Wind and sun helped Shoener Environmental weather the economic downturn. “Renewable energy kept us going through the recession,” says president Ed Shoener.
The consultancy, with Pennsylvania locations in Portage and Dickson City, along with San Diego, CA. had long focused on helping commercial and residential real estate developers navigate regulatory and environmental mazes. But since the real estate market stalled, a shift to design and permitting of renewable energy projects has enabled the company to stay “steady and slowly growing,” Shoener says.
Shoener has been working on wind energy projects since 2000; its portfolio includes the Krayn Wind Project in Cambria County, 25 turbines on a reclaimed strip mine and the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm, one of the largest wind farms in Pennsylvania with 66 turbines on over 200 acres in Cambria and Blair counties.
Now, says Shoener, with technological advancements in solar, “utility-scale solar projects are a developing market on the East Coast,” says Shoener. “It's sort of like where wind was a few years ago.” Solar, he predicts, will be competitive with other forms of energy within 10 years.
One of Shoener's latest projects is a 103-acre solar farm in Lurgan Township near the Pennsylvania Turnpike that would be one of the largest solar installations in the state. Shoener is working with the developer, Orion Renewable Energy Group in Oakland, CA, to secure permits in order for the $20 million project to begin construction.
Shoener founded the consultancy in 1994. Today the company employs about 40 and adds one or two jobs a year in Pennsylvania offices
Source: Ed Shoener, Shoener Environmental
Writer: Elise Vider
