As a harsh late afternoon sun beat down on Asheville’s city sidewalks Wednesday, July 27, a crowd of about 100 people gathered outside the Buncombe County Courthouse bearing signs with slogans like “Gas is so last century,” “Declare a climate emergency,” and “Solar is sexier.” Two of them held aloft artistic representations of a bee and polar bear, orange paper flames encircling a nearby flagpole.

Haywood Electric Membership Corporation installed its first-ever solar array to power its own headquarters’ operations, and its likely not the company’s last foray into that arena.

When the first transmission lines began popping up in the mountains 100 years ago, only one type of power provided the energy traveling through them — hydroelectric.

As more states have pledged their commitment to reducing carbon emissions over the last decade, North Carolina has begun to follow suit.

Unlike most North Carolina municipalities, the Town of Waynesville operates its own electric service, giving it greater local control over billing, rates and policies that monopolies like Duke Energy don’t offer.

Duke Energy is proposing a $62 million solar rebate program designed to help its North Carolina customers with the upfront cost of installing solar panels on their property.

Utility companies are not often known for being in harmony with nature; indeed, Duke Energy’s recent coal ash fiascos come readily to mind when environmental and industrial concerns begin to comingle.

The agricultural community of Bethel now has a new type of farm in its midst — solar. 

Visible from U.S. 276, the 8.2-acre property sandwiched between the Bethel Community Cemetery and Exxon-Mobil gas station holds more than 6,000 solar panels, each 6 feet, 5 inches long and 3 feet, 3 inches wide. The whole array has a size of 1.5 megawatts, a rating that allows it to produce 2.9 million kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power 240 average U.S. homes.

Solar power is on the rise across the U.S., and a campaign recently launched in Western North Carolina is urging mountain folk to join the trend. 

“You can only do what you can afford to do, and now that it’s affordable, people are taking advantage of it and getting involved,” said Avram Friedman, executive director of The Canary Coalition, one of the two groups collaborating on the Solarize WNC campaign. “I think we’ve sort of reached that critical mass when things are turning around.”

 Two technology-related businesses in Haywood County are looking to save some green by going green.