Encore News

Chad Farrell served as a lead facilitator in discussions with other mission-driven CEOs affiliated with Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR) with Vermont’s Speaker of the House of Representatives Jill Krowinski and Senate President Pro Tempore Phillip Baruth. The discussions were part of VBSR’s 2023 Climate Action Day and were focused around new legislation intended to strengthen Vermont’s renewable energy standard (RES).

In February, the students from Burlington City & Lake (BCL) Semester program at Burlington High School had a residency at Hula Lakeside to meet with businesses focused on climate justice. Kelsey Applegate and Taegen Kopfler, alongside Abi Gruvman from 350.org, sat down with the students and their teachers to talk about their work and hear the student’s perspectives on climate justice.

Kelsey Applegate is a Project Manager who joined our team in May. As part of the Development team, Kelsey permits and coordinates solar and energy storage project surveys, manages interconnection processes with utilities and conducts fatal flaw assessments. She also represents Encore’s efforts with B Corps, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, and serves on Encore and NYSEIA’s JDEI committees.

Contaminated properties like brownfields and landfills present an untapped opportunity for sustainable energy development on undervalued land near population centers. Transforming these often underutilized properties from brownfields to brightfields by deploying solar and energy storage comes with additional technical challenges and costs. This roundtable discussion will feature industry experts and a discussion of the unique challenges of clean energy development on contaminated lands including designing, engineering, constructing and financing, as well as, the new incentives offered in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Encore served as lead terrawatt sponsor for the annual Renewable Energy Vermont conference, REV2022 and participated in a a number of different panels and other speaking engagements. Encore Founder and CFO Chad Farrell served as conference co-chair and kicked off […]

Encore Founder and CEO Chad Farrell was invited to participate in a discussion among recognized energy leaders at the annual Board of Directors/Executive Committee for leading national environmental engineering firm VHB on October 26 in New York City. The overall […]

On October 6th, Kelsey Applegate and Taegen Kopfler represented Encore Renewable Energy as exhibitors at the Women Can Do annual conference organized by Vermont Works for Women. The Women Can Do conference is a career exploration event for high school girls and gender expansive youth, held at Vermont Technical College in Randolph, VT. Encore had a table in the Indoor Action Expo, where they met with students and ran through a short solar design activity.

Encore Renewable Energy was selected to showcase our agrivoltaics work as part of the Poster Reception at the RE+ Conference in Anaheim. Lauren Glickman, VP of Marketing and Amber Lessard, Director of Construction & Asset Management collaborated on a poster that illustrates the many opportunities presented by dual-land use solar, including pollinator friendly ground cover and solar grazing.

Encore Founder and CEO Chad Farrell was invited to offer a presentation at the national RE+ 2022 conference in Anaheim regarding the exciting and rapidly evolving practice of agrivoltaics, the co-location of solar energy generation and crop production. Chad’s presentation […]

With the industry poised for accelerated growth, we’re excited to be sending a number of members of our team to RE+ in Anaheim later this month. We’re looking forward to celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, reconnecting in person to catch up on developing  solar and energy storage on brownfields, agrivoltaics, and other emerging technologies.

Ryan McKeown is our Project Analyst Intern for summer 2022. He’s studying Environmental Engineering at the University of Vermont. This is Ryan’s second internship with Encore Renewable Energy. He’s from Verona, New Jersey.

Amber Lessard, Encore’s Director of Asset Management and Construction, spoke with NBC5 recently about the importance of organizations like Vermont Works for Women and her involvement in their Trailblazer program.

Summer Rucker is our Clean Energy Intern for Summer 2022 She’s from Amherst, Virginia and recently graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. She is also a 2022 CELI EDICT Intern.

Louisa Stevens is supporting our work as a Geospatial and Market Analyst Intern. She’s from Concord, MA and studying Environmental Studies and Biology at Middlebury College. She’s supporting Business Development and Marketing teams this summer. We are proud to support the workforce of the future with paid internship opportunities across our team providing real world experience in the clean energy economy.

Encore Founder and CEO Chad Farrell participated in a panel session at Burlington Electric Department for high school students attending the Columbia Climate School in the Green Mountains. Participating in a Q&A style discussion with other climate-focused professionals from the fields of government, utility management, non-profit advocacy and finance, Chad provided background on his entrepreneurial journey and answered questions regarding the challenges and opportunities associated with deployment of the scale of clean energy resources required to address the climate crisis. 

Chris is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer for Encore Renewable Energy, where he leads the Company’s project finance and corporate investment activities. Chris has over a decade of experience as a sustainable finance professional working to catalyze investment and innovation in the transition to a broadly prosperous, low-carbon economy. The common thread in his career has been the pursuit of solutions to critical global challenges – climate change mitigation, energy system decarbonization, urban regeneration, and ecological sustainability.

Encore CEO, Chad Farrell recently spoke on a panel at the 2022 Resilient Vermont Conference. The conference was convened and hosted by the Norwich University Center for Global Resilience and Security, and the objective of the conference was to provide a forum for Vermonters seeking to engage with each other, their communities, and the state at large through meaningful and interdisciplinary discussions and problem-solving as it relates to the future resilience of the State.

Last month, Jake Clark, Encore’s VP of Development, testified before the Vermont Senate Committee on Agriculture as a part of an effort to advance a statutory change to categorize solar as an allowed use in agricultural wetland areas, sometimes referred […]

Bill recently joined the Encore team as Director of Clean Energy Solutions. He’s spent the last two years developing the U.S. market for high-capacity, long-duration energy storage projects. He has over 30 years experience in the energy industry and has […]

Encore CEO Chad Farrell participated in a panel session at the first ever EUCI professional development event focused on agrivoltaics, or the collocation of energy generation resources and agricultural land uses. Chad provided case studies focused on the benefits of […]

Encore CEO Chad Farrell provided a guest lecture including an overview of both Encore and the solar industry and a discussion of future trends in the clean energy economy for the recently created Renewable Energy Track of the University of Vermont Sustainable Innovation MBA program (SIMBA).

Lauren recently joined Encore as our VP of Marketing. She has over a decade of experience in clean energy and climate change advocacy, and a successful track record for implementing winning social media and online strategies. She was awarded a Platinum Cleanie Award in 2019 as a Rising Star for the clean energy industry, as well as a spot on the #Solar100, a ranking of the most influential leaders in the solar industry.

Caity Hines, Project Manager – Development, recently visited Bucknell University to provide a guest lecture to a class of electrical engineering students about the university’s new solar array. During their visit, Caity gave the students a firsthand look at our work to develop, finance and construct a 1.76 MWp solar array located on the University’s campus in Lewisburg, PA. 

Encore is proud to announce that we have achieved bronze level in SEIA’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice certification program. SEIA’s DEIJ Certification program features over 30 modules of content and tangible actions for our company to As part of our on-going commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice at our company, we’re looking forward to continuing to work through the next modules in the certification process.

Chad Farrell was invited by Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor, Molly Gray, to participate in her regular Seat at the Table panel discussion. The Seat at the Table series is a regular discussion in which the Office of the Lieutenant Governor invites community, business, and non-profit leaders, as well as legislators and administration officials to the State House (virtually) to discuss topical issues facing the state and its communities.

We are thankful for the amazing groups and organizations tackling many of the challenges we are currently facing.

A third of charitable gifts are made in December and 12% of donations are made in the last three days of the year.

We wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few of the amazing non profits that we’ve supported this year as you consider your own year end giving this holiday season.

Last December, we highlighted Amber as one of our newest team members and over the last 12 months, she has continued to drive innovative and exciting initiatives for the company with several noteworthy accomplishments.
Recently she received her Vermont state electrical journey worker S-type license after completing four years of night classes and a successful apprenticeship program. This summer she achieved her NABCEP PV Installation Certification.