Staunton, VA, Feb. 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Secure Solar Futures, a provider of on-site clean energy to schools, hospitals, and businesses, has opened an office in Huntington, West Virginia. Representing the next phase of the company’s expansion into the state, the office will be headed by Matthew Anderson, a West Virginia native and military veteran with more than 20 years’ experience as an entrepreneur in multiple fields including information technology, construction, and manufacturing.
Anderson will oversee outreach to K-12 schools and community colleges that are eligible for solar incentive grants from the Coalfield Solar Fund. A partnership of Secure Solar Futures, global financial technology company Intuit, and the National Energy Education Development Project, the Coalfield Solar Fund offers incentive grants to encourage Virginia and West Virginia K-12 public schools and community colleges to go solar at no upfront cost.
Anderson will also help develop Secure Solar Futures’s initiative to establish Solar Regional Clusters of educational institutions in coalfield regions of the state to share resources for clean energy workforce development.
“For more than a century, the people of West Virginia have provided energy to keep the lights on for American families and run industries ranging from steel to software,” said Anderson. “Now we have the chance to transition to the 21st century energy economy by adding solar to West Virginia’s portfolio. With Secure Solar Futures, I look forward to finding ways to save clients money while developing career opportunities in regions where they did not exist before.”
Secure Solar Futures specializes in providing solar power, electric vehicle charging, and other clean energy offerings with no upfront cost at commercial scale through a Power Purchase Agreement. In 2021, West Virginia became the 29th state to allow solar PPAs, a type of financing that allows customers to install a solar power system on site without any upfront capital cost by contracting with a solar provider to operate solar equipment on the customer’s behalf.
With 35 megawatts of solar power capacity installed as of the third quarter of 2023, West Virginia currently draws less than one percent of its energy from the sun and ranks 49th among US states for solar generation, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The state is projected to develop solar capacity of 517 megawatts and rise in rank to 45th in the next five years, boosted by a 42 percent decline in costs for solar power systems in West Virginia over the last decade.
About Secure Solar Futures
As a market and policy leader, Secure Solar Futures builds, owns, manages, and funds affordable Resilient Solar Solutions® for schools, hospitals, and businesses. The company combines state–of–the–art solar technology with an innovative business model to make commercial-scale solar readily affordable in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, helping customers realize solar energy’s economic, environmental, and community benefits. In 2017, Secure Solar Futures became a Certified B Corporation®. Find the company online at www.securesolarfutures.com.