By Jim Wyle & Paula Kline

On October 19, 2019, Ready for 100/Chester County hosted a tour on the National Solar Tour. We visited 35 sites, covering the better part of the whole county, and welcomed over 200 participants at installed and operation examples of:

•  Rooftop residential solar systems
•  Battery storage systems
• Large commercial solar operations - including a 1.1 MW array at a mushroom farm
• Green roofs
• Ground-source heat pumps
• Air-source heat pumps (owner installed)
• Net-zero, passive solar homes
• Solar powered robotic lawnmowers
• Renewable gas producing digesters
• Home energy efficiency measures - including an in-progress blower door test by PECO Home Energy Assessments program
• Electric vehicles and charging stations
• And much more

The Chester County Clean Energy Tour of 2019 was the culmination of a vision by Paula Kline, Ready For 100/Chester County team leader. Paula committed to joining the national solar tour in the spring of 2019 and spent eight months lining up volunteers (about 15), endorsements from elected officials and energy related organizations and sponsors (commercial) and co-sponsors (env orgs). A huge undertaking that ultimately included four kickoff sites with hosts and presenters and visual materials that can be used for future renewable energy related events.

A perfect fall day in the low 60’s and bright blue skies helped turn out people from across the region, including families interested in seeing real solutions for carbon-reducing, clean renewable energy and energy efficiency.

This is a great example of what community engagement around renewable energy advocacy looks like. Beyond setting goals of transitioning to 100% renewable energy, we need to illustrate the many examples of effective solutions - right here in our neighborhoods. Distributed renewable energy is real, the return on investment is real - both for the property owner and the environment - and it’s only going to get better.

To top the day off, we gathered at Victory Brewing in Downingtown for a quick tour of this solar-powered local brewery to share stories about the wonderful day and to raise a toast to our awesome volunteers.

See all of the sponsors and official endorsements at www.ReadyFor100.org/chescopa#tour.

We are all looking forward to a bigger and better tour next year. We encourage other Ready For 100 teams in PA to join as well.

Paula Kline, event organizer said: “The tour was so successful in part because it revealed how our local residents, businesses and government are all taking the most important steps to transition away from polluting and climate disrupting fossil fuels. Many sites displayed the effectiveness of the first step - maximizing energy efficiency - from passive solar design to insulation and energy star appliances. Other sites showcased the second step - shifting our activities to electric. Although much of our system currently runs on fossil fuels, many host sites' cars, heating and cooling, and stoves all used electricity instead.  The third step - using clean renewable energy - could be seen in homes, businesses (Marlborough Mushrooms)  and schools (Delaware Valley Friends) in the form of on-site solar, off site solar or wind and/or  the purchase of example of electricity that is 100 percent GHG-free."

This blog was included as part of the 2020 Winter Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!