SunbitsSass Peress – CEO of ICP Solar – Solar Blog

OK, sometimes I’m cheesy yet I have my right to have some fun too! Today we announced the iSun(R) brand will be revived with a range of innovative pocketable devices for road warriors and urban explorers.

We finally retarget the billions of mobile electronic devices that are always running out of power. Its a new range that will feature all of the chararacteristics which my old friend Po always focused on “portable, scalable, modular”. Each of them will have some or all of these attributes to varying degrees. The key, as always, is the user experience. So if you think of how much iFUN it is to user your iPod or iPhone, it will be just as easy and fun to use your iSuns…

Sass

A pretty cool review of green technology cars going back a century.

Sass

Here is an excellent article on leadership, whether in business or your personal life.

It calls to the true leaders in family or businesses, who inspire others to become more than they could have. Like the tip of an arrow, a leader is simply a reference point for where to go, on its own, it embodies little, yet with the rest of the arrow, it creates a united being in purpose and direction.

sass

So today news that Germany’s generous subsidies for solar are at risk because they are no longer supporting german jobs, rather mostly chinese jobs in the manufacturing of solar panels.

The fact is that subsidies will work…for a while…and only so long as you have a distinction which gives a value to your customers that others don’t. With China now making over 50% of the world’s solar panels, gone are the days where the German government (or any other for that matter) can be sure that the consumption subsidies will lead to jobs. Only by a superior product which the market demands, or quicker delivery which the market expects, can a company in Germany compete with the low labor realities across the world.

So as I like to say “the truth always comes out in the end”, its just that what one sees as “truth”, the other may not. Yet what is true in economic markets, is that the law of nature is as relevant there as anywhere. In a changing environment, you evolve or you die.

Stay tuned, its going to get more interesting if the German government takes that step. Fact is, I am not so sure that the industry, at near $1 per watt, needs the subsidies to promote jobs. I think that if the governments continue to stay focused, as hard as it is, on the savings in environmental cleanups that clean energy permits, then the business case still exists for subsidies. Its just that politicians like to have photo opportunities for their money, to show us they are spending us wisely, and standing somewhere in mid air pointing and saying “we subsidized this” is not as easy as planting a shovel in the ground and being photographed helping a new factory start up.

Stay tuned…

Sass