Friday, October 14th, 2011
The whirl of events have left even the closest market observers shaking their heads in disbelief at how much has changed in the solar industry over the past several months. The solar industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Just how much is the solar energy business growing in the US. Well, a lot if you are counting watts. If you take the second quarter of 2010, 186 megawatts was installed; 2011, 314 megawatts, or an increase of 69%. The irony is that despite this explosive growth in the solar industry and a lot more people putting solar panels on their roofs, solar companies are getting hammered. Their margins are being squeezed and they are not making much money. I am not even talking about the woes of Evergreen Solar, which filed for bankruptcy and is down 99% year-to-date. We won’t even talk about the spectacle of Solyndra, the financial problems of which may only be the least of the problems for some of the executives there. (When the FBI comes knocking on your door, they are usually not bringing gifts.) If you are or were an investor in solar energy stocks, don’t even look at your stock holdings unless you want to barf up your breakfast. But if you are a homeowner interested in a home solar panel system, you may still be smiling as prices have come way down.
Tags: discount solar panel, evergreen solar, grant program, home solar panels, investment tax credit, solar companies, solar energy business, solar energy companies, solar energy stocks, solar incentives, solar panels, state incentives
Posted in Solar Home Panels, Solar Policy & Incentives | Comments Off
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
You think that the solar industry is just emerging. Well, you may be right, but don’t tell that to the people who have been on the solar home tours for the past 21 years. The 21st Annual Metro Washington, D.C. Tour of Slar and Green Homes took place this past weekend, and if you missed this solar home tour or the one in your area, then you missed out on seeing some of the vibrant solar homes that have taken the solar challenge. This year’s solar home tours, like the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall a week before, was not blessed with sunny weather, but that did not deter the spirits of those who wanted to check out the solar home panels, and solar water heater systems throughout the DC metro region. Despite the rain, solar homeowners were eager to show off their energy efficient houses and to show that, even when it is not sunny, their solar arrays help save on energy costs.
Tags: energy efficient houses, home solar panels, Solar Decathlon, solar heating systems, solar home, Solar Home Panel, solar home tour, solar homes, solar industry, solar thermal panels, Solar Water Heater
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Events, Solar Home Panels | Comments Off
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
The Solar Decathlon is an event sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, in which students from around the world design, build and operate solar-powered and energy-efficient houses. The team with the house that best incorporates elements such as design excellence, affordability, customer appeal and maximum energy efficiency, wins the competition. The event is meant to educate both the public and the students involved in the project of energy and energy efficiency. The first day of the Solar Decathlon was rainy, which did not deter the visitors as they waited in line to visit each house and discover what made it so special. Fortunately, the rain did not dampen the spirits of the crowds and was no deterrent to this solar event.
Tags: energy efficient houses, home solar panels, Solar Decathlon, solar home, solar homes, solar panels, solar water heaters
Posted in Solar Events | Comments Off
Monday, August 8th, 2011
SolarTown is pleased to be the host of the premier solar forum Solar Panel Talk. Hosting this solar forum is another way that we can help our customers get the information that they need to get the proper solar panels and other solar energy products that they need. If you have a question about setting buying a solar panel system for your home, or about setting up the system, or what you need to order, then you should join the solar forum and post your question. Likewise, If you enjoy sharing your experiences with other homeowners or installers, then you should visit SolarPanelTalk.com and answer questions from the many other homeowners who need guidance about their home solar panels.
Tags: home solar panels, Solar Energy Products, Solar Forum, solar panel system, solar pv
Posted in Solar Home Panels, SolarTown Current Affairs | Comments Off
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
If you have a home with solar panels and next door you have a home without solar panels, you would expect that there should be a premium for the home with solar panels. So you have just sunk $20,000 for your solar panel system—and you will get some of that back from incentives, but will you be able to recoup any of your out of pocket cost if you move in a year. If the useful life of the solar energy on the home is 25 years, and we use a discount rate of 5% per year, then the economic value of the solar panel system you have on your home is $11,000. All things being equal, and assuming that the market is rational, a purchaser of your home should pay an additional $11,000 over what the house next door is selling for without solar panels on the roof. You would expect that you would recoup at least the present value of the energy savings over the next 25 years if you go sell your home. There is scant evidence out there and we at SolarTown wanted to see if this assumption was correct. Accordingly, we are now completing a study to see whether homeowners do indeed receive a premium for the “solar savings” of having a solar energy system on the home. We are about to release the results of a study on this issue. Stay tuned to the SolarTown Learning Center to see the results.
Tags: energy savings, home solar panels, Solar Energy System, solar panel system, solar panels, solar panels for home, solar premium, solar savings
Posted in Solar Financing, Solar Home Panels, Solar Policy & Incentives | 2 Comments »
Monday, April 11th, 2011
The debate continues whether solar modules are essentially fungible commodities or whether they are subject to differentiation. We at SolarTown come down firmly on the side of differentiation among solar panels, but we recognize that there is another side of the story. We have heard from many installation companies who tell us that cost is the primary driver in their decision to purchase solar panels for installation. We have started to hear from manufacturers who are betting that consumers will pay more for home solar panels for an improved product. You may be able to get a superior solar module for less than a 10% premium—now seeing that you may have these solar panels on your home for 25 years, we think that this premium is a price worth paying.
Tags: Conergy Solar Panels, Discount Solar Panels, home solar panels, module manufacturers, Price Competition, pv modules, solar module, solar modules, Solar Panel Differentiation, trina, Yingli
Posted in Solar Home Panels | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
An investment analyst calls SolarTown, inquiring about trends in the solar panel market for 2011, particularly the supply of modules. It reminds me of the study I heard about in business school that if you ask 100 of the leading economists whether interest rates will rise or fall, 42% will get it right. You can pay a lot of money for analyst reports, but with the solar energy market expanding rapidly and incentives seemingly changing day to day, it is hard to predict supplies. That has been a challenge for us, especially last year, but we think that we did well by our customers to secure modules at good prices.
Tags: buy solar panels, Discount Solar Panels, energy market, excess supply, home solar panels, solar energy, solar industry, solar modules, solar panels
Posted in Solar Home Panels | Comments Off
Monday, March 21st, 2011
We should say right up front that we generally have a bias in favor of microinverters. Most of the solar energy systems that we sell at SolarTown are sold with microinverters rather than central inverters. We have explained in our learning article explaining inverters and micro inverters why generally we favor microinverters in the residential solar market. Our recommendation, however, may be tempered by our recent experience dealing with customer care of the leading microinverter manufacturer, Enphase. Microinverters have quickly garnered acceptance especially for solar installations on homes. Although we expect some major competition starting this year, Enphase is undoubtedly the leader of this fast expanding market, and as of this writing, is the only microinverter we carry at SolarTown. We may have not been as sensitive to the reliability issue of microinverters, or particularly the Enphase microinverter, until one of the Enphase parts failed on one of our customer’s installations. The part that failed was the Enphase Envoy, which is, according to Enphase, the “communications gateway” for the solar energy system. It basically monitors the performance of the system.
Tags: central inverters, Enphase, Enphase warranty, home solar panels, Microinverters, reliability issues, Solar Energy Systems, solar homes, solar modules
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Home Panels | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
As the blizzard batters almost a third of the country, solar energy may not be the first thing on people’s mind. Our customers who install solar energy system in the Midwest are best staying out of harm’s way as the sun is not going to be casting its rays on solar panels in the US today. That is one of the oddities about solar energy: you need the sun to produce electricity. And when it is safe to go outside, probably the homeowners with solar panels on their roofs will be trying to sweep (please don’t shovel) the snow off their solar panels for two very good reasons. As you start digging out from the big storm, start thinking about design your solar energy systems for the spring.
Tags: battery backups, Chinese Solar Panels, home solar panels, home solar power, home solar power system, photovoltaic systems, Solar Energy System, solar panels, Solar Panels and Snow, Solar Panels Made in the US, solar power system
Posted in Solar Home Panels | Comments Off
Friday, December 17th, 2010
These are some of the highlights of the year gone by and an outlook of things to come for 2011. The solar industry has waited to find out what would be the fate of the Treasury Grant program. If you haven’t tuned in for this debate, this development is very good news for the renewable energy industry. The solar industry had another stellar growth year. A recent report predicted that the industry will grow as much as 22% in 2010, when all of the numbers (modules) have been counted. The one gnawing issue is that the solar industry is quickly becoming a Chinese industry, as even today the Chinese own 66% of world production. It was a better year to put home solar panels on your roof than investing in solar stocks. Morningstar says that solar investors “could be in for a rude awakening come 2011.” The biggest change in the industry came with the micro-inverter. Sure, solar panel efficiencies improved, which means more output for the buck, and the price of PV came down, but the biggest change in the industry came with the industry acceptance for residential PV installation of the micro-inverter. Enphase is no doubt the market leader, but there are many, many wanabees and the competition for micro-inverters will heat up in 2011. The other major shift we saw in the industry is that regardless of whether the homeowner gets a micro-inverter, the homeowner almost invariably wants to get monitoring of the solar energy system.
Tags: Discount Solar Panels, Financing Solar Energy Systems, grant program, home solar panels, pace programs, renewable energy industry, solar energy, Solar Energy Systems, solar industry, solar installations, Solar Leasing, Solar Loan Program, Treasury Grant Program
Posted in Solar Home Panels, Solar Policy & Incentives, SolarTown Current Affairs | Comments Off
