Nick Centera (00:00)
Is there an art to ultimately telling the story that you tell?
Sylvia Martinez (00:02)
It's a bit of both.
So there are very clear frameworks on how to tell a story. There are definitely ways to showcase data that are better than others.
Nick Centera (00:13)
What are some of the common mistakes people are making when they communicate data
Sylvia Martinez (00:18)
trying to present everything in a single chart,
So the data is definitely one part and is the foundation of the analysis, but then the direction and for me to understand what is more interesting or more relevant for the market is when these conversations come in.
Nick Centera (00:47)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Renewable Storytellers podcast. I'm really excited for today's guest. We have Sylvia Leyva Martinez here and she brings an incredible amount of knowledge and experience. Sylvia is a principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, which you may know is a provider of data and analysis for the energy and other sectors in the world. You can see Sylvia offering many of those critical reports. We all, the industry holds super dear.
She's an expert when it comes to the utility scale market in particular, and the research analysis she leads provides the foundation that helps inform strategic decisions that stakeholders make every day. Oh, and did I mention that she's also fluent in three languages, Spanish, English, and French? Sylvia, I'm really excited to have you here.
Sylvia Martinez (01:31)
Thank you so, much for having me, Nick. It's gonna be a very interesting conversation.
Nick Centera (01:35)
You know, right off the bat, something I was thinking about as we were prepping is, you know, there's a lot of almost implied pressure for you, I would think, when everyone in the industry is making decisions based on your analysis. know, essentially, you know, people are kind of choosing to invest or not invest or just make these big decisions and all because of you. I'm kind of curious, how do you kind of manage that feeling right off the bat?
Sylvia Martinez (02:02)
Like I provide insights from the information that I have available from my team that I have available from industry conversations. So it's not just Sylvia saying that the market is going to grow a certain rate of like, just evaluating like, I don't know, using like SCAR data points, I tried to convey insights based on many data points, as much information as much conversations I can have. So
I think that helps with that pressure because it's not only me saying it or Wood-Max saying it, it's this collection of data points that I can gather quarter over quarter.
Nick Centera (02:38)
Yeah. And we're going to get into that kind of, you know, going from nothing to something, but I think just kind of getting into the idea of, of crafting a narrative, with data. And really, I think the premise of this episode is, is really, how do you tell a story with data? The core question, you know, when you are looking at, say, raw data, how do you go about beginning to craft that story from the ground up?
Sylvia Martinez (03:03)
Raw data, actually, I would say like it's a very starting point. First, I get all these different data, let's say projects. For example, the baseline for my analysis is project level data. There are more than 10,000 projects in the Woodfack database. So imagine how it is to manage all that information. But it's not interesting to see project by project. I need to analyze trends. I need to check patterns. So, okay, how can I translate the data from this?
10,000 projects to something that is more meaningful. So let's say, what are people interested in? I need to have that question in my mind time and time again. is people or developers or banks or government, are they interested in seeing how much a single project was delayed? Not necessarily. They're more interested to see trends in different markets, in different states. So for example, like
Project Delay Analysis. This is a conversation that I have had over the past few months. So I tried to get the information from the database that gives me the insight on how project delay trends are evolving in different states or even different independent system operators, ISOs. So that is the first thing, like thinking about what questions I want people.
or people are asking and that I should be trying to find the answer to and see what information I can get from the data. Intertwined to this, and I already touched on this, is the conversations that I have with the industry. So the data is definitely one part and is the foundation of the analysis, but then the direction and for me to understand what is more interesting or more relevant for the market is when these conversations come in.
So maybe I read in the news I saw from some other source from a webinar that there are issues with, let's say the most relevant one or one of the most relevant ones in recent times is transformers, transformer availability, high voltage equipment availability. So it's just like that conversation or that very first piece of information that is guiding me to know what I need to be asking other people. So I have data.
I have other sources like news that is these these news are are available to everyone. We all read, you know, the typical ones, PBMag, PbTech, all of those in the solar space. And then that helped me inform my conversations to have something a bit more interesting to ask.
Nick Centera (05:33)
You all don't have necessarily access to anything super secret, right? mean, a lot of what you're pulling from is industry available data for the most part. Maybe you're gathering it, but you don't have like the super secret newspaper that only Sylvia gets to read. And that informs what you ended up talking about, right? You're inferring things from data that's all around the industry already.
Sylvia Martinez (05:53)
Exactly. for example, like let's say interconnection reform. It's a topic that can be quite complex. There are many news sources that have information about interconnection reform. Different firms have a different view on what is going to happen. the like collecting those views is the first step for my conversations. Right. And then I ask people like, hey, I've been hearing that this, this and this are going to be a direct effect of interconnection reform.
Do you think the same? Are you expecting something different? How is this affecting your development process? How is this affecting your contract negotiations? That is the part that is the most interesting for me because everyone can read the news, but not everyone can have access to people that are working on a daily basis on negotiating these projects and trying to get more solar in the ground.
Nick Centera (06:46)
It's kind like, where do you start from to ultimately tell the story that you end up telling?
Sylvia Martinez (06:51)
It
varies and I think it's an interactive process because I may read something, then I talk to a developer or to a financier and then they bring some other subject that I had not even thought about. And then like, it should be like, I started the conversation, the interconnection reform, but then they mentioned something about trade policy. And he like, I didn't think that trade policy was going to be such a relevant issue. I'll read more about it. I asked more people and the process repeats itself. So.
Part of the main analysis that I do or the main report that I do, I have a list of items that are affecting the industry. So it's not that I'm trying to tell a single story or a single issue that is affecting the market. I try to collect all the different elements or factors that could be reshaping utility scale solar in the way that we're currently seeing.
Nick Centera (07:44)
It's almost like, think of like a snowball where you start with a simple concept. Maybe you don't attend for it, but it kind of gets, up speed and kind of gets bigger and bigger. Right. How do you decide on finding that this telling that final story that you ultimately tell?
Sylvia Martinez (07:55)
I'm thinking of two items that I take into consideration. The first one is very simple and you share like volume of how many times has a specific topic been raised in a conversation because to me that's a direct relation with how relevant that topic is in the market. So it's pretty straightforward, nothing super fancy. The other.
element that I take into account is how much information I have available because obviously the qualitative part is interesting and it's helpful to inform the research, but as an analyst I need to combine these qualitative stuff with quantitative data. So if I have very limited information available at the time that I'm writing the report, maybe I put that idea into the parking lot and it's not going to be out for this particular report, I can include it.
at some other point in time, I can dedicate a full, like we call them insights. That is like a single report dedicated to one single topic that is relevant to the market. But maybe at that time I didn't have enough information or enough data to present something relevant and useful for clients. So yeah, so those are like the two ways that I think of right now that I can discern from all these different, very interesting trends in the market to things that are.
more, I don't know, like more specific and more relevant for that reporting particular that I'll be working on.
Nick Centera (09:24)
When you and I were discussing and prepping for this, something you had mentioned is you can't just rely upon quantitative data. have to have the conversations with people, You to almost kind of go out and get their feedback.
Sylvia Martinez (09:36)
think
a lot of people think of analysts, like you think of the word analyst and it's someone that is just in front of their screen. And when I think about my work, it's like, well, writing, it's maybe like 25%, crunching numbers, no, no, 20%. And then the rest is just talking to people. Like it can be internally, externally, just talking to people because as you mentioned, like the data only tells...
part of the story. And in particular for utility scale solar, the market is so dynamic and so complex in the sense that there are so many players, there's police involved, is supply chain issues involved, so many factors that when I just see the data, the data is not telling the whole story.
And part of that is also experience. I have seen that historically only 20 to 25 % of the total projects that are in the project pipeline, in the database that I was mentioning earlier in the podcast, only a small percentage of those are actually going to come online. So let's say we have 100 projects or 100 big ones that are announced that are going to come online this year.
I know that like it's for sure that that is not going to happen because there are not enough workers. There is not enough financing. There are not enough transformers. There are some issues with trade policy. Like there are all these other different factors that are going to prevent the industry to to reach like these levels of growth. But my conversations helped me determine if it's going to be half, is it going to be 10 percent?
is it going to be 20 %? That's where the conversations come in. Because they help me understand what are the factors that contribute to a winning project, that contribute to having a project delivered on time and on budget, and how easy or difficult it is for a developer to reach that level of competitiveness throughout the rest of the year and the following year.
Nick Centera (11:49)
curious, you you've been doing your work through your career and I'm just stepping back when you're just trying to tell a story, when you're trying to ask for something from a colleague or a manager or internally or even with your family or something like that, does how your job works change how you approach ultimately telling the story?
Sylvia Martinez (12:11)
yeah.
Like I can say the exact same story 10 different ways, 20 different ways. And the key thing is know your audience. Like I'm not going to talk the same way or convey the same data. I'm not going to present it the same way to my manager, to my manager's boss, to the CEO. It's the exact same thing when I present to clients. Like if I know that if it's a person that is familiar with the data.
that uses that data for their work. I know to some extent what they already know. I can refer to specific data sources. We can be more thorough or more detailed in the discussion that I have. But for example, when presenting to a CEO, to me the mindset is like, should be able to present everything that I need in a single slide. Or the least slides the better because a CEO is not going to be interested in how
long specific project was delayed. They are interested in how this affects their business. Like how is the industry changing that could affect the way they are doing business? What are others doing? And what actions they should be taking into account. So that message is going to be very different and I craft the story very differently compared to someone that is analyzing
project delays and they want to understand which markets are being more affected. Like the conversation is very different, even though I use the same data to present different insights. So the first thing when I do a presentation, when I reach out to someone, like internally, externally, or dimension with my family, okay, who's my audience? Like, I know if I tell my sister,
please pick me up at the airport. That's not gonna work. But if I tell her like, hey, I will be arriving to Monterey, my hometown, in two days, like, what should we do? I'll a plug and get her excited. And then like, oh, do you want me to pick you up from the airport? So it just like, again, it all summarizes to know your audience.
Nick Centera (14:19)
Your PowerPoint slides ready to go. We're to do all these fun things. No, but I'm curious. She says something that I want to kind of unpack and really the core of knowing your audience and how to present differently is I think imperative to just telling a story. It was kind of offhand, but you're talking to an executive or a business leader and you're going from probably a lot of information down to what is going to be one slide. I'm curious, like how do you almost get ruthless with information?
Sylvia Martinez (14:47)
I guess I tried to go all the way back to, I think everything myself, but it's like going back to those conversations and these questions that I tell myself all the time, like, what is interesting for the client? What is relevant for them? So acknowledging I have only so much time to work in a report because it takes time. So it's a matter of balance. Why should I prioritize?
writing about or reading more about. like those industry conversations help filter out the noise. And like I know that there are like these, all these topics that are interesting to write about. But again, I don't have unlimited time or limited resources. So I might as well focus on what is more relevant. And to be relevant is yeah, like what people are asking the most about.
Or, or again, like maybe they're not asking a lot about it, but I think that's something they should be knowing more about. And if I have information to showcase why it's relevant, then I'm going to add it to our report. I think that's also part of the experience. Like the more that I've been exposed to the industry, it helps to like, for me to identify like, if there are 20 items that are, that are in every developer's minds, maybe this time around I can focus on.
three or four and I have information to present about these four items. It's also related to that experience and knowing which are the potential questions that people are going to be asking about. yeah, combination of relevant or perceived relevance from the industry, information available, and the experience that I have gained throughout my years in the industry.
Nick Centera (16:35)
How often does communicating a simple story go well or not go well?
Sylvia Martinez (16:41)
I think usually it goes well. And to me, probably it's because of my line of work. If I do a presentation, there's always time for Q &A. Like we always have time to ask questions. So I don't feel really pressured about having to include everything or if I remove too much from a slider or presentation, because I'm going to have time at the end for people to ask questions. And if there is a topic that
I did research about but didn't make it to the presentation, then if it's really interesting for them and relevant for them, they're going to ask. So probably like it's a very easy way to avoid being in that situation. Like, you didn't talk about XYZ, but at least like that's how I see it in my, like in the type of work that I do, like every presentation, every webinar.
If there's something that is really pressing and that someone really wants to know about, they can ask, like they do Q &A during the session. They reach out, when it's a conference, they reach out to me. After the session, we exchange cards and they tell me that they want to ask more about a specific topic or they just reach out via LinkedIn, via email. So there are a lot of options to have these conversations.
Nick Centera (17:58)
You've told a lot of stories and I'm sure not every single one was a success or maybe hit the nail on the head, so to speak. What's that learning path been of getting to be able to say, hey, from my experience, I think we should do X, and Z.
Sylvia Martinez (18:13)
Yeah, that's it has been a really interesting process because I was actually when you were crafting this question, I was thinking when I first started my role as analyst, I remember very clearly in like, I don't know anyone in the industry. I'm not even a native English speaker and I covered US utility scale solar like what am I doing here? And I remember shadowing some of my some of my peers that
would go in these, in Whitman we call them channel checks, like these conversations. So they would invite me to their channel checks and I would shadow them. And I was just thinking like, how can they even think about all these questions? Like, how do they do it? So it was like a lot of pressure, like not knowing because you don't know what you don't know and you don't know what is a good question to ask. So how do you...
I don't know, like keep that conversation going and build that relationship with clients, with industry contacts in general. So to me, that learning curve, and it has taken years. It's just being more open. Actually, let me take a step back. You're like trying to first like read as much as possible and preparing as much as possible before I connect with people. Like I want to make sure that
If I ask a question, it's going to be relevant and I have something to show that, why is this question important? Like, it's because I read it somewhere. It's because someone else has asked about it. It's because something that we're seeing in the data. So just like set the relevance or set the foundation to make sure like, I'm asking this question because it's important. And I think more people should be talking about it. And that's why I'm including it in my reports.
So just being exposed to more primary research, connecting with more people that maybe have more experience than me. And then naturally, that exposure, reading more, knowing more about the market helps me create my own vision of what is important to us.
It's a lot of, I know that I'm saying a lot about like relevance and conversations, but that's because it's so important for my job to be able to do that. So it comes with talking with people. It comes with receiving feedback from whatever I'm presenting from customers internally from my team. So it's a combination of many different factors, but the most important thing is to be out there, be open.
be and I think like it's also mentalizing or preparing yourself to the fact that there are no dumb questions even though as an analyst you can feel that sometimes it can be the case.
Nick Centera (21:05)
I know sometimes it's hard to ask what might be an obvious question or what appears to be an obvious question. And sometimes the answers aren't always so obvious, right? But I can appreciate that. And I think the renewable industry doesn't, it's not kind to people who are newcomers because there's so many acronyms, you know, the alphabet soup, as they say, and there's just so many places to like learn. And I feel like every day it was like, what is, that's a new thing. I haven't heard that one. I was used to the other acronym and now there's another letter added.
getting exposure like that. it's funny, because I had worked with a couple of interns and I've had them join meetings. And sometimes they feel cruel because they're sitting on these meetings and they're just probably hearing words hit them, right? As I'm sure it's starting a mostly new role, but it's like, eventually that word will have meaning, you know? And eventually you're going to have to communicate that putting it all together, think, ultimately kind of creates a story. the story you're kind of weaving is
pulled apart as you're kind of employed. It comes from different sources until you build your own framework.
Sylvia Martinez (22:04)
Going back to what you were saying about interns in the meeting, that's also where you see there are no questions that you need to be brave enough to be asking those questions. If there was meaning, you didn't understand anything about it. You go and ask your manager or go ask someone else, like, hey, that's another conversation that is happening. So that's the only way we can all learn, right?
Nick Centera (22:28)
When you talk to somebody, it opens up a new door that you didn't anticipate or potential news outcome or solution that you didn't anticipate. I think that's just such a big part of telling a story that's effective.
Sylvia Martinez (22:40)
Yes. And I think maybe marketing and research are not so different because when I'm developing a new report, let's say like, think there is this report that is going to be super, super helpful for everyone. But then I actually reach out to like good industry contacts that I've had a long relationship with. asked them like, Hey, I've been thinking about doing this report. Would that be useful for you? Like, is it really that interesting or is it just my analyst?
brain saying that it's going to be something interesting. those conversations really helped too. But I'm just going to talk about something really specific that maybe is not interesting. And then in the business, it translates as not having any commercial value. So we're all working for different companies. the point is not only like doing research that is of good quality, that is helpful for clients, but also that has some
commercial value, that's why people buy your product.
Nick Centera (23:42)
you go about again thinking of a story like how do I get someone to react when I think it's a value to them but they don't either they don't understand or not but how do you ultimately tell the story to influence somebody when they should pay attention when maybe they aren't at first?
Sylvia Martinez (23:57)
The first thing to consider is what are the things that that client is interested about? Like what is the value for them? And that is what starts the conversation. I try to find ways that I can give valuable insights about those core items that the client is interested in. There are so many different ways that different factors within Solar interact with each other.
that it's very easy to create this link. So for example, if they're worried right now about transformer availability, right? Like they're worried that they are not getting any transformers. What are other people doing? Blah, blah, blah. And I can start my conversation addressing that item. And then it's like, well, thinking about supply chain and procurement strategies, modules are also the things you should be paying attention to.
like there is these neutral policy ongoing and these issues that they're facing with transformers, probably are going to be affecting module availability for the next year or two. So finding that common ground between what is of importance for the client versus what I think it's like, they should also be thinking about that. To me, that is the strategy that usually works. And that helps because you're agreeing with them. Like you're not the worst thing that you could do.
is tell someone like, no, that is not important or no, you should be focusing on something else because that automatically shuts people down.
Nick Centera (25:25)
Something you had told me is like, do everything up into when you're working in WoodMack, you're doing everything except for the call to action, which is kind of like not in marketing. Like we were trying to, you know, tell the story and then get you to do something. So you're doing everything up into that point, but it's a unique kind of way to approach storytelling. How do you help somebody make a decision without actually making this decision for them?
Sylvia Martinez (25:48)
I don't see my role as like the objective is not to, like, at least not a call to action. To me, the role as a researcher is to show all the facts and then each, each client is going to make their own decision based on how they interpret the data. So I think in that side, it's, very different from other, other roles. For example, like I talk about.
where you can source solar panels from. Like you can import them, you can source them domestically now. But as I said, like different clients are going to interpret that same information very differently and their approach is going to be very different. I will let the clients make their own decision and influence their business in different ways.
Nick Centera (26:38)
Is there ever a temptation to be more direct?
Sylvia Martinez (26:40)
If it's in the data, it's in the data. I will say, it's part of being impartial. If the data says that there is a market that is growing, that there is more demand, it is what it is. I'm not going to be shifting the message. I'm just narrating what the data says. But if it's more on, let's say, deciding what is best, I think that's where the issue comes in.
anything that is a qualification, like what is best or worse or more dangerous or riskier. Who am I to say what is riskier to one person versus the other, one developer versus the other? Because my definition of risk is not universal. So I think any, anything that is tied to a way that we can qualify it like that, those are the, like the conclusions that I avoid saying just because
my vision of the world, even though it comprises many different views, is not exhaustive.
Nick Centera (27:41)
Is there an art to ultimately telling the story that you tell?
Sylvia Martinez (27:44)
It's a bit of both.
It's an art in the sense of you need to identify what information you have and what are the insights, like the message that you want to give. But the science part, there are like a lot of frameworks. I used to be in consulting. So there are very clear frameworks on how to tell a story. There are definitely ways to showcase data that are better than others.
So just following those frameworks, situation, complication, resolution. A very straightforward, very easy way to engage an audience. Like you tell what the situation is, why whatever you are exploring is important. Complication, like why are you doing this report or this analysis? Like what is happening in the market that is representing a problem to the industry? And resolution, you talk about what
what options are there to solve that problem that you presented earlier. So it's a way to keep the audience engaged. Like it's a very straightforward way to tell a story and it's one of the many different frameworks that are out there. So that part to me is the science part. Like if you already know the message that you want to tell, you know the type of information that you want to present, then just picking the right chart or even choosing the right colors, those kinds of things can
There are many resources available to make sure that you're using the best mechanisms available to present the data and to actually tell a story.
Nick Centera (29:21)
What are some of the common mistakes people are making when they communicate data in general?
Sylvia Martinez (29:26)
common mistakes that I've seen trying to present everything in a single chart,
like just like data bumping people. The audience can only process so much. So to me, it's always keeping it simple. If it's a report, one message per slide. That's always key. Like you can have a single chart or bullet points, a good action title, and that's it. Like that's all you need to present data.
in an easy to understand way. need for it to be concise, to be clear. And the best way to ensure that is you only have one key message for a slide. Other errors that I've seen is presenting data without insight. You have a chart that says that the market has grown 50 % over the last 10 years. So what? Like, always need to have a somewhat, why is this important? What is driving that?
There's always so much that is driving certain behavior, certain performance. So when you are presenting something, it's not enough to be descriptive. You also need to provide like that critical analysis, be able to show why this information is important, what is driving those and how to think about the information that you're presenting.
Yes, a lot of the issues that I've seen when reviewing other reports, like limiting ourselves to be descriptive, we need to provide the interesting part. We need to provide the insight to that information that we're presenting. Let me think if there's anything else. wow. Not knowing your audience. I've been in calls where
I know, I thought that there was going to be some other team involved, but no, it was someone more senior or more junior. And the message was not in line with the interest of that audience. So again, like the more senior someone is, the more concise that you need to be and think more about like rethink about what is important for them, know, like identify those factors and make sure that you keep that mindset all the time.
what is important to my client? What are the questions that I should be solving for them and that I should be including in my report, in my presentation?
Nick Centera (31:51)
But so much of this could be brought over into when you're trying to write an email for something or you're trying to persuade an ultimate audience with a story. It's like having your audience in mind, having like a so what to them and keeping your message concise. think will help anything you're trying to communicate. Ultimately, it'll be received much easier than if you just, as you said, bomb with information.
Okay, first off, I'm curious, is it data or data to you?
Sylvia Martinez (32:27)
my, I don't know. You're asking the wrong person. Datos.
Nick Centera (32:36)
That's great. Who or what inspired you to pursue the role and really the line of work that you have today?
Sylvia Martinez (32:37)
I'm
I mean, I'm a very concisitive person. I majored in physics. So I've always liked numbers. That's my thing. And when I was studying my major, I realized that physics was too theoretical. So I like, yeah, I feel brilliant. I feel super intelligent solving all these super complex equations.
What's this for? So I, as part of my major, there was one class in renewable energy, but it was more like superconductors within the renewable energy space. And I was really interested in renewable energy. So I decided further to further pursue that because it was more like I, it was more practical than theoretical. And then one thing led to the other. I started in energy consulting.
I was a consultant for a while and then I realized that I knew a little bit about a lot of stuff. So I wanted to change that. And solar has always been my favorite technology since I was little. like you can, you can have power from the sun. Like that's amazing. And you have some everywhere. It's the most democratic source of electricity ever. Like I really like solar. And then like when I was thinking about leaving consulting, there was this opportunity within Woodmount.
to do something way more focused on solar, more like, you know, it's an opportunity to really become a subject matter expert. And I took it and I've been here ever since. So I like that it's a lot of data still, but also I get to connect with amazing people. So it's the best of both worlds to me.
Nick Centera (34:35)
That's awesome. It's such a wonderful story going from where you started to here and still being able to kind of apply. I love what you're saying. It's practical. It's real world. You see the result there, right? So it's been awesome talking to you and hearing how you're taking and interpreting data and really telling that story out to the world. If people want to connect with you, they can find you primarily on LinkedIn and follow you and see what you're doing and all the conferences that you're attending as you're
as your wall so highly shows. Where else can they find you?
Sylvia Martinez (35:06)
Yeah, like the main one would be LinkedIn, but you can find also my contact information in the reports that we've published. So I encourage everyone to read the report. And if you have any questions about the utility scale segment, you know, return to me.
Nick Centera (35:22)
Thank you so much, Sylvia. I really appreciate your time and looking forward to talking and seeing you soon at the next conference.
Sylvia Martinez (35:29)
It's been lovely to chat, Nick. Thank you so much for having me.
