Archive for the 'Social Responsibility' Category

This is a great story

Bonnaroo Carbon Shredders – Promotional Video (2009) from Corey Drayton on Vimeo.

At Solar Power International last week, Rhone Resch, SEIA President & CEO, declared a Solar Bill of Rights. This truly is a bill of rights for the energy future of our country and not just companies in the industry. Read the full version below:

To secure a policy environment that allows solar energy to compete and empowers consumers to choose, Rhone Resch declared today, October 27, 2009, in the City of Anaheim, California, a Solar Bill of Rights:

We declare these rights not on behalf of our companies, but on behalf of our customers and our country. We seek no more than the freedom to compete on equal terms and no more than the liberty for consumers to choose the energy source they think best.

1. Americans have the right to put solar on their homes or businesses. Restrictive covenants, onerous connection rules, and excessive permitting and inspections fees prevent too many American homes and businesses from going solar.

2. Americans have the right to connect their solar energy system to the grid with uniform national standards. This should be as simple as connecting a telephone or appliance. No matter where they live, consumers should expect a single standard for connecting their system to the electric grid.

3. Americans have the right to Net Meter and be compensated at the very least with full retail electricity rates. When customers generate excess solar power utilities should pay them consumer at least the retail value of that power.

4. The solar industry has the right to a fair competitive environment. The highly profitable fossil fuel industries have received tens of billions of dollars for decades. The solar energy expects a fair playing field, especially since the American public overwhelmingly supports the development and use of solar.

5. The solar industry has the right to equal access to public lands. America has the best solar resources in the world, yet solar companies have zero access to public lands compared to the 45 million acres used by oil and natural gas companies.

6. The solar industry has the right to interconnect and build new transmission lines. When America updates its electric grid, it must connect the vast solar resources in the Southwest to population centers across the nation.

7. Americans have the right to buy solar electricity from their utility. Consumers have no choice to buy clean, reliable solar energy from their utilities instead of the dirty fossil fuels of the past.

8. Americans have the right, and should expect, the highest ethical treatment from the solar industry. Consumers should expect the solar energy industry to minimize its environmental impact, provide systems that work better than advertised, and communicate incentives clearly and accurately.

We have been really excited to recently unveil our Green Benefits Program. The groSolar Green Benefits Program offers group discounts on solar power systems for employees of companies who sign up for Green Benefits. The first company to sign on and offer Green Benefits to their employees is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

How it works is that the employer contributes some money to each system purchased by their employee. groSolar also kicks in a per watt discount for the system (usually around $0.25). Tack on state and federal incentives and any local financing options and the program brings the up-front cost of solar power way, way down.

Check out the video and story from NECN (New England Cable News)

groSolar is very excited to announce the groSolar Connectors Referral Program!

groSolar has been working hard to invite everyone we can to plug into solar power — and now we need your help. Show your commitment to a greener, cleaner world and help your community join the solar grid!

How to Become a Connector

Logon to groSolarConnectors.com, sign up, and enter the names of anyone you know who may be interested in going solar. We will contact them and offer them a free solar evaluation, and give them a discount off an installed system simply because you sent them to us. You can also become a groSolar Connector by throwing a Connector Party. Invite friends, family, co-workers and neighbors to a themed solar bash where they can see the benefits of solar power. A groSolar consultant will help you set up for your party, provide light refreshments, and also give a solar education presentation for your guests to explain the short and long-term benefits of joining the solar grid. Find out more about solar party’s here.

The Rewards

groSolar will give you $250 for every person that you recruit to join the solar grid, and we will take $500 off the price of a new installed system for your referrals.

Take action to promote the energy of the future by becoming a groSolar Connector.

One Block Off the Grid, the nation’s largest community solar purchasing program, selected groSolar for its newest solar San Francisco campaign, as well as for its inaugural solar San Diego effort. 1BOG aggregates communities to bargain collectively for discounts from solar installers in the area, reducing the upfront cost of installation and providing solar education for everyone involved. groSolar was chosen from among the largest installers in the nation to run these campaigns after a rigorous bidding process, further demonstrating gro’s commitment to spreading as much solar to as many roofs as possible. In partnership with 1BOG, groSolar hopes to be able to dramatically increase the adoption of residential solar in these markets, and continue to lead the way to energy independence.

This is a crazy idea. And I wish I was not here. But sometimes the only sane alternative is to be crazy, and sometimes we have things we NEED to get done.

The steps outlined here are all necessary, fundamental, and critical to business growth. groSolar is a fantastic example of what our economic system can do and repeat. Unfortunately, creating 20, even 100 companies like groSolar does not solve our problem. What we need is the integration of all the ideas presented here and more, across the economy. We need a realization that together, as community in the broadest sense of the word, not only do we all thrive, it’s actually the only way we can survive. As I said above, the confluence of events that brings us here today is no less than the need to reorder our economy, restructure the biggest industry in the world (energy), retrain a huge percentage of our workforce, and save our planet.

I’ve said before that I’m an evolutionary technology person (there is no silver bullet), and a revolutionary business person. Of course, I’m evolutionary in a rapidly changing technology driven world, and I’m revolutionary in a market-driven economy. But listen to where we need to go. I warn you that I am not an economist, or even a learned student of business. I am a person operating in this environment, I sometimes feel thrust in from the outside. This perspective has often been useful, as well as frustrating, (some would say dangerous), but it is my perspective on where we need to go. (more…)

Below are some comments from a session I moderated at PV America in Philadelphia on June 9:

The confluence of events that has brought us here today is staggering.

Once upon a time, a husband and wife decided to leave Chicago and return to Vermont to “simplify” their lives, and follow their passion to create a small solar energy company. Then they come to understand the magnitude of climate change, and this couple decides they should work on solving it. (Naiveté has always been a strong suit). And so groSolar began.

Business school case studies will be written about this time in the solar industry, and the business transformations that occurred. (more…)

This past winter as the snow was flying in Vermont and the wind was howling, we installed a 58 kW solar array at Farm-Way in Bradford, VT. By December Farm-Way was making approximately 43% of their electrical needs with their new solar system. Farm-Way hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate their solar installation and Vermont Governor Jim Douglas was on hand to speak and cut the ribbon. This system saves approximately 76,000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to 11 passenger cars off the road or planting 1500 tree seedlings and growing them for 10 years. Not only is Farm-Way making clean solar electricity but they are becoming more energy efficient overall thus utilizing the solar power they are creating to supply the majority of their electrical needs. You can see a live stream of their solar system here.

I spent Monday afternoon, for the first time in a long time, on one of our solar installation crews working on a solar energy project in Vermont. And it was an honor to be there for several reasons. First, it’s an honor that the crew still let’s me work with them. They are a great group of people, working through adversity (also called rain), continually smiling. Of course, they let the new guy (me) do the caulking, so my hands will bear the marks of my work for a while (SikaFlex is good stuff. Does NOT come off). This crew was Amos and Hal on the roof with me, Andy at the inverter, and Dan Kinney, (the original Dan of our 4) running the show. Doc managed the logistics, and of course the rest of the groSolar team supported in their standard, but excellent, ways.

Second reason that this was an honor, is the project is for an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house. The Vitale family has a great and touching story, which you can read more about here, and at the McKernon Group web site, where you can also donate to the family. The entire house is being built in less than a week, 106 hours to be precise, around the clock, through all kinds of weather. I was on site Friday and it was still being cleared of the former house. Today, the house was, well, a house. Not done, but more complete than many I’ve seen that are being lived in! So being involved in providing clean, renewable solar power to this deserving family is a great feeling, and great that groSolar can do it. It’s a theme that runs through a lot that we do. Our page on Social Responsibility tells a lot of what we do, including our work with Habitat for Humanity.

groSolar donated all the equipment and installation labor for the entire solar power system, except for the inverter, which was donated by our new partner, PV Powered.

And third, well, I cannot tell you the third reason it was an honor to be on site, as I’m not allowed to give away story line. (No, I don’t think I’m on camera.) So you will just have to see the show in January (Sundays at 8/7c) to find out what makes us proud to be part of this particular Extreme Makeover.

So Tuesday I will ache. It takes different muscles to stand at an angle on a roof for a few hours. But I’ll feel good and groSolar will feel good, about making a difference in a small way, as we continue making a difference in the larger world.