Update: We’ve had a few readers wondering when we’d be available in San Diego. At this time, we’re looking at installation partners and working to assure quality across the board for all Sungevity-powered solar installations. We hope to be set to go in San Diego by year’s end.
Shine on!
I thought you’d like to see what we have been up to in support of our mission to bring solar to scale:
That’s my reason for not blogging last week: we were in San Diego for - Solar Power International, the biggest industry convention in America. It was awesome to see how far this business has come and how fast it is growing. The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, opened the event - you can see him speak here and lots of other sessions are also online.
To give you a small sense of how the industry is growing (and in spite of the broader economic downturn) there were 18,000 people at this event compared to 12,000 a year ago. And two years ago, when the event was held in San Jose, and there were about 6,000 participants. So even though the growth of the solar sector is only usually cited as being 30% annually it seems to attract even more great people per annum to its ranks as it thrives.
But what is this video about eSignatures?
Sungevity took the opportunity of the gathering of our solar peers to call for a single, simple step to be taken to streamline our business. Just as we work for our customers to make solar easy and more affordable, we sought to work with everyone in San Diego to reduce some of the painful paperwork we deal with every day. We called for on utilities and the Public Utilities Commissions, which govern solar installations in each state to reduce the red tape and accept digital filing of all the forms we fill out.
It sounds mundane but there can be up to 70 pages of forms to process for each solar job. Many contractors told us they take 20 hours or more to fill out the required forms and then take more hours to collect the wet ink signatures required currently. That’s hundreds if not thousands of dollars of cost. And then when the paperwork - literally paper - is posted in to the program administrators for rebates and interconnection it is re-processed, which is incredibly inefficient.
So we suggested to the solar powers-that-be in this business accept electronic signatures as a small step towards the eventual digital filing of all the forms needed to complete a solar installation. We aim to save everyone time, money and paper. The video comes to you thanks to the amazing people at RandomTV who streamed footage of our ask and activity straight to the web from the San Diego Convention Center on Tuesday, October 14th.
Cool new TV technology in support of using online technology to streamline installation of the best technology - solar! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Shine on, dannyk.