With a lot of energy spent on technical issues in the solar industry, few analysts are discussing driving the industry’s adoption through sales and marketing savvy. The road ahead for the growth of solar is complex. How can we make progress to advance adoption of residential solar? Continue reading
March 29 and 30 I attended the SolarTech Leadership Summit in Santa Clara, CA. You can read my toplevel thematic writeup at RenewableEnergyWorld.com and my opportunity assessment report at The Green Light Distrikt. Aside from analysis provided in those articles, there were some other interesting observations to take away from the event that fold into the national conversations about where the solar industry is heading and what its greatest needs are. Continue reading
Beginning on April 10th, after clocking over 22,436 miles, crossing ice roads, and breaking scores of electric vehicle records, XOF1 (Power of One), a solar-powered electric vehicle returns to Ontario where it was built only to be shunned from primary roads. The laws governing New and Alternative Vehicles in Ontario forbid XOF1 to drive on its public roads. Though the vehicle tops out at 85mph, other elements of the vehicle’s construction, like its low weight (less than 660 lbs including the driver) cause it to fall in the Low Speed Vehicle classification. Now, primary project architect Marcelo da Luz is hand-towing the vehicle nearly 100 miles from Niagara Falls, NY to Toronto, ON in a campaign to inspire real and positive changes towards sustainable energy in transportation. Continue reading
Chaolysti has partnered with SmartPower, a non-profit marketing organization focusing on clean energy and energy efficiency, to deliver an abstract for consideration to this year’s Solar Power International taking place October 17-20 in Dallas, TX. Continue reading
Chaolysti has signed on as a Nova sponsor for SolarFest 2011, taking place at Forget-me-Not Farm in beautiful Tinmouth, VT. As part of this announcement, Chaolysti has also signed an agreement to provide marketing consulting services for SolarFest. A decade after attending my first SolarFest, the event which helped me jumpstart my career, I am circling back now to provide my expertise to the festival that has supported my development and enriched me. Continue reading
If you drive a car, it is likely that you can quote the miles per gallon statistics for your vehicle. In some cases, you might even have a rough idea what your dollars per tank value is. But do you know your home’s peak electricity use per kilowatt-hour cost? In other words, do you know the effect of how what appliances you use and when you use them cost you? Continue reading
On March 29 and 30, SolarTech will host its second Solar Leadership Summit in Santa Clara, CA. The theme of the summit, being billed as “Solar 3.0–A Path from Policy to Profitability,” plans to bring top policy, finance, and emerging solutions leaders together to chart a course that will establish a clear path from policy driven markets to a long-term, stable market for the solar industry. Continue reading
Greentech Media’s Solar Summit, held March 14 and 15 in Palm Springs, CA, was not your average solar industry event. A high level of industry expertise was expected of all 275 participants, which mostly comprised of higher-level management and executives. Panel discussions instead delved deep on very high-level topics; from diversification of PV product lines by market sector to increased need for inverters to respond to utility needs to the effects of regulatory bottlenecks on project finance and investor confidence. Several sessions were specifically devoted to covering challenges and innovations in product manufacturing as well; from innovations in fully-automated manufacturing to analyzing competitiveness across several thin-film technologies. Continue reading
Sierra Nevada is a success story in the craft brewing movement, and I’m a big fan of their Pale Ale and commitment to sustainability and energy-efficient operations, so it made sense that while I was traveling through the Chico, CA area I would stop by for a tour of one of the smartest and most efficient craft brewing operations in America. Continue reading
According to a recent study cosponsored by SolarTech and San Jose State University, to move solar PV to consumer mass market adoption, solar companies need to simplify their proposals, provide more information about actual system performance and reliability (case studies), and focus more on marketing a unified system offering as opposed to a confusingly piecemeal set of products. Continue reading