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PROCON is a fully-integrated architecture, engineering, and construction management team based in Hooksett, New Hampshire. They have designed and built projects for senior living facilities, multi-family housing, hotels, ice rinks, medical offices, industrial warehouses, and more. ReVision has installed solar for many PROCON projects over the years, and in 2023 we were able to help them add solar to their headquarters. We spoke with John Stebbins, the CEO of PROCON, to learn more about their solar journey.
What made you decide to add solar to your headquarters? Why now?
Solar ribbon cutting in 2023 at PROCON headquarters. Our decision was both financially and socially driven. At PROCON, we believe strongly in sustainability, as long as it is financially prudent. We had explored solar a few times previously but could not justify the costs until our most recent effort with ReVision. Now that we have a fully operational 139-kilowatt solar array, we’ve seen our electricity drawn from the grid cut in half, which has exceeded our expectations. Also, there is certainly an added sense of pride in our building because the system makes the facility feel more modern and we are generating so much clean energy.
What would you tell other companies looking to go solar?
It is absolutely worth the effort to explore options for solar. ReVision had a painless process to evaluate our existing infrastructure and price options for our system that allowed us to narrow our design into a sweet spot that optimized the return on our investment. The heightened costs of electricity from the grid paired with a decrease in cost of solar panels has significantly moved the needle towards solar projects making great financial sense for developers and owners.
Could you tell us a little bit about how PROCON approaches sustainability and energy efficiency in your projects?
PROCON’s approach to sustainability is similar to how we approach the design of everything for our clients: It’s all about delivering value. We look at each project individually to see what sustainable measures make most sense for the project and the client. Our goal is to strike the right balance between building performance and price. For example, at some point there are dramatically diminishing returns for adding additional insulation or higher efficiency HVAC systems. In my opinion, once you have reached that point, spending more to achieve further efficiency or performance is actually wasteful and hurtful to sustainability efforts. The perfect building finds balance between aesthetics, functionality, performance, and cost. This is one of the reasons we loved the ReVision design/build process that allowed us to hone in on the right solar system for our building.
What are you seeing with regards to people making the decision to go solar? Are there certain factors you’ve seen that motivate new builds to make sustainable choices?
Our clients are choosing, more and more often, to add solar to their projects. They ask about adding solar panels to their projects because of sustainability efforts and then, more often than not, they find the solar panel systems will have a positive financial impact on their project which makes for an easy decision.
Anything else to add?
Thank you to ReVision for being a great partner for our solar projects over the years. We’re thrilled to have such a smart investment in our headquarters. PROCON’s design and construction teams would love to help others achieve their sustainability goals with their projects, which in most cases should certainly involve solar!
