Welcome to a new blog series, the Inovateus Solar Partner Spotlight, where we celebrate our solar installer partners who transform empty roofs and fields into reliable solar installations throughout the U.S. and abroad.
For our first post, we are excited to introduce Joel Walsman from Indianapolis-based Jefferson Electric LLC.
When Joel decided to turn the company from a full-service electrical contractor to a specialist in solar energy in late 2012, his motivations were a bit different than many of his counterparts in the burgeoning sector.
“I have a passion for creating teams and for personnel leadership development,” he explains. “I’m a little more people-driven than operations- and objective-driven. I work with a lot of good guys, and I would call every one of my employees personal friends. I like having an opportunity to provide an employment relationship in a positive environment with a common driving vision. We’re not only trying to save the planet like a lot of folks in this industry, although there is a legitimate concern.”
Inovateus Solar has been Jefferson Electric’s solar distributor since shortly after the Indianapolis-based contractors transitioned to solar. Joel cites a “whole list of reasons” for his close partnership with Inovateus over the years.
“They have a lot of value-add services such as lead generation (almost all of the company’s leads are incoming) and promoting their installation partners,” he says of Inovateus. “Their service is very responsive, and they’re local, which is nice from two different standpoints: one, quicker shipping times and lower shipping costs, and two, supporting in-state businesses. So for us, I would say the biggest parts are cost-effectiveness in doing business and value-add services.”
Jefferson Electric has completed about 40 projects, either on their own or with partners, accounting for about 3.3 MW of installed solar capacity across Indiana. The projects are about an even split between residential and commercial/nonresidential customers, with 10 jobs involving systems installed on faith-based institutions, according to Joel. One of those sacred solar sites is a 22 KW system on a mosque in South Bend, not far from Inovateus headquarters.
While the company has worked as an AC-DC wiring subcontractor on PV projects as large as 1.8 MW, Joel and his team have been completing what will be their largest solo project on a historical property in Cambridge City, Indiana, about an hour east of Indianapolis: a 55 KW ground-mount array next to a big red barn that has been converted into a house.
“The barn that was converted into a house was built in 1870,” Joel says. “The fellow who built the barn and operated the farm made the bricks by hand, so there’s a little bit of character and history there. Since the array is adjacent to Indiana cornfields, it’s a very attractive setting out in the country.”
Sited on a gentle slope behind the barn-house, the handcrafted solar system consists of Canadian Solar panels racked on IronRidge ground-mounts, with SolarEdge single-phase string inverters providing the power conversion. The customer views the installation as a financial investment and expects to offset 92-94% of his annual household (that’s right, this is a residential installation) energy costs. The construction went well, but was not without some challenges.
“The customer told us after we had labored and labored through the numerous stones that were buried underground that the land has been burping up rocks for the last 150 years,” Joel recalls. “By golly, I feel like we encountered every single one of ‘em!”
The business outlook for Jefferson Electric is rock solid. “We currently have more projects and more kilowatts under contract than we have had at any point in the past,” Joel says. “We’ve got at least three different projects under contract that are larger than any we’ve done to date. We’re also improving and increasing our sales team with a big hire that will start here soon, someone with a lot of professional experience that will add a very needed dynamic to our team.”
Inovateus looks forward to helping Jefferson Electric grow and spread distributed solar across our home state. They—and all of our installer partners—contribute to the Inovateus mission of building a brilliant tomorrow.
By Jefferson Gerwig, purchasing manager, Inovateus Solar
