The Energy Orb from Ambient Devices glows different colors, depending on your power supply. Too bad it's only available through utilities.

Are home energy management systems ready to move beyond the early adopter phase and achieve mainstream acceptance?

Not so fast, say a couple of research firms.

According to consumer electronics research firm Parks Associates, only about 3.5 percent to 4 percent of households take advantage of electricity load control services if offered by their utilities. That’s pretty sad, but the news gets a bit cheerier.

In a webinar on Engaging Consumers: IP and Energy Services, Parks director of research for home control and energy Tom Kerber says 50 percent of consumers would pay about $60 for a device that saved them 10 percent on their electricity bills, according to a survey conducted by the firm. (Though 10 percent savings could be a stretch for any device.)

At an average yearly cost of $2,200 for energy, though, that’s $220 in the bank.

A new report from Pike Research on Home Energy Management also sheds some light on this new, increasingly crowded and confounding market—and says home energy management will be a $2 billion business by 2020.

Pike segments home energy management systems into several categories, allowing for overlap, and says standalone HEM systems, such as those not connected to outside networks or smart grid services, will grow from a quarter million in 2011 to nearly 4.7 million in 2020. These include more do-it-yourself systems such as smart thermostats and systems like the Iris home control system and the retro-mod Nest thermostat available at Lowe’s.

Standalone HEMS may proliferate will into the decade, but they are not the most effective energy management systems, enabling about 5 percent to 9 percent savings, says Neil Strother, senior analyst for Pike Research.

In-home displays can save 10 percent to 12 percent if done well, Strother says. Some research has indicated that homeowners don’t want another display just for energy information—and who’s to blame them? But state mandates may encourage more adoption of such systems through utility programs. A couple of our favorites are the Energy Orb and the Ceiva Energy Display.

Networked HEMs that are connected to a smart meter or combined with a home area network (HAN) and can receive electricity pricing signals from the utility and perform home automation functions may be the most effective home energy systems, says Strother, effecting as much as 18 percent to 20 percent in energy savings. (Though we might temper that). Combining energy monitoring and management with an area network and home control will surely increase efficiencies. These systems can be more costly, though, and without a tangible return on investment. Also, part of the hold up has been the slow pace of smart grid rollouts by utilities.

Web portals that show energy consumption can also be effective, though Strother so far is not big on the Green Button initiative that provides energy usage data over the web to customers of participating utilities.

One of the most effective energy management systems, at least for now? Paper statements snail-mailed by utility partner Opower that provide a report card of sorts of energy usage with a comparison to others in your area. And it works to get people to save energy.

CE and Big Service Could Rock

Parks’ Kerber says to keep an eye on consumer electronics devices, because they have shorter life cycles, forcing companies to constantly innovate. “That channel is innovating and growing and accelerating much faster than other channels, and entering into this market is not [a reach for them].”

He also says that if service providers like ADT, Comcast and Verizon, which are offering home connectivity with some basic energy management, can layer more energy management and perhaps utility rate plan information on top of their offerings, that will drive the market past the early adopter phase.

You may also like:

Clean Energy, Energy-Efficient Homes on the Rise?

Energy Harvesting, PMIC Markets to Grow Rapidly

Eragy Launches Energy Management Apps for All

HEMS: Ready for Prime Time or Drive Time?

Green Phy: The Coolest technology You’ve Never Heard Of

Even as deployments of smart grid infrastructure have accelerated in recent years, the once hyped home energy management (HEM) market has struggled to gain traction. Numerous trials have led to only a few cases of industry deployments and to anemic rates of consumer adoption.

Today that is starting to change, and over the remainder of the decade momentum will build in this nascent market. According to a new report from Pike Research, global annual shipments of standalone HEM systems will grow from a quarter million in 2011 to nearly 4.7 million in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.3%. Combined revenue for all HEM segments will grow from a base of $93 million in 2011 to more than $2 billion in 2020, the cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts.

“The home energy management market will make steady progress over the coming eight years,” says senior analyst Neil Strother. “It will be driven by government mandates, utility programs, and a growing number of consumers looking to manage their energy bills. Also, a combination of consumer desire to be more ‘green,’ home construction and retrofits with energy management objectives, and new technologies surrounding plug-in electric vehicles will help stimulate the market.”

HEM products can be viewed in five groups, or segments, along a continuum that moves from paper bills (a mailed statement from the utility showing a customer’s energy usage as it compares to households nearby), through standalone HEM systems, which include some device-level tracking and automated device control capabilities, up to networked HEM, comprising auto-pricing response capabilities, demand response (DR) load control, and home automation controls. Of these, networked-HEM revenue will see the strongest growth (76.8% CAGR), as utilities attempt to drive volume sales of networked HEM systems in order to make DR and time-of-use pricing schemes feasible.

Pike Research’s report, “Home Energy Management” examines global and regional home energy management trends as they play out along a continuum of five segments: paper bills, web portals, standalone systems, in-home displays, and integrated HAN/HEM systems. The study also explores the drivers and inhibitors shaping the market, plus major technology issues. It provides market forecasts through 2020, with breakdowns by these five segments and by world regions.

You may also like:

Energy Harvesting, PMIC Markets to Grow Rapidly

Green Phy: The Coolest Technology You’ve Never Heard Of

More clean energy and energy efficient homes? ... Maybe.

In the May 2012 issue of Nature Climate Change, authors Joseph E. Aldy, Matthew J. Kotchen and Anthony A. Leiserowitz report survey results that say the average U.S. citizen is willing to pay $162 per year in higher electricity bills for clean energy.

The group conducted the study to evaluate support for a national clean energy standard (NCES) that requires 80 percent clean energy for power production by 2035. The group even calculates household cost of Senate versus House packages. Good luck with that one, but the fact that people are willing to pay more for clean energy is encouraging. Though will they do so practice? Time and again consumers have shown a disturbing gap between desire and action.

More Energy Efficient Homes?

In another study on Energy Efficient Homes, Pike Research forecasts that 120 billion square feet of energy efficient housing will be created in the next eight years, in both new construction and retrofits. But don’t hold your breath on North America. Asia and European Union countries are being tabbed as the biggest home efficiency winners.

This from Pike:

Rising economic prosperity is driving soaring residential construction in Asia Pacific, and the region stands to experience significant growth in energy efficient homes, if appropriate regulatory and financing programs can be implemented.  The European Union, meanwhile, represents the most mature market for energy efficient homes globally but will still see the strongest growth through 2020, at a regional CAGR of 44%, driven primarily by energy efficiency and carbon mandates.  Growth will be slowest in North America, where the existing building stock remains largely unaddressed at the moment.

Could the big barriers in North America include consumer education and practices? Stay tuned.

You may also like:

One of the next big things to look for in green tech? Power management ICs (PMICs), says market research publisher Global Industry Analysts (GIA) in a report on the Digital Power Management ICs market.

PMICs are integrated circuits that improve the manner in which power is utilized by electrical or electronic systems—and they are poised to revolutionize the world of electronics, power and communications by enabling the development of more energy-efficient products and solutions.

Streetline wireless mesh network paths overlaid on Sausalito, Calif. Source: Dust Networks

GIA predicts compound annual growth rate of 29.3 percent in Asia, the most promising market, through 2017. And it’s easy to envision a world in which energy efficiency is built into nearly every electronic device, saving us energy automatically.

Power management ICs have already achieved significance in both conventional and battery powered electronic devices, and the demand for power management ICs, which can not only extend the battery life of these portable devices but also provide a measure of remaining battery power, is growing at a brisk pace.

In addition, the proliferation of high-performance products that employ numerous voltage rails and high currents such as high-end servers, networking, storage and computing devices, datacom, routing and telecom equipment, will spur growth. Rapid developments in energy sector, particularly in alternative energy such as solar and wind energy, will create demand for power ICs in the manufacture of smart grids and meters, says the GIA.

Also spurring growth will be Power Management ICs capable of supporting micro-harvesting designs of wireless devices. Ambient energy harvesting for powering circuits should become more widespread in the upcoming years, as technology improvements make it feasible to scavenge energy from ambient sources. An example of this is EnOcean’s energy harvesting technologies for home and building control ecosystems, consisting of self-powered light switches, sensors and thermo-powered HVAC controls.

In another report, IDTechEx finds that the total market for energy harvesting devices, including everything from wristwatches to wireless sensors to laptops and mobile phones, will rise to over $5 billion in 2022. According to wireless sensor networking company Dust Networks, low-power electronics used with wireless sensor networks (WSN), will result in longer battery life, increased data acquisition and even reduced latency.

You may also like:

Energy Harvesting Tech Comes to the Home

HEMS: Ready for Prime Time or Drive Time?

Boom or Bust for Thin Film PV?

How Green Button Could Change the Face of the Smart Grid

Is Energy Management via Powerline the Answer?

Eragy's Energy Pro app not only monitors energy use in detail, but can automate events to save energy in the home.

Energy management software company Eragy aims to serve whatever interest level homeowners have in seeing their energy use and saving money. The company is introducing a suite of apps that work with home control company Control4’s IP-based home control systems, from a free Watt’s On app to a $399 Pro version that allows you to automate actions depending on your energy usage and costs. There’s even an add-on energy game app.

“We’re providing a full family of apps from basic energy management to intelligent control of your house,” says Mark Komanecky, vice president of marketing for Eragy.

Free Watt’s On App

The free Watt’s On app will allow Control4 users to see what’s on—get it?—in their Control4 system’s lighting, media an climate systems—and nothing more. Consider this a bare-bones starter kit, of sorts, intended to make energy management more digestible for homeowners and to help them visualize their energy use and see what’s possible in home energy management.

Eragy Energy Lite App

The $49 Lite app adds whole-house energy monitoring with the addition of a power sensor from eGauge, TED (The Energy Detective) 5000 series, or BlueLine Innovations’ PowerCost Monitor. Users can see the power consumption of their homes in real time, so they can start to understand how to they can save, says Komanecky. There are no histories (energy use by hour/day/month/year) or cloud services with a web portal. It’s  Watt’s On with real-time energy monitoring and no subscription.

Eragy Energy Plus app

The Plus app can chart your energy use versus the outdoor average temperatures (dotted line).

Eragy’s Plus app is $199, plus a $96 per year subscription, but this is where you get circuit-level monitoring, a web portal, histories, cost estimates, graphs and charts of energy usages and costs using Eragy’s cloud-based analytics, and solar and wind system production, if applicable. “This is for people who want to really understand their energy consumption,” says Komanecky.

A total of 48 circuits with the use of four eGauge monitors is possible, and alerts can be sent when you’re about to exceed your monthly energy budget, are using too much energy on a particular circuit or when you may be moving into a pricier rate tier, based on your energy use, with your local utility.

The app also supports Control4 puck lighting and connected Jetlun appliance modules.

Dealers and others can also access a dealer portal to configure alerts, troubleshoot systems, and generate usage reports for homeowners. The dealer portal can also be used by solar installers, homebuilders and light commercial owners of multiple restaurants, for example.

Eragy Energy Pro app

The Pro app works with Eragy's database of electricity rates, provides demand side management and automation features.

If you want some energy automation, the $399 Pro app (plus $96 a year subscription), is for you. This gets all the features in the Plus app, including circuit-level energy monitoring, plus Eragy’s Intelligent Demand Side Management (iDSM) and rules that can be set so energy usage levels of lights, appliances and other systems can be adjusted, depending on your energy use.

Rules can be set up on the dealer portal to configure events based on standard or tiered rates, in which some utility customers pay significantly more for electricity once they’ve reached a certain threshold each month. Tiered rate jumps can be drastic and costly, so it makes sense then to automatically dim some lights, maybe not turn on landscape lighting at night, or shut off devices or systems in the home.

“This is for people who want to save the most energy,” Komanecky says, “and it’s something I think our dealers who are focused in energy management will be embracing.”

A whole-house energy sensor—eGuage preferred ($600 to $900)—is required to work with the Eragy Energy Pro app.

Eragy Energy Game app

Eragy’s Game app gives people a way to engage in energy, by competing against themselves to be more energy efficient that the same day last week. The game app resets itself every hour, so you can pretty much play at will. Komanecky says competing against others may be added in future.

Mobile apps

Eragy does not yet have dedicated iPhone, Android and tablet apps, but you can access the web portal from these devices. The web portal does not allow devices to be turned on or off, however, so you’d use a smartphone pretty much just to check on your system.

The Eragy apps are available from Control4’s 4Store app store.

You may also like:

Can Eragy Make Home Energy Monitoring Engaging?

Eragy Offers Free Energy Monitoring Software

10 GreenTech Trends to Watch—and How to Plan for Them

HEMS: Ready for Prime Time or Drive Time?

Honda is testing its smart home energy management system and EV charging in a demonstration home.

With all of the technology at our disposal today—home control systems, wired and wireless networking, streaming media, energy monitors, automated lighting and shading, smartphone connectivity—you’d think that our houses would be a whole lot “smarter” and able to manage our home lives more effectively and efficiently.

That’s what, of all things, some car companies are looking into. Honda has announced a test home in Japan to try out the company’s Honda Smart Home System (HSHS), pairing it with a thin-film solar electric system, a gas engine cogeneration system, and of course, electric vehicle (EV) charging. The carmaker hopes to use the house to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent.

Honda’s not the first to start testing the overall home system effects of electric vehicle charging. German automaker BMW has teamed with smart grid software company Tendril on a test facility in Mountain View, Calif., to do much of the same thing and work with utility Pacific Gas & Electric on identifying the best rate structures for times when a lot of EVs are charging. Many utilities plan to introduce Time of Use pricing that varies during the day, depending on demand, so peak rate periods such as the time we all come home and charge our electric cars will be priced higher than late-night rates, for example.

As soon as you plug in a car to be charged, it will become the biggest energy draw in your home, and car companies are concerned that a home’s circuitry may not be able to accommodate car charging while other appliances and big-energy draws like an air conditioner or a pool pump are also running, says Kent Dickson, chief technology officer at Tendril, in a Pike Research webcast on Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS): Beyond the Hype. Big loads resulting from EV charging, AC and other demands could also affect utility transformers that serve several houses.

Honda's e Mix Manager doubles as an EV charger, but it looks kind of bulky.

This is where the “orchestration” of a home energy management system—whether located inside the house or in the cloud—will become so important, says Dickson. We’ll need a device that knows what’s on in a home, what the utility rates are, and how to shift loads or otherwise accommodate all the demands on a system.

That’s what Honda will try out with its Smart e Mix Manager that is connected to the thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, selenium) solar array, a gas cogeneration unit, and other systems in the home. According to Honda:

The Smart e Mix Manager obtains the operation information of each energy device and coordinates each of the devices that compose the HSHS, while it analyzes total household energy usage.

In effect, such units will weigh all the variables: car charging, appliance needs, AC, pool pump, how much energy is being produced by a solar array, fuel cell or generator—and make intelligent and automated decisions on the best times to charge the car, lowering the lights or AC to accommodate a car charging, or even using the car’s batteries as an energy resource to power systems in the house.

Panasonic, Toshiba and Samsung showed similar systems at CES as well, and Toshiba promised its own Life Design Box  by the end of the year.

Hope or Hype?

But are these super-smart home systems a reality—or just a lot of hype and vaporware? In its webcast, Pike Research says that despite about 47 percent of survey respondents wanting HEMS and a majority willing pay a one-time fee or a subscription for energy management services, it appears that HEMS for most of us is still a few years away.

So what’s the holdup, if the technology is available now?

Ah, paradise ... maybe. Click on the image to go to the video (in Japanese).

Just look at the e Mix Manager in this Honda video and consider how much that form factor may change by the time it actually makes it to market—and if it does. The device is also functioning as a vehicle charger, but it recalls those early brick-size cell phones from decades past. Surely some product evolution is in order.

More seriously, the two biggest drivers for home energy management systems may well be the utilities, most of which are still conducting pilot programs for their smart grid rollouts, and electric vehicles, which likely won’t become mainstream until later this decade. And that, perhaps not so coincidentally, is when most forecasters believe the energy management or HEMS market will take off.

By 2020, Pike says, HEMS will be a multibillion-dollar business. But getting there will be a slow, steady march. Along the way, look for a lot of interesting developments—and not just from big consumer electronics players like Samsung, Toshiba and Panasonic, but from the car companies as well. And some cool smart home stuff for eager early adopters.

You may also like:

Here Comes Smart Grid 2.0?

Ready for Thermostat Wars?

Top 10 Smart Grid Trends to Watch

Home Energy Efficiency Incentives Proposed, But …

At CES, Smart Energy Abounds

Smart, Connected Home = Green?

Want to get into selling energy management? A great place to start is with LEDs (light emitting diodes), because they can generate a return on investment much faster than other energy-efficiency technologies. This makes them a great first step to selling more full-blown energy management systems.

Jim Sweeney of Hometronics Lifestyles and EcoTronics in Connecticut is conducting a two-day seminar on selling LEDs, mostly in the commercial sector where the ROI is much faster. Sweeney has been a pioneer in selling energy efficiency systems, and HomeTronics is one of the first custom electronics firms to move boldly into selling green and energy-efficient systems. Check out a profile of the company’s efforts here.

Participants can also become EcoTronics dealers (see below). The dealer program helps business break into selling LEDs, perform audits and prepare quotes and receive no-bid contracts through an already-approved vendor in some states.

The seminars will be held May 24, from 9 am to 4pm and May 25, 2012 from 9 am until 1 pm, at The Langlais Group, 15 Morgan Farms Drive, South Windsor, Conn. Registration is $249 per person and $124.50 for each additional enrollment.

What you will learn from this course:

• How energy management is becoming a mainstream business opportunity.
• How LED lighting is the fastest way to reduce your energy consumption.
• Why LEDs will dominate the industry for years to come.
• About the different types of LEDs.
• About the use of LEDs to help business and residences become “greener” facilities.
• Understanding LED Lighting language and terms.
• What markets are available (retrofit, new construction and remodeling).
• How to determine the business sectors that use the most energy and the best way to approach each of them.
• How to determine who the real client is as well as how and where to find them.
• How to conduct an audit to determine the best way to save on energy.
• How to present an effective demonstration and what tools you need to do so.
• How to present a compelling Return on Investment (ROI).
• Where to find local and federal rebates.
• What associations to affiliate yourself with.
• Who you need to build alliances with.
• Is there life after LEDs…Is this a continuing business proposition?

When you become a dealer you will be provided with:

• Timely industry news.
• Branding.
• Preferred pricing on all except special orders.
• Energy calculator: 25% off both purchase price and annual subscription.
• Discount on boot camp training.
• Templates for mailing, postcards, constant contact, etc.
• Option to participate in trades shows (cost sharing basis).
• Opportunity to participate in preferred vendor programs in Energy Management.
• Discounts on demonstration sample bulbs, classes, other materials.
• Assistance in quoting jobs.
• Dealer webinars
• Ability to have your own website “port-hole” as a part of the Ecotronics website.
• Leads from shows.

You may also like:

5 Steps to Starting a Green Electronics Business

3 Ways to be a GreenTech Expert

Must-Dos to Grow Your Energy Management Business

Green Phy: The Coolest Technology You’ve Never Heard Of

BMW's ActiveE electric vehicle should someday rely on Green Phy to communicate with chargers and the smart grid.

A couple of years from now when you come home and plug your electric vehicle (EV) into a charger, there’s going to be a technology that sends the signal from the car to the charger and likely to a two-way smart meter provided by the electric utility. And chances are it’s all going to be done on a backbone that many consider uncool and low-tech: your home’s powerline.

That’s right. Your home’s high-voltage electrical lines may be the ideal network for energy efficiency services provided by a smart grid. And this is especially true if you live in a multiple dwelling unit (MDU) like a high-rise apartment building.

A couple of reasons why: First, your EV will need to send a signal to the charger and possibly the smart meter, because your car will instantly be the biggest energy draw in your home, and just a few EVs charging at once could overload a local transformer on the power grid that services several houses. Smart-charging our EVs will be essential, and the car, charger and smart meter (or other device) will all have to be in sync.

How does that involve powerline? So far, seven major auto manufacturers—GM, Ford, Audi, BMW, Porsche, Daimler and Volkswagen have thrown their support behind a communications standard called HomePlug Green Phy. It’s based on HomePlug AV that sends audio and video signals around the house over the home’s powerline, only at a much lower bit rate. Green Phy will be able to work with HomePlug AV, and be used to transmit smart grid service information from local utilities over powerline (and bridged with wireless ZigBee, which will be used in many smart meters).

The communications standard ISO/IEC 15118 (for Europe) should be completed this year and will cover communications between the electric vehicle and the charging pedestal. SAE J2931 will be the North American standard.

“We expect the first HPGP (Home Plug Green Phy)-enabled vehicles to ship before the end of next year,” says Jim Zyren, director of marketing for Green Phy chipmaker Qualcomm Atheros.

HomePlug AV has also been adopted by DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), the standard being used in many audio/video components like TVs for streaming media from computers and the such.

Where It’s Going

Are you getting where all this is going? It may well all go over the home’s powerline, courtesy of HomePlug AV and Green Phy. At least in theory.

Green Phy could even be used for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) applications, in which the grid can draw on power stored in multiple EV batteries.

“HomePlug Green Phy-based products support IPv6 and Smart Energy Profile 2.0 (SEP2),” says Zyren. “SEP2 includes application layer messaging necessary for support of V2G.  One of the reasons the standards bodies are selecting HPGP is the fact that it can support IPv6 and has a lot of bandwidth relative to competing narrowband PLC technologies, which provides a reasonable degree of future-proofing.”

Green Phy is also being looked at to get energy information from meters in high-rise MDUs to the dwellings, which are often located too far from the meters, and the wireless signals are impeded with too much concrete for wireless technologies like ZigBee.

Green Phy has power saving features that will coordinate the Green Phy devices on the network so some can turn on only when they need to send or receive—and not miss any data. In addition, it operates at the HomePlug band to avoid noise commonly found in the home at lower frequency bands.

Qualcomm Atheros is presently in beta on its QCA7000 Green Phy chips, which should be available in May. Zyren envisions Green Phy-based light switches and smart outlets that can read energy usage and report that to other devices. He says as the technology moves forward, it will be cost-competitive with technologies like ZigBee—as well as bridged to ZigBee-communicating devices.

You may also like:

What EVs Could Mean to Your Business

Smart, Connected Home = Green?

At CES, Smart Energy Abounds

We’ll Say it Again: Automation is Key to Home Energy Management

Dow's Powerhouse Solar Shingle, made with thin-film CIGS technology, is being sold in Texas and California, but is there enough of a market for it?

It wasn’t too long ago that thin-film PV (photovoltaics) was being touted as the next wave of solar, replacing crystalline silicon, which is used in the vast majority of solar PV panels and whose costs were high.

Not any more. What happened? In the past couple of years, the cost of crystalline silicon has gone down by more than 50 percent, due to a glut of cheap panels from China on the market. That’s been bad for some companies making crystalline silicon panels—and even worse for thin film manufacturers specializing in technologies like CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) and cadmium telluride (CdTe).

“The polysilicon price crash has undermined a large tenet of thin films’ value proposition,” says M.J. Shiao, senior analyst for Greentech Media, in a webinar titled Is Thin-Film PV Dead? Costs and Competitiveness in a Low-Cost Module Market. Though the low costs of crystalline silicon doesn’t mean thin film is dead, Shiao says. Thin film manufacturers will face challenges in the next few years to survive, especially as crystalline silicon costs remain low.

The big question, says Shiao, is whether thin film manufacturers can cut costs, raise efficiencies and scale up in time to compete. Shiao says raising the efficiency of thin film technologies will ultimately lower costs, due to better balance-of-systems (BOS) costs (all the upfront costs associated with a PV system except the module). Higher efficiencies also lower area-related costs like the size of racks required to hold panels.

“Thin film will start to close to close with gap with crystalline silicon, opening a small window of opportunity for thin-film manufacturers who are cost leaders in the industry,” says Shiao.  “By 2015 to 2016, cost differences should come down to a point where they can be competitive.”

Shiao says much of the demand for thin film PV is moving toward new emerging markets like southeast Asia, South America, the Middle East and South Africa – all hot and humid climates where thin films tend to perform better than crystalline silicon.

Thin film is also supposed to be ideal for BIPV (building-integrated PV), though Shiao says BIPV may not be big enough to support many thin-film firms at scale.

Companies to watch in thin film include First Solar. Although the company has closed its German facility, its Malaysia facility has a low per-watt manufacturing cost that is closing the gap with crystalline silicon. In addition, Solar Frontier had demonstrated CIGS at scale—and that the technology can be viable. The challenge for these companies will have to keep demand high enough so their costs are low enough.

MiaSole and TSMC both have high-efficiency CIGS, but could be challenged to survive. MiaSole, in particular, needs a bankable parent. And don’t count out thin film silicon like amorphormous silicon from Sharp Thin Film, T-Solar and others, which will continue to see demand in the market.

You may also like:

Panasonic Announces Eco Solutions for Renewable Energy Projects

Green Tech Hummers, Anyone?

Next Up: Solar Panels from Service Providers

Solar Installs: Can You Scale?

Homebuilders Promoting Energy Efficiency, Net-Zero Homes

Photo courtesy of Solar Universe

Panasonic has announced the establishment of Panasonic Eco Solutions North America, a new business unit of Panasonic Corporation of North America that will focus on the design, implementation and financing of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in the U.S. and Canada.  The new unit also made public a strategic alliance with Denver, Colo.-based Renewable Social Benefit Funds, L3C (RSB Funds) to provide development and financing capabilities to organizations interested in solar photovoltaic solutions.

“Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC) is committed to becoming the leader in green innovation in the electronics industry by 2018, and the launch of this company will take us one step closer to achieving that goal,” explained Jim Doyle, president of Panasonic Eco Solutions North America.  “With a focus on the long term, Panasonic recognizes that saving, generating and storing energy are fundamental needs that require practical solutions both now and moving forward.  Panasonic has a broad range of technologies from solar panels, to lighting controls, to high-capacity energy storage batteries to create solutions.”

Panasonic Eco Solutions North America will provide comprehensive renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions to corporate and public sector organizations from the planning and engineering stages through implementation, construction and permanent financing, as well as ongoing system maintenance.

Among Panasonic’s accomplishments in the field is a major renewable energy installation at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., which uses more than 1,600 Panasonic HIT solar panels and related technologies.  The high-efficiency solar panels cover 41 percent of the track’s energy usage, making Infineon one of the world’s most energy-efficient raceways. More recently, Panasonic completed a solar panel system installation at Safeco Field, the home of the Seattle Mariners.

Panasonic Eco Solutions North America has established an exclusive relationship through the end of 2012 with RSB Funds for the co-development of commercial-scale solar projects in North America.  The two will work together to provide financing, building and maintenance of commercial solar PV projects for the private sector as well as nonprofits, municipalities, hospitals, schools, low-income housing projects and other tax-exempt entities.

The first Panasonic-RSB Funds collaboration was the creation of a 115-kilowatt solar power generation installation on the corporate campus of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation in Agoura Hills, Calif.

“As a company that aims to help enable a sustainable future, Panasonic is delighted to be working with RSB Funds,” continued Doyle. “They have a great record of achievement in making the benefits of solar power available to non-profits and other similar organizations.”

Panasonic is a bronze-level sponsor of the three-day Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif., April 16 to 18.

You may also like:

2012: The Year of Energy Management?

Next Up: Solar Panels from Service Providers

Solar Installs: Can You Scale?