The Caribbean solar market is getting some assistance from a far-away partner with South Dakota’s GenPro Energy Solutions (No. 138 on the 2018 Top Solar Contractors list). The energy provider has spent 15 years building trusting relationships first as a distributor and now as an expert PV installer. These relationships have opened doors across the globe, especially in the Caribbean, and GenPro has been installing solar and other energy efficiency projects in the warm sunshine for the last decade.
“It’s really hot. We have to get used to that,” said GenPro president Jeremy Anderson. “Salt water is hard on everything; we have to account for that as well. But working with the local guys there has been a good thing. We’ve built good relationships.”
CEO Dwight Patterson said these good relationships are the backbone of the company and what has allowed it to venture past the Dakotas.
“From Day 1, we’ve always been investing in relationships, making sure what we do for business is a win-win for both parties,” he said. “If it can’t be a win-win, we gracefully bow out. It’s about investing in long-term relationships.”
Patterson started GenPro Energy Solutions in the early 2000s to “fill a need for people desiring information and education about renewables in a reputable space to acquire product.” The company started out as a dealer and distributor of solar pumps before getting involved with PV installations.
“While solar is a big portion of what we do, it’s not everything,” Patterson said. “We really focus on energy efficiency and energy management as a whole. Solar is just one of the tools in our tool bag.”
GenPro as a distributor has dealers across the world, and many of these far-reaching solar projects happen when dealer-partners don’t have the ability to install. Anderson went down to oversee a solar project in Jamaica and used the close proximity to meet a lot of the company’s Caribbean dealers in-person. He said those face-to-face relationships grew the trust between GenPro and its dealers, and soon more Caribbean partners were requesting solar project help.
“We’re not just a company that you call up and ask for 10 solar panels. We provide solutions,” Anderson said. “When someone calls, we give them full service, whether it’s helping them with the install or the design or everything in between.”
Last year’s busy hurricane season did hit a GenPro project head-on. Anderson said a solar install in Turks and Caicos survived the wind, but the building under it suffered quite a bit of damage. These success stories fuel the trust behind the GenPro name.
“We’re really confident in the systems we design,” Anderson said. “For one project, we had third-party inspectors from the United States flown in because [locally] they weren’t confident to do it themselves. We won’t always be the cheapest, but we’re always going to make sure things are done properly, and safety is No. 1.”
When GenPro first started, the goal wasn’t to install solar PV in the Caribbean, 2,000 miles away from home. But Patterson said as the company got involved in the market, it became an obligation to do the best job possible down there.
“[The Caribbean] has been burned so much by fly-by-night operations looking to make a quick buck,” he said. “We try really hard to continually push quality. It helps increase the standards down there as well.”
This story was featured exclusively in our 2018 Top Solar Contractors issue. See the issue and full list of top U.S. solar installers here.
Marc Lopata says
Hi, Kelly. Good article and excellent coverage of the market. We also have been working in the Caribbean, since 2011. We recently wrapped up three commercial rooftop PV projects for the World Bank, and we are finishing engineering for a 500 kW carport project for the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Here is our web site: http://www.SolarIsland.Energy