Palomar Solar Gives Back
After months of planning and preparation, the big day arrived. Palomar Solar’s home solar system giveaway to one lucky San Diego military family.
We were going to give away a serious solar system to someone who had served us, served America. Someone who helped make America the greatest country in the world. As we said from the beginning, the last thing we were going to do was give away a six-panel system.
The weekend before the Air Show, President and owner of Palomar Solar Dwight “Andy” Anderson put the entire excel list together, almost 600 entries and set up a @random function to choose our three finalists and two alternates.
Our design team got straight to work and started drawing the homes and our plan is to max out the roofs, Andy is determined to give away a minimum 24-panel system. In the meantime, we start gathering usage data – annual usage, main service panel sizing etc. Our first finalist needs a six LG solar panel system to 100% offset the almost $50 a month electric bill. Finalist number two needs 32 LG solar panels, but his main electrical panel can only handle up to 16 LG solar panels, that ends up working out fine because only half the house sees sun anyways due to massive trees in the park next-door. Finally, our third finalist needs 18 LG solar panels to 100% offset their usage.
The big day arrives and well, Andy and Adam surprised ALL of us. There was no way we’re going to give away a six-panel system and calling it a day. Andy and Adam had George Chamberlin draw the grand prize winner’s dog tag at random. After announcing the grand prize winner they told George to keep on picking. When he was done, everyone was in shock and tears, all three finalists got their systems. We planned on giving away 24 panels, well what’s another 14 amongst America’s best.
What a day! The MCAS Miramar Air Show is arguably one of the best shows in the world and the Palomar Solar Chalet was full of excitement and comradery from the Palomar staff and our partners to our friends and family that stopped by.
We have been humbled by this experience and have come in contact with so many Military families in San Diego that have made incredible sacrifices for our country and our freedom. We appreciate everyone’s hard work from the hours of behind the scenes planning from Andy and Adam to all the small details that made the day go off without a hitch, and of course, we couldn’t have done it without our partners LG Solar and Enphase Energy.
We can’t wait to document and share the installations on each finalist’s home in the weeks to come.
Keep your eye out for future “Palomar Solar Gives Back” events!