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Solar Roots: The Pioneers of PV Documentary
November 28, 2018 @ 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
From the Texas Solar Energy Society –
Please join the Texas Solar Energy Society November 28, 4:30pm, for a FREE screening of Solar Roots- the Pioneers of PV. The organizers of the Solar Business Festival have graciously offered us a large room to show this film and you need not be registered for the festival to attend – this event is free and open to the public. See the trailer and read below on why the filmmakers felt the need to capture the story of the birth of the US solar pv industry.
“SOLAR ROOTS-THE PIONEERS OF PV” is the true story of how a small group of backwoods engineers and business hippies brought solar photovoltaic technology down from space into homes around the world, delivering “solar power to the people”.
Filmmakers Jeff Spies and Jason Vetterli spent two years traveling the country interviewing over 50 pioneers of the solar photovoltaic industry in the making of this educational, funny and touching film. The story starts in the 1800’s with the early scientific discoveries, and quickly progresses through the development of the Bell Silicon Solar Cell in the 1950’s, the rapid deployment of PV in the space race of the 60’s, and the debut of terrestrial PV in the 70s. The story finally focuses on the colorful group of men and women who gave birth to the PV home power movement in the early 80’s, which eventually grew to define the modern day solar industry.
Over the past year, we have shown the documentary film a number of times to hundreds of friends in an effort to educate people about the true story of how this technology was turned into an industry, and hope one day to bring this movie to commercial release.
The most common question we hear is “when will this be available to the public?” This is difficult to predict as it will take hundreds of hours of work as well as guidance from movie industry professionals to make it suitable for release to the public. We are pleased that viewers feel our movie is entertaining and want to show it to their friends, but it will take time to find the right partners to make this possible. In the meantime, we will do our best to figure out new ways to share this wonderful documentary at solar gatherings to our friends that are interested in this powerful story.