Some local solar energy companies have gotten together to form a trade group that’s expected to guide lawmakers and utilities toward a greener Long Island.
The Long Island Solar Energy Industries Association will represent more than 40 industry professionals, from contractors to architects, and work with nonprofits such as Renewable Energy Long Island. Its immediate goals include helping Gov. Eliot Spitzer to reduce the state’s energy consumption 15 percent by 2015 and to help revise Long Island Power Authority’s energy master plan.
“Long Island’s solar industry becoming organized is long overdue,” said R. Sail Van Nostrand, the group’s vice chairman and a principal of Energy By Choice, a Greenlawn contractor. “In the near term we have some catching up to do, especially with the “Green Levittown” and the “Green Long Island” movements; both of which are enlightened efforts, and will be more so with the inclusion of solar electric.”