Solar Power International 2008: Success!

These are unstable times and the recent performance of solar stocks seems to have everyone suddenly concerned about the future of the industry that mere weeks ago seemed to be on a spectacular rise. So I wish everyone with these doubts could have wandered the halls of San Diego’s convention center last week: over 400 exhibitors and 23,000 visitors jammed the halls for three days. Seriously, standing room only. Considering that the attendance at SPI 2007 was just shy of 10,000, this is proof of the much-vaunted boom in the solar marketplace.

The passage of the ITC extension has incited a fervor that even our current economic crisis can’t cool. Which is not to say the crisis, or its potential impact on the solar industry, was being ignored–far, far from it. Conversation almost always rounded back to that issue. But if the ITC had not been passed before this conference, I think the discussions of our solar future would have had the grim tone of survival strategizing rather than the confident optimism I saw expressed by so many different players on the solar scene, from new tech designers all the way down to the laid-off Wall Street-ers scouting the job market.

We at GetSolar were pleased to see how positive the response was to the value we represent both to installers and consumers. We were kept busy talking interested show participants through the GetSolar process and explaining our role in the expanding market, but we made time to get out there and explore some of the hundreds of other exhibits as well. Doing this gave us the opportunity to learn about new technologies (like concentrated solar thermal integrated with PV in a single unit); to get great insight into solar processes (like how cells are actually rolled out in production); and to get some feedback from those installers, with whom we already have relationships, on how they like working with GetSolar.

On the night of the show that was open to the public, we met folks who covered the whole spectrum of interest in solar: just walking by and saw the sign, done a bit of research and not sure it’s right for them, done lots of research and now looking for the right installer, already installed and looking at advances in the field…and all the gray areas in between.

The incredible turnout at this show says a lot about solar in America. Everyone’s waiting, of course, to see if the President we elect in November will take solar’s potential and transform it into the valuable piece of the economy and of our energy future that we all know it can be.

Governor Schwarzennegar, who delivered an address the night before the conference officially kicked off, spoke passionately about his belief in the future of solar and about how the current administration has bridled its momentum so far. Once the bit is off, he made clear, California will leap ahead, eager to continue to provide the kind of leadership on solar legislation and integration that it has to date. Considering that we spoke with solar players from places as diverse as Montana, South Carolina, Texas, New Hampshire, Washington and Oklahoma (aside from the more usual suspects, and not to mention Europe), it looks like the mometum is building nationwide. The planners have their work cut out for them: it won’t be easy for Solar Power International 2009 to cap this show.