New York and Virginia Solar Power Incentives, Rebates and Tax Credits have been Reviewed

Published on November 30, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Trends.

Virginia Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives

New York Solar Power Rebates, Tax Credits, and Incentives

Our Logo is Cool, so we Put it on a Shirt

Published on November 29, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Trends.

We uploaded our logo and sitename to CafePress.com and put it on some clothes. These clothes are at no markup….. So while we aren’t making any money off them, personally I think they’re still pretty damn expensive. But… buy one anyway, and help us achieve critical mass acceptance for solar.

If people see you wearing shirts that say Solar Power Rocks! enough, they just might start to believe it.

Our “store”

Google Renewable Energy Press Release

Published on November 28, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Trends.

OK, OK, I know, I’m a day late and a dollar short reporting on this… But Google (stock tix goog – I mention this only because I bought a tiny amount of their stock just to make sure I wasn’t constantly reminded daily of how much I’m NOT RICH because I didn’t invest in them. I’m using google stock to hedge my emotions) release dthis

PRESS RELEASE

Yesterday. Why did I make the link rediculously big? I’m not sure. My roommate brought back this coffee from Costa Rica and it is…. strong. Here I will give you the highlights of the release with poor details and a funny youtube video cause, let’s face it, press releases = boring. Ready? Go!

• Their calling it RE<C. Yah, I don’t get it either. It’s going to focus on breakthrough technologies… For some reason their secret projects make me think of Lo Pan’s Raiden-looking assistant who conjures electrical storms (If you haven’t seen Big Trouble in Little China, you don’t REALLY know Kurt Russell)
• It will cost multiple tens of millions of dollars. Fortunately, Sergey Brin had a hot night at craps, and fronted the expense for htis project with a couple of Bellagio chips he found in his couch cushions.
• They are hiring energy experts, engineers, R&D, three wizards, a troll, and they’ve got some headhunters working on the leprechans.
• Their goal is to “to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal”
• OMGBBQ this coffee is strong, I can’t pay attention long enough to summarize. Just check out the
  

  PRESS RELEASE

By going there you will inevitably be bored, so come back here and watch this video I think is funny.

Write us some Digg-Juice…. Win a Nano.

Published on November 24, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Competitions.

What’s up, INTERNETS!? We had so much success with our Logo competition that we’re offering another competition… An article writing competition.

We want people to put solar power systems on their homes and businesses so less greenhouse gas is pumped into the atmosphere and the ice-caps don’t melt and I don’t have to move out of my sweet, sea-level San Francisco apartment… YES! YOU FIGURED IT OUT, this website is all an elaborate attempt to avoid moving (via boat).

We hope that educating the public will lead to them buying solar power…. So what’s wrong with that? Well, problem is that it’s FREAKING BORING. Do people from digg.com or stumbleupon.com come here to read about how photovoltaics work? NO! They want pop culture… They want Chris Cooper and Britney Spears coochie shots… They want videos of dogs on skateboards and pictures of things blowing up. We don’t have that.

So that’s where you come in. Do something good. Write a clever article that gets social networking traction.. something that floods our site with a blast of people who come to see boobs or celecbrity gossip that is in some way solar power related…. and have those people stay to read a few articles about how solar power systems can stick enough cash in your wallet in 30 years to put your kids through college. It’s innanet bait-and-switch, yo! What’s the prize this time? Another damn iPod Nano!!!
Here’s how it works:
You write an article and email it to us. If it’s good, we’ll at some point publish it on our site. The first person to submit an article that lands on the front page of digg.com wins the nano. Here are some other points:

• The winner will probably have the option of writing more articles for us in exchange for money, as will some of the non-winners.
• We get the rights to any article you submit to the competition and are free to do whatever we want with it. Change it, post it, or put ketchup on it and eat it. Hopefully because of your writing… some dude or chick somewhere gets solar power installed on their house, and everyone wins. That’s the whole point of this.
• The article must be your own… You must have generated it. It cannot be a reproduction or plagiarized version of anything else out there on the web.
• The nano, just like the logo competition, is one of the cuter shorter fatter ones that also does video.
• The article needs to be about solar power…. or well, man it’s gotta be at least loosely related to solar power.

Logo Competition Winner Announced!

Published on November 18, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Competitions.

We want to thank EVERYONE for their submissions. We are more than pleased with the volume and quality of responses. We are impressed. So check it out. What do you think?

The winning entry was sent in by Katie (in the picture. Nanos make people happy):

And cleaned up by Ambroise:

Again, thank you to everyone submitted. We will be giving a second nano away next week for an article writing competition. So stay tuned.

Here’s the final version Ambroise just submitted.  This one is it.  Shirts coming soon

Whoa! Solar Power Scam Email! I guess the industry IS blowing up!

Published on November 16, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Financing, Solar Trends.

Here’s an email my friend got that I’m assuming is a scam:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Solar Energy 24hs/Day < I removed the email>
Date: Nov 16, 2007 12:11 PM
Subject: SOLAR ENERGY GENERATION 24HS A DAY. BEST INVESTOR MONEY BACK.
To:

–
Esta mensagem foi verificada pelo sistema de antivírus e
acredita-se estar livre de perigo.

PGE is Feeding me Bullsh*t and Calling it Caviar

Published on November 15, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Trends.

Edit 6/12/08 – this article is pretty negative towards PG&E.  Since then I have grown to like them quite a bit.  They work closely with the solar industry and even train citizens on the basics of solar energy at the awesome PG&E energy center that they didn’t have to build.  They go above and beyond the call of duty in a lot of spaces that they don’t have to with respect to renewable energy.  No, they did not pay me to say this and yes I’m leaving the article below as is….. but just respect that they are a for-profit company and that the E7 rate was actually a money loser for them.  They had no choice.  The PR spin on it is a little hard to swallow, but it’s just business.

I mean, go to Idaho and see if their utility company trains it’s local citizens on how to give power point presentations on renewable energy basics, or interconnects their new bi-directional meters for free.

Couple days ago PGE sent a notice out to it’s Vendors saying it’s getting rid of the E7 Time of Use Rate Schedule and replacing it with the new E6. They are calling the E6 schedule “solar friendly….”

“the EL-6/E-6 rate schedules have a shoulder peak, which means solar generators that are producing electricity in the morning have that electricity valued at a higher part-peak rate, instead of EL-7/E-7’s off-peak rates. While no rate will be perfect for every customer, the revised EL-6/E-6 rate schedules effective in 2008 were specifically designed with solar customers in mind”

So what does this mean simply? Well, the E7 schedule is (was) simple and sweet. During the times when the sun shines, PGE pays solar customers about 4 times as much for their power (noon-six). Pretty rad if you’re a solar customer, right?

But the change to E6 is infinitely more complicated in an overzealous attempt to appear optimized for solar installers. In the summer I think it actually is a little better (and I’m not 100% sure, and it would vary by scenario). Customers may actually eek out a little extra credits in summer with E6 over E7. But take a look at Winter. The peak period disappears. Now instead of making 4X times your money every workday noon-6, instead you get a “partial peak that pays like 1.5X and it’s when the sun isn’t even shining anyway (because it’s winter and the sun doesn’t shine during the ‘partial peak period’ of 5PM to 8PM ANYWAY).

The result? Solar power customers get the stiff one-eye in the winter.

PG&E is a utility. A business. I don’t have a problem with them trying to stay profitable, but don’t outright lie about how the new “solar friendly” E6 schedule is better for solar customers than the E7 schedule you’re dropping. They don’t overtly say that exact sentence, they just imply it exceedingly CONVINCINGLY the general public who has no idea (I’ve studied power rates for hours and even I’M fuzzy…), that it’s in their best interest. It’s not.

It’s designed to save them money from the growing number of solar installations that are going down because of the juicey California Solar Initiative. I wish they’d just tell it like it is.

Logo Competition Over! Winner to be Announced Saturday

Published on by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Competitions.

We’re working on a post critiquing all the entries, and it might be up tonight, or tomorrow. But I just wanted to say thanks everyone. Thanks for your effort. I’m impressed and grateful for all the time you spent.

-Dave

Here’s Your Chance to Rock

Published on by Dan Hahn.
Categories: Solar Politics.

I really wish I wasn’t in this position this morning. Not the one where I’m hunched over my laptop at my kitchen desk, but the one where I’m asking you (yes you!) to actually DO something about our nation’s energy policy. I’d much rather have you sit back with an interested smirk on your face as you glean over state, federal, and local solar incentives, read about such-and-such cool solar installation in Spain, or even watch in amusement at Dave’s complete lack of skills at being an investigative solar reporter. Here’s the deal though, here’s why we’re pissed, and here’s why we’re looking for you to jump up from your seat, throw a concerned citizen cape on, and pick up your telephone:

Congress is failing us, our planet, and is about to screw us out of being the front-runners in the burgeoning green energy industry. Two days ago the SEIA has issued a warning that our lawmakers are considering dropping investment tax credits (ITCs) for those of you intending to go solar. This is unconscionable.

ITCs currently are at low rates ($2,000 for installing your own solar/30% of system tax credit for homes and businesses) and now our government littlewhigs are poised to eliminate them altogether. Unfortunately, that’s not all. There’s also growing concern that they will throw a national energy standard off the table as well. This standard calls for at least 15% of the nation’s electricity generated from renewable sources by 2020.

What?! We can’t meet that? Of course we can. There’s just a lot of old oil and coal interests here that don’t want that. So, pick up that phone and politely urge your congressperson and/or senator to grow the balls to stand up for the planet, our economy, and progressive thought patterns. If they so happen to be on the same page as you, great. However, urge them to speak the f*ck up in front of other representatives! It’s like we’ve got a whole bunch of these guys running the show:

WTF!?

If you want some more ammunition for your phone call or if you need some further encouragement to actually make that phone call, here are 3 more issues that just popped into mind to consider:

1. About a week ago, Warren Buffet was willing to wager $1,000,000 with any Forbes 400 executive that their percentage paid in income taxes was less than the average rate of all of their secretaries. Nobody took that bet.
2. Billions of dollars in farm subsidies (going mainly to multimillionaire landowners who don’t even farm anymore or never did) are artificially supporting the production of products detrimental to the environment, our health and sucks the livelihood from our international trade partners.
3. The amount we are spending on the Iraq war (can we still call this a war?) dwarfs that which we are investing in renewable energy research and development. For a thoughtful review on just what we could purchase with all those war dollars, please check out this NYTimes article and this SolarPowerRocks article.

Be strong! Pick up the Phone!

Let us know you did!

They’re voting next week:

(202) 225-3121

Solar Powered Flashlight for Africa

Published on November 12, 2007 by Dave Llorens.
Categories: Solar Technology.

A few years ago, Mark Bent and his wife lived in Africa. They would bring hot meals to children who scavaged dump sites all hours of the day. Recently, the couple went back to that African village and and were compelled to make a real difference. There was no light for those villagers. Sure, during the day, but at night – only the light afforded by a rare hunter’s moon.

So, Mark quit his job and designed a solar powered flashlight. How might a flashlight make a real difference? Huge difference! Night light helps keep people safer and gives them opportunities to read, study, and develop their minds at night. For instance, think back to when you were in grade school. Trail walking? Getting home safe on a really dark night? Surely you have memories of reading at night? Mysteries? Comic books? Short stories? How much of your own imagination developed over that time?

Mark now has a great business model to back up delivery of this product around the world. Specifically, if you buy a flashlight for yourself, he’ll give another one to a village without lights or to troops in Iraq. Hence, the name BoGo (buy one, give one). In this way, reading at night no longer has to be an economic decision or burden. You’ll also cut out the need for batteries and will be doing a small part to save the planet from wasteful consumption. So check out that link above, buy one, and help Mark light up the lives of others around the world.