The Solar Evangelist

Daybreak

2008-07-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

Don't blink.
This is it.

By then end of this year, solar is going to cross into the mainstream.

This has all happened before. Remember a time when desks were bereft of computers, and when magazines carried no computer ads? Now the sight of a personal computer is more ubiquitous than the Coca-Cola logo.

This is your last chance to view the world as it once was, pre-solar. Go and get the current Architectural Digest and note that it doesn't yet burst with solar ads. Take a walk around your neighborhood and see that there are no rooftop solar panels, just like there were once no dish antennas. Watch an evening of television and record for posterity that not a single solar ad rolls past. (Although in late night basic cable, it may already be too late.)

Sharp Solar is now launching a rich television campaign that will likely signal others to follow.

But that's not all. Between now and the end of the year, we'll see both Presidential candidates climbing over each other to claim leadership in this most promising and least controversial of all solutions to our biggest problem of energy. Crowds of people inside and outside of both of the upcoming conventions will be wearing "Solar Voter"(tm) tee shirts. By the end of the year, major new Thin Film (a-Si, CIGS) companies will be launching into production. The economic recovery will be led in the media by newly minted solar giants.
The secret of solar will be revealed for all time.

Someday you'll tell your grandkids about was like, before solar.

"Wait a minute. I don't get it. You say that when the Sun was shining the hottest, you actually turned the air conditioning down?"

Do laugh right along with them. It is rather silly.

We have a dream

2008-05-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

Its an easy hobby of many to look back with nostalgia (and perhaps even shame) at the breathtaking investments made in civil infrastructure by our predecessors.

It seems that today we can barely muster the communal will to repair potholes except during a brief window before every election. Even then, there might be protests that fixing potholes only encourages more cars...

Its hard to imagine how our Giant Ancestors managed the feats of civil infrastructure that we have inherited.

Here's one theory:
They did it because it was fun.

The fact is that these endeavours were embraced because of their scope and majesty. Their era judged these projects without hesitation. To be a part of the new generation was energizing enough to overcome the barriers that our modern eyes find so intimidating.

Back then, any major new project was welcomed with parades and every community leader was on the same side: progress, growth, technology, prosperity.

For a few decades now, we've been cautiously preoccupied with avoiding, fearing and tidying up of unanticipated consequences. It is wise to be cautious, but it has become an entrenched habit for us. Today, any new project is first opposed by whoever's backyard it is in. Power lines obstruct views. But then others join in opposition. More power lines means more houses, means more cars, means more traffic and more pollution. We have come to equate "progressive" with "anti-growth".

But the assumptions underlying that attitude are about to change. We've gone back to the drawing board for the next generation of infrastructure and at last we have the right solutions in hand. The clean efficient foundation of Solar and Wind power are the roots from which an exciting new era of infrastructure build will now bloom.

The reflex to oppose will still twitch, but when those proposed power lines are the first link in the new national smart grid, carrying power from solar farms with greater efficiency than ever before and that power will drive electric cars, public transportation ...the muscle that was once opposition will flex with pride and enthusiasm.

We've caught our breath for a generation, taken inventory and sharpened our pencils.

Now its time to dust off the old dreams, and soar again.

April 25, 1954

2008-04-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

Ray Kurzweil famously advocates that we are racing towards grid parity for solar electricity at an accelerating pace. It is a race indeed. Hardly a day goes by without some major development or another (or another) pushing us one step closer to that goal.

There are many steps on the path behind us that place in this enviable position. But for now, let us turn our attention to a single special moment in that history.

On April 25, 1954, Bell Labs introduced the first commercial solar cell, or Solar Battery, as they then called it.

It was a novelty at first, an invention without an application. Its a misconception today that solar has been uneconomical and falls just short of practicality. In fact, the history of photovoltaics is an unbroken chain of game changing killer applications.

The first satellites were battery powered, and lasted only a few weeks. When solar cells were used instead of batteries, lifetime was extended to several years. Perhaps more than any other single technology, photovoltaic solar cells made satellites practical.

Next, remote research facilities and laboratories that are not possible if they depend on battery or diesel generators become practical and economic when endowed with solar power. Similarly, solar powered oceanic and air traffic navigation and communication aids have spread safety and security to the remotest parts of the Earth.

Now photovoltaic power is poised to cap this string of marketplace victories and take its place as the central source or our power grid. We will see this drama unfold over the next decade.

So before we take that final lap in Kurzweil singular solar race, enjoy this peek back at the solar cells humble beginnings and wish that its inventors could have dreamt of its impact on our world.

You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Breaking News

2008-04-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

(April 1, 2008, Santa Clara, California)
In a stunning revelation, today Santa Clara based solar technology company GrumbNeeth announced a major breakthrough in solar energy conversion. The company unveiled a device called S-Gars based on nano organic materials which it claims converts the full 100% of sunlight's energy content into usable energy and stores it on site.

Details of the core technology in S-Gars were not disclosed other than that advanced nanotechnology is extensively used. "The device actually self assembles at a molecular level. There is no clean room or need for an exotic manufacturing environment. We could manufacture S-Gars outdoors in the open air." revealed GrumbNeeth CEO. "We believe that in volume production, we can manufacture S-Gars for less than a penny per Watt." Currently, one watt of power by standard photovoltaic technology is more than 300 times that cost.

An energy analyst commented, "Most companies are happy to tout efficiencies of 30% as an achievement. Nobody has even been dreaming of this kind of efficiency. If this claim bears out, the GrumbNeeth's technology would undercut the cost of wholesale Coal and Nuclear power by orders of magnitude."

Asked about the environmental impact of the manufacturing process, GrumbNeeth's CTO explained, "Not only is the manufacturing process extremely low in energy and material consumption, but when in operation, it actually removes carbon dioxide from the air."

But some challenges in production were suggested, "The manufacturing process is actually quite slow, taking six to eight weeks per batch, but we believe the batch size can be made extremely large." the Vice President of manufacturing explained. "Best of all, the self assembling nanotechnology of S-Gars allows it to be manufactured almost anywhere in the world using local materials."

The football field sized, 2MW prototype system presented converts enough energy to power a thousand homes. GrumbNeeth's Marketing Director envisions a future where "Every house in every neighborhood will be characterized by a small array of S-Gars in the front and back yard. This is going to change everything.

A Modest Proposal

2008-01-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

In these early days of the nascent solar industry, there is much discussion of how policy can best support and encourage (aka: pay for) the nurturing of this promising technology to maturity.

Most homeownners today look at solar and struggle with the combination of newness and complex financial payback, delaying what would be an otherwise fruitful investment in home improvement.

There are three common approaches proposed to alleviate this dilemma:

Regulation: Simply require all new homes to include solar in their power system.
Subsidy: Arrange for Local, State and Federal governments to offer tax credits, rebates or guaranteed subsidized financing for solar installations.
Indirect Subsidy: Install cost penalties on existing energy sources by adding carbon taxes to fossil fuels.

While all of the above proposals are attractive and popular, they are tainted with inefficiencies.
Regulation agencies can never comprehend the nuances of each specific case. Inevitably, solar installations will be forced in locations where they are not practical, and government money will be spent persuading installations in conditions where it is so favorable that it would have been done anyway. Subsidies and indirect subsidies are common and inevitable, but often lead to absurdities of inefficiency.

There is another option that has gone overlooked: deregulation.

Our energy policy over the last few decades has evolved to an extent that any new home is required by law to include conservation elements above what a home owner would install on their own. Elements such a low energy lighting, special heating and robust insulation add to the cost of a new home. If the cost of compliance for a home approaches $30,000, this is approximately the cost of a typical home solar system.

The rationale for these regulations is twofold: First, reducing energy consumption means less fossil fuel pollution. Second, reducing energy consumption reduces pressure to build enormously capital-intensive energy capacity allowing the installed capacity to remain sufficient over a longer period of time.

If a home is outfitted with solar however, both of the above aspirations are satisfied. By simply waiving conservation inspired building codes for homes equipped with solar, financing for the solar installation becomes available without government intervention.

Taking this thinking further leads to some interesting effects. A home that draws its power from clean solar should be liberated from conservation constraints across the board. Homeowner habits that have become reflexive to us in a conservation minded world are no longer necessary. Air conditioning can be turned up freely on hot summer days (when the solar array is at its most productive), rooms can be flooded with light, leisure giving electric power can be used generously in the smug knowledge that it is abundant and non-polluting.

Picture such a house: free flowing clean solar electricity heating, cooling and driving lifestyle appliances to the homeowners unbridled delight.

Now picture beside it today's energy conservation compliant home: nearly windowless, confined, lit sparingly by blue-green fluorescent bulbs -and for all its effort still with an enormous carbon footprint compared to our solar home.

They cost the same to build.
Which one will be worth more?

Perhaps the best way to encourage solar adoption is to simply get out of the way.

2012: The Beginning is near!

2007-12-01T01:20:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was at lunch with a merged group of teenagers and Ivy League MBAs. The MBA dominated conversation theme was doom. The Currency is doomed, health care is doomed, the environment is doomed, the next generation is doomed...

After lunch and the other MBAs had left, I advised the pallid student beside me that doomsaying is a hobby for some. Every few years, "The End becomes Near." I then pointed out that while there are always doomsayers, there are also a healthy number of those who say, "Um, although we're doomed as you say, do you mind if we keep trying anyway?" The latter spirit has always prevailed.

A doomsday fad we will be subjected to for the next few years comes to us from the Mayans. Apparently, on December 21, 2012, at 11:11am (MST presumably) the Mayan calendar simply ends.

In advance of the forthcoming Mayan Doom, here are some more practical predictions of what we can expect from the year 2012.

Hybrids
Today's icon of environmental responsibility, by 2012, hybrid technology engines will be as common as fuel injection is today. Hybrid cars will be a novel "green badge" through 2009, but beyond that, their achievement of substantial economy beyond mere cachet will drive ubiquity across the chasm to consumers who are concerned more with operating expense than environmental appearances. All but niche performance trophy cars will be built on hybrid regeneration technology.

Solar
Even without the innovations that are about to be unleashed on the market, solar electricity production has been growing at 20% CAGR since the 1970's with no down years. Of the four major competing technologies for production of economic solar energy (and that certain fifth soon to make itself known. Watch this blog for a future update!) One will have established itself as the leading practical solution by 2009. By 2012, global production of electricity conversion will be stampeding from coal/nuclear to solar at a breathtaking pace, achieving 15% of global production via solar cells. Most of the houses on your block will have solar systems installed. At least one solar energy technology company will land in the Fortune 50 -having climbed there faster than any company in history.

SSL
More than a century at the top is a good run for any technology, and so the Edison light bulb is ready to be retired with honors. But we are struggling today with an inferior replacement, the CFL which uses less power but is just as fragile and contains poisonous mercury vapor. Happily, an ideal replacement is on its way. Solid State Lighting (SSL) is made from robust, energy efficient LEDs. Until recently, LEDs have been confined to the dim lights announcing such things as your cell phone's charge. But recent advances have made super bright white LED lights practical and set them on the way to consumer applications. In 2008, LED bulbs will be launched into the consumer stage by no less a spectacle than the Beijing Olympics, "The Olympics of Light" making extensive use of the new technology. By Fall of 2008, standard consumer LED bulbs will be on the shelf and by 2012, Edison's incandescent bulbs will be in a revered place beside his also-retired phonograph record, but no longer available in stores.

The Future is Bright
These are just the technologies that we know about. In an era of exponential innovation rates, one certainty is that there will be curve-busting surprises. By 2012, the world will be a very different place. The legacy industrial infrastructure that burdens us today will be shed and reborn.
Maybe that's what the Mayans had in mind all along.

The Silicon Valley Solar Community Congratulates Santa Clara University

2007-11-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

The full page ad above (San Jose Mercury News, 11/11/07) represents more than mere congratulations of an exceptional team of students in the 2007 International Solar Decathlon Competition. It represents the tipping point for Silicon Valley and its launch into the Solar Industry's next generation.

2007 is the first year that the World is getting a glimpse of the capability and spirit that Silicon Valley is unleashing in the pursuit of economic solar energy. On this roster of congratulators there are both existing and emerging powerhouses of solar innovation, investors and government official who are fostering and facilitating solar entrepreneurship. Consider that behind the list are deep ranks of unlisted start-up companies still in stealth mode funded by enormous venture capital.

Perhaps most promising of all are the student members of the 2007 Solar Decathlon team themselves, many of whom list their post-graduate aspirations as solar themed entrepreneurship.

Solar panels have had little visible change in the past 30 years, but by the 2009 Solar Decathlon competition, new technologies under development today will render them unrecognizable. The entrepreneurship represented above will insure that the new technologies will be available at the neighborhood solar dealership. Consumers (and investors) will reap fantastic rewards in the years ahead.

Everything is going to change. The solar century starts now.

Green becomes Clean becomes $$$

2007-11-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

At Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium 2007 in Palo Alto today(11/10/07), the final panel topic of the day was Clean Tech. However, the message sent was quite different from what we have become used to.
The spirit of green has evolved through the years. Originally, efforts to be green were aimed at achieving results independent of financial goals. It was essentially, a philanthropic endeavor.
More recently, green efforts have become at least financially neutral. A company can pursue operations in a manner applauded as green with minimal disruption to the bottom line. Given the positive PR impact of visible green practices, doing so becomes easier and easier.

But that will not be enough for green to find widespread adoption.

Interestingly, the change is already in play, and is flagged by a change in terminology: “green” to “clean”. The change in terminology seems to indicate an emphasis on smartness and efficiency rather than solely on environmentalist lifestyle. (A similar transformation has occurred, changing "alternative energy" to "renewable energy".)

At a Conference of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in September 2007, each session was rich with new technologies and approaches heralding a new era of Clean Tech. Although these technologies certainly were environmentally friendly, that was not the main discussion point among the assembled mechanical engineers.

Think about it: Clean Tech solutions are low power, lightweight and durable. Clean Tech uses the most advanced materials and the most precise and intelligent control systems.

For engineers, Clean Tech is cool.

With a new generation of engineers flocking to Clean Technology, important breakthroughs are being made. No longer the province of philanthropy, Clean Tech is profitable.

The Cyberposium panelists, representing Intel (Mac Agan), SAP (Tobias Dosch) and the city of San Jose (Mayor Chuck Reed) each expressed the priority of pragmatic bottom line results in their respective Clean Tech Efforts. As Mac Agan put it, profitability is at the root of sustainability. No company can embrace Clean Tech solutions unless they lead to market results.

Tobias Dosch contrasted SAP’s Clean Tech endeavors with the elsewhere-popular “Greenwashing” by pointing out that the solution products they produce supporting Clean Tech solutions are market driven and are value added features of their full product offering. Its not green for the sake of being green. Its good business.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed also made it clear that (even as a government entities) we cannot simply throw money at Clean Tech because its popular. He outlined his comprehensive plan for the City of San Jose to become a model to the World for how smart implementation of Clean Tech can help a city be more efficient, more livable and at the same time foster this blossoming new industry.

Something else was evident in the panel discussion that is a legacy from the philanthropic roots of Green: esprit de corps. An earlier panel on the state of the cell phone service market revealed enormous barriers to innovation in “big guy” vs “little guy” non-cooperation. In contrast, the Clean Tech space seems to radiate cooperation among large and small players. The incumbents are welcoming entrepreneurs with open arms to partner on solutions. This might be best evidenced by Intel having brought not one, but TWO representatives from Intel Capital to network the audience of entrepreneurs for investment opportunities in order to foster the sloutions it will need in the near future.

Our global industrial infrastructure is inefficient and aging -ripe for reworking. It is a fortunate thing for all of us that Clean Tech has arrived at just the moment when the reworking can begin. The opportunity for investment is extraordinary.

You just might have to bully your way into line ahead of the likes of Intel Capital.

Cinderella, of the Solar Generation

2007-10-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Thus pronounced US Secretary of Energy Samual Bodman, "Santa Clara University, the Cinderella story of this week has rallied to claim third place in the 2007 Solar Decathlon competition." The week long competition among twenty international university teams to build the most efficient, most livable and most economical solar home concluded today.

Its easy to look at the young faces of the team and ascribe their good fortune to beginners luck. Its true that Californians have always had a knack for making the best use of sunshine, but their substantial victory is well earned a foreshadow of things to come.

At the beginning of the competition, visitors were asking, "Who is Santa Clara University?" Word eventually spread, "Oh... that's Silicon Valley!"

Their odyssey to the award stand was certainly dramatic. From humble beginnings just a year ago, Santa Clara was twenty first in line for the twenty team slots. Only when another school withdrew was Santa Clara admitted.

Santa Clara University as the smallest school in the competition, fielded the smallest team. Due to multiple transportation snags, their house arrived nearly a week late. With no architecture school to draw from, Santa Clara faced a major challenge in the architecture intensive scoring. It happened that architecture was the first scored event, which landed them in eighteenth place after the first day.

But from that point on, the Santa Clara team shined. Their design included meticulous selection of advanced and renewable materials. Wall tiles made from recycled bottles and extensive use of bamboo for uses ranging from load bearing beams, cabinetry and even bedclothes. The bamboo beams showcased in the house were designed by Santa Clara University and are the first code-compliant load bearing bamboo beams in North America.

The energy balance and environmental control systems developed by the team include a solar hot water powered air conditioner and a solar panel to inverter scheme that was so clever that it was later adopted by world leading solar panel producer Sun Power as their default installation configuration. Combined with their detailed planning and game strategies, Santa Clara chalked up victory after victory, climbing from eighteenth to fourteenth, then ninth and sixth and finally to an amazing third place beside thrice-veteran University of Maryland and solar powerhouse Germany.

The spirit of entrepreneurship boils in these students. These are not the fringe "flower children" who advocated green in the past. These are the finest of engineers directing themselves to a future they see as natural and profitable. While an older generation is pining that there is no top down "Space Race" leadership to inspire innovation anymore, this generation is creating it own imperative from grass roots.

The Solar Decathlon competition has given them a spotlight to stand in for a time, but that is more for our benefit than theirs. The Santa Clara University team may be the most visible example, but the Solar Generation is forming around the World. The Solar Century they intend to build will change our world for the better, sooner than anyone from the older generations is expecting.

Solar Decathlon Winner Today

2007-10-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a race this week!

Today at 2pm EDT, the winner of the 2007 Solar Decathlon will be announced.

Five of the top seven teams are within 25 points of each other (out of 1,000) The final competition "Engineering" worth 150 points remains.

The University of Maryland has dominated the scoring since the first day but Santa Clara Universtity with a slow start at 18th place has climbed eleven places to within 13 points of the top five. The final competition puts everone within reach of first place.

NOTE: Santa Clara's strategy will work best if the last day of the competition is cloudy. So check live webcam of the Solar Decathlon villiage above for cloudiness.

The last day of scoring can be viewed here.

Good luck to each of the twenty groundbreaking teams!

Cast a Giant Circle

2007-10-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

Drawing a circle around a company's environmental footprint is tricky. Does it end at the front desk? or should the circle include the downstream consequences and benefits as well?

Many companies produce intelligent products and services that enable millions to reduce their energy consumption. In the process, their employees may drive cars to work and their data centers may glow like the Sun.

But if the products they produce reduce their customer's own driving (Ebay) or the new version of their product consumes far less power than last year's model (Intel), the result can be factories that save more energy than they consume in the full global context.

Once the purview of avid environmentalists, the cause for conservation is being taken over by the market. Conservation and Clean Tech is good business. People are now saving energy because it saves money.

There was a time when conservation was a major concession to operational effectiveness and only a niche product feature. But today, Clean Tech solutions hit every component of the bottom line.

Clean Tech materials are lightweight, durable and because of their design for sustainability are less susceptible to supply interruptions. A lower power product upgrade can actually pay for itself in energy savings. A company may not even stake claim to "Cleanness" in its promotion. Clean Tech based products are simply better products.

An update of the old saw might be well heeded by those who would protest the drivers of the new Clean Economy:

You have to spend energy in order to save energy.

Solar Decathlon Underway

2007-10-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

Today, October 14, 2007, is the third day of the Solar Decathlon competition in Washington DC. (Live scores for each team can be seen here.) Twenty university teams from around the world are exercising their undergraduate designed, ultra energy efficient homes for the judges in hopes to take home first prize. At the same time, the teams together are achieving collective success in attracting much deserved attention to the state of the art for residential Clean Tech.

The technical achievements of these teams are staggering. But it must be remembered that these are young undergraduate engineers grappling with their first exposure to real world problems.

The Santa Clara University Team is no exception.

For the past year, the project has grown in complexity. The team's ranks have bloomed to include more than a hundred students and corporate sponsors ranging from Silicon Valley start-ups to the Fortune 500. By September, the home was built and the competition strategy was planned. All that remained was it disassemble the house, ship it to Washington DC and reassemble it.

The Santa Clara Team is an underdog. It was the 21st ranked applicant to 20 slots. Only when one team dropped out did Santa Clara become an entrant. It is the smallest University accepted to the competition and the only University without an architecture school to be accepted. It also has the farthest shipping distance to Washington DC. (The international teams assembled their houses in nearby Maryland.)

The shipping distance, it turned out, was a big deal. Undergraduate projects typically involve displaying your project beside the podium as you give your final presentation. They do not typically involve the transcontinental wide-load version of Murphy's Law.

The truck transporting the house had breakdowns en route: twice. The first before it was out of sight of Santa Clara University. This breakdown required the students to drive to Sacramento for parts followed by pre-dawn welding before the house was at last on its way.

Then, the day before it was due to arrive, news came that the truck had broken down again -in Nebraska. The students had to phone truck repair shops to arrange after-hours service.

When the US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman visited the team, the house was still hours away. At last, on October 5th, with only a week until the competition began, the house arrived to the cheers of every Solar Decathlon team.

Wisely, the students had used their extra wait time to lay out in minute detail their construction plan. It is telling that although the Santa Clara house was the last one to arrive, it was one of the first to successfully pass inspection.

Now the competition is underway. The Solar Decathlon website is reporting team standing and scores updated every fifteen minutes. The winner and final scores will be announced on Friday, October 20th.

We're rooting to Santa Clara to perform well in its representation of the West Coast of the United States, but all of the teams are making history this week. Give them your support.

Don't let anyone you know who can visit the competition miss out on this unique opportunity to see the future. The 2007 Solar Decathlon teams are the first graduating class of the Solar Century.

The 2007 Solar Decathlon

2007-09-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday (9/23/07), Santa Clara University, a rising star in clean tech, shipped its entry to the International Solar Decathlon Competition to be held on the Mall in Washington DC from October 12 –20, 2007. As the sole successful entry from the West Coast of the United States, their entry represents not only the “greenest” part of our country, but the best example of the vast unreleased potential of our next generation’s focus on renewable energy.
The Solar Decathlon is a competition sponsored by the US Department of Energy bringing together twenty international university undergraduate teams to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered houses in the world. This is no science project. You might expect such an effort to result in odd looking unconventional structures typical of “house of the future” exercises, but the scoring criteria of the Solar Decathlon specifically reward entries that are livable, practical and economical as well as innovative and energy efficient.

A tour through Santa Clara's 650 sqft. interior and equally spacious outdoor deck presents an impression comparable to a high-end newlywed apartment. Meticulous attention to interior design elements make the inside bright and friendly with an open feeling that affords both privacy and accessibility. Woven into the livable layout are an endless matrix of innovations in design for efficiency.

As the name would suggest, the foundation of the Solar Decathlon home is the gathering of solar energy. So appropriately, the roof blossoms with solar electric and solar thermal collectors. Solar electric energy is either used or stored in an economical battery array while solar thermal heated water is used for hot water and also cold water and air thanks to the first residential application of solar-hot-water-powered air conditioning.

Walk up the decks and step inside to be greeted by a showcase of attractive and functional renewable materials. The walls around you are insulated with material made from recycled denim. Kitchen and bathroom tiles are made from recycled glass. The cabinets and flooring are made of easy to grow and highly renewable bamboo. Look up and you will see the first code-compliant load bearing bamboo beams in North America. Every corner of the home has a design element story that is practical today.

Remind yourself that this entire project including engineering, design, logistics, and even publicity is executed by undergraduate students. To see the energy unleashed in these students toward the goal of green building design practices is to see the future. Their goal is not to simply earn course credit. They want to show the world how this can actually be done. Santa Clara’s entry is but one of twenty in the competition. It mirrors the commitment and enthusiasm of the Class of ’08 around the World.

If you can arrange the opportunity, visit the Washington Mall in October to see the Solar Decathlon competition and immerse yourself in a preview of the excitement that will characterize this solar century.

The Solar Century

2007-07-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

One hundred years ago, the world was at the threshold of a new era. All of the airplanes in the world wouldn’t have filled a schoolyard. Of the few automobiles there were, they were as likely to be powered by electricity as by gasoline. The land speed record was held by a steam powered car. Oil was mainly used for heating and lamplight. The industrial age had begun, but radical change was ahead. The tapping of the Spindletop oilfield had recently tripled US oil production overnight.

Citizens of 1907 could never have dreamed of the explosive growth that abundant cheap oil would cause for not only the already robust oil industry itself, but the enabled growth of every other sector of the economy due to cheap oil. For a hundred years, the economy has flourished and matured.

But the gift of oil will not last forever. For thirty years, its production and discovery rate have been in decline and at the same time, society has realized the myriad of externalities that burden its gift. Not only is oil the major contributor to air pollution, but in the long term, it is more precious as the raw material for pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other organic chemical products. As Terry Shoup, President of ASME pointed out in a keynote talk in May, “Oil is a better used as a lubricant than it as a fuel.” Future generations will resent us not only for putting pollution into the skies, but for wasting a precious resource in order to do so.

We therefore stand at a rare point of convergence. Just as we have acquired a distaste for petroleum fuel and its recently high price –we have in our grasp an array of new technologies that light the path from petroleum energy. We have the will and the ability. As Dick Swanson of SunPower suggested to a Harvard Business School symposium on Solar Energy in January, “In the last century, we built up the fossil fuel industry. This century will definitely be when we wind it down.”

The public’s demand for clean, distributed energy will only grow. New technologies that are available today will deploy as rapidly as factories can be built. And perhaps most promising of all, the next generation will only add to the energetic insistence that we follow this path.

We stand on the shoulders of all that came before us, but future generations will celebrate that this millennium began with the Solar Century.

Gold from the Blue Sky(tm)

2007-04-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Today's solar boom has been developing slowly and methodically over the past three decades. Many individuals and companies have been quietly preparing for the commercial acceptance that is finally at hand. These wise men are crafting their dreams into reality.

Unfortunately, the kind of transition to acceptance they envisioned will never come. What will come is something completely different.

The Lesson
Imagine that, in 1847, the US Government decided to populate California. Their sensible heads would have suggested a careful plan involving the preplacement of law enforcement, schools and local government services. Along with that, they might have put in place plans to insure the suitable housing and churches were waiting the new settlers. Doctors, engineers, lawyers and teachers would be encouraged to make the trip. The increased flow of settlers could have been optimistically estimated to be a healthy, sustainable few hundreds per year. All very sensible and reasonable.

But those plans, if laid, were superseded when the prospect of gold entered the equation. Tales of instant wealth and rivers flowing with gold spread across the world, inspiring tens of thousands from every walk of life to abandon normal lives and productive work. They crossed the oceans and crossed the continent knowing that all of their party might not survive the trip. They arrived at boom towns ill suited to feed and clothe the would-be miners, let alone protect any resulting property. But still they came. Over four years, a hundred thousand gold-seekers found their way against all odds (and all economic sense) to seek gold.

Gold Fever is a primitive and irresistible force. People will do wild and unlikely things that sensible heads would never predict to find "gold". Laws laid down beforehand may not be regarded as binding.

But from this chaos, prosperity did eventually come. A quick minded few made fortunes selling picks, shovels, food and clothing to the gold seekers. In time, order was restored.

The Present
With the age of economic solar energy upon us, there will be talk of "Gold from the Blue Sky"(tm). Its a claim worthy of the of California Gold Rush hyperbole. Only this time it is true:

Converted into its cash equivalent, solar energy falls on your rooftop like a light rain of pennies, gathering about $25 every daylight hour.

So prepare for another Gold Rush. But this time the masses won't just be coming to California. They will be entering the solar business in every corner of the global market. Over the past year, some wise heads have suggested moderation in forecasting this new industry. They remind us that it takes time to build proper factories, supply chains and customer awareness. With confident certainty, they point out that the supply of silicon itself is currently constrained and all incumbent members of the supply chain worldwide are operating at capacity. Some of the most likely companies to successfully enter the solar arena (experts in semiconductor manufacturing such as IBM, Intel and TSMC) are only just starting to explore the issue -if at all. The wise heads are justified in their assurance of moderation. It would seem that even hitting a mere 20% solar target by 2020 is could be overly ambitious.

But Gold Rushes are full of surprises.

The valiant incumbents of the solar industry will enjoy a brief surge of success as customer adoption explodes. However, their decades of momentum with conventional approaches to this business will be surpassed by new entrants who will have no problem rewriting the rules. Just as bank tellers and farmers walked across burning deserts to become gold miners, wild-eyed companies and investors with no prior experience or interest in solar (or Green) will hurl themselves into the mix. Without pre-existing notions of fair play or a sense of community, the new entrants will write their own rules. They will do unexpected things, bringing practices from their native business environments. (How will a Chinese towel manufacturer behave on the solar playing field?) They will innovate in unconventional ways. The status quo will be left behind.

As the solar gold rush begins, the giant solar incumbents such a Sharp are making more money than they ever have before. While they celebrate their long sought success, new companies such a SunPower (with its record holding high efficiency cells), and Miasole (who aspires to develop an entire new material technology for solar), will soon pass the incumbents in the marketplace.

Consider the story of LDK Solar. In January of 2005, just as the industry was warning that supply constraints would cap growth to just 5% for 2006, LDK Solar was founded in China by by a man living in the United States. He had no experience with semiconductor technology or manufacturing. He had no preconceptions. LDK found a growth-positive community with no manufacturing employment base that sought to participate in the new solar industry. Thus, LDK enjoyed a motivated permitting process measured in days rather than years and a school system that would redirect itself to training workers for LDKs enormous factory. Founded in 2005, LDK went from an empty field field to an NYSE IPO (It was too large for NASDAQ.) on June 4, 2007 with a market cap of $4B. LDKs capacity is sold out sold through 2009.

This has all happened before, but never before has the pattern been so recognizable in advance. The same forces that have always conspired against incumbents are still in place. Sharp and Kyocera could invest substantial R&D into CIGS based cells and use their operational effectiveness to squash Silicon Valley upstarts. For that matter, a Petroleum Energy such as Exxon could tap its record profits of late and simply acquire the top contenders in every segment of solar. But they won't, and even if the incumbents try to keep up, the upstarts will simply move faster, changing the game in the quest for gold.

One hard to accept lesson from Gold Rushes of the past is the greatest fortunes were not made from finding gold at all, but from the selling of picks and shovels.

Perhaps this time the fortune winner will the happy consumer, whistling cheerfully as he farms pennies from his roof every sunny day.

The Sure Things and The Hail Mary

2007-03-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

Albert Einstein's photoelectric effect (PV) is the process by which the photons in sunlight are converted into electricity. It is the reverse process that is observed in familiar LED lights. The materials which exhibit this effect are small band gap semiconductors.

There are (currently) four major technical approaches to photovoltaic generation of electricity. Each has an proportional balance of advantages and risks. Each approach is a combination of light gathering (how much sunlight is collected per unit area of a cell), PV conversion efficiency (how much electricity is generated per area of sunlight) and cost (Dollars per Watt of energy produced by the cell).

Each is well represented in Silicon Valley today.

Crystalline Silicon (Ex.: SunPower)
This is a sure thing. Based on the same traditional crystalline silicon that is used in electronics, crystalline silicon solar cells have the advantage of being using extremely well understood physics as well as high volume manufacturing practices. There are literally tens of thousands of industry seasoned experts on this material in the electronics industry. This results in an early advantage in unit cost and manufacturing scalability. Crystalline silicon offers high photoelectric conversion efficiency, but is very complex and expensive to produce. Crystalline silicon cells are actually made from the "waste" wafers that are unusable for electronics.

However, Even with these seeming advantages, crystalline silicon is very complex to manufacture and after forty years of cost reduction, it is a fair concern that flat plate silicon solar cells should not expect many more major cost reductions. (or should we? watch for a future blog..)

The Bottom Line: This is what you see on rooftops today. Nearly all solar cells in existence to day are crystalline silicon based cells. Today they are less expensive than other exotic approaches, but it may be difficult to reduce cost further.

Light Gathering: 1 Sun
PV Conversion Efficiency: 15-18%
Current cost per Watt: $4.80

Amorphous Silicon Thin Film (Ex. Applied Materials)
Amorphous simply means non-crystalline. Also comprised of familiar silicon, this is a sure thing as well. Because it lacks the delicate crystal lattice structure of crystalline silicon, it is much less expensive to produce (imagine filling a sandbox with sand versus building a house of cards). For the same reason, its PV conversion efficiency is also lower -but not proportionally. Amorphous silicon based solar cells must be larger in order to generate the same amount of power, but the resulting cost will be lower. Amorphous silicon also benefits from incumbent status: It is the material used in LCD displays of which ten square miles will be produced in 2007.

However, while industry experience reducing the cost of amorphous silicon is not as mature as that of crystalline silicon, it has already seen cost fall by 20x. There is certainly still room for improvement, but the bottom of the well may not be far off.

The Bottom Line: Amorphous silicon is slightly less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity but much less expensive to produce. While the physics and manufacturing issues surrounding amorphous silicon are well enough understood that it can be produced in volume today, it is not so well understood that we should not expect further breakthroughs and cost efficiencies. All of the World's expertise with crystalline silicon for electronics can easily be ported to amorphous silicon.

Light Gathering: 1 Sun
PV Conversion Efficiency: 8-12%
Current cost per Watt: $3.99

Concentrated Photovoltaic (Ex.: SolFocus, Silicon Valley Solar)
This starts to be more of a long shot. The Concentrated PV approach addresses the high cost of the semiconductor material by using optics to focus a given area of light onto a small unit area of extremely high efficiency , but still proportionally less expensive compound semiconductor material. For example, by using 500x optical concentration (500 Suns), concentrated PV cell will generate as much electricity with 1 cm2 of semiconductor material as a standard (1 Sun) PV cell would produce with 500 cm2 of semiconductor. The idea is that the reduced cost of semiconductor material required will more than offset the added cost of optics and tracking motors (CPV cells typically must be aligned with precision toward the sun, tracking it across the sky through the day and the seasons)

However, it remains to be seen if the structural and maintenance costs of optics and motors over a twenty year lifetime outdoors will be justified by the accompanying increase in efficiency.

The Bottom Line: The principal of trading mystically delicate and expensive semiconductor material for apparently simple optics and tracking motors is reasonable, but there is a real challenge to the reliability and maintenance costs of anything that sits on a roof for twenty years. No one has been able to make this quite work yet.

Light Gathering: 2 to 500 Suns
PV Conversion Efficiency: 26%
Projected cost per Watt: <$3.00

CIGS Thin Film (Miasole, Nanosolar)
CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenide) is the Hail Mary, the long shot that could win the game. The preceding approaches all struggle with the manufacturing cost of their PV semiconductor material. CIGS approach seeks to reduce the cost of the semiconductor itself. Discovered in 1975, CIGS is a relatively new material, lacking the benefit of an enormous knowledge base of silicon. Despite this humble beginning, CIGS has demonstrated PV efficiency as high as 20% and thanks to a manufacturing process that requires comparatively moderate temperature and pressure control relative to silicon, it promises a dramatic reduction in energy cost. As an added benefit, CIGS PV cells are flexible, allowing cosmetic applications that are not practical with brittle crystalline silicon cells. It also greatly simplifies the demands of the panel structure -further reducing cost.

However, put simply, no one has ever been able to produce CIGS solar cells in high volume despite more than $140M of venture capital invested in Silicon Valley alone. In order to succeed, CIGS companies must develop new material physics, new manufacturing techniques and combine them into high reliability, high volume manufacturing processes. The risk is high, but the reward is its match.

The Bottom Line: CIGS has the best chance of delivering solar electricity at an price that will compete with coal. If CIGS is successful in its ambitions, it will be most important commercial development of this century.

Light Gathering: 1 Sun
PV Conversion Efficiency: up to 20%
Projected cost per Watt: <$1.00

What comes next? There's a very good bet. Watch for a future installment of The Solar Evangelist...

The Age of Economic Solar Energy Begins

2007-02-02T13:27:00.000-08:00

Most of you reading this are entrepreneurs. A familiar entrepreneurial challenge in launching anything new is overcoming the unfamiliarity and resistance in the marketplace.

That’s not a problem with solar. Sunlight is clean and life giving. We love the Sun. We want to bask in it.

How ready are people for Solar? People not only like solar. They're begging for it.

The Solar Energy Opportunity
At more than $1 Trillion per year, electricity production is tied with global oil production and bested only by food, clothing and shelter as a share of global GDP. This is almost entirely based on coal and nuclear. And nobody is happy about that.

Disrupting and transforming this global power infrastructure to cheaper, more economical and more flexible solar energy will be the most important economic and cultural change force of our lifetimes. Our energy consumption and conservation habits based on scarcity, inflexibility and even guilt will change radically.

Solar energy’s roots begin just over a hundred years ago. Albert Einstein was awarded his single Nobel Prize not for the E=MC2 of atomic energy, but for the photoelectric effect. The first solar cells were realized in the mid 1950s and in 1975, the first terrestrial solar electric company was formed.

We find ourselves at the threshold of this new era. California in particular is uniquely equipped to take the leading role in the next generation of photovoltaic (PV) energy production.

Drawable talent from native Semiconductor Manufacturing, Equipment and Thin Film industries
Entrepreneurial Spirit, Venture Capital, Research Universities
The most solar-positive marketplace in the United States
California by itself is now the 3rd largest market for solar energy in the world as a result of Governor Schwarzenegger “million solar roofs” initiative
A base of existing companies such as SunPower leading the World in silicon cell efficiency.
Start-ups like Miasole and Nanosolar who are aimed at slashing the cost of solar power by more than half.

Are you ready for one trillion dollars to change hands as Solar takes its place in our society? Everything is about to change.

Hello World

2007-01-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

Like nothing else, we do love the Sun.