When did the modern solar industry begin? Who were the people using and installing the first viable residential and commercial solar photovoltaic systems? Some may trace the beginnings of the industry to the solar panels that provided power for satellites or that were installed on Coast Guard buoys and mountaintop transmitter stations. Those early uses of solar power may have proved that the technology worked, but they didn’t really mark the beginning of the industry as we know it today.
According to solar pro Jeff Spies, the true birth of the U.S. photovoltaic industry began in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s among the off-grid homesteaders of Humboldt and Mendocino counties in Northern California. Jeff calls these early adopters, technologists, and sales people “solar pioneers.” In their honor, he is executive producing a labor-of-love documentary that will tell their stories.
Jeff believes that the birth of the PV industry occurred when entrepreneurial business hippies based in remote areas without easy access to the electric grid discovered they could buy PV panels and sell them to homesteaders. These new-fangled solar modules generated electricity more cost effectively than using a generator or driving their cars daily to charge an extra battery to power their homes.
For the first 20 years of the PV industry’s significant existence, the off-grid homestead community was a major component of the PV market. These inventive pioneers developed PV technology in the backwoods areas of Northern California and kept tinkering with it until they got it to work, and made it functional and practical, paving the way for the future grid-tie solar industry.
Jeff did not set out to be the executive producer of the as-yet untitled film. But after interviewing some of the original pioneers during the first Solar Pioneers Party he helped organize in Humboldt County in fall 2015, he realized that their stories had to be told—and that no one else was going to step up and do it in a proper, respectful, oral history kind of way.
“When I started this, I didn’t know what the hell I was getting into,” he recalls. “I am not a filmmaker. I’ve got a full-time job [with QuickMount]. I’m realizing now that this is some heavy stuff. I’m telling peoples’ life stories, their legacy for future generations is in my hands, and I now fully appreciate the weight of that responsibility.”
“I’m committed on a personal level, above all else, to telling the story the way that will make the people in the movie proud,” he explains. “The reason I was able to get these interviews is because they knew me, and they trusted me to tell their stories the proper way. One of the main reasons that this story has gone untold is that the pioneers are not an attention-seeking group, and they are hesitant to trust outsiders with their personal life stories.”
Jeff says the initial thread of the movie will consist of the interviews with the pioneers, where they talk about their roots, how they found out about PV, and their first experiences with it. There will be lots of amusing and often funny stories from those early days in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The film’s narrative arc will end with the point in time when it was clear that grid-tie solar had become the dominant technology, which most of those interviewed pegged at about 2002-2003.
The latter portion of the film will focus more on what the pioneers see as their legacy to the world, according to Jeff. “One of the questions we asked was, what words of wisdom do you have for future generations? When you’re looking back at the work you did in the field of renewable energy, what would you like your grandchildren to know?”
This part of the film promises to be quite interesting and emotional, but Jeff is keeping details of that footage—as well as the title of the film—close to the vest.
Along with partner-in-film Jason Vetterli, Jeff has conducted more than 40 interviews with these pioneers of the U.S. residential solar industry and are almost done with the filming phase of the project. They plan to have the initial “director’s cut” of the film ready in time to debut at the third and final Solar Pioneers Party, taking place in Willits, CA, during the weekend of November 3-5.
We’ll be checking back with Jeff on the film’s progress in the months ahead.
(For more on the film and the Solar Pioneers Party, check our blog and video from October 2016 here.)
By TJ Kanczuzewski, president of Inovateus Solar
