New Power Flower to Open on Earth Day.
RALEIGH, NC – Marbles Kids Museum is planting a 22-foot tall giant flower that’s powered by the sun. POWER FLOWER, a new solar exhibit sponsored by Progress Energy, will open in the Museum’s Castaway Cove Kids Garden on Earth Day, Friday, April 22. Kids experiment with the flower to see how solar energy makes its petals move. Marbles worked with ClearScapes to design POWER FLOWER in partnership with Southern Energy Management, who provided the solar design, engineering and installation. All of the partnering companies are based in the Triangle.
“POWER FLOWER offers an innovative, hands-on approach to learning about renewable energy resources,” said Lloyd Yates, president and CEO of Progress Energy Carolinas. “It’s important that we provide energy education opportunities that are accessible to children and prepare them to be wise energy consumers in the future.”
“What makes this project so much fun is that we get to combine the challenge of a really unique solar installation with the opportunity to teach people more about how solar power works,” Southern Energy Management’s David Boynton said. “We are thrilled to be partnering [with Progress, ClearScapes and Marbles] on such a cool idea.”
“We are so excited for the addition of POWER FLOWER to Castaway Cove Kids Garden. A core initiative is ‘Growing Up Green,’ calling kids into action to help care for the earth and preserve its resources,” said Sally Edwards, President of Marbles Kids Museum. “An exhibit like this shows children the power of our most renewable resource — the sun.”
On Earth Day, everything at Marbles revolves around the sun. In addition to experimenting with the new POWER FLOWER, kids and grown-ups alike celebrate Mother Earth with other solar activities throughout the museum.
About Marbles Kids Museum
Marbles provides extraordinary experiences for both children and adults through innovative hands-on children’s exhibits, creative programs and events, and larger-than-life IMAX films on North Carolina’s only giant screen. Located in downtown Raleigh, Marbles offers playful learning adventures for children and families, museum and IMAX field trips, summer camps, family events, targeted outreach programs and exceptional spaces for meetings and parties. For more information, visit www.marbleskidsmuseum.org.
About Southern Energy Management
Southern Energy Management is a North Carolina-based sustainable energy company offering energy efficiency, green building and turn-key solar services for homeowners, builders, companies, government and military clients across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. A certified B Corp, SEM’s mission is to have a measurable impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, and to build a sustainable triple-bottom-line company. SEM was founded in a living room in Raleigh in 2001, and now employs a team of more than 90 sustainable energy professionals. SEM is consistently recognized as an industry leader both locally and nationally, and is among a small handful of companies in the U.S. to earn the National Energy Star Partner of the Year award five times (from 2007 through 2011). SEM also received the 2010 Green Jobs Award from SJF Institute & Green For All and the 2009 City of Raleigh Market Transformation Award. For more information, visit www.southern-energy.com.
About Progress Energy
Progress Energy, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune 500 energy company with more than 22,000 megawatts of generation capacity and approximately $10 billion in annual revenues. Progress Energy includes two major electric utilities that serve about 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida. The company has earned the Edison Electric Institute’s Edison Award, the industry’s highest honor, in recognition of its operational excellence, and was the first utility to receive the prestigious J.D. Power and Associates Founder’s Award for customer service. The company is pursuing a balanced strategy for a secure energy future, which includes aggressive energy-efficiency programs, investments in renewable energy technologies and a state-of-the-art electricity system. Progress Energy celebrated a century of service in 2008. Visit the company’s website at www.progress-energy.com.
