Running Out of Solar Panels? Now That’s Progress!

I am heartened in these dark monetary times about a few things. First, alternative energy is really, truly becoming mainstream and the politicians are really starting to get it. The tax credits for solar, wind and geothermal are going to be renewed, and when President Obama gets in office, his priorities will be much closer to mine than GWB’s. The second is that polls show my guy will most likely win in November.

I read today in the Daily Hampshire Gazette about how the popularity of solar panels is causing a backlog of orders with not enough panels to go around. That’s a good problem! A farm in Greenfield had to reduce the size of its new photovoltaic array because they couldn’t get enough panels.

There is a company called Evergreen that has opened a 450,000 square-foot factory in a place called Devens. Most of us know this as ‘Fort Devens,’ because it was once a military base, and now they’ve dropped the fort and it’s an industrial park. Evergreen’s German parent company expects to be building a new factory every 12-18 months to keep up with the tremendous demand for solar panels. The market is growing 25-30 percent every year! Evergreen’s Chris Lawson said the companies have a backlog of $3 billion in long-term contracts.

Now that’s progress.