Brian Hoopes, Solar, California
Brian Hoopes, who has been in the industry for 13 years, is the Project Executive at SOLV Energy and lives in California.
Why is clean energy important to you? We're seeing the effects of climate change all around us every day, with temperatures spiking all over the world, extreme winter weather effects, glacier ice melting, and an increase in the quantity and intensity of major storms - if building more renewable energy projects here in the US and around the globe can reduce carbon emissions and roll back some of the impacts that humans have had on this planet that would be a wonderful outcome of humankind coming together to solve a problem that impacts us all.
What’s your proudest accomplishment in clean energy? When we reached 1 Gigawatt of installed solar it was such an immense feeling of accomplishment - I was a part of a company that had made a powerful impact on our nation's energy independence! And then the next gigawatts came much faster and it really sunk in that we were having an immense and exponentially increasing impact on the world around us. What we do makes a difference for the people involved in the projects, the local areas we build in, and the planet we live on - there couldn't be a greater accomplishment than that.
What did you do before entering clean energy? I worked for a general contractor on construction projects like office tenant improvements, public works facilities, hotels, multi-story office buildings, and high tech manufacturing facilities.
When were you first introduced to clean energy? Members of the contractor I worked for realized there was a need for more contractors to build solar projects as they became larger and more prevalent in California, and I worked on some of the early, smaller, roof-mounted and parking lot elevated structure projects that were built by our company. It was a random chance that I was an available Project Engineer at the time when these jobs kicked off, but once I was introduced to this work, and was there as we expanded into utility-scale solar projects, I never looked back and have enjoyed being on the front lines of this technology and construction as it expanded around the country.
What should more people know about your role? I wish people knew how much SOLV Energy cares about the areas in which we build, that we bring a focus on environmental stewardship and community involvement wherever we go. Solar is safe and effective, we're not destroying the land, it's just being utilized in a new way for a while, and can be restored to the way it was in the decades to come.
How does clean energy impact your community? California has a huge demand for energy, and building more renewable energy resources, as well as battery storage facilities, can help provide more reliable energy for this huge state and its population. The increase in electric vehicles really demands more solar and battery storage as well, as we work to reduce carbon emissions from passenger vehicles.
What does clean energy mean to you and your family? The growth of the solar industry and the amount of projects that are anticipated in the years to come means that I don't need to do anything else in my career if I don't want to - this can be my life and my legacy, helping to build clean energy all over our great country. My family will be secure in the knowledge I'll always have a place in the solar industry to allow us to live comfortably and thrive in a world that is focused on reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, ensuring that my son's generation and the generations to come get to live in a beautiful world too.
Why should Congress invest in clean energy jobs, not fossil fuel jobs? My understanding is that most fossil fuel jobs are dictated by the location of those fossil fuels. That means the areas of the country where these jobs can exist are limited by the type, amount and location of the fossil fuels. Clean energy projects are not constrained to a location like fossil fuels - the sun shines and the wind blows all over our country, which means there will always be a way to effectively capture solar energy or wind energy. Spreading out clean energy jobs means distributing the positive impacts of these projects to so many more communities and utilities around our nation, providing training and wages to a much broader group.
