It’s that time of year in New England – beautiful fall foliage, frosty mornings, vistas that take ones breath away. It’s also the time to put the gardens to bed and hope that we have enough food stored to last us through the winter. Who am I kidding? I, unfortunately, am not that good of a farmer. We’d surely starve if we had to live off my garden. Luckily, we can rely on local farmers to keep my family fed through the winter.
But there is one type of farming our family has excelled at – growing electrical energy at our home. Speaking as someone who works full time, this type of farming can’t be beat. I don’t need to put it away for the winter, I don’t need to mulch it, I don’t need to build a barn to shelter it from the winter winds. With the generation of solar electricity, you plant once and enjoy the harvest day after day, year after year. There is nothing we have found quite as satisfying as watching the electric meter spin backwards. We have managed, over the years, to conserve enough and “plant” enough to generate all the electricity we use each year.
We even grow some forms of heating energy too, the passive solar and solar hot water panel forms of heating. We have yet to fell and split our own fire wood – we get help from our neighbor with that. We stick to and recommend highly the no maintenance energy garden. It is an investment in the next quarter century of energy, with a great return on the investment both from price stability and environmental perspective. I sleep better at night knowing I am doing what I can to leave this planet a little greener for the next generations. 

As I wrote in the children’s song “What’s a Watt?”:
What’s a Watt? It’s what I’ve got, growing in the open air.
Out on a pole, or on the roof, raising them without a care.
They’re incredible, hardly edible; Watt’s don’t do any harm.
What’s a Watt? It’s what I’ve got, growing out on the farm.

We started out small, just a panel that’s all, added some more when we could.
They don’t need watering, no messy stalls. They don’t need any food at all.
What do you need to raise a Watt? Sunshine certainly helps.
They don’t pollute the environment. Energy that heaven sent….

What can you do with a bunch of these Watts? You might be curious to know.
Light up the night, keep computers bright, they can actually run the whole show.
We watch our Watts and how we use them. Conserving certainly helps.
No matter where you live or work, you can be an energy farmer too…

So if you care about keeping the New England landscape pristine and the maple trees beautiful, take action, small or large, but do something to reduce your use of fossil fuels. Become a farmer of energy. Whether you start with simple conservation measures – buying food locally, making a home-cooked meal using minimal packaging, weatherizing your home or whether you take the plunge into a renewable energy system or an electric vehicle, positive actions heal in more ways than one.
Now a word of warning – farming energy, while clean, quiet and non-polluting, is addicting. I confess – I am happily addicted to growing my own energy and then using as little of it as I can. There are a lot of addictive habits out there to lure us and ensnare us. Getting hooked on energy conservation and renewable energy production is the best. I encourage one and all to joining the quickly growing ranks of energy farmers. You won’t regret it.

Dori Wolfe
Co-Founder and Treasurer, groSolar
Strafford, VT Resident

Walt Ratterman, of SunEPI.org had been missing in Port au Prince, Haiti since the earthquake on January 12th. Sadly late Sunday night, February 7th,  Walt’s family was notified that their worst fears were confirmed, Walt was one of the thousands that perished in the devastating earthquakes that paralyzed Haiti.

Walt was a great advocate and champion of the solar industry as well as humanitarianism. Walt was selflessly devoted to helping the less fortunate and worked with many organizations for many wonderful causes including Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) and Partners In Health (PIH) in Haiti to improve the delivery of energy to health care facilities, work in Rwanda, Jordan, and Palestine with Engineers Without Borders – International, and Solar Energy International to provide photovoltaics training for engineers in Jordan and the West Bank, Palestine.


” In between installs, Walt would be somewhere on the other side of the planet, either delivering pallets of blankets to Afghanistan, or setting up a microhydro unit in the mountains of the Philippines, or teaching small villages in India about community solar.   We would receive emails from Walt, from some remote locale, using his solar powered satellite connected laptop that he carried everywhere.    True to form, Walt died doing what he loved to do, helping the people of Haiti.”

-Richard Deutschmann

groSolar VP Policy & Market Development

The loss of Walt Ratterman will be felt throughout the world but his legacy and work will live on through his family, friends, and the lives of those he touched. Our deepest condolences go out to Walt’s friends and family, the world is better off for having had him in it.

Gaelan, our VP of Marketing, just sent these pix from the floor of Solar Power International ‘09. Looking good!

On Saturday, August 29th groSolar’s relay team “Speed of Solar” participated in the 4th annual CHaD Half Marathon. This was a fund raising event for the  Children’sHospital at Dartmouth that groSolar proudly sponsored. The CHaD Half Marathon was a fun filled event regardless of the less than desirable conditions, the event included a walking course, the half marathon itself, as well as an attempt to break the world record for most people dressed up as superheroes in one place – this record attempt was to signify the many heros that help to save children’s lives each day at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth. The Guinness Book of World Records people were on hand to count up each and every super hero – the record was previously held at 106 people and was successfully broken with a stifling number of 1,016 people dressed up as superheroes on the Dartmouth Green in Hanover, NH.

Team “Speed of Solar” consisted of team Captain Dawn “The Princess of Power“ Martin – Marketing Coordinator here at groSolar, Gaelan “Able to Leap Tall Buildings in A Single Bound“  Brown – VP of Marketing, and Noah “Faster Than A Speeding Bullet” Tuthill – Solar Design Engineer. Team “Speed of Solar” completed the 13.1 mile race in 1 hour 58 minutes and 33 seconds, finishing 59th out of 98 relay teams averaging a 9 minute 3 second mile.

groSolar is proud to have such an active and positive roll in the community and employees willing to go out and punish themselves in the remnant effects of a tropical storm for such a good cause!

Thank you team “Speed of Solar”! We are proud of you!

On March 25, 2009, Sonoma County became the first county in  California to pursue public financing of distributed solar energy and energy efficiency improvements under AB 811.

Sonoma County established the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program (SCEIP) to provide homeowners with access to long-term loans at below market interest rates to install solar panels or make energy efficiency improvements to their homes. With no up-front costs, the loans are paid back via an additional assessment on the homeowner’s property taxes. The term of the loan depends on the amount borrowed (5 – 10 years for loans less than $5,000, 10 – 20 years for loans greater than $5,000).

grosolar has put together an enthusiastic campaign to get the word out to the Sonoma residents, particularly in Santa Rosa and Petaluma- if at least 50 residents of Santa Rosa and Petaluma  sign up to go solar before December 31, groSolar will cover 33% of the solar-loan payment of the first year of the taxes for each homeowner who signed up. For an average-size solar power system , that means about $700 off of their property-tax bill in the first year!

groSolar wants to give the community an incentive to work together toward a greener world!

Look for our street team in Sonoma County! We will have our groSolar Sonoma County Scion and Street Team out and about in Sonoma County spreading the word on how to plug into solar power!

Click here to see incentives in your area!