Mature Solar Photovoltaic Energy

In 2009, the 6.8 billion human inhabitants of Earth went into “ecological overshoot.” This means that the human species consumed natural resources faster than they could be replenished. In that year, we devoured 40% more resources than the Earth’ ecosystems can provide.

The impact of our over consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources affects all aspects of Earth sustainability – climate change, pollution throughout the ground level ecosystem (air, land, water, oceans), forest and vegetation loss, and hyper-accelerated biodiversity decline to name a few.  The more we continue to grow the population using old world infrastructure and methodologies, the less sustainable Earth becomes. At a forecasted population of 9.2B inhabitants by 2075, Earth sustainability becomes dire.

In his landmark book, “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”, author Thom Hartman points out that the number of humans on Earth remained fairly constant until the 1800’s when discovery and use of fossil fuels allowed population migration to colder climates, resulting in accelerated population growth. When graphed, population growth in recent decades is a straight line up from that point. As we now know, the burning of fossil fuels has been a large contributor to Earth’s rapid degradation and is a key challenge to address.

“We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.” President Jimmy Carter, 1980 Clearly, the future he was concerned about is controlling humankind.

My commitment is to the efforts underway to eliminate the challenges to a Sustainable Earth for future generations. In particular, my urgent focus is in making solar photovoltaics (PV) a key part of the global clean energy generation portfolio that can support a growing population.

PV is a mature (approaching $100B in revenues), low cost, clean energy solution which can be deployed as a base load energy source in the form of large regional solar farms or distributed energy generation on residential and commercial roofs and lands. Incoming solar photons are the most abundant renewable resource at our disposal. PV is an economical and scalable PV technology to efficiently utilize this free renewable resource while creating an entirely new economic ecosystem in the global business environment for the next 50 years and beyond.

PV products benefit from a 40+ year technology development history resulting in high value products which have a strong energy return on energy invested (EROEI) profile. PV module power generation features no moving parts, requires minimal maintenance, has a 25+ year useable life and has no ongoing, unstable fuel costs. Solar photovoltaic energy installations are now highly bankable with strong returns for the finance entities.

Unique to solar energy generation, high power output matches the load shape of the utility grid when it is most stressed in the afternoon timeframe.  PV can be deployed in large “utility scale” installations or be highly effective in distributed generation, utilizing rooftops and land close to urban centers and existing transmission and distribution lines.  Notably, recent PV price declines and performance increases are enabling retail cost “grid parity” (same price as grid supplied energy on your utility bill) in over 50% of the United States in the next 3 years.

This site is dedicated to the accurate promotion of photovoltaics (PV) as a key component of the clean energy portfolio, which will solve the many pressing energy and environment problems facing current and future generations. I have provided a glossary and other resources about the industry on right hand side of this blogs home page.

Energy generation of any type is complex, with numerous variables to consider when discussing the merits of each for a given application.  On the blog page of this site, I offer opinions, insights and news in an attempt to deconstruct the complexities of PV and give an accurate view of the many product types, applications and benefits.

“The economy and the environment are the same thing. If it’s un-environmental, it’s un-economical. That is the rule of nature.” Mollie Beattie, former Director U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, United States Department of the Interior

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About Dave Buemi (boo-EM-ee)

I have been deeply involved in the PV industry for the past 11 years as President of Prescient Marketing, LLC which consulted to PV industry companies involved in new technology development, market development, project development as well as financial entities investing in the sector. This extensive consulting work has given me a unique breadth of knowledge as a result of involvement in almost every part of the PV supply chain including manufacturing, product development, distribution, marketing, project development and deployment.

As of June 2011, I am now the Senior Director, Federal Business Development for Suniva. The company is a leading provider of American made high performance mono-crystalline solar modules. Suniva leverages innovative intellectual property which enables increased efficiency while lower cost of manufacturing and final product.

I am passionate about clean energy and in particular the role PV can play in improving quality of life globally in developed and under developed nations, while solving many of the negative issues that result from brown energy generation and centralized energy infrastructure. I found this passion in the early 90’s after being exposed to a 20kW PV project business plan while holding the position of President of a large well known international sporting goods brand. After learning about the large and varied benefits, the technology maturity, the major environmental and health problems of fossil fuel generation, and rapidly depleting fossil fuel reserves, I found my career passion and put together a roadmap to work in the industry full time.

“One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.” E. M. Foster