DALTON, Ga. — Growing up in Cartersville, Georgia, Lisa Nash saw what happens to communities when factory jobs disappear. It was the 1980s and corporations were offshoring production to reduce costs and raise profits. The jobs that remained in this northwest corner of the state were typically lower-paying ones that didn’t offer the same ladder to the middle class.

“My parents and grandparents were in manufacturing, and they were the ones saying, ​‘Don’t do it,’” Nash recalled.

Nash disregarded their advice, embarking instead on a long career in manufacturing — first in textiles, followed by stints in aviation, automotive, and steel. Now she’s helping to bring higher-tech, higher-paying factory work back to the corridor between Atlanta and Chattanooga. 

Nash is the general manager of the Qcells solar panel factory in Dalton, a town of 34,000 located 50 miles up I-75 from her hometown. It opened in January 2019, after the Trump administration imposed a fresh round of tariffs on Chinese-made panels. The Korean conglomerate Hanwha owns Qcells, and initially planned to hire several hundred people at the site, Nash told me on a recent visit to the factory. By the end of 2019, it employed more than 800. 

Then, in 2020, Georgia helped elect President Joe Biden and sent two Democrats to the Senate, clinching a thin majority. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock got to work crafting detailed policies to promote domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies, which China had dominated for years; they wanted solar panels and batteries made in America — specifically Georgia — instead of in China, a geopolitical rival.

Those measures made it into the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in August 2022 — two years ago this week. The legislation created the nation’s first comprehensive policies to support domestic clean energy manufacturing. Qcells broke ground on a second facility in Dalton in February 2023. Completed that August, the expansion added two football fields’ worth of manufacturing space with four new production lines — which produce 1.5 times more solar panels than the original three lines, thanks to technological advances. Now the whole complex employs 2,000 people full time and makes 5.1 gigawatts of solar panels a year, more than any other site in the U.S.

Politicians have been promising for decades to retrain American workers and revive long-lost manufacturing, with little to show for it. Now, though, the U.S. has entered a new era on trade: Leaders of both parties have rejected the long-standing free-trade consensus and its penchant for offshoring jobs. Biden married that reshoring impulse with a desire to boost clean energy production, to both stimulate the economy and fight climate change. 

This grand experiment remains in its infancy, and the success of the clean energy manufacturing revolution is by no means guaranteed. Cheap imports could outcompete even newly subsidized American products. 

And if Republicans win the presidency and retake Congress, they’ve threatened to stop subsidizing low-carbon energy resources and instead double down on fossil fuel production. House Republicans — including Dalton’s representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene — have voted repeatedly and unsuccessfully to repeal the domestic manufacturing incentives in the IRA. (Greene’s press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

“Donald Trump and his Republican allies promised to gut the Inflation Reduction Act if he’s reelected, so there’s a lot at stake here,” Representative Nikema Williams, who leads the Georgia Democrats, told me.

Since the IRA passed, Georgia has received $23 billion in clean energy factory investment, much of it flowing to northwest Georgia. I wanted to see what impact this is having on communities formerly hit hard by industrial decline, so I followed the money trail to Dalton earlier this summer. 

I found a population that seems to like having advanced solar manufacturing in their backyard. Dalton’s solar jobs are boosting wages, invigorating the historic town center, and employing local high school graduates. Those benefits are starting to spread to nearby communities, where new solar factories are springing to life. In November, voters will weigh two very different visions of America’s energy future on the ballot, but Dalton is already reaping the rewards from slotting solar into its storied history of industrial production.

From carpets to solar

Both CSX and Norfolk Southern run Class I rail lines through Dalton, a testament to its industrial legacy, and freight trains bellow day and night.

That legacy harks back to 1900, according to local historians, when Catherine Evans Whitener sold a hand-tufted bedspread from her front porch for $2.50. The cottage industry took off in this land of forested ridges and stream-crossed valleys, and over time, local factories consolidated into global carpeting giants Shaw Industries and Mohawk Industries.

“The carpet industry was born here,” Carl Campbell, executive director of economic development at the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce, told me when I visited the Chamber. The New Georgia Encyclopedia states that 80 percent of America’s tufted carpet production happens within 100 miles of Dalton.

The conference room where we spoke sported large-format aerial photographs of the major factories nearby: the largest Shaw site, 650,000 square feet; and the new Engineered Floors colossus, 2.8 million square feet. 

“You feel like there’s enough carpet in that building to cover the whole world,” said Campbell, who grew up in Dalton. 

Dalton employment numbers peaked at 80,200 in 2006, per the Chattanooga Times Free Press. But the Great Recession crushed the homebuilding industry, cratering demand for Dalton’s carpeting products. 

Dalton ​“was a ghost town in 2011, nothing going on because everybody was hurting,” Campbell added. From June 2011 to June 2012, Dalton notched the dubious distinction of most jobs lost of all 372 metro areas surveyed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By that point, one-quarter of Dalton’s pre-recession jobs had vanished, and unemployment surged to 12.3 percent. 

Since then, the industry has recovered somewhat. Engineered Floors, Mohawk, and Shaw still dominate local employment, with some 14,000 jobs among them, Campbell said. Those companies have had to adapt to evolving consumer tastes, shifting from wall-to-wall carpets to hardwood and other flooring materials. They’ve also automated aspects of production, reducing the number of workers needed.

In the wake of the Great Recession, local leaders sought to diversify Dalton’s industry. The county acquired an undeveloped lot south of town, and Campbell later pushed to clear and level the site, so it was shovel-ready for some future tenant. When Trump’s solar tariffs kicked in, Campbell’s counterparts at Georgia’s Department of Economic Development sent Qcells his way. 

Qcells showed up in February 2018, looking to spin up its first American solar-panel factory in less than a year. ​“Suddenly, we had exactly what they needed,” Campbell said.

Thus Dalton managed to bring in new industry to balance out its base of carpets and flooring. Qcells originally promised to invest $130 million and hire 525 people within five years, Campbell said. 

“They did it in three months,” he added. ​“In terms of an economic development project, they check all the boxes: Everything they said they would do, they did it faster than they said they would do it.”

Domestic solar manufacturing, by humans and robots

When I asked folks around town what they thought of Qcells, they kept mentioning the dozens of air-conditioning units arrayed on the factory roof, like a field of doghouses, easily visible from I-75. I later learned that Qcells brought in helicopters to install those units, which made for a bit of small-town spectacle. Still, it struck me as a surprising detail to dwell on for a business that somehow turns the sun’s rays into cheap, emissions-free electricity. 

Once I crossed Qcells’ sizzling parking lot and stepped indoors, it started to make sense. Georgia gets hot, and carpet factories get hot, but the vast floors of the twin solar factories are quite literally cool places to work. 

The climate control is not unique to assembling solar panels, but it is required for the sensitive, precisely calibrated product. The air conditioners are but one sign that high-tech manufacturing has arrived, and that it makes for pretty comfortable work.

I met my two tour guides, Wayne Lock and Alan Rodriguez, in the factory lobby, and they quickly confirmed the physical appeal of Qcells jobs. Lock, now a quality engineer at Qcells, previously worked in carpet manufacturing; he had to wear special heat-resistant gear to handle carpeting materials that would otherwise deliver third-degree burns. Rodriguez, an engineering supervisor at Qcells, used to apply the coating material underneath carpets.

“You’re sandwiched between the steamer and the oven, so it gets quite hot,” Rodriguez told me. Attending to those machines exposed him to temperatures that could exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Even more than Qcells’ air conditioning, though, people I spoke to kept bringing up the pay.

By offering more for zero-skill, entry-level positions than the other factories in town, Qcells started attracting workers and pushed up wages across Dalton, Campbell said: ​“Competition brings everybody, so everybody’s had to kind of equalize to keep employees.” 

Now Qcells hourly wages for non-experienced hires start at $17.50 to $22 — that amounts to $36,400 to $45,760 a year for full-time work. Workers with experience in robotics and manufacturing can take home much more than that. Employees can raise their pay through a variety of on-the-job training, most of which involves handling and troubleshooting the in-house fleet of robots.

Lock, Rodriguez, and I walked into the newest factory, past meeting rooms with names like Naboo and Mandalore, Star Wars locales where quirky robots coexist with all manner of creatures. As we strolled across the floor, squat wheeled autonomous vehicles rolled past us down pathways marked by tape on the smooth floor, ferrying bales of materials or hauling out hulking boxes of finished panels.

“We try to stay out of their way, and if we don’t, they yell at us,” said Lock. ​“It’s fun.”

As we stood talking, I noticed that one such robo-buggy was waiting for us to move. Barely discernible over the background drone of machines, a female voice intoned, ​“Robot is moving. Please look out.” When humans hold up more time-sensitive deliveries, Lock explained, the voice switches to male and gets louder. 

Other robots remain fixed in place, carrying out repetitive precision tasks. I stared, mesmerized, at one machine that split wafer-thin silicon cells in half, first scoring them with a laser, then slicing them with a concentrated jet of water. A taller machine grabbed nearly 8-foot metal frames and sliced them through the air like a master swordsman in a Kurosawa film, to slot them around glassed-in silicon panels. 

Throughout the process, cameras scan cells and use artificial intelligence to shunt defective items off the line for manual correction. 

In the 2019-era factory next door, humans carry out many of these tasks. Lock, though, didn’t see the robots as competitors — he said they were taking on more physically demanding jobs so the humans could step into higher-skilled roles tending to robots.

“The ergonomics are better for you,” he said, and the new lines are more productive. 

Hiring local, spending local

When Qcells was first staffing up, it relied on Quick Start, a Georgia state program that funds worker training for new factories before they open — a major draw for executives deciding where to locate their factories.

Qcells still recruits to meet ongoing staffing needs, and it has been paying special attention to high schoolers who are graduating and looking for employment. Nash speaks passionately about Qcells’ recruitment efforts; she’s seen the civic fallout from decades when local families encouraged kids to avoid manufacturing.

“Small communities cannot thrive with kids graduating and leaving those communities to live elsewhere, to get high-paying technical jobs,” Nash said. ​“That’s what’s happening across the country. Bringing manufacturing back, and bringing highly automated manufacturing, is offering job opportunities where now these students are staying here.”

Some 56 percent of Dalton-area students enroll in postsecondary education within 16 months of graduating high school, said Stephani Womack, director of education and workforce development for the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce. For the remainder, the chamber wants to make sure family-supporting jobs are available.

For two weeks in June, Womack helped run Project Purpose, a crash course in how to start and navigate careers that pay living wages. Recent high school graduates prepped for interviews, shopped for professional clothes, and toured housing options and downtown hotspots — the kinds of places they could frequent once they join the workforce. 

But the centerpiece of the program amounted to professional speed dating, as Dalton’s major employers offered tours and entry-level jobs. Last year, Dalton’s first time running Project Purpose, seven young adults completed the program, and Qcells hired one of them. This time, 18 finished, and Qcells hired 12 of them to start on July 1.

“Next year, we hope to double that, or more,” Nash said. 

Several participants came in knowing about Qcells, betting that the intensive crash course would increase their odds of landing good roles there, Womack told me over a table at Garmony House, a downtown coffee shop that draws lines for its statuesque strawberry cupcakes and coffee-glazed cinnamon rolls.

“Qcells is providing a diverse set of options for our students who need to go to work but want to stay in our community,” Womack said. ​“They see a climate-controlled facility with entry-level opportunities — that’s exciting for them. … Manufacturing isn’t what it used to be.”

For younger people to stay in town and build a life, Dalton needs more housing, and now it’s getting its first large apartment complex in over two decades, Campbell said. In total, 900 apartment units are slated to come online from last August through this November — not enough to catch up on a long-running housing deficit, but a step in the right direction.

That renewed real estate activity is reflected in downtown Dalton’s bustling core. 

Locals pack the booths at the Oakwood Cafe, perhaps the only place in America that sells a platter of egg, sausage, toast, and grits for just $3.65. Multiple microbreweries beckon, as does a plush cocktail bar, the Gallant Goat, which stocks fresh mint by the fistful to garnish its drinks. Down the road, diners can sample ceviche of shrimp shipped in from coastal Mexico, succulent chicken wings, and high-end Southern cuisine. 

This spring, the plush Carpentry Hotel opened across from the Oakwood Cafe, decked out with vibrant textile art to commemorate the town’s carpeting heritage.

“That’s been big for us, getting that hotel in downtown. That’s indicative of a robust local economy that people are coming to participate in,” local real estate agent Beau Patton told me as the late afternoon sun streamed into the Gallant Goat. Patton works with Qcells employees who want to buy homes in the area. He sees the factory’s decision to locate there as ​“very mutually beneficial” for Qcells and Whitfield County: ​“What you hope is Whitfield County grows with it, and it grows with Whitfield County.” 

From Dalton to towns across Georgia

Dalton got in early on the national clean-energy factory revival, and has already seen its solar factory push up wages, enable high school graduates to stay and start careers, and inject money into a reinvigorated downtown. Many more communities in Georgia are following close behind with their own cleantech factories, seeking a similar economic jolt.

“There is a palpable and intense sense of excitement across the state about how these manufacturing and infrastructure policies are supercharging Georgia’s economic development,” said Senator Jon Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat who authored the IRA manufacturing incentives that Qcells is tapping into. ​“And I would add, it’s not just the primary industrial facilities; it’s all of the secondary and tertiary suppliers and vendors and service companies and the financial services firms needed to support them.”

Qcells is building an even bigger factory compound down in Cartersville, which won a conditional $1.45 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy on August 8. This facility will take advantage of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits to onshore more steps of the solar supply chain: slicing silicon wafers, carving them into solar cells, and assembling finished modules with even newer robots than the ones I saw in Dalton. Until now, those high-value precursors to solar panels were shipped in from overseas. Workers in Dalton complete just the last step: assembling modules. Cartersville promises to bring the dream of American-made solar a bit closer to reality.

To achieve that dream, the industry has a few other challenges to confront. For one, 97 percent of the glass that encloses solar panels comes from China. Besides the geopolitical implications of that dependence, glass is so fragile and heavy that its shipping costs make domestic production enticing both economically and environmentally. 

“We need domestic glass to have an efficient supply chain,” said Suvi Sharma, founder and CEO of solar recycling startup Solarcycle. His company is breaking ground on a combination solar-panel recycling facility and solar-glass factory in Cedartown, some 70 miles southwest of Dalton. Sharma expects to invest $344 million in the community and hire 600 full-time employees.

Compared with Dalton and Cartersville, ​“Cedartown is more off the beaten path — this would be the first large-scale factory going up there,” said Sharma. After years in which the population declined and young people looked elsewhere for jobs, ​“this enables them to keep people and bring in more people. There’s a cascading impact.”

Solarcycle will use its rail spur to ship in low-iron silica from a mine in Georgia, plus soda ash and limestone. Over time, it will supplement those raw ingredients with increasing amounts of glass the company will pull from decommissioned solar panels, including those made by Qcells. The goal is to produce enough glass for 5 gigawatts of panels per year; Solarcycle will ship the glass to nearby customers. At that point, workers in northwest Georgia will have a hand in all the major steps of solar-module production except the processing of raw polysilicon. Hanwha recently became the largest shareholder in REC Silicon to secure access to domestic polysilicon from the Pacific Northwest. 

Georgia also nabbed a hefty chunk of the electric-vehicle factory buildout catalyzed by IRA incentives. Hyundai is dropping nearly $1 billion on its ​“Metaplant” near the deepwater port of Savannah and building an adjacent $4.3 billion battery plant with LG. Kia erected a new EV9 SUV manufacturing line at its plant in West Point, about halfway down Georgia’s border with Alabama. The first EV9 rolled off the line in June — less than two years after the IRA was signed into law.

Dalton, then, is a leading indicator of the industrial invigoration that clean energy factories are bringing to cities and towns across Georgia. People broadly appreciate it — if not for the role in combating climate change or countering China’s industrial might, then for high starting wages, comfortable working conditions, and opportunities for advancement. 

But for this nascent factory boom to endure, the policies that triggered it need to stay in effect. The people of Georgia played a decisive role in spurring this manufacturing revival; this November, they’ll have an outsize role in deciding if it continues.

How Dalton, Georgia, went from Carpet Capital to Solartown, USA is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Minnesota lawmakers made headlines earlier this year when they approved a bundle of financial incentives to draw a timber product mill to the city of Cohasset in northern Minnesota.

But the Legislature, along with state and county officials, also threw down cash for another project aimed at economic development in northern Minnesota: The expansion of a plant in Mountain Iron — a city of 2,800 people between Virginia and Hibbing — that manufactures solar panels.

Part of an effort to diversify a regional economy reliant on natural resources like wood and iron ore, the plant — run by Ontario-based Heliene, Inc. — is expected to be the second-largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the country once the new project is done. 

Martin Pochtaruk, Heliene’s president, said the company aims to help the U.S. meet new goals announced by President Joe Biden to produce half the nation’s electricity via solar energy by 2050. “Our product, made in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, is the simplest renewable energy engine to such electrification,” Pochtaruk said last week at the new facility’s groundbreaking ceremony.

Heliene leases an industrial park that Mountain Iron officials built in 2010 specifically to lure green energy projects. Craig Wainio, the city administrator, said the area’s economy has been dependent on mining and forestry and Mountain Iron officials saw renewable energy as an opportunity for future development.

The business park, across the street from an entrance to U.S. Steel’s enormous MinnTac taconite mine, was first occupied by another solar panel manufacturer: Silicon Energy. But that company closed up shop in 2017 and garnered controversy for its dismal output — despite receiving millions from the state of Minnesota and local governments.

Heliene moved in later that year to the building, which sits on Silicon Way, on the outskirts of a town with street names like Mineral Avenue, Granite Street and Agate Street. “From there it’s just taken off,” Wainio said.

Pochtaruk said the company has typically employed about 75 people over the last three years, making it a relatively large employer in the area outside of mining and schools.  About half of the sales from the Mountain Iron facility have been to Minnesota companies, Pochtaruk said, though Minnesota is expected to make up a smaller share of sales after the expansion. Two of Heliene’s larger Minnesota customers are the Duluth-based utility Minnesota Power and Minneapolis-based U.S. Solar, a company that has built many community solar gardens in the state.

Heliene is planning to employ another 60 people after the roughly $21 million facility expansion. The campus will grow from about 27,000 square feet to 95,000 and will include a new production line, plus extra storage and office space. Heliene, which also has production facilities in Canada and Florida, says it will more than triple its manufacturing capacity in Mountain Iron. The company says it plans to start construction in September and begin manufacturing at the new space in June.

While Heliene is chipping in about $9.5 million for the new manufacturing line, state and local governments are also pouring in millions for the new building. The Legislature is contributing $5.5 million to Mountain Iron for the expansion, while the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development and Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) each provided a $2.75 million loan for the project. St. Louis County offered a $1 million grant.

Mark Phillips, commissioner of the IRRRB, said the “heavy lifting really was at the Legislature.” Supporters tried for two years to get money for the plant expansion at the Capitol. In 2020, the measure didn’t get a hearing in the Republican-led Senate, but in the closing days of the regular session, Chisholm Sen. David Tomassoni — who was a Democrat at the time — and Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, tried to add the grant money to a package of environmental legislation up for a vote on the Senate floor. (The amendment also included money for research of ammonia produced by renewable energy.)

The bipartisan move drew some attention on the Senate floor, but Westrom withdrew the amendment when Republican leaders said that the projects, while worthy of consideration, were not part of a deal negotiated with Democratic House leaders and Gov. Tim Walz. “We had that debate on the floor where we felt like we had a chance,” Tomassoni said last week. “Then it died, which is one of the reasons that I was a little skeptical that we were ever going to get it done.”

In 2021, Tomassoni left the DFL to become an Independent and chaired a committee in collaboration with the Republican Senate. Still, the Senate didn’t originally include the Mountain Iron solar project money sponsored by Tomassoni in the energy budget eventually passed by the chamber. The money was added to the bill by Sen. David Senjem, R-Rochester, on the floor shortly before a vote. The Legislature later approved the cash as part of a broader deal on energy policy.

What changed? 

“I said ‘I’m not going home without this,’” Tomassoni said. “Jobs on the Iron Range are something that people have always talked about — diversifying the economy. What better opportunity to have solar panel manufacturing, the only one in the upper Midwest and one of the largest in the country right here in the Iron Range.”

Lawmakers at the event also said Rep. Dave Lislegard, DFL-Aurora, championed money for the project in the Minnesota House, and the expansion eventually had a long and bipartisan list of supporters; the company released a set of friendly quotes from Walz, Minnesota’s two U.S. senators and 8th Congressional District Rep. Pete Stauber. 

The $5.5 million from the Legislature came out of the state’s Renewable Development Account, which pays for clean energy projects with fees levied on Xcel Energy for storing nuclear waste in the state. State law says the money is supposed to benefit Xcel customers.

State Rep. Jamie Long, a Minneapolis DFLer who chairs the House’s Climate and Energy Finance and Policy Committee, said Mountain Iron isn’t in Xcel’s service territory. But he said many of the solar panels Heliene produces are sold in the Xcel territory, so there is a “broad benefit from the expansion.”

Peter Teigland, director of policy and regulatory affairs for the Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association, said at a March hearing in the state House that Heliene makes the “highest quality solar modules available” and said much of the solar development in Minnesota takes place in Xcel’s service territory — justifying use of the nuclear waste money.

At the groundbreaking ceremony at the Heliene facility Thursday, Pochtaruk, the Heliene president, had a surprise. Holding back tears, he announced the new expansion project would be named after Tomassoni, who recently announced he has been diagnosed with ALS. After the two embraced, workers at the plant marched out a green and red banner reading: “Senator David J. Tomassoni Solar Manufacturing Facility.”

“Well it’s overwhelming because there’s any number of people that were here today they could have picked the name after,” Tomassoni said afterwards. “I’m just honored by it, and I appreciate the fact that people are recognizing the hard work we had to do to get this done.”

MinnPost is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization whose mission is to provide high-quality journalism for people who care about Minnesota.

Minnesota’s Iron Range may soon be home to one of the largest solar panel manufacturing facilities in the country is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A solar tree is growing in an industrial design shop at the University of Connecticut, the inspired result of more than a year’s worth of collaboration by a multidisciplinary team of faculty and students. 

The 12-foot aluminum tree will be used as a research and education tool, while also providing a place for students to stop and literally recharge.

Solar trees have been around for years, and typically consist of a pipe-like steel base supporting rectangular overhead panels. The UConn team, however, came up with a design that artfully mimics a real tree. Several slim limbs rise from the base and branch outward toward the top to support nine large leaf shapes that will hold the solar panels. 

The completed installation will include three curved benches at the tree’s base to provide a place for visitors to sit and plug in to one of the tree’s outlets. 

“It’s an aesthetic object as much as a technical object,” said Christoper Sancomb, an assistant professor in the Industrial Design program in the School of Fine Arts and one of the project’s organizers.

The solar tree is the brainchild of Dr. Jasna Jankovic, an assistant professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department and part of the Center for Clean Energy Engineering and Institute of Materials Science faculty. Jankovic said she first began discussing the idea with colleagues about two years ago. 

The concept immediately intrigued Dr. Cynthia Jones, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. 

“I told her it had always been a fantasy of mine to build an electrical plant and modify aspects, like leaf shape and positioning, to see how it influenced total electrical gain over the course of the day,” Jones said. In other words, the electrical plant could be used to gain a better understanding of photosynthesis.

Jankovich teamed up with Sancomb to apply for a UConn STEAM Innovation Grant to make the project happen. The grant program encourages innovative collaborations between the arts and STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). 

They also assembled a multidisciplinary team of faculty including Jones, Dr. Sung Yeul Park, an associate professor in electrical engineering, and Dr. Stacy Maddern, an assistant professor of urban and community studies. The rest of the crew consists of about a dozen students, including two high school students.

“We all deliberately sought out an opportunity to work with people outside of our fields,” Sancomb said. “There’s value in learning from each other — it sparks new ideas.”

As they set about planning the tree, the group started by asking, what would separate this solar tree from the others out there? They talked about creating a public sculpture that people could plug into, a meeting place that would also provide shade and seating. They saw the tree as an opportunity to educate people about solar, perhaps with a solar-powered kiosk with an interactive presentation about the tree. 

They wanted to make it as “green” as possible. So they decided to use recyclable aluminum, and ruled out the use of any plastics. 

And, they wanted to make it portable. So although the tree will weigh around 600 pounds, it comes apart easily. The benches will contain ballast to anchor the tree to the ground in its temporary locations. 

Sancomb, who has an extensive background in creating museum exhibits, is overseeing the tree’s construction. The metal parts of the tree have been assembled, but it awaits wiring, attachment of the solar panels, painting, the benches and batteries to store power for nighttime lighting. 

The nine 50-watt flexible solar panels (and two extras), along with two batteries, were donated by Renogy, a California maker of DIY-friendly renewable energy products designed for a variety of applications. 

Meanwhile, students on the team are beginning work on a variety of “microprojects.”  For example, Pablo Zarama, 20, a materials science and engineering major, said he is creating sensors that he hopes will measure the optimal angles for the leaf panels to maximize generation. 

Vuk Jankovic, 18, a psychology major, said he will use the tree as the focus of a study on different styles of learning. Subjects will see a presentation about the tree in an in-class setting, a remote setting or through virtual reality technology. Jankovic will then test the subjects to see how well they retained the knowledge.

And Dar Jankovic, 16, said he wants to test whether using concave-shaped leaves with a smaller solar panel on one end and a mirror to reflect sunlight on the other will maximize efficiency. 

“We want to branch out to multiple projects,” Jasna Jankovic said. “We will continue to encourage students and faculty to come up with their own projects.”

As it turns out, this tree is not suitable for the kind of research Jones was interested in. 

“The leaves ended up being larger than I thought initially they would be,” she said. “We could still do some of that work if we build a second tree that might be smaller and has more flexibility for adjusting things for experimental uses.”

And that’s certainly possible. This tree was meant to be a prototype to test a number of factors, Jankovic said, and “we will apply to the National Science Foundation or another granting agency for a bigger grant to develop this project further.” Sancomb estimates the cost of replicating the prototype tree at somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000; he won’t have a more exact figure until the project is finished.

The team hopes to finish the tree this summer so it can make its campus debut this fall. But before that happens, Sancomb said they have another challenge to meet: coming up with a system of deterrents to keep students from climbing it.

University of Connecticut solar tree will offer campus visitors a place to recharge is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.