Solar power for Rs 90 a day
Kerry A. Dolan, Forbes, April 02, 2009
Source: Rediff.com
http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/02/forbes-solar-power-for-rs-90-a-day.htm
Imagine a solar panel as affordable as a fancy new bicycle. A panel designed so simply that you can install one (or more) yourself, just outside your windows, in the course of an afternoon. That’s the concept behind Oakland, Calif.-based Veranda Solar, a start-up founded last year by Capra J’neva and Emilie Fetscher, recent graduates of the product design program at Stanford University. J’neva and Fetscher dreamed up attractive, flower-shaped solar panels as part of their master’s project at the design school. “We created a starter solar system that expands as your budget does,” J’neva says.
Their plan is to sell Veranda panels at roughly $600 each later this year, provided it raises more funding. The panels snap together, so people will be able to buy just one to start and add more later on if they like. The solar inverter, which converts the direct current electricity from the panels to alternating current electricity that can be used in the electric grid, plugs right into a wall socket.
One of the biggest problems with solar panels is the high cost. Before rebates, the price can easily exceed $30,000 to outfit a residential roof. J’neva began asking who really wanted to have solar power and realized it was the 20-something generation — people who typically have smaller budgets but aspire to live greener lifestyles. Most of the interested customers she knows over 30 are looking to spend $2,400 to $4,000 on panels; folks in their twenties will spend much less.
“What our panels do is make a really powerful statement: You’re trying to feel better about your impact on the environment and you’re paying more to do so,” J’neva says. Veranda’s uniquely shaped panels make it stand out, for sure. “The panels are a very different form factor from what people are used to. That could be an advantage, or it could work against them,” says Ron Pernick, managing director of research firm Clean Edge. “The solar industry has stuck with a familiar rectangular form factor for a reason.”
Still, Pernick questions how big Veranda can get if it plans to sell its panels to people who want to make a statement. “Quite frankly, the only way you can scale is if the (solar) offering costs the same or less than other sources of energy,” he says.
Indeed, solar is still considerably more expensive than fossil-fuel generated electricity. In California, for example, solar power currently costs about 17 cents per kilowatt hour compared with 10 cents per kilowatt hour for fossil-fuel generated electricity.
Veranda’s panels will cost about as much as other suppliers’ panels on an installed dollar per watt basis. For its initial prototypes, Veranda worked with SunPower, whose solar cells are among the industry’s most efficient at turning the sun’s rays into electricity. Veranda is in negotiations with a solar cell supplier now.
The next step for Veranda Solar is to raise more money so it can start producing panels. They are seeking to raise $1.5 million. J’neva won a $124,000 prize in September from a European green design competition called Picnic Green, which allowed her to hire a few employees and move forward. She recently gave a short talk about her company at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco and was approached by an interested investor afterward. No deal has closed yet.
J’neva, 37, has a degree in photography and worked in multimedia design for the Port of Portland, Ore., on big infrastructure projects. She later studied environmental design, invented composting port-a-potties for use in the woods and as early as 2001 was organizing sessions in San Francisco to teach people how to convert diesel car engines to use vegetable oil biodiesel.
Her aim at Stanford’s design school? “I went in there to tackle the world’s problems: energy, water and transportation,” J’neva says. A professor suggested she take a look at solar, since no one had taken steps to commoditize it. She learned everything she could about solar, and Veranda was born. If she can raise the needed funds, J’neva aims to work with utilities to sell panels through their clean energy option, in which consumers choose to pay a bit more for clean power. Then solar panels will indeed have a new look.