About Social Media Today
Los Angeles, California
In his opening address to the largest solar industry gathering in the United States, Rhone Resch began and ended with good news.
In between, the head of the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), which is co-hosting the event, touched on a key problem facing solar.
Following Resch’s lead, I’ll start with the good news.
“It’s going to be a great week,” he told the crowd at the LA Convention Center in downtown LA, “building on one of the best weeks solar ever had.”
Indeed, there’s been a lot to celebrate recently:
The Interior Department finalized the first-ever permit to build a utility-scale solar power plant on public land.
Industry giant, Suntech, opened the first Chinese-owned solar manufacturing company in the US (in Phoenix, Arizona).
Of course there was the biggest PR coup of all when the Obama administration announced it would install solar panels on the White House roof.
And Resch’s final highlight: “Solar energy is now the fastest growing energy source in the United States!”
The bad news?
“The fact remains,” said Resch “that we [solar] are still the smallest.”
Solar has been called the “rock star” of renewable energy. So, to continue that metaphor, which musical phenom from a couple of decades ago does solar power most resemble: Milli Vanilli or Herbie Hancock? In 1988 Mi-Vi and Hancock were topping the charts. Today, the former is best known as a punch line (when remembered at all). And Hancock? He recently took home the Grammy for best album of the year – his gazillionth award.
Can solar go the distance, like Hancock, or will it eventually flame out, like…what’s-their-name?
The answer, says Resch, depends on transforming the “patchwork of markets scattered around the country,” into an industry that acts in a coordinated way to achieve specific goals.
At a press conference following the opening session, I asked Resch how important to solar’s long-term success is it to internalize environmental and health costs – for all sources of energy. (The failed effort to pass a carbon cap-and-trade provision in Congress is one example of these efforts.)
“Externalities are huge,” he replied. “Carbon has to be addressed through economics or through regulations.” Not doing so, Resch added, artificially robs solar power of one of its major competitive advantages.
Not surprisingly, CO2-producing fuels (coal and oil) spent millions in the last two years to block a climate bill, in order to make sure that the environmental costs of their products are not included in their price.
Solar’s gain would be fossil fuels’ loss.
Having won the battle in Congress for now, the fossil-fuel industry has turned its attention – and deep pockets – to fighting state initiatives that would benefit the environment, and clean energy like solar. A measure on the California ballot in November is a bellweather of such efforts. If passed, proposition 23 would undo state efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. An article in today’s New York Times quotes California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger slamming the oil industry-funded campaign that casts the 2006 global warming law as “job killer.”
“Does anyone really believe that these companies, out of the goodness of their black oil hearts, are spending millions and millions of dollars to protect jobs?” the article quotes Schwarzenegger as stating. “It’s not about jobs at all, ladies and gentlemen. It is about their ability to pollute and thus protect their profits.”
Resch’s concerns about efforts to prevent solar power from claiming its competitive advantage is evident in the cavernous exhibition halls, where thousands of manufacturers have displays. A woman staffing one booth didn’t want to talk about her company’s product. Instead, she was giving out anti-prop 23 literature, telling a visitor, “this is what’s really important to the future of solar.”
Julie Hamm agrees with Resch, but adds that the debate over externalities isn’t “something you’re going to sell to customers on the street.”
Hamm is president and CEO of the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), a non-profit that, along with SEIA, is hosting the LA conference. SEPA serves utilities. Her members don’t need to be convinced that a price on carbon is coming, Hamm said at the press conference.
“They know it’s going to happen,” she explained, “so they’re including solar in their mix. But utilities are not sure when it’s going to happen or how much it’s going to cost.”
Still, Hamm thinks the industry needs to continue focusing on driving down the cost of solar to reach grid parity.
More on how that can be done in tomorrow’s post.
