Smarter solar power could revolutionize industry

I just love that headline from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat - and that fact that it's backed up by proof points.

Solar micro-inverters are officially here after a long struggle by by the entire industry to make them commercially viable.Enphase Energy completed CSA listing per UL1741 for its micro-inverters, which means that it passed difficult tests and can be sold in the US. This is a market first and signals the beginning of a shift in the solar industry from central/string inverters to micro-inverter solar energy systems.

Most of the investment in solar has been to tweak incremental efficiency out of PV cells or even to get economies of scale on the installation side (Solar City). Micro-inverters represent the potential for significantly increased ROI in solar systems. Enphase has a smart system, including communications hardware and software, web-based anlaytics and other technologies, that represent the best option to date. The product is in beta now and will be coming to market in Q2 2008.

More stories on this:

Earth2Tech
VentureBeat
CNET
Red Herring

Enphase Energy is a client of Bite Communications, where I work in the cleantech practice.



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The New Big Oil?

Cleantech industries should consider the sustainability of their entire business ecosystems, lest they be called out like The Other Big Oil (Palm Oil).

I have a complete posting over at the Bite Communications blog: http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/01/the-other-big-o.html

Cleantech Business Kudos

PR Week included Bite Communications (which I work for) in its Editor's Choice "Who to Watch in 2008" list, specifically for cleantech efforts.

Bite has had a cleantech practice for over a year, and currently works with companies such as 3Degrees, AMD, Applied Materials, Enphase Energy, Sun Microsystems, SunPower, Tiger Optics and Validus DC Systems. These are clients of the US business, and the UK and China offices also have cleantech efforts/clients.

It's been great to be able to combine my passion for technology, marketing, and sustainability at my current gig.

I did a similar post on the Bite blog at http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/01/bite-cleantech.html.