We are building Camion because right now is a generational opportunity to redefine energy access. Mobility, automation, heat, and intelligence are electrifying, driving more concentrated energy demand to industrial and logistics sites. This demand is not easily met. Meeting it requires taking a long-term view on electrification and, more broadly, on technology.
In our conversations with high-powered tenants, a key barrier to electrification is a failure to invest in energy infrastructure on their properties. We’ve heard stories of concerns about installing solar on their roofs or batteries in the yard, or even to site a substation that would allow for a larger grid connection for fleet electrification.
A facility’s energy demand is not a risk dissimilar to that of occupancy more broadly—but in order to underwrite the risk, the investor must be able to process and interpret data. Virtually every on-site solar and energy storage project is underwritten with an understanding of the occupier’s current and forecasted energy demand.
The ongoing management of the asset requires the ability to ingest data from assets and operators and ensure billing, reconciliation, and adherence to performance commitments are accurate with vendors who differ from market to market.
This is where Camion comes in.
"There is room for a new kind of operator, a new kind of asset manager. One that is driven by software, whose decisions are backed data. Most importantly, an operator who has the ambition and capacity to serve occupiers’ needs and support their energy transition."
There is room for a new kind of operator, a new kind of asset manager. One that is driven by software, whose decisions are backed data. Most importantly, an operator who has the ambition and capacity to serve occupiers’ needs and support their energy transition. This new kind of asset manager must be ready to invest alongside occupiers’ rapidly changing infrastructure plans.
In this new world, investing in real estate is no longer an isolated investment decision. It requires constant and informed monitoring and forecasting of data flowing from charging, storage, generation, building management systems (BMS), as well as exogenous data like traffic, real-time energy costs, electric vehicle penetration rates, grid constraints, and the cost of infrastructure —all of which are dynamic. Deploying this infrastructure should come as a welcome opportunity to deploy more capital into win-win projects for the property owner and the occupier.
Furthermore, this decision should be holistic. Replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump changes the economics of solar. A substation built by the utility half a mile away may fundamentally alter the potential for electrification—and thus the value—of a site. And when the lease expires, all that data may indicate that the building will be much more valuable to a different kind of tenant.
Fleets are electrifying, but the transition is not instant. Five vehicles this year, ten next, thirty the year after that. Capable asset managers must be able to not only respond to that need, but place a value on it and capitalize on it.
Today, a significant portion of an occupier’s energy is consumed in the form of fossil fuels. In time, most of an occupier’s energy will be electricity delivered through these sites. The operators who are ready to respond with decisions backed by data will have an opportunity to serve the occupiers’ entire energy demand.
This model isn’t based on novel ideas about virtual power plants, flexibility, or vehicle-to-grid pilots. Those will come, but they do not drive investment decisions today. Real estate is in a state of transition, to looking more like infrastructure. This is about real assets being underwritten and managed for their maximum value so that they can become grid assets. This is about enabling occupiers to secure power and electrify their operations, which will lead to decarbonization.
We write this at the intersection of two trends that will forever alter humanity. Industry is electrifying as the upfront cost of near zero-marginal cost power generation is plummeting. We can get this right, and we can deliver on the abundance that these two trends can produce.