SURPRISE, AZ--(Marketwire - March 15, 2010) - As a result of Arizona's booming solar industry, one of Arizona's largest and most successful solar installation companies, Salt River Solar & Wind (http://www.saltriverenergy.com), announced today that the company is planning to hire another 50 new positions in sales, marketing and solar installation jobs as the company struggles to meet the surging demand from residential customers seeking solar power installations on their rooftops across Arizona.
From the Company's meager beginnings less than a year ago in Surprise, Arizona, Salt River Solar & Wind has grown from just seven employees in January 2009 to more than one hundred employees in March 2010.
Fueled by one of the most pro-solar business environments in America, it did not take long to educate the residents of Arizona on how easy it was to harvest the sun's strong energy that rains down on Arizona more than 300 days a year and turn it into FREE, clean energy with the industry's leading photovoltaic solar power panels from SunPower.
Recognizing the Arizona Corporation Commission's leadership and foresight in passing the Arizona Renewable Energy Standard in 2006, the principals of Salt River Solar & Wind began researching and building a business model in 2007 that would allow residential and commercial customers to install solar power systems on their rooftops and begin producing their own free electricity.
It took the small group of solar advocates a year and a half to carefully craft a solid business plan and scrape together enough money from friends and family to launch their solar business.
The company opened its doors in December 2008 and after their first month in business they had signed up 10 solar installation customers. The only problem with the Company's rapid growth was the typical growing pains of any small startup company. Finding qualified solar installers to keep up with the demand for solar installations and finding money to finance residential installations was a real challenge for the Company.
"We were very surprised at the success our sales teams were having in our first couple of months of operations. The demand was so intense, at first, our biggest problem was finding qualified personnel to handle solar installations," said Mike Fricker, Salt River Solar & Wind's CEO. "But due to the sagging economy, we were deluged with unemployed applicants seeking to put their roofing and electrical contracting skills back to work in the solar industry. We quickly teamed experienced roofers, electrical contractors and other construction workers with experienced solar installation engineers and in six month's time we had our business model perfected."
The economic development impact of Salt River Solar & Wind's growing solar installation business was profound.
Not only did the Company provide new installation, accounting, finance, legal, marketing and sales jobs for many unemployed workers, but the Company was also able to inject a badly needed boost for many other local businesses such as the auto shop that serviced the company's growing fleet of installation trucks and sales vehicles; the business complex that was virtually empty before the company filled up three different office buildings with new office facilities for its growing operation's staff and local hardware stores and electrical distributors that were close to going out of business due to the weak construction market.
Salt River Solar & Wind now runs five residential solar installation crews and is installing more than 100 solar installations per month. Business is booming and the company is now seeking to create more sales teams and solar installation crews to meet the growing demand for resident and commercial solar installations.
The Arizona solar industry is booming due to generous solar rebates from Arizona utility companies such as APS and SRP. The state of Arizona offers a solar tax credit of $1,000 and the federal government offers a 30 percent tax credit. Combined these incentives will pay for up to 75% of resident installations.
Even more growth is expected now that the Arizona State Legislature and Arizona Governor's Office have made a serious commitment to protecting the solar industry and ensuring that Arizona's increasing economic development will continue.
Even more promising is the work that the Arizona Corporation Commission is conducting to explore the best way to implement a solar feed-in tariff for Arizona. A solar feed-in tariff would require Arizona utilities to pay a guaranteed rate of 20-30 cents per kilowatt to purchase clean green electricity needed to replace dirty carbon-based power production.
A solar feed-in tariff would encourage large-scale private investment in Arizona's solar industry because installing solar systems would have a guaranteed rate of return for the next 20 years. Attracting private equity investment, venture capital and angel investors will accelerate Arizona's ability to build a solar power industry and provide a way for the state to rebuild its lumbering economy.
Salt River Solar & Wind will soon be launching a new Megawatt Commercial Rooftop program that will target commercial building owners, property management companies and other large rooftop owners that have a minimum of 150,000 square feet of available rooftop space that would like to start generating free electricity. The Megawatt Commercial Rooftop program will make it possible for shopping malls, warehouses, manufacturing plants and retail supercenters to write very cost-effective power purchase agreements (PPAs) and solar service agreements (SSAs) to provide clean, green electricity to their tenants and give their buildings a competitive edge as electricity rates continue to rise.
About Salt River Solar & Wind
Salt River Solar &Wind (ROC#254115) is a renewable energy system integration and consulting firm that provides a full portfolio of turnkey solar and wind solutions for residential and commercial customers. The Company provides home energy audits, weatherization, energy efficiency, solar thermal water heater and solar photovoltaic (PV) power array installations as well as project management and consulting, site evaluations, outsourced solar design and engineering, installation, and commissioning of distributed generation solar power plants. The Company's professional management team provides expert guidance on how to transform empty rooftops into energy producing assets with solar power. To learn how to give your building a competitive edge, approach energy independence, and become an environmental steward in your community, please the Company's website at http://www.saltriverenergy.com.
Contact Information:
Contacts:
Tim Precourt, Residential Sales
Salt River Solar & Wind
(623) 258-1882
Dave DelMaetro, Commercial Sales
Salt River Solar & Wind
623-208-0528