The Free Market Say’s Yes To Solar

Those of you, who follow our blog Solar News Today, have surely notice that some major changes have taken place. First, we want to mention the new Solar Maid web site where this blog lives, it has been a long time coming and while we continue to work out some bugs, we invite all of you to take a few minutes to look over the new site and share your thoughts with us.

 2011 was a tremendous year for Solar Maid, we saw year on year billable contracts rise by over 800% and already one month into 2012 we have quoted over 268MW of new projects. I enjoy thinking back to the beginning when a lot of people, including many in the solar industry laughed at us and told us this was a silly business concept that would never get off the ground. I’ve never been one to say “I told you so”, but at this very moment I am sticking out my tongue at the naysayers.

 Late last year the solar industry took a pretty big hit with the news of Solyndra filing for bankruptcy. I heard many people in the industry say that because this was an election year, the solar industry will likely never recover from this. Guess what; it did, in fact the ripple effect never made it outside of those directly involved with Solyndra. Like any revolution (yes, I qualify clean energy development as a revolution) outside forces rarely have much impact on momentum and the solar industry has proven once again what makes America great…the free markets. While Germany, Spain and China ramp up their industry and world leading solar development programs, our government has been busy continuing the debate on global warming, btw…the argument about global warming is over, we only have two topics to debate now, why has this happened? And how do we stop it or slow it down? Anyway, a little off track there, it might seem as though I am complaining that our government has not done enough to help push along clean energy development, but that is not the case. I do think the US government has played a small role, sure they could do more, but what gets me excited is that we are witnessing a true, large scale example of how the free market works.

 When government props up industry, you get corruption, just look at the corrupt lobbyist from the oil, coal and now the natural gas industry that virtually own Washington. A poll was done last year that asked a marketing sample of over 10,000 people if they thought continued investment in solar was important for our countries energy future. 92% of those polled agreed that solar was a very important piece of the energy puzzle, 92%!! You can’t get 92% of the American public to agree if it’s day or night. Perhaps that is the reason that regardless of the occasional bad news or lack of real government support, the solar industry continues to expand at an astonishing rate. The markets have spoken and the overwhelming majority of us agree that solar development can and will continue to play a vital role in our energy future. So the commercial solar market will continue to build and grow and Solar Maid will continue to wash and grow.

Jay A. Welsh

SOLAR MAID