Another “first post” post.
About a year ago, I posted a pic of the first post installed at the 30 MW array at our farm in Warren county. That project wraps up this spring. Now, we have finally broken ground on our second parking canopy array here at the zoo. This one is over 2.8 MW, roughly doubling the size of the system in our old parking lot. At the time, that array was the largest urban array in the nation.
Started planning for this in 2017. Lots of challenges and roadblocks - there ALWAYS are on innovative, sustainable infrastructure projects. The I.R.A. was the game changer for us, allowing us, as a nonprofit, to secure the rebates associated with renewable energy projects. But the real point here is that we were ready. We had already done the work to have this project “shovel ready”. And that’s the hardest part. And when the IRA opened a door for us….boom, we were off and running.
Too many times, I see organizations miss out on opportunities because they are not ready. They haven’t set the big goal, they haven’t put in the time and effort needed, and they haven’t done the networking and prep work needed.
It is so true that “luck” happens when opportunity meets preparation. So call us lucky if you will. We sure have been lucky for these past 18 years. Over and over and over again.
Is your organization ready to be lucky? That really is the only way to pull off these types of projects.
Be relentless. And be ready.
Melink Solar Jeff Koehn Prus Construction Company Tony James FC SOLAR Dean Violetta TMI Energy Solutions David Jenike Seth Parker Monica Niehaus Micah Zender ENTRUST Solutions GroupNathan Young JR Stoll