Business View Magazine | June 2022

26 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 6 E URES S olar generation was 3% of U.S. electricity in 2020, and the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects this share will reach 20% by 2050. The agency notes that increases in small-scale solar, particularly in the commercial and residential sectors, drove much of the early growth in U.S. solar electricity, accounting for 68% of total U.S. solar electricity net generation in 2011. Cooperative Energy Futures has been at the frontline of these advances in solar power, helping drive community-level awareness and adoption, and spurring a grassroots-level solar revolution. But for CEF, it has been a long road to seeing such levels of solar adoption, as Timothy DenHerder-Thomas, General Manager at CEF, recounts. “We’ve been around for ten years, but we are still very much a startup. We are not just launching a business but in some ways at the forefront of launching a different business model, which comes with a distinct set of challenges. We are figuring out exactly how this industry will work while navigating the AT A GLANCE COOPERATIVE ENERGY FUTURES (CEF) WHAT: A community solar energy cooperative WHERE: Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota WEBSITE: www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com Spurring the solar revolution