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We at Quetsol have never been fans of doubt, and as is the nature of a startup company we receive heavy doses of doubt from family, friends, colleagues, peers, and even complete strangers who ask us what we do. Can low-income families afford your products? Why wouldn’t they spend that money on something else? What about your competitors? Can you trust the Chinese? The questions go on ad infinitum. Doubt does serve to temper a tendency toward hubris in an entrepreneur, but we remedy this doubt with our certitude that our solar home systems are affordable, desirable, better and cheaper than the competition, reliable, and durable. We believe that corporations should be obligated to contribute real value to society and that they should have a vanguard role in mitigating and reversing the global environmental crisis. That being said, the most rewarding part of our work is when we visit our clients in the remote areas of Guatemala where the wooden posts bearing electric lines leading to the Unión Fenosa and INDE electrical substations do not reach.
When we meet with a community (who contact us) each side goes through their litany of questions – we ask: how much do you spend on candles, wood, kerosene, diesel fuel for generators per day? How many communities are there around here without electricity? Have you heard of solar power before, or does anyone in the community have a system currently? Are you affiliated with a credit cooperative or a microfinance institution? They ask: how many hours does it last? What’s the lifetime of the system? How many different cell phone battery adapters are there? How long does it take to charge? What about during the rainy season? And so it goes until everyone’s favorite part of our presentation: the comparison. From our last visits this past weekend to a communities in Baja Verapaz and Izabal we heard that the average family burns two candles per night at a cost of 1.5 Quetzales (~21 cents) to illuminate their home, adding up to 90 Quetzales (~$11.25) per month. Our systems provide 50 times more lumens than a candle or kerosene lamp and cost 80 Quetzals per month on a 2 year financing plan, or 1,600 Quetzales cash. All it takes is a brief glance at the comparison below to know what the smart decision is:
A Quetsol no nos gusta la duda, y por la naturaleza de ser una empresa nueva nosotros recibimos grandes dósis de duda de nuestra familia, amigos, colegas, pares, y hasta desconocidos que nos preguntan qué hacemos. ¿Pueden las familias de bajos recursos comprar estos productos? ¿Porqué no gastarían el dinero en otra cosa? ¿Tienen ustedes competencia? ¿Pueden confiar en los chinos? Las preguntas siguen ad infinitum. La duda sirve para atenuar la tendencia a la sobre-confianza en un empresario, sin embargo nosotros remediamos esta duda con nuestra certeza que nuestros sistemas solares para casas son accesibles, fiables, durables, deseables, mejores y más baratos que nuestra competencia. Creemos que las corporaciones deben de estar obligadas a aportar valor real a la sociedad y que deben tener un papel en la vanguardia en la lucha para mitigar e invertir la crisis global del medio ambiente. Una vez dicho lo anterior, lo más gratificante de nuestro trabajo son las visitas a nuestros clientes en las áreas remotas de Guatemala donde no alcanzan los postes de madera que llevan las líneas eléctricas que conducen a las subestaciones de Unión Fenosa y el INDE.
Cuando nos reunimos con una comunidad (quiénes nos contactan a nosotros) cada partido hace una letanía de preguntas – nosotros preguntamos: ¿cuánto gastan ustedes al día en candelas, leña, queroseno, o combustible diesel? ¿Cuántas aldeas hay por aquí que no cuentan con servicio de electricidad? ¿Ustedes ya han sabido de la electricidad solar antes, o hay alguien en la comunidad que tenga un sistema ya? Ustedes son afiliados de alguna cooperativa de crédito o institución de micro-créditos? Ellos preguntan: ¿Cuántas horas dura? ¿Cuánto es el tiempo de vida del sistema? ¿Cuántos adaptadores de celulares tiene? ¿Cuánto tiempo se requiere para cargar? ¿Y durante la temporada lluviosa? Así continua hasta que lleguemos a la parte de la presentación que más les gusta a todos: la comparación. De nuestras últimas dos visitas a comunidades en los departamentos de Baja Verapaz y Izabal supimos que la familia promedia de estas comunidades queman dos candelas por noche con una cuesta de 1.5 Quetzales (~21 centavos) para iluminar su casa, el cual suma alrededor de 90 Quetzales (~$11.25) por mes. Nuestros sistemas proveen 50 veces más lumens que una candela o lámpara de kerosena y cuestan 80 Quetzales por mes (con financiamiento) o 1,600 Quetzales al contado. Sólo se necesita ver una breve comparación para saber cuál es la decisión inteligente:
This article from Cleantechies.com highlights some of the juiciest tidbits from the recent Solar Electric Utility conference in San Francisco and corroborates other trend-watchers who say that smaller, distributed projects will help drive growth in the solar photovoltaic sector:
…Panelists echoed [the] observation toward smaller-scale, distributed generation projects in the range of two to 20 megawatts. These projects are on the rise compared to utility-scale projects because they are faster to approve, have high profitability, have shorter connection and permitting reviews, and have increased flexibility…
Overall, the speakers were optimistic for the future growth of distributed and utility-scale solar. “I think PV will grow faster than almost anyone in this room would believe,” said Rogol. In 2004 the global market was less than 1 gigawatt. This figure has grown to 12 gigawatts in 2009, and Rogal predicts a potential for 46 gigawatts by 2012.
PHOTON Consulting’s research also forecasts, “The U.S. is a one-terawatt industry and this is 25 percent larger than all of Europe combined. It is a massive, massive market.” Rogol was specifically positive about the opportunity for solar at the utility level, saying, “We believe the utility segment will fuel future growth. Two years ago, utility-scale solar was non-existent. We believe utility-scale solar can be as much as 50 percent of the total market.”
A recent analysis from the California Public Utilities Commission on the implementation of the state’s 33% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) outlines the challenges facing the achievement of current goals for 2020, as well as the cost forecasts for a business-as-usual model in which utilities would continue to generate an average of 40% of their electricity from natural gas fired plants:
A 33% RPS is projected to require almost a tripling of renewable electricity, and nearly a doubling of new transmission lines. The 33% RPS Reference Case is projected to require an additional 75 TWh of renewable electricity, or nearly a tripling compared to the 27 TWh of delivered renewable electricity generated at the end of 2007. It is also projected to require seven new transmission lines to deliver the additional 75 TWh of electricity.
Even if California makes no further investments in renewable energy (the all-gas scenario), the analysis projects that average statewide electricity costs per kilowatt hour will rise by 16.7% in 2020 compared to 2008 in real terms. This increase results from the need to maintain and replace aging transmission and distribution infrastructure, anticipated investments in advanced metering infrastructure and other smart grid capabilities, the cost of repowering or replacing generators to comply with once-through cooling regulations, and the cost of procuring new conventional generating resources to meet load growth.
Another article from MIT’s Technology Review suggests that robust growth rates (between 25-40%) in the United States’ solar PV market in 2009 demonstrate a maturing of the market which is now increasingly being driven by a number of factors that make the technology enticing to middle-class homeowners and utilities, postulating that:
The growth had several likely causes, including decreasing prices for solar panels and installation costs, as well as increasing state incentives, which can make solar far more attractive. According to Harry Fleming, the CEO of Acro Energy Technologies in Oakdale, CA, these changes mean that the cost of a typical five-kilowatt rooftop solar system has dropped from $22,000 after state incentives are applied ($40,000 without them) to $16,000 in the last 18 months. Prices are expected to fall to $13,000 by the end of the year ($25,000 without incentives). “This is going to make solar a middle-class product,” he says…
Another key could be solar projects undertaken by utilities. Efird says that a small change in the tax code has allowed utilities to take a tax credit for solar investment. After that, “we began to see, really for the first time, utilities starting to get interested in solar as a way of generating wholesale electricity that they could then resell.” His company has done demonstration projects in the past, he says, “but we’ve never looked at the utility sector and said that’s a market in itself.” About a third of the new installations next year could come from utilities.
There has been a lot of talk these days about the prospect of China outpacing America in the clean energy race. Due to the political stalemate in the US, a lot of clean-energy projects have been put on hold, while in China the encouragement of these technologies is starting to pay dividends. This article gives us a perspective of how might the US still play a lead role in this still-emerging market. Three factors would be key to come out the victor: 1) strong climate legislation; 2) innovation; 3) entrepeneurship. The US might have the last two in the pocket, however the first is still a far-fetched idea based on what is happening in DC. The mixed signals in Congress are not helping develop the market locally in the US, where the idea os mantaining the status quo of dirty technologies is still well accepted.
The US will need to make a long term commitment in order to fight China off. Some advances have been made, where in 2009, US wind, solar, and geothermal resources grew even through the recession, mainly driven by the $37 billion set aside as federal stimilus package aimed at green tech. The US can’t afford to avoid the opportunity of directly generating an estimated 2 million jobs by 2020 through the implementation of comprehensive and clean energy and climate protection legislation, like the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).
The jobs won’t come unless the right signs start appearing that will start generating demand. Lower wages in China can be offset in the US by avoiding high transportation and logistics costs, which makes sense even more with large scale projects that will come in the future. Besides, most jobs are in installation and maintenance, not in production, up to 75% of them according to Greenpeace.
Techonological innovation and venture capitalism is an edge the US still has against China, however not enough to win the race. They need to start emulating countries like Spain, Denmark, and Germany where clean energy policies and incentives are already in place. The truth is, we all need the US to get in the loop!
Concentrating solar power plants have been on the table for years as a viable solution to our greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately 1 per cent of the surface of the world’s deserts could generate as much electricity as the world is now using. The logic of the idea seems pretty obvious, however with other interests at play these type of efforts previously seemed to be out of reach. Now that the technology has crossed a critical threshold, finally a glimpse of the political support needed to make this a reality is present. Desertec is network of European scientists and engineers that have presented a plan to develop a supergrid of appropriate energy sources, composed of PVs, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass, and of course concentrating solar power. The European Commission and Desertec have been developing the Strategic Energy Tecnhology Plan (SET Plan), which would involve power lines being stretched across the desert and Mediterranean sea. With the announced objective of the EU to provide 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, the SET Plan is gaining protagonism and the political support it needs to become a reality.
As Gus Schellekens says, a director in the sustainability and climate change team at business advisors PriceWaterhouseCoopers, “Unless you have the right signals coming from government level, you don’t have what the market needs, nobody moves and no-one does anything.” Due to high infrastructure and distributing costs, these appropriate technologies will still need to be subsidized by governments until prices have gone down enough to be direct substitutes of conventional energy. The good thing is that investors are catching up to the new found love these technologies are receiving, such as in the cases of the Spanish and German governments which have helped bring prices down. Other interesting projects by governments in Africa have started, as Morocco’s minister of energy announced seeking a $9bn investment to build 2000 megawatts of solar capacity by 2019. We will definitely be seeing more and more of these large scale projects in the future, a brighter tomorrow!
A quick post today on energy happenings in Brazil, as the Jornal do Brasil wrote a few days ago about the announcement from the Ministry of Mines and Energy that thus far over 2 million families benefited from the national electrification program called “Luz para Todos” or “Light for Everyone”, bringing the total number of beneficiaries since the inception of the program in 2003 to 11 million individuals. These new additions, primarily in the form of diesel generators as well as solar photovoltaic and solar-diesel hybrid systems, are helping to cut the disparity in access to electricity and lighting in the country. However, Brazil still relies heavily on an increasingly strained 90 gigawatts of capacity coming primarily from hydroelectric dams which have a number of negative environmental and social impacts, and are rapidly aging and suffering from siltation and extended droughts. As we saw back in November of 2009, the failure of the Itaipu dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border took 14 gigawatts, or 16% of the country’s generation offline and affected some 60 million people. The event was caused by a short-circuited transmission line, but the effect was enough to rattle politicians and utilities to ponder alternatives.
While the preponderance of new investment in generation infrastructure in the country continues to go to polemic large-scale hydro installations there is a burgeoning interest in alternatives (born of the chronic power shortages that began in the early 2000′s which led to the $6 billion dollar Alternative Energy Incentive Program) that are both on a smaller scale as well as more environmentally and socially friendly. Installed wind capacity currently stands at around 600 megwatts, or 0.67% of the total and is projected to reach 10 gigawatts by 2020. Biomass fueled generators using bagasse, or sugarcane residues, as a feedstock currently produce around 3% of the energy in the country though it is projected to increase to as much as 12 gigawatts of generation in the next few years, and BNDES, the national development bank, is evaluating and financing projects. Nevertheless, solar power and off-grid devices especially are nearly non-existent in the already competitive Brazilian electricity market, and may not have much room to grow, at least until PV costs fall further. This is confirmed by a study released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which provides technical training and conducts research in partnership with the USAID, that assesses the total addressable market (TAM) for off-grid systems in Brazil to be around $720 million.
This is a repost of a recent entry over at E+Co’s blog which includes a video of interviews with two directors of SELCO India, a distributed solar energy device manufacturer and distributor founded in India in 1995, who were invited to Davos to speak at the economic summit. Topics discussed range from the financial services sector in the US, to water desalination, carbon credits, crop insurance, new mobile phone based financial services for emerging markets, and of course, solar energy systems. All in all some fascinating and illuminating discussions about many of the topics that we hold dear. Click here to follow the link and watch the movie!
In today’s New York Times Making Solar Power Portable highlights the rapidly expanding market for solar battery chargers and other micro-scale off-grid energy generating devices, which now boast users as diverse as Silicon Valley CEOs to community health centers in Kenya.
Researchers in Papua New Guinea charge equipment from a portable solar system
These technologies have enormous economic and environmental implications, particularly in the developing world. Emerging markets and less developed nations are experiencing an explosion in the adoption of mobile phones, with some African nations projected to reach 100% market penetration in the next 3 years and rapidly expanding uptake worldwide; we particularly recommend looking at the following spreadsheet to get an idea of the global mobile picture: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tUzZsw5SoG_jXRDl6p8tRCg&single=true&gid=0&output=html
While mobile devices are now ubiquitous worldwide, the same cannot be said of access to reliable sources of electricity. The World Bank estimates some 1.4 billion people do not have access to electricity, which is where off-grid power solutions come in. Private-public cooperation has developed hundreds of new for- and not-for-profit organizations dedicated to developing and distributing new power generation and storage systems for mobile devices, lighting, and other applications, though as we have previously mentioned the distribution of these technologies is marked by a high degree of granularity. In other words, many of these companies and projects are, laudably, focusing on the areas of greatest need, Africa and Asia. What is needed now is hard data to be able to quantify economic and environmental impacts for end users and the world, respectively, so that implementation of these devices becomes as ubiquitous as the devices they charge, with a lower environmental impact.
Thanks to a grant from Stanford’s Environmental Venture Projects (an initiative of the Woods Institute for the Environment) a collaboration between Stanford faculty, the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), and villagers in Kalalé, Benin, there has been a successful implementation of solar powered drip irrigation systems which extend the growing season during a seasonal drought in western Africa.
By installing 3 of these systems the team managed to achieve some incredible results, as noted on the Kalalé Solar Electrification Project homepage:
As measured in the baseline survey undertaken in November 2007, the median per capita daily consumption expenditure in pilot and control villages is just around $1 (PPP, 1993 US dollar), and over $0.60 of that amount is spent on food, confirming that Kalalé’s population is among the poorest on the planet. (These values vary slightly between villages; however, across both treatment and control villages, the households of women participating in the women’s groups are slightly poorer than average.) Furthermore, while virtually all of the households in Kalalé are engaged in agricultural and/or livestock production as a primary activity, most are net consumers of food, particularly of non-staples (proteins, vegetables, fats: See Figure 1). These households either rely on sales of cotton (grown across northern Benin) or draw down assets (usually livestock) to supplement poor production. Against this food- and nutrition- insecure backdrop, the Solar Market Garden’s impact has been striking. Not only have households, on average, earned $3.82 per week by selling produce over the first 6 months of operation, they have also consumed, on average, 1-2 kg of their own production (including tomatoes, amaranth, okra, and carrots) per week. This represents a substantial improvement in both food and nutrition security for the participants, as this amount is, in almost all cases, more than they reported purchasing and/or producing before project implementation. [It has been determined that the average earnings ($3.82) represented a significant under-reporting; the actual number is most likely between $7-$8.] Additionally, these early data suggest that the payback time of a half-hectare Solar Market Garden is 2-3 years (this estimate is closer to 2 years for a surface system, closer to 3 for a submersible system, and will be refined over the second year of operation).
Also check out a video made by the SELF covering the project (they get to the Kalalé project at 1:02):
This article is about a company in India called NEST Ltd. based in Hyderabad, India, reposted from Cleantechnica.com. NEST produces a line of small solar powered compact fluorescent lights and cell phone chargers and has sold more than 65,000 units to date. The video below shows the impact that the products have on the lives of the end users who report a tremendous change.
The video cites some 100 million individuals in India (about 8.33% of the population) who lack access to the electrical grid compared to between 40 and 100 million in Latin America (between 7% and 20% of the population, depending on the source). However, it seems that Asian countries are rapidly gaining access to leapfrog technologies like the Aishwarya light produced by NEST Ltd., likely due to their privileged position as emerging economic powers granting them access to capital for technological industry and manufacturing, while Latin America remains highly dependent on exports of raw materials, agricultural products, and tourism. Quetsol is driven by a desire to even out this granularity in the adoption of distributed energy technologies that empower those who have been left on the sidelines of the economic booms in many countries or who reside in those countries who missed out on the past two decades of economic growth (see ALBA).
It’s also worth noting that even those countries which ostensibly have reliable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure, such as Brazil, structural cracks are beginning to show as demonstrated by the massive blackouts caused by the failure of transmission lines and a 14 gigawatt hydroelectric generating facility in São Paulo last November. This Wall Street Journal article cites some $47 billion dollars of investments in generating stations and transmission systems, with plans for 4 new nuclear reactors and a new $7.7 billion dam on the Madeira river in the Amazon. We wonder if a small-is-beautiful approach incorporating micro-scale renewable generating units wouldn’t create both a more resilient and stable source of power for economic activity while preventing the ecological havoc wreaked by damming rivers and mining uranium and copper.
The very informative Greentech Media, who publishes daily news and market analysis about GreenTech markets, released a nice compendium of the Top Ten Solar Trends in 2009. We largely agree with many of their conclusions, having experienced them ourselves.
In summary, the top 10 trends are:
- Tumbling prices likely to continue into 2010
- Low capital expenditure, manufacturing plant postponments/cancellations.
- Outsourcing
- Only moderate benefits to solar from Obama’s stimulus package
- Germany became a big consumer in an otherwise gloomy market
- Solar manufacturers have installed projects themselves in order to generate demand
- The market for solar cell-embedded building materials, such as rooting singles, barely exists. More R&D is starting to be spent on it however.
- China and India are offering incentives for solar installations, creating a huge potential market.
- Utility companies want to own solar due to a variety of tax benefits.
- Giving the consumer more financing and amortization options.
Here is the full link: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/top-ten-solar-trends/
