Here at Greencon we have weekly strategy meetings. One of the topics is ‘forward planning’. One year, two year, five year. One of the advantages of running a solar business in South Africa simply is the fact that we can see trends developing overseas. Because we rely on so many of our mechanical product from foreign producers, we can easily see what will be available to our market within a year or two.

I say available, because due to the small size of our market we often have to adapt to foreign trends and are not really manipulators of market trends. I have attached two articles below that deal with the future of the automotive industry for staff and interested parties to read.

The reason that I want to get my solar sales team informed is that they often come up against resistance from customers when they see the price per watt of solar panels and the whole set up around going Solar PV. Here are the facts, auto manufacturers are going electric, Eskom is getting more expensive and fossil fuels are going to cost the earth (excuse the pun).

I tell my Greencon staff that they don’t have to convert the customer’s house in one go but begin the process. Imagine a future where your power (household) and fuel (for you electric car) are provided ‘free’ from your solar panel array at your house or office. Below I have attached some articles dealing firstly with huge company and industry investment in the future of electric cars and then with the how the utility companies are adapting to sell people power for there new types of automobiles.

“A massive collaborative effort, pushed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), will draw on GM and 34 of America’s top utilities to help integrate plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the electrical grid.

“The EPRI-GM-utility effort is the result of many years of work by EPRI and its members to advance plug-in hybrids and related infrastructure technology to a point of feasible implementation and eventual commercialization,” said Arshad Mansoor, EPRI’s vice president of Power Delivery and Utilization. “Seamless integration of PHEVs into the electric grid will require close collaboration between the automobile and electric sectors.”

The news of the sweeping, multi-industry project was announced in San Jose at the Plug-in 2008 Conference, a three-day event during which vehicle producers, battery innovators and other alternative energy experts explored the future of electric mobility. Mitsubishi’s battery-powered iMiEV microcar, scheduled for production in 2010, was one of the centrepieces of the convention, demonstrating the viability of affordable electric vehicles.”

I tell the staff at Greencon to encourage potential client’s about the possibility of becoming their own utility. Using there own Solar Panels to charge there own cars of the future.  

 ‘San Jose, California served as the debut location of the electric car charging stations by start-up company, Coulomb Technologies. ChargePoint Network’s Smartlet Charging Stations are 110v outlets which can easily be integrated onto poles and streetlights. Coulomb is planning to demonstrate the outlet on a Saturn Vue plug-in hybrid during the Plug-In 2008 conference. The company’s aim is to produce outlets for use on a national scale, aiming for a total of two stations per car. Each Smartlet Charging Station would cost between $1,000 and $2,000 for now.

Other technologies of the Coulomb ChargePoint Network include the Smartlet Communications Network, a meshed network which communicates with the Network Operating System for authentication and access among other things, and the ChargePoint Network Operating System which is in charge of managing the Smartlet Charging Stations through the use of Smartlet Communications Network.”

The future is electric. Just make sure that it is your own, and you control the cost.