Chris's Comments

Eric,

Great article. I enjoyed the SEPA report and enjoyed writing a review of the piece.

I'd note that there are MANY companies forging ahead on SHW Financing. Just to name a few.

FLS Energy - http://www.flsenergy.com/
Promise Energy - http://www.promiseenergy.com/

Thanks again for the article, great stuff.

Chris

Steve,

I agree, SHW should not be installed in places with cheap NG, so it will not catch on in San Diego

The best markets are the northeast due to high inlet water temperatures and high energy costs and the southwest due to high solar resources and use of electric for water heating.

Again, it's about finding the right customers in the right markets and being extremely specific about this equation and realizing SHW like PV and geo is not for everyone.

Chris

Joerg (renewable2008),

Thank you for the comment. I'm familiar with Wagner's systems, I linked to the Secusol system in the in the article. I'm a fan of drainbacks because you can use them and size for solar space heating if the application permits. Also, you're claims about installed costs are backed up by the MA CEC Residential Water database. Link here --> http://www.masscec.com/masscec/file/CSHWR%20Awarded%20Project%20Database%2001_27_12%20for%20website.xls

It seems like you have some nice installations partners that are good business people, i.e. they know how to profile customers to find systems that are cheap to install and offset a lot of energy. Congratulations on this.

Also, I like your goal about costs. The benefit of SHW is on a residential level, if you're good, you can size a system with 90% accuracy is about 10 minutes.

Thank you to everyone else who commented, I don't have the time to respond to every point, but I feel they mainly fall into the "technical efficiency vs business efficiency" debate. For the most part, I only think the technical aspects of the system matter in as much as they impact the business aspect of the installation and the surrounding business. Incremental changes or advantages in technology will not be adopted unless the benefit is GREATER then the transition costs for a business (perceived risk, new training, etc). If a new technology is only 10% better it often doesn't matter (unless you're in a commodity market with HIGH volume) because it's difficult to change people's behaviors.

Chris

Mark,

I agree, the PV industry has been much better at being extremely loud and associating just solar PV with solar. Also, the fact that solar thermal is a mature technology and solar PV is heavily subsidized is to the determinant of solar thermal and for a very simple reason. I'd argue in many ways how a sales person decides to spend their time drives residential adoption. It will take the same amount of time to sell a residential thermal and residential PV system, but the sales person makes a lot more money on PV. How to solve this? It's all about positioning, and finding the right customers in the right markets. Plumbers could, key word could, up-selling solar thermal but most plumbing shops aren't good sales people, as a rule of thumb.

Chris

Ken,

Thank you for my comment. Without getting into technical issues, I think part of the reason solar PV seems to growing faster could be due to randomness. Perhaps the state of the CA market depended on a few swing votes that decided to go with PV.

From an "pure" (if you can define this) economices perspective the "product of raw energy / cost of installation" is INCREDIBLY higher for solar thermal. What does this mean? Adoption is not being hinder for technology efficiency reason, but for business efficiency reasons. The same sales person will make 4 to 5X more for the same work selling PV in attractive markets.

With that said, there are some EXTREMELY attractive solar thermal markets. I don't know about payback (it's a useless term in my opinion) but, as the report points out, the right customers (high water use, expensive fuel source) in the right market (the northeast, and southwest) will get 15%+ IRR on their investment. This is just amazing.

I also wouldn't discount small difference in the technology, that impact a companies decision by impacting how 'risky' they view the technology.

Chris

Rick,

Thank you for this! That is awesome news for the industry.

Best,

Chris

Marvin,

All great points. Another interesting point that just came across my mind is... does it matter what the actual structural forensic conclusion is. I'd argue no, as it's already scared people, especially property owners and AHJ's, much the same you cited the bakersfield fire did. As Mike pointed out, property owners have heard enough stories that they're doing more due diligence and this is stirring things up. I'm not trying to say anyone hasn't been doing their job, etc, etc, just that processes are changing as the industry matures.

Thank you for the comment, I love these conversations.

Chris

Clee,

The roof collapse conclusion was based from a conversation I had while I was working with Nexamp in 2011 with a project manager who worked at the company who installer the array on the roof.

Chris

Marvin,

I 100% agree with you. It's like any other construction business, you must be able to perform the work succeed in the business.

Saying that doing solar design work is no longer a specialized skill, or rather is becoming more common place, does not conflict with the fact that its difficult and must be done correctly. Being a plumber is difficult and must be done correctly, but they're very easy to find. Solar engineers will become easier and easer to find, and as they are other facets of the solar business that are more difficult will then become more valuable.

Thank you for the comment, glad you read through the article.

-Chris

Marvin,

Thank you for the comment. On my computer I haven't had the same audio issue. At what time did you first notice the problem? Do you notice the same thing on this video: http://blip.tv/heatspringtv/the-development-of-the-us-srec-market-5488727

I agree, the SREC does represent an environmental attribute, I believe Sam mentioned that briefly at the beginning in about 2 seconds. Also, fine point about selling SRECs. Are you suggesting people should not sell them? I'm confused on this point.

Chris

Phil,

Thank you for your comment. I will follow up with Sam to have him address your points. Regarding the audio, could you please tell me which part was unclear to you? It seems to play differently on different browsers and I'm looking to increase the quality.

Thank you again for the time you took to post the comment.

Chris

Jay,

Thanks for the insight. I was wrong, somehow those tweat didn't come up in search.twitter.com. It also brings up a reason why social media can be annoying. The person (or PR company) behind the account clearly doesn't want anyone to know who they are. Why not?

Bruce,

Thank you for the comment. I agree with your points if you're look at the issue from a technical perspective, but not from a consumer perspective. A consumer just wants simplicity, that is the theme behind the Bosch commercial. If it's not simple and it's too much of a hassle, it won't happen. This is also why homeowners like PV so much, they can "get it".

Chris

Hello Anonymous,

While I agree that it's possible for a commercial to have a negative effect, I think you're not be honest about the comment on twitter. I did a search on search.twitter.com and found NONE of the comments you claimed to exist. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Chris

First, I'd like to thank everyone for their comments.

On the flip side, after skimming through all of them, it's an amazing demonstration of what I was writing about and the real (and large) problems that the geothermal industry is facing from a PR, marketing and sales perspective. I wrote a post about how the geothermal industry can learn some of PR, marketing and sales strategies that the solar industry has used so effectively to become the fastest growing industry in the country and all of sudden we're talked about COPs, 10 by 10 by 10 ft dry wells, CAPX and OPEX, etc and all these other technical issues.

I'm not saying the technical aspects are not important and I have no problem shooting the "stuff" with engineers, but when we're talking about marketing and customer adoption of GHP, WE NEED TO BE TALKING about the customer! Not the technology. I look forward to everyone's feedback on how we can start talking about customer adoption of GHP and how we should be speaking to the public about the technology.

Chris

How can we better sell geothermal? From what I've noticed the public does not care about how the technology works, but the services it provides. Is there a way we can stop talking about geothermal in technical terms and start talking about it in a way that property owners and politicians can relate with?