Trend: Wal-Mart's RFP for solar energy systems for its stores that could signal a tipping point for solar adoption in the US.
Joel Makower at the Two Steps Forward blog describes Wal-Mart's interest in using solar power for stores. There's an opportunity for a large supplier to install the solar sytems and sell the power to Wal-Mart, which might set a precedent for commercial and residential adoption (I could see General Electric in this role).
Link: Joel Makower: Two Steps Forward: Wal-Mart's Solar Energy Vision
Wal-Mart ... recently issued an RFP, or request for proposal, to install solar energy systems on its stores in five states -- the largest procurement of solar ever proposed. Bids are due on January 5....
The request for proposal ... asks bidders to consider three options in considering how to power Wal-Mart by sunlight:
- a direct purchase by Wal-Mart of turnkey solar energy systems, along with a plan to maintain the systems;
- solar systems that are installed, owned, and operated by the supplier, which would then sell all of the system's electricity output to Wal-Mart; and
- an arrangement in which Wal-Mart would lease solar installations, own all of their electricity output, and have an option to purchase the systems if it desired.
Those three paths represent a pretty good overview of the options available these days to commercial and industrial purchasers of solar. The second and third options, in which the systems are developed and owned (at least initially) by a third party, help to overcome one of solar's major obstacles: its large, up-front capital expense. Companies are more willing to "go solar" if there's no large, up-front expenditure and their monthly energy costs don't change much, or even go down. In its RFP, Wal-Mart is asking solar companies to act like a small-scale utility, owning the equipment, but selling the electricity to Wal-Mart.
(By the way, such arrangements should by no means be limited to companies. Individual homeowners and renters should be able to purchase electricity generated by solar panels on their roofs, installed and owned by third parties, rather than having to buy and install pricey solar panels themselves. We want the power, not the power plants. As Amory Lovins has famously put it, "It's not kilowatt-hours that we want, it's hot showers and cold beer.")
dAssuming it moves forward with even a portion of its plans, Wal-Mart's move is significant, and historic. ...no one has yet made a long-term commitment to "alternative sources of energy at competitive prices and in a form that is replicable among multiple sites and multiple building formats," as Wal-Mart puts it.
As one insider told me: "Putting out the RFP alone has some level of significance. Going through with it will be epic. If they follow through, it will be profound and will have a long-lasting impact on the global solar industry. And probably on the mindset of retailers around the planet."
It's far from a done deal, and there are significant hurdles to overcome. Not the least of these will be to accommodate Wal-Mart's voracious appetite for renewables as well as its legendary cost-cutting pressure. The company's opportunity is to help bring the price of solar down to earth. The challenge will be to do it in a way that doesn't negatively exploit its suppliers, or those that toil for them.
Wal-Mart intends to notify the winner of the contract on February 28.
Well, i guess these big comanies should come forward to ahead the solar energy innitiative that will not only help them but even to people living around them
Posted by: westchester solar energy | January 09, 2008 at 12:40 PM