By Nathan Dziadul, MBA Candidate, College of Management, UMass Boston
Speaking to a group of undergraduate and graduate students at UMass Boston on Nov. 28, 2023, ReVision Energy’s cofounder, Phil Coupe, made a strong case to the audience: While there are enormous challenges in fixing the climate crisis, there are also increasingly attractive solutions available to us today that he and his company are helping to deploy throughout New England.
Founded in 2003, ReVision Energy is a Maine-based company with a core business installing residential solar systems. They also design and install larger-scale commercial solar arrays, EV charging stations, battery storage systems, and heat pumps in northern New England. In addition to Maine, ReVision operates in New Hampshire, Vermont, and now Massachusetts, after recently completing an acquisition of Sunbug, a Bay State solar installer. As a Certified B Corp (benefit corporation), the company also has a transparent and accountable commitment to all stakeholders, and high levels of performance on environmental and social metrics.
Key to ReVision’s success has been the decision to make it an employee-owned company. After seeing the extreme wealth concentration among the executives of fossil fuel companies, the co-founders of ReVision wanted to democratize the financial success of their company. So, in 2017, they adopted a 100% employee-ownership structure where all employees who have been with the company for at least one year are granted an ownership stake. Coupe declared this decision as being the “single most beneficial strategic move” that the co-founders have made. Both the social benefits and the business case for employee ownership have been a well-documented, and include improved wages and benefits for employees as well as higher productivity and stronger overall financial performance for the company. Coupe credited this move for helping ReVision attract and retain top talent at a time when unemployment is low, and talent can be hard to come by.
At the heart of ReVision’s mission-based business is the concept of beneficial electrification. This idea is meant to capture the wide-ranging benefits that society can realize from electrifying fossil fuel equipment and systems. These benefits can include greenhouse gas emissions reductions, cost savings, and health benefits, among others. Coupe sees beneficial electrification as the best solution to the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels, and his company enables New Englanders to participate in this initiative by replacing fossil fuel-burning appliances like water heaters and furnaces with highly efficient heat pump systems, or by helping customers derive some or all of their electricity use from rooftop or ground-mounted solar panels.
Coupe also stressed the financial benefits for individual homeowners and businesses who electrify. Over the past decade, prices for solar power have fallen precipitously and have been cheaper than fossil fuels for years now. According to a report by clean energy think tank RMI, the cost of solar energy fell 80% from 2012-2022. This trend is expected to continue, and businesses of all kinds are taking advantage. The latter includes the oil companies themselves – Coupe noted that he worked with Irving Oil to install solar panels on their gas station canopies and EV charging stations at some of their locations.
As Coupe noted, this momentum suggests that we have crossed a tipping point for clean energy. Those who follow climate change are familiar with the idea of tipping points for earth’s environmental systems, and the unstoppable consequences brought on by feedback loops if greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control. Tipping points are not all bad, though, and a recent study confirms Coupe’s assertion that the tipping point for solar energy may already be here, meaning that market forces alone may be enough to ensure that solar becomes the dominant source of global energy without any additional policy incentives. A recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that 96% of new power plants expected to be built in the U.S. in 2024 use clean energy, with solar making up the biggest piece of the pie at 58%. Solar may not even be the only aspect of beneficial electrification to reach a tipping point. As the adoption of EVs and heat pumps have taken off around the world, it is becoming increasingly clear that we have the tools at our disposal to make a meaningful impact in the fight against climate change, with ReVision Energy poised to help New Englanders do their part.