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Green Light Distrikt
Green Light Distrikt is about entrepreneurship focused on the cleantech sector. GLD U provides cleantech courses . Edited by Chris Williams with frequent guest posts from friends, experts and industry insiders from clusters across the globe. Our goal is to provide a place where cleantech entrepreneurs in various clusters across the globe can learn from one another. Green Light Distrikt is creating the "Hitchikers Guide to Clentech" to provide a resource for cleantech entrepreneurs. Read more
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Solar
April 18th, 2011
In Solar’s Coming of Age, What are the Next Opportunities?
TOPICS: CleanTech Events, Solar
At the recent SolarTech Leadership Summit, which took place March 29 and 30 in Santa Clara, CA, 200 industry thought leaders from California and around the country gathered to assess the greatest needs in the industry and suggest concrete actions to take in order to fill those gaps. These included topics from paperwork process standardization in permitting to better defining career paths to fill talent needs at growing companies to shifts on the utility level from transmission upgrades to demand response. How can entrants into the solar industry best position themselves to tackle these problems?
The theme of this year’s summit was Solar 3.0: A Path from Policy to Profitability. With the last steps in the California Solar Initiative (CSI), the longest-running solar incentive program in the nation, approaching, how to best transition to a unsubsidised industry and how to communicate lessons learned in California were hot topics. Markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are rapidly growing and have developed their own policies and programs. Conversations with CSI program administrators revealed that utilities, policymakers, and program administrators have not clear collaborated across the country on fostering and integrating solar.
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April 13th, 2011
Surfin’ Solar | How to Deal When the VCs Leave
BOSTON -
I worked for Wakonda Technologies for a couple years and I am often asked what happened to the company. Why did we go under? In short, we had a great idea, an amazing team, and a few years to make a solar cell. We missed some milestones and our investor group fell like a row of dominos that was shaken by a fart. But that story is no fun to tell at the bar—it’s a bland piece of gum at this point, so I stopped chewing it.
The real flavor is in how I managed through these changes, and how it affected my view of entrepreneurship in cleantech. I know a lot of people are going through similar things, so I hope I can help with this short story. Since I’ve surfed new England for about as long as I have been working in solar, it’s only appropriate I tell it in metaphor with the sport I confided in when times were toughest.
March 30th, 2011
Carbon Offsets: An Unearthed Treasure or Pain in the Asset?
TOPICS: BOSTON, Green Building, Solar
It’s like driving a car, attempting to follow a complicated map with no straightforward directions: so frustrating! Then along comes the modern day GPS system that is easy to use; you enter data and it spits out your destination. Easy as pie.
This is the analogy that Tom Kineshanko gave, when describing his company’s carbon offset identification and monetization software platform, a tool called OffsetID. Habitat Carbon Assets, founded two years ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, is on a mission to help Cleantech sellers benefit from carbon offset revenue from the sale of their technology.
Like all of his life’s work– Kineshanko is also involved with several other clean energy nonprofits– Habitat’s overall mission is to decrease carbon emissions quickly, by encouraging more and more businesses to transition over to clean energy fuel.
March 25th, 2011
Reflections on Then and Now: Growing up in the Growing Solar Industry from East to West Coast
TOPICS: Solar
I got my humble start in solar in the Northeast as a student in the early 2000’s interested in sustainability and self-sufficient living. My original goal was to learn about these topics enough so I could go back to the land, too, and continue my work as a renewable energy and sustainability advocate.
Instead, my fortune changed in a very unexpected way.
In the Beginning
I was a product of the tie-dye t-shirt and sandals days of solar; when what mattered was that you were a True Believer In The Cause. I spent a lot of time reading Home Power Magazine, volunteering at sustainability-related events, and bending the ears of the old guard environmentalists who were among the minuscule percentage of people to live off the grid with solar. In the late 1990’s in the Northeast: this was about as close as you could get to solar without going back to the land yourself.
February 16th, 2011
Does Jeff Lyng’s Rise in ASES Suggest Turnover to Young Solar Leadership?
TOPICS: Solar
The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) has named Jeff Lyng the new chairman of the board. Normally, this would not be breaking news in my world except that he does not look the part of the leadership traditionally reflected of other executives in the solar industry. In fact, his appearance marks a possibly exciting turn.
He’s young. + Continue Reading
