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about 40 people with an annual revenue of about $20 mil- lion. In 2012, AllEarth even made Inc. magazine’s 500|5000 list of the nation’s fastest growing private companies. While times have been good, due to the nature of the business, Blittersdorf ’s company is subject to the ups and downs of policy, pricing, permitting, regulations, and incentives. As a result, the revenue stream is not linear. “You learn by putting a lot of new things in. That’s the engineer in me, developing and introducing new products.” “I call our growth the Solarcoaster,” he says. While the company is based in Vermont, AllEarth is active across the country in areas where it makes sense to do busi- ness. Headline projects in the GreenMountain State include the 10MWGeorgia Mountain Community Wind Farm, built by another one of Blittersdorf ’s companies, Georgia Moun- tain Community Wind LLC , and two utility-scale solar farms. AllEarth Renewables is essentially an R&D company that’s in a constant process of innovation to keep pace with mar- ket expectations. Trial and error, and ultimately, success. “You learn by putting a lot of new things in,” Blittersdorf says. “That’s the engineer in me, developing and introduc- ing new products.” Predictably, Vermont’s hospitable climate for renewable en- ergy has attracted large national companies like SolarCity , NRG Energy , and Iberdrola Renewables , to invest in Ver- mont. The upturn has also triggered the creation of home- grown companies. “You have a lot of people paying attention because the mar- ket is right,” Blittersdorf says. “It took that block of power off the market and created demand from other areas. It was a positive event. It [the nuclear power plant] represented the old way of providing utilities.” The Clean Tech Index , which also measures the Top 50 metro areas, praises Vermont across a broad range of indicators, including innovation – three clean energy patents issued in 2015 – LEED building deployment, and governmental policy. While California is the clear cut No. 1, and though its absolute numbers dwarf Vermont’s, when measured by parts-per-million people, as many of the benchmarks are, Vermont emerges as a national leader.

Report co-author Clint Wilder, noting that Vermont ranked 15th in the index just three years ago, says he wouldn’t be surprised if Vermont keeps climbing the ladder. Vermont has climbed to No. 3 on the Clean Tech Leadership Index due to a variety of factors, among them a jump in wind and solar power, and the number of electric vehicles and charging stations.

“I call our growth the Solarcoaster.”

“I’m sure they have their eyes on No. 1 or No. 2,” Wilder says. “Why wouldn’t they if they have come this far?” Though the roots of the state’s clean energy movement may have started beforehand, the convenient beginning date is 2011, when the state issued its Comprehensive Energy Plan calling for 90 percent renewable energy by 2050. Four years later, in 2015, Vermont passed legislation creating a 75 per- cent Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS, for electricity generation, by 2032. Vermont also has what’s called net metering – small power producers like homeowners and businesses set up their own solar panels and sell what power they don’t use back to their utility for credits. But the closure of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, commissioned in 1972, is perhaps the most important oc- currence in Vermont’s embrace of the largescale, widespread use of renewables. “It took that block of power off the market and created de- mand from other areas,” Blittersdorf says. “It was a positive event. It [the nuclear power plant] represented the old way of providing utilities.”

See VERMONT, page 8

ne 20, 2016, ISSUE 1157

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