Albany–area solar firm to open Binghamton office, create 20 jobs

BINGHAMTON — Monolith Solar Associates, a Rensselaer–based solar-installation business, on Monday announced plans to open a regional office in Binghamton, creating 20 new jobs.

The firm is in negotiations for its new office, according to Steven Erby, vice president and co-founder of Monolith, and did not disclose a possible location.

Monolith Solar Associates is planning to invest about $2 million in the effort, Erby said in a news release.

“We have millions of dollars in signed projects in Central and Western New York, and we’ve found the demand there warrants opening a dedicated office to serve those areas,” Erby said.

Monolith provides solar-energy equipment for commercial and residential buildings, and schools and municipal structures.

The company says it typically installs a solar PV (photovoltaic) system at no cost to the property owner, and then sells electricity at rates substantially below what it costs to purchase from the grid.

Both Erby and Mark Fobare, the firm’s president and CEO, in 2009 founded Monolith Solar in a garage in Rensselaer, just across the Hudson River from Albany. Since then, it has grown to become “one of the largest solar-installation companies in the country,” the firm contended in its news release.

Since its inception, Monolith says it has installed more than 8 million watts of solar capacity. Its growth into Western New York will enable the company to triple that figure over the next 18 months.

 “We need to have technicians and sales force in place to meet the expected demand and coordinate our activities outside the Capital Region. This move is actually overdue,” Fobare said in the release.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s NY-Sun initiative, launched in 2012, has made New York a “hotbed of solar-resource innovation and expansion,” Monolith said in its release, and contended it has been “instrumental” in that “transformation.”

The company pointed to a recent funding announcement targeting NY-Sun.

Cuomo on April 24 announced a nearly $1 billion commitment to NY-Sun, which will significantly expand deployment of solar capacity throughout the state and transform New York’s solar industry to a “sustainable, subsidy-free sector.”

That’s according to the website for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

The NY-Sun initiative provides long-term funding certainty that will boost existing businesses and attract new investments to New York from global-solar companies for greater economic growth, NYSERDA said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com