Business in Focus Magazine-March 2019
Written by Samita Sarkar
The full-service solar integrator was founded by Pete Marte in 2008. An engineer by trade, he was inspired while in the craft beer industry which involved frequent travelling, and by what he saw while he was on his business trips.
“When I was flying over the eastern half of the United States on approach to any airport, flying over distribution warehouses, I’d see these big flat rooftops. I thought to myself that solar has got to become cost-effective at some point, and be one of the solutions that will lead us to a clean, emission-free, and green future. Climate change was not nearly as real a threat as we feel today, but I sensed back then that the climate and Mother Nature needed a little bit of help from us,” recounts Founder and CEO Pete Marte.
“I decided to dig deep, and figure out how we were going to make solar work, how the economics work, what the tax credits could do for it, and low and behold I started the company out of a spare bedroom 11 years ago. Fast forward to today and we have 80 employees and have completed a little over 600 solar projects, for clients mostly throughout the southeastern United States.”
About 95 percent of Hannah Solar’s business is B2B (business to business), and five percent is B2C (business to consumer), interacting directly with end users in the residential market. Among Hannah Solar’s clients are multinationals that have committed to RE100, an ambitious resolution to run on 100 percent renewable energy by a specified year. These clients are looking for ways to fight climate change that are sensible and financially beneficial.
“It’s an energy hedge,” Marte says of solar power. “With conventional electricity, there is a lot of cost associated with the environment that is not yet priced into a bill, but many consumers know there is a cost.” In the sunny state of Georgia, where many of Hannah Solar’s clients are based, this cost is put on your bill as the….Read the full article