Green Lantern Solar’s new president Scott Buckley came to his current position at Vermont-based Green Lantern Solar thanks to a background in energy and finance.
When Buckley’s father closed his West Virginia coal mine years ago, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Buckley did some research and found solar power would be a perfect solution to revitalize the brownfield and still make money on energy at the site.
The founders of commercial developer and installer Green Lantern Solar shared Buckley’s pioneering spirit.
In this episode of the Contractor’s Corner podcast, we talk about Green Lantern Solar’s dual-use and brownfield projects, including one on a former Cold War-era missile base. An edited portion of the interview is below, but be sure to listen to the full podcast for more insight on the company’s hopes for solar recycling breakthroughs and continued dual-use development.
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SPW: How did you personally get into the solar industry?
Scott Buckley: It started as a need to help my dad. He was getting older and he owned a mine in West Virginia, where I’m from. He needed a way to have some income on the mine property now that all the resources had been depleted over the years, and so we started looking around and thought, well, there’s three-phase power that comes into the mine, it’s really flat because it was a strip mine, so it was really well-sited for solar. We thought that would be the highest and best use for the land.
I had been working in brownfield cleanup and real estate and business before, and I wanted to use those skills and translate it into solar.
Green Lantern’s project at Alburgh Missile Base.
What’s been the most unique project your company has completed?
We did an array in Benson, Vermont. It’s an elevated array, standard fixed-tilt, but the cows come and get shade under the array, so it reduces their heat stress. There’s no lost ground because the animals still use the area; it’s before they go into the barn, so it really works well and gives a stream of income to the farmer to hedge against milk price volatility.
In Albert, Vermont, we did a project on a former ICBM missile base, the ones that you …….
Source: https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/03/contractors-corner-green-lantern-solar/
