16 Under the Sun The headquarters of SunPower Corp. are, to be blunt, unremarkable. Located off a busy highway in San Jose, Cali- fornia, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Sun- Power – one of America’s largest suppliers of solar panels to homes, businesses and utilities – is housed in a one-story office park on the campus of its former parent company, Cypress Semiconductor. Chock full of small cubicles and modest executive offices, it’s the sort of utilitarian building A m i x t u r e o f ideAlism A n d p r A c t i cA l i t y: dr A w n to northern cAliforniA, w h e r e l A n d w A s c h e A p A n d p l e n t i f u l, ideAlistic c o m m u n e s f o r m e d in t h e 1960s A n d 1970s to c r e A t e c o m m u n i t i e s detAched f r o m m o d e r n s o c i e t y. so m e o f t h o s e people t u r n e d to pV favored by Corporate America and global multinationals alike; indeed, just across the street is the technology company, No- vellus Systems; not far away Sony Ericsson and Microsoft Corp. have set up shop. The similarities SunPower shares with its large corporate neighbors don’t end with its choice of headquarters, ei- ther: perhaps most importantly, it has its shares traded on a stock exchange (in SunPower’s case, Nasdaq), meaning that it has its business and its prospects con- tinuously pored over and dissected by Wall Street analysts. In all of this, Sun- Power – along with other publicly trad- to p o w e r t h e i r h o m e s ed photovoltaic companies, like Tem- pe, Arizona-based First Solar Inc. and Massachusetts’ Evergreen Solar Inc. – is decidedly in the mainstream. And for the American photovoltaic in- dustry, this is a remarkable position to be in. In fact, the history of photovoltaics, or PV, in the United States has been – and in many ways, continues to be – one spent on the fringes, as a tiny, niche in- dustry dependent at various times on the military, off-grid communes, Big Oil and even marijuana growers for survival (more about all of that later). These days, it’s an industry with a decidedly Jekyll and Hyde-like personality. For one thing, despite spawning in- numerable start-up companies and at- tracting billions of dollars in investments from venture capitalists, large investment banks and American corporate behe- moths like DuPont and Dow Corning Corp., PV in the United States is still an industry dependent on subsidies and in- centives from individual states and the federal government. And despite the fact Rolf Schulten / photon-pictures.com » that mainstream publications like »The New York Times« and »Fortune« consider PV worthy of regular, sometimes breath- less coverage, the amount of energy in the United States generated via solar panels converting the sun’s rays into electricity remains infinitesimal, far less than one percent, the vast majority of it occurring in just one state – California. Still, by many accounts, PV looks to be on the cusp of unprecedented growth in the United States. Last year, for in- stance, 356 megawatts (MW) – enough to power around a quarter of a million homes – were installed in America, an increase of 70 percent over 2007. This year, in the midst of the worst econom- ic downturn since the Great Depres- sion, the amount of solar panels being incorporated into businesses, homes and as part of large power plants will undoubtedly rise, with some analysts expecting a doubling, or more, of last year’s number (see article, page 50). Almost every week there are new an- nouncements of plans for utility-sized projects. And with the price of solar en- ergy creeping closer to energy provided by fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal – a sit- uation known as grid parity, which solar advocates describe as being something akin to Xanadu – many believe that the United States will not only soon become the largest world market for PV, but that America will ultimately turn to the sun to meet a substantial amount of its pow- er needs. »There’s nothing stopping us now,« says Paul Maycock, who headed up the Department of Energy’s (DOE) PV program under President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, and later started and ran »PV News«, an industry newsletter. Which brings us back to the topic of his- tory. If, as so many historians insist, past is indeed prologue, then it’s worthwhile to revisit the evolution of PV in America. It’s a story of sometimes too exuberant opti- mism and promise, dogged personalities, and unlikely alliances. An interesting yarn, it’s also, hopefully, a tale that can provide guidance and a measure of caution as the industry moves forward. Just ask Maycock, who, 30 years ago, in 1979, wrote a best- November 2009
»ıı November 2009 17
- Page 1: A LONG, STRANGE TRIP SOUTHERN EXPOS
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Little product, big comeback An old
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80 Architecture November 2009
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84 In Practice Proposals The perfec
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88 In Practice that are predictable
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90 In Practice System: accomplished
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In Practice bluntly: »We have this
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Events From system inspection to in
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Education & Training Producer-indep
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Internships New internships in the
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Industry Registry Here is informati
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Preview The issue 12-2009 appears a