By April of this year, the top of the Kona Brewery and Pub on the Big Island will be covered with photo-voltaic cells providing energy to run the brewery. It was a long time coming for Kona Brewery which found the right partner in Sunetric.
"You've got to understand all that's available, not only from the energy standpoint, but the construction of it and the tax incentives that are out there and how you can take best advantage of that,” said Mattson Davis of Kona Brewery.
Kona Brewery is enjoying tremendous success here, around the country and overseas.
"Longboard Lager is our number one selling product and we now have distribution in 28 states and Japan which actually made us the 14th largest craft brewer in the United States in 2008,” he said.
Fourteen largest out of literally hundreds of breweries across the U.S.
Sunetric is also enjoying its own success now that more companies are discovering that going solar is not just good for the environment, it's good for business.
The Kona Brewing Company installation will be one of Sunetric's most ambitious.
"We're putting in a 229 kilowatt system at Kona Brewing. That effectively produces 900 kilowatts of energy per day and represents a savings of about one hundred thousand dollars a year in their electricity bill,” said Alex Tiller of Sunetric.
"That will provide us with just about sixty percent of our power on an ongoing basis and like you said that takes that off the grid allowing other people, maybe, or the system to be able to take on more power,” added Davis.
When the system is complete, there will also be an interactive site at the entrance to the pub where visitors can monitor how much energy is being generated and saved with the new solar system.
Davis is justifiably proud of his company's commitment to the environment. "We're going to save over 7,000 tons of carbon being emitted. It's just amazing what we're putting out there."
