Ucilia's Comments

@Scotto: Point taken. I usually explain the difference between MW and MWh in storage for other publications, and I'll do that for REW from now, too. The numbers I listed for various projects were meant to be a quick snapshot of what Xtreme's got going and not meant to be a discussion of each project's power and energy and the services it'll be providing.

The 36MW project for Duke's wind farm will have 24MWh of capacity. I can get more details the next time I report on the project.

@Scotto: You are wrong. MW does mean something, and so does MWh. It depends on customers and the services they want from energy storage. You will see a discussion about MW v. MWh in my video interview with Xtreme Power (above).

@kevinmclements: I agree that PV's pricing has made concentrating solar thermal less appealing to developers. But if a solar panel maker wants to do an IPO today, it's not going to get any better reception than BrightSource did. First Solar, SunPower and others continue to post losses, and their stocks are trading at depressing prices.

@Sasa-Marinic: I think there wasn't an urgent need for BrightSource to raise money through an IPO; its investors would rather wait for another time; and the its bankers just couldn't sell the shares. I outlined some of my thoughts in this post: http://gigaom.com/cleantech/why-brightsource-ditched-its-solar-ipo/

@marco-bonvini: The institutional investors don't lease the residential rooftops (homeowners lease the PV systems). They own a stake in an aggregated group of projects (a bunch of PV systems financed by a fund) and get to take/share the 30% federal investment tax credit against their incomes. This is the arrangement if the investors own an equity stake in the project. If you are a bank who provides debt financing, like Zions, then you'd just get paid the principal with interest like you would with any loan.

@brucycle: I was surprised by his comment about solar being more variable than wind as well, but that was mainly because I didn't know much about wind production patterns. I imagine from his perspective, the difference is a solvable problem by a good storage control system.

mds: Thanks for the comment. I should expand on that sentence you pointed out then and say that while cheaper silicon has led to cheaper cells, an oversupply issue has furthered depressed ASP. As a result, manufacturers are keen to increase their cell/panel efficiencies more quickly to reduce product costs, because they don't expect cell/panel prices to go back up to what they were before 2011.

@mapoberg: The exchange rate is an approximate and not meant to hold for five years. As for the 7 yuen/watt, yes, that goal seems outdated, but that's what the ministry had in its plan. Maybe it wrote it before the prices had tumbled. It certainly can revise the price goals along the way.

@SolarUniverse: Thanks! Sometimes I can't tell if people are having comprehension problems or if I just didn't explain a subject well. I reckon it's best to correct any misconception. Thanks for your encouraging words.

Tam: There are no inaccuracies in my story. I explained what the feed-in tariffs are, and that explanation remains valid. You are the one being uncleared about the cash grant program. It expired in 2011. If you aren't able to complete a project and put it in service before the end of 2011, you can still qualify for the grant by having started construction on a project or bought a certain amount of equipment for the project. You can read more here:http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/recovery/Pages/1603.aspx.

It's fine if you disagree with SEIA and market analysts about the impact of the demise of the cash grant program, but don't claim there are inaccuracies in my story when they don't exist.

@Anonymous: What "trillions of dollars" are you referring to? My story is about venture capital investments in particular. The money is for general corporate expenditures and doesn't include the extra and hefty sums that many companies have to raise to building factories and solar power plants, for example.

@ANFederman: Three links in my story will take you to the page on which Google released some of its research results. Here it is: http://www.google.org/rec.html.

@Brian: thanks for noticing the typo; it's been fixed.

@Clee: Most innovations are tested at pilot factories, which are almost always located in the HQ. But those pilot lines are usually in the 5MW to 10MW size. The dilemma for manufacturers is about where to set up that first large-scale factory and those that follow.

@ecdfan: Why do you think Dow delayed the launch of solar shingles?