Up on the roof - Erika Weliczko installs the future, one house at a time.

She's tried teaching and technical work. Now Erika Weliczko is saving the world, one building at a time. Weliczko installs renewable energy technology, helping businesses and homeowners do their part for the environment and save a little money in the process. A licensed electrical contractor, Weliczko is also the only installer within 20 miles of Cleveland who is certified by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). Her company, Cleveland-based REpower Solutions, helps get solar panels and windmills on-site, deals with zoning and permit issues, helps line up government loans and grants, estimates the amount of energy the technology will need to provide, and instructs buyers on how to maintain it. And she actually installs the damn things, which can be amazingly complicated.

In the process, she has become the local representative of a small but growing national movement of people opting not to wait for federal regulations or legal remedies for climate change, who want to start making a difference now.

"We do not necessarily need to sit around and twiddle our thumbs while we're waiting for the research," she says.

Weliczko estimates that she's helped "a couple dozen" people stop twiddling in the last few years. It's a complicated process that she says takes weeks or months; and it comes with an intimidating price tag: $11,000 is a low price for a one-kilowatt solar panel, and bigger projects can run in excess of $100,000.

But at some point this technology pays for itself. For businesses, that point is generally reached in "single-digit years." For homes, it's closer to 12 or 15 years. But Weliczko says that the technology is good for 25 to 30 years, giving consumers at least a decade of free energy.

Most of her clients stay on the power grid after the technology is installed. But solar panels and windmills sometimes produce more energy than a client needs, causing their meters to run backwards. This phenomenon, called a net-metering arrangement, comes courtesy of Ohio law. Power companies don't always make this easy ("Utilities like to retain complete control over their grid, so there is quite a piece of paper you have to sign," Weliczko says), but credits from these energy reversals can start to add up.

"It really is a long-term approach to energy," she says. "I think [renewable energy] offers incredible value that way."

Then, of course, there are the environmental benefits. Weliczko calls them "tree-hugging reasons" - she has a green streak. After graduating with degrees in engineering and music from Case Western Reserve University, she decided, almost as an afterthought, to go to Kent State University for a teaching degree. "I wasn't pleased with my options [as an engineer] in the petroleum-based energy industry," she said.

After Kent, she taught math courses at a high school and Cuyahoga Community College and helped develop technical training materials for metallurgy. But by then, Cleveland's steel industry was waning. Her timing improved after she tried, unsuccessfully, to find someone to install solar panels on her home.

"I was a potential consumer of solar [energy]; I was looking, really for environmental reasons, to see what solar I could do," she said. "But there wasn't enough activity in Northeast Ohio."

So she started her own company to provide the service she couldn't find.

Dick Boerr, a client of Weliczko's, says renewable energy carries other benefits. Boerr, the owner of Dynamic Design in Chagrin Falls, says the solar panel she is installing "will just be great publicity." He's capitalizing on that with a massive sign in front of his office: "See the power of the sun," it reads. "Watch for it."

Boerr knows Weliczko from a project she did for Ruffing Montessori School in Cleveland Heights, where he is a board member. She handled the solar work for a recent $3.4 million project to build a "green" classroom building. He said that the current project will pay for itself in five to seven years, and that Weliczko helped line up grants and tax credits that will pay for roughly one-third of the $27,000 solar portion.

The US House of Representatives recently authorized billions of dollars to encourage renewable-energy projects. Cleveland is working to position itself at the center of the renewable-energy industry, and the SOLAR conference, an annual meeting of renewable-energy interests that was held in Cleveland this summer, chose "Sustainable Energy Puts America to Work" as this year's theme.

But most of those jobs would come from manufacturing, not installation, Weliczko says. On her side things are a little slower, at least for now. She only has "two or three" full-time employees, plus contractors and workers who she hires on an ad-hoc basis.

"I end up doing a lot of [field] work, but I can't be everywhere at once," she concedes. "I have the demand right now, but I'm behind. I'm playing catch-up all the time right now."

But she hopes that the sudden interest in clean energy will boost REpower's fortunes. "I anticipate getting to the point where we've got 20 to 30 field staff and 10 to 15 office staff" within the next five years. She sees positive trends, nationally and locally, and expects more installers to open up shop in the area. The competition might be bad for her profits, but it can only help the environment. In the meantime, she says, it's good to see real steps in the right direction, even if they're small ones.

"[The technology] is something people can see and put their hands on," she says. "My customers appreciate that."