Vision LI Main Street News: Interview with David G. Schieren, EmPower Solar CEO

Eric Alexander, Director, Vision Long Island sat down with David G. Schieren, CEO, EmPower Solar to discuss the current state of solar on Long Island, the benefits for homeowners and business owners to make the switch to renewable energy, and how ambitious NYS goals are driving clean energy policies that will have a lasting positive impact on public health and the environment.

Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Eric: Welcome back to Long Island Main Street News, where we’re always bringing local community, government, business and regional leaders who help our neighborhoods and bring resources, and really a part of the change that’s happening across Long Island. today. We have an environmental leader, also a business leader, we got David Schieren who’s the CEO of EmPower Solar. They are a commercial residential solar installation company. But more than that, David’s a real leader in the green business world and really amongst environmentalists too, for years, you’ve been like a pioneer out here. So hey, good to have you.

David: Eric, really great to be with you, as always.

Eric: No, it’s just, we’re always chatting whenever we have time. I know you’re super busy. But you know, you’re running your business. You’re also, you know, always thinking a few steps ahead. You really have a vision of how to take, you know, the green industry on Long Island, but we can get to all that in a bit. For folks who don’t know, just tell us about EmPower Solar. 

David: Sure yeah so EmPower Solar is a commercial and residential solar installation company. And really, what we do is we do everything from, you know, the sale of the solar power system, to the engineering, the installation, and the service for residential and commercial customers. And one of the most important things now as well, we add battery systems that enable you to operate the solar power and battery if the grid goes down. And it’s a very important development that this technology is ready for primetime. 

I will mention, Eric, if you don’t mind, the history of the company- we’ve been around since 2003. And the early years really focused on storage, storing renewable energy. And  that’s of course what I just mentioned before, which is that’s the kind of crucial, has been the crucial missing piece that’s emerging now. But back in the in the 2000s, we were really focused on hydrogen as that medium, and I think you’ve even visited and know about some of our hydrogen work. Hydrogen is one possible medium that can be for energy storage. Today, the most important is lithium batteries. And we see that proliferate through cars, of course, our consumer electronics. Hydrogen will come back to play a role. 

But that early experience we had with hydrogen really taught us to work with solar energy as the input. And so, you know, my business partner and a few others, when we first worked with this technology, solar was, what was so clear to us, such a reliable and effective technology. It was almost really eye opening for me at the time, because I didn’t really, I think, like many people, when they think about solar energy, you know, especially 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it wasn’t something you thought of as a go-to reliable energy generation technology. But when you work with this technology hands on, when you see it in action, you realize how critically functional it is, and how and that’s why it’s become such a great success. And it’s growing so quickly, because it actually works. So that’s a quick summary about EmPower Solar.

Eric: You know, this is interesting, this really pivots us nicely into questions I want to ask you about the green economy. You know, we talked about this with alternative transportation, walking and biking, it’s like, well, maybe it’s not an alternative anymore. Maybe that’s just one of the modes that people use. And I think similarly to solar, it’s not an alternative. It’s kind of what’s happening. You know, it’s like, like you said, a reliable source, that’s going to be more and more prominent over time and needs to be more prominent, right? 

So you’ve kind of lived through that from pioneering to just kind of alternative to kind of, it’s in the now, you know. So how are you kind of changing this market? And maybe just looking at the Long Island micro market as a microcosm? Like, what are people doing the most of? Is it residential? Is it commercial? Is it, you know, the costs coming down? Are they going up? Like, give us the tale of the tape on your industry. Because I think sometimes people get confused, like, about different aspects of it. Certainly lay people like me. 

David: So I think that the state of affairs today with the solar market,  I can probably characterize that even for the past almost five years, solar energy, whether it’s for residential or commercial, delivers savings. How does it do that? 

Well, you take a, let’s say, your residential homeowner, you’re typically taking a bill, it’s $2,200 a month on average. With solar, you can take that $200 from the utility, turn it into a $12 per month service charge, which is mandatory. And instead of paying that $200 bill, now, you’re going to pay a solar bill monthly for $140, for $150. Right. And typically, it’s done through a loan, a long term loan, right? 

So a lot of the innovation that has occurred in the industry has occurred on the services side. So the technology has been there, right. And of course, it gets a little bit better every year, right? Especially the electronic side and the data side. But the part that’s seen a lot of important innovation is on the service side. So now you can get a loan very easily, a 20 year loan to go solar, right. You pay a fixed monthly payment, and you save every month. 

So you ask what is the cost of solar? Is it a cost effective thing? The answer is, you save money right away. Now, you can translate that talk about commercial. Commercial is the basic same formula, you can save money off your bills, but commercial has other options. The biggest innovation with commercial, I would say, is that in addition to being able to reduce your bill, you can also receive rental income from hosting a system. So this particularly applies to a larger group. 

So we, EmPower Solar, provide solar to two different customer segments, one of them large commercial, I’m talking about 50,000 square foot and up those systems, we will pay a roof rental for them to host the system. So that’s an innovation, again, a service type innovation. 

Now, usually buildings that say you have 10,000 to 50,000 square foot roofs, those often will be looking for build reduction. So a lot of times we can do that as well. And again, you will save on a monthly basis, annual basis. And then the homeowner too. So I mean, the answer to the question is that, you know, through better financial products, yeah, you can save money from day one without borrowing, without any upfront investment. That’s pretty profound.

Eric: Right. So you get like a major infrastructure investment in your house or your company, essentially, and you literally are just paying less than what you pay in your normal utility bill.

David: That’s what’s catalyzed this market. That’s why we’re seeing growth rates 30,40% per year.

Eric: Well, that was my next question. You know, how’s the market on this? You’re saying it’s going up, you have interested customers, for sure. You’re busy.

David: Yeah. I mean, look, we have the pandemic, which has created its own havoc. Right. And, in some ways, in certain pockets of the marketplace, has been positive. 

Eric: Yep, yep. Yep. 

David: But in others, you know, last year, we built that we built the most solar we’ve ever built. And same for New York State.

Eric: Wow.

David: In terms of the annual growth rates- if you look at the average growth rate, you’re looking at, you know, 20-30% growth rates across the state across the country. The dynamics of what we deal with have to do with utility territories. So programs come and go, incentives come and go.

Eric: Right, those incentives, generally from the state government, or the federal government, or when you say incentives that that’s what they provide. Some kind of tax credit or some kind of rebate or dollars off, you know…

David: That’s right. So the federal government does provide a tax credit, state government also. The utilities also have their own programs. And I’ll give you the example on Long Island. LIPA, and its partner PSEG Long Island, they try their best not to have it change so frequently, because that’s very difficult to match. So, you know, and, and there’s a lot to talk about, we can get into a lot of detail there. 

But I guess the big picture takeaway is the programs have been sufficient to enable growth. Now, there are plenty of headwinds, there are plenty of challenges. And some might argue we need additional incentives. Incentive is a really tough word. I mean, I think it’s important for consumers to know there are incentives. But if you look at, you know, sort of the… I look at it as leveling the playing field with fossil fuels.

Eric: Because fossil fuels are wildly subsidized. 

David: Because fossil fuels are wildly subsidized.

Eric: We don’t even understand the full extent, and we can’t understand because it’s what’s going on in other parts of the world, parts of the globe.

David: So, public health, pollution… Let’s leave climate change out of the equation right now. Just we can put it aside, although it’s a massive issue. Pollution itself. We have so much pollution in our area, I don’t think people on Long Island really understand the poor air quality we have.

Eric: Aren’t we like, like the second worst in the state or something I know at different times. I mean, it’s…

David: We consistently violate EPA guidelines for just regular air quality, right? So the benefit side of the ledger when you talk about clean air… And by the way, Michael Bloomberg wrote a book called “Climate of Hope,” which is great for public figures to understand his perspective. He said, Listen, society, here’s my take on this. It’s one take, it’s an important one, but when you’re talking about clean energy: it’s a massive economic opportunity. But also it’s gonna make people healthier. And so there are so many imperatives. 

So we talked about incentives, really talking about leveling the playing field, that’s what I look forward to. So the biggest headwinds we talked about are headwinds, challenges, roadblocks that have to do with making sure that we do have a fair shot, that we that renewable energy is given the proper chance to compete. You know, I’m very active with the New York Solar Energy Industry Association. As an industry advocate, the biggest thing we work at is making sure we have equitable opportunity and to compete with fossil fuels. Because when we go head to head? We win. We win, that’s why we’re going.

Eric: Right. It seems like you, you have broken through from kind of this niche, cool kind of concept, slash, you know, like, yeah, maybe the cool kids do this. And now it’s really, really mainstreamed. You know, certainly your company and certainly solar solar power is now really something that’s accessible to you know, regular people, you know, which I think I’d see but it’s, it’s happened, it’s happening and I’m glad you’re in the thick of it. 

Maybe real quick, give me the tale of the tape of you know, how’s LIPA and PSEG vis a vis what you’re doing. Maybe how’s the state, because there’s been a climate plan that Cuomo put forward. And then federally with Biden, you know, making some announcements related to infrastructure. Give me the tail of the tape, how those three movements or, you know, moments in time, shall we say, are doing well with the solar community.

David: So, sure. The New York State legislation, the CLCPA is the acronym- Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Which I went to the signing of in 2019, and we had special guests Al Gore, that was a special special moment. It’s an extremely ambitious plan. And from a Long Island perspective, we had Senator Kaminsky, he was extremely active, and he hosted hearings statewide along with Assemblyman Englebright; many other stakeholders involved there. And by the way, I should mention, I’d be remiss not to mention that Vision LI, that you Eric have been, you know, when we were but a very small sprout, you were you were very supportive and vocal, vocally supportive of what we’re doing. So we have to recognize you from early on. 

Understanding the, the explicit link and implicit link between transitory and development, smart growth and, and public health and clean energy. So, to answer the question, we have the CLCPA Okay, we’re talking about 70% renewable energy in the electric sector by 2030, 100% renewable energy by 2040 in the electric sector. By 2050 100%, clean energy, including possibility for offsets throughout the entire state for all energy sectors, including transportation heating, so okay…

Eric: Like nine years away from the first goal.

David: So here’s the issue. And this is where my dear colleagues at LIPA and PSEG might take issue. Long Island right now, where are we? We’re not even 5%. We’re about 5%. Okay, so we had to get from 5% to 70%.

Eric: I remember what was 1%. So that’s good.

David: It depends on how you do the math. There’s a lot of different ways to do that. 70% okay, so you’re talking about annualized growth rates of well over 100%. You know, between now and then, and maybe it’s just a little below 100%. 

Eric: You’re gonna be busy.

David: Right now, I’m busy with stress and gas fuming from my head. Here’s the principal challenge, the principal headwind: the grid was not built for… what we call what we do really, in our world, it’s called distributed generation. We have about 130 substations on Long Island. And we have this grid, we have this fascinating, intricate grid. Yeah.

Eric: The electric grid.

David: The electric grid was never built for this. So we have now a whole lot of people, smart people, engineers, grid system, people, leaders, managers trying to figure out how do we- and this is happening across the state across the country across the world. And it’s actually a very interesting challenge. But it’s a challenge. 

So if you look at our map, so PSEG Long Island put out a map, you can look at it. I’ll show you this picture. It’s beautiful. Except it’s not because it’s all red. Meaning you can’t connect systems. It’s hard to. So the principal challenge, we were talking about this, what is the one of the biggest challenges you have to increase deployment? We have plenty of great roofs, we have plenty of great parking lots, we have plenty of opportunity. The grid, as it stands, is not designed to accept all this power right now. 

Now, how do you manage that? Some basics. When you add a battery to a system, it helps a lot. Why? I’ll give you an example. The new systems we’re doing for commercial applications- here’s what they do. Solar and battery don’t reduce the bill. What they do is we inject power in the summertime, from 3 to 7pm. So we’re acting like peaker power plants if you’ve heard that term. So that’s like that, if you give us when you need it. Yeah, so Ron’s building on 110. Yeah, the only thing that comes to mind is: I’m just going to put a solar and a big battery. And I’m going to be injecting that energy in the summertime. 

So that’s one way where the utilities came up with a business model. This is business model innovation of the utility, okay? We’re gonna do that; benefits us, benefits the grid, benefits all stakeholders, this type of win-win-win scenario is exactly what we need. And that’s just one formulation of it, there are many formulations. But connecting to the grid is a very… you know, if you just try to go connect the same solar power for like five years ago, or I’ll give you example, 2011. When we did our first big commercial project, Estee Lauder in Melville.

Eric: Yes, congratulations on it!

David: 2011! We just installed the second system for them: ground mount, big. This time it was much harder, many more issues to review, but they still approved it. But now if you’re trying to get a system like this approved? Very hard. Why? Because you have a certain amount of injection possible per substation per circuit. So I don’t wanna get too in the weeds in this conversation; the big picture concern is the grid. There are ways to innovate, you have to be smart, strategic, business models, all this business.

Eric: Alright, so LIPA and PSEG have this barrier of the grid, and it’s not necessarily a fault of their own, there aren’t just this is how the system has evolved over time. New York State has these great climate goals, but they’re ambitious. Now, what’s new with the feds? Obviously, we have a new president, he’s talking green energy on a whole robust level. And there’s, you know, big dollars coming down the pike with infrastructure. What is your industry lobby or your, you know, be Nostradamus for a moment? What do you think? What’s happening on the federal level? And how does that impact us out here?

David: Well, I mean, Biden was extremely active in the 2009 stimulus bill, which did incentivize, begin to incentivize clean energy. So this round, you know, and given the state of technology, public interest, and concern, the as you know, their, their thing to go big. 

Now, there are a couple of other really positive things going on. Some of the smartest folks from industry are now working at the Department of Energy. And so he has really smart people advising him. And that’s going to benefit us here, because it’s not this is not just a matter of, you know… I saw an interesting take on this is like, you know, a lot of times a stimulus, you look for shovel-ready. And with infrastructure, I’m sure there’s plenty of soft shovel-ready,

Eric: We’ve got backlogs. We’ve got the engineering report nationally and statewide report card and we’re like level D, and level… C minus is like our best grade, you know, as far as all the different levels of infrastructure. So we got stuff that’s shovel-ready.

David: And I mean, I think infrastructure, typically, we’re talking about roads, we’re talking about bridges, sewers, it’s a big issue for Long Island; massive, I know. So, you know, there’s a return on investment for these things. 

So now, take a look at the clean energy piece of the equation. The clean energy, from a stimulus standpoint, from federal government standpoint, I think they’re they’re they’re looking at it as not just a near term injection, as a budget as a sort of a stimulus measure… But also, when you train someone to be a solar energy worker, and we can talk about that later, you can shift somebody from another career into this career, and there’s a lot of promise. And, you know, I will share like this one misconception that solar, at least some people try to portray it as maintenance-free, service-free. But the reality is you need to do a lot of service, you need to be engaged with the system over time. 

What I’m trying to get at is that this is a booming field for new jobs. I think that the Biden administration sees this as not just a, you know, a quick hit to put some monetary stimulus into the economy. I think they see it as an investment. So I do think that clean energy will receive a significant portion of investment dollars from this stimulus bill. I mean, the politics of it also is tricky, right? Because, you know, these are big numbers right into the debt.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. We earn our way back on that one.

David: So if you look at where perhaps I might be signaling that we need that investment, specifically? Well, the grid.. We were just talking about the grid. The grid is an example of this, you know, and so our grid needs a lot of investment in upgrades in order to, you know… Actually I will tell you that the state goals, they did, the Public Service Commission did put out a request to the utilities to come up with a plan, which they did. How do you meet 70% or 100%? The grid’s not ready, we talked about, so actually the utilities put out a plan. 

Eric: How does this actually happen? Yeah, yeah.

David: It’s billions and billions. Right. So, so yeah, if we can get just a piece of that.

Eric: Okay. Wow. All right. We’ve covered a lot of ground here as far as where kind of the green energy world’s going. So just tell me where you’re going, the balance of 2021? What do you want to accomplish? I mean, you’re a leader in this field. But obviously, you got a piece of this world that you’re tackling. What do you want to do short term? What do you want to get done?

David: Sure. So you know, yeah, I have two hats. I mean, as an industry advocate, as a concerned member of society, I spent a lot of time with that hat on. But my most important hat is as an entrepreneur, running a small business that’s growing. I have 100 plus employees now. We’re a great company. But we need to also rise to the challenge. You know, I mean, that’s part of this whole ecosystem- the private company needs to be very smart and scale responsibly. COVID was, and remains, a challenge. I mean, infections continue to occur. We’re not cohabitating in one office, and, of course, remote is, I mean, goodness, we can stay productive today. But it’s not the same.

Eric: Yep. Yep. No, no, people need to be in front of each other. I mean, I think personally, and the way I like to work, you know, and others are so much more productive when we can connect on a human level and hold each other accountable to you know, in a workspace.

David: So we’re viable, we’re functional, but not optimized, not optimized. But I mean, look, we actually will have a record year from a business standpoint, remarkable considering everything. We’re gonna have a record year. The winter was really bad, but we’re coming out of it. The second wave hit us, you know, and hit the building departments. Everything slowed down. But now we’re kind of, we had that thaw going, and you know, how good does that sun feel? And so we’re going to have a record year, but the challenge for me, and our team, is to think about how to rise to the challenge. How do we rise to the challenge? 

And I want to just mention an important report, Eric. The Nature Conservancy, Jessica Price, Uplands Farm. The solar map just published, officially released, we were part of it. But Jessica, and others, did such a remarkable job. It shows that we can fit 19 gigawatts of solar power, which is enough to power our needs today, electrically, on Long Island, and in fact, it’s not even residential sites. It’s just what she calls “low impact” sites. Very profound report. So I look at this and I say, and so we talked about, you know, how, what is the number? Well, actually, we quantified it. That’s the number. That’s the number we can do. Add in residential, add in the wind, we can export power to New York City. Crazy!

 So I think about it from a company standpoint, okay, cool, we have this great big growth opportunity. We have challenges, we need to address those. How do we do this responsibly? How do I make the team, how do I empower the team? How do we all grow successfully together? And, you know, being a great stakeholder in the community, I mean, that’s, you know, we’ve cared about that immensely over the years. But I want to up our contributions too, because it’s not just one thing. It’s not just clean energy.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. Now, you have a wide ranging view of public good and public health and environmental movement, and I’ve always appreciated that about you. You see how systems work together, you’re not in a silo. You know, that’s how you know you think. Yeah, so hey, look, this is a lot of good stuff. I want to reel it back a little bit and just, you know, sometimes we get a powerful presentation like this and it’s like, alright, who’s the guy behind this? So tell me something about you. Personally, I’ve known you for a long time, but other folks may not know you.

David: Well, I suppose it’s critical to mention, of course, that I have a beautiful wife and two young kids. We live in Long Island City. We used to live in Long Beach. And, you know, we moved some years ago. Enjoying Queens, but I do come to Long Island. We have an office in Farmingdale, and Island Park, so I’m, you know, around every day. 

I think that maybe it’d be important to mention about myself and why I feel so strongly about these things. I mean, I was always involved politically, I was just naturally interested in and concerned, even as a kid. But a couple of things came together for me when I was around, you know, in my early 20s. First of all, I really loved technology. I loved, and I know I kind of bug you about it a lot, but, you know, I just think technology is cool and fun. And innovation, I love the innovation part of it. And you innovate in your own ways, but not with technology. I think we can all agree with that. Okay, this is why this is like, How did this happen? But you’re good with messaging, communication. 

So I became exposed to energy technologies, and a couple other things going on at the time, my understanding of the Middle East, you know, I had had been to Israel, and I’d been really concerned about the Middle East conflict, for a lot of reasons. And then 911 happened. And I mentioned to you that I lived down there, and I was there that day. And I would like to just concentrate on my response to that day. Which my response, and others, has been, you know, a lot of people are down there, and everybody even just observes that one of the things that occurred is that you looked in the eye of evil, you felt the very worst in human nature. And I don’t want to say, I can’t say to you that I can draw a direct line to dependency on fossil fuels and the dominance of fossil fuels in the Middle East as a direct contributor to that event, or terrorism in general, but I think there’s s pretty bold dotted line that you can draw to the funding and in all the problems associated with despotic regimes, and oppression in that region. And there are so many long standing challenges and issues. 

So that, for me, coalesced this thinking that we need to clean our air. One source of funding and terrible perpetuating factor contributing to terrorism, I believe, I still do, is the fossil fuel strength of that region. And so, to me, clean energy is something that quickly emerged as a solution to multiple issues at once. So that’s something that, you know, one of the things that drives me today is, you know, and if you just think about, you know, from I have a lot of friends in the military, and they feel the same way, you know, if you just think about, oh, gosh. I mean, imagine the cost savings from removing our military presence in the Middle East, I mean, that, that alone… And by the way, one other point on this: people that I know from the Middle East that are involved with clean energy, they love it too! The people, like the Jordanians that I know that are that are have their hands on…

Eric: See this is what I love about you, you have this international perspective where you really see beyond installing solar panels, or ‘I’m the local green energy advocate’, you you have kind of this worldview…

David: Globally, and the Africans and the Latin Americans or South Americans and the Asians, because this is the democratization of energy. It really is. So that’s why it’s just so for me, this is… Look, it’s obviously not the panacea, there are so many things to do, but it’s one piece of the puzzle. And so, for me, I feel this stuff very strongly. 

Eric: No, I mean, it’s funny. The funny thing about connecting to you all these years, is, you know, I’ve seen the vision, but you practice it, you know, and and you do it. I love that you practice what you preach, you drive your electric car, you’re always tormenting me about that too. We’re there, I got to get myself into, you know, the green world, but you do it in a way, you know, you really bring people with you, you’re employing folks, you’re putting money back into the local economy. And then you’re going and lobbying with your, you know, with your folks, with your trade association, to try to bring more resources in really to lift all of us up, you know, and get us through these times. And I’ve always appreciated that about you, you’re not just talking, my friend. You’re not just about green talk, you’re about a man of action. So thank you for that. 

So with that action, how can people get involved? You know, and I think there’s a few parts to that as there’s, you know, they could get involved in the green industry in different ways or your company, for some they could be advocates, or they could go get a solar panel from you, or defer their business to the home. There’s different action items. So what would you suggest, what’s your top pick?

David: Sure. So I’m going to start with kids.

Eric: Yeah. Okay.

David: Because that’s another part of my history. We do a lot of you know, and I was fortunate to participate in a big STEM event when I was young, that’s another big thing that got me interested and educated me. We have a biannual competition, the solar decathlon it’s called, a solar competition that we’re running as a company. So EmPower Solar has got information on its website. I’m sure I’m supposed to know the exact website. But it’s, if you go to our website, EmPower Solar, it’s there. But we’re partnered with a lot of great groups, a lot of great groups that are involved with STEM education. Cradle of Aviation Museum, you know, APEC in Queens, a lot of different groups that are very good with STEM. 

So the thing is, when kids get involved, it’s happening without our additional contribution, but we can do something and we are. Because when kids start to look at this, it just becomes part of the DNA. Why am I going to burn something and put emissions in the air? What!? What’s wrong with you people that you do this a lot now! Okay, so it’s not quite that simple, but kids do get it and it becomes part of the DNA and we find that there’s a lot of push from kids. Push it, you got to do this, this is the way to do it. And it’s the same, it carries to recycling other things. 

So I would say it’s kids, STEM is a great, or STEAM actually, I love the word STEAM, because it adds an arts there. You know, science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. I love STEAM. And we have a lot of great programs on Long Island, you know, Brookhaven has got a lot of programs. 

I would say for you know, there’s a big, there’s been a big rush to, you know, renovate homes to move into homes, there’s been even I think, a net addition to the population from Manhattan, or the city. And so now you have new homeowners that, you know, now’s a great moment to take a look at the things you can do, and we’ve been working with a lot of these folks. And I will tell you: adding solar, that’s easy. You need a new roof, you need a good condition, roof, that’s vital. Yeah, that is easy. We can, you know, you;;l save money right away. And when you’re making, especially when you’re looking to make enhancements, boost property value, or just improve the conditions, you know, it’s the perfect moment to do that. You know, putting in an electric car charger at the same time, not expensive. And if you actually take a look, we have some math that goes through the benefits. Okay? You save money on an electric car. The operating cost of an electric car is so low. Okay, so that’s another easy cost effective, immediate action.

Eric: I’m waiting for the pickup truck. I want the pickup truck.

David: When it comes to my office, I’m driving it to you. So those are some of the things I mean, look, there’s plenty of stuff, but I think that those are some, you know, the low hanging fruit.

Eric: Cool, cool. And a lot of information’s on your website, definitely about you guys and what you do, and what services you offer right? It’s EmPower Solar, and and then you have your advocacy efforts that you’re a part of right? That’s the New York Solar Energy Industry Association.

David: NYSEIA, we call it.

Eric: NYSEIA. Great, great, great, okay, any other way to reach you, or that’s the best way, those are the best ways?

David: You can text Eric, and then Eric will text me.

Eric: David, this is great. Thank you for taking the time to kind of deconstruct the future of green energy for us in 30 minutes or less, you know, pretty well done. And for telling us a little bit about, you know, what, what you’re doing and the kind of leader that you are out here. And lastly, I just want to say you invested in downtown Farmingdale- opened up a new spot as part of the revitalization of the community. You know, that you created jobs that you have there. And I think, you know, certainly the mayor’s happy and certainly just good to see you know, that that type of growth. So I want to thank you personally for that. 

David: One of the many success stories that Vision’s been working on for years. 

Eric: Yeah, means a lot. So anyway, good stuff, David. Thank you, rock and roll. 

Check out David and his team and EmPower Solar, check out that website. You know, check out any number of ways you can go as far as you know, get an electric car, get a car charging station, get solar on your home or your business, but be part of the Green Revolution. And it’s a challenge, but it’s also more accessible than ever has been. It’s really the normative direction that we’re going. Alright, check in on the next edition!