Financing issues remain a problem in solar market growth. While third-party PPAs have become widely accessible and transformed residential and larger commercial sectors, funding still remains a real bottleneck for the small commercial market niche. To explore solutions, Vote Solar commissioned a report looking at the problem in more depth, and exploring (more…)

Shading, ownership issues, limited space and many other factors means that most American households simply aren’t suitable for solar panels. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that as much as three-quarters of residential buildings have physical restrictions to going solar. (more…)

When Garrett Hardin wrote his famous essay The Tragedy of the Commons in 1968, he used the example of herdsman grazing their animals in a common pasture to exemplify the “tragedy” that results when multiple actors, acting independently and “rationally” (in the economic self-interest sense), will deplete a shared finite resource, even when it is in no one’s long-term (more…)

On-bill repayment has received a great deal of attention during the last few years as a potential approach to expanding the reach of energy efficiency financing in the residential and commercial sectors. With on-bill repayment, utilities or third-party lenders cover the upfront cost of energy efficiency retrofits and customers pay back the loans through their utility bills. (more…)

At a rate of about a dozen a week, I’m approached with ideas in clean energy/transportation. Here’s an imprecise breakdown of my response to these concepts I’ve received over the last three years:

2%: Crackpots. An attempt to raise money to build a prototype of some that is theoretically impossible, (more…)

It’s easy to become discouraged about cleantech when headlines focus on one company after another that fails to make it work. Frequently the issue is not technology, but rather management, the supply chain, or the business model. Cleantech companies often have the added burden of creating value where there was none before. Being visionary is riskier than (more…)

General Electric has halted construction of what would have been the largest solar factory in the U.S. due to the falling price of photovoltaic modules globally and says it will focus instead on developing the next generation of cadmium-telluride thin-film technologies for the developers of solar plants. (more…)

Despite being in the midst of a financial apocalypse, California continues to find money to support the sale of electric vehicles. The California Air Resources Board just approved an additional $27 million in incentives to spur sales of hybrid and electric cars and trucks. The car rebates ($2,500 per vehicle) will put the price tag of the Leaf and Volt a bit closer to the price (more…)

Deutsche Bank, which translates to German Bank, is an international banking and financial services company. Headquarters are located in Frankfurt, Germany and the bank has a very large presence throughout Europe, North America, South America, Asia Pacific, as well as a number of emerging markets, in a number of major financial centers, including New York, Paris, (more…)

“Many companies suffer from disproportionately high breakthrough project failure rates because they find it hard to balance execution discipline with flexibility to respond to changing technical and market realities. When executing on breakthrough projects, use detailed maturity checklists to establish flexible yet guard-railed execution paths.” -CEB Views (more…)