December 31, 2019 Nate Bevers

Leading the Way by Lighting the Way

As we close out a great year and look forward to an even bigger and brighter 2020, one thing remains clear: Excellerate is leading the way. And in 2019 specifically, one way we did it was by lighting the way.

Supporting our communities is important to us, and this year with a little creativity, something special was created to benefit one of our local areas. The first ever Fox Cities Festival of Lights, located at Darboy Community Park in Darboy, WI, was developed by a dedicated group of volunteers and quickly became an area attraction for many this holiday season.

Here visitors can walk along paths of lighted displays of area landmarks and more, which then lead to the entrance of a wooded path. From this point forward, access to electricity in the park is non-existent. What started out as a simple request for a donation of extension cords, turned into the creation of an environmentally friendly, renewable energy source which ended up powering more than two-thirds of the 100,000 lights throughout the park.

Excellerate and Faith Technologies teamed up with the Festival of Lights to provide power from a renewable energy microgrid. This unit is comprised of solar panels, a battery storage cabinet and a natural gas generator. The batteries are charged from the solar panels and generator by day, depending on the amount of sunlight, and the light display is powered by the battery storage by night.

This environmentally friendly solution allows for power to be accessible in remote locations without the use of the traditional utility. Other benefits include a more stable power source and, in some cases, a back-up power source if the utility loses power. It also provides cost savings as the power is supplied and stored from renewable energy sources.

Excellerate’s innovation has led the way by lighting the way for the Fox Cities Festival of Lights visitors, and we look forward to doing so in an even brighter way in 2020.