Home Contact Sitemap
Sun Volt

Sun Volt Solar Blog

earth, the final frontier

Clean Energy, Clean Environment

We are at a cross roads in human history, we can choose to continue on as we have been, or we can make a change to improve our future and quite possibly the future for several generations to come. We are here to promote energy independence, a better environment with a higher return on investment for your hard earned money. It is what I believe in, it is why I am in the solar business.

Business Cards

13 May 08 | Sales, marketing

It seems like a small thing, but I ordered business cards the other day, take a look:

sun volt solar business card

These came from Black Bear Printing, a local outfit right here in Kerhonkson, NY. I have to say, they came out pretty good! They have a site called The Printing Den, where you can design your own card online, or upload a design for printing. Since I already had a logo and a general idea of what I wanted, I chose to use the online design application. All in all, it was pretty easy to use. I paid $48.00 plus shipping for five hundred cards.

As part of the marketing effort and generally appearing to have one’s act together, I think this is an important step.

Since this blog is about starting and running a solar business, I am going to post more about the back end business stuff since that seems to take up at least half of my time.

Related posts

Tags: ,

13 May 08 | Sales, marketing | Comments (0)

The price of Solar Energy

16 Apr 08 | Sales, Solar Hot Water

The prices of home energy in New York State, week of April 14, 2008:

  • Heating oil: $3.974/gallon
  • Propane: $2.953/gallon
  • Natural Gas: $1.413/Therm
  • Electricity: $0.175/kWh

Source: NYSERDA

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) tracks energy prices with in the state and posts them to the Energy Prices and Supplies page of their website.

This is a great resource for the renewable energy dealer/installer as it allows you to make direct comparisons to the cost of solar energy. The logical way to do this would be to divide the systems projected lifetime production by the net capital cost.

Example:

A solar hot water system is purchased in Ulster County, NY. It consists of flat plate collectors totaling 80 Ft2, a tank and some miscellaneous pumps, piping, valves etc. The expected lifetime of that system is 30 years ±5 years.

A check of the NREL insolation maps indicates that Ulster County receives 4.4 kWh/M2 per day. Convert 80 Ft2 to M2 (80 Ft2 x 0.09290304=7.432243 M2) The above solar array should expect to produce 4.4 kWh/M2 x 7.432 M2 = 32.701 KWh per day, less efficiency and losses, which total around 60%. Therefore, the above solar system should be expected to produce 32.701 kWh x 0.40 = 13.08 kWh per day, without shading.

Yearly that adds up to 13.08 kWh x 365 days = 4774 kWh/year. 4774 kWh x $0.175 = $835.51 per year. Thus, this home owner can expect to save $835.51 per year in electricity costs.

The net system cost is the installed cost minus the tax incentives, or $7,500.00 - ($7,500 x 0.3 (≤$2,000)) - ($7,500 x 0.25 (≤$5,000)) = $7,500 - $2,000 - $1,875 = $3,625.00

If this system were paid for with 60 month loan:

Principal amount: $3,625.00
Payment amount: $71.61
Interest rate: 6.900%
Interest compounding: Monthly
Total payments: $4,296.51
Total interest: $671.51

Total system cost $4,296.51

Simple System payback $4,296.51 ÷ 835.51 = 5.1 years.

Simple system savings, without utility rate increases, 25 years x $835.51 = $20,887.75 (this is likely low by about $5K).

Therefore, the cost of heating your water with solar is the amount of energy saved, multiplied by the life of the system, divided by the cost of the system, or: 4774 kWh x 25 years = 119,350 kWh. $4296.51÷119,350 kWh = $0.036/kWh.

The cost of solar hot water vs electric hot water is

3.6 cents vs 17.5 cents per kWh.

The average rate of CO2 emissions during electricity production is 1.34 pounds/kWh (source, US Department of Energy). Therefore, the above system will save 119,350 kWh x 1.34 = 159,929 pounds of CO2 emissions, or about 80 tons.

To give you an idea of how much that is, it equates to about

  • 130,000 vehicle (average car) miles
  • 101,000 vehicle (large SUV) miles
  • 347,000 train (AMTRAK, light rail or subway) miles
  • 266,000 air miles
  • 61,500 tractor trailer (heavy truck) miles (loaded)
  • burning 7,175 gallons on heating oil
  • burning 40 tons of coal

Related posts

Tags: , ,

16 Apr 08 | Sales, Solar Hot Water | Comment (1)

To sell on line or not to sell on line

17 Oct 07 | General Business

I am currently debating on whether or not to have an online renewable energy store.  It seems like quite a bit of work to set up, and there would also be some liability issues associated with retail sales of renewable energy products, especially wind equipment.

On the other hand, it may be a good side income stream, particularly if I can get the manufactures/distributors to drop ship directly to the customer (that way I am not actually handling the merchandise).

There are currently several retail online renewable energy stores.  When I compare there online prices to the wholesale prices I am getting from distributors, I can see about a 8-10 percent markup.  Not too bad considering that there is minimal overhead.

The other downside I can see would be customer returns and restocking.  Also, I have seen quite a few shady characters in my life.  There are likely more than a handful that would likely try create some scam or something.

The other question is how much time would be taken up with answering customer questions?  Obviously, the online sales would be mostly to do it yourselfer’s.  This could mean that they would expect someone to tell them step by step on how to do a solar installation.  They may also install the equipment wrong, damage it, et cetera, then expect a refund.
Likely I will have a product feature section, which introduces the equipment to potential customers, but not necessarily sell directly to the public unless I am going to install it as well.  I think that is the best compromise.

Related posts

Tags: , , ,

17 Oct 07 | General Business | Comments (2)

Web site development

30 Sep 07 | General Business

I am working on developing the website for Hudson Valley Solar. Right now, as you are aware, the website points to this blog through an .htaccess redirect. I will be making a home page which will direct visitors to various parts of my website. Right now, I am trying to determine how much web presence this company will have. After looking at other dealer/installer websites, I get the general idea that most sites have the following things:

  1. Education. Information about solar power, solar systems and how they work. There may also be some type of cost analysis and Return On Investment (ROI) included in this.
  2. Products. A description of the products they sell and or install. Some of these include pictures or spec sheets.
  3. Services. A brief rundown on the company and what services it provides. This often includes a picture gallery of past installation work.
  4. Company history. A brief history of the company or its principles. Sometimes this is lumped in with “services.”
  5. On line store. Some companies offer an online catalog and store where do it your selfers can purchase equipment either directly over the internet or via a toll free number.
  6. A contact form. This is on most websites. It allows internet users to send an e-mail directly to the company.

Those are the elements of the good solar dealer/installer websites that I have seen. I am not sure how much into the online webstore I am going to get, but everything else looks to be pretty easy to set up and maintain. The maintenance part is a biggie when it comes to websites. You do not want to have a site that requires constant html editing to keep it current, especially if you are a single person operation. That eats into valuable time that can be better used doing something more productive.

A little peak of what I am working on is here

Related posts

Tags:

30 Sep 07 | General Business | Comments (0)