Rutland Business Journal

Dec 10, 2013
By SARA WIDNESS

 

In 1998 a small cottage industry opened Upper Valley doors to provide solar solutions for off-grid residential opportunities.  Fifteen years later groSolar maintains a home office in White River Junction, another office in Columbia, MD and is about to open a third location in Rutland There are also operations centers, among others, in Massachusetts, Delaware and New Jersey

The company is privately held with a staff of 35 and James Resor, CEO, at the helm.  groSolar has been almost doubling its business every two years against its goal of growing 40 percent annually, said Resor.  “Realistically we’re growing at pretty rapid rate.”  The solar industry itself is moving very fast as well.

Within two years of startup groSolar flexed muscles outside of Vermont.  Today the company active in most East Coast states, across the Midwest and in California.

“We’re very much national,” Resor said.

Resor’s team has learned to take on the challenges of utility rules and regulations that vary state by state and the challenges of finding good people to help support its growth.  Skills needed include engineering, design, project management procurement, administration, finance, business development and sales.  The company hires locally and planned to add two staff this past October.  Installations are contracted out with, during construction, as many as 70 people on site.  Another challenge has been the overall economy.  Many large projects require third-party financing and therefore the receptivity of banks and investors.

The company nearly three years ago began to shift its focus from mainly residential to commercial and utility-scale installations.  “The cost of solar is getting more competitive; we’re getting better at it.  We’ve had more practice with interconnecting with utilities and meeting their requirements,” Resor said.

Are utility companies happy with solar?

“There are 3,000 utility companies out there.  Generally they are supportive,” he said.  “Utilities have embraced solar because it meets the needs of high peak consumption where it may be difficult to permit new capacity.  Some parts of the country may be less embracing; maybe they feel they can build a coal plant.”

While there’s what he called “a lot of interest in renewable energy, a growth hurdle is that solar is still a relatively young industry.  When we talk to commercial customers and town officials for permitting in many areas of the country, they haven’t had a lot of exposure to solar.  There’s a lot of interest but not a lot of familiarity.”  However, in the last three or four years he has seen people become more conversant with solar’s reliability, longevity and safety record.

“Very few people are against solar.  It’s a little like being against apple pie and ice cream.  It offers no environmental risk; it’s domestic energy; it can be distributed and located where it’s used,” he noted.

Even though the supply of energy generated by solar is very small when measured against coal and nuclear, there are challenges to building and financing coal and nuclear.

“People don’t want them [coal and nuclear] near where they live,” he underscored.  This means that solar and wind will be important to new generation capacity.

Solar components are sourced nationally and internationally.  A 1.45 megawatt project for Vermont Air National Guard in Burlington requested that U.S.-made modules be used, even though the price point was 15-percent higher.

“When we’re trying to compete with customers trying to get them to switch from coal or gas, these percentage points can make a difference,” Resor noted.  The solar industry, like any new industry, is starting to mature.  New technology is being developed that will continue to improve the performance.  There are additional players coming in, making it a stronger, healthier industry.  There’s more public support, and the technology is more reliable,” he added.

 

Source: Rutland Business Journal (www.vermonttoday.com)