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STANDING ON A STREET corner in lower Manhattan, entrepreneur Anthony O. Pereira can look up at three new apartment buildings in nearby Battery Park City and admire the iridescent blue, roof-top solar panels his firm designed. "It's pretty awesome," he says. Back when he was in college, he dreamed about making an impact on the city's skyline, a goal of many young architects. And now? "I think I have," says 38-year-old Pereira.

Pereira runs a four-year-old business called AltPower, whose motto is "Tap the Sun for Power." The firm, headquartered in a tiny office near Wall Street, designs solar-energy systems for urban buildings. To date, the company has completed roughly 25 projects, installing huge glass panels that soak up sunlight, convert it into energy, and decrease the buildings' dependence on grid-supplied power. Customers include the Solaire in New York (which bills itself as America's first environmentally advanced residential tower), the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the prestigious Bronx High School of Science.

Pereira admits that starting an environmental business in New York City, where the only thing more dirty than the trash-strewn sidewalks is the nearby Hudson River, is a little bit crazy. But he says it's brilliant, too. The constant sound of jackhammering on a summer day in Manhattan is a reminder that new construction — for which solar panels are best-suited — is expanding, especially in the area near the World Trade Center site. Tax incentives from the government to develop "green" buildings, and recent attention to the environment thanks to Al Gore's global-warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," have served to boost Pereira's business.

Not many entrepreneurs would be well-suited for this trade, which blends construction know-how and business acumen with a do-gooder save-the-Earth drive. Pereira is a self-described "chameleon" who's comfortable wearing a hard hat on a work site, talking shop with laborers, or wearing a suit in a conference room, discussing the building's design with bankers or architects.

The son of a Portuguese immigrant, Pereira grew up in Connecticut behind the wheels of his family's construction-business equipment. He remembers at 14 helping to pour asphalt, "a horribly physical, nasty, hot job." Later, in college at Fordham University, he studied economics, and then spent some time traveling in Western Europe, where he noticed the more prevalent use of energy-efficient systems in construction. That inspired him to study architecture — and specifically, integrating green technology into a building's design — when he returned to the U.S. A year-long stint after college with Greenpeace further spurred Pereira's interest in environmentalism.

From the start, solar power most intrigued Pereira. "It's considered the world's most reliable energy source," he says, noting that most of the world uses it to some extent. (The American Council on Renewable Energy estimates that solar technology, in which photovoltaic cells turn sunlight into electricity, is a $12 billion global industry, aggressively growing in Japan, Germany, and Spain, and currently poised to expand in the U.S.)

Pereira believes his own business is on the brink of making it big. This year's work load is double that of last year and annual revenue should be roughly $2 million, which will push AltPower into profitability. These days, Pereira has to turn down jobs because his six-employee firm is simply too busy. The latest project, worth $1.25 million, is to integrate green technology into a 40-story condominium in lower Manhattan.

While "being green" is a growing trend, running a business in that field is certainly not without its risks. For instance, the city, state and federal tax incentives and subsidies that make green buildings so attractive to commercial developers might come and go, depending on politicians' whims. (Pereira estimates that businesses that install costly eco-friendly systems generally get a return on investment within three years, as a result of the tax incentives and the energy cost savings.)

Whether Pereira will continue to change New York's skyline depends on his ability to stay in business. Having started AltPower with $75,000 in credit-card lines and $25,000 from a friend, he's currently looking for more angel investors. He's hesitant to take venture capital, preferring to grow the company organically instead. He tries to clear 10% to 20% with each project, and to date has only lost money on one small project. Ultimately, he may sell the business to a larger firm that specializes in renewable-energy systems.

For now, he's enjoying the happenstance that got him to this point, where he can ride the elevator to the Solaire's rooftop in Battery Park City and enjoy a sweeping view of New York Harbor and the knowledge that the beating sun is powering the building. "A lot of this was about timing, and being in the right place and the right time," he says. "It's a lot of hard work, and a lot of dedication — but a lot of it, there's just no control over it."

Good Morning, Sunshine

Your name: Anthony O. Pereira
Name of business: AltPower Inc.
Year founded: December 2002
Business type (industry): Renewable Energy
Location: 125 Maiden Lane, New York City No. of employees: 6
Web address: www.altpower.com

Where do you look for business advice? (Mentors? Industry or trade groups? Family and friends?)
All, really. My family has been extremely helpful. They have run a construction firm since I was a kid. A few others have been critical: the architect (David McAlpin) I first worked with after school and the solar engineer (Lyle Rawlings) I trained under.

What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
I have more confidence now. I make decisions and stick to them without regrets. We make mistakes but that is OK, as long as we do not repeat them and learn from them.

What's the smartest move you've made so far?
Focusing on commercial work here in New York City.

What is the best business book you've read?
None really. One of my all time favorite books is "The Sun Also Rises."

What keeps you up at night?
Too much work. I often need to stay up late or on occasion all night to complete deadlines. I am usually too tired to just stay up worrying all night, but it happens and when it does it is usually a pressing issue on a particular job we are working on at the time. This can be a money issue.

In brief, how did you fund the business initially, and what are your annual revenues?
A couple of credit cards with credit lines up to $75,000 and a good friend who chipped in $25,000 for 10% [of the company] on day one.

And extra credit, when/where was your last vacation?
I am lucky to get to travel a lot so I combine that work travel with pleasure. I do not spend a lot of money on anything really but travel. In the last year or so I have been on work-related trips to Rio de Janeiro, London, Oxford, Toronto, Washington D.C., Miami, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Munich (and other smaller spots in Germany).

More specifically, I was in Miami for a long weekend in late April for an Earth Day event and some beach time with my wife Janna and two-year-old son Lukas, and in Sweden after the England trip to visit my wife's family in early April.