Last week, new GRID Alternatives staff and interns from across the state, the Bay Area construction team, and co-founders Erica Mackie and Tim Sears installed solar panels on two low-income homes in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. One of the homeowners, the Moore family, built their house in 1992 and have been busy making their home, and their neighborhood, a better place to live ever since. As Vice President of the local homeowners association, Mrs. Moore wanted to pioneer the process of going solar with GRID for the entire neighborhood; I hope that everyone on the street calls in and makes an appointment to set up an interview. The GRID staff was just as excited as the Moores to be out for this installation, which is a part of the training for all GRID staff. The system installed will save the family $25,371 over its lifetime and offset 86 tons of greenhouse gases - the equivalent of planting 2,013 trees!
The impacts, however, go beyond these numbers. When we spoke to Mrs. Moore after the install, she said: now that I have gotten solar panels on my house, a lot of other people are beginning to realize it is a real possibility to go solar... there's a program out there that works and it's not for everyone else but me.
GRID Alternatives is proud to be working with families like the Moores, and to be helping everyone gain access to clean energy from the sun and its many benefits.