20 Years of Lightwave: Then, Now & The Future of Solar & Storage

Earlier this month, Lightwave celebrated 20 years in business. This time has allowed us to reflect on the last two decades of providing renewable energy while also looking towards the future of solar power.

Lightwave Then

Lightwave was founded by Steve Johnson on July 5th, 2006. Most of Steve’s career was in conventional electrical contracting although he always had an interest and passion in solar energy. He was 55 years old at the time and thought, if he was going to do solar, he better do it now. Steve penciled out the economics and running a solar business made absolutely no sense at the time but he decided, “I don’t care, I’m going to do it anyway!”

It was that same day Steve ran to the nearest bank, put in $50 dollars, and took his temporary checkbook. That was the official start of Lightwave.

Steve started the company out of his backyard shed. This is where he worked and ordered materials and parts for installations. It wasn’t until Lightwave’s first few installations gained traction that the team and workload started growing so much they decided it was time for a real office space. They moved to the building where Lightwave is today.

Lightwave Now

Steve started thinking about retiring and knew that he wanted to hand off the business to someone he could trust to carry Lightwave into the future. Steve found Chris Koczaja and had a good feeling he was the right guy. Chris started in the energy field but mostly with internal combustion engines. His company was working with a facility that was getting a solar installation at the time. As Chris observed the solar array he thought, “Wow! It’s so easy and so simple. There’s no moving parts. It’s clean, quiet, and just works.”

From there Chris knew where his passion for energy was headed. He met Steve and worked for Lightwave trying to figure out how to make it work. Steve struggled because not a lot of people were interested in buying a solar company at that time, but they knew they were going to find a way to make it work no matter what. In 2017, Chris bought majority interest and officially became Lightwave’s CEO.

When Steve left Lightwave, the company had around 30 employees. Chris has now grown the team to over 80 full-time employees. The most important aspect of the business Chris wanted to continue for Steve was Lightwave’s culture. For 20 years, Lightwave has been a place customers can trust because of our strong team of experts with experience and passion in the energy field. Today Lightwave has installed over 1,500 systems totalling over 100MW of solar and storage across the Southeast.

The Future of Lightwave and Solar & Storage

Lightwave is celebrating a huge milestone although we are keeping our focus on the future of energy. With aging infrastructure and severe weather causing grid-outages, there is even more demand for energy in our daily lives.

Steve and Chris envision a future driven by the "electrification of everything." They believe that by distributing renewable energy to homes, businesses, and utilities globally, and by leveraging battery storage systems, we can create a sustainable energy future for everyone.

“Sunlight is not only free, but it’s delivered free. There’s enough solar to power this whole world many times over and that is where we will move into the future.” – Steve Johnson

To celebrate the last 20 years and all that's to come, we are having an Anniversary Party & Open House on Friday, September 18th at the Lightwave office in Nashville from 12-4pm. We hope you'll join us - RSVP here!

Lightwave wouldn’t be where it is today without our amazing customers and employees that helped pave the way! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our growing energy future!