Lasting Connections Bring Solar to Sidelands Sugarbush
“Dan Crocker is the owner of Sidelands Sugarbush, a maple sugar business in Putney, Vermont. Recently, the business had a fairly sizable solar array installed by Southern Vermont Solar (SVS). The story behind this goes a fair distance back in time, however, and some readers might like to learn about it.
Crocker was the Bellows Falls High School ski coach, and that is how he met Simon Piluski, who now is co-owner of SVS with his wife, Victoria Roberts. Back when Piluski was a teenager learning to ski and negotiate his way through life’s complexities, Crocker happened to be putting in a system of sap tubes at his sugarbush. Because he liked Piluski, Crocker offered him some work, and this laid the foundation for a supportive friendship that has lasted for years.
Piluski ended up doing well in high school and went on to Marlboro College, from which he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science. Throughout the time, he kept working with Crocker. As he did so, Piluski became an electrician, and the two of them helped out a lot of Vermont sugarers move to high-efficiency pump controllers. Electrical work, in turn, led Piluski to solar photovoltaics (PVs) which became a passion.
Even then, Crocker was examining energy and ecological issues of his sugaring business. His inclination was to have a minimum negative impact on the environment and to improve it, if he could. His operation was big. He had 23,000 taps. He relied on vacuum pumps to collect sap from the trees, but these used large amounts of electricity. The evaporator was heated with oil. Reverse osmosis to reduce water content used a lot of electricity. These were all issues that had to be addressed.”