About
The Founder
Sternholt is an integrated solar roofing contractor, the only firm in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania built entirely around invisible solar.
My path into solar started as a consultant for SunPower, at the time the most advanced solar manufacturer in the world. From there I founded Cleanstart Energy, my own residential solar company, and spent years helping homeowners across New York and New Jersey go solar. Through all of it, I kept searching for something the industry did not seem to want to solve: a solar solution that did not look like a compromise bolted onto a beautiful home.
In 2023 I found it. A manufacturer in Iowa called Voltaic had built what I believed was the most promising, efficient, and genuinely beautiful integrated solar roof tile on the market. I reached out, and what started as a conversation turned into a relationship I spent the next two years building. That relationship became an exclusive partnership to design, engineer, and install Voltaic ICON roofing across the Northeast.
Sternholt exists because homeowners in Bergen County, the Hamptons, Westchester, and communities like them have been asking for invisible solar for years, and no one was giving it to them without asking them to sacrifice the look of their home to get it. Now we do.
Our Approach
We work with clients who want solar energy woven into their home without compromising on aesthetics in any way. That is not a marketing position. It is the constraint the entire business was built around, and it is why we chose Voltaic as the only material we install.
What We Are
Sternholt is the only firm specializing in invisible, architecturally integrated solar for high end homes across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. We are a general contractor for building-integrated solar, holding the client relationship and every subcontractor relationship directly — so the client only ever deals with us, from first conversation through a completed roof.
Sternholt specializes in BIPV, building integrated photovoltaics — exterior building materials that generate electricity from within. We call this a powered envelope: a home whose exterior quietly does double duty as both structure and power source. Right now, that means an architectural solar roof tile. Over time, it means expanding wherever that same idea can go, without ever asking a home to look like anything other than itself.
If the home is right and the timing is right, we would like to hear from you.