![[Left to right] Ash Arder, Diane Van Buren, and Diane Cheklich stand in front of Grover, Solar Party Detroit's most powerful solar generator. Grover can be rented to provide 35,000 watt-hours of energy.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9b6ab68/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x2002+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc4%2F0e%2F5139cffb427e845a1417a446dc58%2Fsolarparty-062.JPG)
Solar Party Detroit started as a idea to power an e-bike with solar power from off the grid. Now, the company owns a fleet of several solar generators that have powered a broad mix of summer celebrations. The company aims to provide clean and reliable electricity to outdoor events in the Detroit area.
"We kind of just were powering our own things in the beginning," Ash Arder, the company's co-founder and co-owner, said. "As other people started seeing these little hodgepodge battery packs out in the community... we thought we'd better figure out how to make this more user-friendly."
Experiments with balcony solar morphed into requests to power DJs and outdoor movie events. Beyond the draw of reliable clean energy, Solar Party Detroit's units have other advantages over traditional generators, which sometimes have issues with noise or smells.
"I think the sky's the limit in terms of how much power people will take," Diane Cheklich, co-founder and co-owner of the company, said.
As Solar Party Detroit continues to expand, Cheklich wants to see the project to the point where "people aren't scratching their heads when they hear about the opportunity to power their events with solar."
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GUESTS:
- Ash Arder, co-founder and owner of Solar Party Detroit.
- Diane Cheklich, co-founder and owner of Solar Party Detroit.
