Startup Social Entrepreneurs Help Finance Solar Power Social Enterprises
The mindbogglingly large number of people in the world–1.3 billion–without access to electricity is providing a growing market opportunity for a lot of social entrepreneurs. I just wrote about one, Nokero, selling solar-powered light bulbs.
No Solar Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Join SEIA
At Solar Power International in Chicago, you may have noticed that the solar industry consists of an amazing array of types and sizes of companies. At Solar Marketing Group, I am lucky to get to work with companies that run the gamut of the solar space and while these companies have their own unique needs, one thread connects us all: We all benefit from growing the amount of solar installed. The industry’s growth comes from a lot of different things, but all of these factors can be spurred or thwarted by political action (or inaction, as the case may be).
The New Publicly Funded Solar Projects You Should Care About
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a slew of projects that will collectively receive about $60 million and work on making solar electricity more affordable.
From Mind to Marketplace: SunShot Incubator’s Latest Protégés Get to Work
An idea is like a tiny seed. When planted in a creative mind and adequately fed, it takes root and flourishes. Like a seed, successfully deploying high-impact, cost-effective solar technologies requires a strong support system to facilitate its growth.
Solar Panels The New Granite Countertops, But Not For Long…
Home solar panels are “the new granite countertops,” according to Tom Werner, CEO of US-based SunPower, one of the largest solar panel companies in the world. What does that mean? That means that, for an increasing number of new homeowners, solar panels are becoming an add-on right from the beginning. Furthermore, Werner is confident home solar panels will move beyond the “granite countertops phase” to mass adoption rather quickly.
US Solar Growth Driven By Middle-Class Americans
One of the most common solar-related myths out there is that it’s mostly just the rich who are going solar. We’ve seen indication in the past that this stereotype was not true. However, a study just released by the Center for American Progress (CAP) is certainly the most recent and most comprehensive study on the matter that I’ve seen.
Solar Power to the People: The Rise of Rooftop Solar Among the Middle Class
Homeowners across the United States have begun a rooftop solar revolution. Since 2000, more than 1,460 megawatts of residential solar installations have been installed across the country, and more than 80 percent of that capacity was added in the past four years. In 2012 alone, rooftop solar installations reached 488 megawatts, a 62 percent increase over 2011 installations and nearly double the installed capacity added in 2010.
Time to Consider Solar Net Metering Alternatives: Storage
The media has recently been full of stories about electric utilities being nervous and down right reactionary to adding solar (and wind) on the electric grid. On October 15th, The Huffington Post’s story on the Hawaii Electric Company (HECO) reported, “hundreds of Oahu customers have gotten burned in their transition to solar. They have gotten caught in limbo since September 6 when HECO changed the rules for connecting solar systems.”
Solar ‘Gardens’ Let Communities Share Renewable Power
In northern New Mexico the sun shines nearly every day of the year. If solar energy is going to be viable anywhere, it will be here—and a small electric cooperative in historic Taos is taking advantage of it. In addition to supporting new solar projects in its service area, Kit Carson Electric Cooperative is offering its customers the opportunity to buy solar energy from “plots” in a “garden” of solar power generation.
Japan Next-Generation Farmers Cultivate Crops and Solar Energy
Farmers in Japan can now generate solar electricity while growing crops on the same farmland. In April, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) approved the installation of PV systems on existing crop-producing farmland. Previously solar generation on farmland, productive or idle, was prohibited under the Agricultural Land Act. This co-existence or double-generation is known as “Solar Sharing” in Japan. The concept was originally developed by Akira Nagashima in 2004, who was a retired agricultural machinery engineer who later studied biology and learned the “light saturation point.” The rate of photosynthesis increases as the irradiance level is increased; however at one point, any further increase in the amount of light that strikes the plant does not cause any increase to the rate of photosynthesis.