Mitchell Beer

Mitchell Beer is publisher of The Energy Mix, a free, thrice-weekly e-digest on climate change, energy, and carbon-free solutions, and president of Ottawa-based Smarter Shift Inc. He traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997, and delivered a TEDx Ottawa talk last fall on building wider public buy-in for faster, deeper carbon cuts. One of his proudest moments was building a model wind turbine out of wooden stir sticks with his daughter when she was 11 years old…which would be about 14 years before she graduated from Carleton University’s Masters of Architecture program.

Roderick had a vision of making accessible solar products that are architecturally integrated to provide homeowners an affordable option to achieve energy self-sufficiency. Using his background in chemistry, project management, and construction he has developed technologies that enable use of advanced materials with high efficiency solar materials. The result is SparClad, a solar siding product that fully replaces insulated siding while producing abundant energy within a small installation area. His vision was to take the concept of building integrated photovoltaics one step further, integration of photovoltaics into the building product itself. Additionally, he envisioned leveraging modern construction techniques, materials and electronics with an eye on sustainability and resilience. SparClad is a cutting edge product that uses materials that require less energy to produce and are fully recyclable (also with less energy), it has one of the lowest life cycle carbon footprints of any solar product. It is also rugged and light so that contractors can easily handle the panel like other siding products yet result in a resilient installations that reliably produce energy all year long.