“Shine Baby Shine!”: What’s New And Interesting at InterSolar North America 2010?

How many of you remember J.R. Ewing, the face of the US oil industry in the long-running TV series “Dallas?” Actor Larry Hagman, pulled off the J.R. character flawlessly. A couple of weeks ago at the InterSolar North America Trade Show, SolarWorld introduced a brilliant new marketing campaign with ol’ J.R. as it’s centerpiece. The campaign includes videos of Larry Hagman saying, “Forget oil. Solar is the energy of the 21st century.” The campaign is appropriately named “Shine Baby Shine.” This was only one of many interesting developments at this year’s show.

In addition to attending these shows for business meetings, I go with an eye toward industry trends. For example, SolarWorld’s new marketing campaign is a great attempt at taking solar mainstream. Much like Akeena’s move to license the Westinghouse brand, SolarWorld has take an American icon,  made a visual pivot from Drill Baby Drill to Shine Baby Shine and, hopefully, created a very important impression in our nation’s psyche. Their campaign is good for the industry.

SPARQ Systems, Inc. introduced a new microinverter, the model S250NA60100. The “show stopper” about this introduction was that it comes with a 25-year warranty. Too good to be true? As has been the case with microinverters, only time will tell.  Enphase has owned the microinverter category for more than three years. We’ve heard that there are half a dozen companies developing their own microinverter. SPARQ  claims to have developed patented technology that overcomes the typical operational challenges of microinverter technology, resulting in matching up the microinverter warranty to the solar panel warranty. Considering the fact that the ten-year warranty on the Enphase microinverter has been a major obstacle to more widespread development of AC panels, this raises interesting questions about the possibility of other panel manufacturers following Suntech / Andalay someday with an AC panel utilizing this new microinverter. It’s very early on for this start-up company with product launch in the near future. They are seeking installers who will participate in their test program and they are seeking investors.

Another trend can be found in the thin film arena where Japan-based Solar Frontier introduced “the most economical, ecological solar energy solutions on earth,” CIS (copper-indium-selenium) technology. It’s a thin film entry that is clearly more ecologically-friendly than CdTe and they are claiming that their manufacturing capacity will approach 1 GW in 2011. Up until now, First Solar has owned this category with its CdTe product. Many environmentalists have expressed concern regarding disposal plans for this more toxic product. Solar Frontier is betting that their technology is a game-changer.

You can see the industry’s effort to simplify everywhere. Earlier this year Zep introduced a fastening system that works with Canadian Solar panels and claims to reduce install labor time. The Akeena AC panel was created to similarly reduce labor cost. At InterSolar it appeared that many of the racking manufacturers are working to devise labor saving products. From an industry-wide point of view, this is the logical next step to reducing solar system cost. Lumeta demonstrated it’s PowerPly BIPV module which will affix rapidly on low slope roofs without the need for racking structures. How to they do it? Power Ply has adhesive backing material that sticks right to the roof. The 400W panels are 7.7 feet long by 4 feet wide and are half as thick as a crystalline silicon panel.

Mage Solar made an impression with a large team, a big booth, but more interesting to me was that both they and NESL, a Chinese PV panel manufacturer, were offering guaranteed positive power tolerances, much like Suniva has been doing. This means that the panel DC output is guaranteed to be equal or higher than the name plate rating. Mage has taken one step further, being (as far as I could tell) the first to offer (1) a ten-year product warranty, (2) a 12-year guarantee for 90% power output and (3) a 30-year guarantee for 80% output. I did a quick calculation comparing Mage’s program to the programs offered by most PV manafacturers: Mage is guaranteeing 62 MWh more over the life of a 230W panel. Mage has set up manufacturing operations in Georgia and is a Buy American product.

Finally, InterSolar was an opportunity to see the many friends we’ve made over the years and make a few new ones. Special thanks go out to Liz Merry, Tracy Ezzell, Tor Valanza (aka “Solar Fred“), Svea Jeske, Andy Black, Jack Tuttle, Clark Zivojnovich, Barry Shear, David Allen, Hal Slater, Rich Schwerin, Brenda Ropoulos and many more members of the “solar tribe” who attended InterSolar 2010 and have helped and mentored me, or just been good friends and colleagues, along the way. Shine Baby Shine!

UPDATE: What the BP Gulf Oil Spill Means to BP Solar

I just got through listening to President Obama’s speech about the BP Oil Spill. When I wrote the blog What the BP Gulf Oil Spill Means to BP Solar in May, who could have imagined we’d be where we are now? Around that time government officials were estimating that oil was leaking at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day (a five-fold increase from initial estimates). A few days after that blog was written, NPR began reporting that the spill rate could be closer to 70,000 barrels per day. That set off a controversy, with BP’s COO disputing the NPR oilspill estimates. A month later, a US scientific team has fixed the estimates of the oil spill rate at between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

We are in day 57, with no end in sight. We’ve gone from “the largest oil spill in American history” to the “worst environmental disaster in American history.” We continue to hear about the chaotic manner in which BP has handled the crisis. We’ve gone from what was described in that earlier blog to the realization that the BP spill was turning the gulf into a dead zone.

In the earlier post that I’m updating here, I explored the branding repercussions affecting BP Solar. Since then, I as able to access a talk given by a BP Group Vice President of Marketing on April 26, 2001 at The CNN Fortune Time Global Marketing Forum in Rome, Italy. Her talk was titled “Branding in the 21st Century; A BP Perspective.” She points out BP at that time was “a company made up of 100,000 people thrown together as a result of a series of mergers and acquisitions. Almost overnight the new BP became:

•  One of the biggest companies in the world with over 100,000 employees worldwide   
•  The largest oil and natural gas producer in the US and UK
•  The largest non-OPEC oil producer in the world
•  The world’s largest solar company
•  And a company with more than 28,000 service stations world-wide.”

In somewhat of a sad foretelling manner she stated: “I believe at the end of the day, the strongest brands still result from powerful emotional connections that companies are able to make with the general population.” She went on to identify three themes that identify “what people expect, and demand, from great brands:

• Great brands deliver not what a company makes, but what customers need.
• Great brands make a positive impact in people’s lives.
• Great brands demonstrate alignment between external words and internal actions” 

Fast-forward from 2001 to 2010 – I’m reading articles titled You Don’t Trust BP? It’s Too Late, BP and Big Oil: Shut Down America’s Greenwashing Machine and Americans Don’t Care if BP Goes Bankrupt Paying for Oil Spill, Poll Shows. Somehow I doubt this was the branding goal BP had in mind.

So, again I ask, where does this put BP Solar? There hasn’t been a lot of press on BP Solar since the the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Distaster. Renewable Energy World tells us:

BP Solar With over 35 years of experience and installations in over 160 countries, BP Solar is one of the world’s largest solar companies and has manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Spain, India, and China.

As I wrote in the earlier blog, Home Depot has exclusively carried the BP Solar brand. Since I wrote that last blog, Home Depot in California has thrown out all of its long-time loyal solar installers and replaced them with Solar City. Perhaps this is a play to replace a tarnished brand with the Solar City brand. In any event, anyone buying solar panels at a California Home Depot will get BP Solar AND Solar City. This might apply in Home Depot Warehouses outside of California as well. Will it work for Home Depot, Solar City and BP Solar? I guess we continue to wait and see.

Westinghouse Solar: Why the Solar Tribe Should Love It

Last week I attended the American Solar Energy Society Conference in Phoenix. I had made a note to myself before arriving to visit the Andalay booth on the trade show floor. I wanted to find out how the new plug-and-play product was doing. On Thursday the exhibit floor opened and I made my way to Andalay. When I got to their booth, somebody handed me a miniature soccer ball that read “Westinghouse Solar.” Tim O’Sullivan, sales manager for the newly named Los Gatos-based company formerly known as Andalay, told me this was just being rolled out. It’s brilliant!

As Renewable Energy World, Greentech Media  and Brighter Energy point out, this is not an acquisition by Westinghouse. It is a deal to use Westinghouse’s name worldwide. I believe it has game-changer potential. If the plug-and-play product differentiation that Andalay has introduced, as well as the Lowe’s retail distribution channel had not put it’s product into the mainstream as a solid solar consumer product, the Westinghouse name most certainly will.

What a great story. Not too long ago, the word on the street was that Akeena, which had gone public through a reverse merger, had burned through its capital efforting to roll out a solar installation business. Then in September, 2007 Akeena announced partnering with Suntech to create Andalay. Behind the scenes, the company was pioneering the plug-and-play concept. In early 2009, Akeena announced an agreement with Enphase to co-develop and market the first AC solar panel. At the end of 2009 came word that Lowe’s was going begin offering the Andalay do-it-yourself solar panel. Now, Lowe’s has the Westinghouse brand.

My hat’s off to Barry Cinnamon, Akeena CEO who seems to be pushing all the right buttons, creating the opportunity for great sound bites like:

“Since George Westinghouse founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1886, the world’s electric grid has operated on AC power,” said James F. Davis, vice president, Westinghouse Electric Corp. “For over 100 years, Westinghouse has literally set the standard for reliable electric power and home appliances. We approached Akeena when our research indicated that their integrated solar-panel technology could help make solar mainstream. Akeena’s safe and reliable AC solar panels are a perfect complement with Westinghouse’s heritage. We are pleased to introduce Westinghouse Solar as the newest member of the exclusive Westinghouse family.”

Or maybe you would prefer this quote from Barry himself:

“Since the beginning, we’ve worked consistently to make solar more mainstream. We began as a rooftop installer. We then designed our own easy-to-install solar panels that gave customers superior reliability and aesthetics. We improved our design by manufacturing higher-performance AC panels, and built a dealer network that has grown to more than 25 states and Canada. We then partnered with Lowe’s Home Improvement stores for installation services, along with the first do-it-yourself solar panels stocked on retail shelves.

“Now, with the exclusive rights to the Westinghouse Solar brand, we look forward to accelerated growth without large up-front brand investments,” explained Mr Cinnamon.

The Solar Tribe should love this new development. Anything that causes solar to become more mainstream is good for the industry as whole. At one of the ASES marketing workshops I had heard that consumer focus groups had repeatedly raised as one of the barriers of broad scale adoption the question: ”why is there no Nike in solar?”  The combination of Lowes and Westinghouse can only help the industry as a whole. Too bad Home Depot is still stuck with BP Solar, but that’s another story

Plug-and-play is here to stay.

You Couldn’t Have Made This Opportunity Up in Your Imagination – Yet It Is Really Happening

Is there a better time to rally public support for new way of doing energy? Why isn’t anyone taking the lead? It doesn’t have to be “Solar First.” It could be “Renewable Energy First” or “Distributed Energy First” or “Community First” or something totally different than these ideas.

Whatever we call it, it is a movement that must be about about Not Coal and Not Oil. Could there be a better time and place than now and here? Could there be a better opportunity to educate the ignorant, energize the apathetic and elect legislators who will do something positive and good for our future and our kids future? “Throw the incumbents out” is a good start, but what of the the poison pills called coal and oil that we continue to swallow? Why is there no leadership on this issue at a time that cries out for change?

Isn’t this what RePower America was supposed to be about? Are they leading? I hadn’t noticed.

How Do We Figure This Smart Grid Out? Introducing CADER: Communities for Advanced Distributed Energy Resources

My, but we learn so slow,

And heroes, they come and they go

And leave us behind,

As though we’re supposed to know

        ~ Joe Walsh, The Eagles, Pretty Maids All in a Row

The recent coal mine collapse and the gulf oil spill has caused the blogoshere to once again heat up with debates about clean energy versus the fossil fuel stuff.  Scientists are saying that the Deepwater Oil Disaster could be more than 10 times worse than initial estimates — and the well could keep spewing oil into the Gulf for months before the oil companies figure out how to stop it. Meanwhile, some elected officials who insisted all along that offshore drilling was safe are trying to tell us that we just need better “backup blowout preventers” on offshore oil rigs. Glenn Beck continues to compare Global Warming to Nazi propoganda, but as Lewis Black points out so humorously, Glenn Beck has “Nazi Tourette’s” (you’ve got to see the video ~ I had tears in my eyes laughing so hard). On the other side, I just read a great blog today written by Green Builder Media’s Ron Jones. It’s titled Hostage Situation and makes many great points. This point stood out for me:

“Why is it so difficult to get people to admit that we not only have the ability to make intelligent decisions and effect positive change in the way we conduct our lives, but that it is our moral obligation to do so? We know how to reduce the environmental impacts of our industries, our transportation, and our built environment. We are not forced to continue to pass the poison for the sake of profit.”

Getting off the poison and embracing the light, as I’ve written in earlier blogs and articles, is not a simple matter. In fact, it will take the coordination and cooperation of many disciplines to achieve the morally imperative change. At the end of last month we were very fortunate to attend the CADER Conference 2010 at the University of California at San Diego. The venue was spectacular, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. The gathering was even better. Attending were representatives of the California utilities, the Department of Energy, major universities, non-profit advocacy organizations, large and small manufacturers, green builders and green designers, among others.

Over the three-day conference there were several threads or themes that emerged. I will blog about them in the weeks and months to come. Most importantly, it is clear that to get from where we are to where we need to be it will take a cooperative effort by the broad range of disciplines representated at CADER 2010. In fact, I got a chuckle recently when someone made me aware of an article in Smart Grid News about the Smart Grid’s Most Powerful Men. More likely, an earlier Smart Grid News article on The Networked Grid 100: Movers and Shakers of the Smart Grid probably better captures the essence of our challenge. Many attending the CADER 2010 event were not on this list and clearly should be.

And what does all of this mean to the Solar Tribe? Jigar Shah, CEO of The Carbon War Room, founder of SunEdison, and brilliant futurist, put it very well in a recent email:  

I think there needs to be a pivot by the solar industry away from solar advocacy towards Distributed Generation (DG) advocacy. This includes DG (solar, CHP, wind, small hydro, geothermal, etc) and, more importantly, aggressive electrical engineering (EE,) targeted storage, and smart grid.

Bringing together stakeholders in these various disiplines is the only way to sort out obstacles and opportunities. As we look around, we can find an unbelievable number of conferences and seminars on Smart Grid. Many organizations are creating forums for wide discussion and debate about where to go with with DG, EE and targeted storage. A quick search of the Internet identified the following gatherings in the very near future:

Two Day Smart Grid Conference in Palm Springs, California May 18-19, 2010

Community Energy Roadmap Summit and Workshop Bellevue, Washington June 2-3, 2010

Smart Grid Technology Conference & Expo 2010, San Diego CA, June 2-3, 2010

Smart Grids – China 2010, Shanghai China , June 8-11, 2010

Smart Grid Interoperability Summit, Toronto Ontario, June 15-16, 2010

…and that’s just the next thirty days. In addition, these organizations exist for the purpose of advocating for distributed energy development:

World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE)

California Energy Commission’s Distributed Energy Resources Guide

Distributed Energy – A Journal of Energy Efficiency & Reliability

Galvin Electricity Initiative

There are many more I have not listed. Several blog installments can written on each of these organizations and others. They are necessary for the smart grid dialogues to take place.

So why does CADER have the opportunity to be different from these other conferences and organizations? It’s really quite simple and something of which I had not  been previously aware. Communities, or microgrids, are natural innovation zones. They provide opportunities to perfect Smart Grid technologoes because communities have experimentation scalability. These microgrids also provide flexibility. At the community level, utilities can create partnerships with universities, as well as small and large businesses. At the community level, potentially contentious stakeholders are more likely to come together in cooperative efforts to jointly find solutions to the many technical challenges involved in creating a distributed energy smart grid. Perhaps most importantly, at the community level stakeholders can afford the trial-and-error required to acheive optimum cost reduction, without wide-scale public opinion slowing down or halting progress.

CADER is all about taking a community approach to advanced distributed energy. From the beginning to the end of the 2010 conference, attendees heard about progress being made at the microgrid level from a broad range of community spokesmen. We heard different perspectives to common challenges shared by stakeholders. We heard from community leaders in the city of Chula Vista about the real world challenges and accomplishments for turning a decent-sized community green. We heard from representatives of the University of California – Davis about their development of a net zero community. We heard about the development of microgrids in India, Borrego Springs CA, and Canada. All with different challenges and points of view. We heard from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), Sacramento Metropolitan District (SMUD)  about the utilities community plans and actions. We heard from the current and former commissioners of the California Energy Commission, as well as the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) Coalition and World Alliance for Distributed Energy (WADE). We heard panels talk about the critical role that water is playing and will continue to play in the energy-water nexus. We took a tour of UCSDs 30MW microgrid.

I’ll cover all of these and more in upcoming blogs and articles. In the meantime, you can find many of the CADER presenters’ powerpoint presentations here. This is important and relevant to all of us, especially the solar tribe. We need more of this. In the past, the CADER Conference has been held bi-annually. Hopefully, it will shift to an annual event and broaden both its attendee base, as well as its media coverage.

What the BP Gulf Oil Spill Means to BP Solar

[THIS BLOG WAS UPDATED ON JUNE 16, 2010 - Please click this link for access]

The recent Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico left eleven dead and wide ranging debate about the future of offshore drilling. Clearly the full extend of damages has yet to be assessed and BP has agreed to pay the costs of the leak catastrophe, but ironically, one of the interesting questions coming out of this mess is what will become of BP Solar?

While BP Solar has been one of the major players in the photovoltaic solar panel industry over the past several years, rumors have been flying around the past couple of years that BP would be exiting the solar space. All along BP has held steadfast to its commitment to BP Solar, even while cutting 600 jobs last year. So, how will negative publicity affect BP Solar strategic partner relationships? BP Solar’s relationship with Home Depot comes to mind, as an example. BP Solar panels are the only solar panels currently offered to Home Depot customers. How will consumers react to the negative BP publicity? How much will BP Solar sales take a hit? Will it matter anyway, in the midst of a slump in retail traffic?

On the other, if BP remains committed to solar, does BP Solar represent a public relations opportunity to put a more positive face on who they are and where they are going? They are, after all, the only Big Oil company in the PV market. They have been and continue to be a major sponsor for the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and the Solar Power International trade shows.

Installers that I have been speaking with are concerned. Many are taking a wait-and-see attitude, buying panels from other manufacturers while they wait. What is the extent of brand damage and will it be overcomable? And if the rumors of the past about BP getting out of the solar business had no real basis in truth, will the oil spill push the old rumor into the reality category? It’s ironic that the only Big Oil company actively participating in the PV solar arena, is the one who caused unimaginable damage from the “Drill-Baby-Drill” side of its business. It’s ironic that the a catastrophe involving the energy of the past could have such a negative effect on the energy of the future, but such is life when your corporate name is really British Petroleum.

Here’s to hoping that, in the end, BP Solar, Home Depot, BP solar’s partners and installers all overcome this unfortunate setback.

Smart Grid: It Isn’t As Simple As You Think

By now, most of us know that the demand for solar continued to rise during the recession. Demand continues to grow throughout the world. A couple of days ago, the SEIA published The US Solar Industry Year in Review 2009. The opening sentence of the report stated: ”Despite the Great Recession of 2009, the U.S. solar energy industry grew— both in new installations and employment.” Reuters reported that the “industry surged on incentives.” In February, Todd Woody provided details of how California and New York utilities are playing a key role in solar growth in the New York Times Green Inc. blog. “Over the past few weeks, some 1,300 megawatts’ worth of distributed solar deals and initiatives have been announced or approved. At peak output, that is the equivalent of a big nuclear power plant” wrote Woody. Yes, it’s only one big nuclear power plant, certainly not “As Big As Coal” which needs to be the rallying cry of the Solar Revolution, but, nonetheless, in the midst of the financial meltdown, it’s something.

So, OK, we are moving in the right direction over the last several weeks…but we’ve got a long way to go. There is so much do to on so many levels. As much credit as some will give to the utilities, the truth remains that the Solar Revolution is a grassroots cause. The efforts of the cause as a whole depend on each and every one of us doing what we can to educate and promote the beneits…even the imperitive…of creating solar As Big As Oil. We cannot settle for less. Along these lines, in order to be most effective, we’ve all got to understand the magnatude of unresolved issues that stand in the way of our goal.

In the Solar Industry Magazine (April 2010, Volume 3, Number 3~it is only available via “deadtree media”) that I recently receved, Michael Coddington, Kate Anderson and Benjamin Kropski did a great job of summarizing a New York City case study assessing grid-level effects of distributed photovoltaics. The article identifies many of the technical issues that stand in the way of rapidly connecting distributive PV to the utility networks. On the front page of the same Solar Industry issue, Bob Powell presents a look at utility-scale financing components. I highly recommend these two front page articles. The NYC Study article describes that utilities use two types of electrical distribution systems. By far the most common is these is the simpler radial system, which is designed for electricity to go just one-way. In such a distribution system, a lot of hardware and software is devoted to detecting and protecting against “reverse power flow,” which is “indicative of an upstream supply feeder fault.” Needless to say, this is not good from a net metering and feed-in-tariff point-of-view. The article also discusses the problems caused by the highly variable nature of solar energy supply and the importance of the development of solutions that will make this source of energy more reliable (such as battery technology or eventually a national or worldwide smartgrid). The front page companion piece reminds us that regulators and legistlators are driving the utilities to do the right thng, “either through mandates such as enacted renewable portfolio standards (RPS)…or via less formal expectations that a utility has in response to climate change.” Failure to meet RPS standards will hit the utilities where it hurts them most: earnings. The challenge for the utility becomes how to finance all the change required to achieve the RPS. There is so much great information is these two Solar Industry Magazine articles.

There was also a separate blog by Tom Raftery in the greenmonk blog. First, I want to say, that this blog is one great example of what we each can do to do our part for the Solar Revolution. Tom’s catchy sub-heading says “green from the bottom up; sustainable from the top down.” On April 16, Tom writes about “Are Utility Companies Ready for Full Smart Grids?” Tom takes a look at the IT angle to the new way of doing business. He also has a video interviw with Chris King, the Chief Regulatory Officer of eMeter. Tom writes that he commonly asks “What is a Smart Grid? Almost all the interviewees talk about an infrastructure capable of full end-to-end, two-way communications. That is, communication from utilities down to the appliance level in-home, and from appliances back up to utilities.” Tom probes the challenges that smart grid poses to IT, appliance development and, probably most importantly, consumer education.

So, with this kind of perspective, how are we doing so far with our Big as Oil goal? Well, in a recent Greentechmedia research article titled “Can the U.S. or California Institute a Feed-In Tariff?” Eric Wesoff writes that the RPS in California has failed. “And the U.S. solar market remains thwarted by tight financing, fragmented policies, and spotty permitting, as well as restrictive access to public lands.  Arguably, policy trumps technology in matters of energy, and the U.S. has a long way to go in developing a favorable energy and solar policy.” Wescoff’s article covers an April 14 presentation made by Ted Ko of the FIT Coalition. “California’s renewable energy piece was 14 percent of the energy mix in 2003,” cited Ko in his speech to the Silicon Valley Photovoltaics Society, ”and actually dropped down to 13 percent in 2008.  Further, he asserts that there is little chance that will California achieve its goal of 20 percent in 2010 and 33 percent in 2020.”

The answer, according to Ko, is getting a feed-in tariff imposed in California and in the U.S.  Ko defined the feed-in tariff as a predefined, pre-approved PPA between renewable energy generators and utilities.  He called it “the most effective policy in the world for getting cost-effective renewable energy online. It’s simple, fair and effective.”

As they say, “the Devil’s in the details.” There are so many details to research and understand. We need to continue to feed one another with newly developing information and ideas. Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are great communication tools for this. So are invididual, company and public blogs. Write your own; subscribe to this one and others. WholeSolar will be starting a blog list. Let’s all share what we’re discovering and believing. Find a solar or renewable energy meetup group in your area. If you can’t find one, start one. Please be a part of Vote Solar and other similar organizations, where our numbers create “power to change power.” And please encourage other to join you in signing the Solar Bill of Rights. Most importantly, take action (if you have not yet) and increase your action (if you have).

The Solar Revolution

Recently, I read Senator Bernie Sanders’ blog entitled It’s Time for a Solar Revolution. He writes about how he and 10 of his colleagues (Senators Whitehouse, Cardin, Gillibrand, Merkley, Lautenberg, Leahy, Boxer, Menendez, Specter, and Harkin) are introducing the Ten Million Solar Roofs Act. The bill calls for 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar water heating systems over the next 10 years. The idea is a knock-off of the “million roofs” program in California. Essentially the plan is to create 30,000 megawatts of solar power in ten years by offering consumer rebates for the purchase and installation of solar systems. So far the California program is on track to create 3,000 megawatts of solar power by 2016. What makes Senator Bernie’s bill different is that it is a Federal bill that supplements and complements state and local solar efforts. The idea is a good one, using a distributive approach, however the bill is but a small step in creating a full-scale solar revolution, but it is certainly an important one.

Ten million roofs is certainly a great start for a solar revolution, but it reflects limited thinking. My friend Jeff Wolfe, the founder of groSolar, made a presentation over a year ago entitled Thinking as Big as Oil. Jeff pointed out that as strong as growth has been for the solar industry, the entire industry’s revenues equal less than two days of ExxonMobil’s revenues. We have a long way to go to be as “Big as Oil.” Jeff gave several examples of where the solar industry was, perhaps, limiting itself in its goals and vision. And then he made a statement that should resonate with every member of the solar tribe: “I, for one, am not in this game to play; I’m in it to win ‐‐ to accomplish our mission for our company, for our country, and for our planet.”

Thinking as Big as Oil is certainly worthy of being called a Solar Revolution, but a revolution needs many, many passionate people with a shared conviction. Al Gore likes to talk about political will being the only thing missing, but more importantly that political will is a renewable resource. Unfortunately, the obstacles in this arena are as big as Oil. Obstacles mean opportunities. These obstacle/opportunities lie in the areas of technology, politics and basic human behavior and create exciting potential for history-changing achievements. The next step in building and advancing our movement, it seems to me is about increasing the general awareness. The ARRA program certainly is helping. Rhone Resch’s declaration of a Solar Bill of Rights is another step.

There a few trail-blazing non-profit organization for us to get behind and support. I love Vote Solar. Their mission is “to bring solar energy into the mainstream.” I couldn’t have said it better myself and their every single action is doing exactly that. Vote Solar works at the state, federal and local level to implement programs and policies that allow strong  solar markets to grow — working to remove serious regulatory roadblocks impeding solar adoption — and pave the way for a transition to a renewable energy economy. SolarTech is a PV industry consortium focused on creating a Solar Center of Excellence in the Silicon Valley. Their goal is to identify and resolve the inefficiencies inherent in the delivery of solar PV systems. This last January Solartech hosted a Solar Leadership Summit to Address Solutions that Cut Procedural Red Tape by 75% and Reduce Costs for Solar Customers and followed that up by announcing the launch of a new, free resource for solar professionals called SolarHub. In Solar Nation’s own words, Solar Nation “is the place where solar citizens live “  and “where citizens rally and convince their leaders to make America a true solar power.” There are probably many more similar organizations that part of the solar revolution. If you know of some, please let us know in an email: info@whole-solar.com. And if you are not familiar with Vote Solar, Solartech and Solar Nation, please check them out and get involved.

A solar revolution starts with you and me. As I heard Buckminster Fuller say, “each one reach one; each one teach one.” To quote Vote Solar’s website: “The clock is ticking. Join the Team” or, perhaps a paraphrase is in order — Join the Solar Revolution.

Act Now: Sign the Solar Bill of Rights

Rhone Resch, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, has pointed out that with Congress back in session it is important that we all make a big push to get Americans to sign the Solar Bill of Rights.

Can Smart Grid Outsmart all the Obstacles?

Yesterday, we attended a sold-out Smart Grid event that was sponsored by CommNexus-San Diego, a non profit network of communication and defense industry companies. While the event itself lasted 90 minutes, you had the feeling that everyone in attendance would have stayed a couple more hours to have all their questions answered. The fascinating thing is that the development of the Smart Grid is essential, while at the same time being confronted with maddening obstacles. Logic-be-damned politics is at the center of many of these obstacles, posing the question: Will we have the political will to overcome them all?

There is so much that can be said about the Smart Grid. It has so many components and aspects. For now, I’ll try to keep it simple. First off, from a very high point-of-view, the Smart Grid is simply about consumer empowerment. The more a consumer knows about his or her own consumption, the more likely he or she will be willing to alter behavior to save money. More importantly, without a Smart Grid the power distribution system will be unable to sustain the projected growth in energy demand. Using a Smart Grid, consumers will be charged premium rates for energy usage during peak-demand time periods and lower, discounted rates during low-usage periods. Existing energy grids are old and antiquated.They must be built to accommodate the highest required volumes for peak-usage periods. Put in other words, the capacity of the existing energy grid is largely unused because consumer usage varies widely throughout a day and in different seasons of the year.

The introduction and wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles (EV) will further challenge the capacity of existing energy grids. A single EV requires more than 6 kW over a 3 hour period to re-charge. This is more energy consumption than than the average-sized home. Imagine what effect a mass migration from gas service stations to plug-in electric re-chargers could have on an already maxed-out grid.

As has been the case in the wireless industry, there are no Smart Grid industry standards. We heard that San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) uses Zigbee and Z-Wave for their in-house wireless network, but the panel of experts agreed that there likely will ever be any such industry standards. Will this slow down the Smart Grid development?

Incorporating renewable energy that is generated withing the grid itself seems to be the biggest no-brainer of all in the discussion about Smart Grid development. When I think of in-grid renewable energy, I see photovoltiac panels on the roofs of an entire community. I see these solar panels funded by PACE programs (California AB811), companies like SunRun or by the utilities themselves. If we increase the capacity of energy generation closest to the point of usage, we significantly reduce the cost of building infrastructure – a major savings to consumers. But I was shocked and amazed to hear that in the state of California the renewable energy program DOES NOT INCLUDE residential roof-top or ground-mount solar when calculating how much of a utility’s energy is green and how much is fossil-based. In other words, there is no incentive for the utilities in California to vigorously pursue the development distributive solar energy generation.

While there seems to be strong legislative consensus that renewable energy is the way to go, there are other similar legislative obstacles to getting there. I’ve written about some already at this blog site: a solar bill of rights, innovative financing, national net metering, grassroots advocacy and, probably most importantly, general consumer ignorance and apathy. If you add to this list feed-in-tariffs and shifting government subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, we’re really talking about a uniform national energy program that would be essential for national security. Such an ambitious concept brings up the age-old debate of states rights (and autonomy) versus Federal rights.

At the event yesterday, this point was driven home clearly. Tom Blialek, Chief Smart Grid Engineer for SDG&E, stated that the California PUC program to create more green energy would result in 150MW of wind power being created in the Imperial Valley of California. Since wind energy is generally created at night and energy storage technology is still being developed, it will be necessary to order these windmills to be shut down, as is the current practice in Europe. This raised the question: why not sell excess energy across state lines rather than shut the windmills down? The answer was symbolic of the whole area of Smart Grid and renewable energy development: while the question makes a lot of logical and practical sense, from a political stand-point, there are too many issues to get sorted out before a national or world-wide smart grid will be able to happen.

This is why we must build the solar tribe. This is why we must have meetups in our areas. This why we need to do what we can to get our communities involved. This why we need to blog, tweet and use social media to inform and involve others. The power to outsmart the obstacles is in our hands. It’s an exciting time to be alive.