Green Powered Technology (GPTech) is pleased to announce our new Director of Sustainable Energy, Douglas Hinrichs. Douglas will also serve as a member of the company’s senior leadership team. Douglas has more than 20 years of experience working at the sustainable energy, economic growth, environmental protection, and climate change nexus to affect positive change. He has provided team leadership, strategic direction, program design and management, budget and workplan development, technology characterization, and project financing for international, national, and local government clients.
Before joining GPTech, Douglas served as Team Leader for international clean energy programs in South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe for the US Agency for International Development, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Millennium Challenge Corporation; and US Trade and Development Agency. In addition, he conducted business development capture in Southeast Asia and Latin America-Caribbean and developed utility-scale solar and wind projects for the US Department of Army. Mr. Hinrichs was most recently a team leader for the Nepal Renewable Energy Programme, for which he developed the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution’s decarbonization strategy, presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Council on Parties (COP) 26 in Glasgow, Scotland. He also directed the assessment of more than 100 distributed renewable energy projects that were eligible for needs-based financial assistance to make them more attractive to private sector investors and lenders.
In addition, Douglas has provided technical and marketing support to the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency on distributed renewable energy, combined heat and power, and district heating and cooling. Mr. Hinrichs also served as Maryland’s Solar Program Manager, a role in which he authored the ground-breaking A Guidebook to Net Metering in Maryland in collaboration with the Maryland Public Service Commission, electric utilities, and the solar industry; implemented strategic growth policies that resulted in the increase of installed solar capacity from 40 MW to over 300 MW; and created the Game Changer Energy Innovation Grant Program to help the private sector buy down cost premiums, including America’s first solar/storage microgrid. Douglas also developed the Kaua`i Energy Sustainability Plan for the County of Kaua`i, Hawai`i.
Douglas received his bachelor’s degree in pre-medicine biology major/psychology minor and his master’s in environmental studies/alternative energy from the University of Illinois. Douglas also obtained renewable energy credits certification from the American Council on Renewable Energy and holds a Program Management Professional (PMP) license in development PRO 1 from the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.
