It's Earth Day, so the planet is on a lot of minds, and one way to save money and energy is with solar power.

We caught up with a local company which is seeing a boom in business.

The cost of solar power installation has gone down 70% over the past ten years, it's environmentally friendly and saving homeowners and businesses lots of money with their electric bills.

Monday, we caught up with crews from Solar Revolution of Erie, as they installed a solar panel grid at a home in Union City, “Right now in Northwestern PA we're doing about two homes a week, as more and more people are doing their part and saving money doing it,” said President of Solar Revolution, John Purvis. “We're reducing fossil fuels one panel at a time,” Purvis continued.

Solar energy is a renewable energy that uses the sun’s UV radiation to fuel homes and businesses.

Solar Revolution has installed solar panels at the Millcreek Township municipal building, and recently the home of Steve Parker of Millcreek, “Financially, we hope to save enough to basically have no electric bill, second part is to cut down on greenhouse gasses, a little environmental friendly, third, it feels good to generate your own power,” said Parker.

Parker invested more than $10,000 on the solar panels, and is projected to save 10% a year on his energy costs.

Purvis started Solar Revolution 11 years ago with two employees, he now has 40 employees, and has expanded to serve Ohio and New York, as well as Pennsylvania, “Going renewable pays for itself in under ten years, and the system makes power for 25 years, that's why we're doing so many of them,” said Purvis.

So how exactly does solar power work in Northwest Pennsylvania? After all, we have long winters without a lot of sunshine, “It's a big educational hurdle, it's not sunshine that makes it work, but daylight, it's UV radiation… Here in Northwest Pennsylvania we don’t have as much sun as let's say Georgia, but solar is just a math problem.”

Purvis explains that the energy the solar panels create in the summertime, the kilowatt hours, are stored, and roll over to the winter months, “With the interconnection with the utility, we design it to make more in the summer time, spin the meter backwards, and that pays for when it's covered in snow in the wintertime,” Purvis said.

Purvis says if you get solar panels installed, there's a 30% federal tax credit, which expires at the end of this year, which is another reason why so many are making the investment now.

To learn more about solar power, you can visit Solar Revolution's website.