Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change

 

Whether you’re part of the 99% or the 1%. . .

Whether you support or denounce the Occupy movement. . .

Whether you welcome change or eschew it. . .

You’re watching the birth of a movement.

What started out as Occupy Wall Street has become Occupy Chicago, Occupy Atlanta, Occupy Delaware, and closest to home for us at Sungevity, Occupy Oakland.  Occupy is omnipresent, but what you might not have heard about is a bit of a morph in the movement that is scheduled to take place on November 20th.

November 20, 2011 is the official kick-off of Occupy Rooftops (or #OccupyRooftops if you’re into hashtaggery).

Disclaimer: Physically occupying an actual rooftop not required

Occupy Rooftops doesn’t separate the over-taxed from the under-taxed and it doesn’t involve camping out in city centers or blocking off ports.  Occupy Rooftops kicks off with people like yourself identifying buildings that you would like to see go solar and then taking a photo in front of them.  Maybe you would like to see your community center go sunny side up.  Perhaps your local taqueria would look better with shimmering panels perched up on its roof.  Would your place of worship run smoother if it was being run on solar?  The sky is the limit.  Quite literally. If you want to join forces with other folks in your community, check out the Occupy Rooftops Meetups that are already happening — or plan one of your own.

The great news is that after you submit your photo to theteam@solarmosaic.com and post it to Solar Mosaic’s Facebook page, you can work with Solar Mosaic to actually “occupy” the rooftop with a community purchased solar array.  Full disclosure: Solar Mosaic is one of the organizations in Sungevity’s solar incubator. Find out more about them here:

Here are some Solar Mosaic FAQs that explain the ins and outs of starting a Solar Mosaic project.

Will you occupy a rooftop on November 20?  Is your own rooftop occupied yet?  Below is a photo of a rooftop we “occupied” a few months ago with the help of GRID Alternatives.  Can you get together a bigger crowd for your #OccupyRooftops picture?  Consider that an official challenge.  And challenges often come hand in hand with prizes. . .

Solar is the fastest growing energy sector and fastest job-creating industry in the country right now, and is likely to remain so for years to come, the failure of one company notwithstanding.

So what’s going on in solar?

Solyndra’s bankruptcy is regrettable, but not surprising.  This one company’s business model was dependent upon providing a particular design of cheaper solar equipment. Unfortunately for them, their U.S. and overseas manufacturing competitors developed technologies and processes that reduced the price of solar panels by 67% over the last three years.  (Repeat: The price of solar panels has dropped 67% in the last three years!) These changes in technology passed Solyndra by, leaving them with the cold, hard facts of business – Solyndra could not compete with the rest of a fast-evolving industry.

Like the constantly evolving cell phones and computer industries, economies of scale and innovation will force individual, non-competitive companies out over time.

But the bigger picture for U.S. solar is bright.  Last year, the solar energy industry grew more than 100% in the U.S., compared to overall GDP growth of less than 3%.  This industry growth was mirrored in job figures.  The number of solar jobs nearly doubled from 2009 to 2010 and growth continues in 2011.  Over the next 10 years, growth in this renewable energy sector is likely to expand exponentially.

This progress ultimately benefits consumers. In many parts of the U.S. today, homeowners can see their overall electricity bills go down 10 – 20 % overnight by switching to solar electric service through the availability of solar leases, without putting any money down or taking on debt.  That prospect – switch to solar for free and save money – is driving mass adoption, in the US and globally, and mass adoption is driving scale and price reductions further.

This is a great development for Americans, both as consumers of cleaner, cheaper electricity, and as participants in an economy that is seeing massive job growth from the solar industry in all 50 states.  While solar equipment manufacturing creates jobs, it turns out that there are four times more jobs in construction, innovation, software and marketing. These are jobs where America excels, and can’t or won’t be exported.

Solar’s growth is even more compelling when compared to the fossil fuel industry it is disrupting. In fact, the rate of solar job creation is significantly higher than the expected three percent net job loss in fossil fuel power generation.

As solar energy continues to disrupt fossil fuels’ monopoly on energy generation, it should be no surprise that opponents of solar, many of whom are funded by the oil and gas companies, often claim that solar benefits from outsized policy investment.

In fact, solar receives a small fraction of the subsidies the fossil fuel giants are granted, in spite of the fact that oil, gas and coal are mature industries that expose the country to environmental and geopolitical risk while individual companies break world records for quarterly profits with frightening regularity – in fact each time our gas prices spike.

Solar and other renewables do receive some policy support, but on a much smaller scale than the fossil fuel industries.  A recent study from the Environmental Law Institute showed that fossil fuels companies received a total of $72 billion in subsidies, compared to less than $2 billion for solar companies, during most of the last decade.

Or taking the longer view, in the aggregate, oil and gas companies have received about $450B in subsidies since World War I, while renewables in total have received about $6B.  And it’s not just because oil and gas have received subsidies for a longer period.  The same study found that oil and gas has received an average of $4.86B per year during its subsidy period (since 1918), while renewables, of which solar is just a subset, have received only $.37B per year, and only since 1994.

The point of a subsidy is to help a new industry achieve scale, so that the whole country can benefit.  With smart policy investments for solar, the goal is being achieved.  Today, nearly100,000 American construction workers, installers, innovators and other support service employees are building the US solar industry.  And small businesses are sprouting up all over the country.  Job figures are swelling, uniquely in this economy, subsidies are falling in many places, and US energy consumers are better served.  Within the next decade, solar will no longer need policy investments, unlike the fossil fuels that have depended upon them for nearly a century.

Consider this: every single day, more energy from sunshine falls on this country than we can consume in 10 years.  We’re finally figuring out how to convert and use that energy cheaply, so we don’t have to dig up, transport and burn 200 million year old carbon to power our lives.  There will be the occasional business casualty along the way like any other industry, but this is a journey that will make America more prosperous and secure.

Speaking of trains, did you know that Sungevity is the first brand ever to take over all of the advertising on Amtrak’s Acela?  Our snazzy back-lit posters and seat-back information placards will be on the Acela trains until the end of the month.  We are also sponsoring the trains’ wifi.  Chugga chugga, chugga chugga, WOOOO HOOOOO!

It leaves you thinking – if solar can take over the Acela, what else can it take over?

In Europe, the high speed Thalys train that links Paris to Amsterdam just got an upgrade.  Along the route there is now a 3.6km stretch of tunnel that is covered by 16,000 solar panels.  Together they span an area of approximately 12 acres and produce 3.3 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity each year.

Is 3.3 MWh a lot?  It’s roughly enough to meet the annual electric needs of 1,000 households, which seems pretty impressive until you think about the fact that the flux capacitor on the DeLorean time machine required 1.21 GW to operate :-P

If you want to see the tunnel in action, so to speak, check out this video.

Pro Tip: You only need to watch the first 15 seconds of so of the video unless you REALLY love looking at solar panels; all 3 minutes and 7 seconds of it are pretty much the same.

Okay.  Quick recap.  Sungevity covered the Acela in solar (advertising) and Enfinity covered a tunnel in Europe in solar (panels).  What else could be smothered in sunshiney deliciousness?  Those of you who live in California can probably think of something major; and when I say major I mean MAJOR.  Do you know what the single largest energy consumer is in California?  It’s the State Water Project (SWP), which moves water from Northern California to Southern California via a system of pumps and channels.  The SWP accounts for 6.5% of the state’s total energy usage!

NYT’s Green Blog pontificated on putting floating solar arrays on the California Aqueduct back in April, but people have been talking about solarizing the SWP for years now…and why not? It seems like an obvious next step for the state that is leading the nation in solar installations.

Do you have solar on your roof? If you could put a large-scale solar system somewhere where would you put it?

There goes the neighborhood

At Sungevity, we’ve known for a long time that the best way to spread solar is neighbor-to-neighbor and friend-to-friend. Customers in our Sunshine Network are solar evangelists who often get their friends and family to go solar too.

So we were happy but not surprised to see the Stanford study that found that for every 1% increase in the number of solar homes in a neighborhood, the length of time before the next solar installation decreases by 1%. Now that might sound trivial to you (if, like me, your math skills topped out in 5th grade). But there’s an exponential effect at play here that causes solar adoption to snowball. John Farrell from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance explains it like this:

If you start with a neighborhood with 25 solar installations, where it was 100 days between the 24th and 25th installation, this peer pressure effect will reduce the time between installations to just 10 days by the 250th [photovoltaic] project.

The graph below shows how this plays out:

We’d like to thank our customers and all solar homeowners for helping form this giant (and paradoxical) solar snowball!  Keep it up and solar homes will some day soon become the new normal.

Here is the televised award announcement (or check your local listings here to watch it on TV with family and friends):

Though we are incredibly excited to have received this honor and want to thank everyone at PBS and Planet Forward for this recognition, it’s you, our Sunshine Network of customers and supporters who are the real winners here. You are the smart homeowners who are ahead of the curve when it comes to innovating the process for going solar and tackling our nation’s energy challenges. You are the ones spreading the word about solar savings made easy. You are the ones that should be commended.

As we look to keep expanding the Solar Social Network, recognition like this is incredibly humbling. We look to continue building out our network as we get ready to expand into the East Coast in a few weeks! And as we do, we hope to live up to the expectations of this Innovator award by continuing to push the envelope when it comes to residential solar, and bringing ‘sunshine online’ to as many people as possible.

On Tuesday, the California Assembly passed a law requiring utilities to get 33% of their power from renewable energy by 2020.  The 55-19 vote was what you’d have to call a landslide and yet another indicator of the growing power of solar (pardon the pun, but I’m giddy with excitement over the news).  Governor Brown, who campaigned on this very issue, is expected to sign the bill.

The 33% standard is second only to Hawaii, which mandates 40% by 2030. Other states with comparable standards include Colorado and New York, both of which set targets of 30% by 2020 and 2015, respectively.

Thanks to all of you who made your voices heard and to all of the amazing advocacy and industry groups who have been pushing for a more aggressive renewable energy target for years. We will all continue to work together to make our state and our nation a solartopia.

–Erica Etelson

Consider:

If we cover 192,00 square miles of the earth’s surface with solar panels, we can power the entire world with solar alone (as shown in the graphic above). That’s an area a little bit larger than California but, remember, the PV panels will be distributed across hundreds of millions of rooftops. For the U.S. to meet its domestic electricity needs, we’d only need to panel over a state the size of Kentucky.

If all 50 states were as energy efficient as California, electricity consumption in the U.S. would be cut by a third. (Then, we’d only need to solarize an area the size of Maryland).  Industry geeks refer to this as “negawatts” — you can just call it smart.

With one ton of sand, we can make solar panels that will produce as much electricity as 500,000 tons of coal (according to CleanTick.com). No mountaintop removals required.

By 2030, global demand for electricity will require either 13,000 new coal-fired power plants, 500 new nuclear reactors or the following mix (from Scientific American, November 2009):

The choice is in our hands. With solar stocks soaring and uranium prices tumbling, it’s pretty clear that the forecast is sunny.

–Erica Etelson



A mere seven months ago, lured by sunny skies and hefty utility-sponsored solar rebates, Sungevity began offering the Solar Lease to homeowners in Colorado. Then came the one-two punch: First, Black Hills Energy, which serves southeastern Colorado, pulled the plug on its solar rebate program. Then, last week, the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, slashed and burned its Solar Rewards program, cutting the rebate from $2/watt to 25 cents/watt.

The announcement came as a sledgehammer in the darkness–no one outside of Xcel saw it coming, and the Colorado solar industry is reeling from the blow.

When a renewable energy company enters a new market, there’s a mind-blowing amount of paperwork that must be done in order to comply with local requirements and procedures: Not only does every state and every municipality have its own set of rules & regs; each utility has its own procedures that renewable energy providers must learn and adopt. Entering a new market is a big investment, but one that we expect will be worth it over the long term.

For Sungevity, navigating the byzantine bureaucratic maze is a labor of love. But when a utility abruptly and without warning drops the rebate, the love affair is over. Solar leasing companies have only been able to access the Xcel rebate since September, 2009, less than a year and a half ago. Just as solar leasing companies like ours were beginning to establish ourselves in Colorado, Xcel pulled the plug, destabilizing the solar market just as it was ramping up. We’re mighty peeved and, if you live in Colorado and were hoping to get control of your electricity bill, you probably are too.

Neal Lurie, executive director of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association(CoSEIA), said Xcel’s move could be extremely damaging to an industry just getting its start. “This is absolutely devastating to the solar industry,” Lurie told the Denver Post. “No industry can survive this kind of shock.” CoSEIA warns that the suspension of the rebate could result in the loss of 3000 jobs over the next three months. More job cuts, just what we need!

I asked regional energy planning expert Bill Powers of Powers Engineering why he thinks Xcel is cutting the rebate. Powers says that most utilities are “hanging on with a death grip” to the conventional business model: Build a power plant, and sell the juice. When people start generating their own power, the utility effectively loses them as customers. Also, in order to get approval for building a new power plant, utilities must demonstrate that increased demand for electricity will soon outstrip supply; but if an increasing number of homeowners go solar, demand on the grid decreases. In other words, all its greenwashed PR aside, Xcel doesn’t actually want its customers to go solar. Grrr!

The Colorado Public Utility Commission (PUC) has the power to approve or block Xcel’s attempt to gut its solar rebate. And that’s where you come in: Give the PUC a piece of your mind using the online comment form. And, if you live in Denver, turn out for a big rally at the State Capitol (200 E. Colfax Ave.) on February 25 at high noon.

As a giant utility, Xcel cannot be permitted to make a snap decision with enormous consequences for businesses and ratepayers. Any change in the Solar Rewards program should be the final outcome of a transparent public process in which all stakeholders are given notice and consulted.

We’ll keep you posted on developments in Colorado. Don’t give up hope..we’re not!

–Erica Etelson

If you lease panels from Sungevity, you know that the ability to put solar on one’s roof without huge upfront costs is key.  Unfortunately, the Solar Lease is not yet available in all parts of the country.  That’s where the PACE program comes in.

In the last couple of years,  local governments in 25 states have set up Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs as financing mechanisms to help their residents go solar or make major energy efficiency improvements.  The PACE program fronts homeowners the money to install solar and the homeowner pays back the city over 15-20 years through a special assessment on their property tax bills.

Sounds pretty good, right? But here’s the problem: Last July, the Federal Housing Finance Agency told Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to stop underwriting mortgages with PACE assessments. Since Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee half of all U.S. mortgages, their policy struck a crippling blow to PACE.

PACE advocates have organized a Congressional policy briefing on February 10: Ask your representatives to attend. Until Sungevity serves all states, homeowners and the planet need PACE.