Coming Soon to Home Depot: Grape Solar

Grape. It’s a cluster of solar companies with a knack for retailers. Plus: solar varmint zappers. 

 

Grape Solar isn't the largest solar panel maker in the world, but it does seem to understand retailers.

The company -- which assembles panels in Oregon with components sourced from a wide variety of suppliers in China -- will soon begin selling its panels at Home Depot locations. A  formal announcement is due soon.

It's a notable accomplishment, as solar -- and a plethora of solar brands -- are not as prevalent at large retailers as you might think. It takes time and a certain degree of retailer tribal wisdom to earn shelf space at many of these places.

As reported in April, Grape already sells complete solar systems and panels through Costco and Amazon. While both retailers sell small solar panels and devices, Grape is the only brand available on the websites of both Costco and Amazon for complete residential solar systems. (You can also go to Costco and touch and buy the Grape systems, according to my neighbor.)

Home Depot's website currently offers a few kits featuring individual Sharp panels and offers solar leases through SolarCity, but the available selection is nothing on the scale that one might expect from the big-box behemoth.

If you happen to be shopping at the moment, Costco offers a better deal. The 5-kilowatt bundle there costs $16,999 while at Amazon it sells for $19,999. Costco's web site strongly recommends hiring a professional installer. Amazon is a little more cavalier.

"The Solar Power System comes complete with everything you need to rack-mount the 22 solar panels on your roof," says Amazon's site. "Should you decide to expand the array, connecting additional kits is easy."

Home Depot and Lowe's, needless to say, are two of the ultimate channel partners for green home companies. Getting shelf space at either store won't guarantee success, but it certainly creates an opportunity to get close to consumers. Home Depot sells LED bulbs from Cree, Philips branded under its own EcoSmart label, and recently started offering Wi-Fi smart thermostats from Radio Thermostat a few months ago.

Lowe's, meanwhile, has alliances with Westinghouse Solar and has invested in energy retrofitter Recurve and solar installer Sungevity.

And expect more from Costco too. Back in June, Ken Lowe, the founder of Vizio, told us that his company would soon come out with LED bulbs. A few years ago, Vizio was an unheralded, unknown TV manufacturer. After teaming up with Costco, sales zoomed. It is has since become the most popular TV brand in the U.S. for two years in a row. These two companies like each other quite a bit and Costco tends to have a loyal, strangely upscale, clientele. (I interviewed the CFO and CEO at Costco once about hot dogs and patio furniture. It's quite an interesting operation.)

Wal-Mart currently does not appear to offer residential solar systems on its website, but check out this 225-pound solar-powered barrel feeder with varmint zapper for $129.

in Japan, Softbank founder Masayoshi Son said his company would begin to build solar power plants earlier this year.

Besides residential systems, Grape also participates in commercial-scale solar projects.

The company used to be called Centron Solar, but founder Ocean Yuan changed it after getting a legal notice from Germany's Centro Solar. The Grape name comes from the fact that the company gets its components from a cluster of manufacturers near Shanghai. Yuan emphasizes that the company has a horizontal business model, leveraging suppliers, rather than a vertical one in which a single company produces its own wafer, cells and modules.

Grapes and the sun also have an affinity.

Nevada Could Be THE Hot Spot For Solar in US (Video)

Nevada—home of nuclear testing and 99-cent ham and eggs—could become a hot spot for conservatives and conservationists. 

CARSON CITY, Nev. --- Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and other state officials recently sat down with a few of us environmental journalists to discuss the state's green initiatives.

 

“I’ve taken it upon myself to make this a priority,” he said. “Nevada historically has been a mining and gaming and tourism state, and everyone understands we need to put another leg on the stool.”

 

He also talked about recent meetings with Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

It’s not the kind of thing you expect to hear from a sitting Republican.

But Sandoval, as well as Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki, might represent a trend I suspect (or hope) exists beneath the radar -- namely, that the antagonism toward renewable energy on the national level maybe isn't as deep as it might look. Yes, Fred Upton might get attention by calling for a repeal the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a bill he sponsored, but it doesn't mean that his constituents in Michigan see the new battery factories in the state as the harbinger of one-world socialism.

Environmental politics have only recently become so polarized. Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty objects to carbon legislation now, but he favored such policies back in 2008. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped steer California’s green policies. And don’t forget, cap and trade was an idea devised under George Bush I to curb acid rain.

So what might make the pendulum swing back?

1. Green = Jobs. Both Sandoval and Krolicki emphasized how green equals employment. Plus, Nevada doesn’t have a fossil fuel industry, which means a noticeable absence of coal and natural gas lobbyists.

Instead, the state is populated with contractors, who’ve been saddled with declining incomes and intermittent employment since 2008. While renewable power plants do employ people directly, most of the jobs come through construction: erecting solar fields, putting up wind farms, etc.

“There are [Native American] tribes in southern Nevada that see this as an opportunity for jobs and to diversify themselves,” said Sandoval.

More than 60 bills addressed energy in the last legislative session, noted Stacey Crowley, the state’s energy director, second only to education.

2. Resources. Most of the seventh largest state in the U.S. looks like a set from Mad Max: miles of hot, empty desert broken up by the occasional town. It’s attractive in a Jean-Paul Sartre sort of way. It’s also ideal for solar farms. SolarReserve just obtained a $737 million loan guarantee for a 110-megawatt solar thermal plant with molten salt storage near Tonopah.

3. Exports. California and its 33 percent renewable portfolio standard sits right next door. Nevada is looking at establishing three east-west transmission corridors to send power to the state. Nevada has its own RPS -- 25 percent by 2025 -- but it has more raw resources than it needs.

“They’ve got a very aggressive standard. We’ve got the supply,” he said. “It is an opportunity for a marriage between Nevada and California.”

4. Flexible attitudes. Nevada has always exhibited a somewhat skeptical view toward government. I know. I grew up there. Grocery stores used to sell handguns. Some bars haven’t been closed since John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. We gave the world no-limit pai gow, drive-in marriage chapels and Area 51.

The important part, however, is that this attitude isn't fostered out of some die-hard strain of Libertarianism. Instead, it's pragmatic. Gambling became legal to help the state wiggle out from beneath the power of mining conglomerates.

Geez, people. It's not Arizona.

5. Low-Hanging Fruit. Nothing stimulates momentum for green industries more than early victories or losses. Luckily, some of the local experiments have gone quite well.

Reno, for instance, replaced the lights in its downtown arch (“The Biggest Little City in the World”) with 2,076 LEDs, according to Jason Geddes, environmental services administrator for the city. It reduced power consumption for the sign by 70 percent.

The city is now switching out street lights and pedestrian crossing signals with LEDs. Reno’s city hall reduced its own power consumption, from $4.54 a square foot to $2.54, by 45 percent with new hot water boilers and lights. OK, so ROI on the small wind turbines might take 35 years and the legislature just killed a feed-in tariff: just imagine what you can do with LEDs in slot machines.

Geothermal has been a hit, too. The 100-megawatt Galena geothermal plant outside of Reno provides 22 percent of Reno’s daytime power.

6. Size = Power. Last year, we asked Mississippi officials how they managed to convince four rising startups to open factories in its borders, particularly when the state didn’t even have a renewable portfolio standard.

Low-cost loans and fairly low labor rates turned out to be the answer. But the state also noted how it can provide personalized service because of its small size. A manufacturer wants to meet a high-ranking state official. One phone call and the meeting is set.

The same circumstances exist here. Sandoval touts the state's ability to offer “service after the sale,” i.e., ensuring that the state will smooth out potential bureaucratic nightmares.

“As governor, I’m making phone calls to CEOs,” he said. “I literally have call lists.”

Google is currently lobbying the state to let robotic cars on the road. What do you want to bet that that measure passes?

7. Housing. The state was number one in foreclosures in 2009 and 2010. Relocation will be cheap.

8. A Cluster of Expertise. Because of the state’s geology, it has emerged as one of the centers of geothermal power and research.

Interestingly, you’re also now beginning to see the formation of lateral industries. ElectraTherm, headquartered in Reno, makes low-temperature waste heat recovery devices. The company’s Green Machine absorbs heat to boil an organic refrigerant. The vapor is then exploited to turn a turbine.

Basically, it is an above-ground geothermal system, but instead of getting the heat from hot springs beneath the ground, ElectraTherm harvests heat from burning discarded wood chips or industrial equipment.  A former drag racer founded the company.

“It [heat] is huge and it is completely untapped,” said CEO John Fox. “A Caterpillar engine is 33 percent efficient, so two-thirds of the energy is lost.”

The company has shipped units to Alaska and Australia. Senators Bingaman and Murkowski are trying to get waste heat added to the list of renewables that qualify for tax incentives, he added.

Will other states and regions try to develop industries based around exploiting heat? Absolutely. Is heat going to be as big as solar? Maybe not, but there’s no denying that an island of expertise has begun to coalesce in Nevada.

Interestingly, President Obama spent Earth Day in 2011 at ElectraTherm’s headquarters.

Maybe there is something to this bipartisanship thing after all.

Google Invests $168 Million in 392MW Mojave Desert Solar Thermal Plant

 

Google is announcing a $168 million investment in Brightsource Energy's Ivanpah solar power plant in the Mojave desert in California. The solar farm will have a capacity of 392 MW. According to Google, that's the equivalent of "taking more than 90,000 cars off the road over the lifetime of the plant, projected to be more than 25 years."

Google has Invested $250 Million in Clean Energy So Far
 

The solar farm will use heliostat mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy onto a tower where the heat will generate steam that makes a turbine spin. "Power towers are very efficient because all those mirrors focus a tremendous amount of solar energy onto a small area to produce steam at high pressure and temperature (up to 1000 degrees F)."

The Ivanpah Power Tower will be approximately 450 feet tall and will use 173,000 heliostats, each with two mirrors. Construction began last fall and should end up 2013.

Part of Google's motivation is to help the solar power sector reach maturity faster (the more you build, the faster you reach economies of scale)

Google: We need smart capital to transform our energy sector and build a clean energy future. This is our largest investment to date, and we've now invested over $250 million in the clean energy sector. We're excited about Ivanpah because our investment will help deploy a compelling solar energy technology that provides reliable clean energy, with the potential to significantly reduce costs on future projects.

Article by Michael Graham Richard, TreeHugger

Solar Goes to School

Recently, the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education approved a partnership with AMSOLAR Corporation to build 5.2 megawatts of solar power for district campuses.

"That's probably one of the largest solar projects for a school system in the United States and probably the world," Joshua Weinstein, AMSOLAR's managing partner told me.

The system will bring solar power to 20 sites throughout the district and will be comprised of 23,000 solar panels placed on over 80 rooftops. The system will range is aide from 100 kilowatts to 500 kilowatts per campus. The company expects to provide 64 percent of the energy needs of the campuses own which it is located.

AMSOLAR's model is build, own and operate the solar system and sell the electricity to the customer through a long-term power purchase agreement, in this case, for 22 years. That means no up-front costs to the district.

`We selected the 20 sites for base don their overall consumption and where we could best promote renewable energy awareness," Weinstein said.

Part of the company's renewable energy ethic is to help add to the science curriculum, build laptop charging stations on campus an give grants to teachers for energy program.

In a sense, AMSOLAR is competing with the incumbent  utility, San Diego Gas & Electric and selling power at a lower per kilowatt-hour cost the at utility.

The San Diego Unified School District has projected that it will save between $13 million and $20 million against its utility costs.

Ground will be broken soon, with the entire project to be completed in early 2011.

AMSOLAR's business is primarily centered on educational facilities. It is now building a 

1.2-megawatt solar system on the University of San Diego. It is actively pursuing school projects not just in California but also Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Article by Bill Opalka, Renewablesbiz.com

2010 Predictions: Simpler, Greener Lifestyles

A number of factors will shape our lifestyles in the next year, but none as much as the recovering economy. Americans will still look for ways to save a penny or two, and with a few years of practice under their belts they'll get more thrifty and resourceful. We see the following trends emerging in 2010.

1. Grow your own food. More Americans will grow their own food-producing gardens in 2010

Health concerns have made us more selective, but the economy has made it more difficult to afford quality food. One simple solution is to grow your own. Last year seed sales rose as more people turned to food-producing gardens, a trend we think will continue into the new year. Food-producing gardens provide healthy, organic food at a fraction of the cost and also cut back on transportation costs and the carbon footprint of traditional foods.

2. Eat local.

Last spring, Michelle Obama began campaigning for local food. As consumers look for ways to get healthy, affordable food, we predict that farmers markets and community-sponsored agricultural programs will see strong support. Buying local food benefits the planet and local economies.

3. Cook at home. Americans will continue to cook more meals at home instead of dining out.

Americans are eating at home more according to a new report from market research company NPD. Although most meals made at home are cooked in the microwave, Americans are choosing to eat in rather than dine out. Cooking at home allows us more control what we eat, letting us choose fresher, organic ingredients for less than what we pay at a restaurant. 

4. Downsize.

Less will be more in 2010. We'll return to a lifestyle of simplicity (or at least head down that path) and pare down the clutter in our lives. By focusing on the basics of everyday living, we will evaluate what's necessary in life -- and what's a luxury. Check out Gregory Paul Johnson's story: After evaluating his lifestyle and thinking about where he wanted to be in 30 years, he moved to a 140-square-foot home. 

5. Seek value.

As we downsize, we'll buy less and put more thought into our purchases. We'll opt for quality products that will last longer, and we'll put more stock into repairing and maintaining our goods rather than throwing away and buying new.

6. Borrow, don't buy.

In the continuing search to save a buck, Americans will use all their resources, including their neighbors. Instead of buying new tools, we'll ask our neighbors if we can borrow theirs, and in the process we'll reconnect with those around us. New online resources such as Craigslist and NeighborGoods will make it easier to find what we need.

7. Invest in energy-saving appliances.

"Energy efficiency" was a key phrase in 2009 and one that consumers will put into even greater action in 2010 by choosing energy-saving appliances for their homes. More people will purchase energy-efficient appliances as an economic stimulus plan similar to Cash for Clunkers makes it easier and more economical.

8. Save water.

Americans will become more conscious of water usage and will make an effort to save water through rainwater catchment, graywater systems, and

low-flow toilets and showerheads

9. Harness the sun.

Residential solar power will be big in the upcoming year. With better technology and more options for obtaining solar power, more Americans will harness the sun's power to fuel their homes' energy needs.

10. Buy green.

More Americans are seeing the value in nontoxic, all-natural products. Green cleaners will become even more populat in 2010. Recycled, upcycled, organic, eco-friendly and fair-trade products will all be big in 2010. A note of warning, however: As green products become more popular, so will greenwashing. The GoodGuide, a website and iPhone application, examines 75,000 products, making it easier to find products that are truly green.

Article by Robyn Griggs Lawrence Courtesy of Huffingtonpost.com See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robyn-griggs-lawrence/2010-predictions-simpler_b_414638.html