His invention, he thought, was “crazy, harebrained.” But investors saw the makings of a clean-energy revolution. Sales would eventually top $2.5 billion, enough for Carpoff to fly by private jet and purchase a baseball team, more than a dozen houses, and a collection of muscle cars looked after by a guy named Bubba. magazine would call his company, DC Solar, a “renewable energy powerhouse” with a product “people clearly needed.” The Obama administration would make DC Solar a partner-alongside Amazon, Alphabet, and AT&T-in a national program to enlist tech in the fight against climate change. Bank, Progressive Insurance, and Geico would buy thousands of Carpoff’s generators. Over the next eight years, blue-chip corporations such as U.S. The millions of dollars in that first deal were like the drips before a downpour. That’s how Carpoff told the story of the day his life changed. In March 2011, he was singing the national anthem at a local baseball game when he got a text that he’d made his first major sale: The paint company Sherwin-Williams had bought 192 of his generators, for nearly $29 million. The design was so simple that it was a wonder no one seemed to have thought of it before.Ĭarpoff was a paunchy man with blue eyes and apple cheeks-a “big chipmunk,” as a colleague called him-who gulped rather than spit his chewing tobacco and spent Sundays watching NASCAR. But diesel generators ate the ozone layer warmed the planet and caused smog, acid rain, and possibly cancer, on top of their noise, smell, and fuel cost.Ĭarpoff’s machine-a solar generator on wheels-was a sun-fueled alternative. It kept equipment running and lights on at construction sites, outdoor events, movie sets, disaster zones. His invention, he thought, was “crazy, harebrained.” But investors saw the makings of a clean-energy revolution.įor decades, there was basically one way to rush power to places without electricity: the portable diesel generator. He’d never gone to college and had no experience in green technology. A contraption he’d rigged up in his driveway-a car trailer decked with solar panels and a heavy battery-got the attention of people with real money. Yet there, at his life’s lowest, the remarkable happened. Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
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