With much of the US utility market and solar industry gathered in Anaheim for the SPI conference, this will no doubt give the cleantech industry as a whole a major boost. Venture Capitalists made cleantech the top funding market for Q3, but were having trouble raising new funds. With government dollars flowing, policy driving cleantech adoption and a slowly improving economy, it is only a matter of time before we start seeing the health of VC and private equity fund raises improve as LPs jump back on the cleantech bandwagon.
The news will also inject even more life into the GreenBeat 2009 event in November, where leaders in smart grid policy, technology and adoption will get together to discuss the market environment for 2010. Al Gore and others will be keynoting the event and Schwartz is a Silver Sponsor.
For updates at Solar Power, follow @jasonmorris and I'll try to report back on major happenings at the show.
Important news yesterday that the Treasury Department has granted more than $500 million in grants to some major cleantech projects, most of them related to wind power. These grants are in cash versus the traditional 30 percent tax credit that companies had been receiving. Expect solar, wind and biofuels projects to receive additional funding in the coming months.
With new cash flowing in from the government, green VCs and foreign investors, the market is looking at a major rebound in Q4 and 2010. All of the positive news around financing should help offset falling solar panel prices, declining wind patents and biofuel production snafus, leading to a better green PR environment in the coming months.
Interesting post today from Camille Ricketts at VentureBeat discussing how solar demand in Europe and Asia is on the rise amid falling prices, whereas the US has yet to heat up. The post tosses out some cost per watt statistics from abroad (which may annoy those that would like to see $/kwh or levelized cost of electricity--LCOE--used as the metric), presenting China as the cost leader.
Like I've been hearing from the Intersolar conferences, Ricketts says that popular opinion has the US catching up during the second half of 2009 once cleantech stimulus funds kick in. Regardless, US companies should expect to hear more solar PR noise from global companies through the end of this year and into 2010.
I'll report back and let you know if the discussion is the same at AlwaysOn GoingGreen, Solar Power International and PVSEC.
This week saw the Intersolar conference come to San Francisco, hosted by a bigger event: SemiCon. And while Intersolar was relegated to Moscone West, with the larger SemiCon in the North and South halls, popular opinion was that the situation could be flipped in the near future.
Want proof? How about Applied Materials exhibiting at Intersolar and not at SemiCon. Unthinkable five years ago. At least their site's meta tags still have semiconductors listed first...
With public policy getting more and more aggressive in its support of solar and a federal government that promises to be very solar friendly through at least the midterm elections next year, you are bound to see this trend not only continue, but maybe even accelerate. I wrote during Solar Power International last year about how it seemed we were living in a bubble (versus experiencing a bubble). The tax credits were being renewed and uncapped, with the promise of an Obama energy policy that would carry the market through 2009.
Intersolar was a bit more pragmatic, as I expect PVSEC and SPI to be this year. But, I think everyone agrees that the question is "when?" and not "if ?" the US solar market resumes its skyward trajectory again.
Some other quick observations:
-Clients, industry observers and media came back from Intersolar Munich with one conclusion: the US will be the dominant market in solar during the second half of 2009 and 2010. This is in large part to a government that is spending money on credits, rebates, etc. while some European governments turtle on spending. That feeling was reiterated by a number of US and international players at Intersolar US. Bottom line: If you are a major solar player in Germany, Europe, China or Spain, now is the time to look at the US market and/or start US subsidiaries.
-A couple of exhibitors said that the Intersolar crowd is much more sophisticated than Solar Power International. Many more engineers, project managers and large integrators. This leads to longer, more informed discussions about large-scale projects and how engineering firms should be building out specifications for projects. SPI is more of a mish-mash of audiences, including smaller time local installers looking for new products and distirbutors.
-I loved the event. One thing though: Does the floor layout need to be so confusing? The 9000 booths were on the lowest level and the 7000s are up top. The numbers are not very well ordered or laid out and make almost no sense. Plus, are there really 10,000 booths? I am originally from Massachusetts and Boston is the capital of unmarked roads and one way streets, so for me to feel that disoriented is a bit rare.
-Are you attending PVSEC or Solar Power International? Tweet @jasonmorris and maybe we can meet while your there.
This is an interesting time of year in the solar PR world because while other markets are looking to cool down post Memorial Day in terms of events and major, non-earnings announcements, the solar world is just heating up. From late May through October, we will have five major solar events in the US and Europe, starting with Intersolar 2009 in Munich last week, that will drive a frenzy of company launches, press releases, project announcements and industry dialogue.
Joining Intersolar Europe are the PV America (next week), Intersolar US in July, PVSec in September and finally, Solar Power International in October. So what's a marketer to do? This is actually a good problem to have.
It's often said that an average PR program is great at reach and lowsy at frequency, but it has long been our mantra that a drum beat of success is better than single big bang. It can be tough to convince executives and board members that even if Solar Power International is the biggest event for the company in terms of focus and region, it is a bad idea to use every 2H 09 PR bullet in one conference blast.
Solar marketers and PR teams should leverage the existance of these events to make the case for a steady drum roll of momentum, each tailored to the audience of the different events. If you don't have five announcement-worthy items for these events, then a good way to look at it is to think about the difference between the PR markets culturally.
European PR is a packaged content oriented discipline whereas the US is a very news and expert commentary driven PR market. What I am getting at is that these events need to be treated as a series in the grand solar PR campaign and not as isolated events, and a creative, strategic PR program and team will develop the tools to leverage each event.
Will you be attending Intersolar US, PVSec or Solar Power? If so, drop us a line because we would love to meet you there.
Much like Solar Power International last fall, Wind Power 2009 had the feel of a boom economic environment on Day 1, with the exhibit hall pretty well trafficked and most people upbeat about industry progress. That's not to say I didn't hear the phrase "credit crunch" during the day, implying that the financial lending thaw hasn't taken full effect.
But what amazed me wasn't that the industry seemed upbeat or that people braved swine flu to come to the heartland of the meat packing industry. What amazed me was how much the wind industry has become a national industry in the US. I don't mean that as much from an adoption standpoint, as I do from an innovation standpoint.
My more than a decade in PR has been centered on the coasts, where everyone assumes innovation is a monopoly. Schwartz has done PR for MIT start ups featuring some of the world's brightest minds, and in Silicon Valley/The Bay Area, the global epicenter of clean tech, technology and medical innovation and PR. Everyone knows that the upper midwest, Colorado, Texas, Southern California and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina have their own pockets of innovation (and I am leaving out dozens of others). Yet, I don't think people give enough credit to the rest of the country for building and nurturing innovation and solid companies.
In solar and biofuels, most of the attention is on coastal business areas (Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc.) that have done a good job recruiting cleantech talent and nurturing the industries from a public policy perspective. I think most assumed the same was true with Wind. They couldn't be more wrong.
Wind Power 2009 is littered with component, inverter, blade, machine tooling, cabling, services, modeling and turbine innovators, from all around the country. The commitment to wind power in the country's interior was evident from the number of politicians, companies and visitors from landlocked America. Heck, Siemens even announced a new manufacturing plant in Kansas. I talked to some of the companies at the event from Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and others, and it is clear that they are helping lead the next wave of wind innovation.
Final note: Kudos to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) for a really well-run event. I was in a mammoth line for registration and it moved quickly, with conference staff making sure people were paying attention and offering help when it was needed. A line half as long at a solar event in 2007 took almost three times as long to move. They also released their quarterly report and a call for a National Renewable Electricity Standard.
The Solar Power International event last week was a fantastic show. Interest in solar is at an all-time high and the conference was well attended as a result.
I am not suggesting that there is a bubble in cleantech. I’ve written many times in the past about how we’ve only scratched the surface of the market potential, especially with a new federal regulatory and legislative climate taking shape for the next four years (more on that later).
I get the sense that the broader world at large is beginning to realize that cleantech can fuel the next stage of job growth in this country, as it puts white collar and blue collar people back to work in Green Collar Jobs. Whether you workin in board rooms, finance, human resources, manufacturing and engineering, or as a roofer, welder, contractor, etc., chances are your job is going to get Greener soon.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
There likely will be a mixed mood when Solar Power International kicks off tomorrow. On the one hand, rejoice at the extesion of the ITC (invetsment tax credits) and PTC (production tax credits). On the other, fear about the impact that a recession and dropping oil prices will have on the economy. VentureBeat does a great job summing it up here.
I am an optimistic person to begin with, but I honestly think there is a wild card here: The Presidential election. Obama sees renewable energy as not just an economic or oil-price issue, but as an economic and geopolitical one. Ten years ago an oil price dip may have been enough to stem the momentum, but with policy makers now accepting global warming as a real issue and seeing the impact of fossil-fuel dependence on geopolitical issues (Russia, Iraq/Iran, Venezuela, etc) there will still likely be some investment in Green. There are also plenty of projections related to the creation of jobs from the cleantech and green market, including solar, biofuel, electric car and wind manufacturing, solar and wind installation, and office jobs. Call it a Green New Deal.
McCain also has made the link between oil dependency and geopolitical issues. He just tends to favor domestic oil and gas exploration and harvesting as a major piece of the equation. Regardless, I think that there will be a commitment to renewable energy over the next four years that may help somewhat offset the impact of a recession.
So how does it impact cleantech and green PR professionals? If you have an early-stage product that isn't shipping then the tendency will likely be to hunker down, cut spend and try to ride it out. I am not saying that this is necessarily the right approach, but many will likely embrace it. If you are a company with shipping product or a solid pipeline, then turtling from a marketing perspective is dangerous since the last thing you want coming out of a recession is to be an unknown brand in an exploding market opportunity.
I'll be reporting from Solar Power International this week and will do my best to capture the mood of the companies involved.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
With Solar Power International (formerly known as Solar Power 2008) under one week away, it will be interesting to see what topics take center stage at the event. Here are some quick predictions:
-Thin Film: No market has been a bigger investment darling than thin film manufacturing in 2008 and so it is pretty clear that there will be significant attention on emerging players in the market.
-Solar Concentrators: The big star of WIREC back in March will again be widely talked about at the event, as companies explore concentrators on thin film, new types of concentrators and other uses of the technology.
-Solar Inverters: One of the current bottlenecks of system efficiency, next generation inverters will allow you to improve the performance of each individual cell or string, eliminating mismatch losses.
-The ITC Extension: The single biggest boost for the US market in 2008 was the recent inclusion of the ITC extension in the bailout bill. The news will result in a much better market for Solar in 2009 with the promise of even more federal help likely after a new administration takes office in January.
-Investment: Green venture capital investment hit another record in Q3 and thin film took a huge portion of the money. Will the financial crisis finally have an impact in Q4 or will the march toward a $9 billion year continue?
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
