Your energy independent world (grab a paddle)

It’s the last day of Energy Independence Month here on the Sungevity blog though, of course, at Sungevity, we celebrate Energy Independence 365 days a year.  We’ve laid out a vision for an energy-independent home, community and nation.  For our last installment, we’ll take a look at some features of an energy independent global economy.

The alert reader might now be asking whether an energy-independent global economy is a contradiction in terms.  Bingo!  While the internet will keep us all socially and culturally interconnected, the global economy as we know it will of necessity contract as global oil supplies grow scarce.

Our future ability to continue shipping products around the globe hinges on the deployment of technologies that barely exist yet, like “bio-hydrogen” ships that run on seaweed, solar and tidal power.  Or maybe we’ll return to good old-fashioned sailing vessels.  Do I hear canoes?  Hopefully, we’ll figure out how to move ships around without oil (or oars) before the oil runs out.  But, since nothing has the energy density of oil, the best case scenario is a radically scaled-down global trade network where only essential goods and materials are shipped long distances.  We in California might still be able to get lithium from Bolivia for our electric vehicle batteries but we can forget about importing cantaloupes from Chile and vacationing in Prague.

As many post-carbon visionaries have pointed out, there’s an important upside to what, from our current vantage point, looks like a future defined by scarcity and uncertainty:  We will have to rediscover the meaning of local community and self-reliance.  We will of necessity look to our neighbors and community to share resources and learn skills (and we’ll also get to learn from distant communities through the internet which is a huge advantage).

We and our children will get to experience something that most of the Baby Boomer generation never did–the satisfaction that comes from providing for at least some of our own needs versus the depressing disempowerment of acquiring things by simply pressing buttons, flipping switches and turning ignitions.  Our lives will have greater meaning even as our material wealth dwindles.

–Erica Etelson

Local heroes

Stanley Dudley, Ellensburg solar investor

What would you do if you were passionate about solar energy but couldn’t afford to buy panels for your house?  You would lease panels from Sungevity, of course, but let’s say you rent your home or live in a state not served by Sungevity.  If you’re like 90 residents (1% of all homeowners) of Ellensburg, Washington, you would pony up a few thousand dollars to invest in a community solar project.

That’s right, the tiny city of Ellensburg owns its own solar power generating station that powers 25 nearby homes.  The station already generates 58 kw of solar electricity and is in the process of adding another 24 kw.  Investors are paid back quarterly over a 20-year period.

Ellensburg’s solar power array by itself is small fry.  But it’s a testament to the power of innovation and dedication demonstrated by the project’s architects and investors. Undaunted by naysayers, these folks cared enough about our energy and climate future to do their bit.  Imagine if 1% of the population of NYC or Los Angeles did the same.

–Erica Etelson

Hot enough for you?

If you’re like most people who live anywhere other than Alaska or San Francisco, you spend 20% of your utility bill on air conditioning.  You can shave quite a bit off that bill by installing a whole house fan.

According to Consumer Reports, installing a whole house fan is particularly effective in dry climates that are hot during the day and cool off at night.  Whole house fans are pretty simple–they draw in cool air and force out hot air. If used in conjunction with air conditioning, the A/C won’t have to work nearly as hard to keep the house cool.

Larger fans run more quietly especially if installed with rubber or felt gaskets.  And be sure to also install an airtight cover over the opening so that you don’t have heat loss in the winter.

Many utilities offer rebates for whole house fans so check into that before buying.  For more ways to cope with summer heat without destroying the planet, check out the EPA’s list of low-cost and no-cost tips.

–Erica Etelson

Sungevity, Honored to be a 2010 Social Venture Network Innovation Award Winner!

Here at Sungevity we are proud to be included in the 2010 Innovation Awards held by the Social Venture Network. Our fellow 2010 recipients are:

BTTR Ventures, Berkeley, CA

BTTR Ventures grows delicious specialty mushrooms in coffee grounds waste collected from local cafes. Once harvested, the mushrooms are rushed to stores just hours after picking. BBTR Venture’s closed-loop agricultural model has already turned 50,000 pounds of coffee grounds into 7,500 pounds of gourmet mushrooms and even more compost.

Green For All, Oakland, CA

Green For All is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through a clean energy economy. Green For All works in collaboration with the business, government, labor, and grassroots communities to create and implement programs that increase quality jobs and opportunities in green industry – all while holding the most vulnerable people at the center of the agenda.

Hot Bread Kitchen, Brooklyn NY

Hot Bread Kitchen is a nonprofit social enterprise that creates better lives for low-income women and their families by paying women while they learn the skills necessary to launch food businesses and achieve management track positions in bakeries. To help offset costs, Hot Bread Kitchen sells delicious multi-ethnic breads inspired by the bakers and the many countries that they come from using local and organic ingredients when possible.

KOMAZA, San Francisco, CA and Kenya

KOMAZA is a non-profit social enterprise committed to reducing rural poverty in Africa by connecting smallholder farmers with high-value markets. KOMAZA offers high-value trees with financial, training and marketing services to enable poor farmers to incorporate sustainable forestry business into their regular farming cycle. Working in areas affected by desertification, the forestry projects also have measurable environmental impacts.

About Social Venture Network

Social Venture Network inspires a community of business and social leaders to build a just economy and sustainable planet.

We work to achieve this mission by

• Providing forums, information, and initiatives that enable leaders to work together to transform the way the world does business
• Sharing best practices and resources that help companies generate healthy profits and serve the common good
• Supporting a diverse community of leaders who can effect positive social change through business
• Creating a vibrant community that nourishes deep and lasting friendships
• Producing unique conferences that promote the exchange of ideas and encourage the development of relationships and partnerships
• Offering programs that support the spiritual, professional, and personal development of our members

(Source: Social Venture Network)

Sierra Club Teams With Sungevity to Help Homeowners Achieve Energy Independence

Local event to raise awareness about home solar systems and the environment

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 22 /PRNewswire/ — The Sierra Club today announced “The Truth About Solar,” a green home technology workshop designed to teach local homeowners about residential rooftop solar energy. This is the second in a series of Green Home Workshops the Sierra Club is offering free to the public. Danny Kennedy, Sungevity founder and 12-year veteran of Greenpeace, will lead the discussion.

The workshop is designed to teach homeowners about solar and the environment and help them decide whether solar is right for their homes. Topics such as calculating installation costs, energy savings and carbon footprint reduction will be covered. Solar system financing programs like the no money down solar lease will be covered along with programs that are available from the government in the form of rebates and incentives.

“Solar energy is a critical part of America’s drive toward energy independence,” said Larry Reed, chapter director of the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta chapter. “It is a renewable resource that reduces home energy bills while being good for the environment.”

Danny started his work with Greenpeace in the 1990s where he worked to protect a fragile ecosystem in Africa from an oil project. He has worked as an activist for his entire career to protect the environment and encourage renewable sources of energy. Danny’s interest in solar began in the late 90s, when he worked on campaigns and helped to pass legislation supporting solar initiatives in California and in 2007, Danny founded Sungevity with the idea in mind to make solar powered homes a reality in the US.

“We have helped over 500 homeowners in California, Arizona and Colorado install solar systems and we understand the complexities they face when deciding how they can create energy efficient homes,” said Danny Kennedy, founder of Sungevity. “The great thing about residential solar today is that the technology has come a long way and power can be generated for less than $.20 per Kilowatt Hour and with finance programs that offer no money down leases, homeowners that decide to go solar can start saving money on energy bills immediately.”

Event Details

When: Tuesday, July 27th at 7:00 p.m.

Where: Belmont Library – 1110 Alameda de las Pulgas

Cost: Free- all are welcome

More info: http://greenhometechnology.wordpress.com/

About The Sierra Club, Loma Prieta Chapter

The Sierra Club, Loma Prieta Chapter is a multifaceted outdoor recreation and advocacy organization. The chapter advocates for policies that protect the natural environment, supports environmental candidates for public office and provides opportunities for people who want to develop leadership skills to give back to their communities. It serves San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Benito counties. The chapter’s Black Mountain Group is spearheading the Green Home Technology Workshops.

About Sungevity
Sungevity has designed a unique online sales process to make it easy and affordable for homeowners to go solar. Sungevity’s Solar Lease offer gives most customers savings from the start. For many the electricity bill savings start immediately and increase over time. Sungevity has an easy online “iQuote” process, which enables Sungevity to use satellite images and aerial photography to assess customers’ roofs remotely and accurately determine the homes’ solar potential. This allows the company to furnish thousands of customers with a firm proposal to use solar power with no capital cost within 24 hours.

The Merkley Diet

Your house is in order, your neighborhood an ecotopia. Now, how about the rest of the country? I was all set to spend a few hours dreaming up a vision for an energy independent nation, but it turns out Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has already done it. Merkley’s “Now or Never” Oil Independence Plan calls for the United States to go on an 8.3 million barrel-a-day oil diet and eliminate all non-North American foreign oil imports by 2030.

Two recent news items underscore the urgency of the energy crisis. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 13 that the Department of Energy has delayed plans to shore up its crude oil inventories, the accuracy of which has been harshly criticized by an independent consulting firm.  So basically, we have no idea how much oil we’ve got stockpiled.  Imagine if banks didn’t know how much money they were lending and suddenly found themselves insolvent (oh yeah, I guess that happened). It goes without saying that our government needs to know how much oil we’ve got well before the bottom of barrel is in sight.  The other clarion call came from insurance giant Lloyd’s of London, which issued a report last week warning of an impending oil crunch that will have “catastrophic consequences” for businesses caught unprepared for soaring oil prices.

Senator Merkley’s oil diet focuses on fuel efficiency-if we simply incentivize the manufacture of electric vehicles and bring fuel efficiency standards back up to where they were during the 1970s oil crisis, we’ll save 3.2 billion barrels of oil a day. Do the math-3.2 billion barrels of oil painlessly saved and we’re already more than a third of the way there-sweet! Another painless 2 billion barrels a day can be saved with hybrid and fuel-efficient trucks, tractors, trains, planes and other heavy vehicles.

The remaining 3 billion barrels a day will require us to invest in high speed rail (to replace short haul flights) and to redesign our cities for walkability and mass transit. Merkley would also empower the President to appoint a National Council on Energy Security which would work with EPA and the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Commerce and Defense. Good call-a coordinated approach to energy independence is vital.

I would add to Merkley’s plan the need to relocalize food production and distribution (given that the average morsel of food travels 1500 miles from farm to fork) and to invest heavily in building efficiency and renewable sources of electricity. What’s electricity got to do with our oil addiction? Well, if Merkley’s dream of a fleet of hybrid and electric vehicles comes to pass, we certainly don’t want all those vehicles getting charged up on coal. We need a Smart Grid that delivers renewable power to buildings that are prepared to use it efficiently-less electricity squandered on circa-1845 light bulbs, more for plug-in vehicles.

Finally, we need to consider the issue of culture change or, should I say, culture shock. The notion that “it’s a small world after all” is deeply ingrained in our culture-we believe we can go anywhere and obtain products from anywhere whenever we like. But going on an energy diet means shortening supply chains. Surely, chicken wings that fly 6000 miles from Shanghai to San Francisco are not sustainable. And yet, most of us don’t think twice about loading our carts full of cheap imports from Costco and Best Buy.  It may sound like a fool’s errand, but changing our cultural values around consumption is as important to our energy security as putting up solar panels.

Author’s Note: There’s a wonderful book called “It Came from Berkeley” which proudly chronicles the progressive policies and inventions that originated in Berkeley, California (public radio, urban wild lands, integrated schools and, most importantly, California cuisine and hot tubs). We take these things for granted today, but back in the day people dismissed these ideas as unrealistic liberal Berkeley fantasies. As to the 8.3 Million Barrel-a-Day Oil Diet, let’s just say, “It came from Merkley.”

–Erica Etelson

Oil spill begins fourth month

Today marks the three-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill.  How many times in the past month have you wondered what you can do about it?

The Center for Biological Diversity has launched a No More Oil Spills Month of Action designed to give concerned citizens an opportunity to voice their outrage and demand a permanent solution to our fossil fuel addiction.  Visit their website to learn about local actions in your area, tips for writing a letter to the editor and opportunities to visit your senator or representative when he/she is in town during the August recess.

Images of the Gulf devastation are disturbing but, as the late great environmental activist Judi Bari said, “Don’t mourn, organize!”  The pundits keep saying that the Gulf spill presents the opportunity of a generation to get serious about energy security and climate change–they’re right, but only if the rest of us get busy.

–Erica Etelson

Italy is for (solar) lovers. So is Colorado.

It seems like everyone I know is off to Italy this summer to enjoy its pastoral beauty, Slow Food and romantic gondola rides.  Who doesn’t love Italy–the language, the food, the mountains, the 720 megawatts of solar power installed last year.

Italy has surpassed the United States to become the largest residential solar market in the world (next to Germany).  With only one-fifth the population of the United States, Italy owes its solar joyride to the implementation of a Feed-in-Tariff in 2007 (heads up Los Angeles, this could be you)!

But you need not travel all the way to Italy to gawk in awe at all those gleaming rooftop solar arrays and snow-capped mountains.  Look no further than Colorado (gondola rides and Slow Food not included),  which passed a law earlier this year requiring the state to generate 30% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, a standard second only to California’s target of 33% by 2020.  Because of this law, the state anticipates 100,000 new rooftop solar panels by 2020.  With the state’s two biggest utilities offering big solar rebates and the sun shining bright 300 days a year, Colorado’s Solar Century has begun.  Now all Colorado and the rest of the United States needs is a feed-in-tariff, and we’ll be back to Number 1 in short order.

–Erica Etelson

Sungevity says Rocky Mountain Hi!

Sungevity launched its easy and affordable way to go solar in Colorado. If you know people in the Denver or Boulder area who want to tap that state’s wonderful sunshine and political support for solar power in the form of rebates, tell them to go to www.sungevity.com. There they can fill out an easy form then get an interactive and firm quote within 24 hours.

The launch into Colorado with a 20-year version of the Sungevity Solar Lease follows our company’s successful launch in Arizona and continued presence across most of California. We’re bringing simple, affordable solar to suburbia as quickly as we can and hope you can help spread some sunshine by telling your friends in Colorado. Send them to sungevity.com now!

SOLAR ON THE WHITE HOUSE SOON

We were hoping the President would announce his intention to go solar on the 4th of July with a decision to put solar on the First Family’s Home, the White House. We talked to him on Earth Day about the need to send the signal that solar works, saves money for homeowners, and creates jobs and have since had many positive conversations with officials in Washington, DC.

And, we won’t rest until we’ve heard Mr. Obama say “yes we can” put solar on the White House, per the iQuote we sent to the First Family months ago or any other design that makes sense. And to continue to build support for him and Mrs. Obama to do the right thing we’ve been gathering signatures at www.solaronthewhitehouse.com

If you have not already signed our petition please do so here. And if you have you can also help get us more names with your social media contacts – score enough points and you’ll become a solar champ and win prizes. For information on the campaign, and all the great groups that have joined in please check out the website at www.solaronthewhitehouse.com and join the campaign.

Sungevity Shines With Record Results for First Half of 2010

OAKLAND, Calif., July 14 /PRNewswire/ — Sungevity, the leading online residential solar provider, today announced record results for the first half of 2010, due to widespread consumer interest in solar energy made more affordable by lease programs.

Sungevity’s revenues from solar panel installations on residential homes have increased by a factor of 10 over the last six months compared with the first half of 2009 revenues. To keep up with the pace of demand for its solar products and services, Sungevity has more than tripled its team in the last six months, bucking the trend by adding green collar jobs during tough economic times.

“We are encouraged by our results as more and more residents in California and Arizona have made the decision to go solar,” said Danny Kennedy, Founder of Sungevity. “And now we are happy to be taking our sunshine online to the good people of Colorado – opening our third state market all from our sales, design and service center in Oakland. The scalability of our low overhead model is bringing solar to more people for less.”

“We know that the dramatic uptake of Sungevity’s offer is attributable to the no money down solar lease programs we offer and immediate savings on energy bills, not to mention that our customers want to help the environment and feel good about being part of the solution. Sungevity remains the only company to offer customers a firm quote within 24 hours without a site visit – which makes it so easy to see if it’s right for you,” said Danny Kennedy.  “This really removes the last barrier to mass adoption.  Customers can learn at our website, talk on the phone with a consultant 8AM to 8PM, and sign up online for low-cost electricity – it’s a no brainer.”

Sun is Shining in California
According to the California Solar Initiative, solar leases have mushroomed to over 30% of sales since the beginning of the year, which makes this model of leasing systems for homes the fastest growing segment of the solar market. Six months ago only around 10% of systems sold in California were leased.

Sungevity is the fastest growing solar provider in California, according to the “Solar League Tables” maintained by the California government. The tables measure solar installations by total kilowatts sold and the latest figures list Sungevity in the second spot at 1322 total kilowatts in Q2.

Saving Money and the Planet

The 540 solar systems that Sungevity has sold since the lease program’s inception on March 1st will generate 4,343,000 kWh of clean energy each year. This will save the newest group of Sungevity customers over $1 million per year on utility bills, which equates to a savings of roughly $25 million over the expected life of the solar systems.

The environment also benefits – Sungevity and its customers are removing 130,547,254 pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year, which is equivalent to taking 212,413,403 cars off the road or planting 386,939 trees each year.

Inviting Leaders to Lead by Example

Sungevity this Spring offered to help the President and Mrs. Obama by installing Solar on the White House for free – see www.solaronthewhitehouse.com – and recently challenged California’s gubernatorial candidates, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman, to take advantage of no money down solar leases. Both California candidates would save instantly on their energy bills, up to 64% in Whitman’s case, by taking a personal step in supporting California’s clean energy future.

“Our dream at Sungevity is to make solar powered homes a reality in this country for everyone who wants to be a part of this exciting movement. We believe that the number of solar installations will continue to increase dramatically, by 1000% in some areas, over the next several years. We see a future where one day 20 – 40% of US homes will be solar homes,” said Kennedy.

Point. Click. Solar with Sungevity.
Sungevity has designed a unique online sales process to make it easy and affordable for homeowners to go solar. Sungevity’s Solar Lease offer gives most customers savings from the start. For many the electricity bill savings start immediately and increase over time. Sungevity has an easy online “iQuote” process, which enables Sungevity to use satellite images and aerial photography to assess customers’ roofs remotely and accurately determine the homes’ solar potential. This allows the company to furnish thousands of customers with a firm proposal to use solar power with no capital cost within 24 hours.