CHARLOTTE, N.C. — According to the Energy Information Administration, solar power is in demand across the United States.

Solar panel shipments in the United States reached record highs last year, up 10%, while also getting cheaper. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, there are over 900 business-owned renewable energy projects, including 25 clean energy-powered breweries, distilleries and wineries.

One brewery that calls Charlotte home is the only solar-powered brewery in the city.

“I had spent about 10 years at Bank of America, which is a pretty long time to be in corporate, and I was really looking for a side project,” said Chris Goulet, part-owner of Birdsong Brewing Company.

That side project became Birdsong Brewing, which took flight about 12 years ago as one of the Queen City’s first breweries.

“It was a very open market at that time, and so I thought it was just going to be a little side gig, but it ended up after a couple of years turning into a full-time job,“ Goulet said.

Goulet’s passion for craft brews helped Birdsong go from producing 300 to 900 gallons in just a few years, but production quickly became costly.

“I thought it was going to be definitely a side thing where like, we sold kegs to a few places in the neighborhood, and we had a taproom that was fun, and that's all I thought we were going to do. So this has definitely grown much past where I originally expected,” Goulet said.

As operating costs continued to rise, the company looked at ways to save money and chose to go with energy-efficient solar panels.

“We released a beer that did way better than we anticipated, and we suddenly had this big windfall, and we sort of took that as a chance to add solar panels. It was a little bit unusual, but at the time it made a ton of sense. We can produce almost half of our electricity with our own panels,” Goulet said.

According to the Energy Information Administration, last year the U.S produced more than 3% of its electricity through solar energy. Birdsong was able to cut their energy bill by 40% through their solar energy. 

“We benefited a bunch of ways. So one, we produce a lot of electricity, which saves us money every year. Two, we're able to get the federal tax credits, and then we also lucked out and we managed to get a Duke rebate right when we installed the panels, so that improved our payback time to about four years instead of the normal eight or nine,” Goulet said.

While solar panels are one way Birdsong helps the environment, the brewery is not stopping there.

“Right now we're focusing on trying to get a little more volunteer base for Keep Charlotte Beautiful and stormwater for our cleanups. That's kind of our initiative this year is to try to build those,” Goulet said.

The solar industry is only expected to continue growing, with the Solar Energy Industries Association projecting that the U.S will install an average of 15 gigawatts of solar capacity each year from 2023 to 2028.