Ecopreneurist

It’s summer in the Northern hemisphere, and for many, that means going on holiday to warm, tropical locales. And using air conditioning. Lots of it. In fact, in some tropical places, nearly 80% of energy use in a hotel room is for air conditioning. 1200 to 2000 watts on average.

Evening Breeze is an interesting solution: It’s a canopy bed that has adjustments for both temperature and humidity, and delivers it quietly, overhead, using only 400 watts. As it’s focused just on the place where coolness is desired, there’s no need to try and cool the whole room. Simple, brilliant. The resulting energy savings can mean 4MWh, $1000 and 2.5 tons of CO2 reduction annually.

Editor’s Note: The is a guest contribution by Ian Rogoff, Chairman of the Nevada Institute for Renewable Energy Commercialization, and Chairman and CEO of The Helio Group (parent company to HelioPower). This is the sixth post in a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. You can follow the complete series here.

There is a long overdue debate underway in industry and political circles regarding the merits of federal funding for renewable energy (RE) commercialization.

Distinct from RE projects and RE deployments, commercialization involves identifying specific technologies and entrepreneurs based on their perceived commercial potential and financing the respective project teams along a vector towards commercial success.

The types of commercialization activities typically funded include scaling benchtop prototypes to meet market requirements, characterizing technologies to understand performance and limits, testing boundary conditions, designing for manufacturability, testing for real world conditions, scaling refinery processes, among others. Read the rest of this entry »

Why bother improving energy efficiency? We know we should, but how do you articulate why? Of course, if there is an ROI case to be made then the analysis is easy. But really, it seems to beg a larger issue. Is there a reason beyond ROI?

Whatever the industry, managing costs is good for business, and increasing energy efficiency and reducing energy costs does just that. Given rising energy prices and a growing awareness of the importance of energy conservation, a carefully conceived energy management strategy may well be one of the most important steps a business can take to sustain and grow business.

Furthermore, research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors suggests that companies with a clear energy management strategy have a competitive advantage. Companies that lead in energy management achieved superior stock and financial performance over “laggards.” They even achieved significant financial premiums in stock prices over competitors. This from the National Environmental Education Foundation:

Companies have been engaging in energy-efficiency strategies for years as a means to control costs. Increasingly, a body of evidence suggests that companies that take a systematic and strategic approach to energy management can enjoy a broad array of tangible and intangible benefits of interest to investors. As financial analysts and institutional investors come to understand this energy-value connection, energy management is becoming another measure by which they assess companies.

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Editor’s Note: The is a guest contribution by Danny Kennedy, President of Sungevity. This is the fourth post in a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. You can follow the complete series here.

Like a tide turning, there’s a big shift happening in the solar market that many people aren’t really seeing because they’re bobbing about on an ocean of opportunity. The implications are huge in terms of who will get capital and attention in the industry, and the trend should lift all boats and take this solution to climate change further than before. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Jeff Wolfe is the co-founder and CEO of groSolar. This is the second post in a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. The first post was by the CEO of SolarCity, Lyndon Rive. You can follow the complete series here.

groSolar operates in the downstream solar market. We are affected by all the US and global macro economic trends. I describe the current economic conditions as a Vortex. Heavy winds of the economy swirling downward, a huge updraft caused by declining raw material and finished goods prices, and sweeping cross-currents of over-supply and the failure of major banks to provide normal business services.

But within this maelstrom is a gentle wind of opportunity. Finding this breeze, like finding a thermal in a hang glider, can not only fuel a great ride, but can bring your company to new heights. This is more easily said than done!

• » Consumer solar aggregation project launched in San Diego
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Editor’s Note: Lyndon Rive is the co-founder and CEO of SolarCity, a national leader in solar power. This is the first in a series of posts from the CEOs of major solar companies.

Is it May already? Maybe it’s just me, but the media didn’t seem to make as big a deal over Earth Day as it has the last few years. I noticed that Vanity Fair didn’t do a “green issue” this year, and according to John McCaslin on Town Hall, Outside, Discover, Mother Jones, Newsweek and Time cut back on their Earth Day green issues too.

Treehugger reported that Vanity Fair is going to spread its environmental articles throughout the year, and this section of the magazine’s Web site seems to support that. But McCaslin calls it “green fatigue.” I think they’re both right.

• » Consumer solar aggregation project launched in San Diego
• » Get EcoPreneurist by RSS or sign up by email.

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Biking. For most American adults, it’s just not on the radar as a transportation option for more then casual use. B Cycle hopes to change that. And with the intersection of three powerful allies, an economy in trouble, and a population ready for and open to something different, now may be just the time for such an endeavor.

B Cycle is the marriage of the concept of car sharing, as exemplified by Zipcar and the like, but even more simplified for instant gratification, with an attractive retro futuristic solar powered docking station, coupled with additional information to give greater substance to the experience of using a bike, like how many calories you burned and how much carbon you offset vs. driving your car.

B Cycle has yet to launch, and they’re using the web to do some of their market research for them while encouraging demand and perhaps evangelism by people wanting to get it in their area:

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Usually when people visit a winery, people look for various shades of white or dark red, but here our color paradigm might shift to say Green. The recently opened CADE Winery offers not only solar power and organically farmed winery but hopes to garner LEED Gold status and if so, would be the first Estate Gold LEED certified winery in the Napa Valley.

When visiting a winery, people’s olfactory system normally goes into overdrive but instead of inhaling the aromas of vanilla, rosemary, oak and sage here we took deep breaths of the air. As in indoor air quality. No stuffy AC here as the building relies on natural ventilation. Although the wines remain something to admire, we also dig the other green aspects. CADE utilizes 100% solar power and organic farming methods which both look so green and tasty. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the glaring absences in the discussion of how to use social media to achieve marketing goals is the lack of established marketing terms. Since green businesses are big users of Twitter, I think we need to have this conversation!

Traditional marketing terms are just words that have used for quite a long while to name different ways of accomplishing marketing goals.Though tactics may have changed from relying on newspapers to relying on television advertising to new interest in social media, the goals and what we want to accomplish in the end have remained the same. That’s why I find it odd that perfectly good words like “impressions” and “reach” are so often absent from the discussion on social media.

Let’s review.

In advertising terms, “impressions” means how many times a consumer sees your message. This is measured across media. A TV viewer may see your commercial 5 or more times before it registers or sparks their interest in your product. Media buyers calculate the number of times specific consumers see a commercial before making the buy.

“Reach” refers to the actual number of consumers who see your message once. Obviously the more of your target consumers you reach often, with lots of impressions, the greater the chances she’ll buy your product.

And, so I ask, why does this topic not come up in discussions of social media? Yes, people do talk about followers and friends and quality followers and friends and fans and number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, SU, Myspace, etc, etc. This does address the concept of “reach” – sort of.

But what about impressions? Especially on Twitter, we usually tweet a post or an interesting thought…once. And, of course, at least, I’d say 80-90% of our followers don’t even see the tweet…unless it is retweeted. Of course, that is often the goal, but, what about if we tweeted one message a number of times to ensure that all of our key target sees it? Would that be considered bad twettique? Is that abusing our followers? Would we rapidly have deluge of people “unfollowing”? Read the rest of this entry »

You gotta spend money to save money. For energy efficiency upgrades, that saying couldn’t be more timely or accurate.

Energy efficiency programs and rebates are getting a real shot in the arm from, among other things, the stimulus package, plus many other federal, state, and local programs. As a result of the stimulus package, energy efficiency tax credits have been raised from 10% of cost to 30%. The maximum credit has been raised from $500 to $1500, and more expensive upgrades, such as solar panels, solar water heaters, and geothermal pumps are not limited to the $1,500 maximum. The $200 tax credit cap on efficient windows has been removed, however Read the rest of this entry »