Saturday November 10th was a special day. GRID Alternatives partnered with Mitsubishi Electric for a corporate sponsored workday event and led a team of hardworking and enthusiastic Mitsubishi volunteers to install a 2.1 kW system for Esteban Fuentes and his wife Marisela Rodriguez in Santa Ana. But it was also Marisela’s birthday and after lunch the family invited the whole team for cake and candles on the back porch to celebrate.

Here at GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles we are working to share the sun with everyone this summer and this June we celebrated the soltice with Randy Bishop, CEO and Cofounder of Verengo Solar, and a highly professional team of Verengo volunteers, who installed a 2.3 kW solar electric system for the Carrillo Family of Long Beach

“WEEB!” For those of you who have not yet installed a solar electric system with GRID, a WEEB (Washer Electrical Equipment Bonding) is a small piece of aluminum hardware that is placed between solar modules to ground the modules to the rails they are clamped to.

When Javier Pinos first came to GRID Alternatives last spring to volunteer he was studying Level 2 Photovaltaics at the East Los Angeles Skills Center. He was eager to work with GRID on an actual solar electric installation for a local low-income family to complement his academic learning and gain the hands-on experience that would prepare him for employment.

GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles closed out the last days of March with solar electric systems installed at no cost for two low-income families on 124th Street in Compton. These solar installation projects were supported by a grant from the Southern California Gas Company, which is supporting 25 solar electric installations for low-income families in 2012 as part of their Bettering the Air We Breathe Campaign.

On Friday June 10th, GRID Alternatives completed its 1000th solar electric system installation for low-income families throughout the state of California. This milestone took place at the home of Ms. Celia Juarez as part of the Enterprise East Los Angeles Green Grant Program.

"Living in Japan, you see how everything they do is based on saving something, whether it's energy, water or other resources," said Norm Graham. "That's the life they live. Every other house in Japan had solar panels. I thought "why can't we have that here in America?"

GRID Alternatives installed a 3.6kW solar electric system for Javier and Martha Ayala with the help of Wells Fargo volunteers as part of the Greater Los Angeles Solarthon event at a new Habitat for Humanity development in Lynwood on November 5th, 2011.

GRID Greater Los Angeles hosted its first women's build this past weekend. Women from as far as Washington DC, Delaware, Colorado and Arizona and as close as East LA and Santa Monica came together to cooperatively install a 1.8 kW system for the Galarza family in Watts.