The New Hampshire Telephone Museum (NHTM) is excited to announce that it has gone solar! The idea was raised by a couple of board members at the May 2015 board meeting. According to the museum’s Executive Director, Laura French, “Several of the Museum’s board members have solar at their homes, and the museum staff members practice recycling both at the museum and at home, so the basic premise of ‘reuse and recycle’ was already present.”

SunRay Solar of Concord began installation of the indoor equipment and wiring in December. Installation of the 47 rack/rail-mounted microinverter panels was complete by the end of January. The system was fully functional and connected on February 4, and preliminary results are encouraging, especially given the time of year.

“The whole process went very smoothly, thanks to the SunRay staff,” says French. “They helped us every step of the way, so that when they were finished, we were connected to all the right sources and had filed all of the appropriate paperwork.”

The project was funded by a portion of the museum’s endowment fund, and the return on their investment is predicted to be less than 10 years. “Our neighbor, the MainStreet BookEnds, went solar a few years back, and we have been talking about the idea ever since. We are grateful for the ability to do our part for the community and the planet,” says French.