We’re pleased to announce that the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) has approved a $5,700 contract to help renovate our main campus in downtown Fort Lauderdale.  With this funding, we’ll be adding a rooftop teaching lab, new classroom, additional sidewalk, permeable parking lot, solar-powered street lighting, and a rain water capture cistern for our upcoming urban garden (which we hope will be certified organic).

We’ll also use this CRA money to install a wind turbine.  We’re already downtown Fort Lauderdale’s first commercial net-positive energy building, so the wind turbine won’t actually cut our electricity bills down any further.  It will, however, reduce the amount of fossil fuel that Florida Power & Light has to burn.

The wind turbine will also provide another platform on which to train our students in renewable energy technologies.  Although we’re obviously gung-ho about solar energy, we welcome all renewables as we work towards a cleaner and greener future.

How Solar Energy Is Fueling the Local Economy

As diehard fans of solar energy, we’ve learned that bigger is not always better.

Distributed, local power generation, for example, has numerous advantages over the standard networks that have come to define our national energy grid.  With solar energy, you can produce the electricity you need when and where you need it, without long transmission lines.

That’s why we were so pleased when the Community Redevelopment Agency (a local organization) tapped Urbanform Design Group (a local architectural firm) to help spearhead our renovations (a local fix).  Community money creating community jobs creating community training opportunities.

There’s a certain elegance in all that.

Don’t get us wrong.  We’re not opposed to federal approaches and comprehensive solutions.  We would have loved to receive a portion of the $3 million in Recovery Act funds the DOL specifically earmarked for green training in the region.  You would think that the country’s first licensed solar training college of its kind would have been a prime candidate.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  But perhaps that’s ok.  After all, despite missing out on the federal goodies, US Solar Institute has blossomed in ways we never could have imagined.  Over the past three years, we’ve funded most of our operations (with occasional local help) and graduated over 500 qualified solar panel installers in the process.

Contrast this with the growing number of “Recovery” fund recipients who have declared bankruptcy in the past year.

Bigger is not always better.

We’re thrilled that the CRA has taken such a keen interest in our success.  And we heartily welcome any other assistance – local, federal, or international – that comes our way.  In the meantime, we’ll keep doing what we do best – getting people excited about, certified in, and working with solar energy.