Cleantech and Green Public RelationsBorrego Solar Systems
Founded in 1980, Borrego Solar Systems, Inc. (www.borregosolar.com) is one of the nation’s ten-largest designers and installers of commercial, residential and public sector grid–connected solar electric systems.
In late 2007, amid a perfect storm of market factors including high energy prices, public awareness around global warming, renewable-energy tax credits and the improving efficiency of solar technologies, Borrego Solar’s business was exploding. To meet growing demand for solar electricity, Borrego was expanding rapidly into new markets.
Despite all of its success, Borrego was losing the publicity battle with less mature, venture-backed start-ups. The industry and company were expanding so rapidly that Borrego needed a results-oriented public relations firm to provide both sound strategy and exceptional execution to ensure that Borrego’s leadership within the solar industry was reflected in its external communications efforts.
Cool Earth Solar
Since its founding 2006, Cool Earth Solar has worked to reshape the way people look at solar energy. Using its inflated, balloon-like solar concentrators and concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) technology, Cool Earth Solar developed a breakthrough solar technology that could ultimately produce enough clean energy to solve the global energy crisis. Cool Earth Solar builds, owns and operates utility-scale solar power plants and sells the power back to the grid at costs competitive with electricity produced with fossil fuels.
Unlike other utility-scale solar providers, Cool Earth Solar uses inexpensive or free materials that are readily and abundantly available, such as plastic thin film and air. This radically reduces materials requirements, cost and time for deployment and enables Cool Earth Solar to rapidly scale its plants to meet demand. In addition, the unique design is less disruptive to the environment than traditional solar technologies: rather than grading and scraping the land to achieve a perfectly flat surface, Cool Earth Solar concentrators are well-suited to areas that have already been disturbed, such as fallow farmland. Global Solar Energy
Since its founding 1996, Global Solar Energy, Inc. has emerged as the leading producer of an innovative solar cell technology. Used in a variety of applications—from traditional solar power modules to new building products and designs—Global Solar manufactures Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) cells, which are deposited on flexible backing. CIGS is a type of thin film technology that is lightweight and highly efficient. The Company’s solar strings, called PowerFlex, are the only bendable solar cells in full scale production today. For years, Global Solar has delivered its PowerFlex strings to module manufacturers for use in solar energy systems.
Startech
Startech Environmental Corporation, based in Wilton, Connecticut, is the pioneer in an exciting new environmental technology called plasma pyrolisis. Basically, Startech uses the extreme heat of a plasma field (plasmas are super-heated gasses) to dissolve the molecular bonds of any material. Within Startech’s system temperatures reach as high as 30,000 degrees F, with an average temperature of 6,000 degrees F. These extreme temperatures trigger a process called molecular dissociation, which reduces materials to their constituent parts and gives off a clean, energy-producing gas as a byproduct.
Startech’s Plasma Converter – a large device that looks something like a boiler – breaks down plain trash or hazardous waste cleanly, without combustion. Startech had developed breakthrough technology that can simultaneously dispose of hazardous waste and create a clean energy source. But the company was small and unknown outside of a small world of plasma conversion experts. Even worse, most people who heard about Startech’s technology assumed that the Plasma Converter destroyed waste through combustion. This misunderstanding could prevent companies and towns from even trying the system, since combustion has bad connotations and implies environmental damage.
SunRun
By combining their passion for finance and the environment, two Stanford MBA graduates, CEO Ed Fenster and President Lynn Jurich, established SunRun and set out to bring homeowners a low-cost, service-oriented alternative to investing in their own solar electricity systems. Beginning with one roof in San Francisco in 2007, the partners first focused on establishing the company in California, and then came to Schwartz Communications to increase awareness, drive customer leads through strategic solar PR campaigns and help expand into new markets, including Massachusetts and Arizona.
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