Comments on: Why no one has Solar Power

By: tony

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:58:36 +0000

LOL,

I am doingthe same excact thing here in Denver – I decided to change careers and sell solar power to commercial property owners.

It takes a very long time for the property owner to make up thier mind. It is very frustrating.

BTW – In our direct mail advertising (which I think is good) we are getting a 1% response rate.

By: Spec

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:02:12 +0000

Well . . . California does NOT have a real juicy rebate right now. It is a mere $1.90 per watt for where I live. That will pay for around 1/4 of the installation I was looking at . . . and that is a self-install. (Around $7000 rebate for a system that may cost around $27,000 total. :-/

By: grd

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:50:21 +0000

So the city, state, and federal tax payers kick-in over $21,000 so a super “nice” and (and super rich) man can have cheap power for his rental property? Nice deal for Loren. Too bad the tax payers don’t get to decide how to spend our own money!

By: David Llorens

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:27:18 +0000

It’s more expensive to do solar in San Francisco than Pennsylvania. Labor and building codes mostly. We are competitively priced here. It’s probably not $2/watt more expensive though… We build in a margin that allows us to take care of our customers for a long, long time. Our warranty is incredible and the system is built to last. For example, we throw away the connector that comes with Sun Power panel to use a more robust one. We eliminate a lot of different metal on metal connections that cause electrolysis and corrosion, and we spend some extra money to do this. Our highly trained, in house crew costs some more, but if you got people up there drilling holes in your roof you want to make sure they know what they’re doing.

By: Catherine Neil

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:08:16 +0000

Your prices per watt are almost $2/watt more than we charge and we make a good living selling Sunpower.Think about how you can reduce your overhead or get the job done faster.

By: Renewable energy as an investment | Sun Volt Solar Blog

Renewable energy as an investment | Sun Volt Solar Blog — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:54:31 +0000

[...] at the Solar Power Rocks blog, pointed out that for every $1.00 saved in annual energy costs, the value of a property increased [...]

By: Moving Like Water » Solar power adoption — seeing is believing

Moving Like Water » Solar power adoption — seeing is believing — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:35:44 +0000

[...] the most interesting and thoughtful posts about home-based solar power adoption, David Llorens from Solar Power Rocks discusses resistance to installation of a solar power [...]

By: James Thomas

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:10:42 +0000

Going back to I mentioned in my post about energy coops, I just stumbled upon this article on Renewable Access’s website about a 50KW system installed installed on an apartment coop in New York.
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/story;jsessionid=F822B69A5A784D529D7A9DB195A8BD13?id=51280&src=rss

By: Dan

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:32:35 +0000

Nice article, Dave. I’ve had similar experiences here in SF. I think people are generally very tentative about any purchase of this size, regardless of how compelling the numbers are. I also think that one of the biggest hindrances to wider solar adoption is this widespread belief that some phenomenal new technology is just around the corner and they’re better off waiting. Look at the crazy hype around NanoSolar.

-dan

By: James Thomas

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:00:51 +0000

Excellent article. Thanks David Llorens for composing your thoughts, as I am running into similar obstacles with p.v… so, I’ve shifted my attention to thermal, as the payback is 5/1. It truly is a numbers game. I am certain that if you had Apple’s Think Different advertising campaign budget behind you, your results would be much different. At least you made one sale. That is more than I have right now.

Perhaps the next strategy is to establish independent solar coop incentives that are not regulated by power brokers or private interests, whereby neighbors share the total cost of a system – dealer makes a small commission or charges a small fee on a hypothetical $1,000,000.00 install. Grassroots legislation is a big driving force of the industry. San Francisco, being the progressive city that it is, people would rally and sign the win-win petition, and then mandate it.