For 30 years, Grand Solar Inc. has been supporting solar projects around the world with the aim of utilizing solar to make the world a better place. After stumbling upon the Kahauiki village project, a project to build affordable housing for homeless families, we decided that this would be a great chance to extend our efforts of solar altruism locally among the homeless in Hawaiʻi. We did our best to help out with the project by installing solar hot water systems for all of the units there, doing so without any net profit.

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 Then the tariff on Chinese imports hit us hard. Because our Blazing Tube units are composed of vacuum tubes exclusively made in China, we had no other choice than to pay the $18,000 tariff in order to continue on with the project. But we absorbed the losses and were able to finish what we started, knowing that the project was being done for the bettermen of Hawaiʻi’s homeless population. Driven by our passion to improve the world one solar unit at a time, former homeless families can now find shelter in Kahauiki village and enjoy running water heated straight from the Hawaiian sun.