zelestra’s strength lies in its ability to combine multiple technologies to deliver optimized solutions tailored to each market and client need. By integrating solar, wind, and battery storage, we enhance performance, improve reliability, and maximize long-term value. Additionally, Zelestra recognizes the significance of leveraging all technologies, such as AI into its business to help it keep its competitive advantage.

Gavin Berg , Global Head of Pipeline Development & Wind, highlights the importance of wind and AI within Zelestra’s multi-technology strategy:

What are Zelestra’s main strengths in the wind sector?

Zelestra is a customer-first energy player. This means deeply understanding the needs of a customer, then designing a solution that will work for them. Wind power adds a layer of flexibility to these potential solutions when coupled with other clean energy technologies.

Across the global team we have decades of experience in developing wind projects, in multiple markets around the world. It is a tried and tested and reliable technology. Last year our team closed major projects and supply deals for wind power in India, and we are advancing projects in the U.S., Germany and Spain to match with the needs of our existing clients and potential clients in these markets.

Zelestra is embracing AI to drive innovation across its business areas. You are at the forefront of the Zelo project - tell us more about it.  

Zelo is our in-house conversational AI agent, built by our Digital Hub team to transform how we access and use data across Zelestra.

Instead of navigating dashboards or digging through layers of information, teams can simply ask questions in natural language and get instant, precise answers on any project or construction data.

Zelo connects directly to our core databases, acting as a single source of truth for our entire global pipeline. It brings together the information every team needs, across functions and across markets, into one intuitive interface.

It is designed to help teams across Zelestra make more informed decisions, beyond just speed and convenience. By reducing internal data requests and standardising how information is accessed, Zelo helps ensure our data is complete, consistent, and reliable across the business.

How different is the environment for developing renewables projects today compared to when you started in the industry?  

Like many of the team in Zelestra's development department, we have been bringing renewables projects to fruition for decades. Of course each market has its own processes and regulations to consider, but generally today with the advancement of hybrid projects and matching generation close to large sources of new demand, such as data centers, project development has evolved. The ability to match multi-technology generation sources and project locations with customer needs is a major advantage.

Community relations and stakeholder engagement is also much more advanced today. We are proud to partner with communities as a good neighbour for decades ahead, and programmes like Zelestra's 3 E's, built around the three pillars of Education, Energy, and Environment, help us to deliver a social dividend related to our projects that benefit communities and leave a lasting positive impact in the areas that we are working in.