Discover: Renewable Energy Site Intelligence
Accelerating renewable energy development by transforming complex site evaluation into a collaborative, data-driven product experience.
Designed and led the experience strategy for Discover, an AI-enabled geospatial platform that transformed how renewable energy developers identify and evaluate potential project sites. Through customer research, workflow analysis, and cross-functional collaboration, we unified fragmented GIS, engineering, environmental, and permitting workflows into a single experience that helps teams identify fatal flaws earlier, reduce development risk, and accelerate project delivery.
My Role
Business Impact
Reduced Development Risk
Identified fatal flaws before significant engineering and permitting investment.
Accelerated Site Evaluation
Replaced fragmented GIS workflows with a unified digital experience.
Improved Development Efficiency
Standardized project screening across renewable energy teams.
Better Investment Decisions
Enabled teams to prioritize higher-probability renewable energy opportunities earlier in the development lifecycle.
Challenge
Renewable energy development begins with identifying sites that can successfully support solar, wind, or battery projects. Before Discover, developers relied on disconnected GIS tools, engineering studies, environmental reviews, permitting documentation, spreadsheets, and manual coordination across multiple teams. Critical project risks were often discovered late, resulting in wasted engineering effort, unnecessary consulting costs, and slower project delivery.
Solution
We designed Discover as a centralized geospatial decision platform that unified site discovery, project screening, and cross-functional collaboration into a single experience. Standardized workflows enabled developers to identify fatal flaws earlier, coordinate engineering and environmental reviews, and prioritize high-value renewable energy opportunities before significant development investment.
Design Process
- 1
Discovery
Partnered with renewable energy developers and business stakeholders to understand how projects were evaluated, prioritized, and approved across multiple teams.
- 2
Customer Research
Interviewed developers, GIS analysts, environmental specialists, engineers, and permitting teams to uncover pain points, workflow gaps, and collaboration challenges.
- 3
Experience Strategy
Defined a unified product vision that combined geospatial intelligence, project evaluation, and cross-functional collaboration into a single scalable platform.
- 4
Rapid Prototyping
Created interactive prototypes and validated concepts with users throughout development, allowing critical decisions to be made before engineering implementation.
- 5
Validation & Iteration
Refined workflows through continuous customer feedback, improving usability, consistency, and confidence in project evaluation.
Design highlights
AI-Powered Site Discovery
Designed intuitive map-based experiences that enabled developers to rapidly identify promising renewable energy opportunities while visualizing environmental, transmission, and land-use constraints.
Standardized Project Screening
Created consistent workflows that guided teams through project evaluation, improving decision quality while reducing variation across development efforts.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Designed collaborative experiences that connected developers, engineers, GIS specialists, environmental experts, and permitting teams within a shared workflow.
Data-Driven Development Decisions
Integrated geospatial analysis, project data, and environmental intelligence into a unified experience that helped teams prioritize the highest-value renewable energy opportunities.
My Role
Leadership Contributions
Experience Strategy
Defined the long-term product vision by aligning user needs, business objectives, and technical capabilities across multiple stakeholder groups.
Customer Research & Validation
Led research activities that uncovered workflow challenges and translated customer insights into actionable product decisions.
Enterprise UX Architecture
Designed scalable interaction patterns and information architecture that supported future platform growth and product consistency.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Partnered closely with Product, Engineering, GIS specialists, and business stakeholders to align priorities and drive successful delivery.
Key Results
Reduced Early-Stage Development Risk
Identified fatal project constraints before engineering, permitting, and consulting investments began.
Accelerated Site Screening
Reduced evaluation time by replacing fragmented manual GIS workflows with a unified digital experience.
Improved Capital Allocation
Focused engineering and development resources on higher-probability renewable energy opportunities.
Higher Quality Development Pipeline
Improved confidence that projects entering development met environmental, permitting, and strategic criteria.
Reflection
Discover demonstrated how thoughtful experience strategy can improve both user outcomes and business performance. By bringing together complex geospatial analysis, standardized evaluation workflows, and cross-functional collaboration into a unified platform, we enabled renewable energy teams to make faster, more confident development decisions while supporting NextEra's mission to accelerate clean energy deployment.