Behind the scenes: What does scaling a renewable energy development portfolio look like on the people side

Scaling renewable energy isn’t just about projects—it’s about people. Here’s what we learned growing from 10 to 140+ projects in just 3 years.

Blog | Anna Idänheimo | 5.6.2025

When developers talk about scaling their portfolios, most conversations focus on financing, permitting, or project engineering milestones. And they should – those are massive efforts. But what’s often overlooked is the critical layer that makes growth sustainable: the people and infrastructure behind.

In just three years Korkia’s development portfolio has grown from under 10 to over 140 utility-scale renewable energy projects totaling over 20 GW, the equivalent of roughly 15-20 nuclear power plants. Here’s what our journey so far has looked like behind the scenes – where we made mistakes, got things right, and continue to learn.

It worked, until it didn’t

During 2022-2023 we had our eyes lazer-focused on one thing: ramping up in volume. And in that, we succeeded. Opening 2-3 new markets per year meant busy times on the road, building a strong global network, and finding partners we trust to share our ambition and values. We created a scalable business model that enables light and rapid deal execution, supports local entrepreneurial drive, and ensures high alignment on interests to maximize asset quality and low failure rates.

However, we soon found out that managing an investment portfolio of 10 projects in 2 countries is quite a different game than managing over 140 projects with 14 partners in 8 countries (who would have thought?). While this was self-evident, it still took us a good minute to take action – a common dilemma in scale-ups, where there’s a constant need to analyze and reprioritize how to allocate the scarce resources of time and money.

Speed requires structure – but structure mustn’t slow us down

As investments multiplied across geographies, it became clear we needed to rethink our decision-making, tools, and organizational structure to keep up with the speed without compromising quality.

Scaling isn’t just about adding people, but distributing authority, clarifying ownership, and making sure we are using the right tools to ensure efficiency and quality.

Here’s our five tips on where to focus:

1. Know your What, Why and How.

Sit down and clarify the strategy and business model. Then communicate it – over and over again.

2. Every hire is a key hire.

When hiring, focus on the person more than their experience. As the business evolves, it’s essential to have bright, motivated, and adaptive minds onboard.

3. Don’t aim for perfect when your goal is a moving target.

Accept that organizational and process design is an iterative process (some of our organizational charts lasted only 6 months).

4. Identify and focus on what truly adds value to your people.

Whether it’s identifying key processes that easily become bottlenecks, adopting new tools (including AI), or evolving ways of working, all development efforts should bring tangible value that can be felt in the day-to-day.

5. Know when to use partners, and choose them wisely.

Not all competences are worth having in-house when balancing growth and fixed costs.

For us to manage and make good investment decisions we must understand incredibly complex business landscapes across multiple markets. Developing an industrial-scale renewable energy project in any single jurisdiction is complex. Technical and commercial plant design aside, each market has their own energy ecosystem, political agenda, decision makers, permitting authorities, and culture impacting land use. Multiplying this by 8 countries and adding the volatile global economy and investment landscape, 14 partners, and hundreds of projects to the mix makes it quite a massive system to lead.

Understanding this complexity and recognizing what to improve and how is the key question. Our agile approach allows us to tackle similar complex challenges across all our markets, recognize patterns, learn fast, distribute best practices, and develop capabilities and tools that serve us globally.

The secret sauce of successful scaling lies within culture

From a people point of view, we have learnt that industry experience is not the same as fit. The renewable energy sector is a demanding environment, as is working in a high-growth company. Delivering clarity under pressure —and with a moving target —must be part of every Korkia team member’s basic toolset.

In a small team, everything is personal. For better, and for worse. Fostering a culture where it’s ok to make mistakes or voice concerns is essential. It helps us understand what’s working and what’s not. To keep evolving how we think and work, both on the individual and organizational levels, we must maintain hunger and not let the speed of learning slow down.

The next 5 GW will demand even more from how we think, structure our work, hire, and lead. That’s what we are building for now.

WRITER