Business Models around Energy Efficiency

The conundrum of energy efficiency is that you have to get paid to enable savings.  Very few successful business models exist since majority of business models facilitate growth not cuts.  Here are a few examples,

1. Turbotax or Quicken by Intuit - Both software are geared towards strategies to save.  Turbotax to save taxes (actually recoup them) and Quicken to save money.  In this model, a fixed purchase of a software license enables savings that are almost guaranteed to by many times the software purchase price.
2. ESCOs - These entities save energy for corporations.  By guaranteeing the energy savings to be more than the investment, ESCOs guarantee positive ROI.  Again the common theme is that the user has to be 100% sure that the savings will materialize.
3. Energy consulting or audit firms - While these typically do not guarantee the savings, the approach here is to "sell" the success stories that highlight positive ROI. 

The big question remains why energy efficiency equates to selling "less" of something as opposed to "more" of something else.  The answer might lie in a recent survey conducted by a Energy Efficiency Software firm where almost half of the respondents wanted energy efficiency to cut costs.  As long as cost cutting is the main reason for energy efficiency, it is difficult to position energy efficiency as enabling "more" of something.  Or is it ?


Here are few ideas to wit.  How about energy efficiency enhancing,

1. Corporate profile
2. Corporate profitability 
3. Employee satisfaction
4. Community relations

Can you think of others ?  Comments welcome.

Micro Inverter Market Review

Total Market Size - $2B

• Centralized inverters are virtually all the market today
• Micro Inverters less than 1% but growing fast, more so in the buzz

Players in the Micro Inverter market

• Enphase energy, Petaluma CA - First to production, 100k sold, thought leader; $15M in June 2008/$22.5M in 2009
  
• SMA - Centralized inverter leader; Bought OKE to productize micro inverters
  
• Accurate Solar, Menlo Park, CA - Focus on commercial scale projects
• Azuray - Tualatin, CA - Production target - June 2010, 96% efficiency
  
• Direct Grid - Edgewood, NY - Launched Sep 09, "patent‐pending, closed loop MOSFET planar
  micro‐inverter design made specifically for thin‐film type PV modules. The cost effective
  solution significantly increases micro‐inverter reliability and efficiency"; roadmap - communications for theft control and remote monitoring; rollout - initially through OEMs
  
• Enecsys - Cambridge, UK - me-too compared to other inverters; $10M in funding
  
• GreenRay Solar - Westford, MA - "Solar Appliance" to enable ease of installation, includes inverter; $2M in funding
  
• Larankelo - Colorado Springs, CO - Dormant, seeking funding
  
• Petra Solar - South Plainfield, NJ - Utility focused with pole-mounted solar system as the primary product
  
• SolarBridge - Champaigne, IL - Uses film capacitor with better reliability than electolytic capacitors; Plans to offer 25 year warranty; $6M raised and looking for more
• SolarEdge - Israel - SolarEdge three-fold architecture consists of PowerBoxes™ performing module-level MPPT, a highly reliable inverter, and a web portal for module-level monitoring and fault detection; Powerbox does mppt and voltage mgmt only, no dc to ac conversion; Partnership agreements with module manufacturers and integrators in Europe, USA and Japan, which provide SolarEdge technology alongside their current services; $23MM in new funding
• Array Converter - Sunnyvale, CA - Self funded;
  
• Sympagis (EIQ ?) - San Jose, CA - Unlike microinverter-based wiring technology, the Parallel Solar approach creates a DC bus that operates at a constant high voltage, allowing an installation’s DC-to-AC conversion to be handled by a single central inverter operating in its most efficient range. This approach means there is only one inverter connection to the outside power grid, rather than hundreds or thousands—greatly reducing the need for connection monitoring and management; Joint marketing with Signet Solar
  

Articles

• Why Micro Inverters ?
  

PV Solar Value Chain

2008 Biggest PV Solar Manufacturers

1. Q-Cells - 550 MWp
   
2. Suntech - 500
   
3. Sharp - 450
   
4. First Solar - 435
   
5. Kyocera - 290
   
6. Motech - 263
   
7. Sanyo - 220
   
8. Sunpower - 215
   
9. JA Solar - 212
   
10. BP Solar - 148
    
11. Mitsubishi Electric - 148

PV Solar Costs (to Consumer)

2008 cost/watt installed (w/o incentives)
PV Module 4.20 (60%)
Inveter        0.70 (10%)
Electrical     0.14 (2%)
Mechanical  0.28 (4%)
Labor          1.05 (15%)
Ship/Permit/Tax 0.77 (11%)
------------------------------
Total           $7.0/watt

Solar PV Data

• 2008 Market Size/Installed Capacity - 5.5 GW/15 GW 
• Installed Capacity as fraction of total demand - 0.15%.  Could grow to 15% by 2030 to 1864GW
  
• 2008 $$ Market Size - $37B
  
• Country Rankings (According to EPIA's data)

1. Spain ranked first in 2008 new installations with 2,511 MW
2. Germany 1,500 MW
3. United States 342 MW
4. South Korea 274 MW 
5. Italy 258 MW
6. Japan 230
7. Czech Republic 51 MW
8. Portugal at eighth 50 MW
9. Belgium at ninth 48 MW
10. France at tenth 46 MW

PV Energy Cost Comparison (US)
Solar power costs about 25 cents per kilowatt hour, with the most advanced systems producing energy at  16 cents per kilowatt hour.  That compares with an average energy cost in the United States of 9 cents per kilowatt hour. This low cost makes the adoption of solar slow in the absence of significant government subsidies.