T. Lyle Ferderber is a solar pioneer.

“The reason they are cheaper now is because people like us made that investment,” said Ferderber, founder and owner of Frankferd Farms Organic Foods. “People like us who did it help create the market for more to be made and the prices to go down.”

Ferderber bought the farm in Valencia in 1980 from his father, who originally purchased it in 1955.

The barn, which is about 150 years old, has a grid-tied solar panel system on its roof that powers a solar-power flower mill, he said. One meter controls the whole farm.

“Today we are making more power than we need so it's going back onto the grid,” he said.

Ferderber decided to go solar in 2011 to counterpoint fracking in the area and for the economic benefits, he said.

Frankferd Farms was one of the locations in the Butler Harvest Solar Tour that 27 solar tourists traveled by bus Saturday to visit solar installations across the county to demonstrate how residential, business and public buildings across Butler County have been harvesting solar energy and generating savings. The tour was guided by solar experts who helped them learn how they might go solar at their own home or business.

Read the full story in Monday's Butler Eagle.