Last weekend, TJ and I joined a few hundred of our solar friends to celebrate the people who began the off-grid homestead environmental movement that grew to become the modern residential solar industry that many of us know and work in today. We traveled to Mendocino County in Northern California to take part in the third and probably final Solar Pioneer Party, which was once again organized by Jeff Spies of Quick Mount PV. But this time, it was more than a solar veteran reunion: the party also featured the premiere of the documentary film, “Solar Roots: The Pioneers of PV.”
For the past three years, Jeff and his director-editor and Quick Mount PV colleague Jason Vetterli have been traveling around various parts of the U.S. interviewing and filming many of the men and women who realized how solar photovoltaics could change their own and other people’s lives. In the 1970s, ‘80s and early ‘90s, these couples and individuals made the choice to live sustainably outside of the cities in the rural areas of Northern California, Oregon and Hawaii, as well as parts of the Southwest, Midwest and New England. While consciously choosing a simpler off-grid lifestyle, there were a few things that they couldn’t do without—namely basic lighting and electricity to play their favorite Grateful Dead and other rock albums.
The documentary shares many of these common stories of how the solar pioneers devised elaborate Rube Goldberg-like machines to rig their car batteries to play their stereo systems or to power a single 12-watt light. Kerosene lanterns and candles were common lighting alternatives, but so were cats that could knock them down and start a fire. After various happy accidents, the pioneers learned about solar panels that were being used for industrial off-grid applications. They were expensive, but they weren’t noisy and smelly like diesel generators—and they weren’t a fire hazard with housecats either.
Other rural “off-gridders” began to hear about the magic of solar PV that used the sun’s energy to light their neighbors’ homes and play their music. To pay for their PV, many used the income they earned from an infamous agricultural business; you could say that solar spurred the modern marijuana industry as well.
Driven by the need for light and music, many of these same off-grid pioneers became solar entrepreneurs. They began calling up executives from Arco Solar, Solarex, Sharp and other early solar PV manufacturers and ordered solar panels to be shipped to rural California, the Southwest and the Midwest. In one hilariously described scene, solar executives couldn’t believe the $100,000 order that they’d received, so they put on their three-piece suits and drove up in a Porsche to Humboldt County to meet their new customers, who were dressed in jeans and T-shirts.
“Solar Roots: The Pioneers of PV” includes many such humorous and inspiring stories of starting these businesses and how solar PV brought light, music and entrepreneurial success. Some of these solar pioneers, such as David Katz, developed distribution businesses like AEE Solar (now part of Sunrun). Others took a different route. The late Richard Perez (who was interviewed for the film before he died) realized there was a need to start a how-to publication like Home Power magazine, while training organizations, such as Solar Energy International, were also formed, which helped grow and spread the roots of solar PV across America into the grid-tied era that we’re all a part of today.
As rock ‘n’ roll music and the Grateful Dead in particular were an inspiration for those solar pioneers (and for Inovateus), we were honored to be invited by Jeff and Jason to compose the original soundtrack for the documentary with our friends in the band Midnight North. We were also able to perform some songs at the premiere party, with TJ joining in on keyboards. Here’s a snippet of TJ and Midnight North performing a cover of the Dead’s “I Know You Rider.”
If you’d like to see the film, stay tuned. After its premiere at the Solar Pioneer Party, Jeff and Jason are focused on finding on- and off-line distribution, but they’re also planning to show more private screenings during industry gatherings. Contact Jeff Spies through Quick Mount PV to get on the Solar Pioneer mailing list.
Congratulations to Jeff, Jason and all of the solar PV pioneers. Thank you for all your sacrifices to help us build a brilliant tomorrow with solar and energy storage.
(Thanks to Tor “Solar Fred” Valenza, Jeff Spies and TJ Kanczuzewski for sharing their photos and video.)
By Tyler Kanczuzewski, director of solar supply, Inovateus Solar
