SunbitsSass Peress – CEO of ICP Solar – Solar Blog

Big announcements of huge corporations getting into solar cell business. What does this mean?

It means that our industry is coming of age and that the same thing will happen in our area as happens everywhere else when a segment of business becomes more mature and shows its longevity…the sharks come in droves to take it up!

There could have been two kinds of sharks entering this business…the oil sharks or the electronics sharks. Well with Sanyo and Sharp already into it, now Taiwan Semicon and LG are jumping in. So where does this leave us? Well it simply improves the chances that we have cheaper and cheaper solar cells to choose from for our innovative products!

My father once told me, either you become a shark, or be happy to eat their crumbs, never taking their main meal away! So the crumbs will simply become more and more plentiful and ICP Solar’s Sunsei(R) and Coleman(R) brands will simply benefit from those price drops which make our solutions more accessible through greater affordability as a power option that consumers may consider.

Will they buy or build? Well that depends on what they prefer and their own corporate culture. There are indeed some cheap buys out there at the competitive level we are seeing with margin erosion, yet I wonder if they want to inherit the baggage that comes with the smaller buys, or simply build from scratch? My guess is they build their own, with their own IP, yet I can and are happily proven wrong if they choose to buy medium to large solar companies which are not quite well enough capitalized or have a position now which may become indefensible if they wait a couple more years.

Your guess is as good as mine. Care to comment? Please do!

Sass

So here they are building new high voltage power link lines rather than individual solar power systems? And charging $0.20 per kilowatt hour which is about what solar goes for today? Where is the sense?

Not only is the Afghan government now dependant on a foreign power, yet once again its non-renewables and its expensive. It seems that political convenience still rules the day in some areas and I wonder what form of true independance we are giving the next generation when we insist on continuing to use these old electrification models.

Oh well, guess we can’t change the world in a day..so we’ll just have to keep going until EVERYONE is listening…

Sass

here we go…into yet another social network. I started to Tweet and you can find me at Sass’ Twitter if you care to. Will have tons to speak about soon…Q1 to report in about 12 days…can’t wait to show a few people what we’ve accomplished in Q1 !

Intersolar Trade Show in Germany has been a huge success for the industry…and for ICP Solar.

The trade fair was attended by tens of thousands of visitors and occupied 9 huge buildings in the new Munich Trade Fair Centre (aka “messe”). ICP Solar’s booth was busy at ALL times with the introduction of our patent-pending Greenmeter(R) solar/wind monitoring and metering system. Its our first dive into that area and already technology spinoff is occurring into other new products we will launch in 2010.

We showed no less than five new Sunsei(R) items, and each one of them hit the mark. I guess that’s what happens when you properly spend R&D monies, using proper product development processes which consult the customer!

So heading home today (the rest of the team is taking care of the last day of the fair) for a restful weekend with family before taking on another great week of new acomplishments.

Sass

The large Intersolar trade show occurs next week in Munich, Germany and for the first time in history, ICP Solar has its own booth to exhibit our Sunsei(R) solar products. We’ll give live demos of the Sunsei(R) Greenmeter(R) web based monitoring system and also some new solar panels adding to the line for 2010. Its an exciting time with lots of expected visitors and Munich is always a beautiful city to visit.

Many investors ask me on a given day…”what’s up with the ICP Solar stock price?” My answer never varies…I don’t look at the stock price.
At this infancy stage, ICP Solar is focused on driving consumer value through its Sunsei and Coleman brands. We are focused on operational improvement on our path to profitability. As seen in our first earnings conference call, where one of our competitors admitted to having invested in us, we cannot know who is selling, buying or why. What we know is that ICP Solar’s corporate performance is radically improving with each passing day, our customers are recognizing the superiority of our products vs competition (whose product claims are more like a farce in the unregulated consumer market that we live in), and our sales per square foot are better by a two to one margin over other brands.
In the end though, its about profits and sustainability and as you all saw, our last quarter points to just such a path. With increased confidence in our path and plan, I can tell you that I don’t remember feeling such energy in this team and that is translating to success after success in our drives.
Keep believing.
Sass

The world is now going to see the biggest electronics makers go solar. and that is ONLY a good thing for the solar industry, for the environment and for jobs in renewable energy companies.
I know for me, its not just a challenge but an opportunity to step up and deliver innovative products which will satisfy clients better than the rest in this new portable world that we live in. Stay tuned…its getting more and more interesting…
Sass

I see many new announcements of signed up deals. Not like in 2008, but more reasonable sized announcements that have a greater hope of fruition than many of the “pie in the sky” announcements we saw on an almost weekly basis last year. This is the sign of an industry which is maturing, that realizes that it is subject to the macro-economic realities just like any other industry and that it must govern and manage itself using the same principles of other industries.
Solar is an industry that goes up and down like any other. The differentiator is that it is an industry whose future is assured, simply not in the structure which it currently has. There will be continued announcements of closures (one company which we were going to purchase is in re-organization) and acquisitions, yet there will come a point where the scale of the big ones will mean that the only other models which work are not those based on economics of scale manufacturing capacity, rather on flexibility and intellectual asset values.
This is an exciting time in solar. Many new technologies are coming out, many are maturing. Each will find their place in the chase of clean energy and all make our world a better place for our children. After all…isn’t that what its really about?
Sass

BP has decided to stop making solar panels and simply “brand” and “innovate”.
I think that either you are a player with significant capital assets and research capacities, or you are a player with research capacities, or you are a me too player, in which you become a solar (or sun) farce rather than a force in this industry moving forward.
BP figured out it could not go head to head with the people building gigawatt plants or investing far more than what they want to in the game. They were too far behind and so now will simply make it a marketing exercise. Their brand is very powerful, they have good marketing people, and I think they will be very successful.
The people at the low end are being squeezed out as consumers demand innovation and quality. The
“me too” players who have not one iota of innovation are becoming the dinosaurs of our industry. The farce that they represented is almost dead. They have nowhere to go but to oblivion. BP chose to avoid that route by changing their strategy. Kudos to them. The challenge is, unless you are willing to invest, you will die. So either invest in capital assets or intellectual ones…that is the ultimate choice facing the solar industry players who wish to survive.
Sass

A wind powered car? That’s what reached 126 mph this week in the flat beds of Nevada.
Ok, so its not a very practical design for everyday living, however just imagine if we could improve wind turbine technology to be embedded in a cockpit like structure which dozens of tiny micro-motor driven turbines, rather than the one big clunky one above this car? I am not sure that wind-power is the way to go for cars, although a combination solar and wind powered car could be interesting (solar by day, wind by night).
Its great to see so much emphasis on finding applications for renewable energy. And all you have to hope for is a breeze…
Sass