On an early spring day,  California Solar Electric Cooperative workers gathered at a local food co-op in Grass Valley, California, for a company meeting. Posters celebrating cooperative principles decorated the walls; one, proclaiming “Democratic Member Control,” showed ants working together to carry a bright green fern leaf. Some of the electricians filtered in late, having come straight from a job site. 

“We want to take a moment to recognize some amazing people in our co-op,” said Melanie Duggan, a senior project manager at Cal Solar, which installs rooftop solar and battery systems. Duggan and other managers then praised their colleagues’ “commitment to craft” and “pure fucking magic” — core values of the company. Workers cheered and clapped after each shout-out. 

This supportive culture is at the heart of Cal Solar. “I haven’t run into any other construction environments where you have construction workers saying, ‘Love you,’” Lars Ortegren, the company’s co-founder and director of construction services, told me. 

Cal Solar has been installing panels on homes and businesses in Grass Valley and surrounding Nevada County for the past 25 years. In 2019, it became a worker-owned cooperative, and Ortegren went from being sole owner to an employee-owner.  

Today, Cal Solar’s worker-owners spend their days constructing solar systems and managing sales. But they also run a company. They make decisions, share profits and have a financial stake: $5,000 invested up front, or $1,000 down and $4,000 financed through paycheck withdrawals. Any employee may buy in, though currently only 46% are owners. Not everyone wants the additional responsibilities, Ortegren said, but all workers benefit from the cooperative culture. 

“I haven’t run into any other construction environments where you have construction workers saying, ‘Love you.’”

Ortegren has wanted to create well-paying solar jobs and a collective workplace since he first entered the industry over two decades ago. “I had this whole fantasy of creating an anarchist labor union for solar installers,” he told me. Previously, Ortegren and Angel Niblock, Cal Solar’s general manager, were members of the Industrial Workers of the World. They believe in “the dignity of labor, in democratic workplaces and in the idea that those who do the work should have the say and a stake in how it’s done,” as Niblock put it at the company meeting. 

In recent years, the solar industry has ballooned: It employs nearly six times more workers than the coal industry, according to a 2024 report from the Department of Energy. Solar jobs vary, though. Employees at rooftop solar companies like Cal Solar install panels in their own communities, while installers on large utility-scale projects travel between remote sites and rarely see their families, though they may earn more money. In California, for example, contractors often partner with labor unions and must pay prevailing wages on large projects. In states with weaker labor laws, however, some utility-scale facilities contract with temporary hiring agencies that have notoriously bad labor practices. 

Meanwhile, Cal Solar’s worker-owners shape company policies and generate wealth for themselves and their colleagues. 

A FEW HOURS before the company meeting, Alejandro de Necochea and his crew installed racking and wires on a home in Grass Valley. Panels leaned against the ranch-style house and power drills buzzed, echoing above the gentle ripple of a nearby stream.

“Every two or three days, I have a new job site that’s beautiful, just like this,” de Necochea said, gesturing toward the cedar, ponderosa and oak trees surrounding the property. 

Solar first caught his interest over a decade ago, when he moved to Grass Valley to live with his parents in an off-grid home. That’s not unusual in Nevada County, which has attracted people interested in hippie, back-to-the-land lifestyles since the 1960s. De Necochea’s family relied on solar panels for electricity, so he learned the basics. Then, 10 years ago, he started working at Cal Solar. He’s now a lead journeyman electrician, worker-owner and board member with additional governance responsibilities. 

De Necochea enjoys being a worker-owner, but “it’s not all sunshine and rainbows,” he said. “You definitely feel the pressure of it being your company.” For 10 hours a day, four days a week, he climbs on roofs and installs solar systems. But if there’s a board meeting in the evening, he doesn’t get to clock out when his shift ends. He could probably make more money on utility-scale projects, but he’s committed to Cal Solar. 

“I had this whole fantasy of creating an anarchist labor union for solar installers.”

That commitment creates a sense of accountability: During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, worker-owners took pay cuts to keep the business afloat. “You really feel like people got your back going through ups and downs,” he said. 

Industry insiders call those ups and downs the “solarcoaster.” Companies must contend with shifting state and federal incentives, changing building codes, new technologies and global economic trends. “We’re at a low point right now on that solarcoaster,” Niblock told me. 

Current challenges include the Trump administration’s tariffs, inflation, a potential rollback of a 30% federal tax credit for residential solar and reductions in California’s rooftop solar incentives. Right before California’s policy changed in April 2023, sales spiked. “We booked like a year’s worth of work,” said Casey Tomasi, Cal Solar’s design manager, “and then it immediately fell off a cliff.” 

But Grass Valley homeowners still want solar, partly for independence from Pacific Gas and Electric. In recent years, PG&E has shut off power during periods of high wildfire risk, and Ryan Harris, who owns the home where de Necochea worked this spring, wanted a more reliable system. “Going without power for 14 days in the middle of winter or in the middle of a 115-degree heat storm in the summertime — it’s absolutely miserable,” he said. Now, his family will have electricity even when the grid shuts down.

THE CO-OP MODEL has helped Cal Solar and other residential solar companies stay resilient. “You have multiple sources of people working on these problems and solving them together, versus like one single owner sitting in his or her office trying to solve all this on their own,” said Stephen Irvin, co-founder and CEO of Amicus Solar Cooperative, a purchasing co-op that shares best practices and pools the collective buying power of small companies like Cal Solar to reduce equipment costs. 

Today, 22 of Amicus’ 85 member companies have some form of employee ownership. Irvin himself was a co-founder of Namaste Solar, an early worker-owned solar company in Boulder, Colorado. Other employee-owned solar companies include Technicians for Sustainability in Tucson, Arizona, and Positive Energy Solar in northern New Mexico.

The collective brainstorming Irvin speaks of was visible at Cal Solar’s company meeting this spring. “What do you envision for the future of our co-op?” Niblock asked her co-workers.

“My biggest thing is staying lean right now and not growing too fast,” de Necochea replied. 

“I’m interested in working for low- to mid-class people,” Ortegren said later. “I would love to not work for rich people anymore.” Ortegren sees himself and his co-workers not just as electricians but as educators, explaining how to use solar efficiently and effectively. 

“As a co-op, it’s our vision,” Niblock said. “We have to have imagination. We have to be the creators of our own destinies.”   

This report was made possible in part by the Fund for Environmental Journalism of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

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This article appeared in the June 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Collective power.”