Steve Ihnen is founder of Solar Casters.  Solar Casters is the weather forecaster for the solar industry.  Steve’s company focuses on providing daily solar forecasts to utility companies.  Solar Caster’s clients are worldwide where there are solar installations ranging from 45 kW to 350 mW.  Steve’s weather forecasting software model takes into account 25 years of satellite data to make it’s predictions.  

Solar Casters provides site assessments, technical and economic feasibility studies, as well as operational forecasting to companies looking to implement large scale solar projects.  When Steve was intially touring our space, I was really excited to have him in here as I thought that our appreciation for alternate sources of energy and technology was a good match.  I’ve been pretty interested in solar energy, specifically photovoltaic systems for the thinkspace building.  At the end of 2008 I had a site assessment done for the thinkspace building, if I implement the solution, our building could possibly generate 42kW.

Some of the things that he appreciates about us is our centralized Redmond location, free parking, location to the transit center, and the green touches (LEED certification) aspects about our space like the no-VOC paints, low-VOC carpet adhesives, but he thinks we’re gone a bit crazy with our wine cork recycling!  Steve also worked from home for a number of years and he enjoys the social interaction and community of our space.  He told me that he was drawn to the green touches and technology minded businesses inside our space when he was comparing us to places like Regus Carillon Point.