Google Plans Include Becoming Your Utility Company
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Google made it known today it is going to make a massive investment in alternative energy.
From www.AskAME.com today…
by Steve Laurvick
When Google talks people would be wise to listen and so when we saw the Google announcement on the financial wires of its plans to invest in renewable energy we investigated.
Announced was a decision to “pour hundreds of millions of dollars” into alternative energy solutions. They have named the initiative Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (REC). The money will come from the internet giant’s philanthropic arm but Google co-founder Larry Page has the midas touch,”we are going to be in the (electricity) business in a very big way,” Page said. “We should be able to make a lot of money from this.”
Be assured REC isn’t going to be about changing light bulbs or programming conservation into the workplace. Google is partnering with two startups with big ideas eSolar, Inc. and Makani Power Inc.
Bill Gross is the Chairman of eSolar. Haven’t heard of him? Well you should, as the CEO of Idealab, a “technology incubator” as eSolars’ web site (www.esolar.com) calls the parent company, Mr. Gross is responsible for the creation and sale of Overture to Yahoo, Picasa to Google, CarsDirect & a “lifelong proponent of solar power. While still in college, Mr. Gross founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and kits for solar energy products.”
Suffice to say Gross and Page speak the same language and its spelled G-R-E-E-N. And lots of it.
The eSolar website lays out its ambitious but very simple plan as one of creating massive solar arrays that will operate as utilities. 
If current fossil fuel prices hold up its hard to see how that is not acheivable with the backing of worlds largest marketing company.
The other startup, Makani Power, has plans which are more vague. The stated goal is to harness the high velocity winds of the upper atmosphere. How they intend to do that is not laid out on their website (www.makanipower.com) but Google intends to help them figure out how to “produce energy at an unsubsidized real cost significantly below that of the least expensive coal-fired power plants.” According to the Vision statement on the Makani Power site, “high-altitude wind has the largest energy per square foot. Capturing a small fraction of the global high-altitude wind energy flux could be sufficient to supply the current energy needs of the globe.”
If, as the eSolar site predicts,”Worldwide electricity consumption is projected to double by the year 2040.” By that time a substantial number of us will likely be writing our monthly checks to Google subsidiaries eSolar or Makani Power instead of SDG& E, ConEd or Southern California Edison.
Filed under: Solar News Items
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This blog article from Earth2tech written by Craig Rubens does a grat job of explaining why the residential solar market is so hard to tap into,
The last mile in the residential solar market is actually sticking those panels on your rooftop. Sounds simple enough, but as the CEO of SunPower, Tom Werner, noted at a cleantech conference this morning, “50 percent of the cost of a residential system is in the installation.” While that bloated cost is a barrier to putting solar on homes, it’s creating opportunities for a variety of solar installer startups to work on new ways to cut costs to compete in the growing residential solar market.
The CEOs of three solar installer companies that tackle the residential market — SolarCity, groSolar and Akeena Solar — talked about the growth opportunities and risks on a panel discussion at the ThinkGreen cleantech conference Wednesday morning. For one, venture money is flowing into solar installer startups coffers. groSolar CEO Jeff Wolfe announced on the panel that the company had just closed a $10 million round of Series B funding led by NGP Energy Technology Partners. And SolarCity has raised over $31 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, JP Morgan and Elon Musk.
The venture investors are looking to meet the growing demand for solar-covered rooftops, for both residential and commercial buildings. According to solar provider Recurrent Energy’s estimates, between institutional owners and publicly owned real estate there are enough rooftops for 40,000 MW of solar power. Already startups like groSolar are seeing some impressive early revenue growth — from $11.4 million in 2006 to $27 million in 2007, with $60 million forecast for 2008. And cities like Berkeley, Calif., are working on creative ways to help less well-off residents fund home installations.
But as the CEOs on the panel noted, the residential solar sector is an area with a great deal of risk — individual deals are small and require a lot of work. And building trust with the consumer is both time- and labor-intensive. It’s one reason why these companies are trying so hard to establish a recognizable brand.
Residential solar also has highly uncertain profit margins. When moderator Shez Bandukwala of ThinkEquity Partners asked what those margins would be in the installation business, Akeena Solar CEO Barry Cinnamon dodged the question for a bit before estimating “5 to 15 [percent] for commercial and 15 to 25, maybe 30, for residential.”
Obviously “being green” doesn’t justify the installation for these folks. So what’s the best way to cut the cost of installation? The companies have different approaches. Solar City is working on bulk, community contracts, which can reduce the cost of individual transactions. CEO Lyndon Rive explained that SolarCity works with entire communities who have come together to “go solar.” In one community-wide transaction, Solar City makes an agreement with a number of homeowners and can make multiple installations in one deal.
Akeena, compares itself to Starbucks, saying that it’s trying to be the most visible solar company out there. Through streamlining its business model, centralizing the bulk of the business and only having local sales and installation teams, it hopes it can drop a substantial amount of cost. We’re not sure the comparison to the coffee market is that apt, but smart Starbucks-style consumer branding can’t hurt. The company, founded in 2001, went public via a reverse merger in August of 2006.
groSolar, based in not-so-sunny White River Junction, Vt., is in the northeast away from California’s solar incentives and stiff competition. groSolar’s CEO Jeff Wolfe says that their competitors aren’t utilities or other solar companies but rather granite countertops, pool installations, and luxury home improvements.