Chaolysti has signed on as a Nova sponsor for SolarFest 2011, taking place at Forget-me-Not Farm in beautiful Tinmouth, VT. As part of this announcement, Chaolysti has also signed an agreement to provide marketing consulting services for SolarFest. A decade after attending my first SolarFest, the event which helped me jumpstart my career, I am circling back now to provide my expertise to the festival that has supported my development and enriched me.
In 2001, I attended my first SolarFest back at Daisy Hollow Farm as a bright-eyed college student just beginning my journey to learn about solar and other renewable energy technologies. With my partner, I had built a self-contained and mobile off-grid PV system that we brought to the festival to provide walkway lighting for the festival’s famous Sun-Puppet gate after dark. It was one of the first field tests of the GnuMAD project that would soon set off on a three-plus month journey all over the country and Canada; a project documenting living off the grid with technology that visited everything from major national parks and cutting-edge eco-communities and landmarks including the Taos EarthShip Community (New Mexico), Backwoods Solar Electric (Idaho), Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm (So. California) and many others.
During the 2001 festival, I sat in eagerly at workshops about battery technology, off-grid PV, solar thermal, small wind, and natural building methods. I talk with vendors providing supplies and products to off-grid and back-to-the-land dwellers to learn about what was good, what wasn’t, and to talk shop about technology innovations coming down the line, like LED lighting and home automation (both which have arrived now).
I have actively volunteered at SolarFest for several years at the power station, as a onsite volunteer wrangler, and a general go-to person. SolarFest has grown and changed much since those Daisy Hollow Days, but it still excels at its core mission- providing renewable energy education through the arts through dozens of workshop tracks and music performances powered by a 100% solar stage.
SolarFest has been a highlight of my summer for years. Enthusiasts, industry people, and the sustainability-curious all find a place at SolarFest. Why not check it out for yourself and see why?