Lau­ren Pe­ters is pas­sion­ate about re­new­able en­er­gy.

Hail­ing from the qui­et, oil-rich area of Fyz­abad, the sin­gle moth­er of a 15-year-old boy is the founder and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Nu­ance So­lar.

The com­pa­ny start­ed in March 2019 and con­tin­ues to help busi­ness­es re­duce their pow­er con­sump­tion by in­stalling and main­tain­ing so­lar sys­tems which in­cludes so­lar wa­ter heaters, so­lar light­ing and so­lar cam­eras.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it al­so ed­u­cates about en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy, per­forms en­er­gy au­dit­ing, elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tion and light­ing up­grades.

Pe­ters’ love for re­new­ables be­gan while at the Fyz­abad Com­pos­ite School where she pur­sued sci­ence sub­jects.

Ge­og­ra­phy and physics were her favourite sub­jects.

This, she said, then sparked a ca­reer in­ter­est in elec­tri­cal and in­stru­men­ta­tion (EI).

And while at the San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T and many more trades schools like the Gov­ern­ment Vo­ca­tion­al Cen­tre (GVC), Pe­ters al­so gained fur­ther knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing about en­er­gy and di­rect cur­rent (DC) pow­er.

In­ci­den­tal­ly, Pe­ters was pro­pelled to start her own com­pa­ny af­ter be­ing re­trenched from both Arcelor Mit­tal and TSTT where she worked as an E&I /DC Pow­er Tech.

“This led me to cre­ate a busi­ness that will change the way we use and con­serve en­er­gy present­ly and our fu­ture. My mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor af­ter be­ing re­trenched was that I had to find a sus­tain­able way to use my tech­ni­cal knowl­edge to sup­port my­self and my fam­i­ly,” Pe­ters ex­plained.

She al­so added that her ex­pe­ri­ence in the DC pow­er de­part­ment and the emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy of re­new­ables quick­ly re­mind­ed her of her love for na­ture and sci­ence.

Pe­ters who de­scribes her­self as the “First La­dy of Nu­ance So­lar” said her jour­ney in­to this field, per­ceived to be male-dom­i­nat­ed, was tough.

“Have you ever dri­ven a roller-coast­er back­wards? Well this jour­ney has been a re­al­ly rough ride. You al­ways have to prove your­self with com­pe­ten­cy, both the­o­ry and prac­ti­cal and there are no days off,” she added.

But these ex­pe­ri­ences have made her more re­silient.

“To get things done is to del­e­gate and be sub­tle. Men lis­ten when a woman has some­thing to say that makes sense, and if that woman is me, why not be a part of some­thing which makes a dif­fer­ence,” Pe­ters said.

How­ev­er, she said her true test of strength oc­curred in No­vem­ber 2020, when she sur­vived a ter­ri­ble work in­ci­dent dur­ing which she got an elec­tri­cal shock of 13.8kva while at an in­dus­tri­al plant at the Point Lisas Es­tate.

“It re­al­ly brought me to a place of ques­tion­ing my ca­pa­bil­i­ties in the fu­ture,” Pe­ters said.

Due to the ac­ci­dent she re­ceived flash third-de­gree burns, ma­jor tis­sue dam­age, skin graft and now has 70 per cent dis­abil­i­ty in her left arm.

But even in the face of this ad­ver­si­ty, Pe­ters nev­er gave up.

And de­spite be­ing lim­it­ed to per­form­ing in­stal­la­tions, she now per­forms light du­ties and man­ages the dai­ly op­er­a­tions of her busi­ness.

“This near-death ex­pe­ri­ence brought a new per­spec­tive to me; that I on­ly have one chance to ex­e­cute my dream and that time is now,” she added.

To­day, 80 per cent of the staff at Nu­ance So­lar is fe­male in­clud­ing in­terns, elec­tri­cal tech­ni­cians, en­gi­neers and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff.

De­spite the dif­fi­cul­ties women still face to break the prover­bial glass ceil­ing, Pe­ters ad­vised her fe­male coun­ter­parts to keep striv­ing while al­so mak­ing a dif­fer­ence.

“As the say­ing goes ‘many are called, but few are cho­sen.’ If you have been con­stant­ly nav­i­gat­ed in­to that di­rec­tion, re­spond to it. Start with en­hanc­ing peo­ple’s lives and cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive im­pact to those with­in your cir­cle.

“The on­ly rea­son males have dom­i­nat­ed the in­dus­try it’s be­cause the op­por­tu­ni­ties were lim­it­ed,” Pe­ters said.

How­ev­er, she not­ed that now with the sup­port for women-led busi­ness­es both gen­ders can work to­geth­er in uni­son.

This, Pe­ters added, can al­so break the bias and al­low young girls and women to cre­ate sus­tain­able en­ti­ties in their niche.

The Nu­ance So­lar team has thus far, in­stalled over 50kW in so­lar pow­er and light­ing through­out T&T and has as­sist­ed fam­i­lies who nev­er had elec­tric­i­ty in the com­fort of their homes.

The com­pa­ny al­so con­tin­ues to ex­cel on a re­gion­al lev­el as it has part­nered with Tripow­er and in­stalled over 60 units of so­lar light­ing at Exxon Mo­bil Carpark fa­cil­i­ty in Guyana.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Nu­ance So­lar re­cent­ly launched its show­room/of­fice at 278, Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, Palmyra.

Fur­ther, on a per­son­al role, Pe­ters was se­lect­ed this year as an is­land in­no­va­tion am­bas­sador from the Caribbean where com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and gov­ern­ments col­lab­o­rat­ed to high­light the is­sues with­in var­i­ous coun­tries and seek so­lu­tions on sus­tain­able goals.

Apart from want­i­ng to leave be­hind a bet­ter world, Pe­ters al­so has an­oth­er side.

Say­ing she’s a “very cre­ative in­di­vid­ual who dab­bled in fash­ion de­sign,” Pe­ters has ven­tured in­to cos­play cos­tum­ing and bio­philic in­te­ri­or de­sign--a con­cept aimed at cre­at­ing a con­nec­tion with na­ture in man-made en­vi­ron­ments.

She al­so en­joys kayak­ing and “off-grid camp­ing” but it’s her love for cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able plan­et that re­mains dear to her heart.