About Carina Energy | BESS Owner's Representative

The BESS’ Owner Representative

We bridge the gap between investment capital and technical reality. Carina acts as your internal execution engine, ensuring projects are permitted, bankable, and ready to build.

A 360-DEGREE VIEW OF ENERGY STORAGE

Carina Capital Partners is named after the first utility-scale Lithium-Ion project in the US, a project our Principal delivered over a decade ago. But that foundation is just one part of the equation.

Since that pioneering deployment, our leadership has operated from every critical angle of the energy storage value chain:

As the Developer: Leading storage execution for major Independent Power Producers (IPPs), managing multi-gigawatt portfolios from concept to Notice to Proceed.
As the OEM: Bridging the gap between rigid product capabilities and site-specific permitting constraints to design procurement strategies that actually get built.
As the Market Operator: Writing the capacity accreditation rules and performance metrics, including frequency regulation standards, that define how BESS assets are valued in the wholesale market.

We founded Carina to integrate these disconnected perspectives. We built an execution engine that aligns the technical reality of the OEM, the commercial rules of the Operator, and the risk requirements of the Developer.

LEADERSHIP BIO

Malaquias Encarnacion, Managing Principal

A 25-year veteran of the energy sector, Malaquias is a pioneer of the modern energy storage industry. He personally led the development and construction of the first utility-scale lithium-ion projects in the United States as a founding member of the AES/Fluence team. This includes the market-defining “Carina” project—the namesake and inspiration for this firm.

Following his foundational work in BESS deployment, Malaquias held senior development and strategy roles for industry leaders including Qcells and Alliant Energy. Uniquely, his background includes serving as a Market Operator, where he authored the official software for capacity accreditation and defined performance metrics still used to value assets today.

Over the last decade, Malaquias has increasingly specialized in the digitalization of project development specifically for energy storage, transforming manual “ground game” workflows into institutional-grade data systems. He has led high-impact initiatives to digitalize development frameworks and land entitlement processes for major organizations including EDF Renewables, Leeward Renewable Energy, and TRC Companies.

Malaquias offers a rare, 360-degree perspective on the storage value chain, having held leadership roles across market operators, OEMs, utilities, and independent power producers (IPPs). His work in advancing grid-scale storage has been featured by multiple PJM publications, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Discovery Channel, among other major news outlets.

He established Carina to bring this institutional rigor to a broader market, serving as the “Technical Conscience” for developers and investors who require absolute schedule integrity and risk mitigation in an increasingly complex grid environment.

Malaquias holds an Executive Certification in Strategy and Innovation from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a dual degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.

Read the Fluence Retrospective” “Lessons Learned in 10 Years of Storage”

ADVISORY BOARD

Mark Osterholt, P.E., Senior Development Advisor

A power industry executive with over 30 years of experience, Mark brings deep operational and development rigor to the Carina Advisory Board. His career spans the full spectrum of power generation—from troubleshooting heavy thermal infrastructure to leading massive renewable portfolios across the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC).

Most recently, Mark served as Senior Director of Project Development for Leeward Renewable Energy, where he led a team managing a >5GW pipeline of utility-scale solar and storage projects. His hands-on leadership was instrumental in the successful permitting and development of three Kern County solar-plus-storage projects totaling 274 MW, alongside a 126 MW standalone BESS facility. Prior to Leeward, Mark served as Director of Project Development and Asset Management at First Solar, where he held P&L responsibility for a 1.4 GW portfolio and directed 3rd-party EPC solicitations and construction management.

As a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) and Licensed Real Estate Broker, Mark ensures that Carina’s development strategies are not just commercially viable, but physically constructible and operationally sound. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from California State University-Sacramento and an MBA from St. Mary’s College of California.

Wes Kennedy, BESS Technology Advisor

With a career spanning three decades, Wes Kennedy is a preeminent authority on energy storage integration and technical validation. As a BESS Engineering specialist, Wes provides the “Expert Overlay” that ensures technology selection is perfectly aligned with both project-specific Single Line Diagrams (SLDs) and rigorous OEM performance requirements.

Wes currently manages technical deployments for Hanwha Qcells, where he serves as a primary technical lead for BESS specification and order verification. In this capacity, he performs forensic reviews of electrical designs to ensure that the physical hardware, software features, and protection settings are in strict compliance with the project’s Design Basis. This technical oversight is critical for mitigating procurement risk and ensuring seamless commissioning for utility-scale and middle-market assets.

A true pioneer in the sector, Wes co-founded Namasté Solar and has held senior subject matter expert (SME) roles at industry leaders including SMA America, Blue Planet Energy, and Dynapower. His experience ranges from remote solar-plus-diesel industrial microgrids to large-scale DC-coupled storage projects.

Beyond his technical practice, Wes is a dedicated industry educator; his “Comprehensive Solar plus Storage” course has trained hundreds of professionals on the complexities of grid-edge technology. Wes brings this career-long commitment to technical precision to the Carina Advisory Board, ensuring our clients’ projects are built on a foundation of “Data Truth.

Jerry Martinez, P.E., Senior Transmission Advisor

An electrical power professional with over 25 years of experience across the utility and renewable energy sectors, Jerry brings unparalleled technical depth in grid interconnection and system reliability to the Carina Advisory Board. His expertise lies at the critical intersection of power system physics and commercial development, ensuring that project interconnection strategies are both technically sound and risk-mitigated.

Jerry currently serves as a Generation Interconnection Manager for a global renewable energy developer, where he manages the full lifecycle of grid applications across PJM, SPP, SERC, and other major RTOs. His career includes senior roles at GE’s Energy Consulting group and Siemens PTI, where he led sophisticated transmission studies and power system modeling.

During his tenure at GE, Jerry was instrumental in leading the study teams that specified control modifications for major wind assets, successfully lifting permanent curtailments and optimizing plant performance.

Jerry holds a Master of Science in Electrical Power Engineering from the University of Manchester (UK) and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. As a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the State of New York, Jerry provides Carina’s clients with the “Expert Overlay” required to navigate complex ISO tariffs, manage queue positions, and mitigate the transmission cost liabilities that often stall utility-scale storage projects.

Your Utility-Scale BESS
Strategy. Realized

We provide the execution muscle for your energy storage portfolio. By combining local land agents and consultants with elite national fire and BESS engineers, Carina Energy eliminates the friction of development. We handle the risks, the permits, and the schedule, so you can focus on the capital

The BESS Development Lifecycle

Whether you need a full Development PMO or a targeted specific solution, we plug into your organization to provide immediate technical discipline

GREENFIELD ORIGINATION

Technical Feasibility & Fatal Flaw

Owner’s Representative

Managed Project Controls

Tier 1 BESS Expertise

We bring the operating rigor of global energy leaders to your project. Methods forged by deploying gigawatts, not just megawatts.

Strategic Execution Across Key Sectors

Energy storage is not a commodity; it is a strategic asset with distinct drivers for different owners. Whether you are a Merchant Developer chasing speed or a Data Center demanding reliability, we adapt the Carina Operating System to the specific commercial goals of your capital.

RENEWABLE DEVELOPERS

DATA CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE

Capital & Infra Funds

The Carina Rules

READ OUR INSIGHTS

Close The Execution Gap

Partner with Carina to bring discipline and technical rigor to your development pipeline