Dan Herr

Is Solar Marked with a New Orleans Saints Bounty?

I have been working in the Solar industry for the past two years through ups and downs of start-ups, small and large Photovoltaic installations, starting by selling one-off modules to Burning Man “Burners” to get by and more recently installing large Federally funded Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant projects with Johnson Controls throughout Nevada. One thing remains, it is constantly a struggle to sell solar.

I recently had a spout with a member of Senior Corps of Retired Executives (S.C.O.R.E.) about solar in a new business model I have been working on called “CrowdSolar”. He said, “Son, I have been doing Solar since before you were born. You have a great idea here, but the numbers will never add up with Solar.” I debated with him for twenty minutes pointing out that the levelized cost of energy of solar is projected to hit grid parity within the next five years, that I understand that module prices are lower than they should be because of Chinese market saturation and unfair trading practices, and that if a system can be financed properly, like I am offering, you can get a customer to save money from day one. He wouldn’t buy it and recommended I speak with a solar businessman in the UK with whom he was familiar (I will be doing that soon).

My point is, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone that says solar electricity is a bad thing, much less “the future”. But are we all blinded? It is a large investment and the “payback period” is longer than people are typically willing to accept. My colleague Patrick shared the following with me that he recently came across regarding market penetration of energy-saving technologies:

The concerning thing is that assuming this graph applies to today and Solar electricity as an “energy-saving technology” that means that adoption of the technology would be limited to well less than 10% market penetration. Does that mean then that locations such as Germany and Spain which have seem much larger adoption have exceeded the market equilibrium of the technology and will continue to face problems with their feed-in tarriffs and further adoption? I personally still think not, but I don’t have the research base to back that up.

What do you think? I invite you to comment with your thoughts below…

Know the Why? Then the Rules Don’t Matter!

I urge you to go through life with purpose
and consider your ‘why’ in daily actions;
perhaps someday your ‘why’ will become the rule.

You’ve heard the phrase, Rules were meant to be broken. Well consider this, rules were made to protect people that don’t understand the why (protect people from themselves). Once you understand the why behind your actions, the rule is null and void.

In my humble opinion there is no rule that is universal: there are generalities, but there is always an exception. As a kid your entire life depended on rules:

You’re not allowed to watch TV after 10 am. Why? Because
No shoes on the couch!
Never get in the car with a strangers.
No running by the pool!
The 10 Commandments
Even rules of physics: Everything that goes up must come down…

… under the right conditions.

These rules were fantastic life-savers when you were obedient; you didn’t know why and your parents didn’t want to take the time to explain everything. “Don’t question me boy; just do as I say.”

I know I’m dreaming here, but wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could live without rules? If we could operate as healthy and effective societies without the need of remembering arbitrary numbers, directions and instructions? If everyone understood the why, there would be no need for rules and exceptions; simply logic and reason. But alas this thought makes one large mistaken argument that all people are logical, and think before they act.

But what I am suggesting for those logical beings out there is a mindful approach to consider how you might act. Have the forethought to consider consequences and respect others. If you are considerate and thoughtful about your actions, you shouldn’t have to remember arbitrary rules. Rules are human nature, we made them up to describe generalities, and they do a pretty good job all in all. But some day there will be a completely new set of rules. Rules that fit the new order of logic. Rules were literally made to be broken when you understand the why. I urge you to go through life with purpose and consider your why in daily actions; perhaps someday your why will become the rule.

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.
If you are interested, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @DanHerr
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Work ON your business. Not IN.

Work on your business, not in your business.

Have the forethought to manage instead of always being consumed by your business.

I met a wonderfully prosperous and inspiring man while hitching a ride from Wanaka to Queenstown in New Zealand in 2009. The one piece of advice he gave was to “Work on your businesses, not in them.” There are loads and loads of people with great business ideas who are awesome people, but many get so consumed in the day-to-day operations that they lose the vision for the future, the time to analyse the past, and the ability to plan for where they want to be.

The largest value I personally bring is often that ability to step back, see and analyze the big picture, as well as the ability to tackle finite technical challenges that might require my immediate attention. Understood that you must make your business profitable, provide your products and services on time, and there are a million and a half things that need doing at any one time; but without that planning ability, all is for not. This need can be grave and fatal if not addressed in many start-up businesses.

If you are a new small business owner, entrepreneur, or even sole-proprietor I encourage you to take the time, force it into your schedule if you must, to work on your business. Make sure you are still addressing the why and the how as much as the everyday what.

Work on your business, not in your business.

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.-
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5 Steps to Starting in Solar Sales

I have been asked many many times how to get started in Solar and renewable energy. If you’re looking to work in the industry, my first answer, understand what the heck you are talking about and just do it. Okay, that many not sound like the best advice, but in my experience thus far most of the Universities don’t know what they heck they are talking about yet when it comes to renewable energy at this point and you’re going to have to do some of your own homework. Sure they can approach it from a big-picture, “Solar energy is good because…” standpoint, but that is pure garbage when it comes to running a clean-energy business.

First thing’s first: Learn what you are talking about

I would highly recommend that you have a technical background if you are looking to get into Solar. If you walk in my door misplacing kilowatt-hours for watt and spelling photovoltaics as two words, I will likely show you the door. Start here:

Learn the basics of modules and inverters.
Attend one of Bill Brooks’ classes.
Read Photovoltaic Systems be James Dunlop.
Subscribe to HomePower Magazine, SolarPro, and others.

You can easily find information about pv modules by visiting websites of solar veterans such as Sharp Solar, SunPower, and SolarWorld. Common inverters seen today are central (SMA, PV Powered, Fronius) and micro (Enphase). In fact you can get all of this in one place by getting a free catalogue from DC Power Systems or Solar Depot (now the same thing – merged to become the largest distributor in the US), AEE Solar, Focused Energy, or others. Please be careful to avoid homemade and no-name or new solar companies. The industry standard for power performance is 80%+ at 25 years+; if the company has been around for three years, its a little hard to know they’ll still be around in 25.

Secondly: Figure out how to scope a system size

Take an energy bill for your place and size out a system. You will need to learn some back of the napkin calculations for this using NREL RedBook numbers. For example in Reno, Nevada we commonly use 5.96 sun-hours (assuming optimal tilt). That means with my old apartment using around 6.2kWh’s/day would need a 1.04 kW system (assuming no losses) to meet my electricity needs on an average day. There are many arguments about different losses (including wire sizing, inverter, etc) to use, you can add all those individual losses up if you really want, but generally between 0.77 – 0.80 is a good conservative range. If you divide my 1.04 kW by that number (say .8) you would get a 1.3kW system.

Make sure you learn how to use PVWatts by NREL. PV Watts gives you great annual performance data for any location in the country using NREL’s climatalogical datasets.

Thirdly: Learn some of the standard economics and selling points

If you don’t know how to use Excel, now would be a great time. While you may think people are jumping through the wood-work to install solar for the environmental benefits, this is truly not the case. The hard fact is people only care about the price savings and the people that are widely adopting solar right now are very knowledgable people that have been researching, reading up on it, and running the numbers themselves. While I hate the “pay-back” question, you will get it, and solar is not going to “pay-back” in two years or less for those short-sighted people. Do you ask what the payback is when you do a kitchen remodel or purchase a new car? Solar is an investment, and likely the best one a homeowner can make.

In General Facts about Solar:

It is an investment, and you have to want to do it. Customers have to be shown the economics of it; cash in, savings out.
It generally increases property value without increasing property taxes
Owners will not be going “off-the-grid,” they will generally be net metering (installing a bi-directional meter that keeps tally of energy in and energy out). There is likely a minimum cost from the utility for being connected (say $15/month)
System lives are 30+ years if property maintained
Solar materials prices have been continually falling, but they are likely a little less than they should be right now (Read tariffs on Chinese modules are coming and the market is currently saturated with product which has driven the price down).
The weighted average cost to install solar was $4.08/Watt at the end of 2011 (I have seen as low as $3.65/W, but residential can still be in the $5-6/Watt for small systems).
Catch a glimpse of the industry in 2011

Forthly: Do it.

Now it is time to work your butt off to sell some systems. Some of the largest companies in the country that are truly dominating and looking to add on sales people are:

Jump in, get your feet wet, and make a career out of Technical Solar Sales

Finally: Get your NABCAP Certification in Technical Sales

NABCEP Certification is not easy; it takes years of industry experience designing and selling systems. Once you reach this level you have proved you are a valueable and honest Photovoltaic Technical Sales Professional.

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.
If you are interested, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @DanHerr
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Nevada’s Defeatist Mentality

Have you ever played a sports game where you knew you were the lesser opponent? Walked into a room and said, I’m going to blow this. Welcome to Nevada and the purvasive mindset of “things are worse here than anywhere else, and no one cares about us.”

Somewhere along the way our poker-playing, horse-back riding, gold mining, gambling frontier ways fed us into a drunken stupor of regret and despair. Defeated before the game begins. A victim of the times justifying excuses and blaming one another. A lack of commitment and responsibility; soft on ourselves. Enough is enough.

Sure times have been tough; tougher than the lucky-go-easy Bill-Clinton 90’s with an economy built upon building a bigger economy… but the greatest work comes from the hardest struggle. No one tells stories of how easy life is or how they toppled the weakest opponent; stories are of the legendary battles of the disrespected underdog and the outcast champion. I encourage you to watch this youtube video that I could not embed (Let me show you how great I am). The one below isn’t too shabby either:

I lived on the East Coast for college where if I was from Nevada, I must be near Vegas, if I was from California, I must be a surf bum on the OC, if I was from Reno, I must be arrested daily by those idiots on Reno 911. We need to share the stories of how great life is and can be in Nevada. The people that haven’t been here don’t know the story. You think Nevada has it bad? How about Detroit? They remind us that it’s hottest fires that make the hardest steel:

All that is truly needed is a change in the mindset here in Nevada. The choice is not the decision, the choice is to choose. The choice is “I know pros and cons and I freely choose.” Just choose period. Choose in your mind to get off your but and share what is great about Nevada. I think I just chose to start a blog about what is great in Northern Nevada…

Getting Kicked in the Mind

For a long time I knew that I had a “black cloud hanging over my head.” I felt that bad luck always found me, storms always followed me, and “why is this always happening to me?” I was filled with frustration when things didn’t work out. It took a one-way ticket to the other side of the world to really change my mind and show me that it was a personal decision of how I reacted to the world.

Have you every really listened to life? Heard its subtle nuances? Gone with the flow and seen where it can take you?

Today, I know without any reason of a doubt that there is more than the physical embodiment to life, though I am more than happy to hear your interpretation and thoughts (ie. please feel free to comment below). My interpretation has boiled down to a sense of what I call Unity. I believe in God, though I believe God is a way for us to describe something that we have a hard time describing; connected-ness and collective conscious. I have experienced first-hand the coincidences, the perfection when you live in the flow. I have listened to what you might call the Holy Spirit; contemplated and meditated with Buddhists; prayed with Jehovah’s witnesses and Jews; read Sanskrit, and rocked out with snowboarding Christians. It is remarkable how similar the basic essence of beliefs are. Strip away the culture they are built in and the traditions formed over time to find the same skeletal structure seaking to explain life’s seemingly inexplicable. A search for truth, purpose, connected-ness and understanding.

One very important lesson I learned is that you are balancing your desires and needs with those of others around you. Sometimes your mission takes precedence, though most often, “You can’t stop what’s coming; it ain’t all waiting on you.” Frustration comes from being hell-bent on control. 90% of what happens to you and around you, you don’t truly have control over. You consciously have a say in life, but your subconscious is smarter than you and everyone else’s mind has a say too. I believe life (and you can call that subconscious, interconnectedness or God) gives you solid signs, it has an ebb and a flow for timing if you listen; the problem is that most of the time we do not listen. I am not advocating for the sake of giving yourself up entirely, but for balancing what is best between your desires and what is best for the whole. I am reminded of the Governing Dynamics scene of A Beautiful Mind:

It is hard to remember to listen, to calm the mind and the spirit today, but it is essential. The communication channel is there, waiting and open, but we forget (or have never learned) how to use it. I urge you to take the time to let the mud settle out of your mind. Constantly stirring a cup full of muddy water will keep it opaque; it is only by removing the spoon that we can clearly separate the dirt from the clear water. It takes time for the mind to settle, but whatever time you can afford it will afford you back.

When my mind is clear, even for a short while, I have a much better appreciation for what I have; and somehow my goals are always that much more straight-forward and clearly defined.

I have found that everything is not always going to be perfect, to think otherwise is erred judgement and delusional; so enjoy it when all is right in the world. Even when stuff doesn’t work out, there is still so much good in this world to be happy and thankful for.

“When you’re happy like a fool, let it take you over.”

OneRepublic – Good Life

Maybe we’re just so disconnected from reality as a generation, refusing to except what is in front of us, wanting to live in a dream world (digital or floating in the clouds). Everyone wants to share their story, be heard. But the good life is right in front of us, “please tell me what there is to complain about.”

Thank you for reading my back-road, dirt path, far from the information super highway blog.
I welcome your rebuttals, comments, criticisms, rants, and one word answers
a long as you accept mine in return 🙂
– Daniel S. Herr.

Audience Sovereignty

Business owners around the world have been freaked out about Social Media. There is this scary buzz in business management communities about silencing the audience, suing them when they turn on you, and the delusion of “controlling the message” of the masses. But marketers forgot something along the way…

The audience has a voice, and your brand is owned by the customer.

You may say, “But social media is a new thing, and this is the first time my audience has had a voice.” WRONG. News flash, it is not new.

I listened to a Freakonomics Podcast called “Boo…Who?” a few weeks back that said that Audiences, when it comes to entertainment performances, have been “loosing their sovereignty”. In recent times people are more and more content to sit quietly in the dark and listen without engagement. This is not how it used to be. Audiences were expected to react, to interact. Huzzah’s. Boo’s. Hisses. People heckled and booed poor performances, but today we are conditioned to sit through crap.

I argue that the Television has turned us into a world of one-way consumers. We’ve bought the lie since the end of the Great Depression and WWII: “We will feed you, and you will consume whatever we dish out.” The options were limited, times had been tough, and people were thrilled to live vicariously through TV’s stories: I Love Lucy, Bonanza, The Andy Griffith Show, Dallas, the Cosby Show, 60-minutes, and now today’s American Idol. In 2009 I read how TV show themes and stories have been great indicators of the times (I have since been unable to find that book I read in Auckland: sorry no reference). But perhaps it is more that our collective moods and actions reflected the shows we lived through. That we consumed and have lived as we were told.

Marketers and TV producers have pitched junk at us for decades, and time after time we sat down in front of the TV sifting through 600+ channels complaining that “there is nothing good on.” But what were you going to do, write a letter to the station? Bang on the door of the producer? Start your own station? “Nah, the heck with it, I’ll just drink my beer and watch this crap,” settling for whatever. But something has changed. Have you noticed that YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world (which happens to be owned by the 1st – you know who :).

Once upon a time the audience was sovereign, and it still has the ability to be; everyone has simply been conditioned to sit-tight and take it. Business marketers joined the bandwagon and were happy to “control the message.” But they forgot that a brand is not a bunch of cool colors and a catchy name. A brand is how you are perceived. A brand is what you stand for, what I think you are, that experiences I have had and shared with and about you. They weren’t expecting the internet to be the megaphone that is freely shared.

The audience has a voice, and your brand is owned by the customer.

The fact is your customers have always owned you, but businesses found a way to ignore it for a while. The internet has reminded the audience of its birthright, and allowed it reclaim its throne, but surely as the coming summer, the audience will reign supreme again. Transparency, honesty, and ethical business are the only ways to survive. Treat your customers well, for they truly define who you are.

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.
If you are interested, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @DanHerr
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With So Many Ideas, Where Do You Start?

STEP 1

As a starting point, one great piece of advice I received about ten years ago came from a quasi successful man in his sixties. He said, “Make sure you write down all of your ideas. Make a journal of your daily thoughts, ideas, and activities; you will be amazed at what you come up with.” I haven’t been religious about the daily journal, but the times I have more than proved the worth. Human brains are definitely powerful memory-storing machines, but you won’t recall every detail and every thought on command. Everyone has good ideas once in a while, make sure your write it down for when the time comes to use it.

“On résiste à l’invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l’invasion des idées”
(Commonly: Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come)
– Victor Hugo

We have all seen (or will see on the new moon of April 21st) with KONY 2012 how powerful an idea can be. Whether its an improvement to a procedure at work or a fresh, innovative, new business idea; write down every idea that comes to your head. At a minimum send yourself a quick email or text message. Find a way to save those ideas. I currently have a dumb phone so I text message (yes, using T9) my Gmail address where I have a filter that labels stuff from “530….@vtext.com”.

Step 2 … Enough with the steps already, just Nike it…

If you’re a thinker, a want-to-be entrepreneur (or have religiously completed STEP 1 really really ridiculously well outlined above 🙂 ), you’ve likely has a great idea or two, but don’t know which to do. Or perhaps you work long and hard to dream up ideas, but you can’t pick one. Well heed this advice from yours truly:

There are enough damn thinkers,
what the world needs are doers;
so pick one and get started already.

You must have a reasonably good idea as your foundation, but in my experience making it with your business is like everything else in life; ambition, determination, problem solving, and a bit of naïveté at the start. Earlier this week I was having a conversation with Duncan Campbell, a very successful serial entrepreneur from Portland and more recently the founder of “Friends of the Children” non-profit (or social business if you will). Mr. Campell said to me, “If I could give you one thing from this conversation it would be to pick one thing and focus on it for 2-3 years. It doesn’t have to be what you do for the rest of your life. The thing is, very few people can do 2 things well. Pick one and focus on that for now.”

^– [This is me stoked at the top
of the steepest street in the world
(Baldwin Street in Dunedin, NZ)]

Step 3

There is no step 3. Keep working your butt off.

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.
If you are interested, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @DanHerr
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P.S. – If you’re curious what this means for me:
Recently I have been working on a crowdfunding for solar PV business model, an volunteer incentivism social business, the foundations of an entrepreneurial ecosystem locally, adding a new division of renewable energy to an existing company, consulting on a few small ventures, and getting my MBA. I have made a commitment to become more focused this year on my own business needs by delegating some of my ideas to businesses, institutions and individuals that can and would like to bring them to fruition, even as their own ideas.

Crowdfunded Solar

So I’d feel silly not posting about what Matt, Pat and I have been spending tons of hours working on the past few weeks: a business plan we have called CrowdSolar. I’ve had this ideas stuck in my head for the past three years or so and its really needed to come to life. Here is the thought more or less:

The Idea

Crowdsolar allows the average person to invest in solar while providing building owners with the opportunity to generate electricity from the sun without high up-front costs. CrowdSolar’s vehicle and platform for these investments directly funds solar photovoltaic installations with accredited investors through an easy to use and share online platform.

The Need

The most pressing issue that solar energy continues to face is high initial cost. The limited availability of financing opportunities makes going solar unfeasible for many businesses and homeowners. CrowdSolar provides the foundation for a sustainable clean energy catalyst allowing the industry to transition away from government subsidies and artificial incentives, which are set to expire by 2016. More importantly, in the worst economic times of our age investors are searching for alternative investment opportunities and the ability to encourage the development of clean energy in their local communities. CrowdSolar addresses those needs. Crowdsolar aims to change the game in the adoption ability and market penetration of solar energies.

I have forced myself to get it out and on paper, at least the start of it, and am submitting it to a number of entrepreneurship competitions (including the NCET Governor’s Cup, UNR’s Sontag Competition, and CalTech’s FLOW). Please find our boiled down version which we submitted to the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition today. I welcome your comments, questions, concerns, and collaborative efforts:

View this document on Scribd

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.
If you are interested, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @DanHerr
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Living Life to the Fullest – The McConkey Legacy

When I think about home (Lake Tahoe), living life to the fullest and not taking life too seriously, there is no person that stands out in my mind more than Shane McConkey. And if you’ve ever heard of Shane, you can never listen to Juke Box Hero without thinking about an awesome day of skiing. I never met Shane McConkey, but like so many others his story and his life have had a profound impact on me.

I recently watched a small youtube video about the mission of the Shane McConkey Foundation (above). In it Shane’s wife says one very key line at the end:

“Carry on Shane’s legacy by not taking life too seriously, living life to the fullest & protecting this beautiful world.”

There is more to share about Shane than I could ever fit in one blog post or one whole website. Shane defined a way of life. Some of you may not understand the culture I grew up in where skiing is not just a vacation activity, it is a part and a way of life. I’ll put it this way, not only did my parents meet working at Northstar in the 70’s and 80’s and I was skiing at Squaw by age 2, but when Reno was on fire and we were evacuated the one thing my fiancée (also from Tahoe) wanted to make sure we grabbed was our ski gear. Life in Tahoe has its own speed, its own dress code, its own intensity and serenity all at once. But the key in part boils down to what I wrote about this last week, and Shane’s #1 Rule:

Have fun and don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself

Visitors to Lake Tahoe (aka gapers and flatlanders) constantly seem on a mission be like us or try to prove they are better. What they fail to realize is that competition here is not about saying, “Look how awesome I am, I just dominated you.” To be welcome here you cannot focus on being accepted or taking what you want, but instead you should enjoy and respect what is available to you. Using and conserving as opposed to abusing and discarding. Those of us in and from the culture are filling a need to push ourselves to the limit physically and mentally in hopes of getting to know ourselves just a little bit better. As Laurie Robinson says, “The desire for adrenaline and endorphins goes hand in hand with the need to have fun for these athletes.”

Shane McConkey — Source: AP Photo/Red Bull, Graeme Murray

The reason Shane was so widely loved and respected had nothing to do with the fact he was the greatest free-skier of our generation, though he was. It lay in his ability to always laugh and never take his fame or himself seriously. He was always laughing, while caring deeply for his family and friends. If you understand Shane, you will begin to understand a lifestyle. If you truly understand GNAR (Gaffney’s Numberical Assessment of Radness – Watch GNAR the Movie) you see that Squallywood (by Robb Gaffney M.D.) was Shane & the Gaffney’s poking fun at all the yahoos that took skiing so serious and thought they were so awesome. Whether you have never skiied, aren’t so great at skiing, or think that you’re awesome, who cares. I challenge you check your GNAR at the door and truly live Shane’s legacy:

“Carry on Shane’s legacy by not taking life too seriously, living life to the fullest & protecting this beautiful world.”

Thank you for reading my blog – Daniel S. Herr.
Please visit the Shane McConkey Foundation, Follow @shanemcconkey, & Like the FB Page.
If you are interested, I also invite you to follow me on Twitter @DanHerr
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If you want to find out a bit about Shane, I encourage you to watch these videos; though I warn you skiing is its own culture:

“You know, several years ago when people were fired up about what they did, they could show it. Give a fist pump or full hands raised; whatever. Look at team sports, they still go nuts. But somewhere along the way in all action sports, outside of competition, it was no longer cool to look stoked. Even if you just did the sickest thing in your life, you had to contain it and look all nonchalant. Because apparently doing that showed you were so good that you felt like, yeah, that’s pretty standard for me. Who came up with that one? … When I’m fired up to be in a certain place or I just pulled off something sick, I’m not gonna be afraid to show it. I’m gonna let people know it, I’m gonna claim.”