Michael Eckhart, the president of The American Council on Renewable Energy (who’s retiring after many years of wonderfully effective service to us all), served as the emcee of the Renewable Energy Finance Forum West 2010. At one point, he attempted to put the concept of “one trillion” into perspective for the audience. A million seconds is two weeks; a billion seconds ago, it was 1970; a trillion seconds ago, it was 30,000 BC.

A poignant example came up in a story about the difference between the Chinese commitment to renewables versus our own here in the US. One of the presenters had recently fought hard to get a matching $1 million grant from the DoE under the ARPA-E program, and was thrilled that we had bested the other contestants in this victory, but he heard the news as he happened to be in China, talking to an associate who had recently received the equivalent of several billion dollars. “We’re talking days and weeks; they’re talking decades and centuries,” he said.

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The developing world, where 44 percent of people lack access to electricity, could soon be one of the biggest markets for solar power, according to participants at the Solar Power International conference in California.

To date, just 1 percent of solar panel production has been installed in poor nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, a situation that Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, called “a scandal for our industry.”

Eckhart and other experts said that in addition to finding financing to help low-income residents install solar panels, a major challenge is purchasing and replacing the batteries to store electricity at night and on cloudy days.

Another significant hurdle is replacing the energy-wasting incandescent bulbs and old, inefficient appliances and computers often used by village households.

One expert who has installed off-the-grid solar arrays in Africa and China said in regions where villagers use compact fluorescent bulbs and efficient appliances the cost of installing an adequate solar array and battery can be 75 percent cheaper.

Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360

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