Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources

As more homes and businesses install renewable energy projects, communities wil generate more of their own local power via solar and wind, potentially reducing demand on the electrical grid. This could mean less need to build poles, wires, and grid infrastructure, saving millions of dollars in costs. To test this concept, the Office of Energy Resources ran a pilot project in the Rhode Island towns of Tiverton and Little Compton to understand how solar power could mitigate the need to build costly utility infrastructure to meet growing energy demand. OER launched Solarize campaigns in the two towns which offered competitive tiered pricing to promote the adoption of solar while driving down the costs for all participants. Extra incentives were available to those who installed westward-facing solar panels to generate more electricity at a critical time of peak demand. OER also awarded a grant to a larger “tracking” solar project that changes orientation throughout the day to m

Jorge Soares, mechanical engineer and Jason Misiaszek, project manager, looking at exterior LED wall packs Michael Lemoi, CEO and founder of Energy Source, has a saying when it comes to energy efficiency: “There’s nothing cleaner than using less.” Conservation is the cleanest and cheapest form of energy and this is the core of Michael’s business. Energy Source is an energy efficiency services company, founded and based in Rhode Island, which helps commercial, industrial, healthcare and government clients to save money on their energy bills. Michael Lemoi founded the company in 2003 while focused on installing high-efficiency boilers. Since then, Michael has expanded the company’s scope and grown the business. In 2015, Energy Source merged with another Massachusetts-based company, TNT Energy, and was acquired by Revolution Lighting Technologies. Today, Energy Source has 53 employees located throughout Southern New England and New York, with 21 of those jobs based h

Earlier this year, Real Jobs RI launched the first-of-its-kind Rhode Island solar sales training course to prepare students for their certification exam and for a future working in the growing clean energy market. Real Jobs RI, a program of the Department of Labor and Training, ensures that Rhode Island employers have the talent they need to compete and grow by providing targeted education and skills training. This class helped to feed a pipeline of trained electricians to meet our state's future solar needs and will contribute to meeting the Governor's goal of 20,000 clean energy jobs by 2020. Gail Scanlon , project administrator for Sunwatt Solar, a solar installation company, based in Pawtucket, attended the training from February 26 to March 2 and we recently checked in with her for a career update. Tell us about what you do at Sunwatt Solar. Sunwatt is a small company and we all pitch in and perform whatever tasks need doing. I’ve worked on everything from creating