Rebekah Carpenter: Finger Lakes Renewables

Growing up in Texas with three brothers Red Poney, Kendall, Uriel and fourth brother Korin coming in 20 years later, Rebekah Carpenter was adventurous and robust. While her parents, Mike and Annie, and her brothers moved to Ithaca in the summer of 1989, Rebekah finished high school in Dallas, settling in for good in Ithaca in 1998. 

Over time Rebekah’s father worked as a construction manager, and in 1998 he established Fingerlakes Renewables to design and construct clean solar energy systems in this region. 
In 1999 a visiting professor from Mali offered to host Rebekah on the African continent, if she would help install solar systems. She was up for the challenge, but wanted more hands-on experience before she took on a large project overseas. So, while Rebekah’s father was managing the overall construction of EcoVillage’s Second Neighborhood in the Town of Ithaca, Rebekah signed on for the management of the design and installation of the solar electric. This was challenging and useful preparation for her trip to Bamako Mali in 2002. 

During this time many Ithacans, like other Americans, and people around the world, began to wake up to the value of free, clean, sustainable, solar energy within the context of Climate Change. The emerging solar industry, however, warned state and federal legislators about the financial challenges holding America back from capitalizing on clean renewable energy: Equipment created in the U.S. was not competitively priced, and importing foreign equipment was prohibitively expensive. As a result, many solar contractors went under. During this period Rebekah assumed the ownership of Fingerlakes Renewables, and she too rode the Solar Rollercoaster.

These days, however, solar contractors like Rebekah and her team are in constant demand. Enough folks rely on their free-standing or roof-top solar panels for much, if not all, of their power, or they purchase their electricity from solar farms. 

For those on Rebekah’s Wait List their new systems will now come with big gifts from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Here, we have NYSERDA, NYSEG and federal tax rebates and incentives to reduce the price of solar installation.

And for folks who are thinking about power outages in the future, the good news is that as more demands are made on the NYSEG Grid, for example, from the increasing use of electricity to fuel heat pumps in lieu of gas furnaces, there is a solution: Solar Backup Batteries! 

In March of 2020 Louis Russell Cook, a renowned local athlete, returned to Ithaca after completing his education at SUNY Canton in Sustainable Energy Technology. Rebekah credits Louis with her company’s ability to juggle the demand for Back Up Batteries, in addition to solar installations, with attention to precise programming to maximize consumer energy rates. 

Louis: “Solar panels take in sunlight and transmit it to the NYSEG electrical panel. There, the solar inverter (which looks like a slender electrical panel) converts the DC energy into AC energy, which is sent to NYSEG. The solar panel owner gets an offset credit for the electricity the homeowner sends to NYSEG. The Inverter also has a breaker in the panel that can store excess sunlight (DC) in the Solar Backup Battery. And once the Back Up Battery is filled,  excess power gets sent back to NYSEG.” 

As good as that all sounds, there is more. Louis: “Inverters and back-up batteries can be programmed to maximize when the battery is filled and then emptied into NYSEG, based upon the most economically advantageous times of the day and night for storing and sending energy. The timing is crucial to the cost .” 

Last, but not least: Folks who are hooked on clean sunshine fueling their home can ask Louis and Rebekah to take a satellite image of sites for a few more panels to provide all of one’s energy needs. From the image they can immediately calculate how much solar each additional panel can provide. One glance at their imaging and the cost-benefit analysis will be clear. 

2023 is a great year to begin going solar. NYSEG, NYS and the federal governments are all offering tax credits and rebates for installing solar, expanding solar, adding a back-up battery for power outages and more!

Rebekah Carpenter can be reached at www.flenergy.com or by phone at 607-327-0053.