I Had Never Heard of Lemon. Now I Get to Help Build It
Yesterday I started a new chapter at Lemon Energia. What I learned about distributed generation, technology, and AI — and why this market surprised me.
Yesterday, I Started at Lemon
Yesterday, July 13, I began a new professional chapter at Lemon Energia.
This is my first note about a move that, just a few weeks ago, I did not expect to make in this industry.
After an abrupt ending, one thing became even clearer to me: my next step needed to be somewhere technology, purpose, and people were all part of the same endeavor.
I was not looking for just another desk or a different list of tasks. I wanted a problem worth understanding, people eager to build, and a setting where software did not exist in isolation from the impact it creates. During the interview process, I realized Lemon brought those elements together in a way I had not encountered before.
And when I say I had never heard of Lemon, I mean that literally.
I Genuinely Had Never Heard of Lemon
Before the interview process, I had never heard of Lemon. I also knew very little about energytech companies or distributed generation.
That does not mean the company was hidden. It says more about the distance between the energy sector and many of us in software. We tend to experience energy as a given piece of infrastructure: the outlet works, the cloud stays online, the bill arrives. We rarely see the web of regulation, generation, distribution, data, and operations behind it.
Once I started researching, an electricity bill stopped looking like just another invoice. I found a problem that also involves product, customer experience, consumption analysis, integration across organizations, and process coordination. Above all, I learned that making renewable energy more accessible is not only about building power plants. It is also about connecting the energy they produce with the people who can benefit from it, without making the experience needlessly complicated.
That shift in perspective was what first drew me into the story.
Solar Energy Without Panels on Your Roof?
The question sounds contradictory because the most familiar image of solar energy is a row of panels installed on a home or business. Shared distributed generation offers another path.
Under ANEEL’s definition, different parties can come together through an association and use the energy produced by one or more distributed microgeneration or minigeneration facilities to offset the consumption of all participating units.
In plainer terms, a power plant generates electricity and feeds it into the utility’s grid. That generation is measured and converted into credits, which are allocated to offset the consumption of participating units. The grid and the credit system form the bridge between generation and consumption.
The distinction matters. There is no dedicated wire carrying electrons directly from one identified solar plant to each customer. Electricity flows through the distribution grid; what connects that generation to each participant’s consumption is the regulated system for metering and compensation.
That is when “solar energy without panels on your roof” stopped sounding like a tagline and started describing a concrete possibility.
What Surprised Me About This Model
The first thing was access. Not every small business owns its premises, has a suitable roof, or can take on the construction work and upfront cost of installing panels. Shared generation makes it possible to use renewable energy without changing the physical structure of the business.
The second was the combination of potential savings and less bureaucracy for the customer. Energy is a meaningful expense for grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, repair shops, and countless other businesses. If they can join without installing equipment on-site or taking on all the complexity of the operation, the proposition becomes more accessible. The savings can create room in the budget for business owners who already have to decide where to invest every month.
The third was seeing sustainability as the outcome of an operation that has to work at scale. The solar plant is essential, but it cannot handle enrollment, eligibility, allocation, monitoring, and billing for thousands of consumers on its own. Environmental benefits reach more people in their daily lives when technology organizes those connections.
According to Lemon’s official website, its network now brings together more than 100 partner solar plants and 15,000 businesses. These figures come from the company itself, and they help convey the scale of the operation behind a proposition that is easy to summarize.
A piece of sponsored content produced by Lemon and published by G1 offers a useful comparison between installing your own panels and joining a distributed generation program. I am citing it for its explanatory value, not as independent journalistic validation: these are different paths, and physical space, investment, maintenance, and consumption patterns all shape which one makes sense for a particular person or business.
The Technology Behind the Simplicity
Signing up online and keeping track through the app sounds simple. It should. But the experience only feels that straightforward because a much larger operational chain is working behind it.
The flow begins with online enrollment and an analysis of consumption history. Then come credit calculation and allocation, coordination with the utility, tracking the energy offset, billing, and presenting that history in the app. When a question or discrepancy arises, support teams also need access to the same context so they can help the customer understand what happened.
Each stage depends on the one before it and involves data that must remain consistent. This is where software, data, and product stop being supporting details. They make a regulated, multi-party operation manageable while concealing complexity customers should not need to master.
There is also a history behind this first day. In an earlier profile of the company, Exame reported that Lemon was founded in 2019 and had raised a R$ 60 million Series A round. This is neither recent news nor a measure of the company’s current stage; it is context about an energytech founded with the ambition of bringing small businesses closer to the renewable energy market.
What I see in that story is a pattern that has always interested me: the best technology is often the kind that lets users think less about the technology itself and more about the outcome they wanted in the first place.
AI When It Solves a Real Problem
In its public interview-process FAQ, Lemon mentions using NotebookLM and proprietary solutions that apply artificial intelligence to its knowledge base. That is the limit of what I can state from the public record today: the company discloses these tools and describes an application aimed at making knowledge more accessible, but that is not a license to imagine products, projects, or plans that have not been announced.
My view of AI is simple: it is useful when it cuts repetitive work, organizes scattered context, supports decisions, and improves operational efficiency. The value is not in putting “AI” in the name of an initiative. It is in removing real friction for someone. Sometimes that means finding the right information faster. Other times, it means preparing an analysis more effectively or automating a mechanical step so a person can focus their energy on work that requires judgment.
That pragmatic application is what interests me. I have not implemented any AI initiative at Lemon, and suggesting otherwise on my first day would make no sense. What I can offer here is a perspective I bring with me—one that now meets an industry full of processes, specialized knowledge, and interconnected decisions.
What I’m Starting to Build
I am joining in a software engineering capacity, working at the intersection of the Center of Excellence (COE) and the business teams.
My initial scope involves understanding needs, bridging contexts, and contributing improvements, automation, and digital solutions. Before proposing answers, there are questions to ask: where is time being lost? Which information stays fragmented? Which decisions could be better informed? Where can technology simplify the operation without creating another layer of difficulty?
I am excited by this connecting role because software becomes more meaningful when it begins with a concrete problem. Business teams understand the day-to-day work, the exceptions, and the cost of friction. Engineering can help turn that knowledge into clearer, more reliable, and more sustainable systems and processes. The COE can build the bridge that keeps lessons and patterns from being trapped inside a single solution.
For now, my commitment is to listen, learn the language of the industry, and build alongside the people who already know these problems up close. Any outcomes come after that.
A First-Day Note
This article is an opening note, not a verdict on a company after one day.
What I can say honestly is what led me to accept the invitation: signs of transparency throughout the interview process, a purpose tied to a concrete problem, the mindset of people who still want to build, and a pragmatic relationship with technology. Those are public signals and early experiences, not a definitive conclusion about everything I will find.
I am starting with enthusiasm, but also with the humility of someone who has just unfolded a new map. I have a great deal to learn about the energy sector, distributed generation, Lemon’s operation, and the people who make this chain work. This article marks the starting point—including so I can return to it later and see how much my understanding has changed.
Yesterday, a company and an industry I did not know became part of my journey. Today, I start building with them.
If you work in energy, energytech, or applied AI, let’s compare notes. I am just starting to map this landscape, and good conversations are part of the journey.