Meeting the power demands of tomorrow, today

By Emma Peterson. 

Find out why solar is one of the fastest-growing segments of roofing. 

With technological advancements like AI data centers, we are seeing power grids across the country take on more demand for energy than ever before. The rising demand has resulted in overworked grids that are susceptible to issues and failure, as the Texas grid experienced a few years ago. To learn more about how we can relieve some of the stress on these grids, Karen Edwards sat down with Bill Eitenmiller, the director of sales for the solar division at SRS Distribution, for an episode of Roofing Road Trips®. 

Bill started by sharing some insight into the state of the energy market, saying, “Energy independence is becoming the top of mind for a lot of folks. If you look in the state of California, they have a lot of things that are called brownouts. These are when grids lose power during peak periods of the day. For example, when everybody's coming home from work and they're cooking dinner and turning on the TV, the power goes out.” The reason for this is simple: Our power grids were not built to sustain the energy needs of today’s world, such as electric vehicles and AI data centers.  

So, how can we overcome these problems? One solution sits on the roof! Bill elaborated, “People are demanding more energy and adding solar to your home is a really great way to declare energy independence from the local utility.” This is such an effective way of supporting the grid that some markets have utility programs designed to utilize individual solar set ups as grid backup. Bill explained, “In some markets, like Utah, they’ve built virtual power plants. What that effectively means is that the local utility is able to draw power from battery backups in people's homes. And so, a lot of companies are going into people's homes that already have solar and adding storage into these homes afterwards as a way to level out the grid and create balance.” 

In this way, solar is not only an individual route to energy independence, but also a solution to the evolving power demands of a whole community. Because of these benefits, it is one of the fastest growing segments in roofing today! 

Listen to the whole podcast to learn more about the impact of solar.