Solar Energy at the Home & Garden Show

I invested $6.50 in a ticket to the Northeastern Pennsylvania Home & Garden Show yesterday. (It would have been $7.50, but some nice lady behind us gave me her extra $1 off coupon.) I wasn't there to see the latest in home improvement gadgetry, though, nor was I there to find any stuff for my garden - and in the latter case I would have been very disappointed, it turns out; aside from people selling landscaping services and poisons, I don't recall seeing many garden-related vendors. No, I was there to see who was offering what in the area of residential solar energy products.

It turns out there were three solar energy vendors there, and I got contact information for each of them. My experience with solar energy is a few decades old (and with a now-defunct company), but it still may prove useful at some point in the future. The three vendors I spoke with were:

Tony DellDonna Construction
12 Blytheburn Road
Mountain Top, PA 18707
570-868-SUN1
FAX: 570-868-0239
http://www.solaruniverse.com/

Endless Mountains Solar Services, LLC
288 Kidder Street
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702
570-820-5990
1-800-496-9620
FAX: 570-820-5993
http://www.endlessmtnsolar.com/

Keystone Energy (a division of Ruckno Construction Co.)
A.J. Bittner
570-728-4024
Cell: 570-885-1397
email: aj (at) ruckno.com
99 Parry Street
Luzerne, PA 18709
http://www.keystone-energy.net/

I've written about solar energy before, in "Fields of Light" and "Can Wal-Mart save the world?" I'm heartened that a place like Northeastern Pennsylvania can allow three solar energy vendors to make a business case for their presence here. Still, I'm waiting for a breakthrough, a point where owners of massive exposed surface area and relatively well-understood energy requirements - say, big box stores* - make the decision to transform their rooftops from being solar thermal collectors to being photoelectric conversion facilities supplying some or all of the electricity needed by their businesses.

I personally know a few Physics professors who are involved in solar energy on the academic side. Now I have contact information for three local vendors who are in the business of solar energy installation. Maybe I can facilitate something somewhere along the line, some sort of local solar forum. Heck, maybe I can even find a way to work myself into the deal somehow. My knowledge isn't that rusty...


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*An argument can be made that the life expectancy of a big box store (or of any given tenant) may not be long enough to guarantee a return on investment for a significant installation of solar panels. But there are other facilities with plenty of surface area and longer typical lifespans: schools, banks, prisons, supermarkets, arenas...the list goes on.