Thirteen years ago, Marine Schumann and Jeremy Favier looked out over Santa Barbara from the Riviera and noticed something that didn’t add up: abundant sunshine nearly year-round, yet rooftops largely bare of solar panels. So they started asking why.
Before launching Brighten Solar Co., they spent seven months researching the local market, interviewing homeowners, architects, contractors, and sustainability officials across the county.
The barrier, they found, was trust, not interest. Solar had developed a reputation problem, locally and nationally: aggressive sales tactics, confusing financing, and homeowners who felt misled. A technology meant to save people money had become something people approached with caution.
“We didn’t want to build just another solar company,” says Schumann, co-founder and CEO of Brighten Solar Co. “We wanted to build the kind of company homeowners told us they wished they had worked with: one that would educate them, be transparent about the costs and tradeoffs, and still be there long after the installation was complete.”
The research gave them a clear direction: before homeowners could decide, they needed honest information about how the technology works, how it integrates with a roof, and what it truly costs. That became Brighten Solar’s mission, education first, and it remains so thirteen years later.
There was also a local challenge: Santa Barbara’s clay tile roofs, which give the region its character but require specialized skill to install on. Marine and Jeremy, both from France, already knew this terrain, since solar has long been installed throughout southern France on similar roofs, giving them something uncommon locally: the know-how to install without compromising a home’s integrity or character.
“A solar system should never come at the expense of the home it is meant to improve,” says Favier, co-founder and COO of Brighten Solar Co. “The quality of an installation is not measured only by how much energy it produces on the first day. It is measured by how safely, reliably, and respectfully it performs over decades.”
Together, that education-first mindset and the technical expertise to work with tile roofs properly became the foundation of Brighten Solar Co.
That same commitment to trust led to one of Brighten Solar Co.’s most significant partnerships — not a residential rooftop, but a corporate headquarters. In 2017, Deckers Brands installed solar at its Goleta campus: close to 1,200 panels, 394 kilowatts of capacity, producing an estimated 634,000 kilowatt-hours a year, enough to offset nearly 100 homes’ electricity use. Almost a decade later, Brighten Solar still partners with Deckers, extending its educational approach to employees considering solar and storage for their own homes.
That same sense of responsibility guided Brighten Solar’s approach to battery storage: technologies chosen for safety, reliability, and environmental impact, rather than simply following what was most widely marketed.
Brighten Solar’s roots in the community have grown the same way, one relationship at a time: the Community Environmental Council’s Solarize program, the Environmental Defense Center, public webinars on solar and energy resilience, certified green business status since 2018, and support for Unite to Light’s solar-lighting work.
Thirteen years later, the questions homeowners ask haven’t changed much: will solar work on my roof, will it hold up, and can I trust the installer? What has changed is the landscape around those questions — financing, battery technology, grid reliability, and why people choose solar in the first place.
The answer Brighten Solar built its reputation on has stayed the same: education first, not a sales pitch. Respect the character of every home, because no two roofs, families, or energy needs are identical. Treat each project as the beginning of a relationship, not a transaction, whether it’s a corporate headquarters or a first-time residential installation.
Learn more about Brighten Solar Co.’s approach to solar and battery storage, or start a conversation about your home, at our website.
