The Georgia Tech research that got Findley’s attention led to a foundation design and support structure that takes up less physical space and uses less than half the steel found in traditional solar canopy construction. Because of the design and the weight it can support, the canopy can hold more solar panels than other canopies without having to expand the support structure’s footprint.

The goal behind the initial research and development was to see if there was a way to increase cost efficiencies in the non-­photovoltaic part of solar panel installations, Findley said. That meant focusing on the labor, support structure, and electrical costs. The U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative funded the original research.

The design is a modular space frame, which makes it easier to construct and allows crews to erect the canopies in half the time it takes to build competing structures.

“We’re extremely efficient from the standpoint that we can put them up faster, we can put more of them up per acre — so we can generate more power over a given parking lot — and we can put them up generally at a lower cost to the customer,” Findley said.

Since the solar canopy structures are elevated, they create functional parking lots in addition to energy.

“We can build on surface parking lots and elevated parking decks, which allows us to produce the energy close to where the power is needed, which puts less stress on the electrical grid because you don’t have to produce it in south Georgia, for example, and then try to pipe it all the way up here,” Findley said.

While the energy industry doesn’t track the solar canopy sector specifically, the solar energy business is growing and accounted for 39 percent of all new electric capacity that was added to the U.S. electric grid in 2016, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a trade group based in Washington, D.C. The industry attracted $23 billion in investments in 2016, up from about $18.3 billion in 2015, according to SEIA/GTM Research’s U.S. Solar Market Report and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Under Findley’s leadership, Quest Renewables tripled its revenue between 2014 and 2015, repeating that feat again in 2016. The company projects it will quadruple revenue in 2017.

The company remains linked to Georgia Tech through its work with T. Russell Gentry, an associate professor, structural engineer, and building materials researcher in the School of Architecture.

Partnering with Gentry, Quest Renewables presents challenges to his students, who are tasked with coming up with ways to improve the canopy’s efficiency.

“The question we asked them is, do you see where we could be better and more efficient in our use of materials,” said James Keane, Quest Renewables’ system specialist and a 2013 Georgia Tech graduate with a bachelor’s degree in architecture.

“We’re asking them whether there is a more optimal size for these components or whether they should somehow be designed differently.”

The technology has garnered the company some national attention. In the spring of 2016, then-U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visited Georgia Tech, noting the Institute’s role as a leader in developing innovative energy solutions in the Southeast and meeting with a select group of ATDC companies in the energy space, including Quest Renewables.

That same year, the Georgia Research Alliance, which seeds and funds startup companies in the state, announced it was making an investment in Quest Renewables via its GRA Venture Fund, which was established to finance high-potential companies spinning out of Georgia’s universities.

Big-Picture Perspective

The stadium initiative is the largest to date for Quest Renewables, though the company has other projects in its portfolio, including a canopy array at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and projects in other states including Maryland, Oregon, California, and Maine.

One recently completed project is with Standard Solar, a Rockville, Maryland-based company that specializes in the development and financing of solar electric systems.

The company hired Quest Renewables to design and put together a canopy for a Rockville-area parking deck.

Parking decks are more challenging than surface lots for solar canopy projects, said C.J. Colavito, Standard Solar’s director of engineering.

That’s because the canopy has to be integrated within and anchored to an existing structure and requires a customized engineering approach, he said.

“There are a number of things Quest does well where they are able to add value where other providers have struggled,” Colavito said, adding that his firm is working on another project with Quest Renewables, scheduled for completion by the second quarter of 2017. “One of the things Quest does better than anybody else is, they have a system that’s capable of having very long spans between connections. You get a lot more density at lower costs than other systems because of their proprietary truss system while maintaining the canopy’s structural integrity.”

Accolades such as this come with a hiccup that most startups would love to have: demand for services — so much so that the company is scaling back its growth. Findley wants each customer to have a quality experience.

“We created such a compelling product that we have demand that exceeds our ability to deliver a quality customer experience, so we’ve been ratcheting back our growth to make sure that every customer we work with is delighted,” he said.

This approach, he said, fits in with the company’s long-term goal regarding its place and impact on the industry.

“The inspiration for our company comes from a very big-picture perspective. The idea that we could lower the cost of solar and be able to produce it near where the demand is located while still using existing spaces like parking lots rather than covering up natural green fields with solar panels is what drives what we do,” Findley said. “What we would really like is that in 10 years, for people to say that we really made solar and renewable energy to be preferential to fossil fuels.”

Source: http://www.rh.gatech.edu/features/its-gonna-be-bright-sunshiny-day